[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

[venenifer]

"And where is that? Your world?"

Brother Gideon is new to the organization, hasn't met most of its wide variety of non-Thedosians. The entire phrase 'my world' strikes him as utterly preposterous, but part of signing on as a physician in this particular war was to accept ideas he might not have normally.

"What sort of sicknesses are common to children?"

[oyedeng]

"Well..."

Naomi needs to stop maneuvering herself into situation that require her to explain space travel. Or gravity. Or modern technology.

"It depends a little. A lot of us can suffer from various forms of hypoxia - that's what happens when you don't get enough air. Deformations and resulting complications due to incorrect bone growths or brittle bone disease. Dehydration, undernourishment. Asthma, bronchitis, other things related to your lungs. Common colds, feversand stomach flus. Sometimes radiation poisoning. We have treatments for all of that, if people can afford to get them."

She shifts a little, wincing at a dull ache along her spine.

"As for my world... it's among the stars. Floating rocks and the ships we use to go between them. I imagine that's strange to picture."

[venenifer]

"That," and a long pause follows, as Gideon searches for any way to reasonably continue that sentence, "...is strange to picture."

He's silent for another long moment as he tries and fails to imagine what that would look like.

"What sort of ship sails in the sky?"

[oyedeng]

Naomi smiles wrily at that. It's not a conversation she expects to get any less strange to have with any of the locals.

"Very large capsules of metal. Completely enclosed."

She thinks, for a moment, back to some vids she'd seen as a child.

"Do you have those wooden ships with the cloth? Ours don't look like that."

[venenifer]

He furrows his brow. Capsules.

"Yes, that's what they look like here. I imagine it might be tricky, without..." He pauses, realizing that he's potentially about to sound Foolish, something he avoids at all costs, "...water."
He clears his throat.
"What propels them, if not water and wind?"

[oyedeng]

"Essentially, and in the simplest terms, the heat and energy created by an intense type of reaction. Call it a controlled, extended explosion, that comes close enough."

Naomi knows it's difficult - the disconnect between what this world understands as magic, and what her world understands as science, and the ways in which they overlap - and of course, more importantly, the ways in which they don't. It means he has to ask questions that may sound foolish to her in the context of her own world and its technological advances, and she has to explain things to an obviously accomplished man in his own field in terms that must sound like she thinks him stupid.

"Sorry, I'm not trying to sound like I consider you stupid. I mean, I feel stupid trying to learn about Thedas and encountering things my world doesn't have... or else doesn't know."

Either not at all, or not anymore.

[venenifer]

"I appreciate it." If he means it in earnest, there's little indication, but there's no reason to believe him a liar either.

"We can level it out. What's something about Thedas that intrigues you?"

[oyedeng]

"Lyrium," Naomi replies, practically without hesitation. Even from the surface level crash course in all things Thedas she's been getting, that's hit her radar, and caused some concern. Too close to protomolecule for comfort. "I don't quite understand what it is - or how it works."

[venenifer]

"You're in good company," Gideon replies, and pauses what he's doing to take a pensive seat.

"Lyrium is a mineral, with... magic properties, you could say. Sister Sawbones might be one to ask for more detail on its raw state, as only dwarves are known to be able to handle it somewhat safely."

Turning around toward the worktable, he plucks a small vial containing a blue liquid from his potion case, and holds it out to Naomi.

"When diluted into a potion, it can help mages restore their magical ability, which is said to stem from their connection to the Fade, much like... well. You're familiar with, I don't know, coffee?"