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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Jun 25, 2023 16:00:02 GMT -5
With Thalia's expression crumbling Del isn't entirely sure how the young woman would react to her offer. There was any number of ways this could go-- weeping, anger, denial, even violence. The relief she feels when Thalia steps forward to brace her head against Del's broad shoulder is temporary; the outcome was good, but the reason...
She could only guess at how tumultuous this upheaval was for Thalia.
Though, somewhere deep inside her, in a place that had long, long forgotten such things, Del knew precisely how she felt.
Exhaling a slow, careful sigh, Del gingerly wraps her arms around Thalia. Not tight enough that she would feel crushed, or trapped, but firmly enough that the young woman could feel secured by her muscular smiths arms. "I know it doesn't feel that way. What happened may never be okay. But one day, you will be." Del murmurs, keeping her voice gentle. However Thalia felt about those words, one thing was certain; Del truly believed what she said.
When she feels Thalia's hands clutch at her shirt, holding to her as an anchor holds a ship in a storm, Del squeezes a little tighter, running her hand gently up and down Thalia's back. She could practically feel the pain that this revelation caused, wracking Thalia's body with heaving sobs and thoughts of only the gods knew what.
She feels the punctures of her sharp nails through the cloth of her shirt, digging into her skin, but Del does not budge. Her skin was thick; it would take more than that to draw blood from her. Rather, it is the words that get to her. Frowning slightly, she leans back a little to move her hand to direct Thalia's face up and towards hers-- oh.
Tears of blood were leaking out form underneath the eyepatch.
Del moves past it quickly-- one thing at a time-- and gently dries the young woman's tears, blood and all. She does not flinch. "You are not a failure, Thalia." she says quietly but firmly, looking her in the eye. "Breathe slow for me now. In through your nose, and out through your mouth. Like so." Del leads her in a few of those stilling, slow breaths, meant to give more air to the brain and body so it would not make the panic worse.
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Post by Thalia Fellstar on Jun 25, 2023 16:57:24 GMT -5
It takes Thalia too long for her register what Del was saying. There were stuttering breaths, trembling fingers and blurred vision that obstructed her vision. All her fault, all her fault, fail, fail, lies. Liars. Thalia was probably speaking, but she couldn't confirm nor deny in her state, her panic attack threatening to mount. It was panic, it was fear, confusion, hatred. It was pain. The eye patch had darkened due to it getting wet underneath, more blood than tears streaming down and passing through the stitches on her face.
Thalia didn't register anything until Del helped her wipe her face, cancel and thing and nothing like what she was feeling inside. Inside there was a fire, or perhaps it was more like boiling water, I'm bearable in scorching and roiling. She hears her instruct Thalia to breathe, and she does. It's frustrating, and it takes far too long for her to focus. She's watching Del’s face, listening to her breathing as she struggles to match it. She's struggling to stop hyperventilating, nodding her head and trying to focus.
In and out, she reminds herself. In and out. There was pain behind her eye patch, and for the first time in a while Thalia was feeling pain there again. It was excruciating, but it was either that where she continued to panic. To Del, there were a little too many streams of blood to constitute it as simple tears; something had torn under her eye patch.
“I'm sorry, I-I’m sorry, I'm sorry, I-I-I'm sorry…” Thalia didn't know who she was apologizing to, her emotions a wreck. At least she could hear Del, and was mostly following her instructions. She shook her head, growing dizzy at the loss of both blood and tears. She didn't know what to do, this had never happened before and it was making things so much harder for her. Still, she matched Del’s breathing after a while, shaking like a leaf and unable to see through the glassiness of her eye.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Jul 2, 2023 13:30:11 GMT -5
As Del watches, trying to breathe slowly with Thalia, feeling a mounting horror as the amount of blood grew from a few stray tears into a constant flow. Trying not to appear too alarmed, lest she maKe the panic attack worse than it already was, she waits, her hands resting on Thalia's shoulders to steady her while she gets her breathing under control. The blood continues to flow, as if something had been cut or slashed, from beneath the eyepatch. Not something Del could gently wipe away. But, one thing at a time. Del continues to gently hush Thalia as she panics, until at last her breathing starts to even out.
"There, excellent work," she says encouragingly, guiding Thalia to sit at one of the stools near her work counter. She reaches over to the other side to procure a clean cloth, dousing it in water before turning back to Thalia. "I don't mean to alarm you, but you have a little blood coming from under your eye patch. Can I have a look to see if I can clean it up a little? I promises I will be gentle."
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Post by Thalia Fellstar on Jul 2, 2023 15:07:39 GMT -5
Thalia took a seat, barely registering herself sitting down but allowing it to happen. She didn't know what to do or feel at the moment, so she just decided to focus on Del's breathing and her voice. It takes a great deal of effort to do it, but she manages to very slowly and very steadily focus on her breathing. Now that she was seated there was a little more for her to focus on, though she didn't completely calm down.
