faderift | RIFTER ARRIVAL: Guardian 9:45

I. ARRIVAL
She isn't meant for this - a fact that couldn't be more obvious, than when she awakens, on the cold wet earth. Dizzied, confused, and immediately shocked by what is going on. Not that she has time to really take in what it means. The dark cave that strains light, tomb-like and encased. But not dark, not when the air is green with power in a way that makes her shiver. All that hair want to stand on its end. ( Like it needs help ). She looks around, bewildered and confused, trying to make sense of it all.

"Mama? Nikolai?"

But she can't see them, they don't answer.

There isn't any time, really, when the demon steps out, huge, lumber, though she would not call it a demon, no, only something transformed. After all, spirits themselves were not the enemy of man. So why would these beings hurt her?

So she doesn't know to panic, knows to run, even as others do, startled as a deer watching, she looks around trying to make sense of it all, when it begins to smash, break, claw. Not a fighter, never raised her voice to another and never had it raised in anything other than parents and siblings and ways of a family might squabble, let alone to defend herself as she scrambles, tries to crawl away from the thing that comes bearing down on her.

Too slow, too slow, and it is so dreadfully big. Gilia screams with it grabs her legs out from underneath her. Her fingers clawing at the ground as she gets dragged. Nails scraping into stone uselessly. Looking for purchase, any purchase, and finds it only in a wooden beam from a long destroyed building as the demon pulls its new doll from the ground. Even as she holds hard enough to draw blood from her palms with the splinters digging in, it's clear, that demon is going to win sooner or later.

II. RECOVERY
Gilia isn't good for much when it's over. Rather, she's too shocked to even answer questions about who she is and what is happening. Just sits politely numb to it all, blinking and watching corners in fear. When it's all over, she curls up, hands tacky with dry blood, knees pulled into her chest and all of her hair a great curly, dishevelled crown, a mess above her head. Her wimple, veils and pins have well and truly gone by now. Just blood stails and skin that is sickly pale with shock.

It is shameful to cry, but she doesn't know what else to do, when finally they are left alone. Her face into her knees as hard as she can, her relatively simple - though rich in quality, if not in pattern or colour - clothes. Not yet game enough to take what has been given to her, - she wasn't supposed to take anything from anyone, and - the deep worries that follow it. Now she has been saved, not by her family, not by the Father-Sea, but by strangers. Has the war spilled further than they thought? Was this to entrap them? Take the Second-Daughter, force the family after centuries to take a side? But she did not know these men and women, did not know their spirits, did not know their banner, so how could she even begin to guess?

The confusion of it all, without advisors or Nikolai to tell her, in the end, only makes her cry harder.

The Medicine Seller was not much of a soft touch for tears - he'd much too often seen the crocodile variety for them to have too much effect. But he wasn't incapable of sympathy either and he could recognize when someone was recovering from shock.

There were two soft clinks beside Gillia as the Medicine Seller set a bowl of hot water with a clean, damp cloth, and a jar of some poultice or another down beside her on the flagstone.

"May I have a look at your injuries?" he asked, kneeling down with his feet tucked under him and his hands on his knees.

It takes more courage than she wants to admit to, to lift up her tear-stained face, soft and wet. She lifts her hand, the cuff of it, rubbing against her cheek with her sleeve. Trying to sniffle herself back into some kind of composure.

It works, sort of.

"Thank-you." Her hands lift, shaking, tacky now with the blood. Before she turns them over, and they are a mess. The splinters dug in lines against her palms, all torn up, dirt thick under her nails.

It was not a pretty sight and as the Medicine Seller surveyed the damage done to what were clearly hands that likely never so much as threw a punch, he suspected that he'd need a bit more than hot water and a poultice. The ancient, moldering wood had probably gotten all sorts of nasty things in her skin.

The bottom drawer of his medicine pack opened with a gesture, and a pair of tweezers, a phial of disinfectant, and a roll of bandages emerged, levitating into his outstretched hand. He didn't have the patience to stand on ceremony today and sort through the clutter to find what he needed. The bandages and disinfectant were set aside, and he took the cloth from its bowl, squeezing out the excess water.

"This will probably hurt quite a bit," he warned. Hand injuries always stung quite a bit relative to their severity - all those nerves and things.

"Will you tell me where you are from?" He asked, dabbing away the drying blood. He didn't have the greatest bedside manner - he wasn't a healer, he was a merchant, after all - but he still knew that the easiest way for this to go smoothly was to keep her mind on something else beside the pain and panic.

There has been some time at least that they aren't running rivers. Tacky with dirt of the fight as well as time that has dried it on her skin. But despite the mess, they are just as he guessed, soft. A little bit of a callous built up on the side of forefingers that have been used for stitching, spinning. But otherwise, no more than that.

