[O] Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Printable Version +- HELOVIA || The Way to the Sun (http://helovia.com) +-- Forum: Out of Character (http://helovia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Archives (http://helovia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: [O] Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) (/showthread.php?tid=24410) |
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Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Albrecht - 07-02-2016 Everything hurts, a lot. The old stallion grunts through clenched teeth, moving in an unnatural mix of hobbling in the front and shambling in the rear, trying to avoid placing too much weight on his left front leg while also trying to step as gingerly as possible with his hind end. He compromises with the two halves of his body by taking several shortened steps with his hind feet before hopping forward onto his right front, left forehoof touching the ground but non-weight bearing, creating an odd and obviously painful gait. He’s also forced to halt after every few minutes of movement to catch his breath in shallow gasps, the bruising across his left ribcage limiting his air intake with sudden jabs of pain any time he attempts to inhale fully. Sweat glosses his dull coat like a lacquer, catching the evening light and emphasizing the already angular planes and points of his malnourished body. Glazed eyes stare down at the valley of the Basin, wheezing breaths invisible for once in the mild temperatures of birdsong. It’s getting late, and he’s only just reached the territory’s threshold, falsely guarded by the shadows of their decrepit sentinels. Head low, he calculates the remaining distance to the hot springs, to his personal cubby hole in the foot of the mountains, and knows that it’s too far. Just getting here was trial enough. His flanks quiver with exhaustion and a dangerous light headedness is beginning to dim his awareness of the world around him. Did the ground used to sway so much? He’s sure that he’s standing still, but the sensation of movement slips across his sides as if he were staggering… or maybe he is. He isn’t sure, but at least the entrance to the valley is downhill. He stumbles a few hundred feet forward, then ducks to the west of the main path and into a copse of trees. The ground is soft and springy beneath his brittle hooves, something his aching joints would appreciate if it wasn’t amplifying his already comically diminished sense of balance and body control. He lists heavily to one side, eyes widening in panic as his body refuses to right itself, and crumples to the ground in a barely controlled fall. The layered litter of moss and pine needles softens his landing, so it’s with a relieved sigh and not the high pitched whimper that’s been trapped in his throat for the last several hours, that he comes to rest among the trees, broken, but blessedly whole. Eyes closing, he makes an effort to slowly relax each painfully bunched muscle until he’s lying flat out on his right side, the flap of almost disconnected hide that should have hidden the battered, naked flesh of his left shoulder folded back against the base of his neck to leave the wound open and gaping wide to the canopy of branches above. He reaches down to smooth the flap back to its intended place, smearing a fresh band of red across his muzzle as he does, then rests his cheek against the solid comfort of the earth. His thoughts quiet, overwhelmed by the urge to sleep and let all the unpleasant sensations of the day just slip away. The last semi-coherant thought to claw its way out of his mind before it shuts down is the need for a healer, but he’s only met one of them that he knows of - the salt water and seaweed mare, Tiamat - and he has no idea where she lives or any means of getting there, to even get out of this small depression in the ground between two trees. A low rumble of a nicker crosses his lips, slurred and wordless, barely audible. To who it’s addressed he doesn’t know, and doesn’t care anymore, as the darkness rises up and over his consciousness. OOC // Just got his ass beat by Rikyn. Injuries: Severe muscle cramping in his hind end, an open wound to the point of his left shoulder with a hair-line fracture to the head of his left humerus bone, swelling and bruising across his left ribcage. @Johnny first please and then a healer would be niiiiiiice. <3 RE: Beat a Dead Horse - Johnny - 07-03-2016
@Albrecht any healers can PP Jellybean getting them and bringing them back :D RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Zyanya - 07-06-2016 TO LET MY HEART BE MOVED, TO LAUGH FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART,
TO FIND MEANING IN EVERYDAY LIFE... AL!
