THE SQUAD GETS BUFFED: POST-PLOT HEALING LOG

[wildermods]

THE SQUAD GETS BUFFED: POST-PLOT HEALING LOG
OOC POST
Refuge can be found in the forest beyond Weathertop. No matter what path they all take, everyone somehow finds their way to the ruins of the long-lost mystical city of...

Philadelphia?

Wait, what?

The forest gives way to ruins that are clearly a chunk of Center City from the US city of Philadelphia. The ruins are very strange due to their placement: the trees of the forest are large and ancient but not large enough to hide the chunk of city, yet here it is, cradled in a secret place in the forest's center even though it wasn't visible from a distance.

Many of the buildings are overgrown with massive vines that have threaded in and around their structures. Most of the streets are broken up, with plants growing between cracks of asphalt. A long stretch of Market Street is now one long grass-filled path.

The sky seems caught in a strange eternal twilight, forever early evening, as if the city has decided it will be rush hour until the end of time. There's always enough light to move around in but the sun never sets or rises or any higher. The crescent moon is always just slightly visible in the sky above, never shifting its place. An effect that looks like a green aurora can always be seen in the sky ahead. This is the only part of the sky that moves, shifting like a normal aurora. Sometimes it crackles slightly and briefly changes blue or red.

Something calls out to them, urging them to the Parkway Central Branch of the Philly Free Library. Stragglers may find the quest magic teleporting them here after the majority arrives. Here, they'll be able to help each other out, heal each other and offer first aid or any food/water that was salvaged, and comfort each other after what happened.

---

NOTES
✦ Setup: Please only do top-levels either with characters that require some kind of care, first aid/conventional medical treatment, healing, food/water, psychological comfort OR with characters that are capable of offering it. All other characters can tag around and meet/visit people.

✦ General open logs: For general open logs, do not use this log, instead do your own open posts set in the area. This log is purely to provide a centralized place for healing since so many characters were injured or made ill.

✦ Background Info: Please see the related camp OOC post for any background info about the library and area.

Comments

[awfulcer]

Think I tackled that guy on the hill. Does he shriek a lot? [Dixon doesn’t remember a ton of what happened, on account of the magic. There are big holes in his memory of what went on there, and the patching between them is nothing good. He remembers a lot of running around, alternately in pain and not; a lot of running towards teenagers to try and stop them getting hurt and not quite getting there in time.

He holds out his cigarette for her in case she wants a drag, oblivious to her evident distaste for it.]

Yeah, I know you already told me that. [He looks vaguely confused, more than anything.] It don't answer my question.

[easy_as_cake]

Sometimes. He was yelling a lot when I found him, too. [She almost says more, but Harper's nightmares aren't really hers to share with just anyone. Instead she shrugs.] Harper's just loud all the time.

[She shrinks back from the cigarette just a bit. Not quite enough to be terribly rude about it, but more than enough to make her feelings on the subject known. It's only the fact that Dixon's obviously having an even worse day than she is that stops her from opening up with a lecture on the evils of poisoning your own body when the world around it does more than enough.

Someday, though. Someday.]

Which question? You asked what I am, and I'm me. I'm Trance. What else am I supposed to be?

[awfulcer]

[Wow, rude. Teach him to try and be generous, especially when his precious smokes are pretty rare around here. He gives her a sulky look as he takes another drag, then starts to uncrumple his T-shirt to put it back on. He does so gingerly, having a bit of trouble with it, wondering if the knife tore up some muscle in his back or if it's his stupid shoulder acting up again.]

I don't know, whatever species you are. I've never met nobody in your particular color. If you're not human, what are you?

[easy_as_cake]

[Yes, well, Trance appreciates the generosity, just not so much the poisoning. She doesn't offer to help with the shirt, although she does keep watch on his efforts out of the corner of her eye; she may know a thing or two about men needing to do things on their own to feel accomplished but that doesn't mean she won't offer if he seems to struggle too much with it.]

Oh. That. Most people haven't met anyone like me, even where I'm from. There's not very many of us, so there's not really a word for my people that humans can actually pronounce. We keep to ourselves a lot. [She's rambling a little but doesn't seem self-conscious about it.] Except me, I guess.

[awfulcer]

Can you pronounce it? [She's not the first person to have something about her that Dixon's not even going to try to pronounce right. That doesn't mean that he doesn't want to hear it. Sometimes it's nice to just hear someone talk about themselves.

