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]

"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."

[aceso]

"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."

hover for translation

[foxsays]

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.

[aceso]

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.

[foxsays]

"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.

[aceso]

"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.

[foxsays]

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.

[aceso]

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.