After Times of Tender Agony: Ch. 23

A Poor Reason to Leave

Notes:

Andrea, if you're preoccupied with your kids or tired or not feeling great, don't worry about approving this^^

*****

Janner forced himself to stay awake until he was sure Jebsun would be asleep. He kept nodding off, which wasn’t particularly ideal, but with this nod he was certain he had passed the point at which Jebsun would busy himself around his practice or even upstairs in his quarters.

Janner sat up—his head spun for the first minute or so, but he waited, leaning against the wall for it to stop—pulled the covers back, and coaxed his right leg onto the floor. Moving it hurt, touching the wooden floor made him bite his lip in pain, and when he accidentally knocked his left leg into his right in his haste to balance himself better, he couldn’t help but groan. 

He only let it bother him for a moment, though, because in the next he retrieved his shoes, which Jebsun had placed just under the bed, and put them on, gritting his teeth as the effort angered his right leg.

Mental preparation likely futile, Janner stood up and steadied himself so the spinning in his mind wouldn’t cause him to fall, one hand on the wall against which the head of the cot rested. Reminding himself to breathe in and out slowly, Janner blinked as he did so, trying to dispel the twisting in his mind and the ringing in his ears. He lacked confidence in the latter leaving completely. 

He had automatically shifted his weight to his left leg as soon as he stood, but now he experimented with giving a bit of it to the right. It shot fire up his leg as he did so, but he gritted his teeth and continued, knowing walking with one’s foot barely touching the ground never worked. The crutch leaning innocently against the wall was diagonal to him, about as far away as it could possibly be in the room, and there was no way he was crawling to get to it.

The amount of weight adjusted gradually making it a bit bearable, but by the time Janner was ready to take a step—using the wall for support, still—the dreadful searing was coming closer and closer to forcing him to stop. And he could see far more than a spot of blood on the bandages which wasn’t ideal, but the wound was so fresh—it was bound to bleed. If it didn’t look too bad later, he would leave it but redressing it might be necessary.

Taking a deep breath and gathering his resolve, Janner stepped—limped—putting his right foot forward first, lurching to his left as quickly as possible, clinging to the wall for support. The step successfully moved him forward, he tried again, putting a little more pressure on his right leg. This hurt worse, made him grit his teeth in pain, but the step succeeded again.

His leg gave out on the third step, though, the one he took without holding onto the wall. Janner held his breath as he rocked a little, back and forth, clutching his offensive right leg and hating that he couldn’t walk, couldn’t hear, couldn’t ever see Sara, couldn’t find the Maker. 

Tears slipped down his face unexpectedly, and Janner pursed his lips together, wanting to scream at himself for crying and failing in…everything.

“How could You do this?” he whispered to the ceiling. “How could You let him take her?”

As before, no response came, and Janner dragged himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. He glanced at his now-trembling right leg and swore under his breath out of anger and frustration at everything. He had to leave; he couldn’t stay in Glipwood. If he couldn’t walk or even limp without help, though, what choices did he have? Staying was not an option—Addie would see right through him the moment she saw his face. Then she would tell Jebsun and Jebsun would send messengers and the messengers would surely be encountered by the Overseer and the Overseer would come after him and find some way to go after Jebsun and Addie and his family—and yet at the same time, staying seemed as though it was his only option.

The painful cramping of his leg distracted him from the downward spiral, and he cast his gaze toward the bandaged wounds. A curse died in his throat at the sight of the blood-soaked bandages, and since he now had to worry about Jebsun again, keeping him none the wiser meant crawling out of bed again, hobbling to one of the cabinets, and looking for spare supplies. 

It sounded painful. It sounded stressful. It sounded anger-inducing. 

Janner did it anyway. This time, the pain felt almost good, somehow. He deserved it, after all. He could blame the Maker all he wanted, but he deserved dire punishment for that. And why he was responsible for Sara’s death and pain—and if not that, then certainly for failing to avenge her—seemed obvious by that point. He could have dwelt on it more. Maybe he did think about it more often than he realized. He just couldn’t bear the thought of wallowing in such a thing. He wouldn't last if he spent all his life doing that, as much as part of his heart longed for it. Though, Sara was gone. What was left? 

The Shining Isle. The rest of the family. The stewardship. He couldn’t go just yet, even if he wanted to.

An agonizing thirty minutes later, Janner had painstakingly retrieved the bandages, re-wrapped the wounds, and hidden both the old, bloody bandage and the spares. It took quite a bit of time to get to the crutch, and in the end, he did wind up crawling, but he reached it.

Standing with its assistance was easier than without, and suprisingly, it was perfectly fit for his height. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. Jebsun had proven himself just that kind and more over and over again. Still, a part of him felt silly for slipping it under his arm and grasping the handle tightly and yet…what other choice did he have? If he could leave, he would.

