ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

She's never had a firm grasp of time. Never. Days pass in a quivering flow, hardly allotted any import at all. The days settle comfortably into weeks, and years beyond that. It's like a foreign species, leading it's own existence, struggling through it's own problems rather than anything related to her.

No, she's never had a firm grasp of time.

She sleeps, she rests, she wakes, and sometimes it's more like dreaming, other times it's more like remembering, and even she can't really tell the difference. This is waking, the world where machines hum and whir, where stars spin above her bed and a warm cloak rests nearby.

This is waking, cheek pressed to cold metal and a ghost of a girl nearby with her fingers covered in blood.

This is waking, the taste of blood in her mouth and the automatic jerk of flesh as it's struck.

No, she's never had a good grasp of time, especially when it all layers together and over laps like panes of colored glass.

Perhaps she'll just lay quietly. Yes, perhaps that's best.

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Awake can be good, as determined by the steady breathing. Awake means less chances of being woken up suddenly, of being startled, of things then happening-

So while the footsteps are quiet, they are not silent, even with the underlying constant hum and beep of machinery. (The last time she had been here, any noise of anyone around was welcome, and it was not dark-)

Svava takes a deep breath, a polite distance away from the bed.

"Rachel?"

Though its unlikely this could be anyone else, from Archie's description, the cloak nearby, and the feel of her from the other night.

This is awakening. Quiet footsteps and gentle words.

She always did move silently

It never did any good to pretend to still be asleep, healers knew when that last protection, that last zone of safety had been left behind. So, Rachel opened her eyes, emerald gaze turning out into the room, watching the woman.

Nither a greeting, nor a recognition, simple waiting.

Slim fingers, covered in blood "She's grows resistant, Master, it is harder to heal her"

"Do not fail"

A faint, though worried smile, seeing the green eyes open, and Svava steps closer to the bed.

"Archie's mentioned you, that you were in here- though I do think we met the other night, in a rather... unusual way, through Arithon."

A deep breath as she bites her lip. Even with the noise and the light in the infirmary, for a long time it could be too close-

"How are you feeling today?"

She can't help tensing as the woman draws closer, that tension almost screaming through the atmosphere around her...and yet...

She'd said names.

The mental whisper is light, tentative, almost a test. ::Archie...Arithon...yes?:: just a glimmer of an opening, fearing a trick or treachery.

After all, Tool was always her masters creature, and nothing was beneath her.

Svava blinks- and then nods quickly.

"Arithon is a close friend of mine, and Archie-" She smiles, cheeks blushing faintly as she looks down at her hands and the ring on one of them.

"He is minn ást-" my love "And we will be married in the Spring. April perhaps for the month, I need to figure on the day." She looks back up to Rachel.

"Though Archie has been concerned for you, and I thought that I would come to see if I may be able to help you as well."

Confirmation helps, helps a greatdeal, allowsher to draw and dredge other memories from the wash in her mind and slide herself into another time frame. One beyond Tool.

There's a taste now, a flavor to her sendings, a feeling of exhaustion and blood, the taste of pain, but it's not overwhelming. ::I do not know you::

She's certain of that, as certain as she can be of anything right now, but she rememers...

::Ari sang of you...you soothed Archie's fears...::

"We haven't really met before, I am sorry to say." Svava tilts her head, thinking over various faces seen and never named throughout the bar. She shrugs, and then bites her lip-

("People here understand scars-")

"Fears and memories. ... Things happen." Svava takes a deep, calming breath. "We often sooth the other, when its needed."

::Thank you:: for doing what she couldn't those few nights ago, there's true and honest gratitude in that. She doesn't like anyone she knows being in pain, especially pain she can't asauge.

She actually sits up, the movement too smooth and quick to natural, and looks at Svava fully now ::I'm...sorry. I'm not very good at meeting people...:: she'd never bothered in most cases, never walked up to people in the bar unless it seemed they may have needed a friendly ear.

A deep breath and a bandaged hand is offered, a shake perhaps, to make it official ::Rachel Grey...::

"You are welcome- it is really nothing to be worried about. I'm- I'm happy to have helped." The smile, though faint and worried, is still sincere, as well as the feelings behind it. She just wishes she could have done more, and could do more.

"Quite alright." Svava steps closer, and with care takes Rachel's hand. "Its nice to finally meet you."

She holds Svava's hand perhaps a little longer than necessary, and there's the definate feel of being weighed, measured, held up to some unknown standard...but apparently she passes. Rachel offers a twitch of lips akin to a smile and nods carefully to the edge of the bed ::Care to sit?::

She's not exactly sure what to do with this visitor, but she can at least be polite.

Svava watches her for those few moments, biting her lip before she nods to herself. Not the time nor place. With a nod, she carefully sits down on the edge of the infirmary bed.

