In the days since Makhmilith had woken, almost everything in his world had been hideously uncomfortable and inconvenient. The extent of the damage done to him had been explained, along with a recovery plan which seemed like it would take absolutely forever. He knew it was necessary, and that he was incredibly fortunate to even be alive, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hate every minute of it, now that he was aware of it.

For one thing, he had to be fed via a tube which had been forced down his throat early on, initially because he hadn’t been able to get air into his lungs. A very clever healer had realized that the Thread had ruined the hide of his throat and burned deeply into him, but had not actually destroyed his airways. Mostly, were swollen with the trauma of his wounds and hindering the passage of air, though in one place Thread had burned through, creating the necessity of the tube, which allowed air to bypass the ruin of his Threadscored throat and reach his lungs. When the swelling eventually went down, a narrower tube had been used to allow finely chopped meat and water to be introduced to his stomach sporadically while he was unconscious.

The actual hole burned into his trachea was small, thankfully, and nimble-fingered healers had sealed it off, but it meant that he still was not trusted to use the muscles surrounding it for fear that he would tear the tender tissue anew. Moving his head or neck was forbidden, as was swallowing. Hence the tube. Makh hated it. It could be worse, T’of had told him. He could have been injured closer to his chest, necessitating the use of a longer tube. He also could have asphyxiated before feeding even became an issue. Or his wound could have gotten infected. Or he could have died right away.

It was still uncomfortable. Worse, it was humiliating. He had asked T’of whether an incision couldn’t be made over his stomach and food simply deposited there, instead, and received a quick, almost brutal denial. No healer with any sense would introduce further surgery or opportunity for sepsis in a patient as high risk as Makh apparently remained. For subjecting him to this, Makh called the healers in charge of his care every vile epithet he knew, and then invented more, though he kept these mostly between himself and T’of, who had not left his side but for absolute necessities since he’d woken.

Sometimes the dragon wished T’of would leave once in a while so that Makh could indulge in some self-pitying brooding. He could brood while T’of slept, of course, but it wasn’t as if Makh had the stamina to wait for that at the moment. Much of the time he fell asleep after only a few hours of being awake. The healers said that was normal and, apparently preferable, but the blue hated that, too. He hated being weak, and it made him mean.

For the most part Makhmilith restricted his unkindness to T’of, preferring to present a stoic front to anyone outside their bond, and his rider bore the venom with an equanimity that surprised Makh until he recalled that T’of had trained for turns to become a mindhealer, and was probably drawing on that training now. Makh wasn’t proud that he’d forced his rider into such a position, but it was an undeniable relief to be able to give vent to the emotional bile that seethed inside him, resenting his own helplessness. He would make it up to T’of later, somehow.

On the subject of making things up to people, though, Makh knew that T’of was actually not at the head of the queue for deserved apologies. The blue dragon had been vicious to Raqisath the last time she had visited him in the infirmary. The unkindness had stemmed from Makhmilith’s dismay at realizing how much worse he had been before waking, and that the younger green had seen him in that state, and now that he had returned to consciousness he simply could not stand having her around, so obviously delighted to be with him and yes worried about him. He was not a dragon who needed or wanted to be worried about by anyone.

And so he had been cruel. He had laid bare his awareness of her feelings for him, and told her in scathing terms that he did not feel the same way, and could not imagine feeling the same way. He said that she was embarrassing herself and told her he was tired of indulging her just because his rider and hers were friends. That she was an infant with childish dreams and he had no desire to figure in her absurd romantic fantasies. There was more, and lots of it, and the sting of shame at his behavior only added to Makh’s loathing for his entire situation, bringing with it an unfamiliar vein of loathing for himself, as well.

His vitriol, truly spurred by pain and frustration and - if he was being honest - fear for his future, had struck Raqisath’s hearts unerringly, because of course he knew her well enough to know what would destroy her and keep her from ever attempting to get close to him again. She had wilted, apologized, and then retreated, first physically and then mentally, finally closing her mind to him so that he could barely sense her mental presence at all.

Somehow, T’of did not know, or was pretending not to know, what had happened, but Reya, of course, was another story. She could not close her mind to him as Raqisath had done, nor even sense when he was reaching for her mind if he didn’t say anything to her, but he could feel the icy fury in her mind when he had reached for her, hoping that she might facilitate his apology to Raqisath. When he’d actually addressed her, he had been told in anatomically impossible terms what he could do with his apology and to get out of her head.

She had not been back to the infirmary since then, and T’of was going to notice soon, if he hadn’t already. Makhmilith was not looking forward to the conversation that would ensue when T’of realized Reya would not be back, and might never speak to Makhmilith or T’of again. Makh knew deep in his hearts that T’of would find a way to live with it going forward, because a dragon and his rider could not break their bond no matter how poorly they got along, but T’of could reject him within the limits of their bond and shut him out to the best of his ability. They’d actually practiced doing that early in their bond so that each could have some mental and emotional privacy. It wasn’t total, and couldn’t be, but it was thorough enough.

Makhmilith was not a joiner. He was not a dragon who needed others, as a rule. But there were always exceptions. T’of was one, without question. And Reya, whom Makh liked nearly as well as T’of did, though obviously in different ways. As for Raqisath, well, there had been truth beneath what he’d said to her, but she and Reya were a package, and he had always considered Reya worthwhile, and hoped Raqisath would eventually mature enough to be interesting. He was going to have to make this right somehow, though he had no idea how to proceed.

No, that wasn’t quite true. First he would have to tell T’of. Ideally, once he was cleared to move his sharding head and swallow his own flaming food, which gave him some time. Unless T’of noticed Reya’s absence first.

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