[Open] They're coming to take me away ho-ho hee-hee ha-haaa, to the infirmary!

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Everyone under quarantine who's sick
WHAT: Attempt to round up all the blueflu affected into a shared space
WHEN: During Phase 3, after quarantine announcement
WHERE: the Gallows and infirmary
NOTES: Please post your relevant content warnings in the headers of responses, all you beautiful hallucinating/sh*t losing butterflies ♥

With the Rifters drifting in and out of memory, the Templar needing a near constant slow infusion of lyrium--some needing to be doped up with sleeping draughts as fast as Colin, Christine, and the others who’ve devoted their time to the pursuit can make them--and the runners moving slower and slower as they sleep less and less, it's decided that moving everyone to a more easily watchable location for care would be the best, and safest, play.

[Nahariel, Colin, Audra, and any others who remain blessedly unaffected and volunteer are headed out to wrangle you... u mad?]

I. This is Fine

Coming (semi-)quietly? Drop a tag here to let us know, or if there's anything you want anyone to know about your movement, or if you want to hang with others in your new vaguely slapdash home. You live here now.


II. You'll pry my room out of my cold dead hands!

They're going to try to push for it, but aren't going to force you. They do need to know where you are, especially the Rifters... who keep being forgotten just this side of entirely. Your location information is going to be taken down, and they'll continue to come visit you. This can be handwaved, or we can thread it out!

[If you'd like your poor sick bb to be dragged out kicking and screaming, go ahead and indicate that in your tag. Alternately, send me a line @ shaestorms and we can figure out how to pry you loose together. Once you're there, throw a tag to whine about it if you like!]

Comments

location notes for ii, handwaved

[limier]

[ on hiatus and not up for new threads right now, but if you need anything feel free hmu on plurk or discord ♥ thanks for organizing this! ]

Wren’s in her rooms, and is insistent upon remaining there.

Runners are welcome to leave supplies or check in at a polite distance, but any direct assistance in taking lyrium (or the suggestion that she do so more often) will be rebuffed. If pressed to explain, she’ll stare at whoever’s there like they’re an idiot, and then directly past them at some people who aren’t there at all.

Those she knows and has prior CR with can push their luck further, but anyone who overstays or tries to forcibly move her will have an enormous, abruptly very unhappy mabari to deal with.

handwaved option ii

[youwonscience]

Cosima prefers to stay in her room, but has no objection to them adding her to the visit list. She'll also stop by proactively for regular check-ins at whatever frequency requested.

I. (but this is not fine)

[castintoflames]

He understands the reasoning behind being quarantined; it is a decision he would have made as a leader. But that doesn't mean he is comfortable with it. Maedhros is stiff and if his face wasn't blue, he would be completely devoid of color.

Care to help the tall, awkward Elf calm down? He is not as unpleasant as he was during Phase I, at least. The illness has humbled him; it has brought him to his knees a couple of times. In a word, he feels wretched.

"To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,
The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying.
West, west away, the round sun is falling.
Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling,
The voices of my people that have gone before me?
I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me;
For our days are ending and our years failing.
I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing.
Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling,
Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling,
In Eressëa, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,
Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!"

Elros isn't the only one singing of the sea, it seems.

[tar_minyatur]

He curls at Maedhros' feet, hands busy sharpening a sword that really doesn't need to be sharpened.

"Grey are the sails of the ships that leave
From the havens of the elves
Across the Western Sea
White are the hulls of my people's ships
Looking back east towards them
Sharp are the songs of the gulls that cry
Echoing the gap between us
Long will we tarry there
My brother and I
On opposite sides of the sea"

[castintoflames]

Just what a sick Man needs! A sword. Maedhros shakes himself, but it is so hard to not hear the sea...

Or to see the distant shores of Aman...receding...

"Only to be united by water and flame."

He rests a hand on top of Elros's head. This is real. Focus on this.

[tar_minyatur]

Elros nudges against the hand but his hands don't stop moving, the ceaseless rasp of the whetstone on the blade.

