Prompt: Recovery

Soft.

Soft and cozy and warm.

Lena snuggled deeper into the soft blankets, so fluffy they felt like they went on forever.

"Come on, Lena. Open your eyes for me."

But Lena didn't want to. She was tired. She felt like it was six in the morning on a school day after a week of staying up too late to finish homework. She squeezed her eyes tighter and burrowed under the blankets.

Those blankets were lifted from her face. "I know you can hear me, lass. Just for a few minutes, then you can go back to sleep."

But that would ruin everything. If she woke up now, she'd have to start all over again to get back to sleep, and by that point, it wasn't even worth it. Besides, Violet was no doubt ready to bombard her with whatever new knowledge from the book she had her beak buried in this week, and Webby was probably ready to rope them into some crazy adventure, and just five more min-

Oh.

Oh no.

Magica.

Terror gripped her as she remembered what was happening. Lena curled in on herself. She couldn't breathe; Magica was choking her again. Lena clawed at her throat, desperate to tear her hands away.

Lena's hands were gently pulled away from her neck. "Careful, now. You don't want to rip up the bandages."

That...was not Magica De Spell.

Lena cautiously cracked her eyes open. She was in a big bed in an even bigger room. Scraps of sunlight peeked through drawn curtains.

"That's it, lassie."

Lena turned her head to find Scrooge McDuck sitting on a chair next to the bed. He looked tired.

"You're safe now. Magica cannae get to ye here."

Lena was pretty sure she'd never been in this room before, but everything about it screamed McDuck Manor. Now that she thought about it, Lena vaguely remembered the plane ride back. A kind hand placed protectively on her shoulder, hushed admonishments to "quit messing about, Launchpad, and get us back to Duckburg in one piece!"

Lena's hand drifted toward the familiar weight that...should have been...on her chest...

"It's right here," Scrooge said, gesturing to where the amulet sat on the night table. "I know enough about magic to know that you don't want it on you when you're in that shape."

Lena stared at it. "How'd you get it off?"

"That thing's smarter than you'd think," said Scrooge. "It could tell that I wasn't trying to hurt you."

Lena laughed weakly. "Aunt Magica would be so mad."

Scrooge chuckled. "That she would, lass."

Lena's eyelids began to slip shut.

"Get some rest, Lena," she heard Scrooge say as the world dropped away.

Lena next awoke to a set of arms squeezing her around the middle.

"I was quite worried," Violet said when Lena opened her eyes.

Violet hopped off of the bed. "You need your rest," she said by way of explanation.

"Wait!" Lena blurted out.

Violet turned around.

"Stay for a little bit," Lena said. "Please."

Violet smiled and got back on the bed.

Lena rested much easier knowing that her sister was right beside her.

Lena grimaced as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees buckled when her feet reached the floor, and she had to steady herself against a wave of dizziness. Her limbs were stiff from unuse. She painfully made her way towards the bathroom, which was thankfully only two rooms down.

Once she finished, she took a look at herself in the mirror. She could see angry purple bruises mottled underneath her feathers. The bandages around her neck were getting a bit grimy. They felt too close, like, like-

Before Lena could think about what she was doing, she tore the bandages away. Her neck was red, all scraped up like a skinned knee. There were two purple bruises pressed into the front, and she could see more leading to the back. Lena gingerly felt around her neck, feeling the raised scratches that marked it.

Her mind drifted back a few days. Lena could almost feel the chunks of the potion forcing their way down her throat, all slimy and hard, like eating jelly-covered fettuccine and rocks.

Once Lena remembered that feeling, she couldn't get it out of her mind. It was stuck in her mouth, forcing her to relive it over and over again. Bile rose up in her throat, and she barely made it to the toilet before she was emptying the meager contents of her stomach. Her muscles contracted painfully, trying to purge her body of the potion that had largely left her system. When they finally stopped, Lena sank to the floor and tried to catch her breath.

"Lena!" Webby called.

"I'm," Lena swallowed, "I'm in the bathroom!"

Lena heard some footsteps. Then the door opened.

"You startled me," she said. She frowned upon seeing Lena on the floor. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," Lena said. "I think so."

Webby offered her hand. Lena took it, and Webby pulled her to her feet.

"You need new bandages on your neck," Webby said.

Lena couldn't help but let her dread leak onto her face. "Do we have to?"

"Well, yeah," Webby said. She looked at Lena's neck thoughtfully. "Is there anything we can do to make it better?"

"I don't know," said Lena, looking at it again in the mirror. "Maybe make them a little looser?"

The girls spent the next half hour experimenting-tight bandages, loose bandages, softer bandages, stiffer bandages. Finally, they found a combination that seemed to work, and Webby doodled a picture of herself, Lena, and Violet all standing under a rainbow on them. Not that it really mattered, because Lena couldn't see it unless she was looking in the mirror, but it still brightened her day.

Lena was running through corridors that seemed to stretch on forever. Something was chasing her. It was close. She desperately looked over her shoulder, but she couldn't see anything. A raven cawed in the distance; something about its cry didn't fit in the narrow hallways, like the sound belonged in a field, or a big ballroom. It made Lena almost feel dizzy. She drifted to close to one side as she ran, scraping up her arm and her shoulder, but she didn't slow down. She couldn't.

