come_sailaway | (open.) while now i'm free

Entry tags:

(open.) while now i'm free

Who: Fever and open!
What: First month on the ship, and she's getting adjusted.
When: September.
Where: Everywhere - a few specific locations for some prompts.
Warnings: Marked in specific threads if they happen.
Notes: Will match tag-in format.

they let anyone in - infirmary.

There's a new face in the infirmary, but not slinking in with something that needs repair. Rather, Fever's taking stock of the inventory, looking at what's familiar and unfamiliar alike, reading boxes and labels to understand what they're for. She moves purposefully, before she's collecting items to put together in a group - not a lot, but a pattern emerges. One set of bandages, one of different ointments, something to splint a broken joint - all necessary components for a first aid kit, along with the violently red potion she has on the counter.

Though on a different day, she's cleared a little section for herself, and is cautiously using some equipment with a few empty bottles. Heating water, and crushing something unknown into it, the scent of brewing plant matter beginning to rise. Might as well refine what materials she can, while she's here.

you need hobbies - playback.

The arcade is loud, bright, but it offers amusements if she's patient enough to learn, and Fever sees the potential if she just keeps trying. Her despair over some of the games just not making sense is apparent - the Pacman should be able to face his foes always, not just at certain intervals, and it's beginning to frustrate her deeply before she stalks away to try and find something better.

But later, she's found her niche, almost serene as she carries on playing one of the light gun games. Her score keeps going up, but she barely seems to see it - only what comes to the next target, when to reload and where to fire next, at vital points that make the virtual foes fall. Peaceful as one can be while hearing fake zombies attacking and dying in explosions of pixelated gore. And all that said, there is a gun for player two there.

"let there be something green" - flowers.

Of course, the new plantlife is something to investigate. It shouldn't be growing from walls, from the floor, which is enough to tell her that she needs to be a bit careful. But looking for the effects and being around them, they're not destroying her with their aura - yet. Yet is always the key word, and that's good enough for Fever to make the unwise decision of taking blooms for herself. Plucked, placed in her satchel, she's hoping it'll ward off the worst effects.

Except of course, when it can't. And given that there's quite a few types around, it means that those who venture too close might be also at risk to falling victim to whatever plant she's clipped and currently dealing with. At the least, the magic should be a sufficient icebreaker. Or you can stop her from picking up one with truly hideous side effects.

[ooc: open to any and all flower effects except for baby's breath and titan arum. mix and match with me!]

insomnia club is always open - around.

Even on this ship, her sleep is no better than it has ever been. Never a truly sustained night, only some uneasy truce with her mind and her body to lie down and attempt rest. It never lasts for as long as it should, and when her nightmares inevitably wake her, sometimes staying in the cabin is suffocating. So Fever goes out, heedless of the hour, walking softly in the cabin halls and seeing where her feet take her.

Maybe she lays in a chair by the pool, trying to find new rest there and failing, or maybe she's sprawled out in the lounge by the atrium, having just taken a tumble from trying to fit all of herself on a chair. Or she's posted up in Bobby B's, but drinking isn't the name of the game. Instead, this is one of the few areas she can idle in with a mote of fire in her hands and not get sprayed down for it. Rolling the magic around between her palms like someone else would a stress ball, lost in consideration, her guard's relaxed for a moment.

wildcard.

[have a different idea for something to happen? come at me, my arms are open. basic info and permissions here, as well as Fever's opt out.]

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"Come here for a second - how long has this been going on?"

She twists herself right side up, getting to her feet and squinting at the plants growing out of him. That's not something conventional, even as far as she's seen.

"The... day," He scrunches up his face thinking, "Tomorrow but the reverse."

He holds his arm out, letting her see the plant bursting out of his skin, there's no blood, and there's only a few yellowy puffs sticking out of his arm. But under the skin there's the outline of what might be branches.

Taking his arm, she looks over what's happened. Subtly, so that he might not be alarmed, she feels to see if there's a pulse in him, how it might seem - just a standard reflex when someone's showcasing strange and magical changes.

"Does it hurt? And do you feel any different than you usually do?"

It's not innate, she can tell that much. It wants to grow, continue on further. But to what end, who can say? What does it tell her, this odd sort of infection?

There's no pulse because he doesn't have any blood. It does appear like he's breathing, but that's about it. He's cool to the touch, and while his skin feels like skin, it certainly doesn't feel alive. If she moves the flowers she could make a small gap between the stem and his skin to let a few grains of sand trickle out. That sure seems normal.

"Does not hurt. But can feel it all in arm." He flexes his fingers making the branch part move under his skin. "And it is..."

He looks up and down and all around them, "No night here. But am shining. Glowing. Like a firefly in the dark."