"I want him here. But at the same time, I don't. He's going to be so mad at me..."

[utulien_aure]

Well, that won't do. It won't do at all.

Fingon puts down his harp and pulls Maedhros' head into his lap without a thought for any onlookers. After a few moments stroking his cousin's hair, he begins to hum an old song, one he has rarely sung since they arrived in Middle Earth.

But Maedhros should remember the song well enough. In Fingon's voice, this one is always, always, meant for him.

Light of the world poured into us,
true mirror of the hidden fire,
we lift our voices loud in praise,
our hearts to hope...

[OOC: song blatantly stolen from thearrogantemu's "And What Happened After."]

[castintoflames]

There is no hesitation. Maedhros rests his cheek against Fingon's thigh, curling his arms and his legs so that he fits neatly at his cousin's side. His eyes are soon half-lidded and his muscles are far less tense.

Quarantine disappears and they are on Aman again, free of pain and worry. He hums in his throat, smiling softly.

"Do you hear the waves?"

[utulien_aure]

"Sometimes," is Fingon's quiet reply.

Had he lived longer, had the wounds to his soul festered and poisoned all his other joys, then Fingon supposes the sea-calling would sound more often in his ears. As it did in Maedhros', in Maglor's, in others that he had seen.

(He'd wondered about Turgon, sometimes, in the days when his brother had dwelt in Nevrast upon the shores of the sea. But Turgon had gone inland, to wherever exactly his Ondolinde was, so perhaps that had just been grief speaking.)

But there is- was- so much to be done in Hithlum, and a world beyond it that Fingon had always wanted to see. A longing for the future had drowned out his wish for the past.

But now? He isn't sure.

"Can you?"

[seawanderer]

Maglor is here because his brother is. And because it was highly encouraged, because of the sickness even in those who shouldn't be ill.

He's gone from burning, to ice cold and shivering constantly, though it doesn't seem to bother him that much. He's used to being cold.

He raises his voice to twine around Maedhros' song as he snuggles against him, hands burrowing into fabric.

[castintoflames]

The chill runs deep, embedding itself into their bones. But then, sometimes, it dissipates and grows instead into a dizzying heat. Maedhros feels the chill of Maglor's hand and immediately takes off his cloak, wrapping his brother up as snugly as he can manage. Then he holds him again, whispering encouragement against his ear:

"We will Sail this time. This illness will pass like a bad dream..."

[seawanderer]

He hums happily and leans into sheltering arms. For as long as they are both here, he'll enjoy having his brother near again.

"What if we cannot change what is already done, even for having come here?"

He still firmly believes he'll be drowned if he so much as steps into a boat on Middle Earth.

II

[tar_minyatur]

Elros understands the necessity, but by now the Sea-longing thrums in his blood, making him restless and gloomy. He'll come quietly and not fuss.

But he can't bring himself to rest

handwaved option ii

[tagartist]

Phase III symptoms make Chloe even less likely to cooperate than usual, but with enough badgering from the few people she's talked to on friendly terms (when they can remember her), she'd at least come in for a check-in, and then try and use being forgotten about to her advantage to just... avoid it.

i

[onlyhymns]

Cade has no reason to argue with anyone, but seems convinced at all times that he is in trouble. There are new scabs and scars on his hands, likely from hitting walls, but he is not violent with any of the healing staff. He is, however, made extremely nervous by the sight of magic use, and prone to pacing as though looking for ways out when he isn't cowering. Given the right circumstances, which is to say feeling threatened, he may lash out.

Otherwise, he seems almost too tired to still be alive, is constantly asking about lyrium and worrying that he hasn't taken it, and periodically forgets where-- and when-- he is entirely.

[hallabackdir]

After observing the man for quite some time, Haldir can't help but to try something to calm him. He knew not what ailed him exactly, but his heart was pained watching him rage and crumble. He had seen inklings of such behavior, even in himself after years of war, but never with such ferocity.

He waited until the another wave of rage ebbed, and approached him softly keeping his distance, as he would a wounded animal. He sat, and took out one of the smallish apples he had brought with him, placing it between them.

