tushanshu_logs | and the air was full [April, catchall, OPEN]

Entry tags:

and the air was full [April, catchall, OPEN]

Characters: Raine Sage, OPEN
Date: April, various
Location: Healers' Guild, apartment, sky, other
Situation: a variety! This is definitely your stop for Raine at the Healers' Guild, for sure. Others tba.
Warnings/Rating: None currently; will update as that changes.

A | Healers' Guild | open

Raine, most days of the week, can be found at the Healers' Guild, though rarely at the front desk. Any of the multiple kedan who volunteer or heal here will be happy to point visitors toward Raine's office, however, especially if they have an appointment; even those not strictly looking for Raine will be pointed her way if they express they want to help around the Guild.

Raine can also occasionally be found in the halls, or simply passing through the main entryway, though she will appear somewhat distracted and may take a moment to focus on someone talking to her.

B | errands, out and about -- any sector OR outside Milyn's clinic | open

Basket in one hand, staff in the other, Raine isn't an uncommon sight in markets, or especially in the streets of the Water Sector. She walks quickly, like she's on a mission, but she can't help but turn her steps in Water toward Milyn's clinic.

She doesn't go in, but she stands across the street for a long time, a distantly troubled expression on her face.

C-1 | Hatal, Lorn Level | open

Raine's been spending some more time in Hatal, lately, but this-- this startles her. A group of Kin'nal are experimenting with something she recognizes-- a strange vehicle that looks somewhere between a motorcycle and a butterfly or dragon, and a small pack. "Excuse me," Raine says, hardly able to believe she's saying it. "I-- believe those are mine."

Anyone in the vicinity will shortly thereafter be witness to a peculiar sight, as Raine takes the pack and runs her hands over it. Yes, there are her initials, graven besides the silhouette of a wing. She manipulates it just so, and the entire vehicle vanishes into it, in a curious sliding of matter. Raine lets out a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she tells the Kin'nal, who are more or less happy to let her take it, though she does insist on giving them some recompense.

She doesn't know what her rheaird is doing here, but it's a stroke of luck.

C-2 | skies over Keeliai | open to those with flight capabilities

Raine wastes no time in making sure it works as it should, and anyone in the sky or even looking up at the right time may catch sight of her. It works like a charm, and she handles it with the ease of practice as she skims over the city, mindful of the safe distance. She likes flying, a great deal more than she likes anything to do with swimming, and the rheaird is a small-impact piece of magitechnology, one that doesn't put an undue drain on her environment.

She indulges herself with a loop, when she thinks no one could possibly see.

D | apartment, Earth sector | Solomon

It's one of those days when Raine comes home after Solomon; she announces her return with a quiet "I'm home" from the door, and sets about putting her things away. Her jacket gets hung by the door, since things are warming and she really doesn't need it indoors, her staff leans next to it, and she idly orients on Solomon's mana -- his study, unsurprising -- and heads that way, turning the day over in her head as she does.

"Some days, I wonder about the wisdom of working in the Water sector," she says wryly, half to herself though it's aloud, and she leans in the doorway. Open, so he isn't involved in something he'd mind being interrupted. "How did your day go?"

[ooc: feel free to tag in to any one of these, or, if none suit, shoot me a pm or a pp at

makaricrow and we can work something out! I'd love new CR as well as old.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Surnames are typical, certainly, but a number of the people here don't use one." Raine nudged the door shut and returned to her desk, though she leaned against it with one hip rather than sitting. There was a chair on that side of the desk open for Amberdrake, if he so chose. "You wouldn't be alone should you choose simply to use 'Amberdrake.'"

But that was rather beside the point, at the moment. She studied him as she explained, the earlier smile fading in favor of cool analysis. Yes; that would rather hamper his ability to function among the wounded. "You're not the only empath here, either," she remarked finally. "Is it volume, or strength that overwhelms you?" She had no small amount of curiosity, and was holding back further questions pending how welcoming to them he seemed.

