You began to tilt your stick to the left to fly Home before you realized what you were doing and caught yourself. What the fuck? You needed to go Home. NO NOT HOME, BACK TO BASE. YOU WERE GOING BACK TO BASE HOME. You wrestled the stick from your own hands, not understanding what was going on but refusing to give in. You spent the entire flight focusing on the fact you were going back to base. Occasionally you broke formation from the other two and started flying somewhere east before righting yourself. You eventually made the connection it must be the egg doing it. You needed to find some way to prevent it from affecting anyone. If only Hilda was awake, she could probably do some magic bullshit to make it stop. You emptied her medical backpack and stuffed the egg into it, feeling the impossibly powerful urge to break formation subside as you were not longer looking at or touching it.
You awkwardly landed on the airstrip, rolling to a stop and helping Hilda out of her backpack, leaving it on the seat of your plane. You were finally out of danger. You were safe. You were safe. You checked Hilda's pulse. It was weak. Very, very weak. You carried her out of your plane, holding her head still, screaming for a doctor, sobbing to yourself as the adrenaline disappeared and you were left to feel your own emotions, terrified you were too late. Eventually she was taken away on a stretcher to the medical station. The rest of the day was a complete blur. Hilda had a penetrative severe traumatic brain injury. Her nose was broken, and she was in a coma she wouldn't wake up from on her own. The doctor was thankfully some mad scientist/wizard type from a university who had invented a serum able to regenerate brain tissue, to help better help shell shocked and concussed soldiers continue fighting. She was comatose, in a hospital bed. Completely unresponsive.
Gunther was self sufficient. He took out pigeons and geese to eat no problem, but his shithead energy was gone. He acted more like a sick bird than his usual rapscallion self. You weren't really sure if he was legitimately conscious or just a smart bird, but he seemed clearly affected when you gave him the news. Tomas decided to leave. After what had happened on the mission he wanted to take his fourth and find a trade company to sign on with. He wished you three the best, in his own awkward way, before leaving. Edgar stuck around. Well, you asked him to. You couldn't be alone right now.
The Commander was fully aware of the effects of the egg, and sealed it away in a metal box inscribed with runes to keep it from affecting anyone. They were unwilling to disclose what they needed it for. You were paid in full. You and Hilda pooled finances so you got the 19 Thaler yourself, 7 of which was required to pay Hilda's medical bills. Once you could, you basically lived in Hilda's hospital room. You spent a lot of time crying looking at her. She didn't move a muscle for 2 full weeks. After fourteen days of staring at her unconscious body, she just opened her eyes like she was waking up like any other morning.
"Victor?"
"Yeah?"
"If I die, bury me if you can, ok? I want you to do it."
"Karl, don't talk like that." He commanded, hugging you harder.
"We need to have this conversation." You replied, gently stroking his beautiful blonde hair while staring at the stars above.
"I'm your gunner. If you go down, I go down with you." He said while shifting his legs in the tall grass surrounding the both of you.
"I guess that's fair."
"Can we not talk about that? I just want to enjoy this moment."
"Of course. I love you." You said, before leaning down and giving him a kiss on the forehead.
"I love you too."
"Again. This time without spilling." Your instructor demanded, pointing at the half full cup next to an empty one. Your hands were freezing cold and stinging from that half botched spell of lifting the water, you just wanted to go home to your ragdolls. You hated being here. You hated being a witch, why couldn't you just be a normal girl that burned witches?
"My hands hurt." You said plainly, holding back tears knowing you'd only be screamed at again if you cried again. You looked at your hands again, they were red like you stuck them in snow.
"I don't care. You're practicing until you can do this spell. It's simple, why can't you do it?" She asked, pointing at the glass more firmly this time.
"MY HANDS HURT! I DON'T WANT TO DO IT!" You yelled back, too tired of her talking to you like that to care if you got slapped or yelled at again. She looked at you like you called her something terrible.
"I would rather your mother have had a son than you. Go home." She commanded, snapping her fingers and making the door fly open. Your heart pounded in your chest from that comment. You ran out of the door, bursting into tears as soon as you stepped into the sun, and sprinted across the village towards the little tree out in the tall grass you hid at to cry. You wanted to fly away. Like a bird. Or on a broomstick. You just wanted to find someone who would care about you.
You shook Victor's body, limp in his gunner seat, with the split half of his machine gun lodged through his chest and impaling him. Your goggles were filling with your tears. You couldn't even speak. You just kept shaking him, begging him to wake up. He'd stopped breathing at least five minutes ago. You were grabbed by the back of the neck and thrown across the clearing you'd crashed in, finally snapping out of the trance you were in to notice the incendiary load you were carrying and let go of before the crash had ignited the forest around you. A woman dressed in a robe made of flowers and nothing else, wielding a knife made of some white metal, or perhaps bone, was staring at you so enraged her face didn't even look human.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTERS?!" She asked, tearing the goggles off of your face and planting a bare foot on your chest, leaning in and putting the knife to your throat. "No, that would be too good for scum like you." She said, before her knife drove itself into your stomach, and tore up your body like a knife through butter. She crushed your goggles in her hand, splitting the glass like a thin sheet of ice, and holding the other intact glass up to your mouth. "Give me your last breath. Maybe you'll be of use to me one day." She said as you exhaled, feeling the world fading around you from the death blow.
