InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "a hickey the size of FRANCE!"

Rose Vasiliyeva (finefeathers) wrote in cirque_rp,
@ 2017-10-31 18:50:00

Who: Orion and Rose
Where: The Burning Palace
When: Midafternoon, October 22
What: Healer talk
Warnings: Probably none

Rose wasn't thrilled at the thought of being inside the grounds of the Tower, but she wasn't mad about the weather. It reminded her a little of the start of winter back home, which was bittersweet as always. More importantly, it was another excuse to get out her most comfortable sweaters, which felt at times like cashmere armor, insulating her against the literal and metaphorical cold. Today's was a deep plum, impossibly soft and with the unfortunate habit of sliding off one shoulder to expose the charcoal tank worn underneath. She twitched it up again as she made her way with a full bag from the Bandaid Station to the Burning Palace, her walk brisk and businesslike.

She made her way inside, the tent warm even though the night's performances were hours off. It had become her habit to stash medical supplies out of the way at all the attractions, as speed was often a critical factor in case of an accident. The sooner an injury could be treated, the less work there was to be done when the injured finally made it to the infirmary - and, hopefully, a faster recovery.

For the Burning Palace, she'd put together a kit with extra emphasis on burn injuries - even if the performer was immune, an overzealous guest likely wasn't. Nonstick bandages, sterile gloves, antibiotic ointment, pads for cool compresses, a basin for soaking, aloe vera gel, painkillers, gauze, and interestingly enough, a roll of plastic wrap. It was this last that she was having difficulty fitting into the supply box, a red and white plastic thing that was sturdy enough to survive being accidentally kicked around and bright enough to notice when needed.

"Come on, you bastard," she muttered to herself, taking most of the supplies out again to try yet another configuration that might work. "This is your house now, live in it."

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finefeathers
2017-11-11 07:42 am UTC (link)

"I didn't mean to disturb," Rose said, managing to squish the last of the bandages into the case and get it closed with a small air of triumph about her. "Just setting up emergency kits for each attraction. Lord forbid we have emergencies in more than one area, and me unable to be in two places at once." Italy had been a perfect example; while she'd been field treating Callum, others were being gunned down. She'd worked herself to near exhaustion but she knew the others would have come out better if there had been sufficient supplies close at hand.

"I'm not an owl shifter, no," she said after a moment, unsure of how much of her abilities she wanted to share. Her people were secretive by necessity; there was some information in human myth and legend about them, but nothing about their ability to take human form, nor their inability to cause harm. "My people are able to choose our form as children. Always birds, always white. Is it similar with yours?" she asked then, curious. She'd seen him as a vulture, had been surprised that a phoenix did not have its own distinct form.

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intoashes
2017-11-13 12:07 am UTC (link)

"You weren't disturbing me. I was put in some new shows, so-" He shrugged as if the rest of the sentence did not need to be said, but could be understood in context. Orion dropped his gaze. He had heard about how overworked she had been, being the only real doctor on staff. Medics and nurses came and went, but no one had the degree of education she did.

"Uh, I don't know, honestly." He put the fire poi out with his hand and set it aside to sit on a stool close by. "Baba Violette told me that the vultures that have our form is actually that bird mimicking...us." Orion hated calling out his own species. To say Phoenix out loud in an environment brimming with Fae felt sickening to him. Not that it had not been said out loud previously.

"They are naturally white and cover themselves in red clay. So maybe one of your people could take on the vulture shape." He managed a shy grin at the concept.

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finefeathers
2017-11-13 12:54 am UTC (link)

Rose's hand tightened momentarily on the emergency kit she'd just finished closing when he put out the fire with his hand; it took her a moment to remember that his people were immune to fire. Fitting, that he'd be performing here. It was at least one less person she had to worry about burning themselves on accident.

"It's possible that one or more already have," she said, offering a small smile in return. Her people were notoriously few and far between, insular families that rarely kept in touch with other groups, laying with humans when they were ready to have children and disappearing once they'd conceived - the caladrius genes always bred true. She hadn't ever seen another of her kind since leaving her home, but she also hadn't spent a lot of time looking. There was nothing another of her kind could do for her, except double the danger that one of them would be found out and hunted. There was no safety in numbers when none of the group could harm would-be attackers.

"Particularly any of them born in the age of the internet, or encyclopedias," she mused. "We can only choose what we know, and what we knew was much more limited before information was so easily accessible."

