sixthiterationlogs | AND THE STORY IT TOLD OF A RIVER THAT FLOWED MADE ME SAD TO THINK IT WAS DEAD

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AND THE STORY IT TOLD OF A RIVER THAT FLOWED MADE ME SAD TO THINK IT WAS DEAD

WHO: Raven Reyes.
WHERE: The Inn, the Bungalows, the Fountain.
WHEN: December 18 - 24.
OPEN TO: Everyone!
WARNINGS: Possible mentions of depression as well as previous violence.
STATUS: Open! Please keep in mind there's a few prompts below and I'd like to limit each one to a couple of people for a variety of different situations!
SUMMARY: Raven's being reunited with her bum leg for a week.

CLOSED TO JESS BRIGHTWELL, DEC 18, THE INN
In the beginning, Raven had wondered when the bliss of having her leg fully under her control would end. As the days passed and her leg remained intact, fully functional and moving as she commanded it to, she stopped looking for the worst in every morning. She began to look forward to it, the sensation in her leg, the lack of pain shooting up to burst in her hip like a bomb.

She shouldn't be surprised that it'd come to an end when she woke up on the morning of December 18.

At first, there's a spike of pain settling in her hip, but after a few minutes stretching and moving about, shaking off the sleep that's begun to settle on her very being, things had felt normal once again.

It wasn't until she sat down for breakfast and her daily dose of ribbing Jess that things started to feel like they did back home. It was the kind of normal she wasn't ready for, denying it constantly for three months straight.

Her leg hurt as she sat in her chair, but she ignored it. A pain shot up from her knee to her hip when she moved, so she stayed as still as possible without trying to draw anyone's attention to it.

When Raven moved to get off her seat, she found her left leg felt like a bag of bricks. That's how she always wrote it off, like she was lugging around a sack filled with the heaviest kind of metal anyone could find.

Non-discretely, Raven tapped her hand against her leg, and then she tried to dig her nails into the fabric of her grey scrubs. Below her knee, she could barely feel her sharper nails press into her skin.

With the plan to go and see if there were any bear shaped holes in the woods around the inn already set and planned (with her pushing for it to happen sooner rather than later), she entertained the idea of forgoing it. But Raven never liked to show weakness, and she knew that going out with Jess would put both their minds at ease when it came to the mystery bear that had landed on the back of the inn's porch a few weeks ago.

Still, she couldn't quite move as easily, and Jess had a sharp eye on him. Pretending as best she could, she remained where she was.

"Hang on a sec. The bear hole can wait while I get my jacket. You need something warmer, too."

DEC 19-20, THE INN
Although Raven acquires herself the pair of crutches she'd taken from the medical bungalow a few months back, she refuses to use them.

Trying to move her leg without the help of an extra arm is painful. She can barely take a step without needing to hold onto something to somehow support the weight that her left leg lacks, but her stubbornness will grow some strength and descend into her leg any time now.

Getting up and down those stairs to get to her room and workstation is difficult enough. When she climbs down them, she grabs hold of the railing and manoeuvres almost like a crab would, going sideways, flinching each time she tries to remove the weight off her left leg. The fact she has to go down and not walk along flat surface sends pangs of pain through her leg.

Raven wears it, though.

Going up the staircase is a little harder, but she grips onto one side of the staircase in a bid to use her upper body strength to pull her leg up just a little, as the bend of her knee isn't as strong as it once was.

DEC 21-22, OUTSIDE OF THE INN, HEADING TOWARD THE BUNGALOWS
Eventually, when Raven wants to make her way outside of the inn, she grabs the pair of crutches and uses them easily. She drags her left leg along the ground like it's not even a part of her. Flipped to the side, she focuses on getting from Point A to Point B.

With her mind on her mission of acquiring more scrap to keep her mind busy, she heads out toward one of the bungalows — and of course chooses the ones that are furthest from the town.

DEC 23-24, OUTSIDE A BUNGALOW, HEADING TO THE FOUNTAIN
Stubborn to a fault, it doesn't matter how much help Raven receives during the week. She still tries to fix her problem by not acknowledging it at all.

The crutches sit beside her on the front steps of the abandoned bungalow, one situated closer to the inn than further away. It's usually her M.O. to pick one furthest away, as she often liked the walk, the feeling of her leg being hers once again, and the sense of adventure that she felt. But with the pain settling in her hip and not budging for almost five days straight, she's given up on trying to be the defiant woman she's been for the last few months in this town.

