tushanshu_logs | I am flesh and I am bone

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I am flesh and I am bone | April Catchall

Characters: Pepper Potts, Devin Parker, and you!
Date: Throughout April
Location: Jade Dojo, Sky Sector, all over Keeliai.
Situation: Pepper's living her life, and Devin is getting dumped into Keeliai a little maimed.
Warnings/Rating: Possible mention of murder and probably blood, specific warnings in headers.

A. [Pepper] Jade Dojo | Backdated to end of March | Heather

As promised, Pepper got up early and made her way to the dojo at a time that was unusual for her. She normally trained in the afternoons, so this was a big change of pace. There was no guarantee that she and Heather would make good partners, but it would be interesting to try. It would also give her a chance to get a read on Heather, since Pepper hadn't interacted with her much before now. She hung up her jacket and pulled a set of long, thin cloth wraps and began to circle them around her hands; once they were secured, Pepper began to warm up, keeping an eye out for Heather's arrival.

B. [Pepper] House Spicy Iron Dragon | Early April | Gene

The weather is getting almost reasonable, and on one of the days where it's a bit sunnier, Pepper goes out into the backyard and does some practice summoning. She's getting better at it, and higher level monsters are slowly getting easier to summon, but she still has pretty strict limits. That doesn't diminish her determination - if anything, it makes her push harder. Vee is there, too, standing off to the side with less armor on, observing. Pepper will occasionally speak to her like her ka has said something, although the creature's lips never move.

C. [Pepper] KPD | Throughout April | Open

The new Guild system has definitely stirred things up in the city, and there's a rash of thefts hitting Foreigners that suggests it's systematic. The destruction of the spirit houses is also concerning, although fortunately it doesn't seem to be escalating badly. Pepper is pretty busy, spending a lot of time out on patrols and talking with kedan as well as Foreigners to see if they have any information. Busy or not, she's in a good mood most of the time if anyone bumps into her.

D. [Devin; CW: burns, possibly blood] Healer's Guild | April 5 | Raine

The ground is a lot smoother than he expects. There's a ringing in his ears and he can tell he’d be dead if he hadn’t known what was coming. As it is, his back is charred from the explosion. It was a small price to pay for getting the hunters and the dossier out. He can feel them start to heal, but his wounds must be worse than he thought – someone is saying something, putting a hand on his shoulder and Devin can only lay there, stunned. The person sounds worried, and Devin tries to tell them he'll be fine, to leave him here. To run. It doesn't come out particularly coherently.

Whoever it is doesn't listen, and two sets of strong arms are lifting him off the ground to a standing position, which he couldn’t have managed himself. This is bad, that he can't orient himself properly or see straight. At some point, he must have lost consciousness, because next he opens his eyes he's being led into a building and there's a flurry of activity that ends with him face-down on a gurney.

"I can't stay here," Devin mutters, trying to get out of the bed, but the hands keep pushing him back down. Devin is stronger, though, and he stumbles vertical again, searching for a door. "I don't need your help."

E. [Devin; CW: blood] Thoughout Keeliai | Throughout April | Open

As soon as Devin is fully recovered, he gets out into the city. The situation has him on edge, the fact that his agency has been violated again setting a semi-permanent frown on his face. Devin is familiar with a few different planes of existence, so the idea of Keeliai isn't something he outright rejects. After a week or two, he accepts that he's stuck. From what Devin can tell, he's the only one of his kind here.

That should have been something of a relief, Devin reflects, but it also meant that he's adrift without purpose. What is he supposed to do with himself? Almost all of his energy back home had been spent hunting. Devin can't remember the last time he took a vacation.

Long story short, Devin is not in a good mood most of the month, somewhere between lost and agitated. He does need to find a way to live, though, so when he's not at the Hotel (which he hopes he won't have to stay at for an extended time) he's wandering around and observing, taking in every detail he can, and looking for a niche to fit in.

F. [Devin] Turtle's Head | Mid April | Open

The rumors of the serenity of being near Tu Vishan's beak are appealing amidst the turmoil of Devin's arrival and the impending problem of finding a food source has him troubled enough that he hikes out there one day. The sight of it, actually getting confirmation of what it is he'd standing on, is grounding and the calming influence of a being so much greater than him is familiar in a way. At least this trip doesn't come with a migraine. He spends a few hours there, mostly standing at the shell's edge and staring out at the sea, thinking through his options.

(OOC: Let me know if you want a specific starter or feel free to write your own adventure!)

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"Your home world," Raine clarifies. He must be very new, then; and if he's injured and disoriented, and was brought right here, likely no one has had the chance to explain anything to him in a manner he could intake and comprehend. "Lay down."

