[Semi-Open, Arrival] Dreaming Wide Awake

[oyedeng]

WHO: Naomi Nagata, James Holden, Amos Burton, a Rescue Crew and OPEN
WHAT: A woman falls out of space and onto Thedas. Some damage is incurred, some recovery time is needed, some reunions are happening. Also: Space resident's first exposure to snow.
WHEN: Covering arrival, quarantine/recovery and first steps in a snowy Kirkwall
WHERE: Wounded Coast, Riftwatch Infirmary, Kirkwall
NOTES: If you want to continue any CWs for description of/discussion of injuries sustained, pain suffered, Holden being a sap

At first, there is nothing. She floats, as she has done all her life, when the ring gate decelerates everything in an instant, and Naomi is knocked out cold.

Her dream is a simple thing. To stand aboard the Rocinante, to hug Alex, to touch her forehead to Amos', to hold Holden close. To tell them all she has to say, and to be welcomed back.

Instead, she comes to when she falls, thin body impacting on hard ground, vision flooding with flickering green, and beyond... the horrifying sight not of metal, not even of the darkness between stars... but of a grey, cloudy sky.

[ ooc: Closed and Open Prompts in comments below. If you'd like to do something else or discuss handwaving/continuing TDM threads, feel free to shoot me a message: inkcharm or Discord: inkcharm#4573.

Please also take a gander at Naomi's Permissions/CWs/Opt-Outs as well as her Info post. ]

Comments

[justashotaway]

Laura rarely goes near the infirmary. She heals better than most, left to her own devices, and it carries the old stench of other people's blood. To her, anyway--others don't seem to notice or care. But she's been told to fetch bandages to take on a mission, and for all she might dislike the place, she does what she's told.

Her current objective is waylaid by the sight of a woman hitting the flagstones and saying something unintelligible. (Not Trade, nor Nevarran, Orlesian, nor any of the others she's familiar with. Not from the parts of those languages she knows, anyway.) People unable to walk aren't unexpected in the infirmary; since coming to Kirkwall, she's learned that its purpose is housing the ill. People unable to walk, unassisted by others, is more concerning.

She walks over, a pinscratch frown between her brows. Dark-haired, dressed all in black, a girl on the cusp of adulthood with sharp green eyes in a solemn face--she holds out a hand to the other woman. "You should look at your feet."

[oyedeng]

She's young - and Naomi can't help it, the way her mind immediately tries to gauge how much older is perhaps than Filip must currently be. It's a painful train of thought, and she steers away from it with some effort as she takes the girl's hand and pulls herself up.

Naomi's gaze drops to her feet, amusement playing along her strained and tired features.

"Does that help?"

[justashotaway]

"If you trip over them," she answers, looking down at the woman's feet as well. She has memories of being unable to walk easily, every step painful, from half a lifetime ago. Nothing really changed it except time.

Her attention returns to the woman's face, a head above her own. "And boots. Boots help."

[oyedeng]

"It's less the tripping. More... that I don't feel they're strong enough to carry me anymore." She flexes her hand around the anchor in her palm, bites her lip in thought. "Like I'm used to walking, and all of a sudden I'm wearing iron weights on me that pull me down, y'know?" Except, there are of course no weights. Just gravity, trying to become her archnemesis.

[justashotaway]

Laura shakes her head: she doesn't know. But the sense that your limbs can't be trusted to do what you ask--that, she understands. "Then you should touch the wall."

[oyedeng]

Naomi glances at the wall and makes a soft noise of agreement - it's not occured to her just based on the fact that she's never had to full move around in an environment quite like this. Mag boots to keep you on the ground, and if you float, you use any handle or edge to pull you along - or the wall, just not to help carry your weight.

Naomi moves to it, puts her hand against it and shakes her head with a small chucke. "I imagine I look quite the fool."

[justashotaway]

Laura's quiet just a moment too long, watching the woman's palm flatten against the stones. It had seemed easier, in a dream, to tell people things about herself in an attempt to comfort them. Now, the words come more slowly, the idea of speaking of some things more difficult.

But she eventually offers, "I practiced walking once. Time makes it easier."

[oyedeng]

"Give near anything enough time, you can master it."

Someone probably wrote that in an essay somewhere. Or else someone smart saidsomething like that in a vid.

"Why'd you have to practice? If you want to share."

[justashotaway]

Laura does, and she doesn't. People tend to react better when they don't find out by chance, and when they don't find out in a fight. But explaining the why of it...

Silently, she holds one of her feet out. A claw appears. (It comes through a pair of around-the-Gallows boots she wears, one that's already suffered some claw-related damage.) Made not of metal but of light, a silvery-blue colour comparable to lyrium or a spirit blade. It's long and knife-like, slightly curved, and glowing in the dim room.

And then it disappears again.

[oyedeng]

Naomi's thoughts go to body mods first - technology, sometimes experimental, sometimes not, that enhances and changes a body. Used for medicine, sometimes, like Holden's implant, or for treating severe injuries - she's seen crushed spines made functional again, missing limbs regrown, strength bolstered and limbs weaponized. Much of it is experimental and can mess a person up.

This is different, of course. Naomi frowns, in thought more than anything. Magic is still... weird to her, something she doesn't understand and can't figure out, like an unknown field of science. She's sure that nuclear fusion seems much the same from the flip side. She compartmentalizes though, and focuses instead Laura's face with a small nod.

Practiced walking. So, it would follow, didn't always have... those.

"Is it still uncomfortable?"

[justashotaway]

Laura shakes her head. Those are old scars, the ones that lead to the lyrium on her bones--an experiment close to a decade past--and those that might be visible are difficult to see against the pale skin of her hands.

"You will improve as well." It simply takes practice.