Save for now, apparently. A thorough mess. She is clay to be moulded by his touches, he finds no resistance to his broaching. Leaving them to be moved as he wants her. She seems to pay no mind as he moves the objects - either from shock, idle acceptance of most things or being used to it. Besides, there is more to consider. He isn't wrong. It stings, and the little whimper of pain is obvious from the first, but she resolutely doesn't move.

It takes her a moment, lips parted, soft where the tears had leaked down her cheeks to her mouth. Drying as she pulls in a breath. Her voice creaks, "St. Loe." Not sharp letters, but smoother. Sinleau. "The Isle of St. Loe."

There is no amount of conversation that's going to make having bits of wood slowly and carefully pulled out of the palm feel good but the Medicine Seller felt some relief that she didn't flinch or jolt too much. He didn't want a bit to break off as he was pulling it out.

The process was... repetitive. Dab away blood, pull a splinter, dab again. Rinse and repeat, quite literally.

"I am not familiar with it, I am afraid. Is it an isle in a lake? Or the sea?"

Bit by bit, the splinters came away and her hands were cleaned of blood. He looked them over, and, satisfied that he'd got the last of them, he selected the bottle of disinfectant and popped the cork.

There was an sharp and bitter medicine smell from it, mixed with the stink of rubbing alcohol. He poured a bit onto a square of clean cloth.

"This will sting quite a bit, but it will help keep wounds from souring."

She does her best to not move, to make as little sound as she can - but it is inevitable. The little noises of pain, that she bites her teeth into her lip to keep down. Gnawing on the sound, a look on her face that is patently apologetic when it's sharp enough a pain that she jolts and gingerly offers it back.

"On... on the sea. The only Isle in the - the - Bay of Lutch." Her face turns away. Nose scrunched up and her eyes screwed shut when a particularly big and deep piece comes free. Some deep need to answer his questions out of politeness that keeps her going even when she wants to sob once more. "Do you hail inland, to not know it?"

But his warning, she looks downright scared when he says it but... he is being kind, and he is helping, and it would be awful to say she doesn't want it when he is being so good to her. He says it will help, and she trusts him as she trusts anyone - which is to say, completely. So, ultimately, bracing herself, locking her joints to not falter, she stretches them out flat, and nods. Ready.

"A different shore, perhaps."

Either someone had told her rifters were from different worlds and times and she was in denial or no one had told her and the Medicine Seller was not about to drop that bomb when he needed her still and calm.

She's being very brave about the whole thing, but even as gentle as he is with the disinfectant, it still stings. Fortunately that means that any bacteria the rotten wood might have left behind were being wiped out and nothing would go gangrenous.

"Are there many different kinds of fish there?" He asked, as he finished dabbing on the last of it. He corked the bottle, cut a few squares of bandage and opened the jar of poultice.

"You are doing very well. This has a painkiller in it and it will keep the swelling down," he explained, showing her the thick, green substance. It had an earthy, herbal smell to it - not entirely unpleasant with none of the acrid smell of the disinfectant.

Sting it does, and even as her hands stay still, her head drops, face contorted in the pain of it. The cry she barely has the time to swallow, eating up all the words, any other questions. Because it was worse than denial, she hadn't heard them at all. By the time she had reached the Gallows, no doubt the truth will have made itself understood. Bur right now?

Well, he's spared any follow-up questions about it. Rather, he asked another question and she follows along. "Many. Many fish. The fishermen - " another swipe, another murmur of pain. Scrunched up she goes to prayers rather than whatever else she was going to say. "- Sea-Lord, take my pain, I am but nothing but made of you, share, share, - "

Her teeth clack, quiet. Silence with its bite, and finally, it is over. But it is over, with only the lingering pain left behind she looks back up at him with eyes wide, nodding along as best she can, fumbling over things to say right now and settles for the familiar. "As it pleases you to do."

"I have used shellfish in the making of medicine," he explained, applying the poultice to the bits of cut bandages, laying them flat on her palms.

"Though they are medicines for old, old men."

The poultice that had seeped through the gauze had an almost immediate cooling effect where the wounds were inflamed, and the Medicine Seller wrapped her hands - tight enough to secure the poultice but not so restrictive that she couldn't move her hands.

"Will you tell me more about the sea where you are from?"

It is... a relief, after all that. He was being so careful with her, she is sure, even if it hurt. Taking good care of her, that at least the want to cry returns to no more than little sniffles. Not that it mattered where her face is still wet with the tears of before.

"It is... " she struggles, for a moment, to unravel her tongue from where it has been glued firmly to the back of her teeth to be quiet in the pain. To form intelligent things and sensible conversation. "... It is a deep grey-blue. A little like your eyes. Almost always frothing with waves, also."

