Logs:Warding off the Shadows
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 8 April, 2015 |
| Who: Edyis, Keysi |
| Type: Log |
| What: Fears rekindled by the bazaar incident, Edyis is awoken by a nightmare and reveals a segment of her past. The friends console each other's traumas in different ways |
| Where: Candidate Barracks, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 6, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
  |
>---< Candidate Quarters, High Reaches Weyr(#286RAJ) >-----------------------<
Two caverns lead one right into the other from a hallway just off the
Common Room. Taking advantage of the high, vaulted ceiling, bunk beds
march in five neat rows of five beds each allowing up to fifty people to
sleep in one cavern, although one of those caverns is presently largely
closed off. Functional and spartan in atmosphere, there's little in the
way of decoration here, just the one tapestry depicting a hatching on the
wall of the first cavern and eggs on the sands in the second.
Each bunk is made up when there are candidates in residence, with standard
sheeting, gray woollen blankets and somewhat lumpy pillows. A trunk stands
at both the head and foot of the bunks, providing a little space for the
occupants to store their belongings while the wait for the eggs to hatch.
The archway between the two spaces is covered over with a hide hanging,
easily hooked back when both caverns are in use, but tacked into place
when only the first is needed. A proper wooden door closes out noise and
drafts from the hallway. It is several hours after Edyis slips into the barracks, changes into her sleeping clothes and faceplants into her cot. More than 20 hours after the fire that scorched the bowl and left Reaches without it's Weyrwoman. Amid the sounds of breathing and the snoring Yesia, a soft thrashing starts slowly, emanating from one of the lower bunks. Panicked breathing, and softly the word no. Over and over again, until there is a soft hissing thump like flesh hitting stone. Edyis is in the floor tangled inexplicably in her bedding, soaking wet. Staring. Staring at the rocky ceiling. That's all Keysi does for hours at night. Hours, lying awake, thinking of that same numbness. The ceiling looks so similar.. and of course it is. The Weyr is carved out of the same rock. Her staring and insomnia are interrupted by something unusual. She'd heard Edyis come in earlier, but given how quickly she got into her cot, had chosen not to say anything. But the change in her breathing- not rhythmic as normal, and the sleep-words escaping her mouth draw Keysi out of her self-made illusions. "Ed." Keysi whispers softly at first, and then the thud of her bunkmate on the floor pulls her to look over the side. And, shortly after, swing herself down to jump off the top bunk and land beside her. "Edyis! Wake up." Her eyes are wide open, but she's not quite there, "Father ... the barns...they set fire to... he went in..." She pants softly, slowly she remembering where she is herself and so many other things. Bodily her arms wrap around her friend dissolving into quiet sobs that wrack her entire frame, burying her face in the healer's shoulder. Inconsolable. Keysi's grey eyes observe Edyis, with a hand held just over one of her shoulders as if to grab her if it becomes necessary as she drops to a kneel beside the once-scribe. There's a flinch as Ed is suddenly coming straight towards her, but remains static enough to be wrapped into that hug. That all-encompassing, emotional hug. Keys' hands hover behind her friend for a long moment. She doesn't do hugs. But this time.. Those hesitating arms finally give up their battle and tighten behind her. "Edyis..." Keys says, hushed but calm. Always calm. "Ed it's me. You're alright, you're here in the barracks." She can't bring herself to use the word 'safe'. Edyis continues those wracking sobs, trying desperately to stop, or at least keep them from being more than sharp breathy sounds without any volume to them. She doesn't fall apart like this, not to this point. "Keysi, they are all gone." She whimpers almost pitifully trying desperately not to wake the others. She doesn't want to be seen like this. Eventually the sobs stop, to soft hiccupy sounds, "I'm sorry. I didn't... I ..." She doesn't even know where to begin. Keysi is silent, but there. There for Ed to cling to, there for her sobs to soak into her tunic and bandages until she can't any longer. Unmoving. She even lets moments pass after Edyis speaks before she breaks the quiet, "You are sorry for what? There's nothing to apologize for." Is said as an absolute, "Your family?" Pause, "This family?" Meaning, of course, the Weyr. Edyis as she's starting to be more herself, and she lets go remembering the girls injuries... "No.. before. " She manages tugging up the entangling sheet and pressing it to her face to wipe the tears. "Rone's men... raided Esvay Hold. We were mostly unscathed," She hitches, "But the fields burned, and the barns. My father was caught in them trying to get the draft beasts out. He didn't die until a few weeks later from the burns and infection. That's when I accepted search." The sobs and hiccups are slowing but still there. She tries so hard though to keep it quiet. Keysi had not, despite her injuries, reacted in pain. Whether she is that much better, or just that much better at hiding it, impossible to tell. Her face betrays nothing, unrelenting storm-grey eyes focused on Ed. Now released from the hug, she shifts her legs, crossing them beneath her. "I see." The healer says quietly, "that explains your wording to Zadkiel." She offers, though brings no other details with it to remind her should she not wish to be reminded. "You accepted Search to get away? To forget, or to start new?" "My stepmother and I, we took care of him after he burned. The infection took hold, and he was in so much pain at the end Keysi ." She forces herself to breathe slowly, to force all those bottled up things back down where they belong. "I took search so we could get through the winter, Gretvyn used my dowry money to get through and we survived. I stayed on because I discovered that Pern was a bigger place than I ever imagined, and because I could do more good here." Leaning against the cot now, she studies her friends face, and the tearstains on the shirt. "I have been uneasy around fire ever since, but usually it's been tamed, in a hearth or fire pit but... when I saw those flames at the bazaar." "It is