When Altair woke up several weeks had passed. She was laying in a white room that she felt like she had been in before but couldn't remember. As she thought about it she was attacked by a vicious headache so she thought about other things instead.

Over the course of tens of minutes she found that she couldn't remember the details of several large chunks of her life. Most of them revolved around her time in the Demi-Human Survival Coalition. When she tried to think deeper on any of them, it would cause a headache to assault her. Even if she pushed through the pain, she would only remember blurred details that didn't seem to fit right. She couldn't even figure out what exactly was wrong with what she remembered, only that it didn't feel correct to her for some reason.

This caused her expression to turn unsightly. She didn't know why she was missing her memories but she subconsciously blamed it on the Gods that she had been around, all except for Donel.

After coming to this conclusion Altair sighed and sat up. There wasn't anything she could do about it since she didn't have her Mana and didn't know how to recover memories with it anyway. She wasn't even aware of any Magic that could manipulate memories either. So, thinking about it would only bother her further. It wasn't like she had forgotten about Maxwell or any of the important things in her life. At least, she hoped not, because she couldn't remember if they were important either.

She looked around the fairly small white room and found that the walls were made of sheets. She suddenly had a feeling that she had been somewhere like this before but put it out of her mind. She pulled the sheet aside and saw a man she had never met before sitting in a chair a meter or so away from her bed. This caused her brows to scrunch up as she wondered just where she was and what happened to her.

The man she saw was the doctor involved in treating her injuries. He had tried every machine they had to treat Altair's injuries and they were all useless. At the end of it he had to manually treat Altair like he was from the ancient past. It was mortifying for him and he was horribly out of practice. After all, surgery was so rarely done to treat injuries that it was almost unheard of to have to do it. As a result he wound up damaging some of Altair's cerebral cortex and some of her nerves in her brain during treatment. He wasn't even aware of what he had done.

The surgery was done with nanomachines that they had stuck into her through the back of her neck. He then used the camera's on them to investigate her injuries and healed them as best as he could. However, this was an archaic healing method and the strange green blood caused the camera's to blur, unlike how it would normally be with their own blood. As a result, certain mistakes were made that went unnoticed.

The doctor looked over at Altair and gave her a warm smile, "Ah, you're finally awake." He walked over to do an examination while asking, "Are you felling alright?"

Altair digested his words as she concentrated on figuring out his meaning. Once she put together what he meant she was about to say yes when a sudden string of images assaulted her mind. It was a mixture of what Joshua had done to her and what happened before she came to the World of Gods. She quickly held her head as a headache rampaged within while saying, "No." She sorted through her memories and slowly latched onto the key point that her mind was trying to tell her: cure the poison immediately.

The doctor looked surprised as he quickly grabbed several devices to check Altair's health. Just as quickly as he grabbed them he asked, "Where does it hurt? How does it hurt?"

Altair shook her head and pushed his hands away from her feebly. "Donel where?" She didn't know this God and didn't have much trust for Gods in general. Especially after what Joshua had done with her, the trust she had for them had plummeted to a new low for her. They were almost akin to Humans in her mind. The only one she had any trust in right now was Donel. He was the one she would tell and ask help from and no one else.

The doctor sighed lightly before answering, "He's outside, do you want me to get him?" It wasn't strange for children to want someone they knew nearby when they woke up in a strange place so he didn't take any offense to her rejection of his treatment, even though the child before him should have long outgrown such behavior.

Altair nodded her head. She had something to tell him and to ask for his help. She needed to get this poison out of her as soon as possible if she wanted to survive. If that boy showed up again and she didn't have her Mana to help defend herself then she was sure she would die. She didn't live through four years of war to die to a random kid for petty reasons.

The doctor moved to do as she requested and let Donel into the room. However, he wasn't the only one who came in with him. There were four other stern looking men in suits that came in as well. They all moved toward Altair, with Donel moving to one side of her and the other men moving to the opposite him.

Their appearance drew an odd look from Altair. She didn't know these people and it was obvious they weren't friends of Donel. She had no idea why they were here if they were clearly at odds with him.

The doctor had been disturbed by the fact that Altair's blood was green. Medically speaking, he couldn't come up with any excuse as to why that would be or even how it was possible. This led him to investigate the medical history of Altair's fake identity that the Marnithok family created. He quickly found several holes in what they had set up, the most glaring being that the orphanage that Altair was supposed to have come from had been torn down four decades ago. Since he worked for the government first and found this cover up of whatever was wrong with the girl, he quickly sent word through his superiors about the situation.

This caused the government to get involved and they dug around on their own. It didn't take them much time at all to find the doctor's that had taken care of Altair on the starship to Ordin Prime. After they got in contact with that doctor they only grew more suspicious about Altair's identity, along with the full reports the doctor's had made on Altair's health. Armed with all that information they came to a single conclusion: This girl was born out in the barrier worlds and raised in a hostile environment as a test subject where her blood got contaminated by the elements of the world she lived on.

They were curious about the entire effects it was having on her body so they wanted to take her into their won custody to run tests of their own. They wouldn't push too hard though because the Marnithok family had a certain amount of government backing on their right. Those that were interested were just small fish in the government. Most of the bigger fish turned a blind eye to the report immediately so if the small fish were rebuffed in verbal dialogue they wouldn't be able to do anything. Still, they took the chance to come and attempt to secure the child through a verbal duel and by getting the child's permission.

A man from the government side spoke to Altair first in a confident tone, "Aria how are you feeling? I am from the Ordin Empire's child welfare division. I came here today because I was worried about your health. I received a report that you may have been abused in the Marnithok home. This is a safe place and I assure you that they cannot hurt you here. Why don't you tell me everything that happened to you?"

Altair gave him a look of utter bewilderment the moment he called her by someone else's name. She was also confused about the storm of words she couldn't understand and suspected they might be important. but couldn't guess most of their meaning. Still, she didn't want to waste time on that when she had better things to do. So she turned to look at Donel because dealing with the poison in her body was far more important to her than entertaining people she didn't know. She simply stated, "Donel alone." She didn't have a very wide range of vocabulary yet in their language so she could only phrase what she wanted with those two simple words.

Donel gave the government workers a ferocious smile as he mockingly said, "You heard her. She wants to talk to me in private so, if you would excuse yourselves now that would be lovely." He did not like the fact that these government workers had come here without any permission from his Master. They had the gall to try and steal someone that his Master had recently adopted into the family. As if he could feign cordiality with such people.

The government workers expression's turned unsightly at his words and mocking tone. They couldn't do anything if Altair didn't want to talk to them though. But they still wouldn't give up so easily and leave the entire building. They would return to question her when he wasn't around.

The government workers and the doctor left the room. Once they were gone, Altair looked at Donel and held out her hand while saying, "Knife."

Donel gave her a curious expression as he looked around the room for a suitable plastic knife. He wasn't about to give her a real knife that could pose a threat to anyone. He had been informed of why they kept Altair tied to the bed during the whole starship ride recently and didn't want to risk getting in trouble with his Lord because of a minor mistake that turned into a mountain. Coupled with the fact that Joshua had violently beaten her, he suspected that she might have some feelings of resentment toward the Marnithok family and himself.

Donel found a plastic knife nearby. It was on a tray that he suspected was set up in case food was brought in at some point for Altair. He brought it back to Altair and handed it over without any precautions.

Altair took it into her hand and examined it. It was a dull knife that would not suit her purposes at all and was completely useless for what she wanted to say. However, she could still get her point across with it after some modifications.