Peony Min (blackmagicks) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-01-12 17:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, nathaniel porter, peony min |
Who: Peony & Nate (+ mentions of Riyeko)
What: An intervention
Where: Nate’s apartment --> A clinic
When: Backdated: Mid December, a few days after this
Rating: PG-ish
Status: Complete!
There was someone knock-knocking at the door again, but after what happened last time, Nate felt quite fine where he was, thanks. Do it again! the voice crowed, and he obliged, pinging a thumb-wide cog off the wall opposite. He caught and threw, caught and threw, in the dim light seeping through his ground-level window slot. They were talking, now, but Nate wasn’t listening. He was done listening. No one could help him. But it had broken his focus, and he swore as the little scrap of metal goes skittering away across the floor. He couldn’t see where it’d gone, but it hardly mattered. The floor was littered with similar things. In the back of his mind, the voice made happy wordless noises. It liked shiny things, and fast movement, and this game had both. It kept it happy, and when the voice was happy, Nate wasn’t curled up in a ball trying to escape the sudden blinding headaches he’d been getting - so he was pretty happy too. Outside the door, a mage and a machinist stood. “I do not believe he will be letting us in,” Peony stated calmly. To tell the truth, she had not fully expected Riyeko’s apprentice to comply, not after her friend had told her -- at length -- about the state she had found Nathaniel in recently. Still, it had been something they had to try, for courtesy if no other reason. The young man, however, was in danger. Therefore, courtesy would have to be set aside for now. “Very well,” Peony said, “we will simply have to do this another way.” She lifted her hands, murmured the incantation for Sleep, and sent it through the door. The knocking had stopped, but there hadn’t been any creaking steps on the rickety staircase, at least not that they’d heard. Nate halfheartedly hoped they weren’t going to try to break the door down - he didn’t really feel up to fixing it again. In fact, he didn’t really feel up to much of anything, all of a sudden. He felt kinda terrible, to be honest. Boy. Boy? Boy! He had the vague impression of - squawking? - but he couldn’t manage to care. Slowly, Nate’s eyelids fell, and he slid sideways down the wall into a heap. Out like a snuffed candle. Peony heard the telltale thump on the other side of the door and lowered her hands. She looked at the doorknob with consideration for a moment. “Riyeko,” she said, “I am afraid you are better acquainted with this neighborhood than I. Might you be able to find us a locksmith?” There were sheets. Over him. And everything smelt of - vinegar? It felt like there was a blanket over his brain. Even forcing his eyes open was a struggle, and when he did, he flinched away from the floods of daylight. His arms felt like limp noodles, but he lifted one hand anyway, to shield his eyes before trying to open them again. When he did, he saw a woman, sitting calmly by his side. Wait. “I -” Nate coughed. “I know you? I think?” She looked like Riyeko’s friend, the mage, but why… Riyeko. Of course. Why are you asleep! Stupid stupid boy, I’ve had dandruff that moved quicker than you! And there was his constant companion. Right on time. Nate let his eyes fall closed and his arm flop back onto the bed. “Where am I?” he asked. “What did you do to me?” “Hello, Nathaniel. I see you are awake.” And looking much better, by her estimation, having been washed clean of the layer of grime that had been covering him, though he was still far too thin and his eyes sunken. Knowing the neighborhood in which he lived, she had feared mind-altering substances when she had had him brought here, and he certainly looked as though he had been partaking in such. But his case, as it turned out, was not quite what anyone had expected. “You are in a clinic,” she answered quietly. “Unfortunately, when you first began to wake, you were… uncooperative. It was thought best by the white mage to sedate you. You will feel somewhat lightheaded for a time, I am afraid.” And he would be unable to cast magicks -- or do anything else which required mana -- which was likely for the best. “It seems you have been unwell for some time. A number of people have been concerned.” Riyeko, of course, and her friend had mentioned something about the young man’s employer, as well… “I asked Riyeko to bring you something to eat.” It would give the other woman a chance to utilize her nervous energy -- and keep