He doesn't mind that she's self-conscious; he is too. He doesn't tend to ramble but he does tend to talk himself into corners.

He finally gets the shirt on and takes a deep breath of smoke, lets in linger in his mouth on the exhale, closes his eyes as it finally escapes.]

Is where you're from like Earth, but purple?

[easy_as_cake]

I'd rather not, if it's okay. It brings up some... kind of bad memories. [It's not even strictly a lie, even if it's also not exactly the truth. It's probably not even anything that matters here anymore, but she's just gotten so used to hiding that it's second nature at this point. The thought of telling him doesn't even cross her mind.

His second question makes her laugh, though, any impending gloom chased away. She'll have to tell that Purple Earth idea to Harper.]

Not quite. I'm kind of from all over, not just one planet. I've lived most of my life in space, on space ships and drift colonies and things like that. Some of them are kind of purple, and some of the planets I've been on are kind of like what I think Earth is like, but none of them have ever been both.

[awfulcer]

Alright, that's alright. [He won't push her on it. He lays back on his side; there's only so comfortable you can get on stairs but he can't seem to sit up longer, even with her having siphoned out most of the aches and pains. There's only so much healing magic can touch bone-tired.]

Huh. Like an army brat but for space. [She must be from the future, Dixon thinks. A future well beyond what he's ever seen or likely to see on anything but a television. Even if other species progressed more quickly, Dixon thinks of humanity like a flashlight in the dark, and other things don't really exist until they're in the glow of human knowledge.

So if she's interacted with humans, which she has, that makes her real.

(The music changes over, Arlo Guthrie to Madonna singing "Borderline".)]

I've only ever been on the one. It's not so bad, honestly. I like where I'm from.

[easy_as_cake]

What's an army brat? [The army part she knows, of course. People still have armies, lots of them. And she's pretty sure brats are kids, at least according to Beka. But she thinks most people would be more upset talking about child soldiers, so that's as far as she can decipher.

Part of her thinks she should probably leave Dixon to get some rest, but a tiny, different part of her doesn't really want to give up being a little bit needed. It's selfish, but if she's cut off from the future, doesn't she get to be a little selfish?]

Harper makes it sound like it was really nice a long time ago. Ever since the Fall, Earth hasn't been so great, but before that, it sounds like it was really pretty. Amber waves of grain and purple mountains and everything.

[She hears a bit of the music change and leans a little closer to listen. Her face lights up.] Oh! I know this one!

[awfulcer]

Someone whose parents are military, so they move around a lot growing up. [A bit of the opposite of Dixon, who has only infrequently even visited outside the two mile radius of his hometown.

His face lights up too when she recognizes Madonna, and he offers her the earbud again. He doesn't mind the company - is grateful for it, actually. With the way his back's hurting, he probably wouldn't be able to get any restorative rest right now. He'd probably just sit here burning his cigarette down, wishing he were dead and feeling sorry for himself. He doesn't want to be alone and left with all that in his head.]

I don't now about amber waves, but my home is real pretty. We're in a valley, and there's a lot of flowers and meadows everywhere. It's not so bad driving around. [He takes another smoke.] Didn't know they had Madonna out in space. This is my favorite song.

[easy_as_cake]

[This time, she takes the earpiece, figuring out how to fit it in her ear with only a little fumbling. She has to lean over a little bit to not tug the wire too taught, and ends up adjusting to sit cross-legged facing him instead. It reminds her of lazy evenings with Beka, listening to music from a world long lost, Beka waxing poetic on her favorite artists. Quiet times that she's not sure she'll ever get again even if she does get home.]

Kind of like that, then, yeah. Not the military part, but the moving around a lot. There's just so many places to see, though, how can you stay in one place?

[She makes a tiny face at the smoke but doesn't pull away this time.] I wish I could see it. Flowers are my favorite. There aren't very many of them in space, usually, but the ship I live on now has a whole hydroponics bay filled with them. It's my favorite place on the whole ship.

[She sounds understandably fond, tracing little patterns on the ground in front of her. A few look vaguely like flowers, if drawn by someone with little artistic talent.]

Most people wouldn't know Madonna anymore, I don't think, but Beka really likes Old Earth music. She collects these things. DCs? I think? They're really rare since they're so old, but she's been finding them for years and years.

