I woke slowly, like swimming upward through something thick and dark. My body felt impossibly heavy and my mind was wrapped in a fog that would not clear no matter how many times I reached for the surface. Everything around me was dark and quiet and I could not fully get to either side of consciousness.
There was something beneath me, warm and solid. My hair was moved away from my face by a touch so light I barely registered it as real.
"Nova?"
Cel. Oh thank goodness, Cel, you are okay.
She whined and her face came forward in my mind, closer than she had been in what felt like a very long time. "I think so. We have been out for a while."
How are you feeling?
I searched through her the best I could. She was weak but present, her eyes a little dull but her energy returning slowly, like someone warming their hands back to life.
"Just tired," she said, flattening her ears. "But mate is nearby. He is very agitated."