"Volume," Amberdrake replied easily, although impressed at the direction of the questioning. "It is unavoidable, unfortunately. In order to shield more against it, I would block my own abilities. Mine is a worse case than most from my world; a chink in the armor. I would rather not go into the reasons for that."

He stepped further into the office, too, but didn't sit. Drake just set one hand on the top of the back of the chair.

"There is more I can do than emergencies," he added, "I have a particular skill for healing the non-human. Wings are a specialty, in particular. I was one of the few in all of Urtho's armies who could mend a gryphon's wings well enough to allow for flight again. There are many sentient species on my world alone, and the others I have encountered... I tend to study. The Gift allows me to do that on the living."

Instead of only on corpses, as he'd first learned human anatomy at the Chirurgeon's College of Predain. When he hadn't been bedbound from a mysterious level of illness, at least.

"...I am also a trained chirurgeon," Amberdrake added as an afterthought. "Non-magical medicine was my original training. But even when I do not use magic, I get overwhelmed by my Gifts." That chink in the armor, again.

"Would isolating you and a singular patient from the others help at all?" Raine wanted to know, curiosity now winning. Her eyes were bright with it. "How broad a radius do you have? You may have observed that the Guild building is rather large for the number of staff we currently have; there are any number of unused rooms that are somewhat distant from the largest concentration of people."

Perhaps. Well, he had a decade's worth of experience managing this, presumably, but by the same token a war was not a predictable environment. It was possible there might be further strides made to accommodate him.

"You would be helpful with the kedan," she added thoughtfully. "And there are any number of Foreigners as well who aren't human." Herself among them. "You say your Gift allows you to study the living-- shall I take it you mean in a detail that most people wouldn't be able to achieve without harm?" Or autopsy.

Chirurgeon wasn't quite a familiar term, but the context made it relatively clear. "In other words, you're skilled, but necessarily limited in the application of those skills. Would you be willing to teach?"

"It might, depending on the distance," Amberdrake conceded, "I don't know exactly how far away I would need to be. The Chirurgon College of Predain was quite large, but also densely-packed."

He finally stepped around the chair and took a seat, his wing-cut, open robes draping over the arms.

"I will doubtlessly end up with an office of some sort, at some point... away from here. A patient could be sent there, if mobile, once that is the case. My primary profession is as a... therapist, of sorts. It's hard to quantify it. If I think of all the connotations, the only word that comes to mind is what it is; kestra'chern." Which didn't translate.

He inclined his head at the question about the Gift. "Yes, I can examine a person down to the blood vessel and vein without touching a scalpel. I can see the ebb and flow of fluids and energies... the Gift allows me to observe as much as repair. As for teaching..."

Drake considered it, for a moment. He'd always been a teacher among kestra'chern, but not on the Hill among the Healers. It hadn't been a good idea for him to linger there, after all.

"Perhaps?" he spread his hands; the golden lotus tattooed into one palm on display with the motion. "If my skills would be of use, certainly. I cannot teach the Gift to someone who does not already have it. Or do you mean the non-magical abilities?"

"It may be worth experimenting with," Raine said with a nod. Dense was not a word she'd use to describe the Guild's population.

Kestra'chern indeed didn't translate, but she could follow the parallel he drew. "Psychological healing, in essence," she concluded. "That, too, may be useful-- something about Keeliai seems to attract people who have been through a lot. If you intend to offer your services in that manner, you could likely do some good."

As he explained the rest she listened carefully, distracted only by the display of the golden lotus; her eyes tracked his hands, obviously still curious, before returning to his face. She could only ask so many questions at once, so that one would have to wait. "What is the Gift, exactly?" she asked then, electing to start at the source. "Your non-magical skills, of course, would be useful to pass on. As for anything more magical-- it varies. My own abilities are a function of my race; in short, my bloodline allows me to feel the mana, the life-force of the world, and manipulate it as necessary. However, some of the kedan I've met here have been able to learn the artes I use in that manner, despite lacking the same bloodline. Therefore, it's possible you may find someone with, if not your Gift, then a close enough corollary that some techniques may be passed down."