Thalia was embarrassed, but moreover she was frightened. She had gotten careless, and broke down in front of a stranger. A nice one yes, but no one really opened their day eager to stop someone from a panic attack. If she were any more focused, Thalia most likely would have run away by now.
It was around this time Del asked her if she could remove her eye patch, kind and with no ulterior motives. And yet still, Thalia’s entire heart stopped for a brief second. She could barely register the pain moments ago, but now that she had brought awareness to it, the moon elf could feel the tear. It was excruciating, made only worse by the fact that she couldn't relax.
Thalia had a few options here: She could refuse, saying that she was fine and that the stitches holding it on her face tore, leaving the shop and never turning back until she was far away from Darkveil. She could also simply deflect... But she also couldn't really justify that, when she was losing so much blood. Thalia went strangely quiet save for her erratic breathing, weighing her options.
Then finally, Thalia slowly raised her hand through her eye patch, running her fingers over the wet, chipping paint on the surface. Perhaps it was her hope that Del was really good, good enough to not want to harm her, or perhaps it was her realizing that the only real choice she had to get it to stop was having her see, but Thalia lifted her hands. She undid the strap itself behind her head, and She undid the stitches around her eye. They were clearly done with something thicker than twine, unprofessionally as well.
Once she removed the patch, Thalia looked up at Del, still shivering and trying to keep herself from falling into another panic attack in front of this kind woman. What was underneath the patch was a series of torn open scars, no eye in sight. It quite literally looked like it was mauled out of the socket by either animal or really sharp nails, leaving nothing but poorly sewn together scar tissue and sinew. She was bleeding from a particularly deep cut across the middle, the new blood mixing with old black blood that had most likely clotted beneath the scar. She didn't know what to say, as this was the first time she had ever shown anyone this scar, not even Rosen knew of this. Ashamed, she casted her gaze down.
“It…h-h-hurts…I’m sorry…”
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Jul 9, 2023 0:56:42 GMT -5
She waits patiently for Thalia's decision, watching the conflict playing over her tear stained face until she decides to relent. It chilled Del a little-- not out of discomfort, but for worry for what the young moon elf was so reticent to show her, and why it was actively bleeding. The process is painstaking; the studious removal of stitch after stitch, a brutalist approach to sutures that were done by an inexperienced hand, Thalia herself, or someone who did not care for her.
Below, it's worse. A series of scarred gouges in an empty socket. It's painful to look at, but even worse is what she knows Thalia must be experiencing. That it hurt her still, physically, and, she was sure, emotionally. There's a pang of empathy, a surge of protectiveness that swells in her chest when she sees these weeping wounds.
"You have nothing to apologize for, hon." Del hushes her gently, her brows pressing together in concern over what the young woman's eyepatch reveals. "Wait right here, and I'll help you get cleaned up. Okay?"
The split was bad enough to warrant new stitches and Del was decidedly not a physician. However, she'd had a long life on the road of caring for her own injuries, and bore the scars of many of them still. She ensures Thalia is secure on the stool and plucks Chip off her shoulder to settle on the counter, while she went about boiling water and getting fresh cloth for her task; accomplished easily enough by simply setting the kettle on top of the forge. It was at a roiling boil within seconds.
Two clay mugs were procured from behind the counter, some green leaves tossed into the cup. While the tea steeped, Del washed her hands first, and then poured the boiled water over the cloths. She wrung them out until they were cool and then came back to Thalia, placing the cup of tea into her hand to warm her, and held the sterilized cloth up for her to inspect.
"I'll be using this to clean up the area. I will be as gentle as I can, but it may sting a little, since it's already so raw. It'll feel better once I'm done, but I won't do this if you ask me not to." Her brows lift meaningfully, "You are free to choose, and if you allow me to clean up the wound, you can ask me to stop at any time, and I will. Okay?"
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Post by Thalia Fellstar on Jul 9, 2023 11:05:45 GMT -5
Thalia doesn't protest, letting Del maneuver her where she's needed without much convincing. She supposed she shouldn't have been too surprised by the sun elf jumping to help her, but it still managed to linger in her mind. She shouldn't be surprised at this point, about anybody being kind to her. She had been traveling for a couple of months now, meeting plenty of people who at the very least were kind. This though… this was a different animal entirely.
Right here she couldn't deflect, because if she were to try she would be lying. Thalia didn't just go on this journey to relinquish her debt, but to see new horizons in her time away. Kindness was still so foreign to her even after so many months, making her feel stupid. She met Del what, 30 minutes ago? Maybe an hour? And yet she was still unwaveringly careful and kind, being careful with her. Her own parents didn't even do that.
The idea only made her sink into more sorrow.
