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 Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 2:42 am
[Dating this before My Friend of Misery but after I've Got My Eye On You]
Elke was in the hospital, bored.
The night after she'd seen the eyes in the window, Scylla came back. Just like she always did, Elke budged up, and the darker-haired senshi settled onto the bed next to her. Still in the routine, she rested her head on Scylla's shoulder--Elke was still feverish, a little, but it wasn't contagious, so hopefully it would be allowed.
Then she broke routine by smiling and looking up at Scylla through her bangs. "Powitanie, Scy!" Her arms, now free from the IV, wrapped around the senshi of the kraken in a hug. It wasn't up to snuff, compared to earlier hugs, but then she was still healing. Things like that were to be expected.
"Thank you for coming," Elke said fervently, "I am so bored. It is like my boredness is extending into a fourth dimension. I am the first person to ever have a hypercube of boredness. A hypercube. It transcends time and space, like the Tardis."
Elke watched a lot of TV on her laptop.
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 2:59 am
Scylla didn't come alone. After the flower, she'd taken to bringing Virgo other gifts.
Elke had an army of things by her bed.
Day 1: The bear and balloon
Day 2: Scylla didn't come by
Day 3: Scylla didn't come by
Day 4: A yellow rose (now dead.)
Day 5: A stuffed toy dolphin; a copy of Dark Prince, a romance novel Jada had particularly enjoyed. She'd had to bring two things to make up for two days of neglect! And Mikhail had just been delicious!
Day 6: A foot-long pen that wrote in bright purple ink; a stuffed octopus?!
Day 7: The item in her hand.
As she'd entered the room, she brushed a kiss across the top of Elke's head as she had since day 4, sliding into the bed next to her and wrapping an arm around her friend. Elke was warm; Scylla leaned over to get some of the fever medicine that sat next to the bed, untaken.
"Open up." she ordered. Elke hated the flavor of it, and protested every time. But Scylla had the upper hand in this battle, as every night; the hand on her hip and the mother-face. And presents.
"Now, what is this Powitanie?" she watched Elke like a hawk, trying to make sure the girl drank the medicine.
And she'd put money on the nurses thinking Elke drank it herself.
"And Powi-whatever, I brought you another gift."
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:11 am
She eyed the medicine, guiltily. If she didn't take it, Su Ling had threatened to put her in a headlock and make her. But it tasted so gross, like bad bubblegum, and the aftertaste was icky, like bad cherries. Only once had she gotten away without taking the medicine and that had been because Scylla had come by later than normal and Su Ling had just given up. The pleading look she directed at Scylla helped nothing, and she took the little cup and stared at it.
(Hello, she thought at the cup, My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.)
"It's Polish," said Elke brightly, seizing on this distraction. "It means hello! Papa said, since I did so well on my last fluency test, I could take two new languages. So I'm gonna learn Polish--"
Polish and Chinese, she was going to say, but she was distracted by the offer of presents.
"Scy, you don't have to bring me things," said Elke, whose bed was starting to get sort of crowded. There was an octopus under her head, for instance. She was going to have a time getting home.
She would also have a time convincing Scylla to read to her if she didn't take the medicine. But it was just so gross...
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:13 am
"Drink." Scylla's eyes narrowed; the DVD-shaped package on her hip waggled there temptingly. "Otherwise..." she let her voice trail off.
It was simple. Virgo was good, or Virgo got no prize.
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:19 am
"You are so mean," she mumbled, but there was no rancor in her voice. And, sighing, she drank down the medicine and swallowed. With a disgusted expression, she put the cup aside, then sank down and pulled her coverlet up under her chin. Moving did not hurt so much anymore; the nurses she saw all comment on it, saying she was healing so fast!
Elke was beginning to get suspicious. This stabbing thing and staying put for seven more days was getting pretty shifty. Was it really such a big deal?
Still making faces--though now she was going for the water bottle on her bedside table, which generally meant the sulking was over. "That is so very gross," she complained, frowning at Scylla like it was all her fault (it wasn't).
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:25 am
"I do it from friendship." Scylla said cheerfully, and set the cup down on the night-table, sliding back into the hospital bed with the bluenette. "And here is your prize." the box was covered in violet tissue paper, and underneath there was the faintest trace of a calligraphy that may look familiar.
The Princess Bride.
It was an excellent movie, no matter what people said.
"Now, you said you are going to be learning Polish? That is awesome!" she snuggled under the blankets; hospitals were cold, and her legs were bare. "So what does Pooka...tuc...ze? mean?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:34 am
Right, friendship. Still, Elke smiled, and set her head back on Scylla's shoulder. "If you ever end up here I will do the same for you," she promised (or threatened, it depended on your thoughts on cherry-flavored fever reducers). And, quasi-reluctantly, she took the box, teased the tissue paper away carefully. Then she had to suppress the instinctive squeal of delight.
The Princess Bride was only her favorite movie ever. Maman had watched it with her when she was little and the story just never got old.
She hugged Scylla tightly again, and then asked, "Can we watch it? Please? Just a little bit, I can put it on my laptop, please?"
Her favorite movie ever.
"Papa says that the mark of a good journalist is being able to communicate effectively," explained Elke, picking up her laptop and setting it carefully on her knees. "So I know lots of languages! And now I am to learn Polish and Chinese. I dunno what dialect, though." Mandarin, she hoped. She could expand to Cantonese later. "When I'm a journalist, I'll be able to go anywhere. I mean, I hope so."
Then, belated: "Powitanie! It means 'hello'. And dobranoc is 'good night'."
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:42 am
"No need." Scylla winced. "If I wind up here, I'm walking right back out. I'll be hospitalized in only the prettiest rooms, and on silk sheets. With only the hottest doctors, and no ugly view." she nodded. What a joke!
