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

[foxsays]

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!]]

Comments

[foxsays]

She'll heal. She'll have another scar - or more, bending to look at her ribs is too uncomfortable to be worth the effort - and more nightmares to take her up to the rooftops when she wakes up in the middle of the night anyway. The fear of her the shard in her hand replaced with something new, darker and sharper, knives in the dark. And once she's better she can lose herself in her studies again, slip the mask back on. Like it never happened. Not ever being hard but just...trying to keep the girl that fell through the rift safe should that girl get to go home again to everyone that loves her. So they'll be able to look at her and know her for their Araceli, and not a girl that had bad things happen to her, that made herself strange and cold and different.

"When we rescued the mages in Dairsmuid, no, before, when I went to the camp. They were worried about how much lyrium the Templars had. I understand now. How dangerous it would have been if it had been too much or too little." Less dangerous in the physical fight but still. How dangerous would it have been with them all out of their heads the same way she's been feeling with the withdrawal but full of anger and hate? All of that twisted in a building where even she could feel the pain and death in the air?

Nodding, she tenses all her muscles on the inhale, holds her breath for a shaky count of three then exhales and goes loose as she can so it won't hurt as much as it might. "It's going to scar, no?" Not that she flashes her legs but no one will show her it and she isn't flexible enough at present to really get a good look at the damage so she doesn't know how bad it really is. Her face screws up though, breath whistling between her teeth before she speaks. "Tender. Better than it was but-- si, tender."

[amygdalae]

The Templars having lyrium... well, that's a whole different ball game, really, but Bruce thinks right now she's had enough to chew on, as it were. Maybe when she's better he'll give her a more proper explanation - besides, its not as if she's all that wrong in her assumptions there.

"It will," he replies, a silent apology in his voice. "I can give you something to try and improve it when the time comes, but the scar won't really fade away entirely." He understands well what weight scars could carry and what they could mean to people - after all he's had more than a few scars himself across his body, all hidden by his clothes and his need for privacy. It's not exactly something he wants to burden others with.

Once he has a response from her he nods and eases the pressure off her wound, pulling the cloth away to check on it. No blood - that was good. The skin was healing well enough, then. "I'll put some poultice that can help cool the skin and reduce any chances of inflammation. It'll help to promote healing, too, so with luck the worst of the pain should be gone by the end of this week."

[foxsays]

"I have scars, I don't know who saw the other ones when I came back." People had stripped her out of the ruins of her armour, had helped change her clothes, and there are scars easily seen when checking her leg, or her ribs, but was Bruce there? All the faces blur after a while and she can't keep track of them. "Too cold to go flashing my legs for anyone but Korrin," she tries to joke but it comes out too high, too off. "I don't know how deep the wolf bit me."

Not Ruby. That wasn't Ruby, that was something the Venatori did after every other hurt inflicted upon them. If she tried to hold it against Ruby it'd hurt her too much as well.

"Gracias, I am trying not to scratch. No one wants me gone from here more than me." Araceli is aware enough to know she hasn't been a blessing as far as patients go. "And for not pushing the magic on me. Some of them look at me like I have six heads when I'm working my thumb to stop it from going stiff."

[amygdalae]

Bruce had been around for some of it, though it was brief mostly out of a desire to give her some privacy. A female surgeon had been the one to look over her wounds, and Bruce checked them later on to confirm what he had gotten. Beyond that, he did not do much in that area.

He gives a wry smile in response to that first bit, though it falters slightly at the mention of the Wolf--Ruby. e had been there himself, had seen the Wolf and how it was with his eyes. She was still down in the dungeons recovering and Bruce hadn't quite mustered up the courage to see her yet, but--soon. Hopefully. Eventually.

"It was quite deep, but not deep enough to do any lasting damage," he reassures her, while he sets the cloth aside and brings out the poultice that he was going to use on her. "And you don't need to thank me; I'm just glad you're recovering without any further complications." Its the most he could ask for, honestly. The fact that she was on the road to recovery was a huge relief for him - and for the people who knew her too, he was sure.

[foxsays]

Araceli had snuck off. Maybe not so sneakily but she had gone, and limped, and it had-- it had hurt. Hurt more than just her leg and her ribs and her hand to make her way there when she and Ruby had talked but how many other people were going to understand? Not many. Being a number, not being yourself, that sort of fear of being swallowed up by something that isn't you, that won't ever be you.

Not that she wants to remember everything that Ruby said to her when it cuts too close to the bone, to trying to hold onto all the pieces of herself that are so hard to keep hold of so far from the sea - I must get back to the sea, that's never sounded so loud in her head before, was it loud in the heads of anyone else that was down there with her when she was losing her mind? - but it had been good to go. Even if she'd been scolded so severely she'd wanted to cry after.

"The muscle will hold my weight when I climb then?" It's too difficult to keep that sort of hope out of her voice when he knows what she's like, when it's all she can think about when she's having a good day. That sort of freedom up on the walls, high above everyone, scrambling about. "You're putting up with me, I know I am...difficult. And that I would be back where I want to be if I let them cast healing spells on me but after all that-- I think they hit us with some sort of spell, when they took us. I couldn't move. None of us could. And I know none of you would do that to me but they--"

Breaking off she shakes her head, reaching out to set her hand on his arm briefly so she doesn't interrupt his work, but she's struggling with words and this is easier for her, a touch to say she appreciates it as she musters a smile. "All of this is new to me. And hard. And I will not forget this kindness or this patience.

