destinystrings | Farewell Happy Fields!

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Farewell Happy Fields!

Farewell Happy Fields!

☯

What: Aftermath of Anoli Attack: Hospital
Where: Leo Ward - Caduceus Hospital Headquarters
Summary: It is the aftermath of the Anoli attack on the Closing Ceremonies. The injured have been taken to Caduceus Hospital Headquarters, and it is time for reflection, visting, or old-fashioned escapes from the hospital rooms.
Warnings: Mild squick if people want to describe their wounds in explicit detail.

Caduceus Hospital Headquarters. It has a distinguished history within Hinoto-Ri, boasting of a staff of well-trained Healers, as well as possessing the most cutting edge medical technology possible. There was no limb they couldn't reattach, no organ they couldn't replace... - they even claimed to be able to bring someone back from the dead (with the small disclaimer that it could only occur under certain conditions and with an obscene amount of luck).

So needless to say, the hospital was more than well-equipped to deal with the aftermath of the Anoli attack on the Closing Ceremonies.

---

Nearly every hospital bed had been filled by an injured patient that night. The A&E room had been in constant chaos, with civilians crying and shouting, searching for loved ones, or demanding to see doctors or healers to help so-and-so...

There had also been plenty of reporters milling about, shouting and crying over the status of the Mayor's Secretary, and whether the Red Lion had really died at the scene, or if he was still alive and well within the safety of the hospital's ICU.

By the time morning broke, there was a false sense of tranquillity within the hospital. The healers had been pushed to their limits with the sheer number of patients being wheeled in and out of surgery, but otherwise, the situation had finally gotten under control. Now, both civilians and visitors were merely waiting for word of the conditions of their injured friends and family...

[Welcome to the winding down of the event! You are now at the hospital, where you may be visiting the injured, or be one of the injured yourself! Those with RED injuries will be in the ICU, and those with YELLOW injures will be in normal wards, for obvious reasons. Those with GREEN injuries wouldn't have had to go to the hospital at all, so they are free to come and go as they wish!

You may all start your threads and mingle!]

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She stares at him, unable to mask her incredulous expression. "...We have trees in parks, yes. But many of the plants you see are only once you get away from the skyscrapers. Outside of that, there are many fields and well-forested areas." She pauses for a bit before asking:

"But from what your land sounds like... Are you saying that even Hinoto-Ri has more nature than your city?"

"Within the city, yes, quite a lot more. The Citadel is full with buildings; expanding it is a chore for all." He frowned. "One must first be certain that the mountains are cleared away properly without, so that none, especially the Turelim, may use them to breach the walls easily... then the Citadel's outer walls must be rebuilt to contain the new space. And then finally, we remove the old wall, and build. So it's quite a bit less trouble to simply design buildings upwards, and such that they connect... it saves them some trouble during the tremors, too, for having so much support. So there isn't a great deal of room for bare earth, or for plants, I'm afraid.

"But here... it's all quite different. I get the feeling that the mess of trees out in one of the wards here wasn't planted deliberately, even. That's... called a forest, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's correct. Although even the forest here is limited due to space..."

There's definite confusion on her face as she tries to imagine the place Avitus is describing. "The... Turelim. You've mentioned them twice now. What are they...?"

"They're..." He hesitated, wincing faintly. How ought he approach this?

"I believe I mentioned there being other clans in Nosgoth, aside from my own...? Raziel was the first of the six clan leaders made, and first also in strength and power; Turel was the second, following after him. He and his clan, as I recall from the Empire's days, were vicious brutes, and fantastically cruel... and he's done absolutely nothing over the ages to lessen that impression. In fact, it was only a few centuries ago that one of his fledglings was found wandering the northern wastelands and brought to the Citadel... and after speaking with my brother Heldrad, was taken in. Apparently poor Ulrich was deemed a weakling, and was to be culled, but managed to escape. He's been loyal to us ever since, for showing him mercy and opposing Turel."

He looked down, playing more with his ice cream again, face unreadable. The little tale must not have sat right with him in the slightest, even though it seemed to have a happier ending than not, for the Turelim in question.

