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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2023-08-05 [2023/09/02 18:32] – shyriath
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2023-08-05 [2023/12/23 18:19] (current) – shyriath
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 {{wst>pinkgothic|Hmm, yes, that might be a problem. If this Oracle wanted people to have children and harassed Ferleth to produce any, it would certainly go badly. But Demarath found himself inwarldy mildly amused at the mental image of Ferleth scorching the Oracle's tail in response. To the outside, he nodded mildly, setting his now-empty bowl aside. "Agreed," he concurred with Ferleth.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Kurass looked closely at Ferleth. Whether because of the latter's attitude or her own powers, she seemed to recognize that there was an extremely personal element to the response. "Oh," she murmured. "I think I see. Yes, it's not always the most tactful position to take."
+Ferleth glared at her, not sure whether the older woman was looking into her mind, but finally snorted and stuck her muzzle into the bowl. After concluding that, if nothing else, there was no fast-acting poison in the stuff, she slurped some of it down before suddenly asking, "So what's-his-name is some kind of healer?"
+"Shoss is, yes," Kurass replied mildly. "He's what we call a lifegiver in the Citadel. They can manipulate life force. Healing isn't the only thing they can do, but it's the most common. He'll probably want to look the two of you over after he's finished with the others, if you're willing."
+Ferleth looked not entirely comfortable with this idea, but there was a faint, desperate longing in her eyes. "What kind of things can be fixed that way?"
+"It's not quite my area of expertise, but I understand that most things can - given enough time and effort, and if the person being healed is strong enough. There is a bit of a cost to the body in being healed, you see. "
+Ferleth fidgeted, not certain how to take this information, and stuck her face into the bowl again, in what appeared to be an attempt to avoid fidgeting. Though she asked nothing further, given the extensive set of poorly-healed injuries she had, it wasn't too hard to guess the thrust of her question.
+At that point, Shoss himself came in, looking tired. "The green girl is coming along well," he murmured, wearily lowering himself to a sitting position next to the table. "It'll be another vigil or two before I can finish up with her, but the wound's clean now and not so deep, and the illness she picked up is receding." He glanced at Kurass. "I'm guessing that there's still stew left?"
+"Some for both you and her?" Shoss nodded, then Kurass got up and went into the room that apparently served as the kitchen.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Demarath glanced across at Shoss, allowing himself to feel some relief. Ilirith would be all right. "Thank you so much for your help," he said to Shoss as Kurass meandered into the kitchen. "If you need rest, please take it," he urged politely, not wanting the lifegiver to overwork himself if the immediate risk had passed.
+Then two questions occurred to him, and he appended them in some disregard for that they weren't questions well-suited to following each other: "May I see her? And... can we do anything for you, in return?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|The red male laid his head on the table for a moment, laughing weakly. "Are you... Demarath, was it? You can take her her food, if you like. She was asking for you anyway, but during that stage of things having other people around might've been a little inconvenient. As for me, I need sleep and food, but just food will have to do for now. I need to see to Zadireth before I can heave myself into bed."
+Ferleth hesitated, then spoke up. "Will you be able to look at me?"
+Shoss lifted his head from the table. "If it's not something that needs immediate attention, it may need to wait until tomorrow. Healing's a bit strenuous, especially if you're trying to hurry things along." Ferleth looked a bit discontented, but, somewhat uncharacteristically, seemed to decide not to argue.
+Kurass came out again with two bowls. One she put in front of Shoss, who grasped it like a lifeline; she turned as if to take the other one towards Ilirith's room, but Shoss waved vaguely at her. "Let //him// do it," he said, jerking his head toward Demarath. "She wants to see him anyway."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Demarath rose from his sit and extended his hands to receive the bowl, his posture conveying an offer, not a demand.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Kurass politely handed the bowl to Demarath with what, he thought, seemed like a rather knowing sort of look.
+He took it into the chamber, which appeared to be a smallish and uncomplicated bedroom; there was a large niche in the wall, from which had been sculpted an elevated bowl-shaped depression for the bed and a flat surface next to it for use as a table. The bed had been lined with crude, lumpy-looking cushions and a blanket made of some unfamiliar material. And that, aside for a bit of floor space for moving around in, was all there was.
+Ilirith was stretched out in the bed; the wound on her thigh had been freshly dressed. Her cloak and harness had been set aside on the table. She looked exhausted and rather grouchy, but brightened somewhat as Demarath came in, and even more when she saw that he was carrying a bowl.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Demarath mirrored the expression, carefully navigating as not to end up doing something silly like tripping over an unfamiliar obstacle and spilling the stew all over Ilirith. Instead, he arrived safely beside her and offered her the bowl at a distance that let her choose if she wanted to take it in her own perfectly capable hands or she wanted to lean over and eat directly, letting her tired limbs rest after their long journey through the marshes.
+"How are you feeling?" he asked, softly, even knowing that it was a somewhat redundant question - 'well' was not in the cards, after all, and her body language was quite sufficient to convey most of the answer, even given her default mental shielding.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|After a moment's battle with herself that pride won, she reached out and carefully took the bowl, though her hands were visibly trembling. She took a brief sip from it before answering. "I hurt less," she said, "and this healing thing of theirs is marvelous, but it takes more out of you than I'd've thought. I feel like I haven't eaten or slept in vigils." She sipped again.
