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 Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:25 pm
This ORP takes place in Malvren's infirmary; it is designed to be mainly non-combat, and ongoing through the event!
It is a place for resistance fighters to come and recuperate (if you wish to RP that out), to plan, and form into strike forces.
Revolution fighters are free to sneak in/attack, but there will be a fair number of NPCs here so if you are coming in it might be best not to make your allegiance known!
If you are a revolution fighter who comes and battles here and is knocked out, you are assumed first captured by the resistance and then sneakily rescued by your allies.
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Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:27 pm
((This is a collaborated post Tinn and I put together over AIM))
[Created character: Bereck of green Berath]
Pain was the first thing he became aware of, pain and then cold. Something was wrong, there was a reason he hurt so much, but he couldn't quite catch hold of what it was yet. It was getting closer though, he could almost feel the shape of it now. Door slamming shut. Snarls. Claws and then... a voice. There had been a voice, and it had terrified him, and-
He remembered. There had been the wher, and he'd heard Aleck nearby, and he'd tried to kill the animal, half clawed out one of its eyes because if he didn't it would kill Aleck, but... but he hadn't killed it. He had failed his son.
...Wait.
Did he remember Aleck with a whip? An preposterous notion, but then so was him wrestling a wher; desperate times called for desperate-
Desperate times. The invasion, or revolution, or whatever it was. They were trying to take his home.
Between with that.
Bereck opened his eyes and blinked at a blurry shape above him. Right, priorities. "Where's my son?" his voice was weak but the words were clear, as was the urgency behind them.
====
HP: -4/35
***********
[Created character: Aleck, weyrbrat]
Carltis had done a decent job of the bandages, he really had. Aleck hadn't fiddled with them much, although he had fiddled, gently - mostly out of a compulsion to do something to delay the moment of 'there is nothing else you can do.' The other weyrbrat had been a help there too; his side and shoulder were pleasantly numb, enabling him to think. And he'd taken the.. girl out, and blocked the wher in. Aleck might not have to kill it.
He would have to thank him, somehow. In a way that caused minimal embarassment.
He kept both hands loosely grasped around one clammy still one, as much for the slight comfort it brought as to monitor the healer's pulse. He'd heard nothing else yet from Berath. Did that mean she was all right, or that she was in trouble? Limited in movement and waiting, it was hard for the mind not to wander. If she died, would Bereck simply never wake up? He'd developed a knack for not thinking about troubling things. But this was different.
..that weak voice was the best sound he'd heard. "Dad," the blur breathed. The relief in the voice was tangible; long fingers squeezed Bereck's wrist. "I'm right here."
***********
"Aleck?" Bereck blinked again. Sounded like Aleck, still looked like a blur, but it was the right shape and the hair was the right colour. Given the evidence presented, he decided it probably was Aleck. He wasn't dead. Relief washed over the healer and he smiled weakly, his fingers tightening slightly around one of the hands he now realised was holding his. Aleck was alive... and had been fighting whers. Now he was worried again and his face creased with concern. "You alright? The wher-"
Had killed Sesina. She was dead. One moment she had been going to fetch supplies to help their supposed refugee, and the next the wher had come in and killed her as though it was nothing.
***********
Aleck let his head bend, both in attention and tiredness. "It's me, Dad. I'm fine." This wasn't entirely true, but was within an acceptable range of error and his ventilated shoulder would only bring stress to his father. "The wher's.. gone. Carltis brought you and the girl," he selected the word carefully, "out here and helped patch you up. Berath's outside - I don't know what she's doing; we heard her roar and then she didn't call." He frowned, eyes searching over Bereck's matching blue ones. "Is there anything else we can do? I only know first aid-"
***********
"Good." Bereck relaxed again at the news that Aleck was alright and the wher was gone; safe for now. At the mention of 'the girl' however he closed his eyes for a moment, and even when he opened them again he didn't take in the rest of what Aleck had said immediately.
