RP:Bet On Her Life

Part of the Surface Tension Arc

Synopsis: A few days after Emrith rescues Skylei, Krice drops in the clinic during Josleen's shift. The subject of Skylei comes up, and Josleen divulges the severity of her friend's condition (grim, not looking good, coma, black and bloody), and is emotionally tortured by it. Krice wrestles with guilt privately, then accompanies Josleen to the fort after her shift ends. Along the way, Josleen shares a pleasant memory of Skylei and bets Krice that she can predict the day Skylei will wake from her coma. He sort of takes the bet, in his own Krice way. He then drops her off at the fort and they part.

The Healing Room

Josleen is working the day shift today, which means lots of children, regular patients, and lonely widows rolling in for minor aches just for the company. Josleen is happy to give it. She wears an apron over an old floral dress. No use in breaking out the fine clothing in a place like this. A baby with a fever projectile vomits in Josleen’s direction, but she deftly side-steps it like a puke ninja. The signs are known to her. She knew that baby would barf before it did, and her ears no longer register the drum-splitting frequency of a baby’s wail. “I know, I know,” she coos as she administers medicine. The child squirms in his mother’s lap and almost spits up the medicine, but Josleen strokes his throat quickly to activate the swallow reflex. Soon he’ll be drowsy and she can move on to entertaining Mrs. Faroe, a widow with no real illness other than crippling loneliness. The treatment in this case is a game of pretend. Josleen pretends to be interested in Mrs. Faroe’s grandson who lives in Cenril and never writes. Mrs. Faroe pretends to believe that she’ll one day play matchmaker between the nurse and negligent relative. And so another typical passes in the clinic. Josleen glances at the clock. Only a half hour left.

Krice came to the clinic dressed in his usual black garb, though this time further warmed from the chill by a fur-lined cloak. It suited him and he carried himself like normal whilst wearing it; to accommodate the new garment, he kept his katana sheathed at his hip. As he entered the healing room where most of the activity thrived, he slowed to a halt and gazed around for a healer who -wasn't- busy. Josleen came into view and he watched her silently, noting her level of engagement with her patients in silent appraisal. Given that his reason for visiting was not urgent, the silver-haired man stood off to the side and waited.

Josleen shivers when the door opens, and looks towards the chill to see who brought winter with them. Krice! She startles at the sight of him and, aware of the dangerous mission he recently undertook with Leone, scans him for injuries — or demonic possession. Never forget, Josleen is a provincial girl and harbors the superstitions that come with that. No obvious injuries (though he is covered up) and no demonic gleam in his eyes. Good news! She excuses herself from Mrs. Faroe and intercepts another single, thirsty nurse who makes a beeline for Krice. “I got it, Barbie,” she says as her hip sways to shoo Barbie away. “Hi, Krice, hey.” Closer now she looks over him again. “How’d it go? With Leone, out there.” Her head tilts to the west.

Krice glanced from Barbie back to Josleen when the former was dismissed, thereupon realizing that the nurse to see him would, in fact, be Josleen. He had been seen by some of the nurses here a few times before, half of those with an injured Leone, but now the warrior came in whole and healthy and without need for medical assistance. Following Josleen's greeting, the warrior dipped his head in a nod and voiced a simple, " Hey." In light of her query, he glanced westward. " We haven't gone, yet. Things're a bit crazy here, lately, so we've had to postpone."

Josleen cants her head to the side. Her brows pull together and she hesitates before says, “Oh. What do you mean crazy?” Another patient shuffles in behind Krice, and Josleen guides him deeper into the clinic and off to the side so they no longer block the entrance. Still on the clock, her idle hands busy themselves in a cabinet rearranging the bottles that stray during the workday and refilling jars that have depleted from tubs hidden beneath a sink. Her movements are automatic. She could do this with her eyes closed.

Krice shrugged a shoulder, on the verge of answering Josleen's question before she moved to guide him away from the door. Whilst she rearranged items in the cabinet, he turned his attention to her hands and observed the efficacy with which she performed her tasks. Something subtle shifted in his eyes, but she was occupied with her work and thus wouldn't see it before he schooled it away. " An elf named Emrith recently infiltrated the Underdark with some comrades and brought back with him two hostages - including Skylei - and a drow prisoner. Everyone's a bit preoccupied."

