16. [voiced]

[frost_jewel]

[It’s been a long few days since the Kin’corrans went “home”; Mia doesn’t remember most of them. Since the 31st she’s been, for the most part, sound asleep in the battledome clinic, trying to recover from…well, everything. Dealing with the fire didn’t help, leaving her spent and dehydrated and coughing. The time she’s spent awake, though, convinced her that things in the village were getting back to normal.

So her first mission of the day, after waking and sorting herself out, is to find something to do that will alleviate this boredom and, just perhaps, help make her case for just going home to lie about there instead.]

I know it has been very difficult and busy in the village just recently. Given the date, it will only stay busy. If it is at all possible, though, I would ask a small favor: would anyone be willing to bring a few books from the library to the battle dome clinic? I promise to return them at the first opportunity. …Once I’m done with them, that is.

While I am thinking about it…well, I would not mind a little company either. I want to hear that everyone is all right.

[Missing out on more than a day always leaves her too disoriented for her liking.]

[[ooc: We interrupt the delicious intro train to bring you If you work in the clinic and would like to have that argument about going home, step right up! She's a patient woman.]]

Comments

[deathsdoctor]

[He'll be ready with a refill once she puts down the cup. And then a refill for him as well.]

Mmn. Yeah. That last draft had you pretty wrung out... and that... wasn't all that long ago. But the people who know you should understand that both circumstances were pretty extreme.

Though if they do, you'll be in good company.

[Given a certain someone gets the overworked comments all the time. Hazard of being a medic.]

[frost_jewel]

[It happened on a mission once also, but those were extenuating circumstances and it resolved itself largely before she walked home.]

I know. We're terrible, aren't we? [We, doctors/healers in general. It was always a careful lesson of her father's that she not work herself to death, because what good are you to the people then? In times of stubborn-hero-friend-ordering-around, it's also convenient not to be a hypocrite.]

...Suppose some day a similar thing happens to us? To this village.

[deathsdoctor]

Absolutely the worst.

[Said lightly, but sincerely. It was the truth.]

... I hope we can take it with more grace than was shown recently. [A general we... refugee and host alike.] But all we can do is prepare for the worst, try to keep our heads, and what will happen will happen.

[frost_jewel]

I hope so, too.

[The tea is more of a comfort than she's letting on. Still, it and her blanket combined can't hold back a shiver.]

Keeping a level head is not easy for everyone. And we can't live as though everything is about to fall apart. That doesn't work.

[deathsdoctor]

No. Not for long, does it?

[frost_jewel]

Not at the same time as being rational.

[One quick shake of her head.]

This is the part where I usually tell someone to stop thinking so hard and rest. Perhaps I should listen to me and not dwell on something that may never happen.

[deathsdoctor]

That might be for the best. Why don't we talk about something else?

[Your choice in topic.]

[frost_jewel]

Mmhmm, please.

[She doesn't exactly believe in belaboring the point about wanting to leave, so that's out. What else can she think of?]

Did you...see anyone you knew? Who had lived in Kin'corra.

[deathsdoctor]

Not anyone I knew very well. An enemy Marine was probably the most familiar to me. [As in, he recognized his face from the Auction House.] I made sure to avoid him. He was on the loosing side of a very unpleasant battle I was a part of, and talking to him in the circumstances we were in would have just started a fight.

I did speak with some of the others. It was nice... catching up on home.

[frost_jewel]

That sounds good. I did not see anyone I knew, but from what I hear a lot of others did.

[deathsdoctor]

Mmm. Makes you wonder just how many people there are here from our worlds. Not just in the enclosures, but here, altogether.

[frost_jewel]

As far as Weyard is concerned, I hope for none, save myself. Nobody deserves the potential for such devastation.

[deathsdoctor]

No one does. But for those of us who are here, we should try to make the best of it.

[frost_jewel]

Oh, I think we do. Most of the time.

...I'm sorry for talking about such serious things. We've all had quite enough of that already, haven't we?

[deathsdoctor]

I think we've reached our limit.

Alright. Something new. What are your thoughts on sailing?

[Someone is missing the ocean right now.]

[frost_jewel]

Well, first of all I can hardly believe I got the chance to do so much of it. It's wonderful, I love the ocean and the scent and the way everything feels. Piers's ship doesn't have a sail but he assures me it is still sailing.

[deathsdoctor]

Oh, does it use propellers?

[A chuckle] You're after my own heart. The ocean is my home and my harbor. If I could, I would live on her again. I'm just grateful I can sail her here.

[frost_jewel]

It uses Psynergy. [It also has wings that allow it to sail the air instead of the sea. Why get needlessly complicated?]

Does it frustrate you that you can't pass the barrier?

[deathsdoctor]

Oceans shouldn't have barriers. They're meant to be places of freedom. So... yes. It does.

[frost_jewel]

At home we were not sailing for pleasure; it was the only way to get to some of the places we needed to reach, in order to finish our quest.

[deathsdoctor]

Questing too, Mia? What was yours?

[frost_jewel]

We were trying to restore the world and keep it from shrinking.

[That always sounds so grand, saving the world. It rather is. She doesn't like to bring up the months they spent mistakenly trying to stop the restoration of the world instead.]

What was yours?

[deathsdoctor]

I was trying to reach the end of the Grand Line. Raftel. It's an island that only one crew has actually managed to reach before.

That of the Pirate King.

[frost_jewel]

A pirate king?

[Briggs comes to mind. What she knows of him, at any rate. Then a slow smile forms on her face.]

Were you looking for treasure?

[deathsdoctor]

[Law laughs.] Yes, we were. It's just that the treasure may not be silver and gold. And is probably not, by all reckoning. See, no one knows what the One Piece is. Just that it was important to Gol D. Roger and that it's important to the world.

So everyone's looking for it.