"The doctors here have been taking care of you? I know Hank, who works here and keeps care of things, but not that many of the others." She met Hank before she had woken up

found herself

in here once before, and tended to avoid the infirmary afterwards if she could.

::Hank looks after me:: she agreed, he had been doing so since she'd stumbled into this alternate version of him here. Seems she couldn't help get adopted sometimes.

There's a field of stars above her bed, and somehow, perhaps acting on Svava's discomfort, perhaps not, Rachel pokes it making it expands to almost swallow the bed itself. It's not as good as being out of the infirm, but it's not as bad perhaps...

::Why...truly...are you here, if it makes you feel so uncomfortable?:: she asked quietly, but not unkindly.

Svava blinks-

And looks at Rachel wide-eyed for a moment, before studying her hands. She shrugs.

"Because I don't like it, truely- so I would think that other people wouldn't care to be in here as well. And you're in here, and would probably rather not be."

The star globe was a gift to help settle her mind, from her friend Magius. Just pictures really, but useful.

::No, I'd rather not be here:: she admitted quietly. ::But I won't...heal...out there. Too much damage. This place scares me, and I never truly know where I am, but it's not a cage, and it's not seeped in pain and violence:: she almost seems to be assuring herself rather than Svava.

::Why do you not care for this place?:: sheer curiousity, she knows why she herself doesn't, it's too close, at times, to areas of the Manse, but Svava had been painted as a strong, bright woman to Rachel, so she wonders.

"And safer than other places, to be true." She nods quietly, then purses her lip, thinking.

"... Not so much this place, as... Where I was before-"

(The dark and the dull never-ending hurting and falling and pain- "please, someone hear me-")

"-and then found myself here." She shrugs, biting her lip. "Someone in the bar was hurting people, cursing them and the like. I had dealt with him before-"

("I give you quick death insted of slow pain, out of love.")

"- and he was doing those things to those that had stood against him the time before. Others were hurt worse, though. They just said that I... I wasn't waking up."

Far safer, perhaps, for herself at least. Maybe not others when she has her bad moments. Bad moments indeed, when she can't stop the swirl of her mind, can't avoid the sheer glss edged bits of memory in the dark sea. Times she cannot help but reach out and drag down...

...down...

...down...

::I hear you::

The light is so very high above, the walls slick and sharp, glass shards instead of stone this time, and damp with blood, but yes, so very familiar.

::Oubliette::

It's cold and chains chime so gently, so soothingly nearby. It's cold and it's not just her memory, and she's afraid, but not just her fear.

::Place to be forgotten::

Wake up

"The Other had been there- he tried to accuse me for his death, the lausaleiksbarn,-" bastard "-but he could not. He did not know what I did, truely-"

Tim had asked her, his friend, to do her duty by him, and she, Chooser of the Slain, had.

"And I told him this." Svava closes her eyes, hands clenched together tightly.

"Then he did leave, and-"

Forgotten

"There wasn't anyone. You- you know this."

End this

Let me go

::And it was dark, and lonely, and cold::

And you didn't move

::I know::

It's small, and totally of the here and now, the light brush of bandaged fingertips across her forehead. ::I know::

Her eyes fly open, and Svava looks at Rachel quietly.

"You've been there too."

Her own gaze is direct and unblinking, odd shadows moving behindteh emerald in her eyes. Once flame had shone through those orbs, but now it was just the darkness and the pain.

::Forgotten...unmoving...:: she confirmed.

A quick, indrawn breath-

Dark, alone and no one should ever be

And reguardless of the bandages, Svava moves to pull Rachel into a hug. For the both of them, really.

("People here understand scars")

"I'm sorry."

Though, because of the bandages, her arms are light and gentle-

But that sort of thing does not negate out a hug.

Dark, alone...because no one should ever have to bear suchbeside you...

She can't feel when the bandages shift and tug at wounds, nor would sh etruly care if she could. Oddly there seems to be a hair thin line of simple energy just about her though, a coating of force that moves and protects her. It's like touching a warm stove, comforting, not hot...and gently forbidden. ::Not you're fault::

Rachels arms slip about Svava in turn ::I'm sorry:: sorry that she experienced such. Truly and deeply.

Not your fault either.

Svava shakes her head slightly.

"Things happen. We just do our best to try ot keep them from doing so- and be there afterwards when they do."

Yamino had put it best, in reguards to them of the Nine Worlds. They were good at dealing, or how else do you live, knowing how you were going to die?

::Perhaps:: she agreed quietly. Then again, she'd gone there, and she's stayed. So she really couldn't claim such could she?

::What do you do...when you find yourself there once more? In the dark, and the cold?:: just honest curiousity.

How do you deal...when you are not allowed to die?

Svava blinks- And then laughs quietly, even though the few tears.