"I mean no harm. I too feel uneasy being here. Would you like an apple?"

[onlyhymns]

Cade sits on his cot, spent and desolate, with his hands draped between his knees as though he doesn't even have the strength to lift his arms. He looks up when someone sits beside him, glances at Haldir's face, doesn't recognize it, and quietly takes the apple. Instead of eating it, he just looks at it, turning it in his hand like a jewel or some other gift, the value of which he can't conceive.
"Thank you," he murmurs, his tone the quiet, halting one of a shy boy in the schoolyard.

i

[motherfucking_ghost]

Church goes. Christine's working, and also he needs to be close by her--both for the sake of checking up with her, and apologizing for his behavior, and also please don't be forgetting him dear god. There's no reason to risk the rest of the city.

Whenever Ponce, then, can't be underfoot, he'll watch over the doggo and make sure he's taken care of.

i

[hallabackdir]

Having no real room to call his own, he had little choice but to be locked away. He felt the walls of the room pressing in around him, making him gasp for breath, and he sought refuge near a window. He had brought the supplies needed to make arrows, and brought the flute Ellana had given him. He felt no desire to play, but having it near him made him feel at ease a bit.

He sat, tired beyond imagining, but he couldn't sit still. He began fletching arrow after arrow. He had accepted his death, as much as one could. But he would leave those around him as prepared and equipped as he could. A little of himself could still remain and be of use.

i. quarantined.

[ipseite]

Cooperative to the point of passivity, Petrana offers no resistance to either the suggestion or the fact of being moved from her private rooms—untidy, dark, broken shards of mirror unattended on the floor—to the infirmary, where she sits up in bed with a pile of books she isn't reading, hands folded within the voluminous sleeves of her peignoir and her hair braided more clumsily than seems like her hand.

She makes little in the way of conversation.

[foxsays]

Healers and Araceli do not get along, this time no better than the last. The naval presence office isn't a haunt given up lightly but they're moving Madame de Cedoux so that swings her out--

More dishevelled than anyone save Korrin or a few others have ever seen her, but her rapier won't be pried easily out of her fist.

"Madame," and half the time she can't remember her own thoughts but she can attempt to school them for someone else, all of her angry, snapping. "If anyone does something you don't like I'll send them away."

[ipseite]

“They are doing only what they ought,” Petrana says, soothing, settling—it's uncomfortable, all of this, but when the covers are settled around her she holds out a hand without looking at it, concentrating on Araceli and not on the blue hue of her own skin.

“Will you sit with me?”

She ought to rest, too, but it is Petrana's experience of men and women like Araceli that that is never the best approach to having them do so.

[lightninginabottle]

At this stage of the proceedings, Janzik is loudly, shrilly desperate to ingratiate himself to whoever is running this business, even if he thinks they're making a total fucking hash of it, and goes wherever he's told without complaint.

[paladingus]

Attempts to stir the wild-eyed mountain of ungroomed beard from his room have been met, when not timed properly, with a raspy and ground-out "I don't take orders from you, friendo. I'm not leaving my post. That's how I got in this mess to begin with." The internal logic of this is sound enough to him, if no one else.

If asked when recently-dosed and lucid, Simon insists that he's fine and that the infirmary is the last place he needs to be--or attempts to, anyway, but doesn't make it through much of the sentence before a fit of coughing overwhelms him. When it clears, he goes along, defeated and docile.

i

[utulien_aure]

He's not happy about being confined to the infirmary, but if his kin go he will as well. Fingon remains near his cousins most of the time, and sometimes pulls out his harp to play songs from both Arda and Thedas. The melodies he chooses are bright, and at times defiant in their cheerfulness- but there's an increasing strain to his voice that even the most untrained ear will hear.

But other times, he paces the infirmary restlessly, a haggard look upon his face. It's not helping- if anything his mood grows a bit darker the more he paces- but he still has a stubborn need to not be defined by his illness and exhaustion. If he's going to die, even to an illness, he wants to do it on his feet.