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A bow dropped to the ground.

Leila managed to remain standing in the aftermath of the chaotic battle at the site, but that only barely. Her hands dangled on the sides, her shoulders aching like they were about to fall off. The shaft of one arrow of ice melted away slowly between her closed fingers and eventually snapped into two, falling onto the ground. The light from her amulet quickly faded back into the dim glow, revealing the little bit of liquid that remained inside - a result of the exhaustion from the consecutive firing of arrows for an extended period near the end of the battle.

The witch was dead. The head of the wicked being dropped to the ground, petrified by the wisps produced by the very own hazards she conjured - the black projectiles dissipated into thin air as the castor of the spell deceased.

Leila’s mind was mostly blank at the moment. The only thoughts that lingered were the senses of pain and exhaustion, the gratefulness for the fact that she didn’t die - [i]they[/i] didn’t die, possibly more appropriately. She was genuinely relieved when upon a quick turn of her head all the members of their group were present.

Most of all of them, at least. Lesley was missing a hand.

[i]Lesley was missing a hand.[/i]

The realization struck her hard - the loss of a limb. Having grown up under an environment when a cut on a fingertip was tended to with the seriously of handling a fissile substance bordering on critical mass, it was hard for her to imagine what something like losing an entire hand would be like. It invoked in her equal parts of shock, concern and intrigue, as she winced imagining the pain that came with a cut in the wrist that goes all the way through.

But all of it probably didn’t show. She was too tired to jump around, to shout about it, or even just to walk over to inspect the wound or utter a few words to display that she acknowledge that it happened. At least not right now, not when she felt like any disturbance would break the balance and send her figure collapsing into a curled up pile on the groun-

[b]"This is something not even biology teachers will be able to explain, ain't that right Leila?"[/b]

[i]-umph[/i]

Leila responded to the sudden pat on the back by nearly crumbling to her knees only to have to grab onto Haku’s clothes to pull herself back up for long enough until she regained the strength for her legs to be able to hold herself upright again. Meanwhile, what was the thing Haku spoke of?

Leila wondered as she twirled the feather between her fingers, the iridescence shifting in a dazzling display of colours as she did so. The feather was very comfortable to the touch, a silk-like texture as she ran her fingers through the peacock-like pattern.

Leila liked the feather.

And then, without warning, just as that thought ran through her mind, the delicate object started crumbling from the tip where she last touched it, as if in embarrassment as it couldn’t bear the compliment on its appearance the girl made in her head. Before she could make sense of what was going on, nothing was left except a few sparkling specks of dust resting on her fingertips.

“eh…?”

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Leila didn’t really know why she felt much better than she expected to feel, after suffering several impacts with rigid objects, and numerous scratches and bruises that resulted from combat involving claws and teeth and corrosive acid. She didn’t see many prominent bruises, and most of the injuries seemed to be slighter than she remembered them to be - a while into their venture to retrieve the baby dragon, she found where there should’ve been gashes from fingernails digging into her flesh only faded rashes of pink.

Leila absent-mindedly shook the amulet from side to side, watching the little remaining liquid splash inside for instants before resting back at the bottom briefly after.

The people leading the group shouted for the dragon. Having cleared her visible range of any possible traces of cloud-conjuring baby dragons, Leila’s attention was quickly diverted to other things in the scene.

She peeked downwards at Lesley’s hand - or, where his hand would’ve been. The forearm of the tall man that stood beside her now ended abruptly, where his torn clothing wasn’t enough to entirely cover it. The wound looked unexpectedly clean - Leila didn’t know what happened, or what caused the wound, but it almost seemed as if it was removed by a skillful surgical maneuver - there were stains of blood left that marked the injury, but besides from that, the wound was already closed - and there was not even the sign of stitches.

Lesley’s attention would’ve also been directed that way if he noticed something brushing against his wound.

Rather apologetically, Leila quickly drew back her tentative gesture of trying to touch the healed wound. She told herself he should’ve apologized, but ended up uttering the questions first instead.

“Did this...does this... ...hurt?”