[closed-ish] revelations come at last

[eolasemah]

WHO: Sina and anyone who wants a starter
WHAT: The diplomacy mission did not agree well with her.
WHEN: Some backdated to Harvestmere 4th/5th, some current.
WHERE: The healing tents or Sina's tent in the garden.
NOTES: Warning for some icky injuries and pretty severe downers!

"Adelaide," comes a cry from the gates, and the newly-conscious Sina removes herself from Herian's horse to stumble towards the healing tents, the darkness staved off by her glimmering shard, which is definitely brighter than the last time anyone here saw it.
"Adelaide," she wheezes again, her voice thin and desperate, an injured fawn bleating for its mother; but with this part of the courtyard filled with only unfamiliar faces, she finds she's not strong enough to keep looking. Sina drops to her knees and hugs herself, keeping the palms of her hands away from her arms in strange clawlike poses. "Ghi'lan," she sobs, her voice growing quieter.

This is only the beginning of a long month in which few hear from or see her, as Sina is spending it curled up in a ball on her bedroll. She resists eating, won't talk to anyone without persistence on their part, and ultimately seems at a total loss of spirit.

[If you'd like a starter, hit me up!]

Comments

[rowancrowned]

"It is nothing," he says, and means it- doing this for her is such a small bit of mindness, and ought to set her to rights. He leaves only to peek outside the tent and make his request to someone passing by. Luckily, another elf comes, and with bribery and Thranduil's charm, it's not half an hour before he and the other fellow are hauling a tin washbasin halfway filled with steaming water, and then another set of sheets. Thranduil dismisses him, and then strips off his outer robe, rolling his tunic up to his elbows and taking a small cake of soap out from the sheets.

"Come here," Thranduil requests, stepping back up to the bed and offering her his arm. She's ill, and needs help bathing- he thinks no more of her eminent nudity than that of any other elf who he'd need care for.

[eolasemah]

Sina is Dalish, and her clan is small; bathing is done when and where it's convenient, by whomever is at liberty to do so. She has little shyness over disrobing, for the most part only dressing so modestly because she gets cold easily.
Following Thranduil's request, she steps gingerly into the water, removing her nightshirt as she does so, and lowers herself in with a weary sigh. Now that she's submerged in the hot water, she can't not appreciate its comfort, and it lifts her spirits slightly. The shard glitters oddly over the surface, refracting in patterns of light all around the tent. Sina watches the glimmering water as though mesmerized, in a despondent sort of way. It's beautiful, this thing that's killing her, this thing that has killed others like her.

[rowancrowned]

He dips the soap into the water, lathers it between his hands before he sinks them into her hair, washing the oil and dirt from it. He looks at the shimmer of green beneath the water. He has seen Men die from shrapnel, shards of rock that flew from an explosion, wood, once ceramics from a pot.

Thranduil combs his fingers through her hair, working the soap into her locks. "Lean forward, Sina, thank you."

He's never had the patience for healer's work, but this is not the exhaustive march against pestilence and fading.

"Does it pain you?" he asks, scrubbing her back.

[eolasemah]

It takes Sina a moment to realize what he's asking, and she nods slowly.
"Adelaide and I..." she begins, but trails off. Adelaide, whom she couldn't find on their return, who is just gone. Without warning, and possibly forever. "...it doesn't matter," Sina decides, curling her fingers against her sternum. "It's not going to come out."

[rowancrowned]

He stops for a moment, one hand still resting on her back before he instead touches the opposite side of the shard on her spine. There is nothing to say—and less to do, in all honesty. Solas has gone off somewhere, and Thranduil is no closer no finding out what was in the Elvhen empire, even with Galadriel’s aid.

He takes the bucket and fills it with warm water from the basin, and gives her a bit of warning before he tips it and lets it was her hair clean. He could feel her ribs when his hand was on her spine, but he won’t attempt to get more soup into her unless she asks.

“What makes the pain worse?”

[eolasemah]

Sina sighs softly with the warmth of the water pouring onto her scalp and down her neck; little pleasures still reach her, even if they are fewer and farther between.
"Being near a rift," she murmurs, "...or a demon... or the wrong kind of magic." She bites her lower lip and sighs again, resting her head back, finally seeming to relax at least a little. "It never doesn't hurt, hahren."