please don't tap on the glass, it agitates the monkeys [OPEN]

[endurancepoint]

WHO: Quarantined students, staff, and their visitors
WHAT: So there are these people that are sick with a mysterious virus and they are bored
WHERE: Infirmary
WHEN: Whenever this week, they're not going anywhere
WARNING(S): People are sick. There might be undignified medical tests and discussion of bodily fluids.

OOC: Put in your header if the thread is open to visitors or just for fellow inmates. Or have multiple thread options. Run wild. If your character is visiting someone, feel free to start threads as well. Mind, visitors other than medical staff wouldn't be able to enter the quarantined area, so they'll probably have to talk through something.

Comments

[long_live_the_queen]

She was fine. She was just fine. And for the most part, Kaede was; the illness had caught up with her too, but she weathered the coughing and headaches with the same sullen silence as everything else. They'd given her one of the single rooms further away from others, where it was quieter and easier for her mind to rest. Kaede was holding up just fine.

Until the fever started. It was only a mild one, as fevers went--but it hit her like a sack of bricks.

She'd never been good with fevers. She remembered that.

...but who were these people, again? Where was she? She was sick, yes--but the facility's clinic didn't look like this. And wasn't it autumn? The view out of the window only confused her more. The horned girl got up, meandering aimlessly and rubbing at her temple, but otherwise seemed fine as long as no one looked at her eyes--soft and hazed over with little recognition, entirely unlike how cold and harsh her gaze usually was.

She kept peeking into doors, looking for memories. Krista's was one she stopped at, opening the door and looking in without knocking. Did she know this person? She thought she did.

Remembering was difficult.

"...nyu."

[martyrerkomplex]

Krista was dozing off when the door creaked open -- she'd been in and out of consciousness all day, laid out with a fever of her own. It wasn't until she heard the other girl's voice that she realized the door was open at all and managed to open her eyes.

"Kaede?"

...But no. This wasn't Kaede, was it? Not with that look on her face, not with the strange sound she made. It was like the time before, and like the presence that had been in her mind when they were replanting the garden together.

"...Hello."

[long_live_the_queen]

Kaede? That wasn't her name. At least, not her name. That was...that was the sleeping one's name. Yes, that was right. Probably right. It was familiar in a distant way.

She still wasn't closer to remembering this person's name, though. She tried to ask.

"Nyu?" The same sort of mewling sound came out of her mouth instead of "who?"; she changed the inflection a bit, but that was all.

[martyrerkomplex]

This was really confusing, and honestly a bit distressing. She didn't always exactly get along with Kaede, but Kaede came closer than anyone ever had to understanding her, and still hadn't pushed her away because of it. Now that someone else was standing there in her body, she realized that knowledge had been something of a comfort to her.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked, scooting sideways on the bed to make space for her.

[long_live_the_queen]

Did she want to sit? It--well, she probably wouldn't fall over, but it wouldn't be a bad thing. She wouldn't trip over stuff or bump into walls.

So she bobbed her head, mewled again (why did she keep doing that?), and shuffled into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed when Krista moved. That was easy enough to make a connection between.

...it was still hard to connect faces to names. Or why there was a bandage on the back of her hand where an IV had been. She frowned at it, thoughts splitting.

"Who?" she finally managed, brow furrowing with the effort. She meant to ask the other girl's name, but at the same time turned to almost face her and pick up her hand, to see if she had the same kind of bandage or a different one.

[martyrerkomplex]

The mewling sounds were peculiar, but at least... whoever this was, at least she seemed pretty calm. A little confused, but unlikely to cause too much trouble.

Carefully, Krista reached out to soothe her mind, to plant a little bit of trust. She raised her hand to show where her own IV was still connected, and smiled as she finally understood the question.

"My name is Krista."

[long_live_the_queen]

Her mind wasn't nearly as prickly as Kaede's; it followed similar patterns, but wasn't bristling with defensive thought-wires to block the way. She felt the touch at her mind, of course, but there wasn't any recoiling or defensive hissing. Just a curious mental nudge back, and nothing really more. A friendly cat, not an angry one. This person wasn't going to hurt her. She would be fine.

