Remnants of the Earth
EDANITH => The Frontier => Topic started by: Anonymous on August 27, 2008, 07:16:41 am
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Louhi woke up, squinting into the harsh light. What was she doing sleeping out in the sun? Predictably, her face and arms were badly burned, but that didn't tell her how long she'd been there. Laying in full sun, she burned very quickly. Where was her walking stick? Seeing nothing around her from her current position, she slowly sat up. The whole area was rather desolate and dry, but she didn't recognize any of it. This was not the same place she'd been before. Had the boar dragged her off somewhere?
Spotting her walking stick, she grabbed it and struggled painfully to her feet. She could see some greenery in the distance. That seemed a far better place to be than in the desert, but it looked like there was also a city out there in the greenery, and that could be bad for her. She sighed and fell into a coughing fit as she inadvertantly inhailed the sand that had been on her face. The wind was picking up. She glanced behind her and saw a billowing cloud of sand coming her way. This was not good. She saw nothing she could use as shelter and started running for the little green patch, having no idea how far away it actually was.
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Thanael was sitting on the ship with his arms crossed, watching the window. His thoughts were focused entirely on the job ahead of him. It was just a basic reconnaissance mission: scout the desert for any movement. There was none yet and he doubted he would find anything. It was just something for him to do while they assessed mages to see which would suit him.
His last mage had been sent to TRIM for having far too many subversive thoughts, and acting on them. He had tried to train the man without being cruel but nothing seemed to stick. The mage's loathing had just run too deep. The last straw had been when the mage actually attacked Thanael, who had been taken to hospital with burnt handprints on his back. It didn't really bother Thanael but the other Mordecai had been outraged.
'Set a course back for the base. There's nothing here.'
'Yes, Master Sergeant Thanael. At what elevation would you like to ascend?'
'Zero. There may be something on the way back.'
Thanael went back to watching the window. There was nothing but sand. Sand for hours on end.
'Ship, slow down and decend at seven degrees. Turn to manual control. There's something there,' ordered Thanael. It was probably a piece of an old ship but he was on a mission to scan everything. He took note of the time and co-ordinates and took control of the ship. 'Extend legs and prepare for landing.'
The plates on the bottom of the ship sank slowly into the sand a few feet. Thanael ordered the ship to raise the door before going into standby.
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Louhi nearly panicked when she saw this giant thing coming down towards her. The closest thing she could relate it to was the automobile that had run her over the first time that crazy man had flung her through time.
She glanced back at the sand storm making its way quickly closer and decided the motionless ship was a safer bet. Besides, sand imbedded at high speeds into a burn would was bound to be bad. She darted down between the legs of the ship, hunkering down and trying to protect herself as best she could, unaware of the shield that had sprung up at the end of the ship closest to the storm.
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Thanael went down the steps and scanned the area. The wind was howling and sand struck his face. He lifted an arm to keep it from the eyes so he could try and find whatever it is he has seen. 'Ship, survey the area,' he shouted over the sound of the wind.
'There is a thermal difference coming from my back, left foot.'
Thanael bent forward against the wind and pushed himself towards where where girl was hiding. What was a girl doing in the desert without a ship? He ran over to her and squatted down. 'Come inside before you kill yourself,' he shouted. Perhaps that was her plan, she looked like she'd been through a lot. He stood back up and offered his arm to her.
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Louhi was shaking, but she glanced between the storm and the man, but then hesitently took his arm with one hand, clinging to her walking stick with the other. Her leg really wasn't up to much running, particularly not on sand, so it would be acting up for the next little while, but her long skirts kept her leg well hidden. It had been magically healed once, but that had been done by the man who had thrown her out of the time she was familiar with and left her who knows where. The healing had been reversed and she suspected there was something of a spell over it to prevent it from being healed again.
She wasn't sure it was a good idea for her to be in one of these contraptions, with all their lights and dials, but it wasn't good for her to be out in the storm either.
She tried to look up at him through the wind and the sand. She was nervous. She'd been rescued from wandering the wilderness once before, but it had ended badly. She wanted to ask questions, but she was afraid to as he had not invited her to do so.
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Thanael helped the crippled woman to her feet. She was surprisingly light but that was probably due to her hieght. Whatever her reason for being stranded, he couldn't possibly leave an unarmed, wounded woman lying in the desert, especially with a windstorm coming.
'Hurry up, I'm not going to hurt you,' he shouted. The girl seemed as scared of him as she was the storm. Surely he didn't look that frightening? He ended up putting his arm under her armpits to help her get up. The storm was getting closer and if they didn't leave soon he'd have to wait until it passed, which meant waiting and possibly being late for his report.
OOC: sorry it's so short. I will try to make them bigger from now on. Now to bed.
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Louhi nodded meekly and scurried up into the ship with him. She was really more girl than she was woman, despite that for her time period, she was practically of age to be getting married already.
She didn't let her leg slow her down much. She'd been given an order and she obeyed almost without thinking.
"Thank you" She dared to whisper once inside the ship, though she didn't seem to know where to stand, she just siddled out of the way, releasing his arm and holding onto her stick as if it were her life line.
She glanced back towards the rear of the ship, as if to check on the sand storm, nervous.
((No worries. I don't mind "short" posts. Good night))
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'Ship, close up and prepare for take off on autopilot. I want to be back before that storm hits. I also need a first aid kit and fresh water. Food would be good also,' Thanael ordered.
The ship slowly ascended without his guidence and several unseen cabinets became visible. Thanael went through them to get some dried biscuits, water and the kit. He close d the cabinets and they disappeared. He squatted next to the girl and placed the packages him to here. 'Your welcome. Here, eat these and let me take a look at that leg,' he offered. 'Wheer are you hurt?'
His manner was polite but indifferent, he had a job to do and he didn't like seeing people in pain. Other than that, he wasn't yet paying much attention to her. He was keeping watch on the storm coming behind them. 'Ship, increase speed to sixty percent and contact the base. Let them know I have wounded here.'
'First of all, what is your name? I can't go calling you "girl" or "woman" for the rest of the trip,' he said as he poured some water on a cloth. He waited for her to show him any of her cuts of burns so he could clean them.
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"The leg wound is old and there is nothing for it." She stated quietly, though her speech seemed rather old fashioned and out of touch with the current time period. She used her good foot to pin her skirt down over her ankles with no intention of allowing him to see the horrible burn scars there, nor the crookedness of her leg that had once suffered a spiral break and never recovered. She shrugged slightly, trying to ignore her legs and her instinct to hide them as she brushed her hair back from her burned face and held out her arms. It was a sunburn, but severe, bordering on blisters. "Other than that, I do not think I am wounded" She replied with that same whispering volume. Her burns were of course peppered with sand, which complicated the matter somewhat.
She didn't know what to make of this man. So far, no 'normal' woman had been kind to her. Her own mother and the mother of one of the men who had shown her kindness was about the extent of her experience so far. "My name is Louhi" She finally replied after some internal debate. She opened her mouth as if to ask his name, but then closed it and dropped her head, her face flooding with a blush, the space around her heating up a couple degrees.
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Thanael raised an eyebrow at her when he felt the air warm. That was worrying, moreso for her than him. He'd have to ask her about it later when she trusted him more but for now he settled for checking her temperature with the back of his hand. 'I'm Master Sergeant Thanael and until we get back to the base, it is my job to look after you. If you don't trust me to take a look at your legs, at least trust me with your burns,' he said.
He took one of her arms and started wiping it down with the soft cloth. He reached inot the kit and got some spray-on disinfectant, if it blistered any more at least it would not get infected. Most of the skin wasn't broken so it shouldn't hurt too bad. He looked up at her. If she didn't trust him now, this could probably make the situation worse. 'I'm not going to hurt you Louhi. The stuff in this bottle is medicine. It will stop infection but it will sting, understand?'
Without waiting for a response he squirted some of the liquid up her arm and started bandaging it up with wet cloth. He then turned to the other in hope that she wouldn't pull away. If she was going to remain frightened of him, she would probably have to do it herself. Hopefully by the end of the trip she would even let him take a look at those legs though. It would be hard to make a report and miss out such a big detail.
'There were no signs of another ship landing, how did you come to be in the desert?' he asked. His eyes flicked to the window to check on the storm, they were easily getting away from it now.
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Louhi was very self-conscious of her leg scars, and in her frame of mind, legs were a rather private thing and meant to keep covered by long skirts. Showing a stranger her legs was rather promiscuous almost and it made her uncomfortable more so than the simple fact that everyone wanted to know how she got such a horrible scar.
Louhi nodded and held still while he cleaned her burns. She knew cleaning wounds hurt and she'd sunburned to blisters more than once due to her inordinately fair skin. The sand issue was a new one though, and when he wiped it away, the feeling of the sand sliding across her sensitive skin made her wince, but she said nothing and only allowed herself the tiniest whimper with the first spray of the stinging disinfectant on her arm, remaining silent for the rest of the treatment.
"I am not sure how I came to be here. The last thing I remember was looking for a place to weather the day, get out of the sun, and I encountered a wild animal and it charged me and I was trying to fend it off, and..." Her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember, but the memory seemed to have a gap in it. "And I woke up here." It sounded rather suspicious even to her, but that's what she could remember. She reached up and felt over her skull, looking for a bump, but finding nothing. She'd seen people forget after taking a hard blow to the head, but normally there was a sign of the blow afterwards. "I cannot remember anything between the wild animal and waking up here, but I don't seem to have struck my head."
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'That is indeed strange,' Thanael said as he went onto cleaning her next arm. He tried to be as careful as possible. 'Where were you, do you remember? Can you describe the area for me?' What he really wanted to know about now was the magic that had been used. He was starting to think that she was a mage and had teleported herself. How she had done it without knowing was unusual though. Perhaps her powers had developed later in life.
He went up to the burns on her neck. They looked worse than on her arm, her hair must have blown away from her face. How long had she been there? It must have been a long time if she had managed to get this burnt. He got a fresh cloth and doused it with water then passed the rest to her. After being so long she must be parched. 'Here, drink this Louhi, just not too fast,' he said before starting on her neck.
He moved some hair away from her neck and started wiping away sand. When he finished he used the spray on it but didn't wrap it up. If she moved too much it would more likely just rub against her skin than protect her. When he was finished he packed up the emergency supplies and left the water and biscuits with her. 'They're not going to make you sick. You should eat before you get sick,' he said. 'Come, there is a spare seat up here. It will be more comfortable than the floor.'
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Louhi sipped at the water slowly and nibbled on a biscut as she followed him up to the seats. She had a definate limp, but she moved almost as if the limp were simply a part of her she'd had it so long. "I do not see much of the land usually, living instead, underground. When it is windy, people die from breathing the air" She explained. "And there are very strange animals, most seem to be intent on killing anything they can catch, but I believe it is because they are hungry and there is not much of anything to eat." She paused a moment and sipped at her water again, though she shot a glance up at him, not sure if she was actually supposed to be drinking it in his presence or not. "The ground does not smell right...it's...it's like arsenic, it stings, poison" Louhi fumbled. She lacked terms for some of these concepts.
"I don't know it's name" She admitted "but most people do not like going out onto the land unless they must." Why she had been out there, she wasn't entirely sure at the moment. Maybe she had been looking for food. Food was a good thing to find. "Many of the plants are unsuitable to eat because of the way the air and the ground is. Some cannot breathe the air, others seem to suffer no ill effects."
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'Hmm, that sounds more like Earth than Mars. I'm afraid I don't know much about Earth,' he said. 'It sounds very likely that they would hunt for food if the greenery is poisonous. How do you find food if everything is as bad as you say?'
Her story was starting to get a bit far fetched for him to believe. He was starting to think she was a defective. TRIM wouldn't have trashed her, even if she was and she didn't appear to have any holes where a headband had been attached. 'Move your hair aside, Louhi. I just want to see something,' he ordered.
'Do you know what the place you lived in was called?' he asked. Perhaps she would let something slip that would help him understand what she was talking about. He would take her to the hospital for a check up while he went to report to his superior officer.
'Ship, estimate the time it will take to get back.'
'We will arrive at 1820 hours, twenty-two minutes from now, if continuing at current speed.'
'Slow us down to fifty percent capacity when we're within ten minutes of the base.'
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Louhi nodded "Massachusets was where I used to live with my mother. What is Mars?" She asked as she tried to shift her hair out of the way. There were no bolt marks on her head.
"Well, sometimes people bring food and we can trade, and sometimes, things are not poisonous, or at least they aren't to me, they are to some people, and sometimes, I can grow things in the good dirt of the caves." There wasn't a lot of light, but she found that she could fix that sometimes, and there were openings that allowed light in at some places.
"Where are we going?" It seemed a reasonable question, though it made her a little nervous. She had after all, climbed into some unknown contraption with a man she'd never met and he was now taking her to a brand new place.
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It was mildly interesting listening to her speak. She certainly believed what she said, which was probably not a good thing. Possibilities swam around his mind like a school of fish, each as unusual as the next. IF she was a mage though, many of them would seem far more likely. He felt pity for the woman, which was strange because he rarely thought of them enough to care about them at all.
'Mars is the planet you are on now. You must have lived a very sheltered life if you do not know that. Do you know of Earth or any of the Serunian space stations? Tell me about the people who ' he paused and looked at her before reaching for one of the biscuits he'd given her. 'Louhi, are you a mage?' It was an important question but he made sure he said it as lightly as all the others, if she didn't know what being a mage meant here, he didn't want to startle her just yet.
He raised an eyebrow again, thinking that she may be after information herself. 'You are going to a Military base on Edanith. I'm afraid for now that is all I can tell you about our distination,' he said. His tone cautioned her against asking any more questions about the topic. 'You can however, ask questions about anything else you wish. I cannot garauntee I will answer though.'
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"No, I am afraid I don't know much at all about places. What is a space station?" She asked, though she seemed nervous to do so. After all, it seemed all these things were supposed to be common knowledge, and she had no clue. At his next question, she shrugged "I don't know. What's a mage?" Her eyes were wide, blue and suprisingly innocent as she looked up at him. "I've never been called a mage before though" maybe that helped. She'd been called a witch, but she wasn't about to bring that up. She'd already been partly burned at the stake once, she wasn't eager to repeat the experience. Her hand went selfconsciously to her thigh.
She had no idea what a military base was, but she obediently refrained from questioning him further on the subject. "Am I...captured?" She asked awkwardly. Technically, she was a run-away servant, wanted dead by most of the household she'd grown up in. She was also on a heartless, murdering sourcerer's grudge-list, which was how she had ended up in such a confusing situation in the first place.
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Thanael was surprised that she had never heard of a space station. There would be no harm in explaining it to her. 'Have you ever seen the sky, Louhi? A space station is a large mechanical ship that people live in. They float up high in the sky between the planets of the solar system,' he explained. 'A mage on the other hand, is a person who uses magic. Can you control the elements, read people's minds, transform or do things that others cannot?' He didn't go any further into it just yet. If he did she would probably deny it no matter what.
