sixthiterationlogs | in from the rain

Entry tags:

in from the rain

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 10th - 13th
OPEN TO: Helen Magnus | E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: TBA
STATUS: Closed | Open

Closed to Helen

Once Kate's back in the Inn - once she and Margaery have been found, once the forest lets them be found - her first port of call is her bedroom. She wants clean clothes, dry clothes. She wants to warm up and she's too cold to bother much about propriety.

Someone said something about getting Helen Magnus, but, really, Kate is fine. Scratches, including one across her nose. Bruises. Her ankle is painful, but she's fine. She just needs to warm up and maybe sleep, which is why she's in the bathroom, half-undressed, sitting in the bath and scrubbing at her skin with a warm washer.

She wants clean clothes, dry clothes, but she can't pull those on until she's warm and clean. She just...

She can't.

Open

Mostly, after Miss Magnus has sorted her out, Kate spends a lot of her time sleeping. In her few lucid moments, she thinks it is not unlike as if her body has suddenly realised how little she's been sleeping, and is trying to catch it all up at once. She gets out of bed to eat, to perform necessary bodily needs, and then she goes back to bed.

Once, she goes for a brief walk, because just being inside was making her feel awful, but only a brief one, where she wound up seeing Miss Carter. Then, it was to the Inn and her warm, warm bed.

By the second day after her and Miss Margaery's rescue, she's progressed to sitting up. It's all terribly indulgent of her, but people fuss when she tries to do anything more serious than checking up on her chicks, and she's so very tired. She can relax this once, can't she?

So Kate sits in bed and she sews. She plays with Miss Hoppity, who alternates between clinging to her as if worried that her human mama will vanish again and ignoring her, as cats do. She combs out her long hair with her fork, which takes rather more time than she'd admit. She naps. When she feels adventurous, or rather, when she's tired of her bed being so seductively warm, she sits at the chair at her dresser in the little alcove her room has, and sews there by the light of the now appearing sun.

She leaves her door open when she's awake, to let anyone come in when they want to. She might feel awkward admitting that sitting by herself is lonely, when she's been ordered to rest, but she does get that way.

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When he realized Miss Kate was missing, Benedict felt his heart sink straight into his stomach. This was not like before, when half the women he knew were somehow gone, and he had discovered them swimming in the darkness together, no. This was different. The weather had been inclement and everyone had been getting cabin fever, so when she had decided to go out into the forest, he hadn't thought to be alarmed. After all, she'd done the same thing before many times and it had turned out just fine.

And then she didn't return.

Benedict had, of course, mounted a search party of his own, with no success at all in finding her. It was instead one of the newer members of their habble who had located both Miss Kate and Miss Margaery and brought them safely back home.

To say he has been fussing would be an understatement. He feels he can't be blamed, however, as he is most certainly not the only one fussing over her at the moment, and he likes to think he's got a pretty damn good reason. As Miss Kate has been spending most of her time in her bedroom, Benedict has decided to bring up a tray for her, with tea and some soup and the last of the summer berries he's been hoarding carefully so they would not be eaten by anyone else.

"Miss Kate?" he calls as he knocks on her door, aware he has never been in her bedroom before and feeling apprehensive about that.

Her L-shaped room is small, like most of the bedrooms in the Inn, and currently looks smaller due to two reasons. The first is her bed, for back when she'd been the only one in the Inn she'd gone through the rooms to choose the largest bed and slowly dragged it to her chosen room. The second is that, with the leak in her roof, she's had to shove her bed forwards against the (now open) wardrobe to place a mug underneath the drip. Light comes from the windows in the alcove, and those she has the curtains open. It's still raining, but the windows are her only source of light.

Kate herself is sitting up in bed, wearing a blouse over her chemise for the sake of whatever warmth it brings her, combing her hair. Or rather, burying the prongs of the fork she uses as a comb into a tangled mess that is masquerading as her hair.

Which, really, is not the image she wants to present to Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster. Looking pale and pretty in bed is one thing, and hair-brushing can be soft and attractive, but never to the point of actual knots.

Then again, the girls in novels and paintings never have bruised fingers or scratches marring their faces, either.

Such is life, really.

"Um, come in!"

Edited 2016-10-23 22:26 (UTC)

News travels fast here, and when it's news that two of her friends have been lost, Nerys goes to search almost immediately, even though it's ultimately useless. She has to do something, be moving, and everything but the most necessary tasks go by the wayside.

Once they've been found, she gives it a day or two before going to see either of them, to let them recover--being lost in the wilderness in the wet is no damn joke. But then...maybe she needs to convince herself Kate and Margaery are all right.