[amygdalae]

"With enough time and some exercise to get it back in shape - yes, it will. But you can't rush it either." Bruce didn't need to be much of a genius to guess what she wanted to do, given what he already know of ans was aware of her. He could understand her concerns and her pain and knew that sitting around like this was the worst thing to do--but still. Some things couldn't change. Some things just... were. Inevitability, one might say.

For a moment the memory of that day flashes in his mind, but before it roots itself into his mind there is the touch of a hand on his arm, and his thoughts stop there and then. He blinks out from old memories and looks at the Rifter--at Araceli, at her gratitude and her touch and her words.

Bruce manages a small smile in return before he looks back down, letting out a slow, quiet breath. He mixes up the poultice in the container a bit to get the herbs together again while he speaks. "I'm only doing my job. There is no need to thank me for anything." All that matters is that she is well, and she can recover and perhaps, in time, move on from this. To let this whole event fade away in her mind as a forgotten memory. That would be the best ending, he thinks. They - the Rifters - need that, after all of this.

[foxsays]

"With people watching me." That's going to rankle for a while. Someone who prides herself on not being seen, making everything she does seem so effortless? People will just 'happen to be walking past' and it will drive her mad to force herself to be polite to them, to not snap or lose her temper. "I wish I had a reason to go somewhere else where the water is warm, where I could go swimming every day and every night. There's no weight on the body then, your strength comes back so quickly."

And the sea loves her, the sea would take all of her tears because what is salt to the sea, what is a few drops more? What is pouring out all her grief and anger into it, all the bitterness and the loneliness, holding herself under the surface until her lungs burn, forcing her way back up so it's like being born all over, letting the tide tug at her - what is any of that to the sea? Hasn't it seen everything the world has known and forgotten? She knows it has. Knows it the same way she knows she has her father's hair and his smile, her mother's eyes and the curve of her mouth.

Watching him work in silence for a time, with the smile of the herbs uncomfortably familiar, she blows out an explosive sigh. "It doesn't mean I'm any less grateful. I wouldn't want to take someone for granted. Lots of things are overlooked all the time and doing what you do, seeing what you see? It's not easy. I couldn't do it. I think it takes a certain sort of person to be there when someone doesn't even know if they want to get better at first because they don't really remember what better is. So I am grateful, Bruce, very much so."

[amygdalae]

The best thing Bruce can do in response to that first part is another smile, though this one is a little more strained. He knows that nothing he says will probably help with those feelings right now, so the best he can do is to try and focus on the things that he can help with.

He finishes mixing up the herbs in the container and after taking a moment to settle her leg properly, begins to apply the mixture onto her injury, taking great care to be gentle through the whole thing. He listens to her next words which... is, well, perhaps too kind, really. Really, he is only doing what he can do, and he's just glad to be able to be helpful. To try and make people better even when they feel that they can't because Bruce has been there - and perhaps, is still there. It's not a place for people like her to be in.

"Maybe when you're feeling better you could go down to the springs," he suggests, tone light. "It's not the sea or a very big body of water, but it is warm." And it would help her as well, which is all the better. He knows the hot springs are probably a poor substitute, but right now its the best they have. He just hopes that its enough for her.

[foxsays]

Araceli tries very hard not to squirm. Tries. The cold feels good on the wound but goosebumps prickle everywhere else, and as careful as Bruce is, it still hurts. And honestly the feeling of a poultice is just unpleasant, something that makes her think of slimy things oozing all over her until she can feel bile catch and burn in the back of her throat, nose stinging. She swallows, breathes, tries to pay attention to what Bruce is saying as she forces herself not to tense up.

Hurts more when you do that, she tells herself sharply. Go loose, accept it.

"Will I be allowed? With the heat?" Heat makes her itchy, as if someone rubbed rashvine all over the leg. It sounds nice in theory but she wants to check before she makes the effort to go down there, especially when Pel's been helping to take care of her hair. Which she'll still need help with in the hot springs anyway thanks to her hand. "Some of the oils I use...I can ask Korrin to get things that aren't scented, they sting enough in little cuts. If I get them in that mess I think I would scream Skyhold down. Of course, you might not fish me back out. You have not considered that doctor." Look at that, she's smiling, no, she's smirking. Well done.

[amygdalae]

Well at least it seemed his words somehow managed to improve her mood, and honestly that made him feel better more than anything else. It was good to see that she could be her old self again - however slowly that may be. And of course she wouldn't be exactly the same as she had been with what she had experienced, but still... baby steps, and all that. All she needed was time.

"Well, just don't dunk yourself in head first all the way in at once." There is a wryness to his voice this time, encouraged a little by her response. "Take it slow. Your leg shouldn't be a problem as long as you don't stay in the water for more than an hour - keep it wrapped up, and quickly dry it as soon as you get out." Of course preferably he wouldn't want her to go and get it wet in the first place, but he could also understand her dilemma. As long as she had supervision (which Ataash fulfilled rather well) and would follow his advice for the most part, he would be fine with it.