He's still arguing even as he lets her apprentice help him do just that. Raine shakes her head, leaning over him to examine the wounds more thoroughly. There's a cursory, gentle examination for foreign material in the wounds. "There are many things which will heal on their own eventually, but it's my job to improve function. I suspect you'll do much better if you don't have to heal this much damage on your own, and the fact that this isn't the first time this has happened to you does not mean you don't need help then, or didn't need help then. Now lay still so I can heal you."

Not that she necessarily needs him to; but it'll be easier to see, and she'd really appreciate it if he stopped struggling altogether.

Heal. She keeps saying heal. Heal and not treat. And 'home world'. Where the hell is he? Devin wonders if he has a concussion bad enough that he's processing words incorrectly.

Fortunately, the burns are just burns. Any glass that might have cut him would be on his front, but there don't seem to be any large pieces that he can feel. "It'll be fine in a day or two," Devin mumbles.

The bed is more comfortable than the ground had been, and when the vampire does stop for a moment, he's reminded that every bone in his body aches. Getting rid of that - healed or treated or by whatever method - wouldn't be unwelcome. "Why are you helping me?" he asks muddily, but remains still as instructed, his eyes threatening to drift shut again.

A day or two, hm? That certainly doesn't match with what she sees of these injuries. Raine upgrades the stranger mentally, noting that he must surely heal faster than most. Perhaps she can minimize the effort she needs to expend.

All the same, even if she doesn't heal everything, she's certainly going to get the process started.

"It's my job," Raine says briskly, taking up her staff when her apprentice passes it to her. White light spins up underneath them in an arcane circle; she focuses. "Heal." It sounds like an imperative as much as the name of a technique, and warm light sinks into Devin's back the moment after, Raine watching judiciously as it goes.

Part of the problem in his own healing may be that pesky first twenty-four hours of magical grogginess - it would probably take at least three days, given that, and it would be three very painful days.

When the spell begins to sink warm into his skin, Devin's eyes close anyway, seemingly of their own accord. Ironically, it starts to hurt more, suggesting that the nerve endings that had burned away were being revived, and only after it gets bad enough to leave him grimacing and with balled fists does the pain start to ebb.

Rather than healing to smooth skin, however, what's left when the burns evaporate is a map of hatchmarked scars, overlaid on the left side of his back from below the shoulder to his hip with a previous burn scar.

It's around then that his head clears, too, and awareness is much sharper than before. Rather than sound any relief, Devin remains still for a moment, taking in his surroundings, tense as a bow string. That kind of magic doesn't exist in his world, and this realization does not make him happy. All signs point to being in more serious trouble than he originally thought.

"Where the hell am I?" Devin demands, starting to raise himself up again.

Raine isn't expecting the mess of scars left behind, and she has to wonder at what hard use he's seen. Certainly more than a few of these aren't combat-born; there's whip-scars, here. She sets a hand to his shoulder, gently pressing down.

"Be still for a moment longer," she says, coolly, with the air of a woman who is accustomed to being obeyed in her domain. "You're in the Healers' Guild, in the Water sector, in the city of Keeliai. You're safe. What is the world you're from called?" Perhaps immediate and clear explanations will help settle someone who's warrior-tense.

Perhaps not. Raine will escalate to yelling if she needs to.

Devin turns to look at the woman over his shoulder, glaring at her. That explanation doesn't help much, truthfully, and relaxation is the furthest thing from his mind. Despite his distrust, he can acknowledge that she's helped him, and that if she wanted to hurt him physically then she would have already done so. Her touch now is firm, but not unkind.

Attempting escape in a place Devin is entirely unfamiliar with is not the best idea, either. Here, at least, he might get some answers about what's happened.

"Earth," he answers tersely. Devin stops moving, but doesn't lay back down. "Where else? Or have you sustained a head trauma as well, along with your impossible abilities?"

At least he's stopped moving. Raine will take it. She stands back a pace, folding one arm across her chest and resting her staff on the floor. "My own world is called Aselia," she provides. "The one we're in right now is called Konryu; and the city is Keeliai, as I mentioned. You didn't suffer a head injury in addition to everything else, did you?"

She doesn't mean it to be insulting, only that he might be thinking of head trauma for a reason, and after a moment Raine unfolds herself and leans toward him again, with a quick cursory scrutiny of his eyes.

"I used high-powered explosives in a rather small room; I'd honestly be more surprised if I didn't suffer a head injury," Devin says dryly, eyes narrowed in suspicion of her words. The trouble with his vision also suggests he'd whacked his brain against his skull fairly hard. It was well worth it.

"How did I get here? And don't be cute and say someone carried me," he snaps. This isn't where he belongs, and many of the kinds of places this might be are death traps.

"Hmmm." Raine narrows her eyes at him again. "Try to focus on my hand, please. Are you noticing any increased sensitivity or nausea?" She can fix it easily enough, of course, but she needs to know it's there before she can do so.