'For now, yes. You have been rescued and captured. You have no need to worry though, nobody is going to hurt you,' he said. There was no use giving her false hope and having her stress over the possibility of what might happen to her could be dangerous. If she was a mage there was no telling what she could do and he didn't want to sedate her. Bringing in a sedated mage would not look good to his superiors, especially when he had already been attacked by his own one.
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"And this is a ship" Louhi clarified, tapping the floor with her foot once. She'd barely gotten to the point of understanding what cars were and lights and this was so much more confusing than that. Planets? Solar Systems? What happened to simple things like roads and trees?
"Oh...like a witch" Louhi said softly, her eyes shifting color from blue to a dreary grey. He was using language and terms that went way over her head, but she was simply doing her best to keep up, but now she was nervous and nervous was never a good thing with her. Things happened when she got scared or nervous-- which was probably how she had managed to end up in the martian desert when she had started on the earthen wasteland.
"What do you do to witches..I mean mages?" It was a valid question and one that she was afraid to hear the answer to. It wasn't like she could jump out of a ship like she could a wagon. Her heart was beating faster now and she was sure any second, lights were going to start exploding. Torches had just flaired up, that was simple enough, lamps often broke when the fire hit the glass, but lightbulbs, they tended to explode...but maybe she was lucky and they had engineered a Louhi-proof form of light finally, but she doubted it.
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'Yes, this is a ship. It is a very small one compared to the space stations though; they are entire cities,' Thanael explained. 'How is it that you do not know of these things? Even while living underground, surely there must have been tales. Didn't the visitors tell stories of where they'd been?'
'Witch? That is a very old term but yes, I guess they would be the same,' he said calmly. The next question he paused before answering. He now had no doubt that she was a mage. This particular ship did not have any protection against magic from the inside, it only had force fields on the outside. In the case that she decided to attack, he would have no defence against her magic; he would only have his physical training to help him. He reached for the keypad and pushed some buttons on the keys before replying. If anything went wrong he wanted the ship ready to give her a sedative.
'Louhi, you are not going to be harmed. You need to remain calm,' he said in a calm manner. 'The Mordacai train them, look after them and control their powers to protect our nation.' It wasn't exactly the truth but it wasn't a lie either. He never liked the idea of harming mages but there were others who did.
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A light above her flickered and she pulled her legs up to her chest as tightly as she could. "I'm not from here, I'm from very far away." Louhi replied to his question about not knowing of space stations. "I haven't been with people who know these things long at all."
She didn't really have the skill to attack. It had happened once when the Man who had done this to her in the first place, was attempting to train her, but over all, things just happened against her will-- like the light that exploded over her head at that moment.
It was a vicious cycle. She'd get nervous, things would break and that would just make her all the more nervous.
She planted her face against her knees "I don't do things on purpose" She whispered, glass shards from the light peppered through her hair. "I'm not a witch. I don't hurt anyone. I can't make trees fall on people." Her injured leg was spasming and all the memories were flooding back. The servants coming together to burn her at the stake, Wrestling her up onto the platform, twisting her leg until it broke, the pleading and begging, the heckling, the fire, the tree falling on two of the men, giving her a chance to escape with her life, though her broken leg had been rather severely burned.
What powers she had, she had no idea, but she apparently had some, mostly brought to life when she herself was in great danger, or perceived there to be great danger. "No one can make trees fall on people. I'm not a witch." She was about ready to start hyperventilating. The last person who had 'taken care of her' and tried to teach her to control her powers had turned on her and left her without a friend in the world. No one she knew was still alive, or if they were, they had not been found and had not found her.
Overall, she was a terrified child in a strange place and utterly alone in the world.
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Thanael watched Louhi cowering on her chair. It was a sad sight to see a mage like this. If she had no control over her magic then she would be useless, which meant she would be sent to TRIM. His eyes flicked to the roof when one of the lights flickered and exploded. It wasn't a problem, it would be easily fixed. What was a problem was that they were still ten minutes form the base, there were more dangerous things that could explode and there was a windstorm on the way.
The girl was beginning to panic but he wasn't going to sedate her. A sedative would not be proper because she was not attacking nor was she hostile. 'Ship,' he said. 'Cancel the sedative and get me a magic suppressor.'
'Mage, you are not speaking sense. I need you to calm down,' he said as he walked over to a cabinet, which appeared in the same manner that the first aid kit had. He pulled out a plastic package with a large needle in it. In total the syringe was half the length of his hand and the needle was about two inches long. He came over and stood next too her. 'I am about to give you something that will stop your flow of magic. You will not be able to do any form of magic until it wears off but it will not affect you in any other way,' he explained. It was always best to tell mages what they were in for. It gave them a sense of trust so they were less likely to attack.
Thanael unwrapped the plastic and put it in his pocket before assembling the syringe and needle. He held firmly onto her arm and prepared to inject the needle. 'This will sting a bit but it would be in both of our interests if you accepted this without issue,' he said. It was both a reassurance and a warning.
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She quivered in her chair, but she looked up, her eyes clouded with conflicting emotions as she eyed the needle in his hand. That thing was huge in her opinion and it seemed he was going to stick the whole thing into her arm, but she didn't fight him. She had learned long ago that fighting against grown men didn't really get her very far most of the time. Besides, pain was something she had learned to handle fairly well. She didn't nessicarily have a high threshold for pain, but she endured it better than most girls her age.
"You...you can make it go away? can you make it stay away?" Hope lit in her eyes, bringing them from stormy grey to a lavender. "Mostly, I don't really need it." At least not until boars tried to eat her, then random defensive powers did come in handy.
She hesitated, but then timidly asked "Can you please not call me mage?" It was apparently just a new-fangled word for witch, and when people started calling her by a title of people they commonly hated rather than a name, she got nervous. Her breath was still coming in little hiccups, but the lights weren't breaking, though they were still surging a little.
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Thanael tapped the syringe and inserted it into her harm. He squeezed out all but the last drop of liquid, pulled the needle out and rubbed her arm. 'This will last two hours. After that you will probably be somewhere where magic cannot be used,' he said.
'Is it such an offence to be called what you are? I do not see why I shouldn't call you mage but very well,' he sighed. 'I am guessing mages were not treated kindly where you were, Louhi.' It was a statement but he made it sound like a question. They still had some time left and he wanted to use it to calm her down before they got to the military base. If she asked too many questions it could get quite awkward. He would tell her most things that she asked but he was sure many of them would only increase her panic. Not all of the Mordecai were kind to their charges.
'Have you ever heard of the Mordecai, Louhi?' he asked. As far as he knew, Mordecai had been around since Connloath had been around. He was still trying to figure out where she could be from, more out of curiosity now than for his report. When the puzzle was complete he'd probably lose interest in her. She was a mage after all.
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"They didn't call them mages, they called them witches and they tried to kill them in all sorts of horrible ways" Louhi said quietly, eyes on her lap, hand over the injection site on her arm. She looked up after a moment though. "But if you intend to kill me anyway, perhaps it is fitting. I would consider it a great favor if you would do it quickly and not keep me in anticipation if killing me is the goal."
As the injection set in, the lights stopped surging, her eyes returned to a 'normal' shade of rather pale blue, but she was shaking more than she had been. Perhaps it was that knowing she was fairly defenseless. Even if it came to hand to hand combat, she had a little training, but she was still a small girl and suspected there would be big men trying to make her whatever it was they were going to do.
"No, I don't know what Mordicai are. I was a servant. I have very little education" she said quietly. She was trying to assure herself that death wasn't so bad, and honestly, after all the things she'd had done to her, being killed was probably one of the kinder ones.
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'Kill you?' asked Thanael. 'I have just repressed your powers and taken care of your burns. I reassure you, I have no intention of letting you get hurt, let alone killed. What has been done to you that you would think that?' Thanael frowned. Something traumatic must have happened to this mage to have her this terrified. Mages never worked as well when they were scared, which would explain why the light had blown. Now that Louhi wouldn't be able to explode any more lights, he started collecting shards of glass from her hair.
'Mordecai have the power to control a mage's abilities. They are linked together through a mental bond, which is controlled by the Mordecai. I am such a person,' he said. 'Do you have any control over your abilities?' He thought about it for a moment, there weren't many Mordecai that would want an uncontrolled mage. It was highly likely that she would go through a gruelling training process or be sent off to TRIM.
'I'm afraid you may have a hard road ahead of you, but let me reassure you again. Nobody is going to harm you. You are going to be taken to the hospital where healing mages can look after you,' he said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone.
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She was silent for several moments after that statement as she considered what she was going to do. Deciding maybe he needed to see what had happened to cause her to be so terrified, she inched her skirt up until it showed a thin band of skin just above her stocking. In her mind, legs were a private part of the body, so one didn't simply go flashing them around in full view. The skin was horribly scared with deep burns, burns which had recieved no modern medical attention, and so her being alive was actually rather amazing on its own considering the liklihood of infection within such a large wound. Had she been willing to show her entire leg, it would have become clear that the scar nearly encompased her entire leg, and the leg was crooked besides.
"I was fortunate to escape with nothing worse" there was a bitterness in her tone that hadn't been there before, but did not linger long. She would not allow herself to keep her tone bitter while talking to the man who seemed to hold his life in her hand.
"So...mages never have a private thought to themselves ever again?" She asked curiously. That seemed...well, somewhat unbearable. She spent a lot of time thinking, and if she had to watch what she thought as much as she watched what she said, she thought her head just might explode with the effort.
"Sometimes I have some control...but mostly things happen when people try to hurt me. I'm not even entirely sure they aren't coincidences sometimes."
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Thanael put the glass in an unused compartment- the ashtray - before examining the mage's leg. It was deep and very old, how old had she been when she received it. When he heard the bitterness he looked at her face. 'I will take you to the hospital as soon as I check back in to base. There you will be treated by healing mages. I am sure they will be able to heal you,' he said. 'Tell me about how and why you sustained these injuries.' He moved her skirt back into position and brushed some more glass shards off her shirt.
'Ship, I need a dustpan and brush. Assess any damages,' he ordered.
'Two lights have broken as well as the optical wires to them.'
A cleaning cabinet appeared and Thanael got to work dusting off all the glass from the shattered lights. He could do nothing about the remnants of the lights on the roof. The ship would have to go into repairs, which meant he would not be able to go out on reconnaissance missions. Paper work was good too, which is what he'd probably be on until they found him a new set of mages to choose from.
'Hmm, so you do not even know when you are using your magic. It sounds like your abilities are connected to your emotions rather than your mind. You will need to work on that,' he said. 'Do you know where your abilities stem from?'
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"How and why?" Louhi asked in surprise "The house servants tried to burn me at the stake for being a witch" She uncomfortably folded her arms across her chest. "That's what they do to witches...just like you have things you must do to your mages." Hopefully nothing that mean though.
She sighed and shrugged "Things happened...things that couldn't be explained and the always happened while I was around, so they decided I was a witch." She shook out the folds of her skirt a little.
"I've learned a little to be able to tell when I'm using them...though I've also started learning when to expect them to come of their own accord I think." She shrugged "I don't think I understand the question. I don't know what you mean by 'where my abilities stem from.'"
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'I see. That is a very old method of mage extermination. I didn't know there were places that still did that,' Thanael said. His eyes grew wide when he realised what could have happened. 'Louhi, what year is it?'
'That is indeed an unfortunate manifestation of power. You will not find many Mordecai interested in connecting with you,' he said. there was a slight trace of sadness in his voice, very slight but it was still there. Hopefully with a Mordecai controlling her powers, they would become less random. 'You will need to fix that or you may be sent to TRIM.'
'When you feel your powers, what do you feel? Do you sense the air around you, objects, heat or something different?' he sked. It would be good to find out as much about her as possible before they got back, which would be very soon. He could see the city up ahead and the ship was beginning to slow.
'Louhi, look outside and welcome to Tynova. That is where you are being taken,' he said as he waved a hand towards the front window. He studied her reaction. It was dubious she had seen anything this size before. It was likely to be a daunting experience and he didn't want her panicking when they got there.
He glanced out the window at the green and red city. All about the city greenery and fountains could be seen, contrasting dramatically with the red buildings and earth. The sun reflected and glittered against numerous bodies of water, which were provided by mages and their keepers.
OOC: I'm not sure if you wanted her legs healed or not. If you don't we could say they are too old to be cured or that she identifies with them and her mind cannot accept the healing (she is resigned to being crippled for life).
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"I have no idea what year it is. The year it's supposed to be is 1693, then, I think I ended up in 2012 was it? I got hit by a car because that crazy man dropped me right in the street with his magic, and on the bad side of town too, and then I guess I got the hang of that too well and managed to find my friend, so I ended up in the wasteland and the caves in whatever year it is now" She knew she was not in her own time period, it was blatantly obvious.
"Before he got mad at me, he was teaching me to use my powers, and I was getting better, but after that I didn't really have a time or place to practice that wouldn't draw a lot of attention." She shrugged slightly "I think I could learn....but it doesn't really sound like I have time to learn" She looked up at him, questioningly. It sounded like they wanted Mages who were already good with their magic and didn't want stupid little girls who didn't know how to make things work.
She looked out the window and just gazed for a moment. Perhaps it was a good thing she'd been dropped into a 'big city' before being thrown here. She did know a little of large things, even if she wasn't entirely comfortable with them. "I've never seen anything like it" She said quietly, creeping closer to the window to try to see better.
OOC: No, I don't really want her legs healed. They can be too old (they're very very old compared to what the mages are used to healing I'm sure) and I think the evil dude who took back the healing in the first place, probably put an anti-healing something into it, so even if they managed to heal it temporarily, it'd probably pop right back to what it had been.
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'Interesting. Perhaps we can stop him from rebounding you through time again. Do you know anything about this mage?' he asked. Thanael wouldn't want to be near the mage but such a creature could be useful in defending and terraforming Mars. Louhi had a long road ahead of her but at least she would not be subjected to "witch hunting" or other heinous practices.
'If you have the capacity to be trained then there are facilities, or I am willing to keep you for the time being. My own mage attacked me and has been sent to TRIM. Hopefully you won't turn out the same' Then in a tone that left no room for argument he said, 'I will bring this matter up after I make my report.'
The girl had not panicked as he had expected. That was a good sign; the faster she got used to her new surroundings, the more useful and stable she would be. 'It is a beautiful city. The people of Edanith pride themselves on how they care for their natural environment.'
The ship started to descend as they got closer to the city and came up to the docking station of Neladre Fortress. Thanael once more took over the controls of the ship and brought it into land. There was a small bump of resistance as the ship came in contact with the floor.
'Ship, I need a pair of handcuffs and the log files,' ordered Thanael. Another cabinet appeared and he pulled out of of several sets of mechanical handcuffs. They were old models so they presented a physical barrier rather than anything else. A small light started flashing on the ship's controls and Thanael lifted up his jacket sleeve to reveal a mechanical wristband. The flight's log and reconnaissance information was now being sent wirelessly.