The call echoes, and Zyanya fumbles forward, her lavender eyes looking for the source of yelling in what would have been a very calm day in the Basin. Her eyes catch on the short, full body of a stallion painted white and red. From this distance, it is impossible to tell, but Zyanya could swear he is shorter than she is. The concern billows from his body, attracting her to move forward and find out what he was so upset about. A blur of movement rushes by her head, a flash of white and feathers, but the griffin does not stop. After all, she is not a healer, and the pale colors of her coat often blend in with the surroundings of the Basin. Cool and crisp on the bottom with glimmers of sunlight on the snow. Trotting easily over to a copse of trees, the pale eyes catch on the crumpled figure of a stallion amid the pine needles and trunks. He looks dead, at first glance, covered in blood and dirt and wounds and laced with age. The stallion (who is the first one Zya has met that is actually shorter than her) pulls out fabric from his satchel and places it over the open wound, easing the visual appearance of the broken stallion. "Are you a healer like Lena?" her voice timidly asks of him, calling out from the entrance of the groves, hoping that the frightened expression on his face is just because the patient is a friend. Might as well jump in the deep end, doll. Stepping forward, Zya reaches a place of mental calm, eyes scouring the figure on the ground and surveying injuries. Unfortunately, without formal training, there is not much she knows. However, being a victim of younger siblings and youthful abandonment, she does know how to handle the swelling and bruises with something cold. In her homeland, her mother would have dunked her in the northern springs for a while, but here in the Aurora Basin, they have the luxury of something even better - ice. "I'll be back," her voice is hurried, but her pace even more so, as she rushes out of the trees in search of hard-packed snow. "I think I know what to do, at least until someone better equipped shows up..." her voice trailing into the distance as she moves. The motion used when said snow is quite comical, forming the small pieces of the snow into a ball and rolling it forward, the shape becoming larger and larger. Iktan showed her the secret to packing snow together so he might play "snowball" with her, one of the few games the serious boy enjoyed. Her lips tug into a smile, wanting to thank her lost brother for everything now. A large snowball, about a foot in diameter, rolls into the trees carefully followed by Zya's nose. She notices how the pine needles begin to cling before she even arrives at the side of the injured old man, but decides it's better than nothing. Halting the comical snowball next to his chocolate and bearded frame, Zyanya takes to cutting chunks from the edge carefully with her horn. Delicately, she removes the pieces by picking them up gently in her mouth and attempting to place them softly on the battered ribcage. "This might sting at first, but it will start to numb and feel better," she reassures the stallion, remembering quite clearly the rush and sting of the clear crisp waters over her own bruises being more brutal than the initial hit, but feeling much better after. Nudging the ice block off to the side, Zyanya looks around the copse of trees, hoping that Lena - or someone just as calm as she, would appear to take care of the wound which continues to bleed under the cotton. "Are you cold?" she asks the stallion on the forest floor, pale eyes tinged with worry. "" ooc -- Hope you don't mind Zya rolling up! She maked this for you, Al. ...I wanted to be given permission.
Zyanya
@Albrecht @Johnny RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Albrecht - 07-07-2016 The darkness is comfort, soothing in its undemanding quiet, its loss of place and time and feeling, but something strained and anxious pushes through the fog, calling him back. ‘Albrecht!’ He turns his mind away from the voice, loath to abandon this moment of peace. Just let me be, his consciousness rumbles, but the voice insists, pouring an unexpected fear and concern into the final syllable. ‘AL!’ His ears twitch, brow furrowing. Who…? He silently wonders, but there’s no response from the void and his features fall slack again as he lets himself be pulled back into the dark. The touch of cotton to his wounded shoulder doesn’t even register, so light are the lips that place it there. It’s not until a second sensation comes barging into his consciousness that he’s spurred back to awareness, this one cold and suddenly wet where it meets the heat of his swollen rib cage. He jerks awake, head rising and tilting his body onto his sternum with a breathy grunt. “What the fuck are you-“ He starts, the words out of his mouth before his eyes can even take in his surroundings and cutting off abruptly when they do. He blinks up at the Weaver and unknown cream colored mare, confused, then turns to look at himself, the wad of blood soaked cotton still clinging to his shoulder and half melted snow now dripping down his ribs. “You’re not healers.” He states more than asks, already knowing Johnny is not and judging the cream by her lack of herbs and flowers and other pungent things, the usual accoutrements of the medically inclined. “I guess I’m not worth a real one.” He means it self-depreciatingly, but he can hear the insult in his words and knows the comment will be understood that way. It’s