PM to join Checking Up on the Healer

[Taylani]

Time Stamp 82 Fall 513

The light of Syna now rides low in the sky as evening approaches. The city has been staked down once more, and now there are fires beginning as once again evening merriment ensues. Before Taylani always wondered why these people did this so often, as if they were not as weary and tired as she after a day of moving, working, and just surviving. However recently she has learned that Fallan was correct when he said that life in the grass was hard, and difficult. Perhaps it is this reason these people seemed to enjoy every moment, caring not of propriety it seemed to the former dancer.

She was finishing up her day, a day of learning to forage and gather, learning what berries are good to eat, what are good to make dyes, and from the pokes and sores on her fingers she has learned which plants were dangerous to grab on to unwarily. However it is not for this reason that she is carrying her small basket laden with her day's gathering through the Opal pavilion tents. No this day she is not looking for a healer, as much as looking for a girl who was learning to be a healer. A girl that had shown her concern and sympathy, and had last Taylani had seen been passed out in the Windchaser pavilion.

She wears the green breeches with the odd looking skirt front, with the lilac shade blouse over top. Her red hair, normally fully free and unbound, this evening sports a single braided crown that was thin, a small concession to the Drykas. The rest of her brilliantly oranged locks fell loose and free still. Coming upon the healing tents, Taylani made sure that she was not limping or favoring her ankle. She did not some healer to assume she needed looked at. Instead she pokes her head into the tent opening, blue eyes looking around for the blond teen. "Waisana?" She asks, before even really looking around to see if there was anyone in the room.

[Waisana]

Sorting herbs. Waisana could do that. All she had to do was sort the basket of herbs into separate piles and the healer's would do the rest, mixing medicines and poultices. It wasn't very exciting work but it was something that the girl could do. She wasn't able to identify all of them yet but she could at least tell the differences between them. The girl liked to try to guess their uses as she worked, a source of some entertainment for her during the otherwise dull job.

At the back of the tent she didn't really notice much but she heard the voice, small and somewhat timid coming from the tent entrance. She wouldn't have looked up except that she heard her name. Her head shot up and her hands paused in their task. The healer dropped her head again and resumed her work when she recognised the woman, trying to be inconspicuous. It was Taylani. 

She hadn't seen the captive woman since the start of the storm and for good reason: Waisana had been avoiding her. Fallan had been right (although she didn't want to admit that), she'd caused harm rather than helping the woman. Her words had put such fear into Taylani that she'd attempted to run away. During a storm. Needless to say it was a miracle that she was alive at all. 

Waisana was determined not to cause any more harm so she kept her head down, hoping that one of the others wouldn't betray her presence.

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[Taylani]

One of the healers looked up at Taylani, automatically automatically checking the dancer over with her eyes before simply pointing to the back area. Stepping through the tent, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, mainly because she felt responsible for Waisana fainting, and then she had been sent away before making sure the healer was well. Her ill-timed and ill-conceived escape had had lingering effects on everyone she had come in contact with it seemed.

Sighing gently she approaches the blond teen, her arms still cradling her basket of 'spoils' of her expedition today in foraging. She didn't blame the healer if she was annoyed with her, or if she was fed up with her. She understood now just how silly it was of her to run off, and the dangers she had put others in and not just herself. "Waisana?" She speaks just as quietly as she had when she pushed her head into the tent, but she does not give the other time to even respond before she rushed forward with what she had to say. "Waisana, I am so sorry for the trouble I put you through...the other day. Please forgive me, I did not mean for you to come to any harm..nor did I want to leave you alone."

When she finished speaking, she pauses, before she inhales deeply and let the nerves slide from her with the exhale. She had apologized, now all she could do was let Waisana decide if she accepted it. "I won't take up any more time. I just wanted you to know that I am sorry."