'Put your arms out. I need to put these on you,' Thanael ordered. He opened the handcuffs with a touch of a button and a spoken command. 'These handcuffs are voice activated. If you try something foolish all I have to do to stop you is make a command. As I have said many times previously, I have no intention of letting harm come to you.'
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"He killed a lot of people I think...he brought me blood to drink" She stated, fighting back the gag reflex that always came with the thought of drinking the blood. "He can turn himself into a dragon and apparently travel through time...control the weather. It doesn't rain on him when it rains." She explained "But I don't know where he is now. I hope he stays away. Do you think I will be safe here?" Her eyes seemed a little hopeful finally. Being enslaved wasn't so bad in her opinion. Really, it was all she had ever known growing up. She hadn't been a slave exactly, but she'd always served someone.
"I don't intend to attack you" So far, there had been no reason for her to attack him. He had not tried to cause her harm, so she had no need to defend herself. "But I would like to stay with you if I may" She was not eager to get to know a whole new person and she didn't trust whoever she might be handed over to when he was done with her.
Louhi eyed the cuffs a moment, but then meekly and reluctantly extended her arms. "This will make walking difficult" She stated softly, more simply to let him know than to argue. She didn't want to have him get upset that she was slow or if she fell. She looked up abruptly. "Will I be able to keep my walking stick?" that was a major concern. Some people viewed it as a weapon, but she needed it simply as support and to prevent herself from putting her entire weight upon her damaged leg. Without her walking stick, her pace was slow and pained most of the time. The stick had also become a security blanket of sorts and she simply felt better with it in her hand, even if it did not actually change the situation at all.
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'I doubt he will be able to get to you now that we are in Teinar. We keep our city safe from psychic, physical and magical attacks. You will be safe so long as you follow your Mordecai's orders,' he explained.
While Louhi had been sitting down, he hadn't thought of her legs. He would have to get another pair that allowed for freer movement until they got to the hospital. He went through the still open cabinet and found a pair that used energy rather than mechanisms. These ones could be moved apart, so long as she didn't move too fast. 'If you move too fast or pull these ones too far away, they will shock you. They are the only pair that will allow for you to use your walking stick.'
'Ship, are there any wheelchairs here?' Thanael asked.
'No, there is only a set of crutches.'
'Open the doors and turn off then.'
'You may take your walking stick with you, are you able to walk a fair distance?' he asked. Even if the wounds were old, she still had a lot of burns and other injuries, which were newer.
He walked to the door and waited for her to follow. He would probably have to lift her down the stairs.
-
"All right" Louhi said, allowing him to put the energy cuffs on her and shift herself slowly to be able to grasp her walking stick and move somewhat freely. "I can walk a long way" She assured. "I used to walk all day every day when I had to leave my first house" It didn't mean she was happy about it, but she had done it and she had no real reason to complain in her opinion. "When I have my walking stick, I can move around perfectly" perfectly might have been an exageration, but she could do most of the things a normal person could do. She walked, ran when she had to, climbed stairs and the like and only on exceptionally bad days did her leg cause her enough pain to force her to sit down and rest frequently.
She carefully navegated her way down the stairs, though it seemed it was something she was used to doing on her own. Once on the ground, she gazed around her in awe. "It's a very pretty city" She viewed things differently than a lot of people did. She could find beauty anywhere and in anything if she chose to look hard enough.
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Thanael walked half a step in front and to the side of Louhi, in a way that showed everyone that she was his. His step was brisk but he glanced every now and then to make sure the mage could keep up.
'I is beautiful. We try to keep our technology in tune with the environment so it will not turn out like the earth did. Aedolis has ruined their planet and now reaps the consequences,' he said. There was something sour in his voice.
He continued walking until they got to a nondescript room with the name and rank on Thanael's superior officer on the door: Massah K. Iman. 'Louhi, remain silent unless spoken to directly. You are not under my control yet so anything you say will be at your own peril,' Thanael warned. He did not want to scare the mage but if she spoke out of turn, his officer might not take it too kindly. He had said he would not let harm come to Louhi but he could not vouch for those above his station.
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The entire way to the door, Louhi descretely gazed around her, admiring and appriciating the life the planet was managing to sustain-- especially after spending so much time in the Wastelands and similar areas. "Yes, that is why it is poison" Louhi murmured in agreement.
She gazed up at the door, trying to read the name, but the words were unfamiliar and she did not have the time to work them out, so she simply nodded "Yes sir" She tried not to siddle closer to him, but maintain the same distance, but her grip on her walking stick tightened even so. She had delt with grumpy and particular masters and mistresses before, ones that demanded servants practically grovel in their presence. Speak when Spoken to was an order she could handle. Habitually, she also kept her eyes lowered to a more humble and less openly curious position.
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Thanael rapped short and sharp on the door, thrice and waited to be admitted. He stood exactly two metres from the desk and saluted. The man behind the desk stood up and also saluted.
'Master Sergeant,' said the superior officer, glancing at Thanael's stripes. 'What is it you wish to see me about?'
Thanael dropped his hand and pulled it to his side before speaking. 'Master Sergeant Thanael Harbour reporting from reconnaissance. I found a mage in the desert, she is lightly wounded and requires attention.'
'She can wait. Mage, come over here,' ordered Massah. He had a strange accent, as though he came from a further off colony.
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Fighting the growing urge to bolt in fear, which she almost never gave into anyway, she quietly approached the desk, trying to end up where he wanted her, though he had not clearly specified exactly how close 'over here' was.
She didn't correct him about calling her mage, but it brought up her fears again. If she was simply 'mage' she had no value, no meaning, not even as a servant. She was easily discarded, like sun rotted fabric-- no use to anyone. Rotten fruit could at least be thrown in the compost.
"Yes sir" She murmured, coming to a stop at the corner of his desk, cautiously observing for signs that she was too close, or need to come closer. She desperately didn't want to anger him and was now trying very hard not to wince as her leg was throbbing with sharp pains. She was tired, she was burned and her leg was acting up, and yet, her she was, trying to keep her potential new master's boss happy.
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Thanael stood and watched the mage walk over. she seemed scared. fear was something that would be useful. It would warn her not to disobey, even though he would never harm the girl.
'Come closer, mage. I can't talk to you if you keep cowering like that!' Massah snapped. 'First of all, what is your power and what level of training have you received?' he didn't seem to care that she was obviously in pain. Massah was the type to just get things done, mages were despencible and could be used up.
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Louhi obediently stepped over to the chair, her eyes momentarily glazing over as she emotionally distanced herself from his sharp tone. It was the dreaded question. What were her powers? "Mostly water elemental and lights, though I occasionally discover a new one. I have begun learning to identify and harness my powers" Her leg buckled out from under her, but with only the tiniest adjustment, she shifted the dropped weight fully onto the walking stick, deciding against mentioning her training to defend herself.
She wasn't entirely sure what her powers really classified as. Sometimes she could control weather, othertimes she was making lights explode and there were times she even went invisible if she got scared enough-- and once she had become mist. That had been an interesting experience, though she wasn't sure if it was a power she possessed, or a power offered to her by the trainer at the time.
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Massah nodded. 'Water mages are useful but this one is crippled. If the healing mages can't do something for it, it will be sold to TRIM,' he said.
'Sir. I am currently without a mage. I was hoping to put in a request for this one,' Thanael said. He had actually only just decided he wanted her, purely because he didn't like TRIM. He understood that the organisation was useful but in some cases, the ends did not justify the means. Also, they were not to be trusted there. Who knew what they were researching.
'Why would you want it? A crippled mage is useless in battle.'
'We use mages for their abilities and I am intrigued by what this one can do,' he said simply.
'Very well, I want a report on your mission within the day,' he ordered before looking back down to his work. 'You and the mage are dimissed.'
-
Louhi inclined her head in something of a bow and managed to shuffle her way backwards a couple paces before turning and making her way back to her new Master's side. She bit her tongue and stiffled any indication of pain walking should have caused her. If she had to not be crippled to be useful, she could pretend not to be crippled as long as they didn't strip her stick from her. She needed the support some days.
She dared to look up at Thanael for further instructions-- which she hoped included someplace not so far away that involved sitting, but did not expect it. She had no reason to expect anyone anywhere to even try to accomodate her finicky limbs or make her more comfortable. She'd always been a slave in one form or another, titled as servant, mage, apprentance, it made no difference. Her roles had been nearly the same, namely: do as you are told and ask no questions.
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Thanael put a hand firmly on her back to indicate she should hurry but did not look down or speak to her. His every movement was restrained until they were out of the room. 'You can stop acting now. I don't care if you are crippled or not,' he said as he continued to walk. He did slow down however so that she could walk at a more comfortable pace and removed his hand. He hadn't checked under her shirt so for all he knew, there might be more wounds under there.
'You are not to go near that office unless under direct orders. He has little respect for me and will make your life harder now that you are associated. You are to give him no reason to be angry at either you or I, is that clear?' Thanael ordered in a levelled tone. 'You are not mine yet so anything you do will be on your own head. I will still get into some trouble though and I would rather avoid it.'
They were heading to the hospital via the shortest route possible. Thanael did not want any interruptions. He glanced down at Louhi. 'How are you holding? It should not be much longer and you can rest,' he said. He wasn't saying it in a kind way, it was just he didn't like the idea of anything in unnecessary pain.
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Louhi nodded, glancing back at the door to make sure she remembered the door, the hall and other key identifying markers so she knew where it was she was avoiding. In all honesty, she doubted she would be going anywhere except under direct orders. She never had known what to do with free time since she'd had so little of it so far. Even during the period when she was 'free' in a way, she had not really had free time. Her time was spent finding food and improving her shelter, not playing or relaxing or other such luxurious things.
"I will not go near the door" She promised softly, allowing herself to limp slightly and pick up the pace. She wouldn't make him wait on her if she could help it. She was however surprised when he looked down at her and asked how she was holding. "I'm alright" She said, though with a hint of breathlessness. She would have to be quite near broken to admit she wasn't okay. She was in pain, but that was nothing new, and that was not to be allowed to stop her from doing what she needed to do.
However, getting completely back into the speaking when spoken to habit might take her a few days when she wasn't strenuously thinking about it, plus, learning all the new rules of a foreign place. She hoped Thanael would be a patient master...or at least the punishments for mistakes would not be horribly severe. Suddenly, she was curious if this civilization had managed to eradicate the practice of whipping yet. She had seen it used more than once, but found it a horrible practice-- perhaps because it was a punishment that had been hung over her head more than once and she desperately wanted to avoid the experience.
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Thanael sighed, he understood that the girl was trying to be obedient but she needn't push herself. 'Slow down,' he ordered. 'I am walking slower for your benefit, there is no need for you to hurry.'
From that point on he walked silently, making his way through the passages until they got to the medical ward. 'Sit here while I find someone to take care of you,' Thanael ordered, gesturing to a chair in the waiting room. He went up to the front desk and tapped on a small, metal bell. A man looked up from a small computer and raised an eyebrow.
'Visiting or admitting?' the man asked in a bored voice. Thanael glared at the man and tapped a finger towards the insignia on his shoulder. Just because he had removed his headband, did not mean he was any less in station. The man saluted but did not get up.
'I'm admitting a mage found during a recon mission. She has burns and is crippled. There should be a bed waiting for her,' he explained tersly. The man checked his computer and nodded.
'Master Sergeant Thanael Harbour? Bed 4, Emergency Ward 3A. Your ship sent information through but we did not know the seriousness of the situation,' the man said. He saluted again as Thanael turned back to Louhi.
'Come on,' was all Thanael said.
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Louhi flinched, her eyes dropping to the floor as he ordered her to slow down "Yes sir" She said quickly, matching his pace as best she could, though his one stride was two of her's since her leg shortened her already small stride.
She sank into the chair as ordered, her leg immediately quivering now that the weight was off of it. She just made sure her leg was covered by her skirt and let it quiver for the moment. It was overworked and she knew it, but that didn't change the situation, or reduce the distances she needed to walk.
As discretely as she could manage, she watched Thanael at the counter, observing and trying to get a sense of him. He seemed like a proud man, one who demanded respect be shown to him-- not because he'd earned it, but because he expected it and had on a special suit. Apparently the suit meant he was important, because the guy behind the desk sure changed his ways when it was pointed out. Perhaps it wasn't so different than the completely different styles of clothes worn by the different stations in her own time.
She deftly and without hesitation got back onto her feet when summoned, feeling a little like she should be skulking behind him, head bowed, back stooped, bowing to his every whim instead of just following, but follow she did, matching his pace again, finding the balance between hurrying and doddling. She wasn't really sure how to react to indifference, at least not indifference this pure. There was of course a certain amount of indifference from almost every master and mistress, but there was also a certain element of contempt, dislike or favor, depending upon the individual.
-
He noticed that she flinched when she sat, whether out of pain or fear he was unsure. Her leg was shaking so perhaps it was a flinch of pain. 'If you are ever in pain, please tell me. Also, there is no need to bow, scrape or cower on my account,' Thanael said as he made his way to the emergency ward.
When they got to the designated bed, he offered his arm to help her up. He didn't really care if she took the help or not, he just gathered that she was in pain and it would be easier to help her rather than watch her struggle.
OOC: sorry it's so short, I'll make up for it next time or something.
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She was nearly always in some pain, so it made sense to her to only inform him of additional pain, otherwise he would tire of hearing about it very quickly "Yes, sir" She replied quietly.
She hesitated, being careful to wipe her hands off on her skirt before touching his arm and allowing him to help her up into the bed. "What are they going to do?" She asked in concern. "Can you stay?" Medicine was something she was not overly confident in. Surgens of her time had been fairly unskilled.
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Thanael felt sure she wasn't telling him everything. It would be so much easier when they were bound together; he could just go in and find the information he needed. 'If we are to be bonded, it will be my duty to take care of you. I can't do that unless you tell me the full truth. Please get used to doing so,' he said in a levelled tone.
Thanael raised an eyebrow and looked at Louhi before answering. It seemed strange to him that she wanted him to stay around. He supposed he had nothing else to so sat pulled a chair closer to her bed. 'You are in a hospital; they are going to do everything they can to heal whatever ails you,' he said while indicating her legs. 'Was there any reason you wanted me to stay?'
It was about time he explained what was going to happen to the girl, she'd been obedient so far so she could at least know what she'd got into. 'Louhi? What do you understand of what is happening?' he asked. He wanted to judge how well she held onto information and how she analysed it. He would be able to get a better understanding of her when they were connected but for now, this way would have to do.
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Louhi shrugged "I'm nearly always in some pain, I just didn't think you wanted to be constantly reminded of it." The break in the leg had been bad, a spiral fracture on top of it. Honestly, given the time she was from, she was lucky to be alive and able to walk, not to mention the burn. She shrugged "I can if you want me to, I just thought it would become bothersome over time to constantly hear about what does not change." She explained meekly. "I did not mean to be disobedient or withhold information from you." In her experience, people just didn't want to hear about it.
"I wish for you to stay because I am frightened and am not wholly trusting of surgeons. You said you would not let harm come to me, and whether that is entirely true or not, I feel safer with you here. Besides, they are afraid of the marks on your garment."