+She looked up at him. "You're looking a little ragged yourself. You didn't get a nap or something?"}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|"Not yet," he confessed, feeling mildly but justly chided. "Just... too much on my mind," he said, as though it needed saying. There was indeed much on his mind - it was a full-on Kaean mess of thoughts, engaged with the strange environment, Ilirith's wound, Ilirith's well-being in general, Ferleth's rattled and slow integration, the revelation of Citadel politics, and the fight they'd been drawn into, all across the background anxieties of being on the literal run for a while now, uprooted, and rather not used to rugged living. What maintained his sanity the most was the relentless march forward, the finite and obvious goal and the opportunity for self-discovery the Citadel and its culture represented... and Ilirith. Ilirith was brightening his outlook considerably.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|There was a pause while Ilirith ate some of her stew - despite being dreadfully hungry, scarfing it all down an an instant was probably bad for her and definitely embarrassing, so she forced herself to take her time, occupying herself with a study of Demarath's mind. She wondered how anyone - including, apparently, an entire half of the Chosen population - could manage with such a tangled mess of thoughts, though in all fairness he was dealing with a lot - as was she, albeit in a very different fashion.
+The feeling of dislocation was especially strong, to the point that even though she was lying here recovering from being wounded and crammed into a shelter with strangers with what seemed like surprisingly little to do, she was glad just for the temporary reprieve of having a place to stay, to stop moving, to feel at home. Under other circumstances, she might have considered asking to stay for longer than they would likely be permitted to. If nothing else, it was a nice, hidden, cozy place.
+She was also surprised, and quietly pleased, that her presence seemed to be such a comfort to him - and, indeed, that she seemed to be occupying as large a proportion of his thoughts as she evidently was. She hoped to encourage that.
+"Demarath," she said finally, "have you ever thought about... well, what kind of life you'd want? In this Citadel of theirs?"}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The question crinkled Demarath slightly. Had he ever thought about what kind of life he'd want at all? He'd dreamt about many back when he was 'employed' as a means of cooling supplies, but never with any real expectation that they might come true, and so never with any real attempt at making them at all realistic. When, then, in the time since his flight from there and the hardships they'd been stringing themselves through, was he supposed to have come up with some kind of aspiration?
+The thought made him resentful - not of Ilirith, but of himself. Still only an escapee, then, now with blood on his hands. In his mind's eye, he remembered the battle, then Ilirith's wounds. The blood, soaking through the mud. The grimace deepened and he cast his gaze aside deliberately. "No, not really."}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith grimaced. That wasn't the direction she'd intended for him to go in. She shook her head and, reaching out a hand, put it on his arm. "Don't blame yourself," she said, gently but firmly. "What happened was not your fault - you understand? It wasn't. Things happen in battle, and you weren't the one to start the battle."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Right, mentalist. He wasn't embarrassed for the thoughts as much as frustrated that he was exposing her to them this way. He put a hand of his own on hers. "I understand," he said. There was enough truth to it to not make it a lie. "But I hope we don't have to do that again. I don't want you getting hurt. Or Ferleth, or Zadireth, for that matter." He smiled, but it was a somewhat scrunched expression all the same. "I guess that rules out border guard," he joked without much passion. "How about you?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|She sighed ponderously. "Sometimes," she said, "it's necessarily to kill, in self-defense or in defense of some other person or cause. I'll do it if I have to, and I'm good at it. But - yes, if I can manage it, I'd prefer not to have to." Her eyes grew distant. "I've wondered, you know, what else I could do. I imagine I could make a good librarian or something - I can read and write, I'm good at spotting when things are out of place. I like books. I don't know if they have libraries there, of course, but if they do it might be worth a try."
+She took another sip of the stew, which by now was nearly gone, and added, "But in truth, I think I could put up with a lot of things, as long as it was enough to get me somewhere of my own, where I could settle in - a little cozy place, even. I had rooms before, but they were the Matriarch's to let me use - having some that no one can evict me from would suit me better.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The notion that Ilirith had lived in rooms that she could have been evicted from felt wrong to Demarath. It wasn't that the concept was foreign to him, or that he struggled to imagine Ilirith in such a situation, per se - it was that he'd spent enough time with her to think she deserved better, inherently, and it insulted him that others had disagreed.
+He didn't raise the subject, though. Instead, realising that he wasn't sure, he asked: "What does a librarian do?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith wondered how sheltered Demarath had been. He'd grown up in a noble house, hadn't he? Did it not have a library of its own, or just had it just been small enough that no one had needed to be around to manage it?
+"Er, well," she explained, "The more books there are lying around, the harder it becomes to find the one you want unless they're kept in some kind of order. A librarian's job is to know what books are there and where they ought to be kept, and to find them and make sure they're put back when not in use."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|There was a pause after she finished, the silence filling the void that Demarath had expected to be filled with something more. When nothing was forthcoming, his confusion resolved - it just wasn't a particularly //interesting// job, about as mentally engaging as his task as a glorified refrigerator. He couldn't imagine liking such a job - was this another one of those differences Zadireth had mentioned, or just an Ilirith idiosyncrasy? The thought of the latter brought a smile to his face. "Then I hope they have enough books for you," he grinned encouragingly.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith got the feeling that Demarath wasn't entirely impressed with the idea. But at least he wasn't dismissive - and, in any case, being a spy and assassin had already given her enough excitement, which would undoubtedly only be added to during a trip across half a continent. She could do with some calmness in her life after all that.
+"And if not," she said aloud, "I'm sure there's something else. I could even fall back on herding, if I had to, like my parents did - I think I remember enough about how it was done." She gave a wistful smile. "One of the things I've found out from watching peoples' heads is that most of them don't get to do jobs that are all that wonderful, you know. They have to find their fulfillment in their own time."}}