[Waisana]

The girl had to stop herself from cringing when Taylani approached her. She’d either been too conspicuous or one of her colleagues had pointed her out. She’d bet on the latter. As the woman approached, Waisana was filled with dread. What could the captive possibly want from her? What if she’d come seeking more assistance? She couldn’t assist her if she had because she’d only mess things up again. Maybe the woman would decide to commit suicide next. She pushed that thought aside, horrified by it as the woman came near enough to speak, a torrent of words coming out of her mouth.

The teen stared up at her in confusion. The words Taylani had spoken were the exact words that she herself would have said. She was the one who ought to be apologising. She was the one who should be sorry for causing harm, it had all been her fault after all. Plus the healer had left the poor unfortunate woman alone with her “husband” so she couldn’t understand why the woman was apologising instead of her.

”Don’t be ridiculous!” she hissed, staring at her in horror. ”You’ve absolutely nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one whose harmed you, not the other way around. I was just a little...overwhelmed when Fallan pointed that out to me. I’m so sorry, Taylani. Perhaps you ought to leave me alone for your own sake. I’m not good for you,” her voice becoming more and more like a moan as she continued.

Realising that people were looking at her, she got up and strode from the tent, beckoning for the woman to follow her so that they could continue their conversation more privately.

x

[Taylani]

Taylani raised her brows at the healers tones, her words surprising her but a little. Fallan had never revealed to her what he and Waisana had been arguing about in Pavi, neither of them spoke much of that night, at least not the negative aspects. But more positives had come from that night, and for that Taylani does not begrudge the soreness of her body that she had endured after from the mad horse ride, the ankle that still was tender but no longer pained her.

Before she could open her mouth to reply the young healer was heading out, and waving for her to follow which contradicted her words of thinking Taylani should leave her alone. Perhaps that is a Drykas thing because Fallan often contradicted his words as well. Shaking her head, she followed the other out of the tent, ignoring the other healers as she passed.

The sun glints down on her red hair, illuminating the copper strands and highlighting the braid work she was experimenting with though most was still loose around her shoulders. She turns back to the blond girl, a slight smile lifting the corners of her lips. If her eyes were still a little saddened her posture, and her expression spoke of ease and peace rather then bitter and angry.

"Waisana...that night. It would have never happened if I hadn't been so...foolishly afraid for my child. You never harmed me, but it was your words that drove that fear." She lifted a hand, hoping to forestall any self-recriminations by the healer, "But much more good then bad came of it. I am not dead..and I am more at peace...with this place. That would not have happened had I not ran off. That is by far more valuable to me then most things it has been a long time since I have known peace."

[Waisana]

The young healer didn't know what to say to the woman once they were outside, wasn't even sure why she'd even led her out here. Why hadn't she just sent the woman away and left it at that? She felt responsible for the woman that could be the only reason. Also she couldn't just dismiss Taylani, that would be rude. Yet now she was at a loss for words and goodness knows what the captive must think of her silence.

When the woman spoke, she was glad and kept silent, hoping to be able to form some sort of reply. When she confirmed the fear that had rooted itself deeply within her mind since Fallan had placed it there, her legs nearly went beneath her. She'd driven Taylani to run. What she'd said, those ill-fated words, had caused the woman to run into a storm and nearly get herself killed.

Before Waisana could say anything, the captive continued to explain that good had come out of it. She stared at the woman, her gaze uncertain. Was she telling the truth or was she saying this so that the healer wouldn't feel guilty for her actions? She couldn't know, she was hopeless at reading people so she'd have to probe her for information if she was to sort fact from fiction.

"Good came of it?" she asked, her tone coloured with doubt. "How did good come out of it? How are you at peace? What changed?"

x

[Taylani]

Taylani did not know if she could give words to what had exactly happened. Unsure of what to call the change in her thinking, some might have called it being broken finally, but Taylani did not think of it that way. She called it understanding, to finally see something other then her own plight. To finally see the world outside of the bright happy bubble that she had lived in before she had been captured.

