Well, I guess now the day of ambiguity has truly passed, we can finally confirm a few things. So... let us begin with the...
Final Round: Rhapsody
Strop blinked himself awake in the room, a moment of panic with the unfamiliar surroundings and noises enough to rip him out of his nightmare. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, dying images dancing for his inner eye. He listened to distant steps and conversations, his horse ears twitching with each sound, trying to be able to hear it better or at least conclude whether he should bolt for the door whinnying. It took a few moments more before he recognied the sounds and surroundings as the Armor Hospital.
It was odd. He had been in a fight, a giant battle, but here he was, spooked at the sounds that usually meant safety, albeit a stressed safety. But here he was, in a bed, in a warm room with clean bed sheets. Nothing could harm him here, not if he had been brought here.
He sighed to himself, rubbing his nose against the pillow, calming himself and slowly going back to sleep.
Except a new sound was crawling to his ears and kept his attention on it. It was coming closer, not the usual determined steps of one of the nurses there, but rather a slow, hesitant set of steps.
His muscles tensed when the steps stopped outside the door to his room, and he once again felt the urge to flee whinnying out of the hospital. The door opened and he sat up with a snort.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
Strop blinked a little, his sensitive eyes taking a moment to adjust to the influx of light from the dim corridors. But he needed no light to-
"Cen! You made it!" Strop was moments from jumping out the bed, only stopping due to an unfamiliar pain in his entire corpus.
"I would appreciate you didn't sound so surprised."
"Oh, I didn't me-" Strop started, only too late hearing the short, chuckling laughter that followed, and he grew silent.
"Don't worry about it. I will leave you to sleep." Cen turned in the doorway, hand on the door handle.
"No, wait!" The horse called out, instantly feeling discouraged from following through with his idea, the reason he had opened his mouth. Instead he directed his thought of something else, something different. "Were you going to watch me sleep or something...?"
"Ah. No." Cen took a step back and closed the door, leaving the room to be illuminated by the window. "I'm just a little tired. I guess I thought it would be okay to sit in here for a bit." He faced Strop again, and motioned towards the chair on the side of the bed, before simply walking the few steps and seating himself in it.
Strop nodded slowly, moving back a bit in the bed to lean against the headboard himself.
"What time is it?" Strop asked, breaking the silence that had lasted a full minute. Apparently enough for Cen to fall asleep, or so it looked as he struggled back to consciousness to reply.
"Uh, five in the morning I believe." He coughed. "You got plenty of time before the nurses will come running to try and get you to perform miracles with the patients. Apparently someone got stabbed in the neck earlier, not to mention that bizarre case of Beaked Nazi Koala bites."
Strop hesitated for a bit, his head suddenly swimming with questions as the full event started to materialize in his head. But none of those questions seemed to be possible to even think of at that very moment. Instead he turned to another, much simpler issue: "Shouldn't you be sleeping too?"
Cen let out a breath. "Perhaps." Strop could see him shrug, the look of tired disregard, the exhaustion.
"Cen..." Strop hesitated, then sighed audibly as if this exhaust of air could somehow clear his mind. It didn't. But he had to... "About those.. things I said-"
"Don't think about it. Get some sleep instead." The other sat up properly in the chair, and judging from the reflection in his glasses, he was looking at Strop.
"But..."
"Get some rest. They are going to rip you apart in the morning." Cen rose from the chair, and moved back to the door once again. "Consider it a rehearsal for your intern-ship, doc."
Strop stared at his back, wondering how he knew. But then again, it was Cen. It actually explained a lot. Cen opened the door, and nodded back at Strop.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight." Strop moved a bit to lie down. "Could you..."
The door closed. Strop sighed and rubbed his sore nose a bit before going back to sleep. This time without nightmares.
