The door slams shut abruptly behind her.

She's in an entirely intact restaurant, or maybe a bar. Nobody seems to be inside.

There are tables, chairs and booths, Off to the right there's a gently crackling fireplace surrounded by soft couches dotted with pillows and plush blankets. The room is decorated in a seasonal manner, with Holly and mistletoe climbing the walls and the furniture. Weirdly snowflakes, real or simulated are falling from the ceiling between exposed beams and gathering into a light dusting across the floorboards, under the tables and to the edges of the room.

There is a long bar across the room from the door she came through, studded with bar stools and lights.

If she turns to look back at the door the wall it's contained in has large windows looking out not on the city she came from but a field of stars many of which seem to be exploding in the distance.

She curls up and whimpers. This must be the waiting place, the place the eidolons talked about when they thought noone was listening. She thought that at least it wasn't supposed to hurt once you ended up here.

He'll be here soon. He'll take her soul, and then nothing will hurt her ever again. She'll be a small, smooth stone, and then he'll use her, and then she'll be nothing.

"I'm sorry, Dirge," she whispers to the empty room. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it."

A small stand appears on the bar with a napkin propped up on it. There are words on the napkin. "Hello welcome to Milliways. The first drink is free. Also given your apparent injuries I should mention that there's an infirmary down the hall to the right. First door you come to."

She glances up at the movement. She reads the notice. 

It's not over, then. Or - maybe it is, and this is - what the gods have prepared for her. But in that case, it isn't really over.

She should be used to this by now. It's never finished. She's never going to be done.

The idea of dragging herself across the floor and down the corridor does not seem at all appealing.

"Um," she says a little louder, "is there any way you can fetch them? I'm not sure I'll make it all the way there."

The first napkin disappears replaced with one that says simply "Help is on the way"

She doesn't have to wait before a sphere with an angular rainbow pattern on it floats out of the hallway and then over to her.

"The bar said someone needed my assistance, I assume that's you. Do I have permission to treat you?"

Okay. So. That's a thing, now. Or maybe she's just hallucinating vividly from the burns and the dehydration and withdrawal symptoms.

At least it's pretty. 

"Yes," she says vaguely, "whatever..."

The world is going kind of concerningly dark around the edges. Everything is kind of less real than it should be.

It would be nice if this gave her any distance from the horrible searing pain across her back, but actually it just seems to make that expand to fill her whole world... 

And then quite abruptly the pain is gone and the darkness around the edges of her vision is clearing.

"I'm not entirely familiar with your biology but the basics seem straightforward enough, acid doesn't belong in most parts of the body, blood vessels should be repaired, pain should be temporarily blocked while treatment is ongoing."

What else is going on with this cat? 

Well, to start with, it looks a lot like this cat has comprehensively thrown up everything they ever ate and not found enough water to be going on with.

There are also some much more complicated problems around whatever caused the vomiting in the first place, which are only in abayance because of the lack of things to successfully throw up, and the lack of ability to use violence at this time.

She hisses in surprise as the pain lifts, and looks up at the sphere with mingled hope and terror.

"I'd like to infuse some nutrients directly into your blood. Also try to add some fluids and duplicate some of your blood cells. You've lost more than I'd like. I can only do that easily back in the Infirmary though, would you like me to carry you?"

"I... Yes." The infirmary... maybe it has some of those little green berries, at least, or even some of the good stuff.

"Do you have - small green berries - prevents vomiting," she suggests.

She gently floats into the air, she feels lighter, not quite in free fall but maybe half her normal weight. There's a force blanketing her underside and trying to support her evenly. She and the sphere float back towards the hall it emerged from.

"I can certainly check. The cabinets in the infirmary have always had whatever I needed before."

That's... nice. Relaxing. She hasn't had the weight off her for, so long. She's been running ever since they tried to kill her in that tent, when she knew she couldn't wait a moment longer to say her goodbyes, just had to get out of there and to the only people she could ever trust.

She doesn't have much choice, here, but to trust, though.