"I never told you the story of how I came to be captured did I Waisana?" Taylani's tones turn just a shade wistful as she turns her face northward, toward her home city that lay somewhere on the other side of the grasses. "I wasn't just out for a stroll. I was expelled forcibly by the knights that protect the citizens there in." Her lips turned into a rue-filled smile, though her eyes remained distant as she recalls the memory. "A man had been accused of stealing bread, he didn't look like a ruffian or scoundrel. Just a hungry man, if he had been in Syliras long he would have known the Knights would have secured him work. No one begged or went without food there. But theft was a crime, and criminals are harshly dealt with. I interfered."

Interfered was mild, her stubborn temper had gotten the better of her. This time, however, it was toward a powerful figure in Syliras, someone in the knighthood. With nothing but a pack with a weeks ration of food, the Miza's she had on her and the dress on her back they had kicked her out of her city.

"I was ...escorted to the gates and was barred from the city. I was hoping to be able to plead my case or, perhaps failing that get a message to my parents...when your people's raiders came." Turning back toward the healer, the light returned to Taylani's eyes as she put her mind toward the present once more. "I never got the chance to rectify the situation, and I ...felt that I would have been able to had I been left alone. In reality, most likely I would have died out there..or been kidnapped by far more vicious people then Drykas. My escape opened up a frank dialogue with Fallan, and I came to accept the truth." her words ground to a halt, it wasn't so simple as that but it was far too complicated to simply spill out continuously.

[Waisana]

The young healer watched Taylani closely as if trying to read the woman's answers to her questions judging by her facial expressions. She wasn't really getting anything from her but the woman's question wasn't what she'd been expecting. She stared at Taylani in confusion, shaking her head back and forth to show that the tale wasn't at all familiar to her.

Hoping that the story would somehow lead to the answers that she was seeking, Waisana listened intently to every word that Taylani spoke, marveling at the snippets of information that she got on Syliras. It was interesting these knights that she'd heard about but she didn't really that much about them. Apparently they kept order in the city. However they sounded like hard individuals if they effectively banished the woman from the city for the simple reason that she felt pity for another. They seemed like nothing but big bullies to her.

The end of the captive's story explained exactly why things had changed. The woman had been naive in her belief that she could re-enter the city she'd been thrown out of but had now gained some wisdom. Apparently Fallan was a man to drive home truths that you didn't want accept. She hadn't wanted to believe that she'd caused Taylani's escape and Taylani had had the happy belief that her city would welcome an expelled person back in with open arms. Both of them now knew better.

"Fallan is a man to bring to light hard truths, is he not?" she asked the woman honestly.

x

[Taylani]

Taylani nods in agreement, her hands falling to rest on her hips not in a position of annoyance or anger, but simply a resting stance. "It was something that had to happen. If ..if I hadn't gone, I would never have found out about the web, nor would I have faced that truth." Again the sadness passed across her eyes before she blinked it away. A deep breath is given before she turns a smile towards the healer. "If I hadn't faced it, then I would still be so angry and bitter that nothing would have been even mildly pleasant for me. I don't know if happiness will be in my future but at least contentment will be."

She lifts the basket gently to show the contents, various berries and vines within. "Now I am learning how to forage and soon I will be learning other skills. I am, of course, still struggling with the Pavi. Did you get what you needed, Surdar sent me away. When I came back you had already gone."

[Waisana]

It was a weight off the young healer's mind. She'd been so anxious that she'd done something wrong, something terrible, something entirely outside of her personal code of ethics. That would have been too terrible for her to bear but somehow her words had helped to pave the way for Taylani to accept the situation. That made Waisana feel somewhat happier in herself and considerably less guilty.

"You understand that if you need help with anything, anything at all, just come and see me, okay? If you need help with Pavi or want to learn some healing skills or even if you just want a friend, you know where I am." The girl smiled at the woman, deciding that there would be no more mention of the other night and she had the perfect topic to change to.

"I could do with your advice though for a very...persistent problem," she mumbled, looking at her hands.

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