"He said he was a refugee, from Benden," he said distantly, looking away from Aleck. "Said he'd been chased into the infirmary by somebody," he paused to breathe for a moment, it felt like he wasn't getting enough air; blood loss, and associated shock. "Somebody who recognized him. The girl's name was Sesina. She was a good girl. Good healer. She went to... to get supplies, and then he must have called his wher in. It killed her, and then he shut me in with it." Sesina. He shouldn't have believed the stranger. He should have known, should have been prepared or armed or faster or something. He hadn't been enough, and now she was dead.
Berath. Focusing on their bond he tried to work out where the big green was, and how she was. She did not acknowledge his probing, he could feel her focusing all of her attention on something else. He could feel her anger too, and pain. Bereck looked back at Aleck, who was a little more in focus now. "Berath's... busy. She's fighting. She'll be okay." He said that as much to try to convince himself as to reassure Aleck. Berath was tough, she could take whatever was thrown at her. She had to.
As for the last question.... Humm. Bereck's brows knit in a thoughtful frown, following long worn lines from long turns of making the same expression. "Feet up, bandages, blankets," he muttered to himself as he made these observations. "No, I don't think so," he said, now addressing Aleck again. "Wounds will need cleaning properly. A lot will need stitching I expect. Nothing much you can do.... Oh. Water. Water would be good. Replace fluids."
***********
Of course - taking advantage of his father's good-if-grumbly nature and the healer's oaths by playing the victim. The girl he'd seen now and then, but hadn't known - Bereck had, and was probably blaming himself for her death. Aleck listened to the recount of events with a faint frown returning, fingers curling around the healer's hand. "I can do water." A hand squeeze. "I'll be right back."
He rose semi-reluctantly and cast about for Carltis - the other weyrbrat was here somewhere, he hoped, and hadn't made himself permanently scarce.
***********
Bereck returned the hand squeeze and gave Aleck a weak wan smile. "Thank you." Releasing his son - and telling himself that nothing bad would happen to him the moment he was gone - Bereck tried to turn his mind to the problem at hand. Well, one of them; the basic problem. People were killing his people and trying to take over his home. They were ruthless, and organized, and ruthless. Sessie had been no threat to anyone, but the handler had set his beast on her anyway.
Bereck closed his eyes and tried not to hear the scream, or see the killing blow.
***********
[Created character: Carltis, weyrbrat: lurking]
Just around the other side of a cupboard Calrtis was sitting on a chair, lurking out of the way of the little family and trying not to eavesdrop too much. When he heard Aleck's footsteps he got to his feet. "Go back," he muttered, "I'll get water." Not waiting for a response he turned away and headed off to a little room which looked like the healers used it for breaks; there had to be water or something in there.
***********
"Hey- wait." Aleck stepped out of the room to follow after - hopefully not too far. "Carltis."
***********
Calrtis paused and turned with a scowl that looked angry, but was in fact quizzical. "What is it?" he asked softly, his tone at least making it clear that he wasn't inexplicably furious.
***********
The brunet glanced over her shoulder into the recovery room, then looked back. "We need a plan. If someone else decides to come in here we're-" He paused. "-in trouble." Assuming the other man thought there was a 'we.' "There have to be other people around."
"Ones who don't want to kill us," he amended.
***********
Carltis continued to scowl, but started searching the room for water while he thought; no point wasting time. "Right," he agreed after a slight pause, "but getting to them isn't going to be easy.... I guess some people might try to make their way down here anyway but we can't really trust chance right now." Couldn't really leave to go looking either; Aleck wasn't about to leave his father, and heading out alone was a stupid idea. "What about your father's dragon, can he get her to contact dragons she trusts?"
***********
'I mean,' he'd been about to add, 'if you're staying.' He probably wouldn't if it got inconvenient, but people often took offense at others expecting them to do what humans naturally did, which was look after themselves. Aleck thought better of saying it.
"..I think he could," he conceded slowly, brows pinched together. It brought out the family resemblance. "Maybe. Best shot."
