Closed A New Hope (Seirei, Naiya)

While children are being laid out in death, new children are ready to make an appearance

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Not found on any map, Endrykas is a large migrating tent city wherein the horseclans of Cyphrus gather to trade and exchange information. [Lore]

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A New Hope (Seirei, Naiya)

Postby Waisana on May 26th, 2016, 11:36 pm

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26th Spring 516AV

Her face was blotchy and swollen from the many tears that had streamed down her cheeks over the course of the morning. The teen felt no shame in crying and so she made no attempt to hide it. It was a terrible loss and while she had managed to remain in control of herself in the intervening days since the initial deaths--probably because of shock--today the pain was too great. Waisana knew there was no reason for her to hide her grief. After all, she wasn't the only one grieving and there were too many small bodies laid out in death for there to be anyone untouched by the damage the fever had wrought. Admittedly, others might not have been quite as seriously affected as her. Her colleagues who had worked alongside her in that tent of death had been melancholic, but they were not the first patients that they'd lost. For the blonde, it had been a truly horrific and scarring experience and it wasn't likely that she'd be the same ever again.

The doctor swayed on the spot where she stood, as if she was as easily manipulated as the grasses that moved alongside her in the breeze. She cursed the pleasantness of the weather, the blue skies and scatterings of fluffy clouds at odds with the gravity of the occasion. It gave the children and others who had perished a greater view of Syna of course as she reigned in the cerulean heavens, but Waisana was having difficulty seeing any sort of silver lining in this.

Seirei and Naiya had accompanied her and they weren't alone as Drykas moved from small body to small body, reviewing the dead and leaving offerings. Some of the ones who had died had had no real family left, their pavilions decimated by the miseries that had befallen the Drykas in recent seasons. Their clans had cared for those too young to look after themselves or maintain what remained of their families and now they ensured they were treated as well as the rest. Every head was tilted slightly back so they could look upwards, blankly staring up towards the sky where Syna was now but where Leth and Zintila would reign later.

She moved from body to body, lost in a trance as she gazed on each face. She knew all of them, each set of features burned in to her memory. She could see some dying in her arms, others who she had found already dead, such little bodies. It wasn't only children who had died of course and there were faces she knew these too, those she had tended in death. There was the craftsman who had had some sort of lung rot, hacking and coughing up blood before the fever came to take advantage of his weakness. There was the doctor who had been ill before the fever came and had insisted on working despite her own condition. The faces blurred as tears clouded her vision once more but she stumbled on blindly all the same. The teen had lost the ability to think of anything beyond the dead right now and so she thought nothing of the heavily pregnant young woman that would be forced to follow along or perhaps stand and watch her in her grief. Naiya would no doubt look after her but Waisana wasn't thinking of either of them. In fact, both of them had been forgotten. When she was near them, she didn't register their presence and it would take an active effort on their parts to get her attention.

Seirei could have the babies there and then and the Opal girl probably wouldn't notice unless she screamed her lungs out. She didn't know how she must look to them, but given that only a few days previously she would have fussed over Seirei and probably ordered her back to the tent by now, the difference was no doubt very noticeable to the former captive.

The face of Aria struck her again, even though she had seen it many times already, the features locked in death. The teen dropped to her knees at the dead child's feet, bowed her head with her eyes tightly shut and began to pray with her hands clasped before her.

Please, Rak'keli, let me never fail like this again. Don't make me lose another child, please. I don't want anyone else in my care to die but if they must, please don't let it be a child.

The teen remained locked in place, praying fervently and it would take something of import to disturb her.

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Last edited by Waisana on August 12th, 2016, 9:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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A New Hope (Seirei, Naiya)

Postby Seirei Dawnwhisper on May 27th, 2016, 3:09 am

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So many dead.

Seirei followed Waisana slowly as the healer checked the dead, for what, Seirei didn't know. Perhaps it was to memorize their faces so that they would not be forgotten. They did not deserve to be forgotten.

So very many lost forever.

As Seirei passed silently among the bodies, that was all she could think. Seirei felt cold, and numb. It was hard to comprehend that so many could be lost so quickly. And even harder to accept, especially after the pirate raids of last season. Men, women, and children. Young, and old alike. No one had been spared.

It was the hardest to see the bodies of the children. They were so tiny, and so very, very still. Too still. No child was ever supposed to be that still, that silent. Seirei's thoughts drifted back home to where Lukar and Lira were, safe under Taerin's gentle care. She didn't know why her children had been spared when so many others had not. But when she looked at the mothers who were crying over their dead children, Seirei thanked every god she knew that they had been.

Seirei glanced over at her friend through eyes that were blurred by tears. Waisana was a healer. How many among the dead were those that she had tried to save? What must it be like to see them now, like this? How could her friend stand it? She wanted to comfort Waisana somehow. But there were no words. Nothing she could do or say that would make this better.

A sharp pain tore through Seirei's belly, making her gasp softly. It was a familiar pain. She had been having false contractions for a while now. Long enough that she had grown used to them...or as used to them as was possible. But this one was different. More intense somehow. It seemed to threaten more pain to follow.

