Albedo expected pain when consciousness returned. Instead, he felt warmth. It was the first sensation that reached him through the fog.
Then came weight. A small, familiar weight pressed gently against his chest, rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic pattern that tugged at something instinctive and deeply protective inside him.
He frowned faintly before his eyes even opened.
Hospital.
He could smell it before he fully registered it. Clean linens. Sterile alchemical disinfectants. Faint undertones of restorative herbs steeping somewhere nearby. Beneath all of it, the gentle hum of advanced healing wards layered carefully through the room like overlapping lullabies.
His eyelids felt heavier than they should have.
He forced them open anyway.