"I understand I am to be placed into your servitude, trained to use my powers under your command, I do not understand the term bonded, but you said we would be bonded, so it shall be" She seemed strangely accepting of this so far. "I don't think I yet know exactly what my duties will be, but I believe I am proficient at following directions, provided I understand the terms as they are used." She had found over time that language had changed drastically. "Oh, and that you said the hospital would try to heal me." She doubted it would work, but she was willing to let them try. She didn't' see how it would do any harm.
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Thanael did not bother to address her comment about disobedience, he doubted she was the type to do anything wrong deliberately. After a while with her, he'd probably find that she could have a lot more freedom than many other mages. She seemed trustworthy and hopefully she would live up to his expectations.
'I would rather have you reminding me of your pain than unknowingly causing you more,' he said while scanning the room. Something must have happened while he was away, otherwise a nurse would have come to see them by now.
'We rarely use surgeons now. Most people prefer to be healed by psychics and mages. They can block any pain signals to your brain while they stimulate damaged tissue to regrow,' he explained, though she probably didn't understand what he meant. 'You needn't fear that I will retract what I have said, nor that the healers will harm you.'
'The markings show that I am a Mordecai and my rank within the military. That man at the desk was of lower rank than me so he should have shown me respect, just as I do with my superiors,' he explained. 'The reason he did not at first was because Mordecai wear headbands that connect them to their mage. I do not have a mage at this current time, so I do not care to wear my headband.'
'You are correct. I am glad you are taking in the information and accepting your situation thus far. After they have healed you, you will be taken to have your headband attached. This will enable me to read your thoughts and for you to read mine, if I choose to allow you, this is what we call bonding. I will be able to control your abilities and use them myself. There are other uses for the mind-link but I will discuss them with you later, if the need arises.' There was no need to scare the girl with thoughts of mental abuse. He doubted she would ever need to know it.
-
Louhi had always had a desire to please her masters, which could be considered an asset, or a detriment depending on your point of view. As the master, it was easy to manipulate her because she was already eager to please. As a person interested in Louhi's mental health, it was potentually damaging to her, especially since thus far, she had failed to gain actual approval from any master for more than a moment at a time.
Louhi nodded quietly. She would do her best to remember. "How long do we wait here?" She was beginning to think this was another parlor rather than a sick room.
Louhi had no idea what psychics were, how brain signals worked or what exactly 'damaged tissue' was. "Surgeons were simply the healers of my time I suppose...and the apothecary to an extent." She considered it slowly "I met a doctor once though, he wore a very white overcoat....like a fresh fallen snow. I'd never seen a garment so white." He had still not been able to fix her leg, but she did not hold that against him. He had kindly tried.
She listened carefully as he explained why the man behind the desk had failed to show respect until he had pointed out the markings. "Are they going to shave my head?" She asked, barely keeping the squeak out of her voice. She of course wouldn't fight it, but for a girl (of her time) having ones head shaved was a horribly humiliating act and was generally reserved more for punishment-- or for true slaves and lice riddled orphans and prisoners. None of which she particularly wanted to be grouped with. She'd never seen anything attatched to ones head through the hair. Hair got in the way of such procedures.
"I do have nightmares, I hope these will not disturb you" She glanced at the lights, half expecting them to be flickering and trying to explode now that she was nervous about possibly having her head shaved, but nothing was happening yet.
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'My guess is that the ward sees patients based on triage. Have you heard of that before?,' Thanael asked. 'I suggest you be patient and wait you turn.' Now that she had mentioned it, however, he was starting to think the same thing. Perhaps it was time to discuss it with a nurse.
'You've got to stop assuming that things are the same as what they were back then. We do not use herbal remedies, labcoats are for laboratories and nobody is going to shave your head,' he explained. He massaged the bridge of his nose lightly; this was going to be a frustrating mage to educate if she kept comparing the two, or perhaps three, ages. He guessed the first few weeks with her were going to be teaching her history and about the society in which she was living now.
'I can block the messages sent between us, or I could discuss it with a doctor to prescribe you something for it. In fact, the psychic could just block the problem all together,' he said, thinking aloud more than to her.
He got out of the seat and straightened his uniform. Without uttering a word to the mage he went to the ward's nurses' station to discuss what was happening.
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"No, I don't believe I have heard of that before" But she had no problem waiting if waiting was what she was supposed to do, she had merely wondered since she had taken his statement earlier to mean this was where they met the medical personel-- whatever form they might take.
Louhi nodded meekly, but she was still unsure where she was, or when she was. She had not been near a true civalization since she'd managed to get whenever she was currently, so she was still attempting to grasp how things worked and wasn't sure she ever really could considering the vast differences. She did not have the basic foundation to build understanding.
She did not particularly like the idea of of anything medling around in her head and blocking dreams. It wasn't so much that she enjoyed the dreams, but they were familiar and she was able to see her mother clearly, which was growing rapidly more rare as time caused the mental image of her to fade from memory. Besides that, bad things happened when things were poked into the brain.
She watched nervously, but silently as Thanael rose without a word to her. Had she displeased him? She fiddled with her walking stick, eying her surroundings with uncertanty. What she was supposed to do now, she had no idea, so she sat and waited in silence, resisting the urge to rub her leg. Without him nearby, she was afraid to appear defective, and with him nearby, she was afraid he'd ask to see her leg-- which was still a private part of the body in her mind, but she suspected the doctors would want to see it anyway.
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OOC: do you want to control any NPCs so you can guide the thread a bit more, in either this or the other one? I'm feeling a bit like a control freak sorry.
The nurses window was open and the nurse there smiled at him before saluting. 'Good morning recruit... Thanael Harbour,' she said while glancing down at a computer screen. 'How is your back holding up?'
'My back is fine, nurse. Thank you for your concern,' he said with a slight bow. To those who showed him respect, he had no problem acting in kind. 'However, that is not my reason for being here. I have a mage with burns and crippled legs. Do you have anyone available to treat her?'
'There is nobody treating it yet? I shall have someone sent right away,' she said before turning back to her work. Thanael bowed and she looked up and saluted to him. Hopefully things would run back on track again.
As Thanael entered the room once more he noticed that Louhi was acting anxiously. The mage looked so small there sitting on the bed, practically clinging to her walking stick in his opinion. he ignored it. He had tried to help her somewhat but this was something she would have to get used to by herself. The sooner she got used to her surroundings , the more comfortable she would be and the more useful too.
He sat in the chair once more and relaxed, which for him still meant that he had correct posture and seemed alert. Whether it was his training or his personality that made him that way, it was hard to tell.
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((I can control NPCs if you want, but I don't think you're a 'control freak' and don't mind you playing them if you're enjoying doing so. Which ones do you want me to pick up if any?))
Louhi looked up as he entered, relaxing slightly, but mirroring his posture. She had learned to look to the master for behavioral cues, but having her legs dangling over the side of the bed wasn't going to last long. "Sir?" She addressed quietly "May I pull my feet up on the bed?" Her feet not touching the floor put extra strain between her knee and her feet and was more likely to cause the leg to start hurting again.
Over time, Louhi was sure she'd get used to things-- provided she actually managed to stay in this time, but for now, she was confused, and for the most part, accepted that was how things would be for awhile. She was curious to see who was going to come through the door and how they would attempt to fix her leg this time. Maybe it'd even work. They had vehicals that didn't touch the ground. Knowledge seemed to have come a long way -- except for the witches part. Even however long later, people switched back to fearing those who were potentually stronger than them. The witch hunt just simply gained a new name and method.
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OOC: Anyone you feel like (staff, other soldiers, other mages) but we'll need a doctor or nurse soon if you want.
Thanael looked at Louhi and guessed that her legs must be uncomfortable. 'If you must, but take your shoes off before you do. You may leave your leggings on,' he said. There was no use getting the bed dirty; someone else would need the bed afterwards. 'If you wish you may lay down instead, it may take the extra stress of those legs.'
Seeing as though they had time, he might as well start teaching her about where she now resided. 'Is there anything you do not yet understand or that you wish to know about?' he asked. He might as well start with anything she found confusing. It would be hard to teach her if she was already confused.
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Louhi obediently removed her shoes and shifted further up onto the bed. She wasn't ready to lay down. It felt too vulnerable, but she shifted so she was sitting at the head of the bed, her good leg straight forward and her bad leg bent slightly at an angle, as if it wouldn't fully straighten for her. She arranged her skirts to ensure that her feet were covered, even though the stockings were still in place.
She considered it a moment. She wanted to know why witches/mages were still hunted, but she was afraid to ask that. People were touchy on the subject. "Nothing pertinent comes immediately to mind." She admitted. "I don't understand the advances you have made with your transportation, or how it moves without touching the ground, but I suspect I don't particularly need to understand those things." She considered it a moment longer. He was giving her an opportunity to ask a question and she didn't want to waste it. "I would like to know, if you don't mind, where I might be sleeping." She'd slept on mats in corners of the mistress's room, as short lived as that might have been. For most of her life, she'd slept in the servant's quarters with her mother until she'd been driven from her home. She'd had her own room once, but she suspected that was mostly because that master had not had servant's quarters, just a spare room that was as opulently furnished as the rest of the house, and from there, life had gotten complicated. She had angered him and ended up nearly 400 years into the future, been hit by a car, rescued by her friend, slept in a 'normal' bed of her own and been relatively happy there, which was probably what provoked her previous master to fling her through time again where she took to sleeping in a cave.
There was no standard for sleeping spaces in her life. Sleeping under a table seemed like a reasonable place to sleep, perfectly within normal limits.
Without really thinking about it, her hand went to her temple. It was several moments later she remembered she had orders. "Sir, my head hurts" She stated without apparent concern. Considering she'd been apparently unconscious in the dessert, trying to outrun a sandstorm, possibly having teleported herself there to begin with and been generally under stress for the last several hours, her head hurting didn't seem like anything horribly unusual to her. It seemed actually quite normal, not to mention she'd been injected with some unknown substance.
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The girl seemed comfortable enough. It was unfortunate that she felt so insecure about her leg though, her insecurity would more likely be a hinderance than her leg actually being broken. It would also be the hardest issue to solve. When they were bonded he would have to do a deep search through her mind to see if he could find the root of her insecurity and find a way to rectify the problem. He didn't want her insecurities getting in the way of their work.
'I'll explain the second query first because it will be the easiest. You will be sleeping in my quarters, however I do not mind where. There is a sofa bed, which you will have to vacate if I have company. I can get a stretcher sent down or you can sleep on the floor.
'As to our transportation systems, if hot air is pushed in one direction hard enough, the object will move in the opposite direction. By controlling the amount of air and the heat produced, you can control the velocity. That is the most simple explanation for the simplest type of craft. I doubt you are ready to understand much more,' Thanael said.
He was about to respond to her headache issue when a doctor came in. Thanael stood out of respect but waved his hand to indicate that Louhi should remain seated.
OOC: feel free to take the doctor.
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Louhi nodded slightly to indicate she was listening and at least somewhat understood. Sleeping on a sofa bed (whatever that actually was) was nice to know. If it was called a bed, it was probably something she would consider quite luxurious, especially after sleeping in a cave for months. A pillow would have made her quiver with happiness, a pillow and a blanket, and she wouldn't know what to do with herself. A whole bed, and she was saved from speechless babbling by the doctor entering the room.
The doctor glanced Thanael over and decided quickly that he was not the patient. He glanced Louhi over. A mage. An oddly dressed one at that. "What seems to be the trouble with this one?" He asked Thanael. Mages often arrived with any assortment of ailments and it was easier to simply ask their Mordecai than it was to attempt to sort through it for himself-- of course he still had to examine them, but he at least had a starting point.
Louhi tried not to eye the doctor suspiciously, but she got the distinct impression he was not fond of her and then quickly dropped her eyes submissively to her lap before anyone had a chance to repremand her for eyeballing a superior. Her eyes however, changed from blue, to storm cloud grey.
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Thanael found it irritating that the doctor did not show respect for him but did not act accordingly. The doctor probably considered himself unbound to the military because he was in a different faculty.
'She has just been rescued from the desert and has been injected with an anti-mage serum,' Thanael explained. 'She's suffering from severe sunburn and has wounded legs. She has apparently been cripple for much her life. She has a headache, I do not know to what severity and may also have other injuries she has not told me about yet. She needs to be brought up to regulation conditions. What other information do you require?'
Louhi visibly shrank back from the doctor, just as she did with every other person she had met. How would she be in battle if she was afraid of a doctor? Perhaps offering to be her Mordecai had been a mistake. He had done it now so he would go through with it. It would not look good on his record if he changed his mind so shortly after his last mage had been a failure.
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The doctor nodded. It had been a long day for him so far and he had been a little slow on noticing the insignia on the uniform, but once he'd gotten his answer, he offered a salute. "Thank you sir" he said, albeit a bit wearily. He turned to look Louhi over.
Louhi obediently sat still, looking up just enough to see that Thanael was still in the room.
The doctor pinched the skin on her hand, lifting it up and watching it return to it's normal flat state. "She's very dehydrated, has she been given any fluids yet?" She didn't even seem to have a chart yet. He glanced over the sunburn. That could be fixed easily with a healing mage, but it wasn't helping her dehydration. He suspected she might be overheated as well. He moved down to her leg, simply moving the skirt up out of the way and feeling the apparent 'good' leg over. "This leg is in sound state" He commented to Thanael, hesitating at touching the other one. It looked as if it had been melted, and was admittedly, extremely unattractive. It had been awhile since he'd seen a scar like this-- after all, healing mages simply fixed things, he didn't see scars looking of ruined plastic.
Louhi's face went beet red with shame and humiliation, but she didn't bury her face in her hands like she wanted to, she remained positioned as she was, and refused to allow herself to cry.
The doctor gingerly felt the leg over. "This break is old" The doctor commented. "It has been left to heal incorrectly on it's own." He scribbled something down on an electronic pad. "Take her down to get scanned. It's difficult to tell where that leg is broken since it's healing over. Once she's scanned, a healing mage should be able to fix her up for the most part, then just some rest and lots of fluids."
Louhi was trying to politely, and without drawing attention to herself, drag her dress back down over her legs. She hadn't been given permission, but she felt naked with her legs exposed, but then in her upbringing, revealing an ankle could be considered indecent. Having her entire leg up to the thigh exposed was extreme, especially in the presence of two men.
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Thanael's respect for the doctor increased when he saluted. Thanael saluted in turn before replying. 'She was given a small amount of food and water on the trip here but has not had anything since. You are the first one to attend to her since arriving.' He had done some basic first aid on her but that had been nothing more than making sure she didn't get any worse.
This was the first time he had seen her entire leg uncovered so he immediately understood why she had trouble walking. In retrospect, he should have gotten her a wheelchair before going to report or take her to the hospital. He was not a cruel person and he would not have been upset with her if she had asked for help but perhaps she had had the injuries so long that she nolonger considered them a problem worth mentioning.
She shouldn't have been so embarrassed about it though. Wounds were not something to be humiliated about, they just needed to be healed before they got worse... if these wounds could get worse.