"Mama?" You asked while giving the little falcon chick you found some mashed up carrots to hopefully help him survive.
"Yes dear?" Your mother replied, currently carving a small dragon out of wood for her collection.
"Why can't you teach me magic?" You asked, trying to focus on giving the chick food instead of the growing rage in you from even discussing what you wanted to talk about.
"Because I'm not a teacher." She plainly responded, continuing to work on her carving. "Why do you ask?"
"I don't like my instructor. I never have." You responded just as plainly.
"Why don't you like her?" She asked.
"She hits me when I talk back. Or when I botch a spell. Hard." You admitted, feeling a strain in your chest as you waited for her response. She stopped carving for a moment, and you could hear her turn to look at you, before turning back and starting to carve again.
"You shouldn't talk back to your instructor." She said, again, plainly.
"I feel like one of these days, I'm going to explode and end up attacking her." You continued, hoping an explanation of your violent impulses might help her see the problem you had. "Can you talk to her?" You asked out loud, and begged internally.
"It's not my place." She asked as you internally crumbled. "Alright, listen. I know you have a fiery spirit. And that's perfectly ok. I was just like you when I was your age." She placed her amber amulet around your neck, and continued speaking. "My mother told me to pour my fire into this. Now I'm telling you to do the same. That fire is useful, but in specific situations. Not when your instructor is strict with you." She explained. You wanted to explode. You grabbed your necklace and squeezed it in your hand, trying to follow her advice. It didn't help at all. Why didn't she care?
"Karl, am I not pretty to you?" Alison asked you, in the corner of your friend's house where the both of you were, hugging.
"No, n-… I mean yes, I do think you're pretty! Of course." You said. You weren't lying. She was beautiful. And you were flattered she even wanted this. You just didn't want to kiss her.
"Then why don't you want to kiss me?" She asked while pressing herself against you in a playful manner, pressing you against the wall.
"I just… I don't want to kiss you, and then have you be heartbroken when you find out I died out on Gotha's doorstep." You lied. You just weren't attracted to her.
"Well then just a goodbye kiss will suffice." She pressed further, standing on her toes to try and reach you. You were feeling very, very uncomfortable, so you just kind of slid out from between her and the wall and walked back towards your male friends. You could nearly hear her disappointment, but it really wasn't your problem. Maybe you'd find someone you actually wanted to kiss out in the northern front, a dream girl waiting to be liberated from some stuffy Gotha town you could bring home to mom.
You opened your eyes in an unfamiliar bed. White light illuminated the room. You slowly, and awkwardly raised yourself off the bed, before two arms wrapped around you and squeezed you so tight you felt suffocated.
"OH MY STARS THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!" Riya's voice said, sobbing into your shoulder. "I'm so glad you're ok! I… I thought you might never wake up, I know the doctors said you wouldn't but I was just so scared!" Riya exclaimed, squeezing even tighter.
"Yeah! Yeah, I'm ok, it's ok. What happened?" You asked, flopping your arms around her and hugging back.
"You took a shovel to the back of the head. You've been out for two weeks." She quickly explained. "Why are you talking like that?"
"What do you mean?" You asked. You were speaking normally to you.
"You're mimicking my accent, stop it." She said, now actually looking you in the eyes.
"Im not doing that, what are you talking about?" You asked, very confused. A doctor was passing by when two were speaking, and immediately rushed over to check you.
"She has an abnormal accent?" The doctor asked while using a small light to shine in your eyes, for some reason.
"Yeah, she usually sounds like she's from the central Fokker territories." Riya replied. You didn't sound any different to yourself, what was going on?
"It's an uncommon but occasional symptom of damage to the Parietal lobe." She explained, releasing you.
"What?!" You asked, scared there was something wrong with you.
"You had a very minor case of severe brain damage." She explained further.
"WHAT?! N-no! I feel fine, my brain is fine!" You explained while trying to get out of bed. Your legs were a lot shorter than you remember them being, and you didn't catch the ground correctly, bringing the entire medical rig attached to your body through IVs down on top of you. The other two immediately helped you up onto your feet. You were in a medical gown, and felt very, very dizzy.
"You're going to be fine. But you're still recovering." She explained, helping you sit back down in bed again. "You'll need daily injections for the next six days, and no flying until then. You need to take it easy. I've already informed Riya how to preform the injections, because you most likely don't have motor skills to do it properly. You're ready to be discharged though, if you're awake. You're going to make a full recovery." You thought about that for a second before speaking next.
"Where's Gunther?"
You have taken 4 Stress. Hilda is officially Stressed. Things will get to her more than usual until she's feeling less bad.
You have been prescribed painkillers, if you want to abuse them as a new vice.
Now let's discuss and plan how Hilda's gonna spend her recovery period of six days until she's ready to roll again. This will probably be a good time for introspection as well. As always, probably won't be doing all of this stuff in the plan in one response, it'll be split up into multiple. This just outlines the "plan" your character has.
Oh also I probably should have mentioned. Those little vignettes are memories you have now. Some of them obviously aren't yours. If you want to comment on them, maybe put that as part of the plan.
[ ] Plan for Stress Relief?