A pause, considering briefly, and one more thought tacked on the end, not quite a non sequitur, only a brief detour backward. "Ah-- could you render accurate diagrams from those examinations? Those might provide useful teaching tools."

Amberdrake nodded his agreement to the first bits, and noted how she watched his hands. On his right, was the tattoo. It took up his entire palm. On the left hand, he wore a silver ring with the faint impression of lotuses all around it -- an aged, weathered bit of jewelry, that was. Something not often taken off.

He folded his hands back into his lap, for lack of better things to do with them. "The Gift... I was born with it, and it bloomed early. I had to be trained in how to use it, of course, and my chirurgeon background helped immensely. It is no aimless thing; I perform intricate surgeries without opening the patient's skin. Including splints made of energy for bones, and encouraging the natural healing to increase a hundred fold for a brief time. At least, once everything is in its proper place, down to the blood vessel. It drains both myself and my patient, though I supply most of the power. I can burn out infection, and have been successful at removing tar build-up from lungs. I see inside the body with a kind of second Sight."

And he nodded, again. "I have used it to make medical diagrams, before. Sometimes for simple practice, and sometimes to pass along to others. I can still draw a kyree's central nervous system from memory. --Ah, giant telepathic wolves, from my world."

Edited 2016-04-07 08:59 (UTC)

Interesting, that the ring more or less matched the tattoo-- still not quite the matter at hand, but something Raine would have to return to before long. Obviously there was some significance.

The clearer picture of his abilities was a helpful one, and Raine nodded along as he went, making mental notes. So he had more finesse than she did -- not necessarily surprising, since her artes had initially been meant for use on the battlefield -- and had perhaps a better hand for long-term care, though he would not be quite so resilient as some of the other healers.

She took the mention of giant telepathic wolves in stride. Those were hardly new.

"That alone might be exceptionally helpful," she said finally. "Between the kedan's shapeshifting, and, as I mentioned, the number of non-human Foreigners-- if you're willing to do that, it would be appreciated. I doubt all of the Foreigners with unique physiologies would permit the study, regrettably, but that's a different problem." Raine shook her head. "Apart from that, whatever you can pass down wouldn't go amiss. Part of my goal here is to ensure that valuable knowledge isn't lost when we're inevitably called back to our homes, especially given that the Guild was defunct before it was ceded to me. There was somewhat of a dearth in the practice of healing here for some time."

That was something she truly, earnestly believed: that it was their responsibility to ensure as much of the future as they could.

"I admit to some surprise that there are so many Healers here," Amberdrake noted, since it was sort of brought up. "This is my third time on a different world... and on the last two, there was always a major shortage. I was one of few; not a specialist among many," and he smiled at that point, "I much prefer the latter situation."

To put it lightly.

"The ones who don't want to be studied... I could still work on them if it came to an emergency," Drake added, his tone thoughtful. "I don't have to have studied someone's anatomy beforehand to Heal them, it just makes it easier."

"Even when I was first brought here, there were more than a few others." Raine hadn't thought of her early months here in some time, and the recollection was now tempered with some small amount of wistfulness. She wouldn't bring Malicant back, but there are some of the people she wishes she had the help of again. "Unfortunately, our numbers have somewhat fluctuated. While that's fortunate for those who wanted to go home, it did leave us a little short-handed for some time. Still: here, and now, there are enough of us that we can afford to call you only for emergencies, yes."

They've a ways to go, but things were better than they had been, Raine reminded herself.

"That's good." Overall, barring his difficulty with empathy, Raine couldn't have asked for a better recruit. "Is there anything you can think of we haven't covered that might be important?"

With those things more or less handled, Raine took a moment and indulged her curiosity, tilting her head to indicate his hands. "That flower. A lotus? I take it there's some significance."

"Nothing else I can think of, right now," Amberdrake said, and then glanced down at his hands at her mention of the lotus. "...Ah."

Ah, indeed.