Elke's arms wrapped around her and Scylla laughed, pressing her head to rest against the other girl's. "I don't mind watching it. It'll be a nice break from what we normally do." She watched Elke grab the laptop, snuggling a little closer to her so she could be nosy.
"My mother made me learn some languages." Jada said finally, but her voice was embarrassed. "I was never very good at them. I speak bits and pieces of several, however. I never thought about learning polish." she made a face. "Chinese could be interesting!" She unwrapped the movie, tossing the clear wrap into the can next to the bed. "What kind of a journalist do you want to be?"
Powitanie. Dobranoc.
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:50 am
The bluenette laughed (quietly, though!) and logged in to her computer. "It's not that bad," said Elke chirpily--optimism defined!--and she continued, "After all, there gotta be people who can't see the sky, and I can." She could be in a ward! Imagine how awkward that would be. The private room at all was a good thing.
"I'm gonna take pictures. Photo-stories, like the big puppeteering project in Berlin earlier this year!" That would have been the best job ever, in the whole world. Elke only wished she'd been there to actually participate in recording those kinds of events. "A photo-journalist, is what I think it is called."
Then, over the start of the movie, she said, "I can help teach you! I'm good at languages, that is what they tell me. I speak French, and Italian, and Spanish and German and English. Fluently, anyway." She practiced her Italian and Spanish and German on Skype, and French on the phone with her parents. And English was her everyday language, since she was in America. "Maybe we can learn Polish together, like a secret code!"
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 4:04 am
"That does sound very interesting." Scylla agreed (her voice was thick, and she was sinking down into Elke's sheets.) The bruise was almost gone from her face, the only hint it had been there a shape under the pale skin. "Traveling everywhere, taking pictures... that does sound like a lot of fun." Like a permanent tourist (Jada's current plan for the future.)
The movie started, and Jada's head went to rest on Elke's shoulder, watching the images flash over the laptop monitor. "I'll definitely have to get you help me brush up on some of them." she agreed. "And that sounds like a great idea. It would certainly come in handy, I'm sure."
She'd like to learn Swiss one day. After all, she had money in Swiss banks, so she'd like to understand the things the tellers muttered under their breath when she went to get some of it.
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 4:23 am
Satisfied, she hooked her hair behind her ears. "I can teach you when we patrol together," she said, quiet enough that the sound of the Princess Bride would overwhelm her quiet voice. A thought occurred--what if Scy didn't want to patrol with her anymore? She had sort of seen the worst part of Virgo's power a lot earlier than the Zodiac senshi would have preferred. Actually, she would have preferred that Scylla never see how bad things could get, but...
"If you want to patrol again," she added. Then, quieter: "Your face looks almost all better."
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 4:37 am
"That sounds like a plan." Scylla agreed. She only really heard Elke because of how close her ear was to the other girl. Oh, Wesley. If she'd been Buttercup, surely she would have noticed sooner. She sniffled a little, before tilting her head to look up at Elke.
"Why on earth would you think I wouldn't want to patrol with you again?" she paused the movie, giving her friend a severe look. "I'll probably be downright angry if you even go out without me for a while. You'd have me fretting a moaning like an overprotective mother." her lips curved down into an unfamiliar frown.
At the reminder of the bruise on her face, Jada smiled, reaching up to run her fingers over the pale skin. "Almost. Then again, it has almost been a week since I got it. It needed to wear off eventually." Now, the glass cuts that ran down her back and carved her hands were a little different. Then, they were fresher. And they also had not been seen by Elke, nor mentioned to her.
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 4:57 am
Elke startled a little at the look and immediately averted her gaze. Suddenly it seemed one of the panels of her quilt was of utmost interest to her, to a ridiculous point.
"Well, because... I was a lot of trouble," said Elke, "I wasn't any help at all." Scylla probably thought that she was useless. And then, a little desperately: "Don't be mad!" She couldn't stand it when people were mad at her, it made her feel all sick. Her knees pulled inward, hands over her eyes just in case. Just in case of what? She couldn't tell you if she tried.
After a long moment, she peeked through her fingers at Scylla and smiled, nervously. "I'm glad you're feeling better," she said.
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:02 am
Scylla scowled at her friend, tapping her lightly on the leg in reproach. "Well, I'll admit you sure were a lot of trouble." she agreed. There was something wicked lurking behind her eyes, her eyes amused. "I'm not mad at you, Elke." she turned, wrapping her other arm around the other girl's shoulders, pushing up in the bed so that they were on even footing, so to speak.
"Never angry at you." she caught Virgo peeking through her fingers, finally. The nervous smile made her return it with one of her own, not so nervous. "I have no reason to be." she'd missed some of her favorite parts of the movie. Oh well. "And yes, I'm feeling much better. Good as new in another day or so, unlike one little troublemaker I shall not name."
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:12 am
She harrumphed, made a show of crossing her arms and sulking. At least Scy wasn't mad at her; she didn't know what she would do. Well, if... um... Actually, what could she have done differently to be better faster? Nothing, really. Elke didn't remember doing anything that might cause an infection, she'd just been doing what she was told to do and then suddenly they were all oh no you have a fever! and some swelling! and, well. Not impressed. No one had been impressed by that move, thank you Elke's body.
Elke sighed and looked up to the clock on the wall. "The nurses will be by to check on me soon," she said, eyes widening a little. It was the first time she'd made it to seeing Scylla leave in the history of ever.
Her hands dropped to her lap, and she brushed at her blue hair. "I'm guessing you did not get a visitor's pass." It might have been teasing, maybe...
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