He was quiet and attentive as he stowed his materials, the way she spoke of her home sparking a rare nostalgia for his own.

It seemed quite unfair that someone who clearly loved the place she lived in had been ripped so suddenly from it and with little to no chance of returning.

"Tumultuous seas are always a wonder," he agreed.

"Though not so good to swim in. Can you stand?"

He extended a hand to her, in case she needed help getting upright.

Later on, in a day or two, it will become too much, and she will weep again, being so cut off from the other half of herself. The dreams which had once scared her so, now an aching memory. She will curl up inside of herself, and not want to move from bed and find, suddenly, with no reason to do so, she cannot bring herself to face the sun or sky.

But as of right now, his company is a soothing balm. "I shall never be afraid of it." And nervously, it takes her longer than it should, to reach for his hand. There is a twitch that is almost reflexive to never reach, not for anything. Her now bandaged, cleaned hands that curl in and shyly away. Smoothing over the bandages.

" - Yes." She ventures, at last. Her hand settling on his, small, light, half afraid of the touch for what it was. Accepting. Gently, she unfolds her legs underneath her to try and get the rest of the way up.

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meds4sale - 2019-03-01 21:03 (UTC) - Expand

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It's strange, Wysteria thinks, to recognize ones' self so utterly in another person. She thinks it when they're first making camp and she spies the young woman looking shocked and unsteady while the rest of the world - or rather, this very small cross-section of it - moves about her to make arrangements for the new arrivals, to tend wounds earned in the battle at the Rift, to stoke cooking an put pots to boiling. But it's a passing fancy and no more. After little more than a brief moment of recognition, Wysteria too is swept away into some task. She'd been more or less useless in the shadow of the Rift itself except to close it, and someone or other in camp is keen to make her attend to some work to make up for it. 'This isn't a holiday, Miss Poppell,' someone probably scolds her.

Which, no of course it isn't. She knows that very well, thank you very much. But maybe it's good that the resulting work sours her mood. Otherwise, she might of forgotten about the pale young thing entirely.

As it is, her search eventually bears fruit in the form of the aforementioned lady all wan faced and tear streaked which - honestly -, it simply won't do. With her skirts freshly come down from where they'd been knotted up into her belt, Wysteria makes her way over to the woman. She's carrying two steaming bowls (though both lack spoons; hopefully the new arrival doesn't mind sipping directly from her dishware).

"Hello? Pardon me? Are you hungry? I've an extra bowl here if you care for something. And you should. I believe it would do you good to get something in your stomach. I know when I first arrived, I thought I'd never be hungry again but it turned out that the moment food passed my lips that I was perfectly voracious. You'll see - have a little soup and your good sense will come straight back to you."

By this time - at least - the man with the strange box has come and gone, and tended those wounds, wrapped them up. She means to tell him, that she will look after it, very soon. But he was kind, and she did so hate to intrude - and the... kindness might be her undoing, really. She is so lost, and so hurt, and so confused.

Blinking away tears - tears that still leak like she doesn't really know what is happening but at least is no longer sobbing - she looks up from where she has kept herself hidden and small for as long as possible.

She doesn't know what really to say. Wetting her lips, salty, but no more than usual, she thinks. So the default is... plain. "Thank-you." Does she really want it? She hardly knows, but the girl seemed sure. At this point, anything had to be better.

"Of course. Here." Whether the young lady wants it or not, she will now be passed the bowl. "It's nothing special, mind you. It comes out of chips that have been hardened and carried around in a pocket all day, but its warm and that's something."

For her part, Wysteria takes a seat on a bit of rock near at hand. Balancing her bowl on her knees, she quickly shoves back a few fallen strands of hair and begins resetting the pins.

"I was much the same, you know." This mumbled through the little rods pinched between her lips. "Not crying exactly, but I believe I was close to it. It was all very shocking-- is shocking, I suppose. But not to worry. The urge to cry will pass. I know for my part it helped to be spoken to and to have people ask me questions. Conversation is such a good way to ground yourself in a new place, don't you think?"

She sets the final pin with a decisive stab. "What's your name, my sweet?"

It's wrong to be jealous of being able to pin your hair away just that easily. Because no matter how she might try with so little, that veritable halo of hair wouldn't go back that easily. Rather as she goes to accept the bowl, she can only hope the tangle the knots back on themselves and push them out of the way of her face, not with grizzled bandaged fingers, but the flat inside of her wrists.

It sort of works.

She doesn't really know what to say to all of that - if it would help. People are the last thing she wants. Or, just, not strangers. She wants her siblings. She wants her mothers' hands taming her hair for her. She wants her fathers to have a rest, and it will feel better in the morning.