She sits on the steps outside of a bungalow with her feet resting on the step below her. Looking out at the town, she simply watches as the people buzz about. It's the same as she'd been when in Arkadia, always sitting on her ass, watching everyone else mill about like there's nothing in the world that could possibly stop them.

There's times that she'll start to hit her leg, aggravated by how she can't feel it at all. "Come on," she hits it. "Work again."

It's when she finds that her attempts of begging it and commanding it comes back that she heads out to the fountain, crutches under her arms and foot dragging along the ground, in an attempt to try and climb the fountain and dump her leg inside of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Now, Nerys isn't staring at Raven, or even intending to watch her (it's cold out there, not to mention rude), but she's pretty hard to miss from across the clearing. It's painful just to observe her, even, though at the same time it's clear that the young woman won't let hell or high water prevent her from getting places.

There's something off that it takes a second to put her finger on. Nerys is pretty sure that Raven was moving fine before, the other times she's seen her, even recently. But she knows what an old injury or disability looks like, and the style of the other woman's movement is more like that than the ongoing painful hitch of a recent injury.

She's heading out the same way herself, so she waits until Raven gets closer, then comments, "Not a great day for a stroll." It's not, the air's a clammy kind of chill that gets into your bones.

If Raven Reyes is used to anything, it's that it's never a good time for the decisions she makes. Walking out to the bungalows happens to be one of them, given the weather and how chilly it is, but the exertion keeps her warm as if she's sitting beside a thick fire.

She won't admit she's grateful for the opportunity to stop. Pushing herself is something she excels at doing, but even Raven realises she's not made of impenetrable and unbending steel.

"I don't know," she breathes out, trying to get control of her breathing. She glances over her shoulder, attempting good humour in an effort to pull any attention away from what's incredibly strange about her today. "It seems like a good time to me. Look on the bright side, right?"

Now, Nerys isn't going to be rude about these kinds of things--Prophets know she's got plenty of scars she doesn't exactly relish talking about--but she's never been the kind of person who's able to ignore what's right in front of her eyes. It's gotten her into trouble plenty of times, considering that the Cardassians don't really believe in objective truth.

"Well, it's not pouring rain," she admits with a snort of laughter. "And they say exercise is good for you, so why not. I was just heading out that direction myself, to check snares, if you want the company. If not, no problem."

It's not exactly an offer of help, but Nerys is framing it the way she'd want it framed to her.

[Nae bother, really!]

Edited 2017-01-23 21:54 (UTC)

She's an idiot.

Cougar has his Bible tucked in his back pocket and he's trying to head upstairs to the Inn to see her, but instead finds her struggling on the stairs, looking all the world like someone who shouldn't be attempting stairs. "El burro sabe mas que tu," he mutters with a growl as he hurries to step closer and place his shoulder under one of hers, acting like a crutch as he shoots her a look from beneath his hat that says how much he thinks of her little martyr act.

"Little birds sometimes cannot fly," he says. "And when their wings are broken, they're supposed to be smart enough not to fall and die. Hmm?"

"I'm not dying," she says. Raven almost fights him, but she ultimately lets Cougar win, supporting her when she would prefer to pretend she can support herself. Sometimes little birds need to rest on big cats, even though said little birds will continue to flap their wings until the feathers are in complete and utter disarray.

Getting comfortable quickly, she slides her arm over his shoulders, keeping her other hand wrapped around the banister. What she doesn't try to do is acknowledge her wing's a little broken. She's tough; Raven Reyes doesn't break, even though she sure knows better than anyone she does.

Pain shoots up her leg, but she does what she has been so good at doing for three months and ignores it. "I can fly. I just can't seem to do it right at this moment."

"Not yet," is his retort when she talks about not dying and he doesn't let her stumble down the stairs a little the way he might have let Jake or Pooch do (definitely Clay), but only because he likes her a little better than that. Still, he's definitely mad and he keeps moving at her pace.

"What happened?" he asks. "When did you start feeling this? Did you do something?" He's not the best field medic you can find, but he's good enough that if he can help, he's going to do something to make Raven feel better. Watching her suffer like this breaks his heart and he doesn't know what he can do. Feeling useless? It's never sat well with him.

"Nothing," she says a little forcefully.