"I believe I also mentioned that all the clans looked rather human once, too, long ago. As mine grew to be blue bird things, Turel's... mm." A slight frown. "I would liken them almost to dogs. Or perhaps bats; I'm not certain. They're great beasts, tall and heavily built... they quite often weigh twice, sometimes three times what the human guards do, most of it in muscle. Their ears are longer than ours, and quite wide...."

He was playing still with his ice cream, twirling the spoon lightly over whatever of it was still left in there, as he spoke. "And just as their ears have grown, so has their capacity to hear things. Ambushing them is apparently nigh impossible. Most of the older Turelim also have telekinesis, at least as projectiles. They're quite agile, and can move very quickly, especially on all fours, although they are still bipedal.... And they have quite soft fur when it's clean, although it's incredibly short, and somewhat sparse. Making floor rugs of their hides isn't uncommon, in the Citadel."

He made a face at his ice cream, and then held it over for her to see. He'd smoothed it over with his spoon while he spoke, and then used the tip of it to trace a simple drawing in the surface, of two figures. One would be almost half again taller than the other, if it weren't leaning down a little, with an almost dog-like head, snout very short and ears huge. The other figure might well have been human. It wasn't all that detailed; it was done in ice cream and chocolate with a plastic spoon, after all.

"They look a bit like this," he said. "I could see if I can find something proper to draw with, if you'd like...?"

Edited 2013-03-15 13:15 (UTC)

She looks with great interest at the image he's drawn in the ice cream. "They sound like nothing I've ever seen. And you... use their hides as...?" Her expression becomes slightly more disturbed then. If they had started out similar to Avitus, that meant they were just as intelligent as humans, if not moreso. Using their skin in such a way is... distasteful to her.

"Some manage. They're difficult enough to kill that the hide is usually ruined by the time they stay dead, so it isn't as common... and thus, the larger pieces of hides, to say nothing of the whole ones, are worth quite a bit." He was quiet; it was hard to tell if he approved of the practice or found it just as abhorrent.

"Sometimes, when someone has consistently done things so horrible...." He trailed off, not really sure what more to say, apparently debating with himself over how to continue that sentence... and then he shook his head, not going to continue it after all. "The other clans aren't sapient any longer, by any stretch of the imagination, I'm certain. At least it seems more--"

He paused again, and blinked, looking back up at her, looking sheepish, some faint little grimace. "You probably don't want to hear so much about such dreadful topics, do you. I'm supposed to be trying to cheer you up, and here I am instead, going on about Turelim. Um." What to change the topic to? He bit the inside of his lip lightly, thinking quickly.

"What sort of position do you hold, in your world? I mean-- what is it you do?" There, that topic was surely safer, wasn't it? And it wasn't as though he wasn't curious!

Edited 2013-03-18 09:24 (UTC)

Her expression only falls as he continues describing them, but when he changes topics she makes an effort to look a little cheerier. It's just... difficult to do after hearing such a horrible story. Even though one side may have been wronged horribly in the process, she still can't bring herself to condemn anyone.

"...I'm the president of my school's student council, but other than that I don't have any occupation. It's against the school rules for students to have jobs unless there are extenuating circumstances."

He was silent for a moment, clearly enough trying to make sense of that. It wasn't working, and the last bites of his ice cream were getting ignored, while he kept trying.

"If you don't have a job... then... what are you a student of?"

Something about this simply wasn't adding up, for him. Must be another difference in worlds and ways of doing things, to blame.

Ah... Where to even begin? Maybe she should start with the education system of her country?

"Where I come from, people attend school from the age of six to fifteen. We are taught how to read and write, as well as history, maths, sciences, home economics, and sports. After you graduate from what we call junior high school, you could decide to begin working, but many students go on to attend high school, and after that college. During high school we continue to learn at a higher level than junior high, and once you graduate from there you can look into studying at a college to train for more specialized jobs that require certain knowledge."

Ah, hopefully that makes sense. She puts a hand on her chest to indicate herself: "For example, I am in my last year of high school. After I graduate, I plan to attend a college so I can learn the necessary knowledge and techniques to become a teacher."

He remained quiet, taking in what she said, thinking over it for a moment after. He didn't look entirely enlightened still, though; their worlds' education systems must be different indeed. "Once you're considered a teacher... what is it you'll be a teacher of? Teaching others that which you'd just learned in those years of school, or something else?"

"More or less, yes. The younger the children I teach, the more basic the information it would be. I suppose you could think of it as... The way my country makes sure to pass on what we know to the younger generation."