Neither comes. You're being rude, Gilia. She lowers her head and breathes across the top of the broth. "Gilia. Gilia St. Loe, Second Child."

"Now there is a proper name. How would you like me to call you? How do friends speak to you at home? You may call me Miss Poppell if you like, though I will warn you that in Thedas everyone is very familiar with first names particularly with Rifters such as ourselves, and so most people will call you Gilia unless you are very stern to correct them. You will hear lots of people say Wysteria to me even though I should really object to it."

A pause (for breath, a sip from her own bowl), and then: "Oh, but I don't actually mind it really. So if you prefer to use first names, that would be perfectly fine as well. Wysteria would be, I mean. As that's my name. Wysteria Poppell," --a glint of good humor in her open face-- "First Daughter."

Ha ha, we have fun here.

Edited 2019-02-14 16:05 (UTC)

It's a lot, and - she talks very quickly. Oh, it reminds her of the Fanfers. Their father always talked to fast and there wasn't - wasn't an advisor. Not a warm creak of wood to tell her what to do. Gilia blinks, trying to catch up. Confused still and -

It's First Daughter St. Loe, she thinks in vain, and gives up immediately on bothering. "Well. If... Gilia is what is well, and is so correct for you too, Miss Poppell." Was that what she said? She thinks so, somewhere in all those words. "That is... that is fine."

And because - she doesn't really know what to say that is proper, right now. What question to ask, right now. Sipping the broth is easier. So, she does that. Lowering her eyes to it, lifting the edge to her lips and begins to sip.

"Gilia it is then."

This she says decisively in some way, as if they've come to a great conclusion of a rather important topic. Though to be fair - it is very, isn't it? Knowing how to introduce a person may be the most important thing to know about them, given the givens. Which is to say - there are friends to be made in Thedas if people like them are meant to keep their wits about them and their heads on their shoulders.

Wysteria takes a swift sip of her broth, then continues nearly unabated--

"Now then Gilia - would it comfort you at all to talk about the place you came from, or would you rather avoid the topic entirely for the time being? If you'd rather, I could tell you all about the place you've arrived in. Well," --an amendment, in the name of honesty-- "Perhaps not everything, but I've been very keen with my studies these last months and I like to believe I know at least a thing or two these days. So you must tell me which you prefer, and which would be the best distraction for your current state."

Please stop talking so quickly. Her brow knits, so pale on her skin it's barely there to be seen. Save that little decisive wrinkle in her brow that denotes she must be thinking and very particularly so.

What comes of it, is one swallow, trying to stop, something that won't be held back no matter how she tries. There are tears welling up, like tides flow. Confused, scared and lost and that comes to one very particular point that is neither here nor there.

"I want to go home."

There is maybe the briefest pause in which Wysteria fully takes stock of the situation at hand, sees again the girl's discomfort, and hesitates over it. There there, she wants to say. To pat the girl on the hand and give her cheek an encouraging pinch. No need to cry. It's all perfectly fine.

But is it? Is it really? Mostly, she things the answer really is honestly and properly yes. It's all perfectly fine. But maybe it isn't for someone else. Maybe Gilia's come from a place where she knew nothing but contentment, and now here she is sitting in a dark hole in a dark hole in the ground.

Still though: "Oh, yes. I expect you do." She is doing her very best to sound gentle., you know. "But I promise that in time you will find things you rather like about Thedas. Think of it as an adventure, won't you? Why, imagine how lucky the pair of us must be to have come to such a strange place more or less in one piece. The people I know back home would strangle each other for the opportunity to discover a whole new version of the world."

"I'm not supposed to leave without - " it's blurted out, before she can stop it, like somehow this was all going to break eventually with all this pain and misery. "- without my family. I wasn't supposed to go without them, and the war, the - the - " it's all too many words at once, and she hiccups, tripping over them, so distressed.

"I must go home, I must. I must." And she sounds like she is going to cry all over again from just the distress of that.

"Drink your broth, my darling. It will make you feel much better." Because, really - what else is there to say? Everything else she can think of seems like a very cruel attempt at comfort indeed. "I'm sure once you've something warm in your belly, things will seem considerably less dire. Would you care for me to fetch you a blanket as well? You must be exhausted."

Poor little thing.

She does as she told, perhaps, not really because she wants to eat. Her nose is filled with the smell of blood, her ears are still ringing with explosions, and she still hurts. Which all combine to an unsettled, constant nauseated sensation.

But there is a comfort to being told what to do. To not having to think on what to do, but taking the cues of someone else that comes like second nature. That finds familiarity in the complacent.

So she takes the spoon and begins to take a small mouthful. Swallowing, before she nods in reply. "If there is one to spare, I would not mind it."

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RIFTER ARRIVAL: Guardian 9:45

Gilia St. Loe | Original Character

Recovery!

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