It's a little difficult to deny anything happened, given she can barely pick her leg up and run a mile. But it's what she wants to be her reality. She wants nothing to be wrong. She wants to return back to how she was when she'd woken up a week ago, whole and not at all broken.

She sighs, but doesn't let that tension within her go. Raven Reyes is a fighter to the very end. The Mountain Man whose ear she bit can attest to that. But she has to give a little. Though her arm slung around him is her leaning on him for support, she knows it's not enough. It never has been. It's why she avoided Abby Griffin in the hallways of Arkadia whenever she had the chance.

"Over three months ago. I was in the right place at the wrong time. It didn't happen here, so you don't have to worry your pretty head off that it'll happen to you."

Cougar gives her a sharp look and when he takes her up the next step, it's only that he cares for her that he doesn't 'accidentally' knock her against the wall as if to prove a point that she can't just expect that this will suddenly go away on its own, without help. "I'm worried because you're in pain, not because I might get hurt," is his sharp retort, glaring at her. It would be easier if he could just pick her up, but he fears what those fists of her might do if he tried.

"What happened?" he asks again, because it's not that he wants to know for research. He wants to know, because he cares about her.

He shouldn't pry.

Credence has learned to mind his manners and not pay attention to others in situations such as this at a very early age, ever since Mary Lou had snatched him up and carved her ideals into him, poisoning his mind with the constant barrage of a constant, unwavering faith to a Second Salem.

It doesn't concern you, she would say. God will help them.

But he notices. Credence notices the girl with the crutches and looks only when he's sure she won't catch him. He's seen her before in the inn, never long enough to say hello, being far too shy. Part of it is her demeanor--fierce, untamed, even with --but there's the other fact that she's a girl. Some things he just has to get used to, he supposes. Like talking to girls that aren't his sisters.

It's that thought that has him looking at Raven, halting from his walk with his hands in his pockets buried as deep into the jacket as he can.

"I knew someone who could say things like that," Credence says softly the moment she starts commanding her legs to work, "it would happen. Are you a witch?" The word still sounds forbidden on his tongue, no matter how soft his voice is.

If Raven happened to be a witch, the world would be a better place.

She looks up, simultaneously spooked and hating herself for being caught. The one thing she'll never learn is how to not become so trapped inside of that head of hers, blocking the world out as she becomes too focused on the project at hand. Wick used to make his "funny" comments about it, encouraged by her snapping at him when her concentration was broken.

The word sounds weird. She remembers hearing vaguely some stories with the term, often used in a derogatory sort of fashion. Women had been drowned for being witches. Burned on stakes, much like the one she had lost Finn on and the one the Commander had thought to tie her to.

"What makes you think I'm a witch?" It's been a few days since her leg had failed her, and so her own hold on her guard seems to have crumpled as well. She looks down at her leg and grits her teeth, finding her voice isn't quiet as fiercely passionate so much as it's fiercely hateful when she comments, "What I want isn't working."

"You're very confident," Credence says, as if that's somehow the magical answer to his thought process. He's sure he's overstayed his welcome already--the problem is he doesn't really want to leave after a few words.

Instead, he watches the other's leg carefully, and his gaze trails up from her hands and her leg to her face. Not quite her eyes, though--no, Credence can't look people in the eye--but he does nod his head.

"What do you want?" He's curious, now.

"Yes, mum," was Jess reply from over at the kitchen sink.

Finishing cleaning the plate and utensils he'd used for his breakfast, he was in the process of letting the water drain and setting the plate aside when he looked over. "And they're called bear dens, in case you'd like to sharpen up on your Earth trivia."

The morning had passed as mornings tended to around the inn: cold floorboards underfoot, sharing space in the kitchen to cook or brew coffee with other sleepy residents, light conversation about the day ahead. Uneventful. Jess had watched dawn color around the edges of fortuitously clear skies, Raven had been at her usual loggerheads, and things had been normal.

As normal it got when you had the carcass of a creature born from the stuff of nightmares lying in a snowbank just outside, that was. Having real life monsters to contend added a new layer of urgency to scoping out bear holes, as Raven liked to dub patrol, and composed that morning's itinerary, one Jess was more than ready to throw himself into.

The only odd thing he noticed as he turned all the way back around was that Raven hadn't bounded ahead of him to beat him to the stairs. She was the type who'd probably study proper Earth jargon just to say she could use it better than the natives. "What? No reminder to pack my mitts, too?" he teased back.