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intoashes
2017-11-14 04:49 pm UTC (link)

"So... do you know a lot of your kind?" He asked, unsure how to approach that subject, but as they were discussing it his mind focused on it. Orion never really talked about his lack of direction when it came to his species nor the issues that surrounded it. The boy had learned early in life that it was better to accept the bad with a shrug and move forward. It got him through the thick of life events that would have been devastating for most.

Losing his father to a fae and then his mother dying of heartbreak could have destroyed him as easily as it had destroyed her. He had not had time to learn anything about his kind and his breed was so rare to be born that there were no others to find out more from. All he really knew was the basics of himself.

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finefeathers
2017-11-15 10:16 pm UTC (link)

"No." Rose's answer was terse but not quite rude, just enough to disinvite more personal inquiry. Her shoulders tensed, spine straightening almost in defiance of the wary body language. She didn't blame him for asking; she hadn't shared her history with anyone in the cirque save the mysterious Management who'd seemed to know it all already, and it was natural when making small talk to ask about things like that. But as nice of a young man as he seemed to be, she still didn't know him, and the walls she'd built around herself weren't going to come down in a day. She had known a number of her kind; she had once been possessed of an unusually large family. But explaining that was still beyond her desires.

"My people tend to be reclusive by necessity," she said after a moment, unbending just enough to elaborate with some less personal information. "Exposing yourself to another member of the species comes with its own set of risks that aren't always worth the effort. I kept to myself, and if I somehow crossed paths with another of the caladriai in my travels, I never knew it."

She tapped the box of supplies. "I assume that all those who work with fire are well versed in the appropriate safety practices that go along with it," she said, "but if anyone needs instruction on how to use what's in here, I'm happy to provide it."

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intoashes
2017-11-18 08:58 pm UTC (link)

Short responses were something Orion had become used to from Gadje, so he had no visible reaction to the way it was said. A modern world meant nothing when it came to Europeans and his family. Most of his issues came from human prejudices opposed to his rare species. He also understood secrecy and never went out of his way to push for information, what would be the point? To what end did people demand information that they did not necessarily need? All the Phoenix wanted was to know if it was the curse of supernatural birds to be alone.

When she said the name of her species, Orion tilted his head momentarily recognizing the name from his cousins in Greece, but all he knew about them was exactly what the doctor seemed to do- they healed.

He nodded to her parental tone about fire safety, not that he had ever needed it, but there had been a few times he had needed to help a cousin with a burn.

"So, um-" Orion paused again trying to think of the words he wanted. "I could help you if things get out of control like it did in Rome." He scratched his chin again, a self-conscious quirk. "I don't know a lot about my kind or the extent of what we can do- I've been told that our births are as rare as they come and my father-" He shrugged. "But I can try so you're not... you know..."

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finefeathers
2017-11-19 01:37 am UTC (link)

Talk about work put Rose back on familiar and more comfortable ground, and some of the tension dropped out of her stance. "I'm afraid I don't know much about your kind, either," she said, regret coloring her tone. "Much of my work has been focused on humans. My abilities allow me to diagnose various supernatural issues, but there aren't a lot of reliable texts on supernatural physiology."

She stopped messing with the box of supplies, curiosity welling when he offered his help. "I appreciate the offer," she told him, grateful. "I'd prefer that nothing like Rome ever happen again, but it'd be nice to have some help to call on if it's needed." She tilted her head, observing him. "I understand your tears have healing properties?" she asked. "Do you have active healing abilities in addition? Or is the notion of 'phoenix tears' a euphemism for an active ability?"

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intoashes
2017-11-20 01:06 am UTC (link)

All Orion really wanted in the world was someone to help him figure it all out. His family, Baba Violetta, and his cousins, they knew as much as witches might know, but there were large holes of information. At times, Orion felt in a gilded cage where he was watched over, taken care of, and left utterly alone.

"As far as I know, it is literal." His brows furrowed in self-reflection. "I heal myself with flame, but I once made one of our horses come back from near death by my tears hitting it. I don't really allow people to bottle them or whatever. That creeps me out, but-" He shrugged again. "Others being injured, well, those situations are intense."

