Right away, Crystal would likely notice the miserable state she was in. Dradiro's spell had half-healed most of her life-threatening injuries, but infection brought on by weeks of neglect was still ravaging her body. The punctures on her hands were in the worst condition, the nails so cruelly driven into her flesh had torn the tendons within to ribbons. Had they gone untreated for much longer it was unlikely Aryel would ever be able to competently hold or grip something ever again. Her shoulders weren't so terrible, but hanging for so long had still left them severely damaged, to say nothing of the broken bones in her wing and ribcage. She burned with fever as her dying body tried desperately to purge itself of infection, but her cold, clammy skin denoted the sudden lack of adequate blood in her system--thanks to her sudden loss of a limb. Healing spells were needed that could do more than just close wounds--muscles and nerves had to be knitted back together, bones reset or pushed back into their sockets, tendons repaired. Infection had to be cleansed, vitals replenished. Even with magic and spells, it was entirely possible for one to simply be too far gone, and slip into death simply from shock. Yet through it all, the tiefling clung stubbornly to life, wavering on the precipice of death but never pitching over the edge.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>It would be almost a full twenty-four hours before Aryel stirred again. Consciousness returned gradually, sound and feeling coming before sight. She was laying on fabric sheets, certainly preferable to a dungeon floor. The air was heavy with the scent of dried herbs and other substances, a medley that might have almost been comforting had the events of the previous day not come pushing back into her mind. She curled up on her side, a quiet groan the first noise she had made since coming into the witch's care. She remembered it all now, what<i>he</i>had done. She could feel the emptiness at her back where there would have normally been her wing's weight.<br/><br/>Moving slowly and stiffly, her head still groggy, Aryel tried to sit up on the cot. She could barely keep her head up, it felt as if her body weighed a thousand pounds. With shaking limbs, she turned so that her legs hung off the side of the cot, noticing that her armor had been removed and tossed in a pile by the bed, leaving her in trousers and open-backed tunic. Bandages were wrapped snugly around her hands, and she could feel one running under her shirt and around her torso to bind her wing-stump. When she moved to stand up, she immediately tilted sharply to the side, very nearly ending up sprawled on the floor. Each wing was almost ten feet worth of feathers, bone, and muscle, and to simply chop one off would obviously throw her off-balance. Her remaining wing was thrown outwards in an effort to balance herself, but the revelation that it was no longer broken brought her no joy.<br/><br/>As wobbly as a day-old foal, she braced herself against the cot and just stood there for a moment, head down, trying to come to terms with everything. She'd never fly again. Maybe Dradiro meant to drive fear into her, and maybe he had succeeded, but along with that fear came hatred even more vicious than before. She no longer had the energy to be as demonstrative of that hatred, but it would remain, building and festering within her.