faderift | For my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep

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For my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura; open
WHAT: Wow was closing those rifts a bad time and double wow guess who is a terrible patient
WHEN: post plot/early Octoberish; we can handwave time a bit
WHERE: Healing tents; her + Korrin's room later
NOTES: Okay there will be discussions of injuries here as well as what went on in that plot, I'll try to put warnings in headers if specifics come up but if there are things you aren't comfortable with discussing, let me know (Araceli's ic/ooc inbox, plurk or discord all work!)
Also let me know when you're catching her since that'll change how injured she is/if she's still lyrium'd to the gills!

There isn't much of a choice in where she goes when she comes back to Skyhold. Araceli is sent to the healing tents, too hurt, too tired, too out of her head to even attempt to argue. Half her arguments aren't even in a language the healers about her understand until one of the Rivaini mages agrees to step in, knowing decent enough Antivan but she drifts. Tries to sort through memories with her right hand curled against Lux who visibly bristles even at friends throughout the first awful days. Her left arm is useless, bandaged tightly to keep her from hurting it more, right leg not much better. Healing potions and spells are turned away. Sleep, she just wants to sleep.

(There are too many nightmares but she presses her face to Lux, and at least she can open the flap of the tent to breathe fresh air when she struggles for air when she fights herself awake.)

Later, when she's able to argue a little better, she attempts to sneak out. Attempts. Being that her right leg is weak and aching and useless. The bandages are off to reveal stitches closing up the wound in her calf, maybe with another poultice slapped on if someone argues her into it. But she's been stuck somewhere against her will already for so long that she can't explain the itch under her skin or that she can't breathe when she's trapped in the tent, that no she never just lies down to sleep all at once, and the longer she's cooped up, the worse her temper gets. Her head feels more like hers; she's Araceli, she's been here nearly a year now, she's Korrin's kadan, she knows all of that. But she looks up at the walls with longing, testing her thumb, attempting to put more weight on her leg--

(I've been shot, I've been stabbed, I've broken bones worse, I can climb again, I can, I can--)

Eventually she gets to go back to her and Korrin's rooms, either for a few hours or because she's well enough that they don't have reasons to keep her. Still, she's always running around doing something. And she's bored. Tremendously bored. Stuck in a chair or more likely the bed because she doesn't like admitting how sore and how tired she is, not really, and there's an open door policy if you know to look for the one with the blue seashell. There are books scattered about, and all of Araceli's cards and dice but playing games with herself is no fun when she wants a distraction.

(You should probably give Korrin a break, having to deal with this pain in the ass all the time.)

[[ooc: any mix is good - like bringing cards etc to the healing tents - or wildcard it up, just check in if it's when she's still full of lyrium for memory flash stuff!]]

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If Neria Castell were here, the stories she could tell. On the other hand, if Neria Castell were here then Araceli might not be so upset; no matter how much you know your mother cannot magically make it all go away, there's no denying wanting your mother when something awful has happened. But Araceli's mother is at home, and Araceli is here, and so Araceli keeps that tucked away and sticks to every poultice that makes her gag from the smell.

At least her stitches have held. One-handed, full of lyrium, still shaken from a fight but with only a little tidying up here and there they've held just the way they would at home. Not everyone is impressed but she didn't set out to impress them, only to stop herself from bleeding all over the floor after Ruby shook her like a stuffed doll.

It's a little sad that the word walk makes her eyes light up but she's not used to being cooped up or having to have someone (Korrin) carry her if she really wants to go somewhere (visiting with Martel or Ruby mainly). The crutch is viewed with confusion, because she knows what it is, what it's for, but she has no idea why Christine has brought it here.

"Is that to hit people with?" Do you think she's joking Christine? Because she's smiling, but she's not joking. There are quite a few people she would like to hit with that, and it looks good and sturdy.

Edited 2016-09-25 21:57 (UTC)

Holding out the crutch, she taps the edge of the bed with it. "It is to hit you with if you cross me." But it's said with a laugh and a smile before Christine comes closer and puts the end back on the ground.

"It is for you to use to bear some of your weight. I do not want you to put your full weight down on your injured leg just yet."

"I do not know if you are aware of my sirena, she is very tall, very strong, also a mage. I will tell her." Did you know that Araceli can look incredibly sad and upset at the drop of a hat Christine? Look at that small face, look at it. "What things you say to me, when I have been through all that I have, and threaten to visit violence upon me."

Where does she submit her complaints about such treatment?

"My leg was not cut off. I have been shot in that leg and the other, raced across rooftops in the dead of night, and not once have I used a crutch. How will it get better if it gets weak from doing nothing?" Pain to Araceli means something. It's been cutting through the haze of lyrium leaving her body, it's been something to help her wake from the nightmares, to keep her grounded in the present.

