RP:Honey, Make Him Healthy

From HollowWiki

This is a Healer's Guild RP.


Part of the Time Heals All Wounds Arc


Synopsis: Kyori has awaken from the deep comatose that entrapped him. As the man was kept within the doors of Kelay Tavern, Penelope is the first one he sets his eyes on due to the traumatic injuries he harbored. Penelope gives Kyori the news that Lanara is gone and he has been in a coma for three months time. The two acquainted find a sense of sincerity to know that he, in fact, survived.

Halifax Roots

A child with scraped knees and tattered clothes bumbles down Kelay Way, through the shrine and past the fountain in a dust colored blur. It arrives at Halifax roots, panting and banging on the door. Presumably it’s closed at this late hour. If the door is not closed, the spritely youth will barrel through the store until it finds an adult, screaming - “ At the end (inn) tos a mean (man) tat needs hells (heals).” The kid jumps, flagging it’s arms and wagging about. “MISS MISS MISS” It shouts at top volume. The creature is so young it’s gender is indistinguishable. “Nanny (Nancy) seed we hav tat halifornia (halifax) miss for tat mean (man). Fast feets! (hurry)”


Penelope’s hand was healing, and the bandages were removed to leave the small burn scars. In one hand, she held a quill as she was jotting down notes from a textbook. A giant, dusty book of the elements. Talyara had mentioned emotions could play a part behind the secrets of magic, but that was only step one without a lesson. Her brows are furrowed as she scribbles notes, the other hand lazily pressed against her cheek until a boy comes pounding on the open windowed door. The girl automatically moves to let the boy in. “Whoa, whoa,” she tries to make the boy talk slower in the thick accent that he inherited. Her eyes slowly catch the scrapes of his knees. His words are a blur except for the word ‘Nanny’ and the poor excuse for her last name ‘Halifornia’… well, close enough. “Man?” The boy had her nervous, for the last time a child screamed about a man, it was Linken who was the man. “Okay, okay,” she says quickly. “Show me.” The woman would snatch the satchel on the counter, along with her herbal pouch. She always had to have the two handy. Just in case.


Penelope’s satchel jump starts the kid and it launches out the door to the main dirt road. The trail of dust takes the herbalist to Kelay Tavern and dusty footprints take her upstairs. Nancy is waiting by an open door when Penelope arrives. “Sven,” She sighs, surveying the woman’s injured hand and hesitating. “You’re hurt too.” The barmaid points out before a muffled yell floods the hallway. It’s origin the open door way. The boy is back at Penelope’s side, tugging urgently on her satchel. “Hells” He reminds her. In the room, the smell of blood was riotous and woolen. The blonde warrior was splayed on the bed in his ratty brown clothes. His forehead is as reflective as glass, so soaked is his skin. He’s pale but a blood red stain grows fervently, plaguing the room with it’s stench as it grows. The pool begins at his shoulder, soaking fast down towards his chest. When she enters, she will be able to hear the whisper of wet fabric being torn apart but the spellblade’s shirt is still in one piece. Could it be the sound of his skin ripping apart?

Kelay Tavern

Penelope barrels through the tavern with the young lad. “Barely. Just a little burn,” but the hand was sensitive to work with, but hosh posh Nancy! The girl wastes no time and rushes up the stairs of the tavern. ‘Hells’. What the –hell- did that mean? The woman bursts through the door of the room where the air reeks of iron. The warrior. Kyori. Kyori was awake? Or really, maybe not. “Oh my Gods,” she looks at the bloody, fevered man. “Kyori. Kyori,” her voice is trying to get his attention to see if he was at least conscious. As she hears the tearing of… fabric? The bed? Him…? “He’s burning up. Kid, get a bucket of ice water and a towel from Nancy. Go, now!” She demands. In the meantime, Penelope is looking for the source of the bleeding. “Hey, Kyori. Probably never thought you’d see me again. It’s your worst nightmare,” she says in a teasingly panic, although the man is in distress and probably cannot hear the woman depending on his condition. “Can’t lose you again. Lanara would be pissed at me,” the girl would reach behind her back where she always kept her buried weapon—a dagger. Kyori would be proud she was actually armed now. The woman would then begin to cut the fabric of his shirt with the blade to find the true source of the bleeding. “Like I’ve said in the past, today is not your day of calling home.”


