i'm not calling you a liar

[ethnobotany]

WHO: Beverly Crusher
WHERE: Starting outside House 20, Inn, hospital, and anywhere outside in both villages
WHEN: March 4-10
OPEN TO: All!
WARNINGS: To be determined. Will update as needed

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March 4th

Mist isn't usually a bad thing on most planets Beverly has been to. On her home planet, Caldos, it's usually very lovely, especially in the mornings. But if there's anything that exploring the galaxy, and especially being trapped here for so long, has taught her it's that mist is an unknown. Mist can be bad.

So one morning, when she first spots it rolling through the area, she watches it from the front porch of the house with no small amount of wariness. She's suspicious of it and now on high alert. With any luck, it will prove to be simply the good doctor developing a sense of paranoia after all these months of being stuck here.

She makes her normal rounds through the Inn to make sure nothing's amiss and then heads out to the hospital for her normal shift.

March 5-10

It may have taken her over a year to figure it out, but she's definitely avoiding the Inn for a while. At least until she can tell that the effects have worn off. The last thing she wants is to be stuck in there again while she's like this, spewing out the actual truth for all to hear and shattering the Prime Directive while she does. She's got enough trouble trying to juggle it as is; she doesn't need this.

For all that she isn't normally the type of person to keep herself isolated, she's been trying to avoid the vast majority of people. She does still show up for her time in the hospital mostly because she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't make herself available and someone needed her. But she tries to keep to herself and doesn't say much unless prompted. There are far too many ways this could go terribly wrong.

Eventually, she starts avoiding people in the mornings, keeping herself inside House 20 and eventually taking walks around both villages, in an effort to see where the mist has permeated and whether or not she's the only one who's been affected. She still mostly keeps to herself, her arms wrapped tightly around her body and a frown of concentration and worry on her face. If anyone tries to catch her attention like normal, she won't turn them away, but they might find that she has some... interesting things to say.

Comments

[minus1twin]

By this point, Wanda was familiar with her housemates. Clint was never changing. Picard was a solitary person but kind and strong. He didn't communicate at all or well and, while Beverly shared some of those traits, Wanda felt like she and Beverly had a good line of communication. They didn't share their uncertainties without purpose and so Wanda took Beverly's warning to heart.

Her light green eyes turned towards the mist, her eyebrows furrowing together.

"What is it?" Her accent thickened as the tension in her shoulders knotted uncomfortably. Was there something like the letters? Something that the overseers were planning? Questions flew through her head but with no answers to follow them.

[ethnobotany]

Wanda has a good measure of Beverly by now, which makes the fact that so many words keep tumbling out of her mouth all the more irritating. And concerning.

"I'm not really sure, but I think it might be affecting me somehow," she admits easily. "I've been saying too much too easily since yesterday and I'm not sure why, but it started after I saw the mist in the morning."

[minus1twin]

Wanda let her mind mull over her friends words before she shook her head. "I haven't heard of that happening before. Do you have a fever? When you were sick before you told me things about yourself." Very personal things.

"Is it the same as that? Or does it feel different?"

[ethnobotany]

"Different," Beverly says after a half second to think. "I'm still saying a lot more than I normally would, but I don't feel like I'm feverish or hallucinating."

Not that she knows of anyway. If this is a hallucination, it's a very strange one. It feels too real, but in a different way from the fever dreams.

[minus1twin]

"Maybe it's best if you stay here. I'll go ask and see if anyone else here is affected by something similar." She might be able to find some common thread but until then, Wanda wanted to keep Beverly safe.

"That okay?"

[ethnobotany]

Having someone else ask around and make inquiries into solutions for her doesn't usually sit well with Beverly. In this case, it's probably the best call. She can't really trust what she's saying right now.

So she nods. "I would rather come with you or do it myself," she admits. "But I think in this situation, it might be for the best if you did. Just promise me you'll be careful, all right?"