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 Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:52 am
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 Vera was nearing her wits end. Everything was too much for her: the pain she couldn't identify, the feelings she didn't understand. Her best friend... friends... they'd seemed so proud. She could still remember that night vividly, full of painstaking detail, oftentimes against her free will as she tried to sleep away some of her anxiety.
The Queen and Consort, in all their glory. Absolutely radiant.
The Princesses... oh how beautiful they looked. Tox had spent so much time dolling the pair of them up.
Her husband - her Snorri - chest puffed up all proud. She'd quietly laughed to herself as she'd watched him psyche himself up in their abode, making faces and checking his body meticulously in front of their mirror.
Her precious granddaughters (including little Pearl, of course); she'd helped them all with their hair and dolled them up with what pearls and other precious stones she had about her. She tried to live modestly, but one accumulates quite a bit over the years.
Kerriana was even more excitable than usual that day.
And then the serpants came.
And she helped usher the guests outside to safety.
Then pain.
Then darkness.
She'd awoken in the infirmary some time later in a cold sweat, her body still screaming out, yet free from any injury. It was a side-effect of her soulbinding, or so the healers said. Nothing could be done for her; she simply had to wait until Snorri's pain stopped.
What an out of body experience it felt... Burning. Suffocating. Intensely itching. She wanted to claw at her skin, to cry, to scream out... But the sounds caught in her throat, the tears refused to fall.
Was it her pain, or was it her beloved's?
Far too much time passed before she was allowed to see her friends; they were healing and needed to be left alone; they still needed to be questioned about the days of the event; they were traitors; they couldn't be trusted.
It was so... so... so... very frustrating. Had everynaiad forgotten how much these three had done for them? To keep them safe? How much they'd lost? And for what? To be treated as egg-thieves? What a selfish... disrespectful... outright irredeemable thoughts! Vera was a fool, but she was far from truly foolish. She knew. She heard. Even when the others would shush as she came near, she knew they whispered misgivings and looked at her with eyes full of pity these days. It was humiliating. Why did they do that?
She didn't understand.
She couldn't understand.
And it frustrated her.
As a close friend and family to two of the injured parties - and suspects - she'd taken to - or rather been forced to take to - caring for them once their injuries no longer necessitated medical observation. For now, it was simply Tox under her care. More time would be necessary due to the extent of the others' injuries; based on her personal judgement, more time would have generally been recommended for her friend as well. But she couldn't help that.. She understood why the medical staff would want a suspect elsewhere, even if only for the comfort of the other patients. It was a cruel, unreasonable request, but one they were allowed to make, and one she needed follow.
Her abode had been mostly stripped of its belongings - her son had taken them in for her - to provide a largely safe, semi-sterile room. Once her room where she greeted guests, now it was empty save for a locked box of medical equipment, a bubble of sanitizer for cleaning wounds, and medication, including a syringe of moderately strong sedative should any under her care become too "rowdy," as it were. A lock had been installed on the outside of the room to keep any from breaking out and "injuring themselves" while she was gone. There was a strict curfew from the evening meal until the morning meal where a guard would come and lock them in for the evening.
It was a prison in every sense but the name.
And she was it's guard.
Fresh medicines for fever, new gauze, and a simple, nutritious meal packed in a simple seaweed bag, Vera sighed as she made her return "home."
EvilSilverDragon Less short, but here ya go |
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:49 pm
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The Princesses were crying, in her soul she felt it. They didn't have their favorite blankie, nonaiad else would know how to sing their favorite lullaby. The little fry needed their mommy or her, one of the two urgent. That one impulse, urgent, pushed like an insistent child impatient for the adult to go their way. Other times, like now, its a tidal wave or a rip current.
One moment of closing her eyes brought back images of blood, bubbles and crying babies. The inevitable jolt, deep intake of breath, caused racking pain throwing her off. Effort was needed to go back to floating upright rather than dead fish belly up.
Waters called her, in the state she could swear she heard the Waters themselves. Brave Alu protect those babies came a never ending prayer only silences by darkness of what counted for rest. Rest that she should be doing right now but never, NEVER!
Pushing out more pull, Tox got to the door to wherever she was. Surroundings sat as a blur both familiar and not at the same time. A damaged brain unable to handle the load as it was, questions were disregarded as quickly as they came.