Kyori reacts to the pain but won’t respond to the woman's teasing reassurances. The kid tears back downstairs while the warrior growls through caged teeth. His body is stiff like wooden blocks but the injury grows. Penelope’s knife cuts the thread bare shirt like butter, exposing a progressing slash across his chest, from the shoulder. The skin around it was scar tissue but by unseen forces, the wound is re-inflicting itself anew. The inky creature in the caves. Lanara’s struggle in the other room. She’d chased the healer out with scissors. Don’t. “Don’t!” He screams, trying to sit up but falling back again in blinding pain. Nancy is back, bucket in hand while the kid runs laps around her. “Go on, away.” The barmaid waves off the boy and he all but tumbles down the inn steps to the bar. She moves to Penelope’s side and sets down the bucket. “Whatever you need.” She promises. Kyori tries to sit up again but falls back again. The tearing sound is louder now. His wound is growing deeper, blood trailing down his ribcage and sponged up by the mattress. Nancy summons two burl fellows from the bar to hold Kyori down while Penelope works her magic.


Penelope’s eyes grow wide as the shirt reveals a wound that is re-opening. What kind of magic was this? Did this never heal properly, or was there a magical source? Either way, she responds in a non-magical way with pulling out gauze pads to apply pressure to the wound on his chest to slow the bleeding. Since the injury was across his chest, she could not tie a mock-tourniquet to his chest, so instead, she uses her body weight to place pressure, then again, most were stronger than her hold. He might struggle to breathe a little with her weight, but eventually, the bleeding would slow. She forces him to stay down as he tries to jolt up. Then, Nancy appears, with the bucket. “Thanks,” she would say to Nancy. She does not move from her pressured position until the burly patrons from the bar come in to hold the man down. There was gracious eye contact in gratitude as they hold the warrior down. The woman would move to place the iced cloth on the man’s forehead to ease the temperature. If the bleeding would begin to slow temporarily, the woman would move to think of surgical strategies. What did Yerrel teach her? The woman observes the blood source from the ribcage. Sternal wiring? Was the sternum apart? With the cold water, she would also a bit over his chest to clear the visual pathway to see what was actually happening within his chest wound. “Nancy,” eyes dart over. “I need you to keep pouring water to clear a pathway when I say so. Otherwise, I won’t be able to see.”


Nancy takes the bucket on the herbalist’s command. Kyori’s heart beats like mad. The trail of blood runs clear as Nancy follows the instructions and reveals the spellblade’s rib. Through torn cloth and ripped skin, the curved bone protrudes at an angle. It stands bleached and sharp against the rest of his angry skin. “The flower…” Kyori grunts, straining against the men that hold him briefly. “Nat! I tried!” The warrior strains again but falls still. He’s asleep again. The bleeding slows and the wound no longer grows. The edges of the gash straighten, forming perfectly clean lines where before the skin looked as tattered as his shirt. The taste of iron lightens in the room’s air. The foreboding panic ceases. Nancy looks at Penelope, waiting for instructions.


Penelope’s eyes trail over the angled rib once it is revealed. “He has a break in his rib,” she observes. The girl looks at Nancy. This is what trauma was for. Moments of panic. Moments of limited supplies. As the men pin the man down, she notices he loses consciousness and the gash begins to stop from tearing. The blood oozes slower for a better depiction of his body. “Normally we try to let ribs heal on their own, but it’s going to need a little… adjusting.” The girl would halt Nancy with the water. The woman would then dig in her satchel to pull out a bottle of what appeared to be a sterilizing solution—for her hands. She dumps the bottle on her hands, and before anyone knew it, Penelope is placing her hand on the bone to gently, but with pressure place the bone back into place. It would hurt like hell, but Kyori is asleep, so who knew if he would feel it. Once the bone is shifted back in place, Penelope would begin to direct Nancy to grab a few medical supplies from the satchel. “I need a pair of curved forceps. They look like scissors, but the ends are curved… not sharp.” If Nancy abided. “Water, please,” an indication for Nancy to also pour some water within the man’s chest wound for visual aspect. The healer would then take the forceps and pull at the flesh to connect the two, and she would repeat the process for the skin above. “I need sutures. I should have a stitch kit in there somewhere,” and again, hopefully Nancy would follow through so Penelope could begin to close the man up to keep the bleeding from losing more blood.