***********
"Good," Carltis grabbed a jug and a nearby earthenwear cup with a design of a fat firelizard embossed on the side. "Got water, got cup, got plan. Anything else we need?"
***********
"Blunt objects."
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 4:36 pm
[Carltis]
Carltis snorted and shoved the jug and cup towards Aleck. "Right, and maybe a couple of flamethrowers and wher-proof armour while we're about it."
This was weird, he realised abruptly.
His home was being taken over, and yet he was in a pocket of almost calm and he was getting along with the know it all kid rather well.
Maybe he was still unconscious after Anise's attack and was dreaming all of this.
"Get on back then," he said with a wave of his hand, "I'm going to look around all the rest of the cupboards and that, so we know what we're working with when our hordes of allies start arriving needing patching up."
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:08 pm
[Aleck]
Aleck's notions of normality had been smashed to bits by the waterfall of today a good half-candlemark ago and he was now peacefully sculling in the pool below. True, there were a lot of imminent concerns - the location of others, the real capabilities of the Dragonlights, the overall fate of the Weyr - but his only real worry was in the other room. He took the jug and cup thrust toward him, fumbling the former a bit with his bad shoulder.
He wasn't happy. But his heart and veins weren't racing the way they probably ought in the circumstances.
"Could be. Whoever left your whip might've planted some other things for good little weyrbrats," he pointed out with a touch of dark humor. But he didn't stay; there was Bereck to attend to. And calm or not, it was still a bit weird.
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:16 pm
[Calrtis]
"Good? Little? Bugger, that's me ruled out then; good job I already nicked a whip really." With that parting shot and a grim smile he headed off about his task.
**********
[Bereck]
Berath had, in fact, not come out on top of her fight.
He was trying not to worry too much about that, or about the fact that he thought he'd heard her hear the handler of the gold wher say she was going to find another way in.
Shivering slightly Bereck tried to reach the green dragon's mind to wake her, and also tried to think about what he was going to do. Well, what he was going to tell other people to do anyway; he was going to lie here uselessly and try to keep awake, ignore the pain, not think too much about Sessie, and not remember too much about the number of different ways these injuries could kill him. He wondered where the other apprentices had fled to, and hoped that after the initial panic they might flee back, or get rounded by by the journeymen and herded back. Needed to stick together.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 4:41 pm
[Aleck]
"Hey Dad."
Aleck had reappeared in his unobtrusive way, trying to juggle an earthenware jug and drinking mug. It was harder than it should have been. Carltis' ministrations had numbed the painful sensations in his arm, but on the other hand they had numbed the sensations in his arm, leaving him fumble-fingered with his left hand. He'd managed to get the mug settled into the crook of his elbow with the jug held across his chest, and got the full container set on the little bedside table before maneuvering the mug on there too.
"I brought you some water." It was such an obvious thing to say, but it was easy. "We're seeing what's in the storerooms now."
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 4:53 pm
Normally Bereck would have picked up on the awkward shuffling of jug and cup in a moment, but his mind was elsewhere and his attention for anything beyond his immediate train of thought was extremely limited. He turned his head slightly to look up at Aleck and tried to focus on him. It was a lot harder than it should have been.
"Hello. Good. Thank you."
He wasn't actually sure he could hold the cup. He was sure that he couldn't - and shouldn't - sit up. He licked his dry lips, but that didn't help much because his tongue was dry too.
"We need... we need-" his eyes drifted closed, and his mind tried to drift away too. Pulling it back was almost too much for him to cope with, but only almost. He forced his eyes open again. "Need plans," he managed, his voice coming out faint and distant sounding. Everything hurt so much, and all he wanted to do was let go and close his eyes, but he couldn't. Things to do, and it was important to keep awake.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 5:15 pm
'Can you sit up?' Aleck wondered but didn't ask. Instead he sat on the edge of the bed and concentrated on the simple act of pouring water, using the table to support the heavy jug. "I'm not leaving." There was a calm finality in his own voice that concerned him; he managed the cup by looping his fingers through the handle and holding his numb hand to the side for support.