Two moments of pushing on the door reveled the effort it took to remember what a door nob was for. Finally, she reached with an arm that didn't look her own, and grasped the handle before turning it. The obstacles opened, now she could follow the call of the Waters and find her charges!
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:27 pm
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Vera's eyes listlessly wandered around the corridor as she willed herself back to her abode. They day had hardly started, but she was already exhausted of most of her patience.
It had been wearing thinner with each day.
Even now, it took all of what she had left to not go barging in to whoever was ordering these stupid trivialities to give them not a piece, but the whole damn cake of her mind.
Or pie.
Whatever it was a piece of.
She paused as she passed a reflective surface to look herself in the mirror; no good. No good at all. She couldn't return looking all gloomy like this. That would just make her best friend even more anxious. One of them had to keep on the strong face, and that duty fell to her. She reached up to rub the underside and edges of her eyes outward, letting them go, and then closing them as she messaged the lids, then her temples, before slapping herself quite hard on both cheeks. One breath in, one breath out. In and out once more.
A pause.
Okay. She could do this. Happy face Vera ya old sea goat.
Her eye and edge of her mouth simultaneously twitched when she returned to see her door opened and her best friend 'escaping' from her place of healing. She slowed her pace as she approached, hesitatingly calling out in a gentle voice.
"Tox...?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 4:39 pm
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Cacophony of sounds, the Princesses crying and pounding of her own head drowned out everything. Even the sound of her own name seemed to be background music in the symphony of horror. Looking at Vera, several minutes passed before she reacted at all.
Floating up then jerking to the side as her ability to maintain one location still failed to work. At least her brain finally kicked in again and recognition hit her battle wary face. "Vera..Vera we have to find the Princesses! I can hear them!" Her plea for help started almost normal before descending in record time to the edge of hysteria. Right before that edge was crossed, her tone even just enough to ask again, the emotion so strong it was palatable "Please, we have to find them!" They had to go looking, had to! Those girls were out there, her precious charges. She failed them, their guards failed them. There was no making up for that, but she had to find them anyway.
There was no room in that whirlpool known as her consciousness to ponder where to look and in what direction. Water's guide them and Alu protect the babies.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 12:59 pm
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Vera approached her friend slowly, very slowly, as she seemed to stare past her and into some unknown distance. Frankly, it was unnerving, or it would have been if it had been the first time. Or the second. The third... It seemed to happen so often it had practically become her normal. Her hands took her friend's and brought them together and then upwards in front of her chest. Her hands were gently, yet firmly, holding her there as she made eye contact.
A moment passed in silence. Tox's voice seemed to echo off the palace walls into the distance.
Then with soft motions, Vera once again shook her head no. Her voice was gentle and warm as she spoke. "Not now... You're still healing, are you not?" Everyone was still healing from that Alu-forsaken day. "Tox... You need to rest. Recover." She offered a small, warm smile.
"Come, let's return inside. I have your food and medicine, so let's eat and rest and recover."
"Please..."
EvilSilverDragon im still bad at these things
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Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:35 pm
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Determination would grip her hard, keeping key contact with her closet friend. In those moments she was almost stable in the water. Some of the words were even getting through. Then as a sand castle to the waves, her eyes jerked around Vera instead of looking at her. Something unseen just over this shoulder or that.
Through the logic of a wounded mind along with the shredded body, Tox grabbed on to something and insisted, "But you are okay, not hurt." For emphases she said again, "You are okay." Most anyone else she wouldn't trust but Vera? Vera could be trusted with the babies until...until something train of thought left that part unfinished.
Once more, once more before having to admit defeat she begged, "Just a little bit, can't we look for just a little bit?" The babies were right there, just past where they could see. A little looking, that was all. They would find them, they would!
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Time blurred between delirium and blissful darkness. Attempts to keep her in the infirmary met with concern. A member of the failed princess guard created a risk as long as the Queen and her Consort were on the warpath. Not the place she should have been, Tox was entrusted in the place best for her. Friendly face calmed the naiad when she woke in the delirious states between panicking over the loss of the Princesses to waking thinking she was hearing them crying. Those were the worse times, fighting with what little strength her healing body had in her to get to those Princesses.