At least she can answer his question, though. "Someone did carry you," she provides, a little more dryly. "On the world level, however, you were summoned here by a defunct and malfunctioning spell originally created to summon heroes to combat an ancient and potentially interdimensional threat. That threat has since been dealt with, but the creators of that summoning are long since dead."

Devin shakes his head in answer, and then winces faintly when his vision blurs a little. It's been fuzzy on and off since he got here, though he'd thought whatever this woman did to him had made it stop. "I'm not seeing two of you," Devin says dryly. After a moment to focus on her hand: "But I'm not entirely seeing straight, either."

His expression darkens further at her explanation, seeing as absolutely none of it makes sense and - if it is real and not an elaborate ruse - extremely displeasing. "And I suppose Santa Claus is real, too, is he?" Devin says tartly.

"Santa Claus?" Raine echoes, a little blankly. No, wait, she does know this one, it's come up in several cross-cultural conversations; her expression clears almost instantly. "Ah. Yes. The patron saint associated with your solstice holiday. No, as far as I'm aware, he isn't a spirit that exists on this plane." Somehow she doesn't think she'll be disappointing this man.

If he isn't seeing straight, then there's still a problem. Raine moves her hand back and forth, watching how his gaze moves and how his pupils constrict, nods to herself, and casts again. "First aid."

Her reply does nothing to improve his mood; the possibility of Santa Claus actually existing is actually more disturbing than anything else. All the same, he corrects her with, "Saint Nicholas is the patron, not Santa Claus. He's the bastardized version."

Whatever skill or magic she has seems to work, as his gaze sharpens and along with it his glare. "Fine. You've healed me. Now let me go." Devin is not of a mind to explicitly ask permission.

"Ah, is he?" Raine will have to correct some notes. "You'll have to explain the distinction further to me at some point, then."

She eyes him right back, not at all intimidated by the glaring. "I'm not sure I should allow you to leave while you're still not fully cognizant of what's going on here." She'd rather he not provoke a vast diplomatic incident by accident. "Have you visited the Welcome Center yet, or received any explanations of this world beyond my own?"

The eyebrows go up again. "I'm under no obligation to explain anything to you," he tells Raine acidly.

Devin would absolutely cause a vast diplomatic incident, and he rolls his eyes at her.

"I was carried in here with most of the skin on my back charred off; do you really think I had time for tourism?"

Raine's expression goes faintly pinched. While she's aware she does get overbearing sometimes, his response is the opposite of inspiring politeness.

In the end she doesn't answer the first.

"You seemed to think you could get up and about like that," she points out. "In any case, perhaps it was a foolish question. Very well; if you want questions answered, I can do so. And at the very least, I would prefer you not leave until I'm assured you aren't going to start something unwise."

He is in no way trying to be polite. He is, in point of fact, being an ass.

"To find a place to lay low, not to ask about wherever the hell I am." Devin is wary of this whole thing, of her explanation about a spell and the city and gods if this is some kind of trick--!

"How do I know you haven't just lied to me about everything?" he demands, sitting up properly. "And if you are telling the truth, how do I get back to where I came from? I have business to attend to and I don't have time for this bloody side trip. Lives are at stake."

"What would I gain from tricking you into such an absurd fiction?" Raine inquires in return, face flat and tone mildly impatient. "Especially when I have already had to fight you every step of the way just to heal you."

She lets that sit for a moment, then sighs, though her expression doesn't change much. "There's no way to go back intentionally, save for chance," she says, more brusque now. "However, fortunately for the lives at stake, time doesn't pass in your own world while you're here. Whatever fire you escaped from will still be burning."

"I've been betrayed by a similar situation in the past," Devin replies darkly after a moment to glare at her. Since it's of no use to him now, he pulls off the ruined remainder of his shirt, exposing a further litany of scars. He points to one one over his heart. "And I got this for my trouble."

His jaw tightens at the rest of her explanation. No way back, time frozen-- it still doesn't sit well. Even if no time is passing, he's stuck here, and that's almost as bad as if things were carrying on without him. The vampire runs a hand through his hair, sighing heavily. "Then what, pray tell, am I supposed to do while I'm here? Sit around and do cross stitch? I have one purpose, and I cannot do that here," he complains irritably.

She raises an eyebrow, and looks unimpressed. It's a nasty scar. She's seen scars that look equally un-survivable. One of them is, in point of fact, hers. "While I can understand your reticence given past betrayals, do think about it. If I were lying to you, surely I would choose something a little more plausible. And what could I stand to gain? I know nothing about you save that you were injured, and you are exceptionally stubborn."

She doesn't know what she can get out of him, or why someone might want to carve his heart out. What she is, is impatient. "Then I recommend you find a hobby," she says, a little sharply, and then grimaces, and bites her tongue. "...there's nothing that can be done, right now, but see what you can contribute to those around you."

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I am flesh and I am bone | April Catchall

that's better

not for him so much, but yes

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