Flashback [Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

In Which Minnie Seeks Aid for a Wound

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Center of scholarly knowledge and shipwrighting, Zeltiva is a port city unlike any other in Mizahar. [Lore]

[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Philomena on February 12th, 2013, 8:54 pm

The song faded more than stopped, until it was gone, Minnie's voiceless lips still absently making the motion of crooning, meaningless words, as she turned upward and listened to the woman. Her eyes were open wide, now behind the glasses. She spoke, very slowly, in response to the (apparently) younger woman's questioning, and spoke in a soft, tiny voice, "Yes, ma'am, I… yes."

She stood as the woman asked her name.

"Minnie," she stopped, corrected herself, "Philomena…" blinked once, corrected herself again, "Sorry… Dr. Lefting."

Then her lips return to the slow murmuring, her eyes clouded with a dissociative glassiness behind the glass, the blown lenses enlarging them somewhat, making them look larger, more childish.

"Did I do it wrong? Did I clean it wrong?"

She spoke with an air of mixed fear and defeat, following and letting the woman guide her into a seat. She pulled her knees close together in front of her, and took the shaking hand gently from her belly to stretch it over the basin. It was pale, an it quivered visibly, in a counterpoint to her lip.
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[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Nira'lia on February 19th, 2013, 2:03 pm

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“A doctor!” said Nira’lia in a pleasant tone as she led Philomena to the stool. She patiently waited for the doctor to take her seat. The Konti spoke in a hush but happy voice, hoping that it speaking to the lady about other matters would help her keep her mind off the wound. “Do you work in the University? That is really interesting!”

In truth, she was quite surprised. She had not thought that such a timid person would actually be an instruction in the University.

Nira’lia stood over her and took a pitcher of clean, cool water. Slowly and soothingly, she started to pour it in a gentle stream over the trembling hand. The water would hit her skin and most likely its iciness would initially startle her.

“Yes, you cleaned it incorrectly…” said Nira’lia. There was no point in being dishonest about this, lest the lady repeat it a second time. “You used materials that irritate the skin, too much of it, and you may have been too rough. But don’t worry about it; it’s not an uncommon thing to happen. Most would rather self-medicate rather than head to a doctor, and it works, sometimes it does not. In the end though it would be much better not to do a certain action if you’re unsure of the outcome, especially when it’s related to safety…”

The pitcher was soon empty, and she filled it up by dipping it in a bucket behind her. And she continued the cycle, pouring it over the skin and washing away the toxins.

“I’m not blaming you, Dr. Lefting—just be careful is all I’m saying,” she said. And quickly, she changed the subject. “What do you do at the University?”

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[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Philomena on February 19th, 2013, 6:21 pm

Minnie closed her eyes as the water came, gritting her teeth quietly, even as the shadow of movement remained visible on her lips, breathed as deep and slow as she could. She'd had pain, physical pain. It was something one learned how to... well, not to ignore, she was not so brave as that, but to internalize. She emptied her lungs as the pitcher rose, then inhaled, slowly, steadily, her hand just barely shaking, as the water poured over it. The water stopped, and she exhaled again. She looked up at the mention of her failures as a nurse, not with surprise, or with offense, certainly. Just with sort of a pained shame, but nodded, and repeated teh cycle of breathing as the water poured again. IT felt like the water was dragging at the corners of the wound, slowly retearing the flesh, but she trusted the infirmary to hire competent healers, she took it as stoically as she could.

"You will... you would perhaps show me the proper way sometime? Is it this, only pouring? No scrubbing?"

Then she processed the woman's question, "Yes, miss. I am a Doctor of Poetry and Literature, there. I... I am sorry, I do not know the Infirmary very well. I have... it is a little frightening to me, the infirmary, I suppose. When I was a girl, we did not go there unless it was very serious, the smell... it... it makes me think of unpleasant things..."
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[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Nira'lia on June 27th, 2013, 2:28 pm

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“Oh, well…” she replied softly, most of her focus on the task at hand. The Konti’s tone seemed slightly detached at the moment, but it was also because she was too concentrated for fear of making a mistake. The treatment was not the most complicated, but because she deemed herself a novice, she wanted to be extra careful. “I just do not think scrubbing it would be the best idea… it looks too irritated at the moment.”

Nira’lia nodded as she listened to the woman’s words.

A doctor of poetry and literature! How very interesting! The simple phrases perked up her curiosity almost instantly, which was a good thing for she found a topic they could focus on. Philomena was evidently not at ease at the moment, and it was a good chance for her to practice her bedside manner.

“That’s wonderful! What sort of literature do you teach? I like books a lot, but they are rather expensive, are they not?” giggled Nira’lia as she put the pitcher aside. The wound had been sufficiently washed in her opinion. She reached to the side of the room and held out a jar with some soft looking ointment in it. “This is just some cooling salve… you should tell me more about what you do in the university!”