Frowning he looks real morose about that. He never wanted to be a giant glowbug.

Curious. Exceptionally curious, but his state of being isn't something she needs to speculate on right now.

"The way I see it, you have a few options. One is to go to the infirmary and have this taken out, but I don't know how you heal. Another is to cut down as close as we can get, and just see where it goes, if it grows back and how fast. And the last is to just leave it, if you're not in pain, though it doesn't solve the glowing problem." Pause. "You didn't walk into a curse or anything, did you?"

"Healing wrong. When bitten before just left a hole." And caused a mild panic between him and his purple chupacabra friend about why he was leaking sand everywhere. "Maybe cut down, keep having to chew it off. But don't want to glow, can see myself all the time. Don't like that."

He frowns and slides his jaw side to side, "Curse is very bad luck. This is plant growing inside me. Is same thing?"

"Not exactly. A curse is magic meant to harm, put simply. Given how this stuff is growing everywhere, I don't think someone's trying to hurt you, specifically, but it's definitely interacting with you."

Letting go of his arm, she pats him sympathetically on the back.

"Let's take a trip to the infirmary, see if we can't find anything to cut it down with."

"Jumped into plant from top of rail on deck. Thought would be dirt, but was growing in floor. Out of.. tile?" He sounds unsure if that's the right word or not.

"Which one is infirmary?" He sadly holds his arm with his other arm, as if resigned to having the whole limb chopped off. "Plants need to pull out from roots or will grow back. Cut tree stumps send up shoots. Need to remove whole thing."

"The one with all the medicine and the metal things. Come on, I know the way."

Beginning to lead him, she realizes she's skipped a very important part in all of this.

"What's your name?" She should probably know it, if she's going to attempt surgery on him.

He obediently follows along next to her, "Yufei."

And then in case she's about to blame him for this, "Was not trying to become plant, thought that land had come on ship. We went to place with trees and dirt before but have been told sometimes it comes to us. Did not think it would be in me. Not what I wanted."

This is the monkey paw wish of: I wish I was back in the forest.

"Have not been to infirmary then. Is not by shops?"

"Lower down on the decks. It'd be nice if these plants were just plants, if what you had in mind was going on. If we actually had dirt and such."

You don't realize how much you miss dirt until you have absolutely none in an infinite radius around you.

"I don't think anyone would want a plant growing in them, Yufei. Not unless you were a very particular kind of person."

Nymphs, maybe. She can't speak for them, though.

"Don't think are real plants?" He sniffs at his palm where the piece he'd bitten out had been, but all he can smell is himself, not the plant itself, "Is growing... Fake plants do not spread."

Though he sounds a little unsure about that. He's never seen any fake plants sprouting new leaves, but he also hasn't paid that close attention.

"What are you called?"

"Fever."

She really needs to get better about the introduction thing. But she's so used to it being secondary. In any case, it's not far to the infirmary. The problem she has to think over is how to make sure it doesn't hurt him to take it out. She doesn't know how to send someone into a magic sleep and keep them suspended there, but hopefully the sedatives she remembers from her earlier trips into the infirmary do the trick.

Not everyone is like her and would prefer to remain conscious if someone's going to be cutting into them.

It means when they get there, she goes to where the medicines are kept, looking over the assortment of bottles for what will work the best.

"Yufei, there's a choice for you. I can give you a medicine to have you sleep through everything with no pain, or you can stay awake and watch it, but it will hurt. What do you prefer?"

There isn't even a hesitation, "Want to watch!"

He sounds excited, because new things are cool. And he wants to see what this plant looks like when she pries it out. It doesn't even occur to him that the medicine probably wouldn't work on him anyway.

Glancing all around, it's pretty obvious he's never been in this room before, taking in everything, squinting into the bright lights, before going to sit down on the weird padded chair. Then stands up again to take his jacket off in case this goes all the way up his arm, he's not really sure he didn't think to check earlier.

He sits back down and holds his arm out, "What do I do?"

"You're going to need to keep still, even if it hurts. Think you can do that?"

Eyeing the chair, she wonders if she couldn't use something to secure his wrist. Flinching, twitching, she can accommodate for, but not if he rips his arm away.

"Can do that. Have before when bit myself." Which is just a normal thing people do sometimes. It's fine.

"Am going to leak on floor, maybe should do over something?"

"I'll take care of that."

There's things to mop up blood or clean with, and there's enough ways to protect the chair. Truthfully Fever would know more about it than the narrator, so we're blazing through this part of the particulars in an effort to seem halfway smart. And dead or not, she will sterilize the skin before moving him horizontal, before beginning.