Despite how Raven didn't want to appear as though she clung to every word Jess spoke so she could parrot it back at a better time, she obviously wasn't listening now. She hadn't pushed herself to her feet to shoulder past him in an obvious display of frustration, overexaggerated and definitely put-upon when she didn't care if Jess moved slowly or quickly these days. Instead, she remained where she sat, debating whether or not she wanted to beat the sensation back into her leg.

It hadn't worked before. She didn't know why she felt the need to prove that something so fruitless would again.

Looking up at him, she frowned. "What?" She hadn't been listening to a word. From dens to mitts to even knowing when he'd pushed himself away to go gallop toward where she'd chosen for his temporary destination, Raven Reyes hadn't been paying attention to the pieces falling together.

Within a few seconds, she seemed to waken up. "Forget the mitts, get a whole body suit. The snow would soak right through you. Hurry up."

"Are you in there? Earth to space cadet." Jess helped bring Raven's wandering attention back to the present by snapping his fingers, eyebrows arched expectantly. Are we doing this or what?

Wiping his hands off on a tea towel, he started off for his room upstairs where his pack was waiting for him on the end of his bed. He didn't have to be told twice; he was always eager to distance himself from the domesticity of life here. It'd be cold and it'd be wet, but reconnaissance was infinitely better than hanging around the breakfast table.

"While you sit on your arse, I'll just do that, then." There was no bite to the words, merely a light, wry agreement. Raven took as good as she gave. "I'll meet you by the door."

When Jess was gone, she hit her leg as hard as she could, finding the sensation to be scarily familiar. She couldn't feel much, save for perhaps a whisper of her fist hitting her leg and her fingers pinching the skin.

Rather than make a noise in response, Raven stayed inside of her own head. Pushing the chair back in a move that wasn't as smooth as she'd become used to while here, she kept her balance with her hand folded against the lip of the table. Placing all her weight on her right leg, she tried to move as though she didn't require a crutch, but Raven already knew this song and dance before. She couldn't possibly lead if she had nothing to guide.

There were times where Raven sat on her left leg until it was bordering on going numb, pins and needles running up and down the muscle. She waited for those pins to pinch her skin again, making it still slightly possible to walk. But she couldn't feel any pins and needles, or her own sense of balance. If anything, she delicately put her foot on the ground, her weight placed in her good one.

Remaining by her chair, a hand wrapped around the top of it, she closed her eyes in slight aggravation. Attempting to ground herself and her need to explode in frustration, she inhaled before she opened her eyes once more. "Jess!" she yelled out.

True to his word, Jess took only long enough to bound upstairs to grab his bag (and yes, coat and gloves) before heading for the foyer, expecting Raven to have done the same and for the wait to be a short one. He was just in the process of shrugging the bag's straps on over his coat when he heard his name--

Raven, still in the kitchen. Had she moved at all yet? So much for all that gung-ho energy.

"What is it?" His return answer from the other room was quieter, a conversational volume. Footballs sounded in the hall; reversing course, he headed back toward the kitchen. "Are you ready yet?"

No.

Raven was technically ready, but she knew the moment she hadn't felt her hand incidentally slap her leg, and her ankle hitting the frame of her chair, that she wasn't ready at all. She wasn't ready for this — it's return. She wasn't ready to face any of it, not after months of being left with a fully functioning leg and a confidence that was almost untouchable.

With a deep breath in, she steeled herself. It was easier to admit her leg's lack of functionality in her head. Having to hear it aloud ...

Steeling her voice, it didn't quite sound like her — boastful and warm. Instead, it lacked it entirely, as Raven tried to put on a front not to fool Jess but herself. "Can you grab the crutches?"

Coming into view with his bag still hanging off one shoulder, he took in the scene: Raven, standing at the table. No, hunched over the table. Hunched was a better way to describe the arm resting on the tabletop, locked tight to support some of her weight as she leaned on it.

People everywhere took the same stance when they got up with a leg cramp--Jess included, after sitting for long periods in odd angles and inviting pins and needles--but he'd known for a while now that Raven's health was more... complicated than that.

When it was Raven standing like her legs wouldn't hold her, and Raven asking for crutches, instantaneously a lead ball sank to the bottom of his gut and lodged there.

"What's happened?"

