[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

[oyedeng]

Naomi grimaces - more at the fact that someone needs to say this to her than the fact that it's being said. She reaches up, accepting the offered hand to get up again. Her entire body screams at her to cease, to yield to the pull of the floor. It's better than it was on her arrival - but better is not yet good.

"My knees would thank you." She snorts a soft, wry laugh. "So would I, of course. Hate to say it, but the help would be appreciated.

[tender]

"We'll try again after I patch up your knees."

There is still some discomfort in being in the infirmary. Isaac's absence looms large. Her own quiet worry over it is ever-present, but Naomi is easy to focus on. Derrica remembers Holden's face talking about her. It's one of the few things from the dream that hasn't stung to re-examine.

Derrica wants to ask her a whole list of things, but first—

"I've never seen a Rift do this to someone," Derrica tells her, as they collectively manage to ease Naomi back into a chair. "Wysteria Poppell is going to have so many questions about it."

This sounds like a joke, but it's kind of like a warning.

[oyedeng]

Naomi is glad for the assistance. Even more relieved that for the time being, Holden isn't here. She'd rather not have him see her pushing herself a little more than she should, while her body is still fighting with the gravity on the matter of crushing her bones and inner organs. His worry is appreciated - doesn't mean she wants to give him cause for it, though.

"Wysteria?"

Naomi picks up on the undertone in that joke, filing it away for later. Either nosy, she assumes, or else too chatty. It's a good thing to know in advance - Naomi has fond memories of working on ship repairs with Amos for hours with barely a word spoken between them.

"It's not the Rift, it's..." Gravity. It's being on a planet. It's being out of space. Naomi winces a little, forcing herself to breathe slow and deliberate when an ache throbs along her spine. "Imagine an object suspended in liquid..." Naomi stops. Frowns, shakes the physics lessons out of her head and restarts with: "You know how when you're in water with nothing under your feet, you float, or you sink slowly, but when you're on land with nothing under you, you just... fall? My people... we've lived in places where you sink or float, for generations. Our bodies aren't using to falling fast. It's like suddenly everything in you is so much heavier than before." Her expression darkens a little. Naomi bites her lower lip, then shakes her head a little. "I'm not built for places like this. For falling. Thin bones float easy, but aren't great to break a fall." And she never felt conflicted about it before, not until she fell for a man who comes from Earth, and who may not want to stay in space forever, and chose to love him anyway.

[tender]

As Naomi goes on, the furrow in Derrica's brow deepens and deepens.

The concept holds less of her attention then what Naomi is admitting to her: that it will be hard for her to exist here without pain. She turns that concern up to Naomi's face, watching her for a moment before taking a deep breath.

"Is there a way to help you? Besides this," she asks, in the same breath as her palms kindle into a soft glow. Derrica turns them to Naomi's scraped knees, easing away the marks with a slow pass of her hands over the skin.

There are times when Derrica thinks they just need a better, more experienced healer. But this feels like something beyond anything she's known, beyond what healers here have been taught or encountered. That worries her for Naomi's well being.

[oyedeng]

It's like an auto doc.

The bizarre thought taps at the back of Naomi's head, and doesn't quite go away as she watches, with obvious fascination, the way the marks on her skin disappear under the soft glow of Derrica's palms. This, Naomi understands by now, is the magic Holden referred to. Strange, how similar it is to some of the medical and scientific advancements of their own existence back home in space.

It makes Naomi uncomfortable, slightly. Lyrium, protomolecule, magic, science. There are strange and sometimes uncomfortable parallels there that she's sure Jim and Amos have considered as well.

"There are medical procedures where I'm from, and medications to take in order to help the bodies of people like me handle situations like this. They don't always take, and are extremely painful."

Her eyes flick up to Derrica - Naomi's tone is conversational, borderline dismissive. Not out of unkindness - it's just that she's a Belter, and this is simply a reality for her. One that is going to prove inconvenient on Thedas.

"You don't have to worry. I got a bit of a rough landing," Naomi understates by a wide margin, "but I'm already feeling better. I'll be alright."

It's merely unlikely she'll be able to exist here without chronic pain and risking heart and lung failure if putting herself through great physical strain. Practically completely fine.

[tender]

It's not an unfamiliar approach. (Holden.) Derrica knows exactly what it is to minimize a type of pain that can't be reasoned with or repaired. Naomi is matter of fact around the truth of the thing. She breathes out, sitting back and flexing her fingers in the wake of the spell. Naomi's knees are unmarked, as if the scrapes had never been.

"Let me see your hands," Derrica prompts gently, before answering, "I'm going to worry about you. Just a little bit."

That's non-negotiable.

"I don't want to tell you we can fix it. But I'm just one healer, and I don't know anything. Something might still be done for it."

[oyedeng]

Holden and Naomi exist in a cycle of worrying about each other more than about themselves. Somehow they manage to find a balance with each other within that. Naomi doesn't like to worry others, but worrying about others is so engrained into Holden's identity, it's practically half his personality, besides coffee.

No, really, she loves the man. She wouldn't have him any other way, and the only thing she can hope for is to have the time to give him back some of the care and gentleness he gives so much of to others rather than himself.

"We could strike a deal," Naomi muses, offering her hands after brief hesitation. It's not open distrust so much as the absence of established trust. There's a vast difference between the two for Naomi, but she also knows she's in a position of having to rely on the healers here at Riftwatch especially. It just doesn't mean it comes. "I'll let you worry, and we keep the scraped knees between ourselves, so Holden won't worry."

[tender]

With Rifters (and with some people here, less familiar with magic) Derrica always finds herself guarding against the moment where magic becomes Too Much. Everyone has a breaking point where the strangeness of Thedas is too much to process.

So she's very gentle when she turns Naomi's hands in her own, examining her palms for injury.

"Holden's going to worry about you whether or not he knows about the scraped knees," Derrica points out, voice warming over the truth of it. Surely she doesn't need to tell Naomi Nagata that Holden is very in love with her. He'd spoken of her to Derrica in a dream, but she'd known it was true. "But I'll keep it to myself."

Scrapes acquired in the medical bay are more or less harmless, easily patch. However—

"But if something happens to you, I don't think he'd handle it very well."

Or whatever the Holden version of not handling something well looked like. Derrica doesn't necessarily want to see it.

[oyedeng]

Naomi hums in quiet agreement. Her hands are small and thin, but calloused rather than delicate or soft. The signs of someone working with their hands all their life. There are some scrapes on her palms, too, and some discolouration from her attempt to break a stumble. It's not bad, just slightly uncomfortable. Certainly not the worst Naomi's ever had.

"He's a good man like that," she says, and there's something soft and quiet in her voice and in her eyes. Holden has taken all her jagged edges and the cracks in her, the scar tissue left behind by someone else, and been a balm to it. He's not perfect, and neither is she, but they better each other, and Naomi still finds herself stunned at Holden rising above and beyond. She feels safe with him, and free. And that's not something Naomi will ever take for granted in a person again. "He lets me take my own risks and carry my own weight." There aren't enough words to express how much that means. Not after she's known what it's like to be eroded down to nothing by another. To be nothing and to have nothing, from means to friends to agency.

She wonders, what other people make of him. And what they make of her, in relation. It's nothing she concerns herself with too much - Naomi isn't someone who needs the approval of anyone she meets. But there are people here who care about Holden, and people he cares about. And that means something.

"I don't intend to cause him grief," Naomi says. The unspoken truth: There are things she might do that will cause him concern or grief, especially when the choice is between her safety and doing the right thing. But she likes to believe that Holden wouldn't have her any other way, too.