Was she going into labor? Now of all times? Here? No. She couldn't be, that's all there was to it. This wasn't the right time to go into labor. And it certainly wasn't the right place. It was a time to mourn for the dead. A time to offer silent tribute to those who were taken too soon. This was a time to remember the lives that had been cut short. Not to begin a new life.

The pain came again, stronger this time. It drove a soft cry from Seirei. Seirei quickly bit her tongue to keep from crying out again. If she truly was going into labor, then she would simply have to endure it in silence until the funeral was over. She had no intention of drawing attention to herself now. Not here, and not among strangers. She could wait. She would wait. Once the funeral ended, and they went home, she could tell the others about this. Not before. Hopefully, this was just another false alarm. But if it wasn't, Seirei was strong enough to endure it in silence until the funeral was over. She had to be.

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Last edited by Seirei Dawnwhisper on August 11th, 2016, 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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A New Hope (Seirei, Naiya)

Postby Naiya on May 27th, 2016, 9:29 pm

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They were building, a totem, perhaps, something that was even now beginning to show that it would be a large feat. Perhaps it would stand as a reminder in the years to come, or it might simply crumple between one visit to the grounds and the next.

She turned away, knowing that her distraction and musing was an escape from the horrors before her. Days ago she may simply have been sad, for the loss of so many was an event that begot mourning. Yet overshadowing her sorrow was fear, deep down in her core, that one day soon, she would stand here with Seirei, and look down at their own children. Mothers with none to care for.

That was the thought that drew her forward, apart from Seirei as she sought the faces of those gone, some elder, joining family in the web, but many young, with mourning mothers beside them, it was those who drew her. "Feis zul rhotame." She spoke the words softly, not a chant, each time she spoke it, it was with the emotion the mothers deserved, the feeling the spirits gathered in the web needed to hear. She followed them from one body to the next, her grieving more gentle, quick as she simply offered the words meant for the dead.

She touched Waisana's shoulder, her vigil unbroken by motion or time. "Waisana, saiza, you were zulkina to those people, to those children." To us. She left the last words to hang in the air between them, regardless of the attention she may have paid. If she took no solace, Naiya had offered what she could.

She moved then to Seirei, then, seeking the comfort of family. The pained look on her face mistaken for sorrow. "Feis zul rhotame, Mana," worry not, "Our children are safe". She reached out to touch her to wrap her sister in her arms should the woman let her. This pain, the pain of losing family, it was one many drykas shared, but it made it no easier.

So soon this had come, the fever, as though to remind them that it was never enough, that there was never true rest on the sea. The new sorrow did not overshadow the pain of the raids, did not chase away the fear that woke her in the night, it only added its burden to the many she carried.
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A New Hope (Seirei, Naiya)

Postby Waisana on August 12th, 2016, 11:00 pm

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The teen continued her fervent prayer, wishing that Rak'keli would bless her with a gnosis mark so that she could be of some use in the future. She hadn't been good enough to save these people. She hadn't managed to garner the goddess's favour and attention, which made her next to useless. She wasn't like Amunet and the other healers who could lay hands on a person and deal with minor things that would take quite a bit of work on the doctor's part with her more mundane, medicinal methods. Healers had been in such short reply and so many had died although many had also been saved by their blessed hands. Perhaps if she pleaded enough, the goddess would take pity on one of her disciples and grant her the magical mark. Perhaps it was a ridiculous wish but she meant well by it; she just wanted to be able to help.

When a hand touched her shoulder, the blonde's eyes snapped open, her body jerking from the contact. She turned large and startled eyes up towards Naiya. The words she offered were supposed to provide comfort and it was like the hunter had read her thoughts. As it was, her words stung Waisana to the core, her faith in the Opal girl betraying her innocent ignorance. She thought that the girl had somehow mattered to these people who now lay dead all around them. She had not made a jot of difference to their suffering. She had done what she could but what she could do had not been good enough and would never be good enough in these types of situations. The doctor didn't know what to say but merely bowed her head and began to sob anew in frustration. The other's presence left her as she saw her move away through the blurriness in the corner of her eye. She heard some of what the huntress murmured to Seirei and it made her sob harder.

Naiya would soon have a child of her own that would be susceptible to such illnesses and Seirei had two already and potentially have another two any day now. She hadn't considered how close it must have felt to them, particularly the former captive and she now realised how negligent she had been to a woman she counted as her friend. She breathed deeply through her mouth, forcing down the lump in her throat and drying her tears before she stood and made her way over to the pair. The creasing of Seirei's face made Waisana think that the girl was trying to hold back tears. The blonde moved towards her, holding her arms out before her at waist height. If the pregnant woman would allow it then she would take her hands in a simple comforting gesture. If the other indicated that she needed it however, the young woman would raise her arms up to hug her. The girl didn't know what to say so she simply said the other's name, feeling like she had failed the other somehow.

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