He nods, not bothering to clarify that he doesn't mean blood because he doesn't remember that most people are expecting him to have that. To his credit he holds his arm nice and steady as she cuts into it, even though it does hurt, but not as much as he'd expected given there's a knife cutting his skin apart.

As soon as it's sliced open the source is apparent, there's a plant that's rooted in the bones of his wrist, growing all through his carpals. It's probably a little unsettling that his bones are clearly visible, and that's due to the fact that under his skin there's no muscle. There's no veins. No fat. There's just sand and bones.

Sand that's currently leaking out onto the seat that he tries to catch with his other hand.

"Can put it back." He says as if that's at all reassuring.

Unsettling, and disappointing, if she's going to be frank with herself. But keeping the cut neat, she can prevent too much sand loss, if it needs to go back in the end. Just...need to maintain it for the time being.

"So this is why it kept growing back...I'll collect what spills. Pour it back into you."

Make sure there's no dust in it or something. The important part is what she's seeing currently, the tangle of roots around the bones. The surgical scissors work here, like trimming a wayward plant. Careful, precise. Cut where the roots are too snug to coax out. It probably feels exceptionally strange, but her hands are steady, not cruelly yanking or anything like that. Even the chaos of her own mind seems to have subsided in the fact of a particularly tricky task.

Pieces of the roots are coming out. The plant getting less and less connected. Until it's finally removed, and she lifts it away, putting it on the tray with the other pieces. One more snared root piece around the joint, and Yufei is free.

Now, mending him. She doesn't have healing magic, so she can't seal the skin like that, but stitches still work.

"This will hurt too, but I'll try to keep it down."

Because she's not sure if he'll heal, in the end, or if he'll just have stitches, these need to come out right. Small, precise ones, so that more sand can't leak out when he goes and lives his life. And then, with a little bit of space left, she stops, though doesn't disconnect the thread, using one hand to hold the skin together.

"Can you trust me for a few more minutes?"

He's mesmerized by the fact he apparently had an ecosystem growing in there. Which is a lot more important than what she's doing, it hurt when she cut it open, but it doesn't hurt now that the cutting part is done. Huh. Weird.

"Grew in my arm. Maybe had a seed forced through skin and didn't notice? But would notice. Not sure how this happened." Unless when he died some of his sand got mixed up with whatever else was at the bottom of the ocean. He should be lucky fish aren't hatching in side him and immediately dying.

The stitches hurt again, needle going in and out with wicked precision. He winces, but doesn't pull away.

"Okay. Trust."

She smiles to try and be reassuring, but concentrates, murmuring something under her breath, and a pale blue light rises from her hand, turning into a hand of its own. This comes to take the place of her own hand - the touch is room temperature, a sensation of pressure. But it holds that last part of him together, and it means she has the freedom to start collecting the sand that poured out of him. Careful, careful - the floor in here is clean, so what she sweeps up, it won't be contaminated. As much as she can really get.

When she's sure she's gotten what she can, then there's the matter of pouring it in. This is another place where having three hands is useful, to keep him steady while she refills the sand she's gathered, much as a dollmaker pours sawdust into a new creation. And then, the last inch of fixing him. More neat stitches, but with the hands attached to her, as her concentration lets the spell wink out in favor of getting this right. Finally, finally, the last knot, and she pulls back, needle detached from him,

"There. Try moving it - you should have better motion, now that the roots are out of the way. And you did a hell of a job being patient."

The plants, she'll take to Bobby B's to burn to ash. No sense keeping them around when they might get a taste for flesh again.

He blinks at that blue glowing hand, reaching out with his other hand to poke it. "You are making more of you. How are doing that?"

Because that's pretty awesome, and a great distraction from the whole sand and needle thing going on. Losing sand feels like getting tired, but having it poured back in feels the reverse, like a limb waking up all pins and needles.

He shakes his head rapidly trying to clear the sensation making a brrbrbrbbple sound.

When commanded he tries his hand again, wriggling it easily and grinning huge. "You fixed it! Thank you!"

She smiles back, having ignored his question earlier in favor of hunting down sand, to make sure she didn't lose focus on the spell and leave them in a worse situation. But now he's fixed, and the stitches should hold until there's a more permanent solution, and the most important thing is that he doesn't have a plant growing through him anymore.

"You're welcome. Glad I could do something for you about all of it."

Now, better leave this place semi tidy, so that way no one else walks in and gets mad.

"And in answer to your earlier question? It's because I'm a sorcerer. Doing magic like that is in my blood."

He's already had practice keeping wounds from opening back up, so at least he knows not to fuck with the stitches and possibly injure himself further.

"Your blood is magic? Sounds painful." He's experienced a lot of what could be called magic, but never this close up. "Sorcerer. I will remember. You helped me and did not need to, is good of you."

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(open.) while now i'm free

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