how he usually means things after all. It's how he’s trained everyone to hear him, but looking up at the Weavers familiar face and recognizing by the distress there that it was his voice that called so anxiously from the darkness, his cotton flimsily staunching the blood of his wounds, his scarf still wrapped around the black's thin, maneless neck, the elders armor of hate and resentment quivers, ashamed of itself for the first time since being erected all those months ago in the wind and the snow. “I’m sorry.” He whispers, staring down at his dirty, folded knees. He hadn't thought he'd ever say those two words in conjunction again, but who else in all of Helovia ever gave him something for nothing, ever gave him a second chance, ever showed concern instead of disgust or morbid humor? None but the Weaver. He begrudgingly acknowledges that the cream colored mare is here to help him as well, but she's a stranger in his eyes, still susceptible to his hostile temperament and ultimately untrusted, though the ice on his side is having a desirable effect on the painful swelling, just barely suppressing his conditioned hatred of the substance. Embarrassed, confused, lost in a way that he's never truly been lost before, he avoids meeting the others eyes. He'd thought deserving the hatred and cruelty pointed at him would make it feel right, make the world right. He'd thought, when everyone around him responded as expected, that he'd found a new rule to live by, a new identity, a new way to make sense of the world. If he was wrongfully hated for being good, then he'd be crass and unfeeling and rightfully hated instead, but little Johnny-two-shoes doesn't hate him. The Candy-corn doesn't cringe and pin his ears and snap his teeth at the elders barbed words or rude behavior and his refusal to do so breathes life back into the painful truth: that he doesn't want to be hated, deserved or not. Maybe it's just that he's feeling sorry for himself, maybe it's that he's so recently been knocked down to nothing for a second time in his life, a fall made more painful by the haunting memories of his former heights, or maybe it's just a matter of the effect of blood loss on the brain, but he's not sure who he is anymore, who he should be, who he wants to be. He only knows who he's not and that he's not any of the things he's been trying to be lately. “Guess I'm not much of a spy." OOC // This went everywhere, I don't even know. @Johnny @Zyanya RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Lena - 07-07-2016
@Albrecht @Johnny @Zyanya RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Johnny - 07-24-2016
@Zyanya, @Albrecht RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Zyanya - 07-25-2016 TO LET MY HEART BE MOVED, TO LAUGH FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART,
TO FIND MEANING IN EVERYDAY LIFE... No, I'm one of the crafters.
Her eyes widen for a split second at the reveal, for Zya is not a healer. He is not a healer. Yet, there is a man bleeding on the floor, old and broken. The quick actions she took of getting the snow a reflex to avoid standing around looking helpless, useless, and ultimately, the work done is sloppy at best. Most of her life spent a wallflower, what more could be expected of Zyanya? She definitely expected nothing. Harsh words slide from the lips of Al, and a down-turned crown immediately follows, her lilac eyes seeking the safety of the floor instead of the weathered face of the man chiding her. How foolish, how presumptuous she had been to believe she could help anyone. Much to the surprise of the girl, the tiny peppermint stallion rushes back with daring words. Her eyes sheepishly look at him, finding his expression to be more-or-less jovial, which made her believe the two to be on fairly good terms. I guess I'm not worth a real one. Immediately, the embarrassed face of the girl melts into an expression of warm sympathy, her eyes glowing with a shared sadness. "I am sorry," she says quietly, her voice thinner than the mountain air. "You deserve better than I can offer." The unknown boy beside her also worries, by the content of his words and heaviness in his voice, but the playful charade of hostility remains. Maybe it is to assauge the fears in his ivory chest or the man laying on the ground. Zya does not know which. It was then a familiar face appeared within their little group, introduced by the harsh squawking of a griffin. The beautiful carved face of chestnut became more like an angel every time Zyanya encountered her, for she knew based on their time spent bringing Sielu from the borders that Lena possessed... incredible powers to heal. A smile, unconscious, drifts across her lips as the tension in her heart instantly settles. How could she be afraid for Albrecht, the name being filled in by her white and ruby company, when such a lady now stood among them? She humbly strides in, placing herself effortlessly by the side of the man on the ground, taking in the sight of it all in one brief glance before offering praise to them both. Zyanya has never been praised for anything like this before, and to say that her face beamed would be an understatement. Then, she began, her voice like sunshine in the dim of night. Relief and joy washes over her in waves, lifting my body from the state of despair it had been a few moments ago. Without much to do or say, she simply stands, listening as the healer works her magic, watching with intent eyes. "" ...I wanted to be given permission.
