ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

From here.

Of all of them, Wells was still the worse off, though thankfully the rune spell had gotten the silver out of his system. With a few other people helping, it was easy to carry Wells to the infirmary and get him set up on one of the beds to recover.

Some things do just take time, but that can be afforded. Wells should recover.

[Visiting post, have at.]

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There was a boy in green linens, the rough peasant refugee gear of an Earth Kingdom wanderer.

His eyes were gold, though, and no one in the East had eyes like that.

"Sifu," was all he said, and he laid something on the nightstand; a knife, with pearls in the handle. A promise; he'll come back for the knife, eventually. He was strange that way. Iroh would explain it, if he saw him again. "I gave Stephanie a silver bracelet. I'd made it myself, sifu."

He would be certain that Wells, were he conscious, would get the irony.

He might've heard that. It's hard to say, the way he's wandering just now-

It smells like people here, six million, seven. Like shops and cycles and chickens and fish, ginger and garlic and scallions, the racetrack and the shivering ozone odor that clings to electrical signs if you sniff at just the right moment. Like Hong Kong.

He knows this place, even if all of it's trying to rush his nose at once and overwhelm him, so he stands his ground. There was a voice among the crowds-

-but it's just possible that his head rolls a little in the speaker's direction.

Zuko's lips purse, and he looks across the infirmary. It's not good to be on the other side; he wasn't good at emoting (the last time he wept, his father burned away his ability to cry from one eye) and he wasn't able to do anything and it galled him.

"Puppies wlil be okay. Think Cooper is keeping the one. Not sure how to feel about that, breaking the-- the pack up. Guess I can't exactly say anything. Stephanie's going to watch over them while I'm-- off. Handling things."

He talked. Talking was easy.

Sharp quick small smells racing past before he has the chance to catch them- dog smells. It's not Hong Kong, it's Macau, where the greyhound track is.

Not all of them ran. There's still one here, somewhere nearby. Uncomfortable. But here.

"Your chart-- I think-- says you're going to be alright," Zuko continues. "I'm not going to worry too much. This-- I've got to worry about this."

He laughs, but it has no heart or soul, a ghost of emotion mimiced more or less.

"I think if I go home, it'll be alright. My world's rules are different. We don't have things like this. If I go back-- maybe it'll stop. I won't-- know what they're saying when they cry at night."

mother! mother! you killed her! mother

He didn't want to do it. He really didn't.

Barking, off in the distance, but here and now there's the packed-in smell of packed-in people and the stink of panicked animals, greyhound pups marking their age and vulnerability the way puppies always do. A rippling wave of acridity slices through the other smells, leaving shockwaves behind it like the ripples in the air that inevitably follow a fired bullet.

"... I'll be back when I can," he finishes, lamely, heartless and breathless and lifeless when he draws back, leaving knife and wordless promise on the nightstand. "You can chew me out then, for being foolish."

Scorched air, now, heavy with smog and car exhaust. Bicycle grease and sweat giving way to the up-country smells of farms on the mainland, all muddy terraces and paddies, water up to your knees in the places he never got to visit. There's green growing things here. It's not a bad place.

He coughs, long and low and hard, but doesn't open his eyes.

Zuko stops, falls silent--he reaches out, puts a hand to the man's brow, but it's a passing gesture. He doesn't-- know what that was, or if it was anything at all. But he waits a amoment.

If he's got a response beyond that, it doesn't show.

Waiting, the boy is silent, but then he draws back his hands. "Be well, sifu."

And then he turns to go.

Dust in the nose, crunching under the heel, a scything strip of neutral smell across the mud and growing green. Road.

You run on roads.

He's running.

Preston doesn't make a sound as he approaches. Concern wasn't a new emotion, but that didn't mean it hurt any less. Wells would recover (He had an unshakeable and based-in-science) faith in that, but all the same...

He did not like being around disease, or infirm individuals. Some part of his dystopian conditioning he'd never shaken.

he's been avoiding people, although he wouldn't be able to explain why to anyone satisfactorily, but here he is.

One should offer words of comfort in this space-but Preston is completely at a loss. Jurgen understood this-but-

He might be staring around uncomfortably.

(OOC: My apologies for not spotting this. No notification email. my bad.... er, if you would rather tag the next infirmary post up I can guarantee I"ll get those. Plus WElls is more likely to be conscious.)

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