"Can you talk to Berath, Dad?" he asked quietly as he let a thin stream of water spill forward onto Bereck's lips. "Get her to get word to the survivors. Everyone together has a better chance."
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 5:35 pm
He was rather glad Aleck didn't ask him if he could manage. Pride was hard, he would have wanted to say that he could even though he knew he couldn't, and saw the same thing all the time in his patients. It was easier to accept help when there weren't words and questions about what you were capable of in the way.
He drank the water in small swallows, careful of the possibility of choking. Once he'd had all he felt he could manage for now - he didn't feel right, and didn't want to make himself vomit - he closed his eyes and turned his head slightly to the side. The slow stream of water quickly stopped, and then he looked back at his son and smiled weakly.
"Of course you're not leaving. Not unless we can't hold Malvren. If it comes to that you-" pause to breathe "-you'll get me out as soon as you can. Then you'll stay with me. You won't come back here t'fight a lost battle." Right. Get everyone they could together, either to fight or to flee. He closed his eyes again and reached for Berath, and found her mind just starting to stir. "I'll... need a minute on talking to Berr," he mumbled, and then took in a sharp breath and closed his left eye. Her eye! What had they done to his brave girl? Couldn’t worry too much now though, things to organize.
"We... we need to see that every dragon on our side has-" he hated having to stop for breath, "-has a between point. Trine. We've been politically cool recently but... but they're our old allies. Accept atypes. If we fall, best place t'go. And... and we need to have arrangements. Dragons to take non-riders. Lists and... and people knowing where they have to go. Can't have panic and fighting to get on a dragon. Make it all worse." This was so hard, just talking and thinking was sapping his meagre strength. Darkness beckoned him again, but he refused to give in to it. Stay awake. Important.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:12 pm
Aleck returned the weak smile with one of his own and rested the mug on the small table, ready should Bereck need it again. He hadn't considered the situation in such.. broad terms. His view had been confined to the immediate concern of keeping himself and his father alive for the next few hours, and gathering the survivors because more bodies, better odds.
He hadn't been thinking about how to save everyone.
"There's stretchers," he said, having listened to everything carefully. "I can.. get some of them ready, to take to the dragon side." Unable to accept the idea of abandoning home in full yet he added, "Just in case." He would have to find Berath, have to talk with her directly - she was the only dragon he was sure of and her great green bulk was reassuring. If she was all right, he could feel stabler - and she had to be all right, able to fly and between, for her and her rider's sake.
"I'll- we'll figure it out." Could they? It had been said like a promise, but it was hardly as simple as that. But he wanted to tell his father that, who even now was thinking about more than himself. Aleck didn't consider his pragmatic world view to be a failing but sometimes, in Bereck's presence, he felt the tiniest bit guilty. Still, all the organizing would give Carltis something more to do; he was staying out of the way for now, Aleck noticed, and looming at disorderly people would probably make him feel useful and important and more likely to go along with things.
Shards. He was relying on him a lot.
"Dad." Aleck reached for the healer's hand. A question had been bothering him since Carltis had first suggested the dragons. "How do we know who's on our side?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:34 pm
He hated it when Aleck asked questions he couldn’t answer. He squeezed the hand weakly and closed his eyes; think about the other bits first....
....He’d almost drifted off there.
He blinked rapidly a few times and licked his lips again, less dry now. “Stretchers. Good.... When we get dragons we’re sure of, they get a number or code or something. Something easy. People get one to match. Right. A... a thing to name the dragon and then a number for... for wave. Could have lots in wave one on a bronze but few... few f’green. I know what I’m talking about!” He did, but he didn’t know if he was getting it across. His mind wasn't working as it should, and it frightened him. “Don’t know if people would listen either," he mumbled vaguely. "Probably all fight to just get on the first dragon there. Human nature. Self-preservation. Fear.”