He opened both hands, palm up, showing the tattoo again and also more of the ring. "Gifts from a friend I lost," he said, "the ring was first. The tattoo came years later, so that I would always have something of him that could not be easily taken away." Not without cutting off his hand, or skinning it. Not that Hadanalith, for example, wouldn't have gone for both options.

"He drew it himself," Amberdrake tilted his hand to show off the tattoo better; it was brush-work, elegant like calligraphy. Whoever had taken the needle to his skin had traced the brush strokes. Even the shading was in black lines; the gold filled it in. "It had barely healed up when I lost him."

That was one way to put it, to be certain.

And to another Healer, of course, it was obvious that the tattoo was barely healed up now! A very recent loss, then.

Not to mention that to let someone tattoo his hand... as a Healer, as a kestra'chern... it had so, so much meaning. His hands were incredibly important to him and to his work!

Edited 2016-04-09 00:22 (UTC)

Ah.

Raine straightened from the desk only to bend over his hand, peering carefully at the tattoo now that implicit permission was given for study. She reached out, but didn't quite touch. "It's beautiful," she said finally.

The relative newness, upon this closer examination, did not go unnoticed, and the realization that she had inadvertently touched on a possibly raw subject came close after. "I'm sorry," Raine added. "For your loss."

That would be enough of that, unless Amberdrake chose to speak on it more himself, and she leaned back to her initial position. "Do you have other questions?" she asked. "And what will be the best way to contact you in an emergency-- I would assume the radios?"

"Thank you," Drake would be a poor kestra'chern if he couldn't hold it together in such a situation. So he smiled, and set his hand back down again. For all intents and purposes, he seemed quite relaxed about it all.

The symbolism, and the freshness, of course... well, it said he was full of shit. But at least he was coping.

"Just one question, since you seem well-versed in the Healers in this town. Have you met anyone by the name of Hakkai? Surname Cho."

He was certain the youkai would have registered with the Guild, too, if he was here. And it was an incredibly long shot... but he took it anyway, just in case.

"The radios would have to do, I think. I'm a fresh arrival still, so I have yet to set anything else up. I am staying at the Midnight Hotel with a patient of mine, if that makes contact any easier. I can update the Guild on the location when I move."

"Hakkai Cho," Raine repeated. It wasn't a name that was immediately familiar, but she took another moment to consciously examine her memory, just to make sure, before shaking her head. "No, I'm afraid not. A friend of yours, I take it? I can certainly let you know if I do find anyone by that name."

The radios were, fortunately, an easy enough way to get a hold of someone, and Raine was long familiar with the Midnight Hotel. She nodded assent. "Yes, please do. You're staying with a patient? If you find you require any assistance, let me know." It was possible, naturally, that his patient was purely in need of the mental aspect of his skills, but she would be remiss in not at least making the offer.

"He may not remember me," Amberdrake cautioned, "but yes, I would definitely like to know if he turns up."

The kestra'chern nodded, and got back up to his feet. "Actually, there is one other thing that would help in general," he mentioned after a second of hesitation. "Do you have a list of the local herbs and their basic properties, somewhere?"

"Yes, I'm familiar with that difficulty." Raine looked very briefly downcast; but that wasn't worth dwelling on, so she didn't.

She straightened when he stood, and at his question brightened. "Yes, that I can help you with. Here." From the bookshelf on the far wall she pulled down a slim, somewhat worn notebook, which she offered to Amberdrake. "There was a great deal to learn, when I first started studying the local healing methods. These are my notes." And then she paused, and grimaced as a potential problem occurred to her. "Written language doesn't translate, however. Can you read that?"

The notebook was filled with her oddly curling handwriting, recognizably the Latin alphabet and the language that most people in the city would refer to as English.

Amberdrake opened the book and... stared at the writing. He'd been exposed to just enough English on Haven and Baedal to pick out some of the meaning. Here and there, a word made sense. Here and there, a word almost made sense.