[awfulcer]

It costs money to go other places. [And when you aren't raised with a sense of adventure, with a sense that there's anything particularly exciting about the world beyond your town and that it's perhaps even hostile, and that it would be inconvenient anyway...you just end up never going. And then you stop thinking of going. Adventurousness is a habit, not an inborn trait.]

Sounds nice. My momma had a garden in the backyard when I was growing up. Sounds like the same thing but not in space. [He turns his head and exhales smoke away from her. He watches her doodle the flowers into the dust on the steps.]

CDs. I have a bunch of them back home. Records too. But now we just listen to MP3s. [He taps the iPod. He doesn't know what he's going to do when it finally gives out. Even just thinking about it seems to make the cold, icy wound in his back tighten up and constrict his chest.] You have any favorites? I've got a bunch of stuff on here.

[easy_as_cake]

True. I usually just found ships that needed some help and worked my way through. [Someone lacking a sense of adventure doesn't even occur to her. The universe is just so big and beautiful. How could you not want to discover it if you had the chance?]

Right. CDs. Those things. I don't know if I have any favorites, really. Rommie used to play this one in hydroponics sometimes, cause she said the plants would like it, and it was really pretty. It was kinda... um... [She thinks really hard before humming a few out of key notes that mostly resemble Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Mostly.]

[awfulcer]

I wouldn't be able to do that. This is actually the farthest I ever been from home, if you can believe that. [He feels a pang of homesickness. There wasn't anything left for him back in Ebbing, but his momma loved him, and he does miss her.

He doesn't see how plants would give a damn about music, but maybe space plants are different.]

I think I have that one. [He skims through his iPod - which is a disorganized mess - until he finds what he's looking for. Vivaldi starts to play through the earbuds, making in contrast a bit miraculous that Dixon got the right idea out of Trance's rendition of the notes. Chief used to play it in the squad car sometimes, usually ironically, to punctuate something unwhimsical with whimsy, but Dixon likes it on its own.] This one?

[easy_as_cake]

Technically, it's probably the farthest any of us have been from home, so that's okay. [That may or may not actually be helpful, but she means well.

She sits up a little straighter when the music starts, smile widening as she recognizes it. It's not her fault she can't carry any tune more complicated than the March of the High Guard, but she's very glad she managed it enough for Dixon to figure out what she meant.] Yeah, this is it! Do you have everything on there?

[awfulcer]

You got a point. [He feels kind of stupid now that she's said that. What he meant was that this is the longest he's been away from home, but sometimes thoughts don't translate to words easy and get mixed up along the way.

But he grins when he's got the right song. He needed a win; he'll count this as one.]

Nah, just a few hundred songs. [A few thousand, actually, but he hasn't kept track.] Do you have music where you're from or do you just listen to all our old stuff?

[He pauses for a moment. Kills his stub of a cigarette with a mournful look, itching to reach for the pack again but knowing he has to make it last.] Thanks for staying with me, by the way.

[easy_as_cake]

Oh yeah, there's all kinds of music, just two of my best friends are humans that are kind of in love with Old Earth stuff, so it's what I get to hear a lot. I think Harper might have programmed Rommie - she's our ship, the Andromeda Ascendant, and she's really huge and really pretty - anyway, I think he programmed Rommie to like Old Earth Music, too, maybe. Than music's kinda weird, cause they have hiveminds, you know? I like Perseid music a lot, and Vedran music is really pretty if you can still find it.

[She may be a little biased on that last count, though.

She's just getting into a good ramble on music from species Dixon has certainly never heard of when he thanks her for staying, as if she'd have left just like that. She expression falls a little.]

Of course I stayed. No one should be alone in a new place when they're hurt and sad. That's what friends are for.

[awfulcer]

[He pretends he's following along, but it's hard to form a clear idea of what she's talking about when things stay abstract, unmoored from any kind of personal knowledge and experience. He can know that a Perseid is probably another kind of alien, but without an idea of what it looks like, who it is, what it sounds like, it's all just sort of words floating in blankness. But he nods and he smiles and he tries to mock up some ideas to pack into the new concepts.

The way she talks about friends is warm enough to make him wish he was among their number, and then she tells him he is. It's a sense of acceptance he didn't know how badly he was craving, how much he needed after the endless squabbles and fights with the rest of the group.