Zyanya
@Albrecht RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Albrecht - 07-30-2016 He doesn’t want to feel the heat of embarrassment burning beneath the skin of his grizzled, angular face or the loneliness and need swirling into a vacuum of emotional deficiency somewhere between the narrow spring of his ribcage, but he can't stop the sensations from coming in response to the candy-corn’s emotionally charged comments about only sort of dying and the uneasy implications of receiving an apology at this particular moment. His usual self-defense mechanisms of irritability and scorn sit unresponsive at the back of his throat, still unwilling to lash out at the only creature in existence that - having met him at least once - actually gives half a fuck whether he lives or dies. So instead he focuses on the less serious, ‘Trampling through the forest swearing up a storm,’ remark, which is a hell of lot more accurate than the Weaver probably thinks. “And who would I be then?” He asks quietly, as much to himself as to the Weaver or the cream colored mare beside him, now offering her own modest apology. Accustomed to the Basin's population of easily angered and quick to retaliate warrior personalities, the smallness and submissiveness of the mare's voice draws his eyes upward. He barely has time to do more than glance at her though, catch a hint of the blue gradient of her body that deepens to a rich cerulean around her legs and at the ends of her mane and tail, before another body comes rushing in, sweeping an educated eye across the disarray of his fallen form and folding herself down on the bed of pine needles beside him. Unfamiliar with the bay mare, he bristles at her sudden proximity, head lifting on a stiffly upright neck to watch her warily, but the healer is undeterred, smiling a confident, knowing smile and parting her lips to begin her work - through song of all things. At first he wonders if the mare seeks to sooth him through singing alone and he arches an incredulous brow, but as she fills her lungs and the notes swell from her tongue to his ears something undeniably supernatural takes hold of his aches and pains, the tightness in his haunches loosening and the heat and swelling of various hoof and teeth marks across his body draining away with the rise and fall of her voice. His ears slam forward in astonishment, eyes widening. The lower tier healers that he's met are knowledgeable, yes, but simple collectors of herbs and bark and other perfectly ordinary medicinal techniques. A magical healing is something new to him, the Songbird - since no one else is known to have such a power - demonstrating a unique and impressive ability. As the healer works, the elder's ears flop loosely to either side, a sigh of relief crossing his lips. The only wound that resists her magic is the ugly gash and flap of skin across the point of his left shoulder. The torn edges strain toward one another across the gap, loosely knitting back together so that the grisly view of his naked musculature is covered, but the damaged bone beneath refuses to be hurried in its schedule of events, the deep, pulsating pain of the fracture continuing unabated even as the mare's healing melody draws to a close and her warm, chocolate eyes reopen. He frowns slightly, disappointed for his own sake, but nods agreement to the bay’s question. He does feel better, still heavy with fatigue, but comfortable enough to actually rest now instead of simply drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness. The Weaver thanks the Healer, and she in turn suggests that he thank them all. His brows furrow at the mare's tone, a distinct edge of motherly expectation in the words, but he's so tired, so mentally drained, and all the hateful rhetoric dancing at the tip of his tongue just seems grossly out of place in this company of - friends? Acquaintances? He's only just met two of them and though he silently considers Johnny a friend, he doubts the Weaver would see his return of constant belittling, insulting, and general lack of affection as friendship - so instead he blandly mumbles to the assembly, “Thank you.” He's not sure what to expect then, with the excitement of action over and done with, his life surely saved and his heroes OOC // Think he mixed up "making nice" with "making fat jokes" again. Oops. :P @Johnny @Zyanya @Lena RE: Beat a Dead Horse (Healer?) - Lena - 08-04-2016
[I don't know. D:] @Albrecht @Johnny @Zyanya |