Solseir's Short Story: Where Am I?

"Ngh!" Hammers pounded on Solseir's temples, wielded by giggling gnomes that made sure to alternate sides. He swiped at them and jerked awake, instantly regretting it. Sunlight poured in through the open curtains, searing his eyes. The gnomes vanished but the pain in his head stayed behind. It settled into a dull throb just behind his eyes, and he groaned. Now he remembered why he usually stuck with beer and stayed away from whiskey. Beer never gave him hangovers like this. Nor did it make his mouth taste like old gym socks. *Great. Now I'm sober. Where am I? After a few minutes, the pounding in his head subsided enough to allow him to look around the bright, sunny bedroom. He was alone in the bed, naked and covered only with the sheet. Clean …show more content…

Her black hair was up in a high ponytail, trailing curls down her back. Her yellow flipflops scuffed the floor as she came to a stop behind him and to his left, her eyes on the tattoo in the mirror. "What the hell is this?" he asked. "What did you let me do to myself?" "It's a griffon, and you liked it well enough last night. You said that it would make you look different from everyone else if you got it," she replied. His anger drained away. Nikki had a valid point. Tattoos were discouraged, not forbidden, by the Elven military. His fingers trailed over the lines of the stupid tattoo. He might have to live with it for the rest of his life, but it wouldn't be that long anyway, so who cared? Depressing, but it cheered him up. She came forward and slipped her arms around his waist, nuzzling his back with her cheek. "I made breakfast if you're interested." Solseir suppressed a gag at the thought of food but Nikki noticed anyway, and the nurse in her came out. "You should eat. You're losing weight already on your liquid diet." He winced. "I know. I have to work at gaining weight." Nikki scoffed at him, resting her forehead on his back. "And I have to work at keeping it off. It's so …show more content…

"You're so sweet." She let him go and moved past him to open the medicine cabinet, pulling out a packet of pills. Half of them were gone, and she popped another pill out of the package and into her mouth, swallowing it without water. "What's clomiphene?" he asked, reading the name of the drug on the packet. "Birth control," she replied, meeting his gaze in the mirror. "Don't worry. I read your file, and I know you don't want kids." More specifically, he didn't want to subject a kid to the Elven army. Berserkers were rare outside of certain families. Most didn't survive to adulthood to reproduce. Solseir had been lucky. His older brother Talisin had looked out for him, up to the day the berserker elixirs killed him. Thinking about Talisin always triggered flashbacks. He focused on Nikki and the packet of pills she put back in the medicine cabinet in an effort to push the unwelcome thoughts away. "That's a big pill. Isn't birth control normally smaller?" She shrugged. "All the other pills make me sick, so I take these." She laced her fingers with his and tugged. "Come on. I'm sure you want to get back to getting drunk, so come eat first. At least let me feed you before you