Is she… a usurper or a wyvern queen in disguise? It would explain some of her strength… and her confidence. Still, not even a dragon can survive decapitation, and even dragons are semi-divine. She has to be more impressive than even those demigods. Is this… her roundabout way of trying to convince me that she’s a full fledged–
Shaula sighs in exasperation.
“I can clearly see that you’re not believing me, Sigvor. That’s why I wanted to at least demonstrate the depths of my healing factor to you. But, in retrospect, I don’t think restoring a mere hand is going to be enough for you to believe my words. I’m still wondering what would be the easiest way to convince you.”
“...”
“I could try stabbing myself in the heart, I know that only popes are capable of healing severe injuries to the heart. Or, maybe I could try cutting off my lower body? Maybe one leg right at the base of my hips… No, neither of us have any swords with us so cutting through my femur would take too long, and it’d be too painful to–”
“Hold on, Shaula, just… hold on. First of all, you may have a healing factor but you still feel all the pain, right? I’m… not going to ask you to mutilate yourself for me, even if you can heal it all back.”
“Oh… I guess that does make sense. I mean, it does hurt temporarily, but the pain is the first thing that goes away when my body starts regenerating itself.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I guess? No, maybe I should just start by apologizing. I really thought that I could believe whatever you were about to say. Really, I did, but this… Honestly, the only way that you would be able to convince me of your healing factor is if you were to cut off your own head, or if I were to cut off your head for you…”
Sigvor chuckles a bit. That would be completely absurd to even consider. However, Shaula takes her words at face value.
“Ugh… You know, I would have done that if it wasn’t so fucking inconvenient! There’s just no clean and easy way to decapitate myself! First off, I’ll spill a lot of blood on my dress, and then, when I regenerate a new body, I’ll have to remove the clothes from the old one to put on my new one, or otherwise I’ll have to walk around completely naked…”
Sigvor stares at Shaula dumbfounded. She has to be fucking with her at this point.
Still, there is something unsettling about the fact that Shaula had actually put thought into what it would be like to decapitate herself. That alone makes Sigvor wonder how much of what Shaula said about her healing factor is true. Maybe regenerating her own head might be an exaggeration, but healing her lungs or heart…
Shaula continues her thought process on the inconvenience of being decapitated, her forehead creased, her arms crossed in exasperation.
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“Sigvor, I’ve healed from a lot of injuries and decapitation is the worst injury I’ve ever seen. You know, I’ve healed an impalement to my heart in a few seconds. But a decapitation wound might last hours for even me. Who knows how long it’ll take me to regain consciousness? I still have shit to do tonight, you know? Plus, my blood is so fucking difficult to clean up.”
Shaula falls silent, trying to think of a way to get Sigvor to believe her. On his own part, Sigvor can’t help but shrink away. Shaula’s words carry a lot of conviction to them. They’re so unbelievably matter-of-fact, it doesn’t fill her with wonder. It makes her feel small.
The more Shaula speaks, the less Sigvor believes that it is simply a matter of Shaula’s runaway imagination.
The way she’s speaking, has she… has she been decapitated before? Has she tested it out or has someone done that to her? No, the way she’s talking about it, it doesn’t seem like she herself has… ‘A decapitation wound might last hours for even me’. For even me? Is there someone else with her healing factor that has– Is it Ajax?
Sigvor pauses. She considers Ajax. The two of them are always together. He had also mentioned that he was from the same place that she was from. He has a lot of strength in his own right as well. Does he share her regeneration abilities too?
…Where is he tonight? It’s weird she glossed over him so quickly when Dzan and I asked about him earlier too… I’m missing some context.
No healing magic that Sigvor has ever heard of is capable of resolving decapitation without some form of extreme preparation. It is not something that can ever be accomplished on the battlefield. The idea of healing those who have been decapitated was spoken of as old miracles taking place during the first couple millenia of the Federation’s ten thousand years.
There were instances in the past where popes were able to somehow, through unknown miraculous means, perform such feats of healing. They would preserve separated heads and bodies in stasis long enough to restart their hearts, reattach the disjoined flesh and restore their brains in suspended animation to full life.
However, that was during the so-called Transcendent era when popes were incarnations of Osva Himself.
There has never been a pope since the Transcendent era who has successfully accomplished what Osva’s incarnations accomplished. There has never been any pope, incarnation or not, who has regrown the lower body of someone who has had their head decapitated.
There has to be something else going on. Sigvor tries to piece things together. She feels that the most crucial part is the fact that Ajax isn’t here right now. What happened to him in that building? Nothing catastrophic happened at least: there weren’t any collapsed buildings in that apartment complex, nor were there any plumes of smoke.
Ajax must have succeeded then, but at what cost?
What if… something happened to him? He’s probably not dead but… something bad happened. What if that’s the reason why she’s going through this… psychotic break? That’s what it is, right? A step over the edge of insanity. I shouldn’t bring his name up right now. I need to speak to her calmly. If something bad happened to Ajax, then it makes sense why she’s like this. The head in the bag must be…
It must be the head of the terrorist who harmed him so badly. That’s the only thing that Sigvor can reasonably assume. Sigvor takes a deep sigh. Right now, she has to be understanding for not only Shaula’s sake but for Ajax as well.