Chapter 20: Reasons

“Muddled” was the first thing that came up to Franswift when he twitched open his eyelids. He tried to shake off the groggy feeling that had filled his body by rolling his shoulder, and he was answered by the scrape of bone-on-bone. He struggled to sit and rested his elbows on his knees. He tried to blink the sleep from his eyes as he looked around the inside of his tent. The first thing he noticed, as his vision began to clear up, were his things were dumped unceremoniously in the corner of the tent. He wouldn’t have done that.

The last thing he remembered was shouting at his teammates and storming off. His memories didn’t seem to want to let him forget what he was angry about, but it wasn’t as quiet as easy about what happened later since he couldn’t remember a thing. One thing he knew for sure, he’d left them to set up the rest of the camp without him.

The flap to his tent opened, and a head popped in. He recognized the short white hair of Bylun. “Still drowsy?” Bylun asked.

Franswift just stared blankly ahead and blinked slowly. His memories weren’t coming to him.

Bylun chuckled to himself and stepped into the room. “I will take that as a yes.” He offered Franswift a hand up.

“Thanks,” Franswift said, as he let his friend haul him to his feet. They left the tent, and Franswift slapped his thighs a bit to get his blood moving. He’d had better mornings, but at least he was standing on his own two legs.

Bylun gave him a critical eye and asked, “You doing okay?”

Franswift shook his head. “Only if your version of ‘okay’ involves feeling like someone thrashed me with the biggest club they could find.”

Bylun raised an eyebrow. “Worse than when Commander Wilhelm did you the other time?”

“Far worse than Wilhelm,” Franswift admitted.

Bylun let a breath hiss out in sympathy. The two took a seat on a nearby log. “I don’t suppose you might tell me what you did yesterday. You had all of us stressed out, trying to figure out what was causing your symptoms. Your body was fever-hot, but no sweat ever came out. We had to splash water on you to cool you off.”

“Can you first tell me what happened after I stormed off?” Franswift asked. “I can’t remember anything past that.”

“Of course, you can’t,” Bylun said easily. “You collapsed right after. I had to dump all your stuff in your tent for you while the others tried to help you out. What exactly did you do?”

Franswift did not answer. He just closed his eyes and activated his focus. He felt his ability kick in right away. He moved his focus inward and was able to sense the individual muscle fibers and blood veins. He only found minor inflammation that would heal overnight. He scoured his body for more abnormalities, but aside from the overused muscles, there were only some mildly damaged organs. When he couldn’t find anything more, he deactivated his focus.

Franswift opened his eyes and frowned. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I searched my whole body but found nothing beyond minor injuries and some taxed muscles.”

“You think I’m buying this, man? That much attack power doesn’t just come from nothing, and you don’t have that kind of experience.” Bylun leveled an accusatory glare at his friend. “What are you hiding?”

“I. Don’t. Know. You don’t see me asking that much about your spiraled glove,” Franswift said. “And you have no leverage whatsoever since you aren’t telling me things either. I asked about why I was treated differently, and what was your answer?”

The truth; Bylun was right. Franswift did not know what happened afterward, but he had somewhat of an idea. Using Focus inwardly doesn’t do this, but he reckoned using it to transfer all of his power into his foot was the reason. His body wasn’t built for the release of so much power. The normal human concentration doesn’t even allow it to happen because the body would break. He did it only for a split second, and it made him collapse. What he found strange was how his body wasn’t as injured as he thought it would be.

“Have it your way, don’t tell me,” Bylun said. “But I hope you will be generous and tell me why you did that right after we survived.”

Franswift feigned ignorance as he stared at Bylun. “Did what?”

“I find it insulting to you and me when you make fun of our intelligence like this,” Bylun said. “But fine, let me spell it out for you. Why did you go off on the team when we were still in danger? I won’t let you say you didn’t know.”

“Would saying I abhor mistakes in life and death situations satisfy you?”

“If you had gone only on Rina,” Bylun said. “But Erica and Crnobog, that was unnecessary, especially at the time. This is a newly found team, and there were mistakes bound to happen. You should have known that.”