The idea of hobbling along on a crutch? Martel and his vanity when Korrin had to carry her to see him in bed suddenly makes much more sense now.

"As if you would not try to walk away from my threats as you have tried to walk away from the tents," she replies, giving Araceli a look that says the sad act doesn't work on her. Not when as many patients as she has had come in and out of these tents.

"I can tell you why. Because the body is a miraculous thing. If it is injured, and you keep putting stress and strain on the injury, it cannot heal itself. If you rest, it will slowly work to put itself to rights again. And there comes a point between the two when you can carefully see how the healing is coming along."

Of course, they wouldn't be here having this conversation if Araceli would just let herself be healed magical, so Christine hardly thinks she should complain about her current state since there is no other way around it.

"I managed," Araceli sounds too proud about that but well, there you go. "I didn't have to crawl on my belly to get away from all of you talking as if there are thick walls and not some flimsy scraps of cloth about us all the time." Or maybe that's just her because she breaks up her sleep throughout the day by habit, and has very good reason to not trust anyone talking outside of where she's sleeping at the moment.

Especially not about her. She can clap her hands over her ears and still it doesn't drown it out.

"Ah yes, resting. It is a bite from a wolf, not a shark." A giant wolf. Driven mad by lyrium but Ruby isn't herself and she's been to see her since so there are worse things to be bitten by, she'll fight Ruby's corner on this. "Slow is fine for you maybe, you would be happy if I was never on the roofs again I would wager."

Fight her on the magical healing and she'll cry. She could articulate it better when she was well but after lyrium being forced into her by the Venatori, after feeling so utterly not herself, after they took her for her stupid hand and the shard in it? No. The thought of it still makes her throat so dry it closes in on itself.

"Indulge me," Christine says, offering Araceli the crutch. She won't be caught up in a constant circle of arguing with a patient. She's learned in her time here with the Inquisition that it only leads to frayed nerves and regretful outbursts all around.

"It has been a terrible time lately for many of us, myself included. It would ease my heart if you would do this for me. Please."

"How. My hand," and her throat closes because her hands are how she's made her living Christine, and she's not entirely ignorant about using a crutch. But she takes a deep breath, pushes everything sharp back down for someone else who might deserve it more than Christine and nods at the crutch then to her right leg.

"It goes on the left side if it's my right leg that's hurt, yes? They stood on my wrist and I broke my thumb to get out of my shackles." Even if it goes under her arm, the one thing she's been good at is not trying to do too much with the left hand so far, not after fighting the wolf. "How do I hold it without hurting the hand, I need that hand."

Christine brings back the crutch she's offering and sticks it under her right armpit.

"Not at all. The crutch is meant to take weight off the side that is injured, like so." She demonstrates, stepping forward with her left foot, then putting the crutch forward and swinging her right leg forward with it, leg bent at the knee. "Of course, you do not need to have your leg completely off the ground. The point is to see how much weight you can handle putting on it."

Still pulling a face at it, she nevertheless takes it when she gets the chance then pauses to adjust her clothes so there's a bit more to cover her ribs, so she doesn't knock the healing scabs over her ribs. They're almost healed enough that she can cross them off the list of concerns so she'd like to have one less thing to worry about.

It feels awkward, and for some reason she feels embarrassed enough that she wants to hide. But she sets her jaw stubbornly, grips the crutch tight with her right hand until her hand hurts and finds her balance which is easier said than done when she realises she needs to walk straight. "Can't swing my hips," she mumbles, half to herself to make sure she knows. Too little weight and the muscle won't get the strength back, too much and the healers will know because she can't hide it.

Progress is slow.

"If people laugh, hit them for me. I'll fall if I try."

"I could, but that's hardly the way for a healer to act," Christine says, following closely at Araceli's side where she can, and hanging back when there isn't room to walk alongside her. "What if I throw them an icy glare instead? I have been told I am quite good at those."

"Aintza - she's the Seer from Dairsmuid - threatened to throttle me with my own hair," Araceli replies because three people heard hermake that threat after Araceli as good as collapsed in a heap after seeing Ruby in the dungeons, which she did say she was doing. Just with a few tweaks. So everyone thought someone else was with her until she was back. It was worth it. "Do you know ice spells? You could freeze them a little maybe. It would be good for my spirit. It is need of healing too, I am so bored in this tent."

Scouts don't come to gamble with her and it's no fun gambling with people who are bad at it. And most of the people that try at the moment are so bad she doesn't even bother trying to win and still manages it anyway.

"Yes. I am quite good at ice spells." Better at spirit spells, but ice is next in line. "And I will consider it, but only if you are very pitiful looking." Of course, Christine is just teasing because she doesn't use her magic for things like that. Mages have a bad enough reputation without some mage thinking they're clever for using a spell on someone who back talks them or makes fun of them.

