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Maomao blinks placidly at the floor, dazed.
There's noise- so much noise going on around her, and yet she can't make out anything specific. There's yelling, lots of yelling, occasional scraping and thumping sounds, and what sounds like someone underwater whispering hard-to-understand words directly into her left ear.
Enough to say, she was confused and annoyed, but honestly, that would be an understatement.
“-Hey, hey, hey. It's okay. Just, don't turn. Or mo- Please- please stop moving.”
She blinks at the floor again, shifting unconsciously. The whispered demands are much less annoying now that she can actually understand them.
But why-?
An absent feeling she hadn't noticed before is suddenly very much less absent.
“Hnngg-hah.” A grunt, gasp, whatever noise you wanted to call it, it was all she could do to hold back the swear she wanted to spit out when she caught sight of her poor foot- well, leg.
Of which she could very much feel right now.
Even though it looked like it was-
A hand forcibly - but almost overwhelmingly gently - turned her head away by the chin.
She winced when the thumb only barely brushed against her swollen cheek, and the hand disappeared as fast as it came.
“You need to stop moving.” The voice demanded again, soft but resolute. There was an undertone of absolute panic underlying it all, but Maomao was too out of it to focus on it. The hands did not touch her again. “Just- stay still. Please.”
She didn't respond, couldn't, but it was harder to stay still when she wanted to see what was happening. Her neck spasmed with the desire to turn again. Her leg was-
“I know.” The voice said, something desperate - animal, even - poking through. “But please. Just stop. Please stop.”
Maomao let out a wheezing sigh, dropped her unbeaten cheek to the ground, and stopped moving.
She doesn't know if she dozed, or passed out, or died or what, but when she next tries to lift her head, it's none other than Jinshi who's right in front of her on his knees, gently holding her head and torso in place.
Instantly, she is irritated. Why is he always here? Harassing her, or asking her for things, or saying things, or-
Maomao gets a good look at his face, and every unpleasant thought she'd ever had about him stops in its tracks. What's with that look?
She'd seen a lot of expressions on his unbelievably pretty face, but this one? Was not one of them.
This man looked haunted, and she had a suspicious feeling that she was the reason why.
Not that it was really her fault, at the end of the day.
…Or was it…?
Her head hurt.
She made to lift her arm, maybe to try to hold her face, or check it, or something else, but someone took her hand in theirs before she could. She honestly kind of forgot what she was even trying to do. So uncharacteristically, she allowed it without a word edgewise.
The hand squeezed hers. She huffed and squeezed back, weak but able.
A loud sound, like a rumbling collapsing statue, made her jump, and nearly as soon as the sound settled, Maomao was in pain like she never had been before.
This wasn't like ingesting poison. This wasn't like getting your finger chopped off. This wasn't anything she had ever experienced in her life, and she wanted it to end right now please and thank you.
Incapable of sound. Of thought. Of anything even mildly coherent.
All there was, was the burning, electrical, twisted mess of feelings that had everything to do with her left leg and foot.
The hand, she realized through the haze of agony, was still latched on to hers. It squeezed again, almost impossibly gentle. It was a miracle she could even notice it through all that was happening to her right now.
Maomao did her best to ignore everything going on to her person from the knee down. That was someone else's problem right now. She pulled the captured hand closer to her face, rested it on her undamaged cheek, then settled back down. It was pinned under her face and body now, but, well, that was his own fault for offering said limb.
Everything about this whole ordeal would probably be easier if she just forgot she existed for a little while anyway. She had saved the noble that had been targeted, she's pretty sure. Her job was done. So, surely she could rest now.
Just for a… little bit…