Thalia covered her left eye with her palm, going quiet save for a few sniffles and soft winces of pain as she waited. Her sobs had petered out into pitiful whimpers, like an injured dog. Usually this didn't happen, as she had a bizarre tendency to underutilize her facial muscles as to not jostle the wounds. Still, it was unsure if the tear was because of accelerated movement or something completely different. Her resurrection was botched after all, so this could be any number of things.
“Thank you.” She said quietly, taking the tea in her hands and concentrating on the warmth. She nimbly crossed her legs on the bar stool, managing to stay upright somehow. Thalia still looked downtrodden and ashamed, but she listened to Del. She wanted to reject it, but it was a little too late now. With very minute hesitation, Thalia responded, avoiding eye contact, shoulders squared. “You…can. Just… please be careful. I-It's, um, r-really bad.”
She was vastly underplaying how deep the wound was, considering it was fatal, but she figured that Del would learn that soon enough while she's cleaning it. She mentally prepared herself for the pain, an old friend of hers. At least she knew that Del wasn’t doing it to hurt her. The thought made her want to cry again, but she held it in.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Jul 10, 2023 23:58:48 GMT -5
A slow, careful nod is given to mark the understanding of that assent from Thalia. "I promise, I will be careful." Del gives her what she hopes is a reassuring smile, before gently starting to tend to the wound with her cool cloth. Wiping away the blood, old and new, delicately removing the flaking scabs and raw flesh that was dead and peeling, and...
It was painstaking, to get to that point. A long process. Del was careful and thorough, making sure to go slow so as not to cause Thalia any unnecessary pain if she could help it. But the more Del removed, careful not to reuse the same patch of soiled cloth as she had just touched Thalia with, the more cloths she swapped out for fresh ones, the more she got to see the full scope of what Thalia's wound was.
It was no mere injury, no simple missing eye. This was a yawning cavity that touched bone, perhaps deeper. Beneath her fingers, she could feel the bumps where the bone had knitted together below the surface of the laceration. Del was no stranger to such injuries; she had seen enough in her time to know that something this deep, this serious, was a mortal wound. She even bore one herself, a deep fissure across the bridge of her nose that forked at one end across her cheeks below her eye. A wound that would have killed her, along with the fall, if it hadn't been for her mentor. Given that Thalia's injury seemed far more severe, that the young lady was sitting upright at all was nothing short of a miracle.
Oh, dear girl. Who did this to you?
Despite a surge of anger at what might have caused such wounds, Del keeps her breathing steady-- one crisis at a time-- and continues to dab and clean to the best of her ability. "I regret not being the best at suturing wounds, yours could use a little touching up. Do you care for this injury yourself?" The question is delicate and her voice light, conversational. They both knew it was bad; she didn't need to drive the point home, not while Thalia was trying to get her own panic under control.
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Post by Thalia Fellstar on Jul 11, 2023 10:56:40 GMT -5
Thalia keeps her fists balled in her lap, her shoulders tensed and her eye closed as Del worked. She’s reduced to shaking, trying to force herself to stay calm in the midst of the pain. It hurt, but the more that Del worked, the more relief she felt. Her hands twitched and flexed at every sting, gritting her teeth. At this distance if she were to look Del in the eye, she’d be able to probably process the minute twitch of her features, but she honestly didn’t have the courage to look. Thalia focused on her breathing, able to get down to about 30% panic.
She had clocked Del’s scar when she came into the smithery, which was probably partially why she trusted her so easily. Thalia had found that she trusted people with scars more often than not, and it didn’t take too much time to understand why. This was only her eye, but her whole body was scarred. There was a morbid kinship there; it’s partially why she got on so well with Cyran and Rosen.
“I-I, uh, I haven’t touched it since it happened.” Thalia said, voice small. Her voice was growing even at least. “I don’t really ‘care’ for it because there’s really no point. I just have to hide it, yknow?” She sniffled, wiping her face with her fist, trying not to disrupt Del’s work, hissing at the touch a bit. “That was around 50 years ago.”
It sounds bad, hell, it is bad. Thalia knows that it is, but in all honesty before today she didn’t even care about it. Sometimes she was reminded that she was half-blind, which was why she was slowly but surely teaching Phigaro, her songbird griffon, to operate as her left eye when he was on her shoulder. In general though, Thalia never had to worry about it unless she squeezed her face too much.