He wants to protest that he isn't sad, but he stops because the truth is, he is. He misses home even though there's nothing really left for him there, he's in pain and feeling guilty and ineffective, he's tired down to his bones. He's been sad for weeks, longer than that, even, until it's like a layer of moss that he never noticed was growing under his skin.]

I just figured other people might need your healing, and since you can't do anything about that knife problem...hey, do you drink?

[easy_as_cake]

[She's had a lot of years, a lot of years to get used to reading people, even ones she's never met before. He can try to say whatever he likes, she just probably won't believe him.]

If I see someone who does, I'll help them. [Luckily, as far as she can see so far, most people have someone to watch out for them. It's kind of nice, and very different from the universe she left behind. She tilts her head a bit at his question.] Do I... drink? Do you mean like alcohol or...?

[She assumes he means intoxicating liquids. She can't imagine Earth has ever been so different that drinking any liquids at all was optional.]

[awfulcer]

Yeah, like alcohol. I mean, I don't got any on me, but I got magic that does the same thing. [He pats the golden shield lying next to him on the steps, mystically smaller now that it isn't in the middle of combat, maybe the size of a dinner plate.]

I figured we could use just a little bit. I can share. [Truth is, he usually needs someone else to help trigger it. He can't coax the shield into giving him magic unless he can trick it into thinking there's a fight going on. The closest he's been able to get the magic working on his own is fighting a pigeon he trapped indoors at the temple.]

But we don't have to if you don't want. Just figured I'd offer. [He keeps trying to share things because he's not sure how else to thank her, or just how to keep the conversation friendly. He's needy for companionship but not the best at socializing. Never has been.]

[easy_as_cake]

...Maybe later. [Or never. Never also sounds good. She's not quite sure how a shield would be like drinking, but she's pretty sure it's not the intended use. Not that she's an expert on magic or magical items, exactly, but call it a hunch.] Besides, you're still healing. I'm pretty sure even fake drinking is bad if you've got a hole in your back.

[That's less of a hunch. Harper doesn't listen when she tells him things like that, but no one can possibly be as bad as Harper about getting drunk at the worst possible times, right?]

But thank you. For the offer, I mean. [She reaches out to pat his arm again, since it went over well enough before.] You should probably try to rest at least a little. I'll still stay if you want.

[awfulcer]

[If Dixon didn't drink at times when he shouldn't - every once in a blue moon going to work, often getting a car, always when he's sad or pissed off, ever - his life would look a lot different. It's built into his life and habits, a force both stabilizing and destructive.]

It helps with pain, actually. It really does, I'm not just kidding. [But he doubts he's going to talk her into helping him out here, so he just gives her a mournful look and takes his earbud back and pats her on the shoulder, gives her a soft squeeze to say thanks.

He lays down on the step, figuring that probably was a cue to at least get indoors but enjoying the twilight sky too much to want to leave it.]

No, I'll be alright. You make sure no one else needs you. [Having a hole in your back, as Trance put it, does not give a plethora of options for resting comfortably. "Slept on the floor" is a minor complaint compared to some of what they've dealt with, but it makes getting up in the morning uncomfortable enough when you're not dragging around an infected injury. He rustles around a little trying to get settled.] Thanks, though. Trance. I appreciate it.

[He does, and he doesn't want her to go really, but there's no good excuse for demanding she stay here and watch him doze off.]

[easy_as_cake]

[It was mostly a cue not to try getting magic-drunk again any time soon. Or doing anything vigorous that would involve ending up back in the condition she'd found him in, which she now suspects also involved getting magic-drunk. Still, she just nods blandly when he says it helps. Maybe it does, a little, but she's not sure it balances things out.] Better to be safe than sorry, probably?

[She gives him another warm smile, standing once he seems mostly settled as well as he can be. She hasn't explored much, but comfy mattresses don't seem like the kind of thing to have survived the end of the world or whatever happened here. The ground can't be much worse than what else still exists.] Any time. I promise. I'll keep an eye out just in case you need something, so just yell if you do, okay?

[She gives him a little wave before stepping away. She'll keep her word, too, and wander by to check in now and then. At least until everything goes absolutely terribly and she has a personal annoyance to go yell at. That'll keep her distracted.]