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[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Philomena on June 29th, 2013, 1:59 pm

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The healer's void was descending now, from the gentle concern of reaction, and this Gave Minnie a certain soothing sense of the return to normalcy. She closed her eyes, and breathed in short, deep breaths, as she felt the gentle probing of touch and of water. The skin, now awoken by the flushing out of the poisons, burned, pulsed, but Minnie took her consciousness and furled it carefully inside the sharp point of concentration inside the pain, used the pain to gather the torn pieces of herself back and begin to stitch them back into cohesivity.

Now the healer asked her question, and Minnie's eyes flew open, focused on her. Was this woman teasing her? Or simply being polite? Yes... yes, it must be. IT must be, just a ruse, something to make her natter on.

//Just shut your face, Minnie Lefting, she does nay want to listen to you, not really. She is stuck working at you, don't make her suffer through having to talk to you.//

And likely, Minnie would have accepted this harsh self-description, and retreated, but at that moment her left hand, without any conscious thought, went up to the neckline of her dress, and with a convulsive absentness, began to finger along it, finding a little knot in it, something, with her sitting so close to the healer, of solid substance inside the stitching, that she rolls back and forth between her fingers, soothingly.

Her voice comes again, and it has smoothed, calmed somewhat, became more professorial.

"Yes, I am... my work is with the poetry of the early Post-Valterrian period in Zeltiva, and then with the work and scholarship of Kenabelle Wright and her companions. You have... read the circumnavigation, perhaps?"

Her voice has a certain hopefulness to it.

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[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Nira'lia on October 27th, 2013, 3:54 pm

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‘The circumnavigation?’

Blinking, Nira’lia shook her head slowly. Being a long-time resident of Zeltiva, she did have some vague ideas about it. There had been a woman of the name of Wright who had circumnavigated the continent—and that was as much as she knew. She knew that the library had been named after this woman, though.

“No, as much as I would have loved to, no,” said Nira’lia. History interested her but most of her stories had been carried to her from her own mother’s mouth. She did like to visit the library, though on the times that she did, it was medicinal books she had attended to. “Have you done some work pertaining to the circumnavigation?”

The Konti scooped up some of the ointment and gently spread it over the woman’s skin. Her touch was light and she only put a small volume. The woman would feel a cool, refreshing, and albeit tingly sensation on her skin. Now all Nira’lia had to do was to wrap it up in some bandages and they were done.

But she did want to hear about what the doctor had to say about Wright, and so Nira’lia waited patiently as she slowly wrapped the woman’s hand with fresh bandages.

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[Nira'lia] A Piercing Comfort

Postby Philomena on July 10th, 2014, 6:39 pm

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Minnie blinked, and her whole affect changed, her free hand going to push her glasses up on her nose, her eyes lighting animatedly. Its not a superhuman change - she's still shaky and the pain is still there, and she doesn't quite smile. But it IS a change.

"Oh... oh yes, yes, its my specialty, miss. I've been studying 'er most on my life." a little hint of the 'trashier' parts of the city crawls into her accent, giving it a nasal burr. "I've studied the circumnavigation and the Wright family, and the... I've studied most of it. You haven't read it? Yer a medical person, there is a deep description of the plague of the Northern lands in it, summat strange, summat strange. When I writ the guide to the circumnavigation, I even met a traveller or two who had been s'far as that, one of my students even, later! And then, in the manifests, there's been significant work done, 'round the provisions they brought, which rightly becomes a medical concern as well, p'ticularly in a seafaring city, for you know the best minds of the time were rallied roond the journey, and had some theories... well, much o'er my head, I dinny study the ways of the body in my time at university..."

She rattles on, the words clatter out in a ramshackle way, less the practiced cant of the lecturer finding their home turf, and more the way that, perhaps, one might hear a child-like devotee of the opera swooning over a diva's performance. Her eyes glitter and grow distant and her voice, between the shakiness of her state, the thickness of her accent, and the perambulations of her excitement, grows nigh incomprehensible at times.

Additionally to this, the gesturing, and her general disarray, disarrange her clothing, so that one of the shoulders of her gown works its way off. IT is a flash of sight, because the revelation of her skin startles her back immediately into the present. But in that flash, on the skin of her shoulder, the upper chest where her neckline should cover it, and shadows that go down into what the little slip does not reveal - breast, belly, and hip - is visible dark, black strokes. IT is not tattoos - the sweat of her skin has smeared some of it - but rather ink or paint, and it is figured into neat, dark letters, running back and forht in lines along her skin.

She blanches and her injured hand jerks, as she rushes to pull the dress back into place, and her voice stops immediately. Her eyes are rabbit-frightened.

//Ah, there you dun have done it now, little gutterslut. I hope you're proud, you, rattling off about your petch and blather, and this is what comes of it.//

Her voice, now comes, tiny, fragile. Her free hand lies in her lap - a discerning eye might notice her digging the middle fingernail into her palm - hard, actually, quite hard, the knuckles whitening, the skin straining against the sharp nail.

"T... terrible sorry, Goody. I'm... I'm sorry..."
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