[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 2: Snake Expedition & Recovery!

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Anywhere; multiple locations
WHEN: Apx. 19-27 November
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Serious illness and reactions to such, snakes, hallucinations

IMPORTANT NOTES: This is the second of two mingles. Please see the timing and general event details here.

Not putting any mod top-levels in this one — Just make sure you label your own top-level clearly as to whether it's Expedition or Recovery, and as always, whether it is OTA or not!

Please keep in mind the established plot details, but creative license is welcome and encouraged as long as it doesn't step on toes.

Comments

7 - Recovery (mild/spicy/post) - ota

[to_defend]

Recovery

7 was already not a fan of this whole human concept of being sick, and with the expedition team returning with the venom she was hoping for a swift recovery. She was not expecting for things to get much, much worse before they got better; she's burning up, can't get comfortable, and sleeps only when exhaustion overtakes her and not a moment sooner. It's a fitful sleep, even then, tossing and turning as she sweats through the fever.

Mild
During her times of wakefulness, she's thrust into a fever-dream mess of twisted metal and broken bricks. Anyone that crowds her bed is either seen as one of her fellow dolls, which will get anything from a warm welcome to a glare and some not very nice words, or a hybrid of metal, bones, and cloth as a terrifying machine built to hunt her down.

Spicy
The latter will be treated with as much force as she can muster. Someone confiscated her spear beforehand, right? Probably for the best. Doesn't mean she won't put up her best resistance; her whole body becomes a weapon in the absence of her spear, and she's pushing, pulling, swinging [weak] punches, and generally tangling herself up in the blankets.

Post
Her fever finally breaks, the hallucinations subside, and she's finally able to rest comfortably. Once she's regained some strength through sleep, her appetite returns with a vengeance. Her first visit after being released from the hospital isn't her own home - it's at the Inn to catch a meal.

Feel free to join her here, but warning; she may threaten to eat anything you're not.


[[If you're joining her during a hallucination, please indicate which level of hallucination you would like; mild (doll) or spicy (machine)]]

Post.

[imareporter]

Eddie has decided (against Venom's wishes) to be the one to check on 7. You're so motherly he can practically hear Anne's voice in his head, You take such good care of me.

He liked taking care of people. Of things. It felt right.

So he's been at the hospital a bit and, when he got the news of the fevers breaking, returned with a pile of flowers. Normal ones. Don't want a repeat of that shit. Why do you bring her flowers?

"Hey kid. You look so much better." Eddie ignores him, "Flowers for the sick."

You also bring flowers to the dying

His expression doesn't waiver, "Can you sit up? Not contagious anymore right?"

[to_defend]

For the first time in what feels like forever, 7's able to get some actual, decent sleep in, and when she rouses to the sound of Eddie's voice, it's Eddie she actually sees. She smiles, it's weak and slight but genuine, but then noticing the flowers her expression looks a little more bemused.

"Flowers!" Her voice rasps slightly still, but there's a strength to it now. "Thank you. I feel much better."

She sits up gingerly, fussing a little to get the pillow propped up. Who knew being sick could take so much out of you? But the flowers - she hadn't actually given herself a chance to see them up close like this, passing while doing other things, always noting - because when everything around you is dead you notice when it's not - but the hallucinations had been such vivid reminders that her world was completely, entirely devoid of biological life.

Fingers stroke the petals as she tucks them under her nose and looks back over at Eddie. "Not that I know of."

[imareporter]

"Not that it'd matters." He paused, "...Listen you're supposed to put those in water so as soon as we find some water I'll get you set up while you recooperate."

He smiled, genuinely pleased, "...You were really scary kid. I was worried."

[to_defend]

"Alright, I'm sure we can get some water." She's still holding onto them until then, though, face half-buried in them. The smooth petals felt nice against her cheek, the scents interesting.

It also gave her a bit of a hide with Eddie's comment. "It was pretty scary." From her end too, which is a lot to admit, but it's more not having control over what she was seeing. That thought chilled her more than the sight of the Beast. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

[imareporter]

"...Why? That's what being sick is sometimes. For some people with y'know the..." he taps his head, "The head thing."

He pauses, "...You ever get sick before?"

It bursts out, a surprise question as he folds his hands in his lap, "...I mean I dunno what kind of...world you're from. Maybe disease isn't a thing."

[to_defend]

She watches him carefully from the shield of flowers. "No, not really. I guess not in the way that you'd eventually get better." Not that she saw, anyway, in her small overlap with humans before they all succumbed to the gas.

"World I came from was ... rough."

[imareporter]

His features soften, "...Rough enough for you not enough to get sick? What kind of world is it?"

He assumed Dystopia, "I mean-okay actually it's none of my business. Unless you want to share."

Why do you want her to share.

"I want you to be comfortable with me you know? I mean if there's something you want to share..."

You are far too nice to people

You love that about me

...yes.

"I keep secrets."

somewhere his ex-fiancee is laughing hysterically.

[to_defend]

She just looks at the flowers as she listens, considers. She did trust him, much more so than anyone else here - and she'd met some very nice people - but she still wasn't sure how anyone would take known she was not human, was not even biological. She didn't have an easy word for what she was, no handy explanation.

But for all she was a loner, she'd had her friends, too, and she missed them; especially after having seen so much of her world during the hallucinations, after having seen 5 as Eddie took care of her.

She answers without looking up, just not quite ready to drop the full truth.

"The people in my world that got sick, didn't wake up." Pause, swallow, "It was a lot of them." It was all of them. "Nine of us were safe."

Saying it, out loud, in this moment where she's feeling raw and spent from the illness, panic starts to pull at her chest. Nine of them weren't even getting out, not anymore. Normally, she'd be halfway out the door by now and nothing would stop her. Normally, however, she wasn't getting over an extremely serious illness that's made sitting up hard. But the panic has already set in, and in that moment it appears again; the line of blue light, curving a slow line from her bed to a pitcher of water and glasses set up on the counter.

She does start to move out from the bed, but as she swings her legs down to touch her feet against he floor, she already knows she won't make it that far. "Eddie, water? Can I get some water?"

[imareporter]

"Yeah of course." He rises, "Lemme go find some for that and your flowers."

She looks so nervous. Why is she so nervous? what did you do?What did...she do.

"...I'm not. I'm-" the words are mumbled as he rises, moving to find a glass - two glasses of water, looking for someone to help him.

[to_defend]

7 wraps her arms around herself, the flowers set at her side for now. She felt lightheaded and cold and clammy all at once. Still, an amazing improvement to earlier, but not quite ready to be released back into the village.

She glances up at Eddie, watching him veer away from the blue line that she's now guessing he couldn't see. He did remind her of 6, muttering to himself and moving distractedly, and thought is simultaneously comforting and painful. She missed her friends, but at least here she had a friend like Eddie.

She tries to get his attention and points towards the pitcher and setup.

"It's there - over there."