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finefeathers
2017-11-21 11:33 pm UTC (link)

"I won't ask, then," Rose said, referring to the bottling of his tears. She had wondered if he'd ever done that, set aside emergency stores for times when he couldn't be present or medics needed to work especially fast; a follow up question to that would have been about efficacy. Rose figured it might as well not hurt to ask that anyway. "Do they lose potency when bottled and stored?" she asked. "Or do you just not enjoy the thought of bottles of your tears sitting around?" A case could be made for either.

"I'm sorry I'm not able to help you discover more of your kind," she said sincerely. She'd not had a lot of time with her family, but she'd grown up knowing the full extent of what she was and what she needed to do to survive. Of course, it wasn't especially complicated, either.

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intoashes
2017-11-23 06:32 pm UTC (link)

Orion's eyes dropped to the ground at her question. He couldn't blame her, she was after all a modern doctor even if she could heal by supernatural means. Baba Violetta had never been too fond of doctors, but they rarely needed them as over half the clan were cunning-folk. "I don't actually know. I've just been brought up with a distaste of having parts of me in someone else's possession."

With a shrug, he set his extinguished poi on one of the prop shelves above where the medical kit was kept. "I don't expect help, really. There's so many stories of mythical birds and most of us seem to be real, but not exactly like the story." He could not say that he was not disappointed. There had been hope in knowing that the doctor was different from the shifter birds. But it had always been in Orion's personality to recognize that the past could not change and there was no use trying to hang onto it.

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finefeathers
2017-11-26 02:19 am UTC (link)

"I can't speak for others, but I know my people used to only visit the sick as birds to heal them," Rose ventured. "If people spent all their time looking for magic birds, they spent a little less time looking for magic people. I imagine our various people have encouraged that sort of misinformation to make us harder to find. All the same," she added, "it is my hope to learn as much as I can about the supernatural species here." Her ability told her much of what she needed to know to treat them, at least which parts didn't just take the same treatments her human medical training already covered, but she was always seeking new knowledge. "If I find anything about your people, I'll be sure to share it with you."

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intoashes
2017-11-27 03:54 pm UTC (link)

Orion gave a soft scoff. "I've been encouraged to stay out of my bird form as much as possible. Baba Violetta doesn't trust the Fae here," he remarked, off subject. As kind of a woman Baba Violetta was, in general, she had a healthy amount of distrust- not just because the Cirque filled its ground with gadje in both employees and guests, but because death had bad luck attached to it.

Scratching his chin again before pushing his hair out of his face, Orion gave a shrug. "Do you want to study me, doctor?" He supposed if anyone should be allowed it would be another mythical bird who merely sought knowledge without the uncaring nature a scientist demanding information by destroying the very thing they studied. He would not want his family finding out about it, though. They would take him out of the circus as fast as the shifting wind.

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finefeathers
2017-11-30 03:03 am UTC (link)

Rose crossed her arms over her chest, absentmindedly twitching the slipping sweater back up over her shoulder. "I don't think you want to be studied, Orion," she said evenly. "Not in the way I'm equipped to study you." She was a doctor. A surgeon. Her studies involved cutting people open to see how they worked, or how she could fix whatever was broken with them.

"If there are things you want to know, specific things, you can ask and I can try to find a way to learn the answers you want. But there are things about your people - culture, history, other intanglibles - that I can't learn for you. If you're curious, I can try to reach out what sources I may still have out there, but I've been a long time in the human world."

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intoashes
2017-12-03 04:17 am UTC (link)

A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth appreciatively. Orion wanted to feel like a part of something and for the moment thought that if the doctor studied him in the manner he thought she would it might help him discover something. All he wanted was to rid himself of that feeling that he would forever be looking for something he had no idea what it was.

Orion shook his head. "Nah, it's fine. If I don't know it now maybe it's not time for me to learn it yet." With another shrug, he stepped away from the doctor. "I should get back to practicing, but maybe... when you're not busy we could go flying together? No studying, no supplies and no healing, just a little company on my flight?"

He would wait for her reply, but the Romani boy had started moving back to the random objects that lit on fire that he had pulled out earlier. "Have a good day, Doc."

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finefeathers
2017-12-04 05:36 pm UTC (link)

The request took her by surprise, which echoed faintly in her expression before resolving itself back to her usual cool politeness. She wasn't typically the sort of person who garnered invitations to do things; her unwillingness to let people in usually took care of those urges in others. "I would enjoy that, Orion," she said after a moment with a small nod. "You have a good day as well."

As he turned back to his props, she gathered what few things she was taking back to the clinic and made her way out.

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