Nancy follows Penelope’s instructions to the letter. When she says pour, Nancy pours. When she asks for sutures, Nancy finds them. You don’t work in a bar if you’re squeamish. She’d seen worse right? Right Nancy? Say you’ve seen worse. Kyori doesn’t move during the procedure. The bleeding continues to slow, the wound retreating back to scar tissue. Blood stains the sheets and his clothes, confirming the wound had existed. It was real. His blood was real. The sutures find healthy, sturdy homes in his skin and the blonde doesn’t flinch away. He mumbles names, while she works, one of those names being hers along with Nat, Lana, and someone named Naomi. Each name was an apology. If he died, he’d have to tell them all he was sorry. He couldn’t help Lana but he’d helped Nat, helped Pen (as he called her). He didn’t save enough people to repay his debt. He hadn’t done enough good. Nancy approaches Penelope once the sutures are set and instructions left to time and the warrior’s own capacity for healing. “I’ve got spares?” The barmaid offers, pointing at Penelope’s shirt with motherly concern. “Thank you for comin’, I knew you would.” That Halifax woman. Dependable as she was kind. “He’s been out of it for a few months now but ain’t nothing like that happened before.” Nancy looks back at the man, shaking her head. “I’ll go grab you a shirt.” She smiles at Penelope, ushering the burly restraint men out of the room with her. Silence spills slickly across the floor of the room when an orb, if the herbalist should see it, bobs close to Kyori’s head. A whisper, saying the same thing in many different voices, might be heard but the words were gibberish and too quiet to hear. “No, it’s all right.” He grunts, eyes closed, to no one.


Penelope preps him with a salve from her herbal pouch that helps numb the open wound, and then she begins to run the needle through his skin to close him. “I’m not writing a book about this,” she says in a silken tone as if he could hear her. She had not believed that he was here. Injured. Did he awake from the deep comatose he was in? Nancy then snaps her back into reality with her explanation. He was still in his thick haze. “It’s part of the job,” was the only response she could manage to say out of any words Nancy threw her way. The woman was trying to piece the puzzle together silently as she looks back at the man. The last stitch is pulled through, and she finishes off with a bandage as Nancy disappears through the door. The woman pastes the cotton bandage over the fresh surgical wound before she hears the whispers in the room. Automatically, her moss gaze trails to Kyori’s slumbered position as if he was the one who was whispering awake. No. The orb, however, catches her eye next. The woman stands with a cant of her head. An orb that hovered over the man. Like the caverns of cerulean poppies. As he speaks, she looks to the orb. The orb in the caverns… he was talking when it hovered then—as if there was a ghost. The girl would come around the head of the bed near the orb before reaching out, yet she would not touch it. “What are you?” She asked curiously, yet she did not expect a response. She was talking to an orb for Sven sake. That would be too weird. Ghosts were a hoax, right?


Kyori keeps his eyes closed. He can't separate Penelope's voice from the others. The chorus of concern. The orb bobbed away from the healer’s hand. It had no desire to be touched. A rumble of whispers escaped it, like helium from a punctured balloon, until it coruscates. The sparkle is quick and bright, and then it’s gone. The warrior’s maintained his consciousness at the cost of an abundance of pain. He looks confused and tired. “Plant lady.” The spellblade whispers. His tongue is thick, words slurred with strain. “Where’s Lana?” His last moments were spent with the narked witch and the puppy she’d saved. His head is pounding. His sapphire eyes are closed. He coughs, groans, and spits blood off the side of the bed. “You got away.” From the beast in the caves. The one that gave him the wound that reblossomed with his consciousness. He strains to look at her, pupils wide with adrenaline from the pain. He gets a glimpse of her juniper eyes and sinks back to rest again. His left hand reaches for his sword. The jeweled hilt leans against the bedside table next to a water worn book with a hard cover. The pages are warped and brown, the red cover chipped and soft with time. His fingers brush the scabbard before he hisses in pain and retreats. “My sword.” He grunts after a controlled exhale. Who’d taken it off him? The door creaks and Nancy reappears with a replacement shirt for Penelope. “It isn’t a perfect match,” The bar maid warns. The silk garment is larger fit than the rest of the herbalist’s clothes. Nancy hears Kyori’s gravelled voice and casts him a warning look. He better thank Penelope, she’d rushed over here with Alec. The warrior can’t see the intricacies of Nancy’s face. “My sword.” He repeats sternly.