her occupied while Peony attempted to resolve this issue. “A homecooked meal ought to do you good, I think.” “A clinic? I’m not -” Nate began, then stopped, because he couldn’t even convince himself that he wasn’t sick, what with the headaches, and - other things. “I can’t afford this,” he said instead, because she was a mage, and mages weren’t cheap. He’d kept enough by for his rent, but… it had been a while since he’d managed anything anyone would want to pay for. A number of people, she said. Nate screwed up his face at that. Riyeko, maybe, but otherwise - it was a polite lie, nothing else. But food wouldn’t go amiss. He wasn’t hungry, or rather, it had been so long he somewhat suspected he’d forgotten how to be anything else. “Maybe,” he agreed. Not that he’d ever seen a reason for ‘home cooked’ to be any kind of special case. Bugs are better, the voice agreed. Don’t need to cook crickets to get a crunch! “You needn’t worry about the fee,” Peony said. She watched him curiously, wondering what was going on in his mind. As Hippolyta told it, it was a rather... curious sensation. “You have, I think, other concerns that are far more immediate.” Lifting the item that she had been rolling around in her hands (it felt like magick, but no magick she could identify), she held it up in her palm. “How long has it been since you fought the creature which left you this?” she asked gently. “Your malaise... it dates from that time, I imagine?” Ma- malaise? What did that even mean? “Creature?” She was holding a colourful pebble, and it took him a moment to recognise - it was the one he’d found on that expedition to bring back that merchant’s crates. The merchant had been so grumpy, and there’d been so much lost already, that he hadn’t really thought anyone would notice - and it was so pretty, some kind of clear quartz speckled through with what looked like flakes of gold. “I found that,” he said, trying not to sound defensive. “I didn’t take it from no one.” “As I understand it, it would not have been forgettable,” Peony said. But then, if this boy had had no knowledge prior, and if, perhaps, the being itself was unhelpful… “I never said that you took it -- rather that it was left to you,” she added kindly. “And I intend to return it, of course.” She was uncertain of how well it would go even if she did try to remove it, truth be told. “I think, perhaps, you are somewhat… disoriented. Let me see if I can assist.” She paused a moment to think before she continued. “I hope you will tell me if any of this is an incorrect deduction.” After all, she had very limited information to go on. “Some time ago - several months, I think,” based on the amount of time Riyeko stated the boy had been behaving strangely, “you met a very large, very powerful adversary, likely somewhere outside the city.” It could not have been in the city; she would have heard of such a battle, certainly. “You engaged in combat and at a certain moment, this adversary vanished. Shortly after, you found this.” She watched his face carefully and continued as delicately as she could: “Since then, you have felt unwell, perhaps… questioned your own mind, which has caused you to withdraw from those around you. You may well have heard someone speaking to you, someone you could not see. I imagine this is a very distressing sensation.” Another pause, then, quietly, “Have I assumed incorrectly?” Nate just stared. There was a worried chrrrrp in the back of his head, but the voice had nothing to say either. “How did you know that?” he asked slowly. It was hard, thinking back, to remember exactly what had happened. But it had been… odd, when the chocobo they’d been fighting out in the wilds just suddenly up and disappeared. He’d never seen one as big, though, so he’d written it off as some strange magic and taken the pay happily. “Can you tell me what’s happening to me?” All of a sudden, Nate felt something he hadn’t felt in far too long - hope. Now she smiled and told him, “Yes.” The hope on his face was obvious to her eyes, and her heart went out to him. This could have been Hippolyta -- this probably had been Uolouno, before he had disappeared into the wilderness, never to be heard from again. But this young man, at least, would receive the help he needed. “You will recover fully,” she promised him. She would see to it personally, if she had to. “I know exactly how to help you. However, before that,” she reached out, patted his hand softly, “We have a great deal to discuss.” There was no time like the present to start -- and she hoped that by the time Riyeko returned with food, Nathaniel would have regained his appetite. |