Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ataya could not have said how long he remained unconscious, only that as awareness crept back towards him it came saddled with two things at once: a foreign green magic, and a petrified presence in his mind, so vibrant his thoughts might as well have been chasing themselves in tireless circles. It took far too long to realize that he wasn’t actually panicked. It was something else. Something—

A groan cracked from his lips.

He lifted a hand that felt leaded down in order to scrape the back of his palm at his throbbing eyelids, and—she twitched backwards, and then forwards. In the next instant, he registered the touches to his cheek, neck, shoulder, as presses from her snout, and the sloppy, faint magic pushing through his system was hers. At least it no longer felt threatening. A litany of indecipherable emotions—not his own—swelled against him then, but at the forefront, a deep, all-consuming guilt and fear reigned supreme.

He sighed, drawing his tongue along the backs of his teeth and beginning the slow process of assuring himself that all of his limbs worked. Each of his toes, all of his fingers, his legs, his arms, his neck, and his lungs—and so on, and so forth. At long last, he grunted.

“Well,” he croaked, and then grimaced. After a rough swallow to wet his throat, he waited a moment, and tried again. “You managed not to kill me…”

It was oddly satisfying to feel fully assured that the next sound Karazhan made was quite definitively the single most woebegone and pathetic utterance he had ever heard a khehora make. Their link assured him that this was because nothing in the imaginable universe was worse than the possibility that she could have hurt him. He managed to push himself upright, slowly, and afterward allowed her to nose her way beneath his fingers for lack of mental or physical strength to discourage her.

Besides, it seemed she was still attempting to heal him, in whatever capacity she could.

In the hours that followed, he pieced together the story to be something similar to the following: he had left her for the better portion of the day, travelling farther from her than she was prepared for and leaving her longer than she knew what to do with while he worked his magic and explored elsewhere. In her time alone, her fear and her own magic, unchecked and seeping from her on instinct, had overflowed, not in great quantities, but enough so that, over the course of the day, his room had become toxic enough that when he returned, completely unprepared to ‘defend’ himself against the magic of his own infant bonded, he had collapsed.

Because it was her own magic and weak given her age and lack of experience, it seemed to have wrought no permanent effects, and in its familiarity, she had been able to aid his body in cleansing itself despite her lack of proper ‘control’ on the whole. Still and all, Ataya decided a visit to someone with experience in such things was more than merited.

So it was that, when he felt mobile enough to do so again, he made himself presentable, and lead his bonded out of their inn room and toward the abode of the only person he had encountered yet in Tukyere likely to be suited to the job: the hybrid healer, Junjie Moana. Karazhan followed at a nervous trot at his side, needing to be reminded every few steps that they would not progress very fast if she kept putting her body in physical contact with his legs—let alone between them.

Neither, Ataya re-emphasized to her more than once, were acceptable.

Eventually, Ataya coerced Karazhan into trotting along at his side — if as close at his side as she could possibly squeeze herself without constantly butting against his leg — and he considered that a victory in and of itself. Eventually, Ataya arrived within range of the healer, Junjie’s, residence, and that he considered an even greater victory. He still felt vaguely faint, dry-mouthed, and sore where he’d taken a physical fall to the floor.

He was rewarded for all the pains of his efforts and best intentions by the warmest of greetings in an unfamiliar voice.

“You look awful.”

Ataya’s lips twitched, drawing back in an unimpressed ghost of a sneer. “I would say the same of you,” he said evenly, voice still—much to his displeasure—faintly raspy, “…but I lack the necessary capacities to return the favor with any accuracy. You may trust, though, that I am imagining you look as pleasant as you sound.”

When a second presence emerged — Junjie’s magic, thankfully, was impossible to miss, so Ataya spared no extra concern — his shoulders squared back a fraction, posture straightening for the healer. He didn’t want to look ‘unwell’; he didn’t feel—well, perhaps he did. And his efforts seemed moot, regardless. He grimaced to himself.

“Noted,” he murmured aloud. “If I manage to reach such a state of good health during my time here despite all the trials this city and its surrounding inhabitants seem intent on putting before me, I will be sure to make a house call. In the meantime, I…” Ataya paused, and for the first time, he managed to look almost hesitant, if not quite abashed, as he remembered what he had come for. “That is, assuming you are not adverse to giving some…advice…”

Even the word tasted foul. Ataya tended to prefer figuring things out on his own, but with as many new situations to cope with as it was, he couldn’t afford to have his infant bonded poisoning him on a regular basis.

“I was hoping you might lend what I assume to be your superior expertise on green magic to me…my…” For lack of vision to ‘glance’ there, he flicked his fingers in the direction of his khehora, “…young and inexperienced new compatriot has not mastered hers yet, and it is not my specialty…”