[Anamelech]

OOC: takes place after the war, so spoilers for the Dragon and the Rose.

Anamelech blinked. She felt the mummified half of her face tighten under the layers of bandage. A spot of moisture formed, seeping into the makeshift plaster. Anamelech's skull clamored with the memory of a single fang deliberately, methodically, equally with the calculative and perfunctory precision of a surgeon at work and yet with all the cruelty that a terrible beast such as herself deserved, lancing her eyeball. Her face was torn in two. As time passed, she could pretend that the injury never occurred. She could manage the humility of being forced to bumble about with her depth perception impaired, vulnerable to any infiltration from her left side. Anamelech could convince herself that all would return to normal -- and then, on mornings like this, the pus and humor bubbled from the sutures to stain her solitary protection from the judgment of her adoring believers.

Who is the most beautiful creature in all of Oukoku-Kai? / It is still you, my Rosa.

Anamelech didn't budge from her bed. She remained on her side, pillowed by a towering mess of pelts and ragged cushions. How did Anamelech find such furnishments for her den? Better not to ask. After all, these were heathenistic creations. Without deigning to give her escort a sideways glance, Anamelech beckoned her lone companion closer.

"Judah," instructed Anamelech in a magisterial, lofty tone, as casually as she was requesting breakfast in bed (that was already Roman's forte), "Change my bandages."

Quite simply, she would not tolerate treatment from any other Herbalist. She learned that Judah had some proficiency in herbology, which was to her advantage following her humiliating injury. After discovering that he lent his talents at the infirmary, Anamelech ensured that his skills were invested on a more fulfilling endeavor, by which she meant her own recovery. No one should see how a god bleeds. No one should see how the cornea floods with blood and the eyelid swell purple and ugly, distorting her divine features. Because then, if you prove that you're capable of suffering and bleeding, are you still a God?

Beneath the disaffected demeanor, Anamelech was panicking. She was healing at a slower pace than she anticipated. Her mortality dragged. And if she had been permanently damaged--

She thought of her eye throbbing and gushing sheets of blood, the alien and overwhelming agony. She reflected with horror at Thetis, her pretty perfect doll forever damaged, that shattered face repaired with a single ornamentation. A white rose now bloomed within her ruined eye socket. Thank God for the girl's sense of fashion, because every time Anamelech was forced to lay eyes on the extent of the physical damage inflicted on Thetis's once-flawless visage she fought down the urge to vomit. At least Maverick and Judah were unharmed.

Perhaps Judah should experience some pride in the fact that he was the only one to be entrusted with witnessing his Rosa in a state of duress and, in a way, vulnerability.