"Archie finds me, so I'm not alone anymore, and takes me from it." The literal and figurative answer. Svava does the same for him, as well.

::Good:: She's truly happy to hear that answer. Not exactly an applicable answer for all, but still a very good answer.

Her hand raises slowly to stroke tears from Svava's cheek, putting the damn bandaging to good use.

Svava offers her a faint, shaky smile- but a smile none-the-less, and she nods.

"Its very good. And- there are others here, lots of people, who understand such things. Maybe not exactly, but-" She takes a deep breath.

"Close."

::I'm starting to learn that:: slowly, and surely, but she's learning. Last time no one had come to get here, it had been happy chance that freed her.

This time milliways had come through.

She was learning to accept that.

::Like you?::

The answer is quick, and true.

"Yes." Svava nods. "Like me."

And Rachel takes a moment to weigh that answer, rolling the truth and conviction through her mind.

::Thank you:: itis no small thingto coe into a place you fear and talk to a telepath who is not stable simply because you understand, perhaps.

No small thing, perhaps. But Svava would argue that it is something a person simply does, as simple as that. And by her own standards, it is true.

A quiet nod and smile to Rachel. "You are welcome."

Well, Svava is not like most, Rachle should know. And she does truly appreciate the visit, no matter what pain it evoked.

::Archie is a luckyman:: she noted with a small smile.

"Perhaps. I know I am quite blessed to have ever met him. I would not have ever thought that such a thing was ever for me- to fall in love." Smiling, Svava uses a handkerchief to brush at the last of her tears.

It had been forbidden to fall in love, and there was a heavy price for the Valkyries who did.

And a softly padding Hank McCoy walks up to her. His face holds a gently smile as he arrives.

"Rachel?"

Ah yes, the taste of blood in her mouth, iron on the tongue and strangely sweet. Like copper pennies, lacking the fire though, the warmth that should accompany such a taste.

He'd liked the taste of kissing blooded lips

She shifts about slightly, curling tighter about her knees and opening her eyes at the single word.

"Rachel. I came with a sweater. and to see if you would like to go outside for awhile? it is unseasonably warm tonight and I thought... if you want, you could be out of all this for a little while?"

He is tired so it is possible his mind does not echo his words as loudly as normal.

"I could let you out, let you go, but it'd be such a shame to find new friends...such a shame really...."

Does she trust the offer? Not in the least. Does she have a sliver of hope? Yes, somewhere down in the swimming glass shards there's something left. So, she nods.

He hands her a easy to slip on sweater and assists her with putting it on, if she will let him.

"For warmth."

The sweater pools in her lap as she sits up, and it takes a moment of staring at it to sort out what it is.

For Warmth

"So cold, m'dear, so cold, you wound me"

With ashiver of pure revulsion and an almost rictus grin, the sweater flues across the room, her hands falling into the warmer, familiar pool of Archie's gift.

Flame.

She used to walk wreathed in flame.

It will do.

He blinks, then nods.

"Okay, the cloak is fine. Let's get outside while the warmer air persists."

He nods and unhooks her and then gently touches her forehead.

Ready to go outside, Rachel?

She barely waits for him to unhook the machines and IV, hardly holds still long enough to even get the faintest hint of his words before she's flinching away, cloak about her shoulders.

She's going out. Out where things make sense, or more so than now.

He nods nd moves off, his bulk creating a path through the crowd. He would rather not think of how she might do so, especially since there are a number of flying patrons about tonight. So he moves and the crowd parts before him. He leads her outside and then steps aside.

Hank leads Rachel inside again from out back and to her bed. He gently hooks her back up and turns on the machines that come to life and continue their job of healing her. Then he sits at her side.

"I hope that this time passes quickly for you. I miss seeing you happy, my friend."

I hope that this time passes quickly for you. I miss seeing you happy, my friend.

He smiles,showing a little of the worry for her he holds and the care as well.

"Do you think you can sleep?"

Do you think you can sleep?

She watches the machines with mistrust, knowing never the less that she my not smash them. The needles in particular hold her gaze as they allow fluids into her veins. Fluids to hydrate, to nourish, to increase blood levels...so many needles.

She hates them. Deeply. But it's not as much a hate as chains she supposes.

::I don't sleep much Hank, you know that:: or she thinks he should. ::I will rest...::

"A trait we share my friend. Always driven, never completely at rest or at ease."

A trait we share my friend. Always driven, never completely at rest or at ease.

He smiles ruefully.

"Get what rest you can. I will be here."

Get what rest you can. I will be here.

And he settles back to watch her and work on his silent keyboard, his care and his love for her probably apparent in his eyes and small smile.

Those that burn brightest, burn out quickest.

Heroes work is never done.

She nodded and curle don her side once more, a familiar ball of protective limbs. Sadly familiar, but the only way she'd closed her eyes for a very long time.

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