Whatever was on that needle that the mystrider had jabbed into his leg had made the whole world be a cloud. A fuzzy... fluffy... soft....
What?
Oh. Wait. Zephyr was actually laying on a giant bed in the middle of a room that was at least four times the size of the back of his shop. But everything still had a surreal quality to it, and Zephyr was pretty sure he could hear giggling. It was permeating the room in such a way that he couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. Of course, the reason he was having trouble is because some of those miniscule laughs were coming from him as he watched the canopy posts of his far-more-than-king-size bed wobble with each noise that happened.
If Zephyr were sober enough he would have remembered the end of the Malaki raid that he'd been injured in, and then a Mystrider healer coming to him with a tiny hammer and a bundle of cone-shaped objects that looked like crude needles of some sort made from the spines of an animal. The medic used the hammer to slam the spines deeply into Zephyr's injury so that the material embedded itself in his bones. That process got repeated three times, and each time although Zephyr thought the impact would hurt he felt an immediate decrease in pain. After that a salt mixture was poured over his wounds and a number of potions were forced down his throat as the world slowly drifted away into a place a swirls and fluff and colors.
The bedroom he was in nor was the lavish "god suite" that had been created most likely for use by Danae himself given the name of the room. There were three beds. Zephyr was laying on the largest one in the center of the room, and two slightly smaller ones were on other end of the space. The smaller beds were on tracks of a sort which allowed them to be easily slid to create one large bed at the center with a sort of waterfall effect due to the differing levels of the mattresses. The decor was all ornately decorated with lush, soft materials and intricate designs bearing rich colors.
In one bed off to the side was Elias, knocked unconscious (sort of) by another set of strange spines of Mystrider origin. Although he was verifiable comatose, however, he was still responsive in a sort of second consciousness way. One of the translators had learned from the Mystriders that it was a side effect of the hallucinogenic sedatives Elias had been given and that it would last until he was given an antidote at a later date once he had sufficiently healed both mentally and physically. The other bed held another gravely injured person from the skirmish at Vynett who was also under the influence of the strange Acanthan medicine.
Diana had taken it as her responsibility to care for the injured, but she was aided by a member of the harpy crew that was apparently the ship's medic-of-sorts. The avian species was more intelligent than she'd initially thought if they could be trained in at least minor medicine, but they were most certainly subservient in every way. Regardless, Diana was keeping a log of everything that happened in regards to the heeling of the injured in her care. The Mystriders had given her a bundle with several more doses and explained to her how to use them and what each one would do more or less, but given the differences between Elysian and Acanthan lives there was no telling what unforeseen impact the medicine might have. For example, no one had warned her about the incessant giggling.
Thankfully Zephyr's leg had actually started to heal. The extreme cold the injury had been subjected to stopped him from having too much bloodloss before help could get to him and drag him away from the heart of battle. Some basic field medic skills were used to stitch his wound closed, and the combination of Elysian and Acanthan medicines rejuvenated a lot of the tissue and encouraged the regrowth of skin. Under direct instructions of the Mystriders now that there was no longer an open wound she was to remove the spines and not replace them as she had done at least twice now.
Zephyr didn't even wince as Diana used the strange pliers that she'd been given in the bundle of medicine to literally rip the spines out of his bone.
“Here, rub this on his leg once he starts to feel pain again,” Diana instructed Kiel as she handed him the little pouch which contained a salve Diana had also received at Vynett. “It should lower his pain, but it will make him very... distractable,” she explained further. Kiel hadn't left Zephyr's side since they'd both been healed. The boy had been injured himself with a broken arm to match Zephyr's broken leg but that hadn't seemed to deter him. Diana said goodnight before leaving the room to get some rest in the room she'd been assigned. It was the middle of the night, and the harpy currently standing watch in the suite were under strict instructions to report immediately should anything abnormal occur.
Zephyr blinked groggily as the disco in his mind slowly began to fade away and his rational mind began to return. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he still really had no idea about much of anything seeing as the bed posts were still dancing to the music only he could here. With a vacant smile Zephyr's head lolled towards Kiel as the ship rocked due to going over a large wave.