"Kris-ta." That was her name. The word didn't seem strange to say. Did the sleeping one know her too? Is that where the memories came from? This wasn't a scary memory, though.

She didn't let go of that hand even after she looked over to the IV stand, though. The touch seemed like an anchor--everything else didn't make sense, but this person did.

"Where is...this?" Hearing her talk made it easier to remember how to make them herself.

[martyrerkomplex]

"You don't remember?" she asked, just to confirm it to herself.

At least whoever this was could talk after all. Krista gave her another small, reassuring smile.

"We're in a special school for mutants -- for people with special powers? The rooms we're in are like a little hospital to help the students when they get sick, and we're sick right now, so we're here."

my smiling icons go from Nothing to Super Gay with no middle ground, welp

[long_live_the_queen]

"Like...us?" But this person didn't have horns. She let go of Krista's hand for a moment, to reach up and see if her own were still there. They were--they weren't hidden by anything, but they were. And Krista could surely see them, but wasn't bothered by them at all. So-

The ideas clicked together, dragging a memory along with them. She got off the bed (it was awkward to sit there), leaned over the side and grabbed Krista's shoulders, excited as a child. And she was smiling--really smiling.

"Nyu--you! I remember you! You helped me! When the guns were coming out of the ceiling!"

......Excellent.

[martyrerkomplex]

She had thought something seemed strange then, but quite honestly, with all the guns and explosions and everything else going on, there hadn't been too much time to think about it. Krista nodded, taking the other girl's hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"That's right -- you were there that night, weren't you?"

[long_live_the_queen]

"I was! Halfway there." And that seemed to set her off into an excited tumble of increasingly nonsensical--and then not even English--words, her mind bubbling over with giddy, ecstatic thoughts kept stoppered up for years.

This was someone she could talk to, someone who didn't say she looked weird or that her horns were abhorrent and someone who talked to her and listened and-

-wait, wait, English, for a moment.

"I never said thank you!" She said, still excited--a thank you for helping her, a thank you for listening (even if it was just for a few moments), it didn't matter and she wasn't sure anyway. They were already blending together into an amorphous nicer memory in her mind. But she curled her free arm around Krista's shoulders in a brief hug regardless.

[martyrerkomplex]

At least they were words, she thought... but that didn't make them make any more sense to her. Krista listened patiently, but couldn't quite hide her relief when the girl finally started speaking English again.

"It's alright," she assured her, returning the hug and trying not to feel too self-conscious about it. "I'm glad you're safe!"

[long_live_the_queen]

She didn't move from her spot, gleefully continuing to talk with her head propped on Krista's shoulder.

"Were you hurt?"

[martyrerkomplex]

Krista shook her head, tentatively patting the other girl on the back. This, she thought, was the most anyone had ever touched her in her life.

"No, I wasn't. I was just fine, I promise."

[long_live_the_queen]

Now she pulled away and straightened a little, so she could look Krista in the face (and relieve the strain on her spine; it was starting to feel funny now). Her expression was a bit worried, concerned.

"Are you sure? Was this-." she released Krista's hand to gesture at the IV stand, the infirmary, all of it, "-was this later?"

[martyrerkomplex]

She looked around the room as the girl gestured to it, then nodded, her smile faltering just the slightest bit.

"This was later. That was a couple of months ago."

[long_live_the_queen]

Krista wasn't smiling so brightly now. Did she do something wrong?

-oh, she had an idea!

The girl let go of Krista entirely, to instead press on Krista's cheeks a little. There--just like before!

Antisocial weirdo or actually a puppy, who knows.

[martyrerkomplex]

For a moment, Krista was confused. When she did realize what the girl was trying to do, she couldn't help laughing -- it seemed like the kind of thing she'd have tried to do as a child, before she gave up on the miserable, hurtful people she'd always been surrounded by.

Well, if she wanted her to smile, she could do that. She was good at being what people wanted her to be, even if Kaede could see through it far too often.

"Oh, I didn't mean to worry you! I really wasn't hurt at all that time, though, I promise."