Something whispered right next to her ear. Lena swatted at it. The sound disappeared for just a moment before it came back. Lena swatted again, but it wouldn't stay away. She tried twice more before clapping her hands over her ears to block out the sound. The raven crowed again, and the next thing Lena knew, she'd tripped over her own feet and was tumbling down the passageway at about the same speed she'd been running.

She didn't know if it was better or worse.

Lena made it back to her feet and kept on running. She wasn't sure how she'd made it this long without dropping from exhaustion.

Lena felt something come up behind her. Paralyzed with fear, she couldn't bring herself to look back, but she could somehow see a pair of jagged, black claws reaching for her throat. Lena pressed forward, trying desperately to avoid the inevitable, and just when those hands were about to wrap themselves around her neck...

Lena opened her eyes to find herself laying in her big, luxurious bed in McDuck Manor.

The only light came from the moon and stars hanging in the sky outside of her window. The clock said that it was almost three in the morning. She drew the blankets closer and tried to convince herself that there wasn't anything lurking in the shadows.

"Do you think it's going to scar?"

It was now a week since Lena had been rescued from Magica's clutches. Mrs. Beakley had ordered her out of bed, and Lena had stopped in the middle of getting dressed to inspect her neck. Mrs. Beakley had agreed to let her wait a few hours before putting fresh bandages on. To allow it to breathe.

"It's not very likely," Mrs. Beakley said, making up the bed. "I could give you some lotion for it if you're worried, but you'll have to wait a while longer to use it."

Lena kept looking at her neck. The bruises had begun to fade, but the scrapes had scabbed over, leaving her neck looking like it had gone through a cheese grater.

"Maybe," she said. She tore herself away from the mirror to put her sweater on.

"Lena! Are you ready yet?" Webby yelled from the hallway. Lena couldn't stifle the smile that threatened to spread across her beak.

"Coming!" she yelled back. She ran a brush through her hair and rushed out of the room to join her friends.

"Quiet games only! No adventuring!" Mrs. Beakley called after them.

"Eat foam, rebel scum!"

"Technically, they aren't rebels, since they haven't actually rebelled against anything-"

"Shut up, Huey!"

Lena ducked behind a huge, person-sized vase. She wielded her foam-dart gun close, ready to fire. The door to the living room opened and Lena pulled the trigger with half a dozen rapid-fire clicks.

"Whoops! Sorry, Mrs. B!" she called out as she ran toward the stairs. Mrs. Beakley frowned disapprovingly as she pulled foam darts from her face, which meant that this was the best kind of game.

Lena was still laughing as she ran up the stairs...and right into Dewey and onto the floor.

"I've got you right where I want you," he said, holding up his dart gun. He cocked it and took aim. The world seemed to slow down as the dart gun gave a buzzing click and a green foam dart flew towards her. The next thing she knew, she was curled into fetal position, her head pressed to her knees, desperately trying to shield herself.

"All I did was shoot at her with a dart gun! That's the whole game! And I missed!" Dewey was saying.

"Well, obviously you did something wrong!" Huey shot back.

Someone knelt down next to her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Lena? Are you all right?"

But Lena couldn't respond. She had to get out, she had to get out, she had to get out, but she couldn't seem to move.

"Lena?"

"Take a deep breath," Violet said. "You're safe. Everything's ok."

Lena closed her eyes and focused on breathing. Slowly, her heart rate slowed to "just did some exercise" instead of "the world is about to end," and her panic began to subside. She slowly lifted her head.

"I'm...ok," Lena said. "Everything's fine." She laughed nervously. "I was just, uh, getting a little too much into character. Hey, a new episode of Ottoman Empire starts in five minutes; who wants to go watch that?"

"Ooooh! Oooooh! I do!" Dewey said as Lena and Violet exchanged worried glances. He dropped his dart gun and ran down the stairs. "Last one there has to get the Pep!"

Huey looked at the trio of girls sitting on the floor. Webby gave him a nod, and he nodded back and followed his brother down the stairs.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Webby asked.

"Of course! I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be?" Lena said, voice cracking.

"Should I list the reasons alphabetically or chronologically?" Violet asked.

Lena had to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at her. Instead, she said, "I'm fine. Really."

"It's ok to not be ok," Webby said. Her voice was kind and gentle, and there was no trace of judgement in it, even though Lena had ruined their game.

Tears sprang to Lena's eyes. She nodded. "I know," she whispered.

"You don't have to talk about it right now if you don't want to, but we're here for you," Webby said.

"No matter what you need, or when, we'll come running," Violet said with a grin.

Lena smiled and pulled her two best friends into a hug. "You guys are the best."

"Not as great as you," Webby said. "Now let's go watch some Ottoman Empire!"

The girls headed down the stairs arm-in-arm.

"There is no way I'm getting the Pep."

"Of course not. We'll get Dewey to. It's his fault that we had to cut our Ultimate Foam-Dart Gun Rematch short."

"Not to mention that it was his idea for one person to retrieve the Pep for all of us."

"That's a good point."