'Thank you doctor,' Thanael said before offerring the girl his arm. 'Come on Louhi. Will you need a wheelchair the rest of the way?' he asked. She had done a great deal of walking so shortly after being stranded in the desert.
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The doctor marked something else on his electronic pad. "They'll hook her up to fluids then, give her something to drink, get her dehydration to something easily managed. Her skin is very fair, she may be prone to burn and dehydration, something to be cautious of." The doctor commented "Otherwise, it looks like her leg is the only other problem. She's fairly healthy for being found in the desert. Maybe a little malnourished, but that should quickly remedy itself under your care."
Louhi struggled to understand what they were talking about, even as she tried to keep up with their conversation-- which was probably considered evesdropping, but it was about her, and no one seemed to be likely to actually talk to her about her own treatment, so this was how she decided she'd probably stay informed.
Scans? What were scans? Procedures you hadn't a clue about always seemed to sound more ominous than ones you were familiar with.
She obediently took his arm and slid off the bed. "Wheelchair?" That sounded straight forward enough to her, though why she needed one, she didn't understand. Chairs with wheels were for people who could not walk. Even when her leg had first been broken, she'd been on crutches. Only the crippled rich had chairs with wheels. "No, I think not. I have my stick" She lifted it slightly. "Are we going far?" Perhaps that should have been the first question, but it seemed unlikely they'd have to leave the hospital to get treatment, so logically, it shouldn't be such a long walk.
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Thanael had the feeling that the doctor didn't find Louhi's burns to be of importance. 'You are perhaps forgetting her burns, Doctor. You may find other Mordecai that enjoy having their mages in pain but I prefer mine to be be comfortable. I would prefer not to have extra strain on the girl,' he said tersely. 'I don't suppose you could have the healing mage fix that as well?'
He noticed that Louhi appeared to be concentrating on what they were saying. She was doing a very good job of it too, her previous masters must not have liked her listening in because she was good at hiding her eavesdropping. He paid her no heed however, it meant that there would be less to explain later on and her ability to take in detail would be useful later on.
As soon as he considered Louhi to be steadied he removed his arm and placed it to his side. He waited patiently for the doctor to answer him and direct him to which ward they were being sent to.
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"Which burns? The sun burns, or the scars on her leg? The mage will heal whatever the scans find, and if you feel he has missed something, feel free to direct his attention." Fixing 'the leg' should also include the scars over it. "The mage will be in the third ward, waiting for you, it's just down the hall there." The doctor explained, writing furiously on his little electronic tablet. Most Mordicai were not so protective and insistant about the care of the mages.
Louhi was struggling to understand and feeling she completely lacked the ability to do so. She waited patiently at his side, still pondering what a scan meant. She looked up to Thanael. This was definately an interesting place. She felt she could stay there forever and still never know everything about it, or even what went on in it.
She wasn't sure she really dared to hope that they would fix her leg. It'd be nice to be able to run and frollick and feel no pain while doing it. She glanced up again. Though she doubted there was much running and frollicking to be had given that she was once again a servant-- which she didn't particularly mind, but she did want to know what it was to frollick.
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Thanael nodded. He man didn't exactly answer his question but he supposed if the medical team did not find the sunburn worth healing, he could always ask specifically for it to be healed. Her headache too may turn up on her scans. He gave a quick salute before leaving the room, ushering Louhi to do the same.
'Is there a problem, Louhi?' he asked. She seemed nervous and was glancing up at him an awful lot. It would be so much easier once they were bonded; f she had a query she would be able to ask it without speaking out of turn. 'You may speak freely.'
Thanael walked at a slow to steady pace down the hall toward where the doctor had indicated. It would be interesting to see what the scans picked up, purely for the reason that he believed that the mage was downplaying her pain. He had not experienced prolonged pain before but classes had taught him that pain was partially an emotional reaction. Accepting pain was supposed to make it "hurt" less.
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"What are scans?" She asked "Will they hurt? Do they have to cut me?" In her experience, doctors generally caused some sort of pain, even if it was in her best interest. She trailed him down the hall, keeping pace with no apparent trouble. "I don't understand the word in its current context"
Ward 3 was indeed not far down the hall. The door opened before them, revealing a rather imposing machine.
Louhi shrunk down almost against him, but did not allow herself to touch his side as that could be considered inappropriate. It looked like the machine was used to swallow patients and she could see feet poking out of the 'mouth'. She glanced at the lights, glad they weren't going haywire on her. Having her powers suppressed was surprisingly nice.
A rather short mage with a tag that read "Foaley" approached them, saluting Thanael. He'd been alerted by the doctor that they were coming. "Here for the scan, right? Come in please" Medical mages had to do a little talking. Louhi, with her twelve-year-old's body was taller than he was by about an inch. He looked her over a moment, taking in her posture. "Would you care to help her onto the scanning table Sir? Or would you prefer I send for someone?" She was not in a state to jump onto the table, and he was not likely to be tall enough to lift her up, but Thanael certainly was.
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Thanael sighed. She was anxious about everything. That was going to be a lot of work to resolve. He had said he would claim her and he would. If not because she was an interesting case then because he had said he would. 'Scans do exactly that, scan. They do not go beneath the surface. Most are able to go below the body without needing to. I do not know what scans they will be using but rest assured, they will not be invasive. They will probably be some sort of imaging device,' he explained.
In truth he did not know what was in store for her or how physical damage was analysed. It was possible that machinery had been adapted to work with magecraft, much like the headband she would wear.
Thanael pushed the girl forward slightly when she shrank back. 'Stand up straight girl. There is no need to shrink back into me,' he ordered, his voice was not harsh but it was not gentle either. He had simply not expected her to be afraid of a machine, they were so common to him he rarely took any notice of them.
Thanael nodded to the mage in response to the salute. Mages were not human so did not need to be saluted to. He followed the mage to the scanning table, showing as much care towards him as he did towards the equipment in the room. 'I believe I can manage on my own, he said before turning to Louhi. 'I am going to scoop you up now.' He then proceeded to do so without a thought to how she would feel about it.
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With his order to stand up straight, she did so, putting forth no protest when he picked her up to place her on the table that would feed her to the 'scanner'. She still had no idea what that meant, and it seemed he did not care to explain it in a language that she understood. He continued to explain stuff as if she were already familiar with modern machines.
She managed to plaster on her 'servant' face to hide her fear. He had said to stand up straight and not shrink, which she took to mean, not be afraid, but she wasn't good at magically making herself not afraid...but she could pretend she wasn't.
Foaley set about undoing her boots. He didn't recognize the material they were made from and so wasn't sure what they might show up as on the scanner, plus, he didn't want them to hide any problems. Feet were important parts of keeping a body in comfortable working order. "Lay down" He said to Louhi, pushing on her shoulder a little to guide her onto her back. "Keep your arms at your sides, eyes closed and don't move. It'll make some noises, but just hold still." With that, he pushed a button and the table slid into the machine.
Louhi's breath caught in her throat. She wasn't really ready to be encased in a giant contraption, but she remained frozen in place, hardly breathing for fear her chest would move too much in the process.
It was nearly fifteen minutes later the table slid back out. Foaley shook her shoulder when she didn't move "You can sit up now" He informed, going over to a screen on the side of the machine. He looked a little perplexed. "Well, the sunburn over her exposed skin is a fairly strong sunburn, but fairly minor as an injury. That can be fixed easily by a healing mage of almost any level. However" He said, poking at the touch screen and examining different portions of it. "I've never seen a leg broken like that before. I've seen arms though" He hit a couple more buttons and a picture appeared, suspended in the air in front of the machine. There were spiral cracks running all the way up her leg. "Usually, breaks like these are seen in the arms of small or young humanoids and are generally caused by a stronger humanoid grabbing them roughly with a twist" A diagram of an arm being twisted appeared in a smaller screen within the image of her fractured leg. "How it happens to a leg, I'm not sure, but that's harder to heal, especially since the majority of the skin on this leg also needs to be fixed." He explained "Otherwise, she's exceptionally healthy for being found in the desert. Dehydrated and malnourished, which maybe why she has that headache, or it could be a reaction to the magic suppressant, power building up and such." He was looking through a complicated list of chemical compounds on his screen now. "She does seem to have a rather severe iron deficiency though, low on calcium...and a lot of her other vitamins as well, though fresh foods will fix most of that. I would recommend keeping her injected with iron and calcium though, at least for a couple of months until her levels stay on their own." He poked through more screens and raised his eyebrow. "You may want to have her cleaned too. She has elevated levels of toxins." He looked a little suspiciously at her and typed something into the computer, creating a print out for Thaneal. It had all the details he had mentioned, along with the technical jargon the healing mages would use, but at the bottom, under the toxin list were the words - common to Tiener. No other place he'd ever come across had that same mix of terrible air, bad water and toxic or semi-toxic plant life.
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Thanael sighed and ran a hand through his mousy blonde hair. She still didn't seem to understand. 'Scans look at different problems someone might have. This machine is going to take pictures of inside your body to see what the problems are. Do you understand this time?' he asked calmly. He was trying to remain patient with her because she seemed awkward enough as it was. He imagined it would be terrifying seeing technology for the first time. He did not want this mage to turn out a disaster as well.
Thanael listened to the mage speak and inspected the holographic diagrams. He wasn't surprised by anything the mage said. It fitted in well with what Louhi had described to him back on the ship. He nodded and read the piece of paper without speaking. There wasn't very much that needed saying and anything important would go in his report later. To most people it would sound implausible that a mage popped up in the middle of the desert from millennia ago.
Once he finished reading it he looked up and said, 'I will have her where she needs to be at each day at 0830 hours. Would it be possible to have this information sent to my files along with historical information on Earth's toxin levels and a nutrition plan for her?'
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"Of course" Foaley said, tapping away at the screen for several moments before giving a nod. "It should be set, though if you'd like to get her started, there is a healing mage available one ward over." Obviously, the scanning room couldn't be taken up for extended periods with things totally un-related to scanning. He'd get in trouble. "They can get some fluids into her while they work" He offered, waiting for a response. "Or I can just leave all the appointments set up for 0830 each morning, starting tomorrow." He did want the Mordicai happy.
Louhi was quiet, but seemed a little less terrified now that the machine had caused her no apparent harm. She was almost curious now, and her eyes slowly changed from grey to lavender as she sat patiently, feeling rather stupid and clueless, though her hand rested selfconsciously on her leg.
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It was good that there was someone available, it meant that he could start initiating her by this afternoon. 'I would like to get her started and yes, I would appreciate getting fluids into her now as well as 0830 hours tomorrow. Will you be organising the arrangements or should I let the mages in the next ward know?' Thanael asked. 'Is that all?'
He looked down at Louhi, she seemed so small and helpless; nobody would suspect she wasn't human just by looking at her. 'Louhi, before we go are there any other pains or problems you can think of?' he asked. It would be so much easier when he could just access her mind rather than having to repeat himself. She had obvious hesitancies admitting she had problems and he had to keep coaxing her into saying anything.
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"No, it's all in the computer" He assured easily. "But if you have further instructions once you get over there, by all means let them know." He assured, climbing down and starting the cleaning system for the machine. "Yes sir, that is all" He assured, going about his job.
Louhi looked up at him. "No sir, none that I can think of. My leg is generally the only thing that bothers me." There was that iron deficiency that made her crave strange things like bloody red meat, but she of course had no idea what that was and she hadn't had to deal with it recently enough that she actually had forgotten about it for the time being, but it was likely to come up again. She rose from her seat, thinking that they were probably moving on to the next 'ward' and whatever it was they were supposed to do in there.
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Thanael nodded and turned to leave, indicating to Louhi as he did. It was good that she was able to look up at her after going through the machine. Hopefully now she was beginning to accept that nobody was going to hurt her.
He went up to a nurse in the larger ward and waited for her to salute him before repeating the gesture to her. 'Master Sergeant Thanael Harbour, I'm here to admit this mage for healing. The details should already have been patched through,' he stated.
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Louhi followed lightly, trying not to let her stick clunk on the hard floors as she walked. She was trying to resign herself to his care. He was her master, she would obey. It was less scary when she didn't give herself the option of balking at a procedure. It was mostly a matter of falling back into that mindset of a servant after being on her own for awhile.
The nurse salluted. "Yes sir, they were patched through." There seemed to be quite a little team of mages waiting for her. "Are you staying? or would you like to pick her up later when we're finished?"
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Thanael looked down at the mage before answering, 'I will remain with her in case I am required. I have work I can do while I wait, was there anything else you wished form me? Thankyou.'
'Louhi, the mages are going to heal you and give you a nutrient injection,' he explained. He felt like he was talking to a small child and was possibly coming off patronising. Well, she hadn't understood much so far so if she was offended by it, he would gladly apologise. 'As I have said before, you're not going to be harmed so there is no need for you to be afraid.'
Thanael waited to see if his input was further required before setting himself down. Once the mages had got to work he would check his portable device to see if the files had come through yet. He had not known many of the toxins the scans had found so he was going to look them up in the medical database.
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Things went smoothly for quite awhile while she was bio-sterilized, de-toxed, injected, IVed and then the mages set to healing. Things went fine until they tried to cure her leg. Sparks as from a downed powerline exploded outward, knocking one of the mages quite a bit backwards while sending Louhi off the other direction. She smacked at her leg as if putting out a fire, barely containing the panic that accompanied the feeling of being burned. She shakily looked her hands over. They were not burned, though there were several holes through her skirt. She was afraid to move now. Surely someone was going to be furious that she'd managed to break something.
"Hey! It says she was given the represent, it shouldn't do that!" One of the mages protested while the others picked up their fallen associate.
"She WAS given it, it showed up in her blood work."
"It must have worn off"
"No, look, this was taken within the hour. She's still got another good couple of hours left before it'll wear off."
"Then what in the hell just happened?"
"Run her through the complete scan."
"We just did that."
"No, that was the complete medical scan. Do the other one."
"What other one!?"
"The complete scan, it scans for magic too"
"Come on, don't put her through that stupid contraption, just call Archimedes down here, he'll tell you faster than anyone else if she's got exploding magic."
"Fine, call him."
The mages finally went to pick Louhi up off the floor.
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Thanael picked up Louhi's walking stick and placed it in her hands. He put a firm hand on her shoulder and stood partially between her and the mages. 'Louhi, are you okay?' he asked in a soft tone. He didn't want to scare her but he was not impressed with the mages and the medical ward.
'I apologise for not telling you her history but wounds like hers do not come about naturally. I will not allow you to touch her again until you are sure of what is wrong,' she said before turning back to Louhi. 'I am sorry that happened. Go sit down while I talk to the doctor,' he paused and looked at her leg. 'Do you need assistance getting to a chair?'
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Louhi's heart was jumping all over the place, leaving her feeling a little queasy and light headed. She took her stick and slowly rose to her feet. "No, sir" She managed to get out, heading for the indicated chair and trying not to shake. Being thrown across the room and feeling like you were lit on fire again was a scary experience, and she was trying to refuse to let herself cry, but wasn't entirely sure it would work.
