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

[motherfucking_ghost]

To see her, in the state she's in, smile? Grin? Laugh? That can't be comfortable, but she does it anyway. It's encouraging. And despite his self-doubt, he's also grinning. Takes the flask with a tilted salute and a drink (and a cough or two) before handing it back.

"You really think so? I might have to write some of that down, polish it up. I'll start rapping the tales of the dumbasses I was with." So there's that confirmation. He ticks them off on his fingers. "Lessie, we got Tucker, Caboose, Doc, Grif, Simmons, Sarge, Donut, and Tex." Look, Grif's sister kind of counts, but also kind of doesn't count, okay? Anything he makes up about her is likely to get hella lewd anyway. "Tucker, Caboose, and Tex were with me on my team, the others were on the other team, except for our three months late Doc. Wasn't his fault; we just had really shitty oversight where we were."

Sometimes, very very very briefly, there's the fear that none of this is real, that the rifts and this place and these people are just some new experiment. Gary sending him through a new scenario again. The Director toying with him. What if it's not real? What if some part of his computerized brain is rejecting reality and living the last few stretched out milliseconds here?

"I think that took out all my creativity for the week, though. You want me to get some cards, I can tell you in less rhyming terms about 'em? Maybe get some food, too?"

[foxsays]

"Need to teach you how to drink," she says, holding up the flask in a wobbly hand so that what little light there is in the tent makes the big octopus on the front dance. Or it always looks like it's dancing to her. She likes tracing it most of the time. "That's watered, so sailors aren't too drunk to work."

A sage nod. At least there are apparently some facts nestled so deep in Araceli that she can't forget them, generations of knowledge carved into her bones, truths you'd find if you cracked open the marrow.

But there's a more important thing when she tucks the flask back into her belongings, a name that catches because it makes her laugh again. "Donut? Is that a name? That...does not sound like a name. Or Caboose." Saying that one makes her laugh though, it just sounds like the right level of ridiculous that she apparently needs or she's just loopy enough to find it funny.

Maybe people would find names from her home strange. Poor Arsenio might be the worst just for the start of his name depending on the maturity level, and well, Brunilda too. It does conjure a certain image, not helped at all by snow-bears and maidens. Or however that story goes, Araceli can't remember.

"Burly, Raas and Kalla all cook things that I love, and Korrin brought my spices from our room. And I will owe you a meal. You can write that down and leave it with me: Araceli Bonaventura owes Leonard Church one home-cooked meal."