Nursed back to health

[pippilongsockings]

Nursed Back to Health Comment with your character, preferences, preferred role, and any information you'd like to include. Your character has either been injured/sick and had to be taken in (possibly against their will) or has been the one to help somebody like the former. Through the mending process, the two characters in a thread have fallen in love - or at least grown closer and more affectionate. Reply to others. Thread.

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general early game spoilers, etc!

[fardeau]

( i have recruited the last party member, so i'm still missing info BUT. here we go. lmk if you need anything changed! )

[ 33 is not any more special than 44 or 55 ( or 34, 63, 71— ). He should know better than to meddle and bury new expeditioners who were not cowed by the circumstances presented to them. But he watches the Paintress rise and a new number replace the old, and he finds himself further south than he ever has at this time of the year. Realizes he's a step too late when he sets foot on Dark Shore and finds a massacre of the what-could-have-beens. The stench of blood isn't really sickening anymore, but it's not pretty; there's a small twist in his chest when he realizes that this could very well be the end of them.

— Verso pauses when his vision catch movement from the corner of his eye. There's no hope that blooms when it clocks as the unsteady rise-and-fall of a body's chest, but it spurs him to action anyway. Basic triage to stop the worst of the bleeding before he picks them up and moves them to the gentler lights in Spring Meadows, where things are a little more secluded and they're not forced to contend with Nevrons beyond what they could have expected. The rest of the visible injuries get dressed then.

And ... considers leaving it there. The man will recover in time. Whether or not he manages to pick up is and carry on is up to him. But he finds himself sticking around until the breathing evens out to something lighter and easier, then some more. By the time Verso makes his mind up to go, he realizes that the man has awoken. ]

Ah. [ Well, there goes that. Time to pretend to be normal. ] Good morning.

[demainvient]

[ It's quiet when he wakes from what had been a merciful blankness. The screams and explosions that filled the foggy night have ceased; only a strange buzzing silence fills his ears. He blinks up at long, twining things that move gently overhead, and only after a long moment realizes they're branches, laden with softly colored leaves he's never seen before. He isn't on the beach any longer. His breath rattles in his lungs, rapid; he feels cold. Shock, he thinks, but even that comes at a distance.

There's more movement, and a voice that comes with it; he startles at the sight of white hair. ]

You—

[ No: this man's hair isn't white all the way through; his face isn't lined and aged. Gustave blinks hard, trying to keep that other face from overlaying this one. ]

Where—

[ His voice is a wreck of itself, dry and broken. He coughs, a hundred different questions fighting in his throat for dominance. ]

Who are you? Did you— you brought me here? Where is this place?

[fardeau]

[ Shock is expected. Half the reason that he's stuck around is because people aren't alright after their team is massacred ( what was he going to do about that? ). Still not his business, but also — very much so, maybe. Renoir has moved, after all. And while the smarter thing to do would have been to peel away and start digging into that... well, you know. The man's awake, if shaken. Leaving now would be even worse. He's not heartless. ]

I'm Verso. [ There's a beat as his head turns to face the leaves that are surrounding them. The breeze is warm and gentle that almost feels comical given the air that's settled between them now that he's awake. There's a part of him that's viscerally aware that he's going to have to explain.

Maybe he should have left. ] We're close to the Indigo Tree; it should be safe here for now. [ His gaze returns to the stranger to watch his reaction. He considers his words before— ] Your injuries weren't bad. You shouldn't have any problems moving in a few. [ He doesn't call him lucky. ]

[demainvient]

[ He blinks, trying to follow the words — the Indigo Tree, it's where they'd planned to reconvene, in case of— in case of— but they'd never expected a slaughter so cold and sudden, implacable as a hurricane as it wiped his friends off the face of the world. ]

I don't understand.

[ There's so much he doesn't understand: how were his injuries so minimal, when so many others were ripped limb from limb, run through, their bodies insulted in terrible, terrifying ways? Is he the only one? ]

The others— the expedition—

[ Fear grips him, ice-cold and lancing, and he reaches with his artificial left hand to grab at the man's arm, drawing on his sleeve. ]

Did you see a girl? About— about sixteen, with long red hair? Is she— did she get away?

[fardeau]

[ Of course he doesn't. It takes effort, he realizes, not to laugh; he's not here to give the wrong impression. Laughing would not earn him any trust, for as much as this man seems to be willing to believe anything he'd say at this moment. But it sounds so brutally honest in a way he didn't expect, and he's not sure what to do with that.

He stiffens visibly when he's grabbed. Or maybe at the words that follow after. Probably both. He doesn't pull away though, and whatever surprise flitted across his face disappears as quickly as it showed up. ]

Sixteen. [ He repeats, blankly. A beat as he studies the open desperation on his face, and his brows knit together in response. There's a brief, if sympathetic, shake of his head. ] I didn't see anyone get away, but... I didn't stick around for long. You were the first person I came across that was still—

I'm sorry. [ Quietly, earnestly. ] I wanted to make sure you were alright.

[demainvient]

[ Sixteen, with nine good years before her Gommage, and now... he should never have let her come, he should have found a way to convince her, even if she would have hated him for it. At least she'd be alive to hate him.

His eyes squeeze closed, and he lets the man's arm go, abrupt, to curl fingers into a fist and punch them against the ground. It doesn't help the howling loss that swirls in like an angry wind where he's crumbling inside, but he does it again, anyway, fist thumping into soft grass, earth that gives just a little. ]

I have to—

[ He forces his fingers to uncurl and sets his palm on the grass to push himself up, unsteady, the mantra beating through his head. When one falls, we continue. When one falls—

But that one was never supposed to be Maelle. It shouldn't have been them all ]

If there are any other survivors, they'll go to the Indigo Tree. I have to get there.