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

[specialise]

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.

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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.

Comments

[specialise]

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?"

[booklegging]

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.

[specialise]

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."

[booklegging]

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.

[specialise]

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."

[booklegging]

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?"

[specialise]

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."