"Go get Archimedes!" the head mage snapped at one of the underlings before asking very politely. "Sir, do you know how these wounds came about?" There was nothing inherently magical about the injury itself. Heat and force applied to a fragile body. Fairly simple and straight forward.
The underling mage took off quickly and returned before long with an older, much more experienced mage. He'd gotten the rather babbled story from his messenger, but entered the room cautiously and glanced around. He came to stand near Thanael with a salute. The mage had explained he forbade touching Louhi until they figured out the problem.
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Thanael looked down at Louhi, who looked like she was about to break. He sighed and put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her nerves. She would be of no use if something this simple caused her to give way.
'An old ritual for killing mages. Her leg was burnt but I believe they would have healed by now if they had been normal wounds,' Thanael explained.
Thanael was unsure whether Archimedes was a mage or not but he did not appear to be so Thanael simply nooded to him. 'What is it you wish done to the girl?' he asked straight out. He didn't want anything else going wrong.
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"Her leg was also broken" The mage with the electronic clipboard commented, and that was where her pain seemed to come from. The scaring just seemed to make her selfconscious.
"I simply wish to read her, see if there is magic on her" The older one explained. "It will cause her no harm and will not interact if there is magic."
Being thrown across the room was nothing for Louhi. It was simply the sensation of being burned again that sent her nearly into a panic. Broken bones were of couse unpleasant, but those she could deal with also. Fire in lamps did not bother her, fire on candles, did not bother her, burning her leg, that was what scared her. She drew a deep breath, trying to calm down and be a good servant. She feared she was trying his patience and didn't really want to be handed off to someone else. He seemed reasonable where the other man she had met had not.
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Thanael nodded, 'yes. The mage who did the other scan said it was an unusual break.'
'I am sorry but that healing wasn't meant to harm her either,' he sighed. Without turning to look at her he said in a calm, almost reassuring voice, 'Louhi, I will leave the choice up to you. We don't need to do this today or at all.'
The mage had probably had enough for today but he would let her decide her fate. He didn't want to put her through any more undue stress when she looked so small and frightened. It was little wonder too; she'd been popped through time and space, captured and scanned.
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Louhi looked at the older one. The prospect of having her leg healed was appealing.
"Just reading, like words on a page. I wont' even touch a thing." The older man said soothingly. "From there, maybe we can figure out what caused the sparks."
Louhi drew a deep breath and thought about it a moment. "If you're sure" She finally said.
Archimedes nodded. "Alright then, just sit still and breath slowly." He closed his eyes, gently reading over her in general before coming to her leg. His brow furrowed. "There's a...curse on it" He said, for lack of a better word. "Old, strong magic. Angry, vengeful." He opened his eyes.
"Sir, the leg cannot be healed without the magic being countered, and I don't know of anyone who can counter such a spell as this, so as it stands now, she can either have her leg stay the way it is, or the nerves leading into her leg can by physically deadened. That will stop the pain, but her leg will be completely without feeling."
Louhi tried to follow what was going on without moving and while breathing slowly. She was quite curious about some of the processes, though she thought she knew how the 'curse' had gotten on her leg.
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Thanael was unsure what to do but did not want to show it. If they deadened the girl's leg then she certainly would be considered more of a hindrance. 'How about amputation?' he asked finally. 'Will the curse interact with amputation? We could give her a prosthetic instead.'
No, they wouldn't do that, he thought. She's too new and I've already had one failed mage. It was a pity they wouldn't trust him to do that. It would save both of them a lot of hassle.
'Very well. If you are totally sure it will not trigger the "curse" I will allow you to deaden only the over-reactive or inflamed nerves,' he decided.
There were two types of physical pain, one caused by pain receptors and one caused by over-firing of other receptors such as cold, heat, pressure and light. With the higher degree of technology that this age had, surely there would be some form of probe that would be able to kill individual neurons once they reached the lower back before they reached the spinal cord.
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Louhi's eyes went wide and crystal blue. She definitely knew the word 'amputation' though she wasn't sure what 'deadening' nerves was about. It had the word 'dead' in it, so she was not overly optimistic.
Archimedes nodded "Alright, prep her for the procedure." He ordered the mages, who began scampering around and retrieving various bits of equipment along with one of the micro surgeons. "We'll be working on the nerves above the curse." he assured Thanael.
Louhi found herself being stripped down and put into a hospital gown--which was far too short for her liking. It barely reached her knees when she was sitting. She knew better than to fight at least, though she had to draw a deep breath and hold it a moment to keep herself appearing calm. She'd never seen an amputation done, but she'd heard the screams from the surgeon-barber's shop down the road.
"Alright, let's get down to business" The surgeon said briskly. "Can we sedate it? This is delicate work and could be ruined if she moves."
Archimedes looked up to Thanael. "Has she shown any adverse reactions to anything else you've given her so far?" From what he'd read on the chart, she'd only been given fluids and vitamins while at the hospital.
-
Thanael was surprised and impressed by how well she was handling it. So far she had been frightened by almost everything but she was very... resigned to her treatment. Perhaps he no longer needed to explain things to her, she understood that she wasn't going to be harmed - at least intentionally.
'She had not shown any adverse symptoms until she was put into the healing machine. And yes, of course I want her sedated,' he said.
He had heard of other Mordecai ordering procedures done without and pain killers but he found that heinous. The mage rarely deserved the treatment and it made them weaker in the long run, too scared to defend themselves or act without permission. Sometimes they just broke all together. It was a complete waste of resources.
'Louhi, are you well?' he asked, just making sure.
-
"I don't know what deadening means, but if you think it best, then very well sir." She was trying to buck up as best she could, but she was not convinced that deadening did not still include the loss of her leg and while having her leg broken had been painful, and having it burned even more so, she could not fathom what it might feel like to have someone saw her limbs off.
"I'm well enough" She managed in a mostly steady voice, self consciously trying to tug the little gown lower over her legs, though it did no good.
"Good then. Strap it down" The surgeon ordered, motioning mages around while he prepared the sedative and unceremoniously injected it.
Louhi was surprised and gave a soft yelp as the needle jabbed her. That was a strange sensation. Her head suddenly felt like it was floating and she could see the mages taking hold of her arms and legs and strapping her to a table. She couldn't move, and while that scared her to no end, she couldn't really react to it either, but she could still see Thanael for now and was trying to trust his judgement, or at least resign herself to his judgement since she had had no masters so far worthy of true trust.
A map of the nerves in her leg was drawn up. The majority of them were inflamed, rapidly firing or pinched it seemed, but then nearly her entire leg was involved with the problem. They set to work, finding and essentially turning off each busy nerve, leaving enough to let the leg continue to function, but with limited sensation.
"She'll be rather out of it for awhile, but if you'd like to take her home, you may, or we can arrange for her to stay here." They could bring her right out of it, but it was generally accepted that leaving her chemically paralyzed and allowing time for the chemical to wear off on its own yielded better results for the nerves.
-
Thanael nodded and tried to reassure the girl. 'I do think it best. If the mages oblige, it will not be painful,' he gave the doctor a meaningful look. He did not want her harmed. What he said next was partially for the doctor's benefit. 'They are only going to stop the feelings of pain that you already have, nothing more. Try to remain calm.'
Thanael stood off to the side to allow the mages and doctor to work, but not so far off that Louhi couldn't see him. They would be a constant presence in eachother's lives so she needed to know that he would watch over her as well as control her powers.
'There is no need to be so harsh, if you please,' he said as they strapped her down and injected her with the anaesthetic.
Thanael watched as they worked and came up to inspect Louhi once they'd finished. It appeared to have worked but he would not know for sure until the chemicals wore off.
'I will take her with me,' he said. 'After what she has been through here I would prefer her to be elsewhere.'
-
"Very good sir, I'll have the computers release her then." One of them said. "Do you require a gurney for her, or an escourt home?" Moving an unconscious mage wasn't nessicarily an easy thing, though she was small enough, he could probably just carry her if he wanted to. "She'll just need a little extra supervision until she's used to the way her leg feels now. She may have trouble walking the first day or two." He warned.
Louhi was limp in her little hospital gown, only the tiniest bit of awareness remaining with her.
-
'A gurney or an escort, whichever is easiest for you,' he answered. 'When can I expect the chemicals to wear off?'
Thanael nodded, 'that is fine. I did not expect her to learn so fast. I have other things I will need to teach her first.' He was of course referring to the use of her magic. She needed to learn to control it else she would continue to be a hazard to herself. Now that she was in the military, she would also be a hazard to the country if not controlled.
There was also her lack of knowledge to attend to. Many Mordecai thought that having an educated mage meant they were more likely to desert. Though this was true for more brutal Mordecai, Thanael found that small amounts of kindness worked far better and meant that the mage would be better adapted in the field. It was all a matter of balance. How much liberty did you give the mage verses how well they performed. A restricted mage only had limited usefulness.
-
"Of course Sir" He said, typing something into his little computer. It wasn't long before a gurney arrived, ready to transport the little mage at Thanael's command.
"It should wear off in a few hours unless she is particularly sensitive to it, then she may sleep through the night. He had seen mages who were so resistant to the compound that it held them under barely long enough to get most of the procedure finished.
Louhi could hear them talking vaguely, but couldn't focus enough to understand anything more than they were talking about her. She wasn't exactly scared yet, but if her mind woke up before her body did, she very well might be. Her leg didn't hurt though, that was kind of nice, but then again, she couldn't feel her body due to the chemicals.
"Alright you three, grab the corners of the sheet, careful now, we don't want to damage it." He chided before counting "One, two....three" The transfered her over to the gurney. "I can have someone pick it up another day, or it can simply be returned when you bring her in for her first series of injections." he explained, refering to the gurney. It was hospital property, they did need it back.
-
Thanael waited for them to prepare Louhi for the move then accepted the gurney. He picked up her clothes too and placed them over her legs. 'In this age we do not have qualms about showing our legs. I would appreciate it if you came to terms with them when you have recovered both physically and mentally,' he said to her.
'Thankyou for your care of the young mage. I shall return this when we come tomorrow,' he said before giving a polite nod and leaving.
'Try to get some sleep. If anything happens I will be nearby but I have a report to write,' he said. Thanael pushed her along, down the halls to his room. For the rest of the trip there he remained silent, taking as much notice of her as if she were a piece of electrical equipment.
Once he got to his room he commanded the door to open, then shut again as he moved Louhi against the wall. She would rise when she was able.
-
Louhi wasn't really aware of what he said and did indeed drift off to sleep before they'd gotten to his rooms. It was hours later when she finally opened her eyes groggily and then simply laid there, trying to make sense of what she felt. Her eyes opened a little more and she gazed around the room without moving, trying to locate Thanael. He seemed to be busy writing something. She knew better than to bother masters while they were writing. She shifted, feeling a little nausious from the after effects of the chemicals, but was surprised when she couldn't sit up. She made a soft noise, mostly to test and make sure her vocals still worked. Apparently, she wasn't fully out from under it yet. Trying not to yawn, she attempted to make sense of the place they were in, glad her clothes were piled on top of her legs. That made her feel more secure.
It was nearly an hour after that she finally had sensation in her good leg. She wasn't sure what to make of what she felt in her 'bad' leg. It didn't hurt, but it was definately different. She wasn't even sure it would move if she asked it to.
She considered speaking and opened her mouth to do so, only to find her mouth was too dry, which nearly threw her into a fit of coughing. She couldn't allow that, it would disturb him.
-
Thanael couldn't leave his room unless the girl woke and panicked so instead he typed up the report of his surveillance. He went through his files to look at all the data the doctors had collected. He wondered if he needed to book her in for physiotherapy. He'd need to do it after the headbanding so he could keep an eye on her while he did other work.
He started another report detailing all he had been able to glisten from Louhi. While he was doing so, he realised he still had a lot to learn about her. It would be good when he could go through her mind and find what he needed.
He finished both the reports, sent electronic copies to the relevant authorities and started pacing. The girl still seemed to be asleep, which was good. Hopefully she would last the night so she would be in a diurnal sleeping pattern.
He glanced over at Louhi for perhaps the third time in an hour and noticed that she was trying to move. 'Settle, you should not be straining yourself,' he said calmly. 'Can you speak? If you can, tell me how you are feeling.'
-
Louhi obediently stopped trying to move. "Thirsty" She admitted hoarsely, but did not ask for water. She tried to clear her throat and bring up a little siliva to moisten her mouth. "My leg doesn't hurt, but it feels strange" But then, considering it had had constant pain for an undetermined number of years, not having pain probably was a strange feeling. "It reminds me of when I would sit in one position too long, and then try to get up without letting all the feeling come back to my legs." It wasn't entirely numb, there was some sensation in it, but it was significantly dulled compared to her other leg.
She still felt rather drowsey and would probably still manage to sleep the night once she went back to sleep, but for now, she was awake and trying to make sense of everything.
-
'Stay here.'
Thanael went to get some water and any food that would be soft enough for her to swallow.
'I have never needed any mages healked like this so I am not sure what you should be feeling. It sounds like it's working though. When you feel strong enough, we will try getting you to walk,' he said. Thanael paused before putting a straw in the water and passing it to her. 'I apologise for being harsh with you while around the medical staff. It will get more comfortable as you acclimatise to your work.'
'Is there anything you wish to know kow that we are out of the main areas?' he asked. 'In here, you are safe to ask anything aloud. Once we are mindbound, we will be able to speak more dirrectly.'
-
Louhi gratefully accepted the water, but drank it carefully and at a reasonable pace. It wouldn't do to make herself choke on something as simple as water while in front of him.
"I am curious what my duties will be" SHe admitted "Though if you rather, I can simply learn as I am introduced to them." She was not willing, or perhaps even able to ask forcefully, instead willing to defer to her master every time, which was usually in her favor.
"As well as expected behavior. For example, my first mistress was a firm believer in servants being seen and not heard, only speak when spoke to and those sorts of things, my second master, he wanted to teach me things, but I never managed to really understand what was expected of me. It changed constantly with his mood." She admitted. After the second master, she'd had a friend who was not a master, but had instead taught her important things, like what lightbulbs were and not to be afraid of automobiles. "I'd like to know what you expect of me, so I may please you." She did want to be a good servant..or mage, as he put it.
-
Thanael pulled up a chair and sat near her - close enough so that he could catch her if she fell and far enough away so that she wouldn't feel intimidated. He waited patiently while she drank and watched her. He noted that she drank slowly: she was no fool who bowed into probable cravings for water.
'First, you will be fitted with a headband so we can hear eachother's thoughts, then comes the task of training you,' he rubbed his hand through his hair. From what he'd seen, she couldn't control herself yet, which meanmt he'd be out of action for even longer. You will have to do as I say and speak when I say. Edanith is a tough place to live for mages and many of the other Mordecai expect total obedience.'
'Another mage may be asked to help you with your magical training but I will be teaching you to read our language, customs and some history. The more you know about who I work for, the better you will be able to serve me.'