And how did they know which dragons to trust? “...Berr’ll start with the ones we known well. Then wingleaders, they won’t be with the revolution, nothing for them to gain....” And beyond that? He tried to look at Aleck and opened his mouth to say something on the tip of his tongue but his eyes closed and his mouth pulled back into a grimace of pain. After some moments he opened his eyes again. “The people that come with the-” he stopped, coughed, took a few very rapid breaths, “-the people she calls first. They’ll be on our side, been fighting t’gether. Just have to build up from there.” And hope, and trust? He didn’t have a lot of either at the minute. His eyes closed again, and he reached his mind awkwardly to the now conscious Berath.
Once he managed to pass the message to her he tried to look at Aleck again, but his eyes wouldn't stay open, the lids flickered open and closed and... and everything hurt and yet was starting to feel far away. Needed to stay awake. Had to.
*******
[Berath]
Raising her head weakly, Berath reached out to a couple of particular friends, and to the Weyr’s wing and weyrleaders. The fact that she had just told the highest ranking dragons in the Weyr what to do didn't bother the green at all; so far as she was conserned she was talking sense, and those silly young things ought to listen to her no matter how big and shiny they were.((Wingleaders and a few other dragons have been given this message. If your dragon is on the resistance side, feel free to assume the message filtered through to them!))
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:41 pm
"Dad?" Aleck squeezed Bereck's hand tighter and leaned forward; his father's fingers were so cold!
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:46 pm
[Bereck]
He tried to squeeze his son's hand again, but his fingers barely twitched. "Aleck...." He opened his eyes, but couldn't focus, and then they closed again against his will. "...Love you." As he whispered those last two words – the most important thing he'd said since waking – his body went limp again; he had lost his battle to remain conscious.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 7:09 pm
The brunet drew a sharp breath then, usually smooth countenance contracting without his meaning. "Dad, wait-!"
Dad didn't.
"..love you too," Aleck echoed in a thick whisper, eyes squeezed shut. He was a grown man of twenty turns, but just now he felt about eight. A weak pulse still threaded through the healer's fingers and he held on to it, ignoring the inner voice that pointed out it was only beating harder because he was futher restricting its flow. Cross-sectional areas. Pressures. The tiniest breaths, shifting the mangled chest.
He had to get up. He wanted to stay there - stay sitting, watching for every little sign of recovery as if his presence would draw more out, but what of the revolution? If an attacker broke down the door he would go for them whether he had a whip or not, but this way of thinking was small. Myopic. Driven by instinct, not rationality.
"I'll come back," he made himself say, and moved the cold hand underneath the blanket. Carltis had gotten a third, presumably for him - there it was. Aleck shook it out and pulled it over, tucking the ends loosely around his father's sides and feet. After a moment, he got up and touched drops of moisture away from his eyes.
He had to be logical. This was about more than him.
* * * * * * * *
"All right." A voice hailed Carltis from the doorway. Aleck adjusted his glasses and gave the other weyrbrat a look more straightforward than it had to be. "What've we got?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 7:21 pm
[Carltis]
He didn’t know what had passed between the two men back over there, but Aleck looked awful.... More awful, whatever. He almost asked ‘how’s your father’, but then looked at Aleck’s face again and thought better of it. The old man was – presumably – still alive, and he doubted the other weyrbrat would have much to say to him beyond that; they weren’t friends or anything. He didn’t really have any friends, and now he thought of it he wasn’t sure if Aleck really did either....
Supplies.
“Found more bandages and gauze, and redwort and numbweed. I think this here might be fellis, but it's not marked, and there's some other bits here too,” he reported after a heavy silence of unasked questions. “I’ve got everything together in this cupboard here,” he gestured, “looked central-ish to me... your father manage to get his dragon to send out a message?” He couldn’t avoid bringing the matter up; they had to be practical here even if Aleck did look utterly dreadful.
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