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As she shuffled down the training center’s corridor, she was keeping her pace at a solid geriatric, her feet in their hospital-issue shower shoes scuffing along with awas quiet, the Brothers elsewhere, the trainees gone home, the clinic empty of patients except for--

The diseuy was like a draft in the air, invisible and chilling

She kept on going She had h she was pretty sure that Dr Manello had only said once an hour But really, she kept this up and she would hit that rate on average--provided she went against a teek ti up to the double doors into the gylass She couldn’t wait to start sparring again

Continuing on, she relied on the cane for balance, the wonky feelingto do with her heart h she earing a Holter monitor toback, her room seemed like miles away But fuck that She went farther on Eventually, a hundred and fifty years later, she came up to the pool’s doors

There was so company was as unfa, and certainly the latter see: Before she knew better, she was pushing her way into the little ante-hall and doing her old-lady dance over the tiles

The scent of chlorine tingled in her nose and the war And voices

When she realized there was more than one person in the water, she nearly turned around Except then she saw that it was Ehlena at the edge, the nurse crouching down and encouraging so to swim

"Oh, hey, Novo!" the female called out with a wave "Come talk with us!"

Novo checked to ed was covering her naughty bits in the back and then she caned her way forward The tiled ring around the Oly, and that heat and moisture helped ease the aches she still had in her ribs

"Hi, Luchas," she said to the s," ca reply

His thin, deforers, were like claws on that lip, his frail body floating out behind hih the water slowly

He was so pale, and she had to look away from the hard cut of his shoulder blades under his thin skin

"I wish I could join you," she said as she leaned on the cane and lowered herself down into a sit

"Not with that monitor on, I’m afraid" Ehlena so tomorrow"

"I can’t wait" Novo kicked off her slippers and put one foot…and then the other in "Oh, this feels good"

Luchas’s workout created waves in the water, and she closed her eyes so that she could concentrate on the buffering sensations against her calves and the soles of her feet

She also didn’t want theat him

From what she understood, Qhuinn’s brother had been abducted during the raids, and it had been assu with the rest of the bloodline The truth had been ruesome The male had been found stuffed in an oil drua’s blood He’d been barely alive, and he’d had soparts, he’d been all but poured onto a gurney

Although he’d been rescued so in the clinic ever since, not dead, but not particularly alive, either Qhuinn always visited hihter, no prospects, it seee, it was sad reality