It's not too long before they turn into a room with four beds. She's layed down on her side on one of the beds so as to avoid putting pressure on her still not fully healed wounds. There's a force gently supporting that posture. She could push through it if she wanted to change position.

"Aha, Milliways continues to impress." Out of a nearby cupboard three of the small green berries emerge and float over to her. I believe this is the correct dosing, though it's hard to get dosages of ingested medicine right on an empty stomach."

"If you're rehydrating me, the stomach's going to be empty again soon without them," she replies, still somewhat sleepily. "Unless that cabinet magically has clear sweet liquid as well - but that's Thorn's blessing from the Jaguar, so I doubt it."

The withdrawal is meant to be fatal even if it doesn't include wandering through the wilderness without adequate food and water, but also she knows at least one person has survived it. Possibly they had better constitution than she does, though.

"Why would I rehydrate you via your stomach? I'll let your body refill that as needed, with the state you're in it'll be better just to add liquids and nutrients where they're needed. I'm also noticing signs reminiscent of opioid withdrawal, I'll take steps towards dealing with that too."

"Opioid?" She tries the word out, it clearly means something relevant. "You mean, the oco? Yeah, I could do with not needing the oco, I have a little but I was saving it."

"I believe so. The signs I'm seeing do match the chemical composition of one of the compounds you're carrying."

"It's the light blue powder. I really regret taking that one. Like, not actually as much as I regret the clear stuff, but I don't think I could have avoided that, and it was good while it lasted. Oco isn't even much of a high, I was just doing it because everyone else was." It's so relaxing to not be supporting herself or feel quite as dreadful as she's been feeling, she's rambling. Maybe this is heaven after all? If so it's fine, she can do exactly what she wants to do, that's the point...

"That's unfortunate. It's a shame it wasn't at least fun in the moment. Regardless this will be easy enough to clear up. I prefer not to remove the psychological parts of addiction but I will if you want. Editing minds is just rather taxing." The symptoms of Oco withdrawal cease.

"You - can do that - separately?" Jessily seems specifically confused about this, above and beyond her general state of confusion. "I mean, yes please, the psychological effects are the worst - I almost cut someone one time because they had some, even though it was a terrible idea."

"What I did is treat the chemical symptoms, this often includes things like anxiety, trouble sleeping, rapid heartrate, diarrhea, cramping, nausea and blurry vision. The mental treatment would be about changing not precisely your memories but the emotional associations of them and also the habits you've formed around certain behaviors. It's a very weighty thing to do so I'll ask again for confirmation that you want to go down this path."

"If you can just get the bit where I feel, like, actively compelled to knife anyone who has any so I can take it?" she asks. "Normally that just comes with, if it's, like, a Con talisman or a reset sorcery..."

"I can try, it would help me a lot if you can think back to a moment where you felt that way, really picture it and experience the memory."

Jessily closes her eyes - which were only really half open anyway - and remembers.

It's a cold morning at the Festival - she's forgotten what this one was called - they were all given such grandiose names. She had been having a lovely nap cuddled up in furs, and then there was shouting outside, and they might need her, and her sleep was ruined anyway.

So she stumbled outside, bleary from sleep, and there he was - Horn, her best friend, her worst nightmare - just standing right there putting out a line of oco on his arm, along the black leather bracer, clear as day.

"Hey, leave some for me," she told him.

"Finders keepers," he replied, tauntingly, and began to inhale the blue powder.

That was more than her sleepy morning self could bear, and she had pulled her dagger before she knew what was happening. This was utterly stupid; he was a better fighter than her, he had countless people around that would come to his defence immediately if he was actually threatened, and worst of all, she was the one who would have to sew him up afterwards if he got hurt...

"Share," she demanded.

"Ooh, the kitten has claws," he'd said. "Wait your turn, little one."

And then she'd struck out at him, and he'd bounced it off the bracer on the other arm without spilling a grain, and there were people tackling her from behind and dragging her back, as she'd expected...