where were you? -- checkups

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]Checkups had been slightly delayed, as had several other tasks she'd said she would complete, but better late than never.

  So far, everyone seemed to be recovering well enough from the Ferryman attack. Shock was the greatest threat in situations like this, and Rin hadn't seen anyone showing symptoms. Still, best to check everyone's wounds to ensure there weren't any infections or other complications- Lemy in particular, as he'd been cut up pretty badly. He'd had the wherewithal to appear at the meeting, so physically he must be getting better, but he seemed to be having hearing issues. Tena and Valerian had also been in the boat with the Ferryman during the battle, so they ought to take second priority after Lemy- then all the others who had been involved in direct combat but hadn't been too badly injured.

  Sitting down in the center of town with a collection of herbs beside her just in case, Rin called out, "Checkup time. If you were there when the Ferryman attacked, come here." If Lemy was still having trouble hearing, she could go get him herself, but she suspected he'd find his way there anyway.

  /ish

[nemhain.]

Personas tended to be resilient, and Nemhain was far from an exception to this rule. She was large, powerful, and generally could take a hit well, which was why the Ferryman attack had only ended with her having a few minor cuts and bruises. In fact, Nem even considered passing over the entire checkup thing in general, since she was hardly the one with the worst injuries, but she had rethought that pretty quick. Rin cared a great deal about Elysium, and Nemhain was not only now a part of Elysium, but was also connected to Rin, so she'd probably be able to tell if Nem was in pain. The fenghuang didn't feel particularly keen on getting lectured by the little feline, so she found herself flying over, landing nearby and pulling her large wings in close. Eying the herbs that Ein had with her, Nemhain lowered her large body nearer to the ground before she chirped lowly, "Others can go before me. I only got a little banged up in the Ferryman attack." Let the mortals worry about their wounds first. She would be fine. Besides, the various cuts and bruises were hardly noticable beneath the personas thick and colorful feathers, so nobody would probably feel worried about her anyways.

[candorosa]

[align=center][div style="width:70%; text-align: justify; padding: 1px; font-family: helvetica;"]Lemy was a tad miffed about the amount of injuries he had sustained. From his observations, he had been the one most injured in the fight. It was humiliating. The entire experience left him with a sour taste in his mouth and a heavy cluster of negativity in his chest.

He had taken care of his wounds after the battle though. Cauterizing his injuries was painful, but he preferred that over allowing someone else to heal him. The idea of showing his back to someone and trusting that they wouldn't take a dagger and tear deeper into him was laughable. He wasn't a moron; he wouldn't put himself in that position.

His injuries would heal, his hearing would return, so he'd best put on his smile and act like the frustration and helplessness of sustaining his injuries didn't bring him to the verge of tears.

When he spotted Rin and Nemhain clustered together around piles of herbs, Lemy felt dread pool in the bottom of his stomach. He had attended the check-ups following the Pitt raid and the scene resembled that. Damn it. He adjusted his cloak so the torn fabric successfully covered his back and hobbled over to the two.

"What's this about?" Lemy asked as he poked at the foliage, feigning ignorance. "Don't answer, I can't hear ya," there was a sour note to his tone that he wasn't aware of due to his temporary hearing loss. Or, less sour...more...? His dread was turning into something else--something else, but what was it? He felt his ears and paws grow numb at the thought of showing his back to Rin or to Nemhain, or to anyone else in Elysium. He didn't want to be here. Rin couldn't make him.

Cauterized wounds aching in tandem with a beginning of a headache, Lemy inched away from the two and bonelessly sat down with his shoulders hunched. The deep gougings in his back stretched and stung as he did so but he ignored it.

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]As Nemhain arrived, Rin offered her a nod, but her attention was quickly diverted by Lemy's appearance. She couldn't miss the sourness in his voice, and the way he stood at a distance, rather than coming right over to be checked. She doubted his injuries had healed completely in the time since the Ferryman's attack, and in fact the way he sat with his shoulders hunched, and his odd gait... she had to do something.

  Well, since he couldn't hear her, she'd have to communicate some other way. Lifting a paw and gesturing for him to turn around, Rin mouthed to him, "Let me see." He might not let her, given his bitter tone. Perhaps it was out of spite, since he could have suffered a curse thanks to her; perhaps it was for the same reason he'd told Videogames to stay away from him after the sledding accident. She couldn't really be sure.

  She had to treat him, though, or at least make sure he was treating himself properly. If he caught an infection and died, then all his anger at her for putting his life at risk would have been wasted. If he refused anyway, then she'd just have to check him for any symptoms that he would agree to let her see. The eyes, the ears, and the pulse could give away a lot more than one would think.