Josleen stills briefly at the mention of Emrith and Skylei. She puts down everything and buries her face in her palms. Her body tenses with the pain she’d been repressing all day. Skylei’s state was worse than she expected. The initial healing she required lay beyond Josleen’s skill as a nurse. For these first few days post-rescue, Josleen is helpless and forced to wait while real healers do their best to coax Skylei back into her body. Who knows where she is, but one look at Skylei’s black and bloody face and broken bones, and you know why she may be reluctant to come back. To keep herself from pacing the halls like a caged beast, Josleen agreed to continue volunteering at the clinic while the healers worked on Skylei. In the evenings, she’s on Skylei duty, and in a few days, she’ll take over full care — once the shamans have done all that they can. She inhales sharply and pulls her face away from her hands. Her eyes are wet and red and she hides them from Krice with her hair as she resumes her work. “I don’t know why they keep the drow alive. They should kill it for what those monsters did to Skylei.”

Krice could tell by the stillness surrounding Josleen that he had inadvertently struck a chord. He was silent thereafter and diverted his gaze away from the woman, allowing her a moment of pseudo-privacy to feel those darker emotions and then compose herself. When the healer at last vocalized her anger toward the drow race, and in particular the current drow prisoner of Frostmaw, his gaze returned sharply to her face and he stared, unyielding, at what he could see of the healer's distressed expression. Skylei... She had been captured and given to House D'Artes as a bargaining chip for -his- release. This didn't do wonders for his usually unshakeable self-esteem. Glancing out across the beds and waiting chairs, he could tell that the recently-freed elf was not present. After experiencing his own emotional kickback, during which he suffered a kaleidoscope of emotions from sadness to guilt, from anger to a hint of relief, and then back to guilt, the man asked a tentative, " Is she alright?"

“No.” Her bedside manner is shot to hell when her nerves are this frayed. It’s a good thing Josleen doesn’t know Laezila is the one who captured Skylei, or else she’d be trying to break into a a Frostmaw jail and poisoning a prisoner. Josleen has never killed before, and it’s unlikely that she would succeed at that plot. But if she ever did, who knows what murder would do to her psyche. She’s not bloodthirsty by nature, and yet here she is wishing death in a frank, naked way. Do drow count as lives worth considering? Is it murder if you kill evil? Real questions Josleen wrestles with these days. She whispers in paused, tense phrases. “Assume the worst, and her condition is worse than that. The drow are barbaric. Killing the prisoner would be a mercy.” She rubs at her collarbone in her usual nervous tic. “They can’t wake her up.”

Krice thought no ill of Josleen for her manner, correctly attributing it to stress directly related to her good friend's condition. This damn war between the elves and the drow was as unnecessary as it was brutal. Revelation of Skylei's condition, even without the gritty details, was reason enough for that guilt to return in unrelenting waves. Though he was a reserved man at his core, he still possessed compassion that few ever got to see. He expressed it now in the form of a subtle frown, apologetic for his part in Skylei's capture, and -sympathetic- to Josleen for the instability she suffered as a result. The warrior clamped down on the inside of his bottom lip, flesh caught between teeth, and diverted his gilded eyes away from the healer to look out across the clinic at large.

Josleen lets the silence flood over them and wash away some of the tension. It’s a relief that he says nothing. Any more talk of Skylei and she’ll break down completely. She’s one wrong conversation away from coming apart. With a deep breath she gathers what’s left of her wits and regards Krice one more time. “Did you come here needing something? Happy to help.” She doesn’t look or sound very happy. Sometimes just saying the right words helps. It’s no wonder most magic is triggered by language. Josleen isn’t very magical, but her words have some power, albeit never enough.

Krice lowered his gaze away from the opposite wall when Josleen extended her nursing services. More silence ensued, but he broke it with a quiet, almost reverent, " No... Thanks, I'm fine." After a dip of his head, he turned to disengage from the shaken nurse and approached the exit, passing a slower but tended-to patient also on his way out.

Josleen waits until Krice leaves before hiding in the supply closet to look for a batch of strength. Back to work.

Krice halted at the door. As that other patient got close enough, the warrior pushed open the door for him to more easily exit. He was thanked by the patched-up man who then disappeared into the frozen tundra beyond the clinic. After closing the door quickly to refrain from letting too much icy air in, the silver-haired warrior turned back toward the internal space of the clinic and locked his gaze on Josleen. It was only a few seconds thereafter that he crossed the expanse to arrive by her side once more. Whatever she was doing, he calmly stated the reason for his return by asking, first, a question: " When is your shift over?"

