“… A month’s worth of refills, emergency anti-dehydration shots and three extra insu-bands in case the one I’m wearing breaks… I think that’s everything!”
The young Cassid nurse nodded her head as Veeyel counted everything up for a third time.
“Am I good to go?”
Again, the Cassid nodded. She never actually said much and Veeyel couldn’t work out why, but he didn’t really care. He turned off the power pack which was charging his mechanical leg braces, picked up his backpack of medical equipment and waved goodbye.
Outside, Kayel and Ksiel were waiting for him, both grinning. They hadn’t seen him as an almost-functional being for a long time.
“Brother!” Veeyel almost ran towards them. Almost. He had to slow down and nearly lost his balance, but luckily Kayel caught him. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“I’m so glad to see you too…”
Veeyel took a deep breath, wrapping his arms around Kayel. He’d forgotten how it felt to be… normal. After a hug that was much longer than he intended, Veeyel straightened himself out.
“So where we heading?”
“Up towards the mountains,” Ksiel explained. “How far can you walk? Because the plan was to take public transport to the closest village then walk or fly the rest of the way, but that depends mostly on you.”
Veeyel hesitated. “I can… walk alright. About five minutes at a time if we go fast, a bit longer if we take it slow. My leg braces have five hours in them.”
“Shouldn’t take longer than four,” Kayel suggested. “Worst case scenario, I can hire an alogan or kaolshan to carry you the rest of the way.”
“Or we can, you know, use our telekinetic powers and fly…” Ksiel tutted. “Suddenly we’re all adverse to using our powers or something.”
Kayel sighed, then took Veeyel by the hand. The three Rethans started walking to the nearest bus stop, where a bus was due in the next few minutes. They picked up their pace when they realised the bus was already there. Once they were on the bus, the three of them sat down at the back. Kayel and Ksiel both seemed quite happy, alternating between looking out the windows and chatting with each other. Veeyel though looked lost in thought.
“You alright?”
“Sorry?”
Veeyel looked up. Kayel had scooted up next to him.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah… Just… I haven’t thought about using my blessed powers in ages.”
“You never used your telekinesis to move things around while in hospital?” Ksiel asked.
“No… Well, sometimes. If I was stuck in bed, I’d move my food and stuff closer. But otherwise, I never did. I don’t know why.”
“You didn’t ever just use your telekinesis to move yourself?”
Veeyel sniffed. “No… The medics said my legs would atrophy so I got worried and never did that. I didn’t want my legs to disappear.”
Kayel and Ksiel glanced at each other.
“Uh, Veeyel, I think they meant that a lack of use of your legs would cause them to atrophy, not that using your telekinesis would destroy them…” Ksiel explained. “And that would take months of never trying to use your legs for that to happen…”
“I can only guess that your medics were just… trying to get you to relearn how to walk, rather than being permanently disabled,” Kayel shrugged. “Luckily, out here, we’ll all be using both our legs and our minds.”
Veeyel smiled a little. “That’s good to know. I don’t know why… I guess I’ve just been so drugged up and stuck in that hospital… It’s like I’m suddenly free from it all.”
“That’s understandable,” Ksiel grunted. “I don’t think those medics really knew what was going on, any more than we do. But we’re going to fix this ourselves, the L-Class way.”
Again, Veeyel smiled, but it was followed by a yawn. “How long will the bus ride be?”
Kayel glanced at his wrist band. “Another hour and a half or so.”
“Can I have a quick power nap? I think it would be a good idea. I can turn off my leg braces too, save some charge.”
The other Ksa both smiled, nodding their heads.
“Would be a smart move,” Kayel smiled. “You sleep, we’ll wake you up when we get there.”