"But... everything is taught to everyone, regardless of what their job will be?" It's still confusing to him, even with the explanation. There's definitely different education systems in their worlds.

"How old are most, then, before they begin learning what they need for their jobs?"

"Yes, that's right. It is usually around the age of eighteen when we begin attending college, but there are also students who attend a vocational high school where they can learn more trade-oriented skills. And even though it's less common, there are also families that have maintained a trade for generations, so those people will probably have been learning from an even younger age."

"But if that isn't common, then how--" He paused, trying to figure out how to ask what it was he was wondering about. He sighed a little, frowning to himself, but it didn't look like he was really any closer to being able to put it into words the way he'd like.

"When training to do something well takes so long, why would so many people put off beginning to do so until they're already grown, and... basically wait a third to half of their lives trying to learn everything, before they go on to do whatever it is they're going to do? I mean...."

"Because they spend the time up until then deciding what it is they want to do. Ah... Perhaps...

Avitus, do you come from a time when people are normally trained during apprenticeships?"

"'From a time when?'" He gave a bit more of a smile, amused. "That's the way it's always been, in Nosgoth, for as long as I can remember. Children in the Citadel are taught how to read and do basic math, but for the most part, apprenticeship is how anyone manages to do anything. If it weren't so, the guards would already be past their prime by the time they could fight well enough to survive the fighting outside the Citadel.

"Not that everyone does; I didn't pick up art or architecture until I was far older. I actually didn't intend to get into it at all, but..." He shook his head. "That isn't usual at all. How does your society manage to produce so much, as well as it does, if people have a whole decade less in which they do it?"

"That used to be how it was in my world as well, but people don't usually do apprenticeships unless it's a traditional vocation. Since lifespans have been extended thanks to medicine and technology, people have much more time to decide on their own what they want to do in their lives. There are also many cases when people change jobs for various reasons."

"Is that so...?" His wings sank down a little more behind him, spoon paused in scraping up the last of the ice cream from his cup. "They always choose for themselves now, then?"

His expression was hard to read, though the idea was clearly one he was playing with quite a bit at the moment. He hesitated, and then finally peeked back up again. "How long... do people live? ...in your world, I mean...."

"It depends on the country, but... In mine especially, people live quite long. It's normal for people to live around eighty years, but there are still people who can live even over the age of one hundred."

His eyes widened at that. He blinked, and stared a second, before he managed anything at all. Quietly, "Eighty? Humans live that long?"

Judging by his open shock, wings sinking down behind him, such a thing was probably unheard-of in Nosgoth.

"Mm. I suppose... their lifespans must be much, much shorter where you are from?" Just going by what he's said so far, she doesn't have a hard time imagining he must be from the equivalent of an earlier time period.

He nodded. "I think I heard that the average was just shy of forty recently, though some manage closer to sixty. The guards, less. Most in my clan weren't yet much past thirty, and a good deal were twenty-some-odd."

A sigh. "It isn't for lack of my brother Vedast trying, I'm certain. I know there was talk, back when the old clan was around, of Lord Rahab's humans nearing seventy on a regular basis, but there was also mention that they were quite addicted to their clan's blood, and... it... simply isn't done. Not in the Citadel. ...How do your people manage such a thing?"

"Like I said, medicine has come a long way. We have machines that can prolong life even if the person is comatose until their body has recovered enough to regain consciousness. Many sicknesses can be cured or outright prevented with vaccines, and a better diet makes it possible for people to live healthier lives."

It's all very general, of course. If he asks for any extra details on how most of this works, she wouldn't be able to provide much more information.

"I wonder what they use here, in this hospital...." He glanced at the door. "I mean, if it's possible to find out how those sorts of things work. Vedast relies on his Gift and blood, if I recall correctly, but if they have them here too, then... if I could tell Vedast about these new things well enough...."

Assuming he even remembered in enough detail, by the time he might be able to give such a report back home, anyhow.

"...I wonder how long the humans here live."

"Gift...?" She tilts her head slightly at that, but his other question makes her much more curious. "Well, the technology level here is higher than what we have in my world, and they can rely on magic as well... But on the other hand, due to the conditions of the city, that might also affect the health of the citizens. It's difficult to say."

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