Josleen is cleaning surgical tools when Krice joins her. The freezing cold water makes her hands red, numb, and clumsy. Her eyes lift from the task to eye him through her periphery, curious but not alarmed. “In twenty minutes. Why? --Ow!” She grabs at her index finger and hisses against the pain. A scalpel nicked her in the wink when she wasn’t looking. Right on the knuckle, too, which means it will open and reopen several times before healing, and that despite the shallowness of the cut, it will bleed more than you’d expect. She grabs a piece of gauze and presses it against the cut. “I think my shift just ended.”

Krice's gaze was on Josleen's eyes when she answered him, but the mini-drama that unfolded in lieu of her answer distracted him. He glanced down at her cut finger, briefly forgot about the fact that he had asked a question at all, and then was reminded by her concluding words. Adopting a wry expression, the man voiced his reasons for returning. " Wherever you're going afterward... Want company on the way over?"

Frozen Road

Josleen wraps the bandage around her finger and uses its neighbor to hold it in place. "Yea... Yea, that sounds nice. I'm going to the fort." Her smile fails her. It circles the emotional drain in her chest and plummets to her stomach in a thick layer of anxiety and nausea. She leads Krice to the coat rack where she takes just under a full minute to wrap herself in an improbably large number of layers. A sweat and a cardigan? A jacket under a coat? She's not Krice when it comes to the cold. Like her smile, words fail her too. She just wants Skylei to wake up, and failing that, a warm place to find solace. After winding her second scarf, she's finally ready to go. Outside, she squints against a gust and finally asks, "How do you know Skylei?" She assumes he does. Maybe he doesn't. Frostmaw feels so small these days, since the soldiers left for war, that it feels like those that remain know each other best - for better or worse.

Krice nodded at Josleen's acceptance of his company and turned from the woman to approach the door. He paused just a metre past the coat rack, his gaze predominantly northward - until the woman took a little longer to dress than he expected. Shifting his focus to deduce the cause of the delay, it was without judgement or even curiosity that he watch Josleen's figure disappear beneath many layers of warm clothing. Was it -truly- that cold out this way? He could tell temperature differences, but he clearly didn't feel it nearly as starkly as other humans. Once she was ready, he pulled open the door and followed her outside, shutting the barrier behind him firmly. Josleen's question inspired a thoughtful frown to the contours of Krice's face. His memories of Skylei seemed so distant. "I don't know her that well. We've crossed paths a few times over the years. I know her well -enough- to know that she doesn't deserve what happened to her." No one did, really, but for it to happen to someone so vibrant and full of pizazz? Rather than venture down that more negative train of thought, the silver-haired man glanced upon Josleen and asked, " What about -you-? You seem to care about her, significantly."

A real but brief smile lights Josleen's eyes as Krice invites her to recall Skylei before recent events. "She's like a sister to me. We used to live together in Chartsend, and," she chuckles at the memory before explaining, "Skylei was a messy roommate. The lounge was always a maze of books and tea and clothes. She'd kick off her shoes and wherever they landed they'd stay til she needed them again." She remembers an afternoon on the beach when Skylei and Josleen entertained Raphaline's company, but refrains from telling that story. It's a bit too Mean Girls. Her mind flips through memories that echo on her face, expressions wistful and remorseful in turn, smiles and frowns wrestling each other on her lips, nothing voiced. To voice the memories is too similar to speaking of the dead. Skylei isn't dead. She can't die. Instead she says, "I'm trying to see if I can have her favorite dish from Mrs. Mallard's in Cenril delivered to the fort. When she wakes up, I want her to wake up to that."

Krice was pleased at Josleen's turn of mood, no matter how brief it was. Speaking of Skylei in a positive light - as opposed to in the shadow of a victim - seemed to have a better affect on her healing friend. Though his attention was predominantly on the path to the east, which ultimately would lead them northward to the fort, the silver-haired man spared one glance to the woman at his side through the duration of her words, and then a second, lingering look when she fell silent. He observed a fraction of the memory-emotions that played across her expression before diverting his focus elsewhere, reluctant to intrude on her moment. Following Josleen's revealed plans for when Skylei awoke, Krice adopted a lackadaisical smirk and mused, " If you manage to time it right, I'll be impressed."

"Well, bucko," she teases with a faint smile. "Prepare to be impressed. I have a sixth sense when it comes to Skylei." This is the closest thing to good humor and hope that she's felt since Emrith came home with Skylei. Her pace slows a bit so that she may indulge just a little bit longer in this brief respite from everything grim. She remains focused on the 'when' of Skylei's recovery, not the 'if.' "Are you a gaming man? If I time it wrong, I'll bake for you my world-famous cakelog." World-famous is a rather generous compliment. More like Xalious-famous. And even a good cakelog is an acquired taste. Look, it isn't much of a prize, but hey. "If I time it right, what do I get?"