There is a jolting wave that rushes through her as the orb carries faint whispers. Her hand pulls back as if the orb radiated heat, yet then she hears another groggy voice. His eyes are heavy and half-open due to the toll on his body. The healer moves to his side and kneels down on her knees at his bedside. “Lana’s been gone for weeks. Her daughter. Her daughter needed help in Kelvar. I don’t know if she will be back anytime soon,” she admits. Her best friend was gone leaving the healer back within her own quiet boundaries. As he spits blood, she digs for a nearby cloth to help clean him up. “I got away,” she says with a very light, nurturing tone. Eyes squint as she remembers leaving him behind for the sake of her safety, though she never would have left him there if she knew he would not be able to get away. Was she wrong? “What happened to you? Last I heard you were in a coma. Lanara wanted me to look on you, but she ended up needing to take care of her family. I would’ve looked for you, but I never had a clue where to start,” and here he was, under her nose the whole time. The same town. Then, Nancy trots in. The girl offers a reassuring nod to the barmaid before just holding the shirt in her hands, for she would change for when she left—that way no one looked at her as if she murdered someone. The warrior begs for his sword, but the girl shakes her head in response. “Enough of the sword,” she responds in a stricter tone, but gentle in her features all-the-same. “Your sword is safe. In the corner where it belongs, and you belong with me. I’m going to have a local fetch Yerrel to haul a medical carriage your way. You can’t stay here, and by Gods you are not going anywhere with a sword. Not until you are moving functionally.” Yeah, there was no messing with the Ardelian. They were stubborn folk. The freckled woman plays with the fabric and begins to line the shirt up straight in her dried bloody hands in façade as if she really cared about her clothing. “Nancy, fetch a lad to holler Yerrel in Northern Sage for a cart and a horse.”


First thought that floods Kyori’s mind is that Lana is dead. “F-” He groans, teeth clenched. Gone for weeks, Kyori. Weeks. The blanks fill in after that. His heart rate already escalated to a painful thump that beats in his ears, teeth, and wounds. Not dead. He repeats the words again in his mind before Lanara’s daughter is mentioned. “Nat.” He grits his teeth again, holds his breath, and waits out the wave of physical pain. Guess he didn’t need that special ink anymore. Guess the whole trip to get the flowers was for nothing. If Nat was safe and Lanara was with her. Good. Lanara’d accused him of knowing the relationship between Nat and Lana. That was one of their last conversations. The witch felt used, like the spellblade was some player trying to pick up both mother and daughter. A crazy theory, considering he’d treated both poorly. He left Nat without a word and then let her mother almost get killed because he punched a racist in Enchantment. Fine mess. They’d be better off in Kelvar. And here Penelope was, also safe. Good. All is right. He hadn’t killed anyone. The herbalist asked what happened and he tilts his head towards his shoulder. “Shadow beast.” He explained curtly, frustrated now that she won’t hand him his sword. “The sword.” He tries again. Not a question. A demand. The warrior keeps his eyes open. Straining to glare at her until she accedes. “I thought...it was a dream.” The monster in the caves. The way it’s claws sliced through his shirt like fog. No pain followed. Hot blood stained his shirt then...darkness. The timeline didn’t connect in his head. He’d tried to find Penelope but Lanara’d shown up at the Inn. He had to guard her. He failed. Nancy gives the freckle faced woman a smile before putting Alec back to work. Off the child ran to Yerrel’s hut to call the healer and his cart to Kelay Tavern. Penelope mentioned a coma. “Coma.” He nods. That’s what happened? “How long?” Weeks? Months? Years? He looks at the herbalist, watching her hold up Nancy’s shirt. The edges of his vision blurs but he can focus on her face. She isn’t older. Not much time has passed. While Penelope considers the shirt, Kyori tries to sit up. He rolls over onto his sutured side and coughs back a slur of curses. Rolling his body with one arm as a lever, His other hand is able to graze the tip of the hilt with mixed results. He reaches the sword. Then it falls sideways into the floor with a crash of metal on wood planks. The warrior flinches and hisses again. “Damn it.”