"If I had time with it, I could read it," Amberdrake glanced up, "I don't suppose there are any other copies of your notes? Or I could come by to study it until I can make my own copy."

Or perhaps he could copy it without even being able to read it? The letters all had distinct enough shapes. He considered it, thumbing through a few pages. There were so many languages he was going to need to learn here, even just in their written forms. It wouldn't be the first time, at least.

"I have another copy of that particular set of notes," Raine reassured him, with a little smile. They were useful, and that was why she offered. "I'd like them back eventually, but take the time you need to. If you have too much difficulty with the language, many of the Foreigners are familiar with it, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding someone to help. But you do have some grounding with it already?" That was interesting; usually it seemed to be all or nothing, but if he had been traveling then she supposed it made sense.

"Then I will return it when I have made a copy," Amberdrake smiled in return, and closed the little book in his hands. "Thank you. And yes, this was a very common language on two of the other worlds I have been on. I never had the time to properly study it, but I have a knack for picking up such things, a little bit at a time, here and there."

It was part of what had made him such a good diplomat to the Haighlei Empire. Drake strove to understand people, and that included the languages they used.

"How much world traveling have you done, prior to this?" Raine inquired, her curiosity piqued in the wake of all the matters of initial import being handled. It was hardly a common thing, especially considering that her world had only ever been one world, in truth.

"Thank you-- don't feel you have to rush," she added. "If you have questions, either regarding the language or the contents, I'm often here, or you can get in touch with me via radio or console. I'm happy to help."

"This is the third world besides my own that I have woken up on," Amberdrake tucked the little book against his side. "I have gone back to my own a few times, when I was still on the first of these strange worlds. But not since then. I know that most lose their memories when they are sent somewhere else... not so, for me. Not yet, at least."

It was a fate he was well aware of, looming over his head. Drake wouldn't willingly forget a single thing! But would he have a choice? No. Sanzo and his forgetting the kestra'chern was proof enough of that.

"I don't suppose," Raine began, and stopped. He'd said it as if he had no control over it; what were the chances he would have any knowledge of how he'd retained those memories?

Slim. But she asked anyway. "Do you have any idea how you've held on to your memories thus far?" she asked. There was a note of hope in it, mostly covered by resignation. "There are a number of us here who would rather not lose our own, and if there's any way of telling..."

"No," Amberdrake folded his hands together, and inclined his head, "I know the first time it was an error on the part of the Powers. Why I have retained them since... I do not know."

"The Powers?" Raine inquired, as a point of clarification. Context made the concept more or less evident, but lacked nuance.

She held back disappointment, since she had known it was something of a long shot anyway. "If you're amenable," she began, hesitated, and proceeded anyway. "There are certain people here who have the ability to perceive souls, and memory is a significant portion thereof. I understand it may be too personal to permit, but if, at some point, you were willing, it might be useful to see how you differ from others in that respect."

She wouldn't suggest meddling with a soul, of course, but if it was only looking... well, it would likely have to wait, in any case. Raine shook her head. "It's only a thought," she said.

"The people who, on Haven, took us from our worlds," Drake clarified.

He listened to Raine's suggestion with a neutral expression on his face, though he inclined his head after, thinking about it. "...Perhaps," he was hardly comfortable with the idea, but if it was potentially useful...

"I guard many secrets that I couldn't permit anyone to uncover," he said, "but if it's merely to see what differs... perhaps."

"I suppose I must sound terribly casual about it," Raine said wryly, half-apologetic. "I've spent some time in study of souls myself, though I lack the perceptions some of the others do. The end result is that it's not uncommon for me to deal with matters of the soul in one way or another. And the person I would ask to look I trust without question-- although it should be considered that I am not unbiased, as I love him well enough to marry him. But I understand your reservations, and I won't press you about it. If it happens to come up again later, I'll be curious, but it doesn't need to."

Amberdrake knew where to find her now, at any rate. But they had only just met, and Raine didn't expect him to take her word for any of this, despite her position of relative authority.

and the air was full [April, catchall, OPEN]

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