Come to think of it, he hadn't checked to see if she could read their language. It was surprising enough that she spoke it. Without speaking again, he rose and picked up his laptop. He placed it on her lap and opened her file. 'If you can focus, try reading this. I don't care if you don't understand the topic. I just want to know that you can read the words.'
-
Sharing a mind seemed like it would definately speed up communication and simplify the relation ship between mage and master. It was something she had never considered someone actively seeking through. She had shared mental thoughts many times with her second master and her friend, but they had not been linked by anything but special abilities or strange magics. "A headband?" That seemed simple-- too simple maybe. "Will I have garments I am expected to wear?" She hadn't quite mastered the word/concept match up of uniforms.
Louhi shifted cautiously to peer at the words a moment. She had learned to read and write from her second master, but this was not the same language. "I do not recognize it" She admitted. "But I believe with some instruction, I could learn, if you'd like me to." She was well aware sometimes not being able to read was the desireable situation. Ignorant slaves were more easily cowed into obedience seemed to be the common view.
"I learned to read one of the old earth languages." She did wonder if her friend was still alive. He had been a bit unusual himself. He'd actually been there when her second master was, before she'd been thrown through time. However, considering they were no longer confined to the same planet, finding him seemed highly unlikely even if he was still around. Besides, she had a new master now, no time for friends.
-
'Yes. A headband will be attached to your head so that we can communicate. It is an invasive procedure but it will not hurt nor affect your otherwise. I have mine in my desk but there is no need of it while I have no mage.'
While he was still up he collected a metalic circlet from his desk and turned it around in his fingers. There were inscriptions and lines across it where pieces of silvery metal met. After wiping it slightly with a cloth from his pocket Thanael passed Louhi the headband.
'Uniforms are not required but I do prefer you to wear one while in my service. The clothes you currently have will do for now but they are improplerly styled for function. I will look into getting you new ones.' Yet another thing he added to his mental to-do list. Hopefully whatever powers she had would be worth his curiosity.
Thanael nodded and moved picked up the computer. With one hand he clicked a few buttons and typed something on the screen. He found a document written in Aedolisian script. Seeings as that was where people came from, it was logical that they would have an older writing system than Edani. If she could, that would make her worth double, perhaps more.
'Here, try reading this instead,' he said as he placed the laptop back on her lap.
-
Honestly, Louhi was a little apprehensive about what sort of uniform he might come up with, but as with anything, she was sure she'd get used to it eventually. The idea of wearing pants wasn't even so bad, as long as she didn't have to run around half naked with her legs showing-- despite his assurances legs were perfectly fine things to show. It was hard to instantly reset a mindset locked in a person's culture and upbringing.
Shyly, she wiped her hands against her garments to make sure they were as clean as possible before carefully accepting the headband. "Will mine look like yours?" She thought it pretty, but then in her view, silver was something confined mostly to finery of sorts, either jewelry, ornamentation or silverware-- all things worn by masters and mistresses, not 'the help'.
Her powers had lured the attentions of men more than once. It was entirely possible he would find her powers quite worth his trouble-- though the mastery of her powers would be a journey the two of them would walk together. She was still trying to figure out just what her powers were since they seemed inconsistent and somewhat on an 'as needed' basis.
Louhi peered at the lettering, considering it. It was indeed more familiar, and the lettering was at least the same. Her lips slowly moved as she read over the screen, discovering she could read at least parts of it. It wasn't entirely the same, but it was close enough that with a little thought and effort, she was making it out. It had been quite a while since she'd even seen printed letters in any language. She'd been living in a cave before the toxic monster thing had tried to eat her and forced her to involuntarily teleport in an effort to save herself.
She looked up, trying not to seem too eager. "I can read this, but I am out of practice, and not extremely fluent." She admitted. She was more than willing to let him know she wasn't a great reader. She'd hardly had lessons reading. Her lessons had been in copying books. There was no reading required in that, though it had become more interesting as she realized what it was she was copying-- though it also confirmed she was working for a psychopathic, murdering mad-man, though, at the time, she had needed one, as much as she hated to admit it. She had needed him and his regular supply of blood. At her home, she'd been called at witch and nearly burned at the stake. Her second master, had called her a vampire-- which was logical considering she craved blood when her iron got low enough, and now, she was called a mage. Somehow, only her True Vampire friend had seen her simply as Louhi, not Louhi, the witch, Louhi the blood-sucker, or Louhi the mage. She was Louhi, his friend.
Louhi faltered half a second as she brushed the memory of him away. She was determined to put her past behind her, though she often did miss her vampire friend-- more than her mother, point in fact. Her mother had sent her on the run. Her friend had stood up for her, protected her. It made quite a difference in her mind.
-
Thanael's idea of a good uniform would be something loose enough to move around in but not overly flowey or austantatious. It also had to be pressed so that it had stiff lines. To him, uniforms had many purposes, the greatest being that they gave off information about rank and how a person was to be addressed. You didn't see a navy officer in nurses' scrubs afterall.
For Louhi, he would prefer pants and a long-sleeved shirt. They would cover her burns and sensitive skin as well as allowing her freedom of movement. Her skirts would restrict the amount of movement she could do: no climbing or walking around in windy, sandy terrain. She had already experienced the results of that and would understand the change of fashion.
'They all look the same, the only difference is how your is attached. Once it's on you will not be able to take it off,' he said. He doubted this would worry her. She seemd good at adapting to new conditions, new masters, even if she had never been with a Mordecai before.
Thanael blinked when she said she could read the script. He hadn't actually expected that. 'Strange. I cannot even read that language well,' he said. 'Have you the ability to read any other scripts?' He continued watching her read. He would have had to use a translator or have a dictionary on hand to understand the writing.
The Mordecai watched as Louhi appeared to be day-dreaming. It must have been something uncomfartable for her to remember. He wondered what had happened to her in her life's journey. Hopefully these experiences would not inhibit her work. He had seen many mages whose fears caused impracticalities, such as one who had been in a scrape with a gun and from that point on had been afraid of any projectile. After continually cowerring every time something moved past her face, it was decided that TRIM was a better place for her.
-
How they were attatched did worry her just a little, though that was due to some rather barbaric practices she had observed over time, but so far, he had given her no reason to doubt him, so it was not a very big worry at this point-- though he had said it was invasive, and while she didn't understand what exactly that meant, it didn't sound good by any means.
"Well, I think it's an old language...it has letters like these, but they're... a little different. I haven't seen it in quite some time, though I have seen similar ones through the years." Perhaps she had, in a way, watched the evolution of the english language into these new languages littered across space. "I don't know what it is called though" They didn't walk around back in the day, knowing they spoke 'english' as opposed to whatever other language might have been around-- or at least she didn't. She had been young and never exposed to other languages until later, and by that time, english was mostly gone.
As to how she spoke whatever language it was they spoke in these parts, just being around it over time, she'd picked it up slowly but surely. She was in many ways uneducated, but she was certainly not dumb.
-
'That would be logical,' he agreed. 'This is writing from Aedolis - Earth. It is something I copied off the VCN.'
Thanael looked at the time on his laptop and sighed. It was getting late and Louhi hade had an eventful day. He was just wearing her out by keeping her up. 'As much as I would like to find out more about you, it is getting late and I plan on getting up at 5am tomorrow. Do you think you can sleep now? I shall get you some blankets and fresh clothing. If you think you can get up you can change in the bathroom.'
He pulled one of the blankets off his bed. He only kept it on there for appearences. Often he would remove his blankets before sleeping and fold them on the chair in his room. He then went to his cupboard and pulled out a ironed and folded loose shirt and a pair of slacks, also ironed. They were placed on the gurney.
-
"yes Sir, I do believe I can sleep" And if she couldn't, she would certainly give it a good try. "Would you mind handing me my walking stick there? With that, I suspect I can manage to get myself that far at least" She was certainly optomistic about the odds anyway. She hadn't tried to stand on the leg yet, but with the walking stick, she scarcely needed the leg to get around on.
"Do I have duties before you wake, Sir?" If he was getting up at 5am, it seemed likely she was getting up even earlier, though how she would ensure she did not over-sleep, she wasn't sure. Her mother had always just known what time it was and gotten her up, and then her second master hadn't really cared much about routine, but had no qualms about waking her up if she overslept, and then finally, there had been a contraption called an alarm clock, which was certainly the most reliable of the methods, there had even been one with small sticks inside so when the power ran out, it would still work. She had been quite fasinated by that, though any time there was a power outage, she was convnced she'd caused it-- which was often true. She had a knack for causing power surges and shorting out electronics as well as bursting even oil lamps, but what her power was, she couldn't tell you. She just knew it happened around her. Strange things happend. It all boiled down o her being a 'witch'.
(OOC: I appolgize if there are missing letters and funny typings. The keyboard/site is being really slow and dragging, so my letters aren't all registering and the text box keeps 'clicking' and going back to the top, so typing is interesting.)
-
Thanael did not pick up the walking stick. 'Did you wish to sleep somewhere else? I would prefer if you did not walk around until morning. I'm sure you can get changed without getting up,' he said. It was not a direct order, he just didn't think it wise for her to be moving about so soon after her operation. She could try walking in the morning.
'I get up that early so I can train. You may come with me to familiarise yourself with the area or you can stay and rest. I have no need of you until we go to the hospital. After that my application should be passed and we will be preparing you for your new life.' He had been about to say "headbanding" but he didn't want to bandy the word around like a threat. She would be afraid enough when he took her to the surgery room. Thanael did not envy what the mages went through there. He was sure that when there were no Mordecai around, the mages were given less than sufficient doses of tranquillisers an pain nedications.
-
Louhi faultered a moment. He had just said for her to change in the bathroom if she thought she could get that far, and then apparently changed his mind. "Yes sir" She said softly. Maybe he didn't want her to have a walking stick. Maybe that was the root behind it..and that did indeed make her nervous. She needed the walking stick. She'd never changed in front of a man before either and was not exactly enthusiastic about it, though she would do as she was told.
"I would like to go with you tomorrow" She said, wanting to be more familiar with things and potentually a better mage, and also was not eager to be left alone in a strange place where people didn't seem to care the mage belonged to someone else. "What sort of training do you do?" She thought of training as it pertained to horses and such.
-
OOC: Dang, my bad. *headdesk*
'I will be exercising first then weapons training before returning at 0730 hours to change and shower. In future, you will be training with me. I hope to see you walking more soundly within the month,' he explained.
Thanael turned to leave the room before she changed. He paused, realising that he hadn't said goodnight. 'I hope you sleep comfortably. If you cannot I will find something to help you,' he said. He never used sleeping tablets himself so it would be likely that the ones he did have were out of date.
-
"Yes sir" Louhi said, deciding her best bet was to listen for sounds of him getting up and assume that was close enough to 0730 hours...whatever that meant. Surely she'd get the hang of their odd time system eventually.
Within a month. That certainly sounded reasonable. She'd have to work on that. Maybe she could please him yet. For whatever reason, she still had a very strong desire to please her master, even when she was abused by them, but more so when she was not. It was almost as if she felt she needed to make up for the kindness she was being shown, as it wasn't something she assumed to be the natural attitude towards a person's 'lowers'.
"I'm sure I shall sleep fine, sir." And if she didn't, she didn't and she would sleep better the following night due to being more tired. Sleeping pills were not something she was familiar with. She had never known anyone to take them, and she herself had hardly taken medicines of any sort. "Good night, sir" She murmured, not sure if that was still an acceptable phrase, but if they were going to be getting up early, surely they would need to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
-
Thanael dimmed the lights in the room so that she would have enough light to see where she was without impeding her sleeping. He took his laptop with him as he left the room and closed the door. If she startled during the night and short-circuited everything in the room, he did not want it getting damaged.
Thanael changed into a white singlet and shorts before folding his casual clothes and placing them on his bedside table. He had only been wearing them since bringing Louhi home so they were hardly dirty and placing them in the wash would be a waste of resources.
He finished his evening routine before checking on Louhi. He kept the door open so that if she called out, he would be able to hear her. He then picked up the book he read each night and settled himself under the sheet.
-
Louhi quietly changed into the night clothes provided and settled herself onto the cot where she had been since she'd been brought from the hospital. She wasn't sure she dared to get up, even to go to the bathroom. He said for her to stay in bed, then she was required to stay in bed. That was how it worked. She'd met more than one servant who had to have permission for just about everything, personal needs included, but considering how little she had actually eaten and drank for the day, any needs she had could wait until morning when she had permission to get up and try to walk.
Thoughtfully, she flexed her toes, trying to get a sense of her foot again. It was an odd sensation to be sure, but she didn't dwell on it long, instead trying to obediently settle in and go to sleep, since those were her orders.
If she did not fall asleep quickly, she at least assumed the posture of sleep quickly with slow, even breathing, eyes closed. She didn't quite dread sleep, but it wasn't always something she enjoyed either. Fire often entered her sleep, along with her mother and her vampire friend. Some time, far into the night, she silently opened her eyes and gazed around the dimly lit room. She was grateful he had left some light for her to see by, it helped her orient herself and dispell her dreams. She sighed softly and rolled over onto her stomach, resting her chin on her hands a moment before trying to settle in again. At least with dreams occuring frequently, handling them was something she was very used to doing.
Eventually she did fall asleep again, though as time grew closer to when she would have to get up, she found herself sleeping more lightly, and even waking periodically to make sure he had not gotten up yet. Not having an alarm clock, or a set method of being woken so as not to be late made her rather nervous, largely because she had not yet learned his expectations or the consequences of failure.
-
That night Thanael dreamed. He dreamed of his new mage crying in a corner. When he went over to her she looked up and had the face of his previous one. She blinked at him in surprise then the room shattered like a lightbulb, leaving only the two of them in a blank dimension. The girl cowered away from him then burst into flames, burning his hands and face.
Thanael woke up, turned on a light and went out to the kitchenette to get a glass of water. He stopped as he left the room and went back to get a glass of apple juice as well. Neither he nor Louhi had had dinner and she was possibly feeling unwell from not eating. He was not sure how often she ate or how much. He drank the water, placed the cup on the counter then picked up a stool to rest the apple juice on. He then washed up his cup and went back to bed.
___________________ _
Thanael had other dreams but they were less interesting, less memorable. Normally he didn't care about his dreams but this one stuck in his mind as he made his way to the kitchen once more. It didn't seem to want to leave, which was starting to get on his nerves more than the dream itself had.
He looked across the bend to the gurney Louhi lay upon but she seemed fast asleep. He called her name once then turned back to the food he was preparing: wheat biscuits with banana slices. He prepared two bowls of the food then made himself a cup of coffee.
-
Louhi sat up, glancing around the room until her eyes landed on him, not entirely sure if she'd been called or not, but with a quick survey of the setting, she decided she had been called. "Yes, Sir?" She asked, eyes bright and eager to please, even though they were not as vibrant as they might be when she had her health fully restored to her.