"If I cry, please remember who I share my bed with," Araceli replies, all mock sweetness and light. As if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth but Korrin would absolutely do it and she needs the laugh. So she's not above using the threat of her very tall Vashoth mage kadan if she needs to as she makes a face at the crutch, even as her gait becomes a little less unsteady.

"I'm going to have a bruise under my armpit," she mutters. "Can I pad it more? The top bit?"

"If you suspect Korrin will make me pay for not punishing those who mock you, why not have Korrin here herself to throw hexes at them, hmm?" In other words, the threat of a tall Vashoth mage kadan has no affect on her.

"Of course you may. We can wrap something soft around it."

"Because you are a healer, part of your job is looking after me here and here too." She taps her left hand - careful, so very careful, just the first two fingers with her thumb held so stiffly - to her head then her heart.

The looming shadow of the wall is ridiculous because it's not actually that tall, it's one of Araceli's biggest gripes about running around Skyhold. So few truly high places to climb or leap from, gaps she can't really lunge between because of the way it's laid out with hard ground below but she can't help herself from looking up when she moves further from the tents, stopping when she feels a little winded. "This is humiliating." And then she breathes again, clarifies. "A few weeks of nothing, and I become an old man."

"Araceli," she says gently, moving to stand in front of her. "If you truly feel I am not treating you well, I will try to correct myself. It is simply that I have had patients be very stubborn with me when I was only trying to help them. They always push, push, push -- at me and at themselves before their bodies are healed. I only have your best interests at heart." But something in what Araceli has said worries Christine. She works so hard to do what is best for patients. Is it still not enough? Surely giving them free rein to do as they please because it will take care of their head and heart is not wise. It will just end up with the patient exacerbating their physical injuries.

She moves out of Araceli's way and gestures to a free chair left out in the open. "Why not sit a moment? No one would mock someone with a crutch. They know a person has been hurt but has endured. They are strong."

Wobbling slightly at having to come to an abrupt halt when she has something like a third leg to manage all of a sudden, she sighs, the sound sudden and explosive. Christine has done nothing to earn whatever fit of foul temper - and it is temper, or something like a certain kind of stubborn petulance - that's possessed Araceli at the moment but right now it's so easy to indulge, to take her moods out on other people instead of doing what she always does. She had to swallow so much that she can't do it. Can't put on the right face, wear the mask.

"Suéltalo," she whispers to herself, repeating it a few more times under her breath until maybe the message sinks in and she can give Christine a proper answer. "Lo siento. No, you are not treating me poorly, but when you all treat me as if I am spun glass or a child, or as if a stiff wind will blow me over? When no one will joke and laugh with me? It's hard. I am trying to get better, and to forget, but when everyone is reminding me of limits and hurts and bad things without distractions?"

She makes to shrug then remembers the crutch and how she can't if she doesn't want to hurt herself with it.

There may be a language barrier but anyone can interpret the tone of an 'I'm sorry,' and she knows this is what Araceli is saying.

"Well," she begins, clasping her hands in front of herself, "I would be happy to joke with you. Anything in mind?" Christine can fall into banter pretty easily but she needs to know what Araceli wants.

"If you did cast an ice spell. And say I stuck out my crutch," because no, Christine, she's not letting go of this but there's maybe a bit of a reason when she went sailing through the air when the Wolf (not Ruby, never Ruby, she does her very best not to confuse the two in her head because that feels monstrously unfair) shook her like a ragdoll. "How far would a man go. If he just so happened to trip over one and slide on the other? If they had heavy armour."

And went flying right into the wall. Armour like the Venatori but a Templar would do really, anything with too much lyrium would do nicely.

"Oh, I do not know," she says, tapping a finger to her lips. "That would depend entirely upon how wide an area I cast my spell. But let us say at least eight feet. Does that satisfy?"

Not that she would do such a thing. Using magic for tricks isn't her style. But it's fun to dream.

Eight feet Christine says and Araceli considers it, tipping her head to the side, thinking about some of the sections of the battlements and walls around Skyhold that are crumbling, that might collapse after this winter when the new snow and ice form in the gaps before melting come spring. She's fallen that distance, mostly into water but she knows how it feels in a way, when the world twists.

"If we have something like what happened last First Day maybe I can get someone drunk enough and we can try it." Araceli's good at talking people into things but her shoulders relax another inch, and something around her eyes is less pinched so yes. It's better.

Christine exhales a laugh and slightly inclines her head at the idea.

"It should not be hard to find someone. People here enjoy their drink and have no idea of their tolerance." Which is hypocritical, seeing how she's overindulged on wine before. But certainly not enough that she'd go tumbling off the ramparts. Wine simply loosens her tongue.

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For my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep

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