[candorosa]

[align=center][div style="width:70%; text-align: justify; padding: 1px; font-family: helvetica;"]Lemy met Rin's gaze head-on, plastering on a smile and tilting his head. He could gander a guess about what she was trying to tell him. Absolutely not. Dammit, dammit. He should have left the moment he spotted the herbs. He needed to deflect; change the topic. That should be easy, right? Of course. Nobody liked when he rambled. Nobody liked him. "Geez, Rinny. You're asking me to strip?" He released a scandalized gasp, slowly heaving himself to his paws. Despite his tense body, he made no move to bolt. "Don'tcha think ya ought to take a guy out to dinner first? Tsk, tsk."

What could she do? Make Nemhain hold him down while she checked him out? Knock him out? Nothing. She couldn't do anything; he was the one in control. Even if his injuries stretched and leaked and ached, there was no way he would let her heal him. That was a concession he was not willing to make. It was a matter of principle; she couldn't tell him what to do.

"Ya should check out the others first, Rinny," he suggested with the same frigid smile, at odds with the hot flashes of pain traveling through his body, "you can kiss my bruises some other time." Someone better show their face to get checked out. It wasn't fair; he showed up so why couldn't they?

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]His insinuation that she wanted him to strip made Rin roll her eyes. Being flirted with by her patients, more specifically Zaniel in Bastilleprisoner's body, was one of the very few things she didn't miss about the Ascendants. The mere thought threatened to drag her mind back into the past, but Rin shook her head. She was going to have to do this the hard way.

  Turning around, she jogged back towards her house. In retrospect, she probably should have known to bring paper. Hopefully the others wouldn't mind waiting- Lemy himself wouldn't be getting anywhere before she got back, considering how long it had taken him to arrive. Entering the building, she grabbed a few pieces of paper and a pen, then hurried out, not bothering to close the door.

  It had been roughly a couple minutes since she left when she returned to the center of town, and set down the paper and pen. Writing down her intended message in a quick, but still legible manner, Rin then lifted up the piece of paper and displayed it to Lemy. The message read, You got those wounds protecting me. Call me selfish for thinking I should make sure they aren't infected, but I think it'd be more selfish for me to let you go and potentially die of infection. I owe you this.

  She wasn't especially well-versed in personal debt judo, but there was a first time for everything.

[candorosa]

[align=center][div style="width:70%; text-align: justify; padding: 1px; font-family: helvetica;"]He watched as she hurried away. He felt a flicker of confusion. What was she doing? He graced Nemhain with a wary glance and inched back a distance for his peace of mind. When Rin finally returned, he narrowed his eyes at the pen and paper in her grasp. Well, now he couldn't play dumb, huh? He felt like a cornered rat.

"Your handwriting sucks," was his immediate reply as he read the paper, face twisting with every word he passed. Perhaps, in another world, he would have taken them at face value and acknowledged that Rin truly was worried about him. In another world, he would have realized how difficult he was being, apologized, and shown her his back.

In another world, others would stop forcing him to comply to their wishes. He never got a choice. Everyone always knew better than him. They did things 'for his own good.' He never had a say. Yes, of course he would call her selfish, he would call her a lot of things in retaliation for the utter garbage she just made him read. Did she honestly think he would believe her?

'I owe you this.' Disgusting. Disgusting. It was disgusting. She didn't care about him, she only cared because it made her feel guilty. She would patch him up and then pat herself on the back for helping someone in need. That was what everyone did. They would gorge themselves on the problems of others then grow sick with guilt and anxiety when they could not solve it. That kind of self-validating kindness made him nauseous.

Well, he'd had enough of this farce. Lemy's eyes flared up with an emotion other than blankness for once, its murky depths igniting with righteous rage. He opened his mouth and--

And--

And deflated.

Gave in. Gave up. Just like he always had. Just as he had when he was a child, just as he was willing to do if his gambit with Phoenix had not worked. "Okay," came his broken whisper of a reply, dulling eyes trailing to his paws. White. Not...

He reached up to his cloak and shrugged it off, allowing the fabric pool near his limbs and cover them. The wind stung at the cauterized gouges, mimicking how his own eyes felt. "Go ahead," he murmured, staring at the tears in black fabric. He started counting the loose threads in his mind, eyes tracing the places he had meticulously patched over the years, invisible to any eyes but his own.

//he has six gashes across his back from where phoenix grasped him and they're sloppily cauterized. some parts are scabbed and not very healed (fleshy/moist) he has burn marks even in places where there weren't any wounds. there's no infection at the moment.

[Mistrim]

Mistrim supposed that right now might not be a good time to get checked up considering the fact that Lemy didn’t seem to be in a good mood. She didn’t really want to interrupt the moment between Rin and Lemy although she was already at the spot and she didn’t really have anything else to do or anywhere else to go.