She shifted to swing her legs off the gurney, but then stopped, recalling he had not yet given her permission to get up, nor had actually commanded her over to him, so she waited for his instructions patently. Typically, she expected to be up before the master, serving him food, not the other way around, but she would likely have to grow accustomed to the food of this new place as well. Hopefully it would set well with her, but so far, she'd been fine, or fine enough anyway. She had rarely been so ill as to let it interfere with the things that had to be done.
-
Thanael found himself puzzled by her movements. 'What is it? Do you not think you can get up?' he asked. He carried her breakfast over to her and set it next to the cup. He then carried another stool over to her and began drinking his coffee.
'Eat that. I don't know what you normally eat but from now on we'll be eating the same food,' he explained. 'I don't suppose you can cook?' Most food that he made was quick, simple and nutritious simply because he didn't have much experience until his last mage. Thanael had never trusted his previous mage to cook for him so he had had to teach himself. The creature had never adjusted to living as a slave and often tried to find ways to make Thanael's life harder. It was much of a blessing that he had been sent to TRIM.
-
"I did not have permission to get up" She said openly. Slavery was not a new concept to her. In fact, she found the idea of being completely free somehow more terrifying, though considering she was rather young, perhaps it was the allure of someone being there who actually wanted her to stay alive for a period of time. A dead slave was no good to anyone.
Louhi hardly looked her good over before obediently putting it into her mouth and eating it. It was certainly a step up from what she'd been eating before she mysteriously ended up on this planet.
"I apologize, but the answer to your question isn't as simple as it should be" She said, figuring he expected a 'yes or no' to his question of her cooking abilities. "I do have experience cooking...but I don't know how to operate your cooking machines. I learned how using..." She had to pause to recall what her vampire friend had called it. "Old fashioned wood burning stove, I think, and I was pretty good with an open fire, and then I learned again with 'gas'" She shrugged awkwardly "but there was another one, circles on the top glowed red and became very hot, but I burned everything using that one." She admitted, blushing a deep, shame-ridden red. "I imagine your cooking machines have changed a great deal since I've last seen one, but if I can master the cooking machine, I can cook." She assured, forgetting her 'place' she was usually so aware of and actually looking him in the face for once, seeming somehow hopeful.
-
'You may get up Louhi,' Thanael said with a sigh. He had forgotten that he'd need to explain his rules over again... not that his previous mage had often followed them. 'Unless I have said otherwise, you are free to say and do as you wish within this apartment. Outside the apartment you will need to ask permission or I will tell you. When we have been bonded you will ask directly through the mind-link.'
'You would have about the same experience as me in cooking then. I will show you the basics later tonight then you will do the cooking from tomorrow onwards. The hotplate is fairly simple to use and the rest goes in the oven.'
None of his cooking appliences could be seen in the kitchen. The apartment was designed so that everything folded away or shrank so that it could be placed in a drawer. The only heating applience that could be seen was the cordless kettle, which Thanael had just used to make coffee.
-
Louhi glanced at him a little uncertainly before saying "Yes, sir" glancing around the room for her walking stick. She wasn't so sure what her leg was going to do, so having a means of keeping her from falling flat on her face, other leg buckling under her was a plus. If he didn't want her to use it in public, fine, she'd find a way to manage, but in the apartment, where she could do as she wished, she wanted her first attempt at walking to be with stick in hand.
Louhi nodded "alright" She said, leaning slightly to peer into the kitchen, though she couldn't really see it from where she was. It was probably better that she couldn't. It looked so unlike a kitchen she was used to, it'd probably just make her anxious about trying to learn on it and not completely burn her master's food in the mornings.
"Sir, may I please have my walking stick?" She wasn't sure where he had put it the night before and while she could probably, at some point learn to pick it up with her mind, for now, though she had seen it happen before, she didn't know how to cause it to happen and control it. Controlling her powers would actually be very welcome, it would eliminate the fear of being fearful- that was when she lost control.
-
Thanael finished his coffee and rose from the chair. After opening up the dish washer he placed his cup in and searched for Luohi's stick. It had fallen off the makeshift bed while she had been sleeping. 'It is on the floor below you. I will only get it if you do not think you can,' he said.
He noted that Louhi still hadn't had her juice either. She seemed to only do things if she had been directly ordered to. Obedience was fine but Thanael did not want to be constantly making sure she did what most would do naturally. He wondered if she had even gone to the toilet in the last twenty-four hours.
'Is the juice not to your liking? I'm afraid that is the only type I have at the moment so you will have to make do with it,' he said. 'If you did not drink it because you were unsure whether you were allowed to, then you are foolish. I would not offer you something if you were forbidden from taking it. It is going to become wearisome if I have to tell you everything before you will do it.'
-
"n-no sir" Louhi said, a bit nervously, which caused her to cast a wary glance at the lights to make sure they weren't flickering. "I was simply distracted by my questions. I apologize." She took that opportunity to slide off the bed enough to retrieve her stick and get both feet on the floor. She obediently took the juice and drank about half of it before replacing it on the side table and awkwardly making her way to the bathroom. Thankfully, she had experience with at least semi-modern bathrooms, or things would perhaps be very confusing after using nothing but an outhouse.
She was brief, taking care of her needs and washing quickly, attempting to tame her hair enough to keep it from looking too wild, not wanting to cause him any shame. She had learned that appearance seemed to matter more the further forward in time you went. Within just a few minutes, she returned to her juice and her cot, finishing her breakfast and juice. She didn't want to cause him any delays, but now, she was watching him with uncertain stormcloud-grey eyes. She had displeased him and he had called her foolish. Drawing up quivering courage, she collected her dishes and mimicked his actions of putting them into the dishwasher. She had not really used one before, though she had seen one.
Her gait was awkward and a little uncertain, her injured leg seeming to search for a solid position before she could put her weight down on it, much like a person attempting to walk after cutting off the circulation to a leg by sitting on it until it loses all feeling.
Finished with the task of putting dishes away, she simply stood in silence. He'd said they were going to go somewhere that morning, and she was prepared to go whenever he was, having no tasks so far to be attempting to finish, and no recreational activities she took part in, that left simply waiting and hoping that wouldn't anger him further. Already she seemed to have a knack for upsetting him.
-
Thanael ate his breakfast while the mage busied herself with hygiene. By the time she stood still, he had finished. She seemed so awkward standing there. He hadn't done anything to warrant such fear in her. She had even looked up at the lights at one stage. He was glad that she hadn't broken them since the drug had worn off. If need be, he would give her another injection but he didn't want to resort to that. He wanted her to get comfortable with her powers and learn to control them.
He placed his dirty dishes with the others in the dishwasher. 'Louhi, come here. I am going to show you how to use the dishwasher. Have you ever seen one?' he asked, though he doubted she ever had. He stood beside the machine and closed its door, ready to instruct her on one of the many machines she would be using.
-
"I have seen one, but not used it" She admitted, coming closer where she could see what he was showing her. In her experience, she had to pay very close attention so she would understand the first time around. Masters that had to repeatedly teach her things got irritated quickly. She knew that much.
He himself had not done anything to warrent her fear, at least not yet, but it took her a little time to get a feel for exactly what he expected of her, and until then, she was constantly in danger of failing to meet expectations and that alone was enough to make her nervous.
-
It came as a relief to Thanael that Louhi had seen a dishwasher before, it meant she might have less trouble getting used to it. he opened a drawer nest to the washer and pulled out a little tablet then placed it in a slot on the from of the machine. 'This tablet is the washing detergent, you put it in after the machine is closed then press these buttons,' he said as he slowly showed her what to do. When the machine started up it hummed softly, not like the noisy ones from previous centuries. 'Do you think you can do that? I will watch you do it next time the machine is full then you will be doing it on your own.'
'Come, I have to get to the training rooms to work out. If you still think you want to come, there is a brush on one of the bathroom bench. You may use that until you have your own,' said Thanael before rising and going to groom himself. It didn't take long, it was only enough so that he would look acceptable to work out in.
-
Louhi watched closely, her eyes trailing his every motion with utmost attention. She would master his machines, and master them quickly. "Yes Sir, I do believe I can do that" She said agreeably.
As he mentioned a brush, her hand crept up to her tangled hair. "Thank you" She said, skirting off with her awkward walk to get herself slightly more groomed. Somehow, she suspected she was going to have her hair lopped off, and that wasn't exactly a pleasant through for her, but she was willing to accept it. After all, how were they going to attach a thing to her head with her hair remaining. Hopefully, this culture did not covet hair as her own had. A woman's hair was an important attribute.
She was finished within moments, not taking the time to be gentle, instead rushing through the tangles to ensure she did not hold him up. Thankfully, she was not particularly tender-headed.
She came to stand near her cot, just waiting. She had to get used to walking around on her leg at some point. She didn't think it could be worse than some of her bad days had been.
-
Thanael checked Louhi's hair from where he stood and nodded. 'It will do for now. You will be showering when we get back anyway, I suppose,' he said before turning and walking to the door.
'Come,' he said as he opened the door. 'I need to adjust the lock to your fingerprints.'
Thanael lifted the lid on some blue, sparkly, glue-like material on the outside of the door and placed his fingers in it. The semi-solid glowed as it scanned. 'Master Sergeant Thanael Harbour. Create new profile. Unbound mage-slave,' he instructed the mechanism. 'Louhi, what is your full name, date of birth and a word that only you and I would remember?'
-
"Louhi...Daughter of Laurel...servant of Madam Mathews?" She attempted, seeming somewhat confused. "Born July 12th, 1682, I think." She was starting to blush. These were things she was apparently supposed to know quite well, but really, who cared when a servant was born, just so long as they were fit enough to work? "Well, I imagine the words I know are nothing so special so no one else would know them" Or at least none she dared to say. She did know a couple words of rather nasty rare incantations due to her stint with the murdering mad-man-warlock. "But I did once see a fascinating creature called an octopus...I get the impression it is quite extinct now, so would something like that do?" She asked. Passwords were not something she had encountered, at least not in this sense. He was asking her somewhat strange questions she did not know the answers to, but maybe knowing the year she was born would help him understand just how far she had already come in her understanding of modern machines and functions.
-
'That is... not quite what I was expecting. You are no longer the servant of Madam Mathews. Unless my superiours find a reason why you cannot work, you will be under my command by this afternoon,' Thanael said as he removed his hand fromt he glue-like substance. 'Come up to the resin pad and place your hand in the blue then repeat what I say, in the order that I say it. Say it as normally as you can. If it does not work you will have to repeat it and the program will find your average vocals.'
Thanael turned back to the mechanism and spoke, 'start vocal and imprint recognition for Louhi, Daughter of Laurel. Date of birth one two zero seven one six eight two. Password octopus.'
Her choice of password and her date of birth interested him. He hadn't expected her to come from that far back. He wondered how long she had been moving through time for and what she had seen during her journey. There was a lot the military would be able to learn from her. It might impede his chances of keeping her.
-
"Well, no, I'm not, but my mother is...or was I guess." She admitted, so it was still part of her full title, but she didn't argue. "I hope I am fit to be under your command"She didn't much want to end up under the command of some random person. Getting used to new masters wore her down. It was difficult to know how to keep them happy.
She obediently repeated what he said with her fingers in the strange blue stuff that made her feel nervous.
She stood watching, waiting. Maybe this was like a security system. Her friend had had one. She'd had to type in a code so no one else could come into the house. That seemed reasonable enough, this was just the advanced version of it.
-
'It is more that they may find another use for you. Your knowledge of other languages and history could come in very useful to others. They may also want your abilities tested before putting you into service,' Thanael explained. He didn't particularly like the idea of the mage being tested. She didn't yet have enough control on her powers. Anything they tested might backfire like the machine in the hospital had. He would prefer to observe her himself then file a report later.
'That was your key to get into my apartment. Do not forget what you said or how you said it, otherwise you will be locked in or out until I can come to you. If that happens I will help you when I am ready, not when you want me to.' Hopefully that prompted her to remember her passwords. It would deplete her usefulness if he couldn't rely on her to get in and out of his rooms.
Thanael started walking towards the gym without checking to see if Louhi was following. He did, however walk at a slower pace than he normally would. He didn't want her to put much strain on her leg so soon after her operation.
-
"Yes, Sir" Louhi said. She didn't like the way it sounded, being found for another use. She didn't think she really knew all that much. She had been through time, but she didn't think she'd grasped it all that well. She hadn't understood half of what happened to her, and without her friend there to explain things, she probably would have spent her stay in 'modern' time running away from automobiles, or rather, hobbling since the first one had hit her and broken her leg again.
She carefully filed the password information away in her head, letting it repeat several times to ensure it stayed there and she could recall it as needed.
She scampered after him, falling in a couple paces behind him. She was glad he'd had the forsight to walk a little slower than usual, though she would have kept up with him in any case.
She suspected he was finished talking for the time being, and simply followed in silence, trying to keep the password fresh in her head while also taking note of the things around them. No need to be lost incase she got sent back to the rooms, or out to the training fields on a future day.
-
When they got to the gym Thanael stopped and turned to Louhi, ushering her to follow him inside. He looked at her leg. It was still scarred but hopefully it was't causing her any displeasure. 'You seem to be walking better already. How does it feel?' he asked.
From what he'd seen of her, Louhi was fearful of showing her legs. It was possible that she was also awkward with seeing others without full attire. 'If you feel uncomfortable you can go back to the apartment or sit and wait with any of the other mages. If their masters permit it, you may speak with them.'
-
It wasn't so unusual for people of her time to help each other dress...though mostly a select few helped to dress the mistress of the house. It was simply considered indecent to run around half naked, legs poking out everywhere.
"It does not hurt" Louhi assured "but it will take some getting used to. It seems to respond a little more slowly than the other." She figured that would pass in time, though why she thought that, she had no idea. After all, she knew nothing of these procedures.
Louhi glanced around the gym, wondering why they were running around in their under things, but not asking. After all, naked baths weren't unheard of either. "As you like Sir" She assured. It didn't seem so odd when everyone was wearing the same thing. It made it a uniform of sorts, like the naked baths. Everyone was naked, it was normal. If only one person was, it would be awkward and probably considered indecent. Her brow furrowed slightly as she took things in. It was certainly different, but she didn't seem too squeamish about it. She was mostly squeamish about her own legs--and even that was largely because of the ugliness of the scars, though part of it was certainly her upbringing.
-
A woman came in and looked around the room. Her eyes fell on Louhi but Thanael had already left to collect a bottle of water.
'You, unbound mage. Where is the Master Sergeant?' she snapped. She was in no mood to deal with mages. It was too early to be running about after the restless Mordecai and unbound mage. Normal people would have been in bed or getting ready to work rather than running around a gym with a freak watching them. Mordecai weren't normal though. Most were tainted from their work with the beasts.
-
"He has gone to perform his training" Louhi said, assuming she was asking after Thanael, keeping her gaze downwards, not quite sure what to make of this woman. It had been awhile since she'd been really snapped at. "I do believe he went in that direction though" She said, motioning towards where she'd last seen him. Now she wasn't sure if she was supposed to move or not. It sounded rather like she wasn't welcome, but then, she was under her master's orders, so logically, she should have nothing to fear.