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 Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 2:13 pm
He had sought sleep after the discovery of his dark and dismal future. He had sought it and found it, though it had brought him no peace at all. Nightmares came to snap at his heels and chase him through shadows. Phantoms hounded him. Sometimes they had unknown faces. Other times they were his brothers. Once they had even worn Eione's face.
And when he jerked from sleep to the world of waking he was as tired as he had been when he had first closed his eyes -- and the nightmares had followed him. His wound hurt. His head hurt. His heart hurt, too. And the disease was still real and he was still waiting for it to strike him. Waiting for it to claim his life and end it before it had even begun.
More recently he'd switched between despair and anger, but the anger had quickly faded away. He had no one to blame but himself and Eione had told him his fate in the most gentle way possible. After all, how did you tell someone that they were going to die of plague? He wasn't even sure what the illness consisted of but he had no doubt in his mind that it would be a painful end.
It was nothing but a waiting game now.
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Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 6:26 pm
Eione was not on duty anymore but she had decided to stick around where Dabula was sleeping. She had spoken to the other healers, made sure they knew what happened. They would be keeping a close eye on him to make sure he didn't make a run for it or just give up now. Eione had suggested a mind healer but in the end she decided not to force a stranger on him. She could talk to him about it when he felt like talking again. She left him to sleep for some time before finally coming back to check on him.
She wasn't sure if he was awake so she was quiet and took a seat nearby, sighing quietly.
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:07 pm
Her sigh drew his attention and he turned his head slowly to look across where Eione had seated herself. Healthy and young and so kind that it was strange to think that she had lived her life around so much death and misery. Perhaps learning to become a healer had helped her numb her feelings against such things. He didn't know.
"You sound as tired as I feel." He said at last, her quiet sigh ringing in his ears over and over again. His head hurt and thinking made it worse but there were some things he had to know. Eione seemed like the best person to ask, too. He knew her a little better than he knew he other healers, after all. "Are you too tired to answer some questions?" He felt the churn of dread in him to think of it but he had realised, perhaps only a few hours prior, that he needed to know.
He needed to know what was going to happen to him.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:58 pm
Eione started when suddenly Dabula was awake and commenting on her inconsiderate sigh. She hadn't meant to sound tired and she hoped it didn't come off as impatient. While she offered a small smile, she didn't have anything to say to his first comment- even an apology seemed pointless, perhaps even dangerous depending on his state of mind.
"No," she said, "Ask as many as you like and I'll try my best to answer them."
This was why she waited here, to answer questions that were perhaps easier to ask someone you were already familiar with. Another stranger had to be less welcoming, right?
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:29 pm
"My death." He started, biting the bullet. There was no point beating about the bush. Every living thing was scared of death - or so he liked to believe - and he was certainly not going to be brave about that. He didn't want to die, not until he was old and done. "Is it going to be painful? How will I know when the plague...has got me?"
He hadn't realised, before then, just how pessimistic he could be. But, at the same time, Dabula wasn't about to fill himself with false hope. Whether he believed he would be well or not would not matter in the end. He wouldn't wallow in denial.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:42 pm
She frowned, looking to the ground when he immediately asked if his death would be painful. There were four primary ways the plague finished you off and only one was self-induced.. and how painful each was depended entirely on how it went down.
His questions about a painful death were followed by a more general question that made it easier, she was much happier to start at the beginning of the story though it wasn't a happy story.
"The beginning stages of the plague are pretty simple and fleeting, you might have some aches, pains or even a fever but they don't last long," she explained, sounding like she was reciting a lesson- and, truthfully, she was, "It can progress quickly or last for a long time, which makes it tricky. It's easy to let your mind think you have aches and pains."
She sighed, struggling to push thoughts of Nyesha out of her mind as she continued.
"Beyond this, you can get bouts of dizziness, nose bleeds and increasing difficulty breathing," she said, "Many members can still function like this but everybody has good days and bad days. The final stages are identified primarily by difficulty breathing and loss of appetite, which is why suffocation and starvation are common causes of death here." With no way to know for sure how painful those would be when you were already that sick, Eione decidedly did not comment on that quality of the situation she presented and let him judge for himself.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:03 pm
He wished he could have taken the news with a brave face, unflinching and unafraid. That was what would have been expected of him, he was certain. Perhaps his brothers would have dealt with it better. But the more she spoke the more afraid he got until he found that the sound of his heart was drowning out her words.
He heard enough though. Enough to be fearful.
When her explanation was done he turned his head away and set his jaw, gritting his teeth hard in an attempt to keep the emotion off of his face. Suffocation. Starvation. Those options sounded just as bad as one another. Thinking about not being able to breathe properly for days on end. Or being so hungry but not being able to eat. Surely it would be kinder to just rip the suffering lion's throat out.
He swallowed to find that his throat was sore. "Why is your pride like this, Eione? No other pride suffers like this. Is it the land? The water?" There had to have been a reason, right? What if they moved somewhere? Maybe the sickness would lift.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:21 pm
"I am not sure of an exact reason," she admitted quietly, mentally reviewing her history lessons and general knowledge of her home, "This is just how it is." The lands were not as old a residence as some of their stories and water came from somewhere and led to somewhere else, it couldn't be an isolated issue.
"Not every visitor who comes here becomes ill, not even those who drink our water or stay a while," she said, trailing off nervously. It was just his bad luck he was hurt here, put himself at risk like that.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:46 pm
He sighed.
Lions that were caught in a never-ending cycle. Perhaps they would be more panicked and afraid if they were suddenly all declared well again. Maybe they didn't want a cure. This was their way of life. What made them unique. If that was taken from them then what did they have?
...Their health?
"Perhaps we're all being punished." He muttered under his breath. "Though I don't know what I did to deserve this." He shifted his weight and turned away from her. He was tired but too afraid to sleep. And yet being awake seemed no less frightening, either.
He felt sick.
"I'm going to rest some more. I don't feel strong enough for a walk today." A part-truth. He was too afraid to go out there. He could play on his wound a little while longer.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:50 pm
"OK," she murmured, watching him for a moment longer before getting to her feet. She should probably go home, she could use a friendlier face. Maybe she'd go visit Ua, Kua and Maji today.. she wasn't sure she wanted to go bother her mother or her brother.
"The other healers know how to find me if you want me to come back," she said, "Take it easy, Dab."
With that, she walked off to find something to distract her from her surprisingly depressing patient.
Fin!
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