Kate's in the inn, so it's easy, really, to go up before lunch, and she knocks on the jamb of the door, lingering just outside. "It okay if I come in?"

Kate's sitting at her dresser, in her room's little alcove (courtesy of the bathroom's location next door). Ordinarily, she'd be hidden, which honestly is a large part of the appeal of the room, but not today. Today, she has her injured foot up on her second chair, and it's a small, socked foot on that chair which betrays her presence to anyone looking in.

"You can come in!" she calls out, and moves. Briefly. It's too awkward too untangle herself from the furniture unless she has to get up.

"You might have to sit on the bed, though," she warns Nerys with a sigh, and waits for the woman to come into view.

Kate's managed to get dressed today, complete with her corset under her blouse and her long hair in a simple plait. By now, the cut across her nose is healing, but it's been enough time for the surrounding bruise to show up. Still, she's sewing as per normal, so that's... something, she supposes.

"I've sat on far worse than a bed," Nerys notes with a wry cock of her head, stepping quietly into the room, as it's a little awkward to talk to a foot. She's pleased to see that Kate is up and dressed, though her face looks painful in ways that make her wince in sympathy. "But I suppose I'll manage with the barbarity of it all."

She perches gently on top of the covers, looking Kate over from head to toe. "You usually get into these kinds of trouble, back where you come from?" she asks, but the question is gentle, kind teasing.

"We all must make sacrifices," Kate says with all the solemnity of a joke. "But I feel it is only proper to give fair warning."

Then she sighs as Nerys continues, and her ruefulness is only partially a play. "My brothers," she says, with great dignity, "would be rollin' in their graves at my gettin' lost so easy.

I used to be able to spend a couple days in the bush, and know exactly where I am. But here, I just... Got turned around. Or the fairies were messin' with me."

"I'll endeavor to conduct myself with dignity then," Nerys says, equally solemn--until she clears her throat and smirks. She's not good at faking that kind of emotion; it takes a lot for her to be proper and decorous in general.

Settling back a little onto the quilt, she leans on the bedpost and considers Kate's story. Particularly that last comment. "The woods is finite," she says, then makes a face, correcting herself, "Well, okay, all woods are, technically, but this one is limited, we know you can only go so far. So either you hit a wall and got redirected somehow in a direction you didn't expect, or...maybe the fairies did mess with you." She gestures upwards, as if towards the unknown entity that has put them there.

"I have a good sense of direction," she says, thoughtfully. Her hazel eyes are distant, glancing out to the window opposite her bed. "But, I suppose for that little escapade to be useful... There needs to be a difference between certainty and pride.

So I don't know. How much of it is me and Margaery gettin' lost. It felt we were messed with. We didn't go that far."

Huffing out a long sigh, Nerys turns, looking over her shoulder out the window, following Kate's gaze to nowhere-in-particular as if it will reveal something, uncover the answer to the mystery. But mysteries have always been Odo's thing, not hers.

"It's not farfetched an idea," she points out. "Around here, it's pretty much every day. But--"

She turns back to Kate and smiles softly. "I'm glad you both are back okay." It's true, she's not sure if this place would be quite right without either of them.

Cougar had tried to look, in the awful rain, but it seemed that no matter where he went, he would be repelled away. The rain would wash out tracks or he would come around to a landmark that shouldn't be there. He's beyond grateful and makes a point to come to visit her. He whistles for the cat and crouches in order to collect the animal in his arms (but also to give Kate notice that she has a visitor).

Entering, he takes off his cap and sets it and the cat on a nearby chair, eyeing her with concern. He gives a nod to her body and an arch of a brow to ask if she's all right, though he suspects the answer already.

The notice is welcome, as Kate had been well lost in her own thoughts, fabric and needle still in her hands. She blinks, in time to see Mr Cougar crouch and Miss Hoppity fling herself into his hands. Faithless animal.

At Mr Cougar's look, she shrugs and smiles, a little.

"I'm mostly all right," she says. "Ankle's the worst, this," and she touches the scratch across her nose, "the most visible."

She's worried about her ankle. She'd never intended to walk so far on it, and certainly not hiking in that weather. But there's nothing to be done but rest it.

"I heard you went lookin'?"

He shrugs when she speaks of his search. He had looked, yes, but there hadn't been much success so he's not sure how much he wants to take credit for any search party that he'd participated in. "With no luck," he says darkly, not appreciating how his own senses had betrayed him. "Each time, something strange happened, like they did not want us to find you."

Who the 'they' were, Cougar doesn't know, but more and more, he's beginning to believe that there is a 'they'. There's too much evidence to point towards there being an enemy out there that's screwing with them. He gestures to the ankle. "Did someone look at this?"

