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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[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.