“I can guarantee that y-you’re better than me.” Her voice shook as the injury is touched again, trying for humor even if it was a failing effort. She gave up on that quickly, digging her nails into her palms. “I used twine and j-just tried to get the wound closed after I woke up. It d-didn’t work.” Thalia’s breath hitched, stopping herself from saying more. She remembered it like it was yesterday, and she wished it didn't. Her abnormally slow heartbeat was threatening to spike again, opening her eye as she threatened to relive it all over again beneath her eyelid.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Jul 22, 2023 1:38:32 GMT -5
"By virtue of having a better angle with my hands, I suppose, but I have my own share of badly healed scars that prove otherwise, I assure you," Del chuckles, keeping her tone light for Thalia's sake. Though, the mention of there being 'no point' to taking care of her gaping wound gives her pause. It's a few moments before she addresses it, quietly working in the meantime, slowly and steadily cleaning Thalia's wound. "Is there a reason you feel there's no point in caring for this injury? It's clearly causing you pain."
Which was part of the problem, as far as Del could tell. Not caring for the wound, not receiving treatment for it, was causing it to fester... though, what caused it in the first place might have something to do with it. There's a deep sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach as she starts to connect the puzzle pieces together. Parents that felt they were 'owed' something. A fatal wound on a living girl, fifty years on. A wound that was patched together with the barebones of available supplies, and not minded beyond that. Worse than the physical pain was the mental.
"Shhhh," Del hushes Thalia gently, observing the rising panic within the younger woman as it quickens her breathing. "Stay with me. Nice and easy." Del pauses in her ministrations to breathe in sync with Thalia a few more times, before going back to work. "I'm nearly done. I don't have any stitching supplies, but I do have bandages and dressings we can pack the wound with. You'll have to keep the area clean daily, but if you can do that, it should find us enough time to get you a good physician. If you like of course." Del adds cautiously, lifting her brows at Thalia in silent inquiry of her opinion.
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Post by Thalia Fellstar on Jul 22, 2023 23:04:38 GMT -5
“I mean, it does but... it's not like it's going to heal right.” Thalia says, slow and regretful. Her heart is heavy and she looks more than a bit shameful as she admits this. There's really no point in hiding it at this point, so she just outright says it, albeit with a tremor in her voice. “M-My injuries, especially the old ones like that, they don't heal right. I was...resurrected, but they did it wrong so...I don't think my body can tell if I'm alive or not. My injuries end up either rotting or just not healing… I-I have one more really big one, but it doesn't need attention.”
Thalia doesn't specify where it is, but her insistent rubbing of her neck where the ribbon is and her protecting it when Chip was on her shoulder was probably a hint enough throughout this interaction. She had to calm herself down again, easing her panic as she tried to keep herself grounded from saying such a strange thing, a piece of her pried from her shoulders. The fact that Del was being so kind to her was grounding enough though; no one was ever nice in her head when she spiraled.
At the offer of a physician, Thalia’s breath hitched. She hadn't seen a doctor since… well, childhood really. She wasn’t the healthiest child and neither was her brother, but they started to develop a little better once they got older. Still, the thought of seeing one now in her specific circumstances was… terrifying, honestly. Thalia had to think, but after weighing every single option she could finally respond:
“I don't want to become a spectacle.” She answers at last, sounding awfully guilty. “I-I mean, I really didn't mean to even start this, and this is already overwhelming, yknow?” Thalia explains to the best of her ability, wincing a little bit at the pane of being tended to still. She was already anticipating an explosive reaction, or at least some panic at her revelation, and she balled her hands up tight into fists.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Aug 2, 2023 1:02:25 GMT -5
Del listens quietly, patiently, her face a careful mask of sincere but mild concern while internally, she felt a rising anger and dread. This young elf had been through absolute hell, to say the least-- resurrected, but it was done incorrectly and had been left to fester unchecked, providing a world of pain and anguish. It was heart breaking. She'd clearly been through enough.
Her eyes flick down to the ribbon as Thalia fidgets with it. That seemed a likely place for injury. Just what had happened to this girl? She nods carefully as the areas of her cloth come away cleaner and cleaner. "Alright. If you want me to have a look and clean it up, I would be happy to, though. Just say the word."[/color]
Del hums thoughtfully as Thalia protests the involvement of a doctor; she couldn't blame her, frankly. "I don't think it would be a spectacle, if you're concerned with becoming a... what do you call them. Case study?" Del shrugs, unsure of how else to put it, but trying to be gentle in her reasoning regardless. "But that's okay if you're not ready for that. We can keep it between us. Consider it an option for down the road; I'm sure I can find someone who would be good to talk to who wouldn't make a scene out of it. But; only when you're ready, and not before. There we are."
Setting the cleansing cloth to the side, Del starts to pick up the fresh strips of cloth, soaking a couple in the ointment she used when she cut herself in the midst of working. "I'm going to apply this to the area and dress the wound. It might make it easier to heal, or at the very least, make it easier to stitch up in a couple of days once the swelling goes down. Do you want to tell me how you got these injuries?" Del arches her brows gently, looking at Thalia with an undemanding gaze of amber. "You don't have to, if you'd prefer not to, but I would not mind hearing if you wished to share."
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