She figured that at the very least she would stand to the side and wait her turn. She wasn’t one of the most injured ones and there was nothing wrong with her cuts that she could tell of. Maybe itwas a bit hard to see her injuries but Mistrim liked to think that perhaps she didn’t need all the attention.

She tugged at her scarf, which needed a good wash, as she waited for Rin to be finished. In the meantime...she observed Nemhain. She didn’t get to really talk to him...or meet him truly and fairly. She knew little of him compared to what the other Elysites knew and it made her feel unneeded and out of the loop. However, Mistrim was a shy little ball of anxiety and so all she did was look.

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]Rin could see the fury burning in Lemy's eyes as he prepared to speak. That was understandable, now that she thought about it. She was trying to exploit the fact that she'd already hurt him to get him to obey, even if it was necessary to protect his health. This wasn't like the situation with the Ferryman's threats, but she could see how it would sting all the same.

  The best thing to do was just let him vent his anger. If he still refused after that, then... she wasn't sure what she would do.

  Then he gave in, and Rin had even less of an idea how to respond, at least verbally. Defaulting to her medical training, she silently approached Lemy and glanced down at his back, but her thoughts raced. She could count six gashes, and the surfaces had clearly been cauterized. Wonderful. The last time she'd seen a cauterization, they'd needed to apply marigold and comfrey to it daily- and the medics had discovered that the day of, rather than several days afterward.

  Miraculously, there didn't appear to be any sign of infection, but the wounds still hadn't scarred properly. Grabbing some marigold and comfrey root, she got to work preparing a poultice. If Lemy was going to be this stubborn about getting treated in the future, maybe she'd just have to give him the herbs and instructions, and let him do it himself. Though, given how messy his cauterization job was... "Nemhain, could you grab some aloe from my house?" she asked once the poultice was prepared, glancing over at the fenghuang. For the parts of Lemy's back that had scarred over, the aloe should be able to help the burns heal faster.

  Turning back to Lemy, she sighed. She would warn him that this was going to hurt, but compared to walking around with deep gashes covered in severe burns, it couldn't be that bad. Taking a bottle of clean water and a cloth from her bag, Rin slowly poured the water onto the wounds to rinse them off, then used the cloth to carefully dry the wounded area. Once the area was dry, she would then start applying the poultice to the wounds that hadn't yet scarred over.

  As soon as she got the aloe, she could apply that as well, and then bandage everything up. The thought of doing this daily, or expecting Lemy to do it daily, tired her out just thinking about it. At times like this, Rin couldn't even blame Radeken for detaching herself.

  ...to think she was missing Radeken, of all creatures.

[nemhain.]

Nemhain, for the most part, had just pretty much been observing the scene in front of her. Since her wounds from the battle with the Ferryman could hardly be counted as severe, she had no problem just watching and waiting as Lemy was patched up, even if he just absolutely needed to make it difficult. That seemed to be a running theme with Lemy, and Nem wasn't sure whether she found it amusing or annoying. She could definitely tell that Rin tended to land more on the annoying part of that scale, considering the frustration the fenghuang could feel being transferred to her every couple of seconds, especially when Lemy did his little flirting routine. She could see little flits of unpleasant or annoying memories crossing her mind along with the emotion, but they were swiftly cut off as Rin focused on her task, moving forward once Lemy reluctantly told her that she could. From his body language and just the general intensity of the air that surrounded Nemhain as well as the others, the persona could definitely tell that Lemy was none too happy about allowing himself to be treated. And yet, he did it anyways. It confused Nemhain somewhat, and the massive bird hoped that confusion wouldn't be transferred over to Rin as she cocked her head to one side, watching Lemy closely.

She was broken from her observing reverie by the sound of Rin's voice addressing her, the fenghuang's eyes lighting up attentively. She gave a firm nod to her user before casting another glance at Lemy, trying not to wince at the sight of his back. Nemhain might not have really felt pain, and certainly wasn't too injured from the battle, but there were still several spikes of phantom pain that ran along her spine just from seeing the messily cauterized wounds. Eager to see Lemy taken care of so that he wouldn't be facing nasty infection, Nemhain took off into the air, her large wings carrying her upwards until she adjusted herself to glide towards Rin's house. When she arrived at the structure, it took her only a few minutes of searching before she found the aloe, having sifted through her and Rin's shared memories to find the location. Once she had the aloe clutched carefully in her talon, she swooped upwards once again, returning to where Rin was doing her checkups. Once she landed, she dropped the aloe in front of the magna, chirping softly as she glanced towards Lemy, "I believe this is what you were looking for, lady Rin?" If it somehow wasn't enough to help Lemy out... well, then it would probably be quite the bad day for him.