He wrapped the bottom of the crutch in the shreds of the shirt he had had on when Jebsun first found him. Why such a thing was still laying around, he didn’t know, but he offered a brief prayer of thanks rather than one of frustration.

Holding his breath, Janner limped toward the door of his room as quietly as possible, then proceeded into the outer room quieter still. He didn’t use the crutch fully while still inside; instead, he used it as support as he shuffled across the floor, wincing in pain at the contact but knowing it was the quietest way.

Instead of heading for the front door, he made for the one in the back. That one didn’t have a bell. The front did, and it would serve as an alarm and the foiler of his entire attempt to leave. It was locked, but Janner knew where the key was—in the honey jar—and quickly let himself out into the night.

He hopped down the steps to the dirt street as quietly as he could, then took the first step with the help of the crutch; it was far harder than Leeli had made it look yet far easier than what he had tried on his own. A showering of guilt covered him as he did so as he thought about how much effort Jebsun must have gone to in order to fashion the crutch perfectly for him. 

He couldn’t think about that, though, or Sara or his family or the Maker or anything. He had to leave, go somewhere.

The cottage? he thought as he limped through town, sticking to the shadows, gritting his teeth out of effort. What if someone had repaired it and moved in, though? 

The thought, Peet’s Castle? came to him as he made his way across the bridge and into the meadows, and the fact that he still thought of it as “Peet’s” even though Artham had been himself for years made him smile. Or, at least, smile as much as he could considering he was growing more tired and in pain by the minute. Part of him doubted he could even reach the forest, let alone his uncle's castle, but it was a better option than spending the night where toothy cows or horned hounds could find him.

The growing urge to stop and rest crept over him, and he batted it from his mind. Out in the middle of the meadows someone could find him or a toothy cow could eat him, and in Glipwood Forest—gasping for breath, his leg screaming in pain, all his muscles groaning from exhaustion—the same or worse was entirely probable. 

When he finally reached the forest, the grey of dawn had come upon the night, taking away his shroud. It was the coldest part of the day, the part before the sun came and warmed Aerwiar, revealing all the night's secrets. Looking up at the trees blearily, Janner forced himself just a few limping steps forward so he could sink against a rough tree trunk. He doubted he could actually get up to the castle as exausted as he was, but he couldn't stay on the forest floor. Could he even find the castle? It had been years. Though, Artham had built ladders and bridges everywhere, so there was bound to be—

Janner squeezed his eyes shut and groaned in frustration and anger and pain. It was all ladders to get to the bridges. Artham had had to carry Leeli up them when she had her crutch—how was he supposed to make it when he was already so tired? Why hadn't he thought of that sooner? What was wrong with him?

Gazing upward haphazardly, Janner was surprised to see something that looked rather like a blurry form of one of those bridges. What were the chances that the tree he chose to lean against not only had a bridge coming off it, but also seemed as though it wouldn't be too torturous to climb?

Janner took a deep breath, pushed his trembling, burning muscles to the back of his mind, slipped the crutch onto his arm (it hung nicely there and likely wouldn’t fall) and forced himself to climb. 

It was agony, torture, yet it wasn’t worse than the pain he had already felt. Worse than what he had felt in a good few days? Certainly, but no worse than having his back flayed.

He kept halting in his climb, pausing to gasp for breath and allow the sizzling in his limbs to fade. Janner hated himself for that—climbing a tree should have been easy, but here he was, barely managing it. His right leg screamed in agony and burned like fire. The rising sun made it clear the bandage was soaked in blood, but he probably could have figured that himself without seeing it; he felt trickles running down.

The stop after he finished the climb was perhaps the longest, but the smooth, wooden planks of the tree's bridge platform against his cheek was so comfortable, he almost fell asleep. His leg began cramping again, though, and reminded him he wasn't allowed to do such a thing.

Crawling along the bridge (after he took care of the furious muscles), knowing the treehouse was fairly close, Janner knew his body disagreed with what he had just told it. His body was angry with him, furious for putting it through so much pain. His mind wasn’t thrilled either, but it at least accepted it. And his heart welcomed the pain, since it distracted him from Sara.

He had to stop far too many times and far too often as he crawled along the bridge to the treehouse, and it was well past dawn when Janner reached his destination, bleary-eyed and freezing cold even as his muscles burned.

As he dragged himself into the treehouse that was somehow still in fairly decent interior condition and collapsed on the floor, he whimpered at the thought of changing the bandage on his leg wound. The supplies were still in his pocket, but he didn’t want to, he knew it would hurt. He just wanted to sleep.

He ended up sleeping, not bothering with it. It could wait. Not really, he knew it couldn’t, and as he drifted into unconsciousness, he noted he should change the bandage, the infection could easily come back, and then he would surely die since no one knew where he was, and no one really cared anyway. 

Though Jebsun cared. And he felt bad about leaving him without even a note of explanation.

*****

Notes:

Uhhh sorry... 😅