Penelope blinks at his reaction to Lanara, for she knew by the sound of the witch’s tone that Kyori was of great importance to the woman. She would send word to Kelvar. She would let the witch know the warrior was up and safe, well, at least he would be safe within the hut, for Linken would be banned there if he came back. Instead the warrior would be kept with Leon. The Ardelian child with a strange illness that she had to figure out how to cure. Penelope’s life had spiraled into strange directions since the warrior's comatose, and for a moment she gives the man a long pause that appears dour. The shadow beast. The cavern. She left the blonde behind hoping that he would come knocking on her door. He never showed, and for she thought maybe he grabbed his own cerulean handful, yet then Lanara… The grim news of Kyori's state, yet the explanation of how he became that way went over her head. Silent guilt flooded the room, and she still refrains to reach for his sword even though he is straining. Let the sick man stress his body, for the man was delusional. All warriors were, in her book. “About three months you have been in comatose.” The freckled woman then circles around his bed until she is on the other side where the sword rests and where he reaches for it like his life depended on it. “You’re going to tear your stitches.” The woman picks up the sword, but keeps it at her side, out-of-reach, before eyes dance over the worn book on the end table. He would have to explain himself if he wanted some silly sword. The workaholic was in work mode, for she inherited patients with headstrong personalities all the time after they almost died. That was quite the pattern for her recently as if she had some magnetic pull for warriors. Blonde warriors who almost die and still want to press on like unyielding idiots after a traumatic injury. Pfft, warriors, man.


“And I’d tell you again and you’d leave again.” Replay the instance multiple times. He’ll do the same in each. “Don’t put this on yourself.” His face is set like concrete. More severe than ever before. “My actions, my consequences. You were there” The spell blade stops to drink. “because of me. Your life and well being was put in danger by me. You can handle yourself” now that you have a weapon, really the warrior is proud but this isn’t the place. “but I put you there. In that cave, on that rope bridge, and back out again.” The herbalist brings up the next topic. The vial. She looks so damn proud of herself. He can’t help the dimple from spotting his cheek. “You thought I died.” What an excuse. Kyori, really, don’t permit yourself laughter after abandoning all the people you care about here. You were here for ten weeks and already let people down. Some new start all right. The spell blade wants to stay serious but instead he gives in. He wiggles his blonde eyebrows at Penelope. “Didn’t keep your word. Had to come back out of spite.” Back from where Kyori? The dead? How rich. Talk of swooning women almost gets a laugh out of him. “Swoon on over here and give me my damn sword, woman. For the love of your Sven.”


The Ardelian breathes out, “I think you underestimate me. Since the past three months you’ve been out, I’ve been recovering, so no. I would not leave again,” words reflect the stern tone he gives her. “Besides, we both needed that herb, and we didn’t know what would happen. It could’ve been anyone, and frankly, I’d do it again.” The woman sort of spins the handle of the sword around in her hand while the tip is still in the ground. ‘You thought I died’. She would only blink at the statement. Doe eyes appear as if she was a deer in the headlights. She waves off his comment as if maybe that did statement did itch under her skin, but she would not know what to do with the phrase. “Rude coming back out of spite." As he requests his sword, she begins to inch towards him to perhaps give in, but right on cue, the elven elder, Yerrel, comes within the door. Alongside Yerrel is a taller half elf with dark hair who appears to be the age of Penelope—Ruari Erickson. Attention is stolen away from the wounded and on the mentor of the man and the apprentice. “Miss Halifax, the carriage is outside the tavern. Let Mr. Erickson and I take the man down to the hut. We will get him cleaned up and you can check on him in the morning.” the elder says orderly. In that moment, moss eyes flick down to the bedridden man. “I guess I’ll be keeping your sword until then,” and the freckled girl wiggles her own playful eyebrows at the wounded warrior. "Kidding. Ruari, can you keep this at the hut? Make sure Sir Kyori does -not- get this back until my medical supervision has said so." The sword is exchanged to Mr. Erickson with a reassuring nod. She then begins to walk towards the door and pivots to look at him. Kyori was met with a solemn gaze, “You were missed, Kyori. I’m glad you’re back." The healer's back faces the blonde again before slipping out the door.


Kyori does not comment on the way her juniper eyes glow with surprise. He lets the moment pass but gives the herbalist a confident grin when she looks to be shuffling his way. He tries to sit up, in preparation for his sword’s return, but enter two new people and the spell is broken. He mutters another expletive and slumps back into bed. The warrior whines like a deprived child. “Oh come on.” He'd been so close. There's no time to clap back to her teasing. She's looking at the spell blade like she can see through his skin. They are the only two people in the room when they lock eyes. He freezes with her serious tone. ‘You were missed, Kyori. I'm glad you're back.’ No playful reply comes. The man is forced to watch Ms. Halifax’s exit while his head spins. Again the strangers pull him back to here and now. “Watch it!” He barks through the open door when Yerrel and Ruari close in for the kill.