"So he's up and about," one of them said, the sheets ruffling as Varek turned to greet the voice.
The one who spoke had pink hair jutting out in spikes from her nurse cap. She was tall, poignant, and especially curved in all the right places.
If it weren't for her naturally grumpy expression, she would've been far more greeting a person.
"Yeah, but he got all jumpy and had to be given painkiller, no thanks to you guys."
As Varek spoke, he seemed genuinely frustrated, the spite in his voice causing both of their faces to tense in a mixture of annoyance and regret.
"Well, I'll have you know that we can only administer three doses of painkiller to Class F students, and that's per year. Curse at the Ministry, not us. We ran ourselves thin trying to resuscitate the boy, and the past three hours were the only sleep I've gotten in three days."
"Three days..." Revian repeated, his eyes twitching with confusion. "How long was I out?"
"Hah, you were out for an entire week!"
The one who responded was the lady to the left of the voice, six inches shorter than her peer and her red hair far more ruffled.
"An entire week... what about my classes?"
Revian faced his professor, his eyes pleading for an answer.
Varek sat still for just a moment, waiting until Revian's rough breaths diminished to a steady calm.
"I've already talked to the dean--you'll be fine, although we've worked out a program to help you catch up with the other guys. Trust me, I held my main lesson off for when you returned to class." He smiled, lightly tapping his hand on Revian's shoulder.
"You should've seen the guy, though. He was a mess, wrecked with guilt that he needlessly put you in danger," the short nurse said, laughing in Varek's face.
"What do you mean?"
Varek rushed to shut the girl's mouth, pushing his index and middle finger against her lips to gesture her silence.
"She means that you were at no risk of being expelled in his trial," the taller nurse added, stepping forward past where Varek sat to lean in more closely to Revian, "but, you know, he's told us so much about how great a fighter you are. It intrigued me, really--to the point that I dedicated these past few days to restoring life in you. It was difficult, an impossible task for any other than myself. I've expended quite a bit of my mana and time into you, and I feel that I've gained nothing. Can you think of any ways you can repay me?"
Her arms wrapped around his, reeling it in between her bosom. The sentiment was a confusing one for Revian, the meaning barely hidden beneath the airy heat warming his skin from her warm breath.
He felt something touch upon his heart--not lust, but a strange anxiety that settled like cold iron in his chest. There was power behind her attention, and he didn't understand it. Not yet.
"I'm not really comfortable with you breathing on me like that, ma'am, but if what you say is true, there is nothing I could think of that could possibly repay the debt I owe you."
He tipped his head with closed eyes, hoping for at least some showing of remission in either her words or posture.
"You know, you could meet me in my quarters and we could figure something out~"
The look in her eyes was sensual, the contact between her finger tips and Revian's chest light. Revian discovered something hidden within him, crashing out from his soul to cause a momentary pause in both speech and movement. It wasn't excitement. It was alertness--like instinct bristling under his skin.
"Hey, Rivena, stop messing with the kid like that," Varek said, pulling her hands away from him.
"I wasn't joking though..." Rivena pouted, turning around to return to her original spot.
Twirling her finger in the air like a child, she circled her hips as she walked, her high heels clacking against the floor.
"She's a succubus," Varek whispered, inching closer to Revian's ear, "don't mess with those lot, not if you want to get sucked dry."
"What are you two talking about there?" Rivena asked, standing upright next to her companion.
"Hah, just how much of a cougar you are--phfew!"
She stuck her foot into his mouth, knocking him back on the floor.
Revian was enthralled by her technique, her leg gracefully dancing through the air with almost no wasteful movements, but he withheld his excitement. The casual lethality of it was too clean to ignore.
"Quiet, you!"
Varek, rubbing his jaw, got up from the floor to look upon the three in his proximity once more.
"Well then, Lady Rivena and Katria, what's your verdict for his discharge?"
There was a second of silence in the air, Rivena's hand reaching for a compartment in her lab coat to retrieve a stack of papers.
"To start, I'd just like to say that this boy's ability to recover is simply astounding. Treatment that would normally take a patient weeks to recover from healed in just days. He didn't even need regeneration amplifiers for the more experimental treatments, so I'm not even sure if we need to keep him in here for monitoring."
Varek rubbed his chin, his mind flickering between Rivena and Revian.
"Is there something on my face?" Revian asked, shuffling through his sheets to better straighten his back towards the ceiling.
"I'm just wondering, what's up with that hair?"
Revian's eyes narrowed, looking around the room with genuine curiosity. They were all staring at him as if they'd witnessed somebody die.
"What," he inquired, concern beginning to grow the more they stared at him, "please, tell me what's wrong."
Without even so much as an utterance, Rivena handed Revian a mirror that she'd kept in her back pocket.
Aimlessly, he drew it closer to his face, inspecting the image reflecting back at him.
Half of his face was riddled with thin wrinkles, drooping his face just enough to be noticeable if one were to squint their eyes, although it didn't change his appearance too much.
What really wrought the desire to throw up was his hair, spinning around his scalp the same way it had before.
But it was discolored, streaks of white mixing with the blond to create the yellow-white-yellow-white effect that disoriented his vision.
It didn't feel like aging. It felt like something inside him had been forcibly accelerated--like time had skipped a beat, and left a mark behind.