a horrible way to go, at the time or later." Keysi says as if experienced in the matter, "I am sorry you had to experience it, and to give up your dowry. But you've become this person." She leans back slightly from her previously leaned-in state, lifting a hand to motion to her. All of her. "And you are stronger for it. You are you because of it." The healer quiets as the bazaar is mentioned. "I couldn't leave until the chaos was so bad they couldn't stop me." The admittance surely isn't with regret, but annoyance, even anger, that she was so far from being helpful. "That was no fire pit, Ed. That was a catastrophe. One that cost the Weyr dearly. To freshen your old scars.. it is not surprising." Edyis says, "I don't give a damn about the dowry." She laughs now, a touch bitterly. "I miss my Father more, miss Gretvyn more, but that's not the horrifying part." She flinches, "When it mattered most, when I could have been helping evacuate people or working to put out the fire... I couldn't think. I couldn't move. I just sat there reliving something that I should have been able to let go of four turns ago. This isn't me." She says lamely. "You can't just let go of an event that changed the course of a lifetime." Keysi corrects slowly, though there's an edge to her otherwise neutral voice. "I am sure you would punch a face or two, climb the tallest heights, even move a rock wall off someone if it mattered," The last, a less than tasteful dry joke perhaps, "But this is not that sort of challenge. You cannot expect yourself to leap into your worst fear just because in all other situations you would be brave." Dark eyes focus then, studying the grey-eyed woman as though seeing her for the first time, drawing the connection, through a hundred other tiny observations that didn't seem noticeable individually, but when the lines were connected; You are still carrying it with you too aren't you. The cave-in. Being trapped like that." It almost sounds self-scolding. Keysi catches Ed's stare and then breaks it, looking away. There's a moment when that intense gaze of hers sweeps the surrounding bunks for signs- any sign- that someone may be lying awake, listening. As if she could be any more serious, a heaviness seems to settle on her. "I still feel the numbness." After a hesitation, she adds more, as if the thoughts slip without her permission, "And, the walls.. I guess.. they feel closer at night." Is said lowly, so lowly it's nearly inaudible to Ed, let alone any further distance. "But it doesn't matter." She pulls herself back to be able to look at the other candidate, "We all have our histories, Ed. Things we will carry with us, for better or worse." Edyis's eyebrows draw together faintly, watching the healer then, and understanding. Long gentle fingers reach out, reaching for the other candidate's hand. Staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Maybe we do... but it doesn't mean... that we can't do something about them." She's on her feet then, moving at an alarmingly silent clip. When she returns there's a few glow baskets, and a needle and thread. She eyes the top bunk, and then the bottom, before she fishes a handful of glows out and starts running the thread through them, making a string of glowlights. Dark eyes shift again, as though appraising the cot. "It'd be easier... if... " She murmurs. Edyis says, "Is it rock that bothers you most? if you look up?" She whispers." Keysi watches, getting to her feet as she does so to be able to move out of Edyis' way. Fallen into silence, she waits as the glows are threaded and bound. "Ed.." She starts after Edy is well underway. "Yes, it bothers me some, but we live in a place carved into stone. It is not something to be avoided." Her scarred fingers clench and unclench fists, ultimately being forced to relax, "You must not say anything, though. I cannot go to the mindhealers." There's something to that statement. As if it the cave-in isn't the only persuading factor. Even Ed messing with the glows for some sort of idea seems to be making her.. edgy, with a rigidity in her stance not normally there. "I do not see how this is helping you.." She grins at Keysi then, and it's alarming how quickly and how quietly she has those glows strung, she pats her bunk now with a free hand, "Shh, you will wake everyone up. " Clambering up top, she stares at the ceiling frowning, before clambering back down all shockingly quietly. Next thing you know there is almost a beaded curtain of glows around the scribe's bunk. "It's the shadows, make things seem closer. So..." Her heart is in the right place? Keysi isn't excited by any meaning of the word. Her face is reddened, though fortunately hidden by the dark and unsteady, swaying lights of the glows. As she comes to realize what the once-scribe is up to, the feeling of her stomach dropping makes her take a step or two away before forcing a pace back. "This doesn't help you with your nightmares." Keys repeats with different words, and begins pacing slowly, at the risk of waking up those around them- if the lights hadn't attracted attention already. "And how will it look to others if I let you break your arm right before the Hatching by falling out of the top bunk?" Edyis tugs up the patchwork quilt, sheltering the light, moving rapidly. With any luck. The light is now centered in on that lower bunk. Except... "Oh. Yeah, I guess that's a point." She shrugs, "Tell them it's because of my nightmares. We can switch when everyone's asleep. I've got a belt that will keep me in the top bunk." She offers with a murmur, though, if it doesnt meet with approval the whole thing is still staying and Edyis is sleeping in her glow lined tent of awesome. The candidates can hate her if they want. "..We can try." Reluctance. "But I can't have others know, Ed." Keysi's voice grows in strength, though not volume, reiterating her comment of mindhealers. One of her hands steadies herself on the bunk's post, forcing her pacing to stop. The healer pivots to lean over her trunk, which is opened after undoing the lock. One of the soft plushie toys, a light blue color like gentle water, covering most of its fabric surface, is pulled out and handed upwards, "Something, for if you wake up again." Eying the plushy she takes it in hand settling into the top bunk. Eventually she cuddles onto the thing, grinning contentedly at her friend. "Thank you." She yawns... "And Keysi.... believe it or not. This helped." Her voice low and soft. |
Leave A Comment