"Miss Magnus did, last night," she confirms. "I'll be off it for a few days, then usin' some crutches to get around until it heals." Finally, maybe, she's been tossed around enough by this place to actually attempt to rest.

So far as she ever does.

"It was like that for us," Kate says then. "Somethin' kept happenin', to keep us lost."

"Has someone carved the crutches yet?" He's good with a knife and wouldn't mind the task. Plus, it would help him to feel like he's able to contribute something, seeing as Cougar is still feeling frustrated beyond belief that he hadn't been able to find her, even if it seems everyone had endured the same problem.

"Then how?" he wonders. "How did you escape, finally?"

"Miss Reyes has a pair she lent me," Kate asks, then she falls silent. 'Falls' seems to the operating word, as her shoulders slump too. "Though I've been thinkin' of tradin' somethin' to get me own pair. Ankle keeps... I, keep. Gettin' meself into trouble with it."

Then she shakes her head. "Miss Tauriel and Mr Crowder found us. I'd left somethin' of a trail, with our initials in the trees. But I don't know if they got lucky, or we were let go."

It's a question that bothers her, deeply. And she's not sure which answer she'd prefer.

He raises a brow when she blames it on the ankle, but nods sensibly when she takes the accountability and admits that maybe, just maybe, she has a hand in it. Initials in trees is a clever thing, but it still rankles Cougar to know how long he'd searched and only found himself going in circles.

Leaning forward, he gives her a dark look and understands all too well that she's probably right. "What happens if next time, they do not want to let someone go?" he wonders. "How do we fight that?"

Helen had simply been relieved when they'd found Kate and Margaery more than anything else. She'd known that there'd been two disappearances, two men who'd lived near the mill, and she hadn't wanted Kate and Margaery to be among their number. She saw quite a lot of herself in the young woman who wanted, so desperately, to see everyone looked after and after being called to the inn she went and found her in the bath, her steps soft and her words gentle.

"Kate, darling," Helen said, trying to keep her tone soft and even. "Are you injured at all?"

Kate shakes her head, but given the tremble and tension in her arm, her hand, as she scrubs herself, given that she's sitting in a bath half-dressed and still wearing her wet corset and petticoat, it might not be a completely truthful answer.

"I think, my, uh. Ankle's goin' to make you unhappy," she starts, and she can't help herself, her bottom lip starts to tremble, too. "I didn't mean to go that far, we just got turned around."

"That'll be all right," Helen said softly. "I'm happy to take a look at it, though, after you've had a chance to bathe and gather your wits. I'm certain you've had a fright."

She lowered her voice a bit, gentled it. "Did you get injured anywhere else, darling? I'm not going to be angry. I was just worried, that's all."

The Kellys have always reacted better to kindness than harshness, for all they've usually gotten the latter. Here, now, the kind words and the concern neatly slice through Kate's defences and armour, and she starts to weep.

"I don't understand how I got so lost," she cries. "I know what to do. But things kept on changin' a bit, like I was bein' played with, and poor Margaery was lookin' at me to know."

If there is anything guaranteed to upset Kate, it's the sense that she hasn't done her duty. That her responsibilities have been done badly, or even made everything else.

"And, and I can't get me corset off," she confesses, wiping her eyes with a rough hand. "Hands too cold."

She'd admit that to anyone, but from the way she looks at Helen Magnus, there's a plea there. For help.

"Oh, darling, I can help," Helen promised. She had plenty of experience with corsets, after all, having worn one for a great deal of her life and she wanted to do something to help ease the other woman's discomfort for a moment. She knelt down and reached out, gently brushing a bit of hair back from her face.

"How about I help you with it now? I can make sure you don't have any serious injuries and play lady's maid for a moment. It's been a long time since I've done anything of the sort but I don't think you ever forget how."

Kate nods, not really able to reply with words. But there's silent gratitude there, alongside the lost longing of a young woman who has to had to grow up so fast, she still longs for a mother's careful touch.

Carefully, she shifts in the bath so that her back is to Helen: she doesn't trust herself to stand without falling, and she knows she'll feel faint once the other woman unlaces her corset. No matter how carefully Helen does it, Kate's simply been wearing it too long.

But there's a relief in someone else helping. In knowing she's not alone.

Helen carefully undoes the laces, trying to release the tension as slowly as possible. She knows that being in a corset so long and having it release will make a woman light-headed and she's trying to avoid the worst of that, if she can.

"You can tell me about it, if you want to. If you don't, and you'd rather have your thoughts, that's fine too. Whatever you need, Kate. I promise."

She wants to faint as Miss Magnus, Helen, unlaces her. Blood flows back suddenly that her head feels of light, empty. She wants to pass out, except in her current state of silent, near hysteria, she also wants to throw up.