Krice seemed to fall into the rhythm of levity quite seamlessly. Though he was a reserved man, their shared distress over Skylei's condition - mostly for different reasons, at -least- from different -perspectives- - helped him loosen up enough in Josleen's company. Besides, she wasn't a -total- stranger, and pseudo-friends got to bear witness to a little more of the enigmatic man than strangers. Adjusting his pace to match the healer's when she slowed, the warrior unwittingly expressed his agreement with the woman's decision to delay and glanced over once more. Was he a gaming man? The crooked smirk that took hold of his mouth suggested 'no'. Upon hearing the promise that he would receive Josleen's 'World Famous cakelog' if she timed Skylei-food delivery wrong, Krice adopted a quizzical expression that lasted into her query after stakes going the opposite way. " I don't even know what cakelog is," he mumbled, more so to himself than the healer. " I didn't know we were placing bets." Despite his concluding words, it was evident that the crimson-eyed man harboured no displeasure as a result of Josleen's banter.

Josleen smirks with Xalious native pride as the village's sugary-sweet pastry confounds yet another outsider. It's a playful pride, and the smirk is short-lived, sinking back beneath the thick mantle of sadness that clogs her pores like oil spilled on fish. "I didn't either, but..." She slows to a stop some distance away from the fort. Her body turns towards Krice as if to confide a secret, but her gaze lingers on the fort. "You know what I like about bets?" Her direct brown gaze seizes his with an urgent plea that he understand her. "They're fixed on the certainty that an event will happen. We may not know which horse will win, but we know the horses will race." She lets him draw the conclusion that this bet is precious to her because it predetermines Skylei will wake, and that only the 'when' is a mystery.

Krice understood. As Josleen halted and delivered her explanatory reply with the weight of the world pressing through her gaze, he understood. This bet was a proxy-gambling endeavour not to win cakelogs or escorts through snow, but to relish in the resultant hope that Skylei would awaken. He had halted just a couple steps past the healer and shifted to regard her now, his gold-freckled stare levied without yield upon her face. At length, the man nodded his agreement and asked, " Alright then. If your timing is wrong, I get a mysterious cake log. If it's -right-... Well, if it's right, you get to hand Skylei her favourite meal." His lips curled into a wistful half-smile. What could be better for Josleen than that?

Josleen laughs softly, shakes her head, and continues northward at their slow pace. "They must do bets differently where you come from," she teases. "But alright, I'll take it. Where are you from, by the way? You don't strike me as a Frostmaw native." Her eyes follow a passing giant, then jerk towards Krice playfully, though the humor is faded by the noise in her mind that always remembers Skylei. "Too short."

Krice shrugged up his left shoulder and ceased talk of bets with Josleen's reply. When she enquired after his origins, the warrior's first instinct was to box himself up and hide away from the information-seeking woman, but he managed to stifle his reaction before it got quite that bad. Resuming their walk, the man moved eastward as he nodded in that direction. " Somewhere further north and east." There was a place more north beyond Frostmaw? Josleen's tease about his height earned her a quizzical but faux-chiding look, before Krice diverted his gaze to the passing Frostmaw and said, " Maybe -they're- all too -big-." He didn't leave the healer unattended for long, however. " What about yourself? You fit up here even -less-. What brought you to Frostmaw?" He could assume that she was here for work, to heal people in the City of War, but asking diverted the conversation from himself.

Josleen knows an evasive answer when she hears one, but she doesn't push. As a secret keeper herself, she understands the impulse. But her secrets have less to do with why she's here and where she comes from. Those questions she answers truthfully, though perhaps this version is a bit more rose-tinted than the truth. "I'm from Xalious. I was here during the last war, volunteered as a nurse, then moved back south. Then Skylei went missing, so I came here because I knew this to be the last place she stayed. I'll leave again when it's over and Skylei is well enough to travel with me. Speaking of..." They arrive at the fort and she smiles softly to Krice. The sadness threatens to invade her stare again. It beckons her from inside the fort's walls. "Thanks for the company. I should get back to her."

Krice was attentive as he had been throughout their journey from the clinic, listening to every answer Josleen gave him. When they arrived at the fort, he slowed to a halt and turned his head to gaze upon her. So Skylei was tucked away, somewhere safe, behind these well-built and heavily guarded walls. That was reassuring. Dipping his head, the silver-haired man accepted the healer's farewell and gratitude and said, " No problem. Take care of yourself."