Nothing remotely good, or she wouldn't be asking for the equipment he'd long since suspected she kept around out of fear she might need them.

She wished she knew the answer to that.

Not knowing only intensified her aggravation. Raven knew she was a hothead, especially when she was wrist deep in her own work, trying to find a quick yet efficient fix for a problem that no one knew to plan for. Her temper often mixed with self-deprecation when it came to her leg, bursting into hot fire with her own tantrums and speeches, and oftentimes simmering down to her isolating her thoughts and even herself from the camp at large.

She wished she was up in her room where no one would've thought to bother her. Establishing the reputation of never quite being around, always having her nose greased up from all the junk she found in the bungalows, would've served her well if she hadn't been so hell-bent on finding the home of the bear that'd ended up giving them such a fright a while ago.

After a moment, she said, "Nothing." It lacked it's bite, although there was an underlying tone of aggravation weaving itself into her voice. "I just need the crutches for a minute."

As far as cover excuses go, that one held up under scrutiny about as well as wet tissue paper under a hammer. Obviously not nothing. Something.

Jess, connecting the logical dots and on the verge of asking if her injured leg was to blame, started forward, mouth opening... Only to stop mid-step and shut it again. Later. There'd be time enough for that.

"Wait," he said unnecessarily, dumping his bag against the wall to turn back toward the stairs. He knew where Raven's room was; the crutches would probably be there. Once he had them, he returned to Raven, still in the same awkward position he'd left her in like someone told to hold her pose in a game of Simon Says.

A crutch in either hand, he held them out so she could slip the pads under her arms. "Are you feeling pain?" That's the first thing that comes to mind, of course. Pain, not the absence of it.

What Raven told herself was simple: Suck it up.

But it was always so hard to do so. How was she meant to take her own advice and build a brace for her pain when she'd been living in bliss for so long? It was sharp as it burned at her hip where it settled, and along her leg where it sparked as though it was a jolt of electricity.

She took the proffered crutches from him, not quite looking at Jess as she slid them underneath her arms and felt those cushions rest hard underneath her. Hesitant to even rest her weight upon them, she tried to keep all of it on her good leg before she inevitably sagged against it.

Quietly, she admitted, "Yes." Shifting those crutches beneath her, she took one step, left foot not quite picking up from the ground. She kept her expression as neutral as possible, but it ultimately looked disappointed. "I'm fine. Let's just go."

Go? His gaze cut to her, eyebrows making a climb for his hairline. Jess would be the first in line to shrug an injury off and carry on provided he weren't about to immediately bleed out, but even he could see Raven wasn't going anywhere.

"In the time it took for me to wash up and come back downstairs, you can't move your leg. We're not going."

He moved around the table to pull out her chair, positioning it so she had clearance to sit down again if she needed to. And quite frankly, she looked like she did.

Reassured that for the moment she wasn't about to topple over entirely, it was back to the important questions, the line of his brow settling into an intent, concerned furrow. "Where?" Her foot, her knee, her hip? Something had to be seriously wrong to come on so suddenly. "When did this start?"

Raven wished she had the strength to push him into the next town and far from her. The probing questions was something she was always intent to hide away from in the Ark. How many times had she walked the long way just so she could avoid walking right by the medical bay? The risk of being seen by Abby and pulled inside was much greater than the pain jolting through her hip at times.

With a deep breath, she steeled herself. She pulled in how overwhelmed she was, how helpless she felt, and those tears that wanted to burn her eyes. Throat closed up and tight, she tried to release it from its shackle, but Raven only felt it grow tighter than looser.

"A few days ago," she said. She could pretend this was an injury from the town, but then she'd have to explain how it came about, and she couldn't think of any situation that would cause such pain and paralysis without a bullet being involved. But it was the truth, and she knew Jess wasn't stupid enough to settle for anything less.

Her voice remained tight as she tried to strip it of its emotion, finding she wasn't quite as good at that as she was at making bombs. "Over three months ago. I can move my leg, I just don't want to right now."

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AND THE STORY IT TOLD OF A RIVER THAT FLOWED MADE ME SAD TO THINK IT WAS DEAD

Dec 21-22

sorry this is so late! i was a little burnt out.

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December 19

sorry for this late reply! burnout's a bitch.

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23rd

sorry this is late! been battling burnout.

no worries cutie, i'm on hiatus!

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