She does neither. She breathes instead, she keeps herself still until the corset is gone and so has the feeling of the world spinning around and around, like a leaf caught in a whirlpool.

Then, only then, does her spin curl down as she huddles into her herself. "Never gotten lost 'fore now. Not inna bush."

"No one is going to hold it against you that you have now. This place is unfamiliar to you. Bloody hell, Kate, you're on the other side of the world - no one will judge you for getting lost."

It was said a bit harshly, yes, but only out of caring and consideration for her young charge. Helen didn't want her to judge herself for something that couldn't have been helped.

"We're just glad to have you back."

A few days after Miss Kate is returned there is a gentle knock at the doorway. Even though it is opened, Riza feels the need to observe etiquette and give the woman the chance to dismiss her if desired. Once she is sure Miss Kate is willing to accept company she steps in a little further, "I remembered you enjoyed this last time...so I brewed us some tea. Would you care for a cup or two?"

Riza studies Miss Kate for an answer, but also to assess how she is doing. Riza knows something of shock and of trauma. She wonders if she'll be able to help, though first she would have to figure out how Miss Kate was doing.

Edited 2016-10-19 03:03 (UTC)

She's been keeping herself as busy as she can, when she's not sleeping. And sleeping, sleeping she's been so much of. But there's sewing to be done, and more thread to accumulate. So when Miss Riza looks in, Kate is in the middle of unravelling a length of fabric (sheet, as it happens), spooling the resulting thread around a sturdy stick.

"I would love a cup of tea," she says warmly, blinking a little to focus on her. Her mind had been rather far away.

Riza is relieved to hear it as she had already come up with a tray in hand. She offers a slight smile, almost imperceptible, but it's visible in her eyes and its probably about as warm as the tea. "I'm glad to hear it."

She sets the tray on a nearby table and pulls one of the chairs closer to Miss Kate's bed. As soon as she has that set, she starts making two cups of tea, pouring it out of a kettle and into the cups.

As she prepares their drinks she comments, "So are you gathering that thread for a particular project or just building up your supply?"

"A bit of both, really. I've been quiltin' a skirt and blouse, to make some winter clothes. It takes more thread than you might think. But at this point, might as well just unravel the rest of this thing. Saves someone else from needing to later."

It also gives her fingers something to do. And Kate is someone who cannot stand her hands being idle. There's always something to do, or there should be. There needs to be.

"That tea smells heavenly."

"Sometimes I wish I had paid more attention to skills like that," Riza replies with a tinge of regret. As a state alchemist, her father had been well off until her mother had passed. The money had been squandered after that, though her Grandfather had seen to it that she was taken care of in terms of food and clothes. Her father hadn't much worried about stuff like that as she got older and Riza started to manage the house. Still, that had meant cooking basic means and trying to keep the place clean, not sewing. To be fair, she could mend a tear or sew a button on just fine, but making an entire outfit was beyond her.

On the other hand, if it's just unraveling some thread Riza can't imagine there is much skill to it, "Could I help you with that while we drink our tea?"

Riza turns and holes out a cup and saucer to Miss Kate, "Here. I made it close to how we had it last time."

A night spent lost in the woods wouldn't normally be a cause for total panic, but a night spent lost in these woods? Kate and Margaery's absence hadn't sat well with Jess at all as one day turned into two and no one had been able to pick up a trail.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the incident hadn't ended with more missing persons. Like it'd had a mind of his own, the forest had finally seemed to cooperate in the search effort, and the two young women were back and in one piece.

For now, is the grim voice in the back of his mind, his constant companion. For now. How long until something like this happens again?

It's with curiosity in face that Jess takes a turn visiting Kate's room the following day, wanting to see for himself how she's faring. "You busy?"

"Only sleepin'" Kate says, pushing herself up from her bed. She hasn't yet really tackled her hair, and certainly she's not dressed in anything more than her chemise and drawers. But after so many weeks in Mr Brightwell's company, it's easier to think of him as a distant cousin rather than a stranger, so all she does once she's up is make sure her sheets and blankets are covering as much of her chest as they can.

They all can deal with some bare shoulders.

Kate's a looker, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Before he'd gotten comfortable with his squad and before Morgan, Jess might have had more of an internal reaction to catching her partially undressed in bed, but he's showered with his female teammates plenty of times since then. He and Kate's situation isn't that different after this long living in close quarters. (Besides, he wouldn't want to give Benedict more of a reason to be protective.)

Even so, his timing could be better if he'd disturbed her in the middle of a nap.

"Sorry if I woke you." Jess lingers outside the door. "I can come back later."

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in from the rain

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11th

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