childrenofbahamutlogs | A joy hard learned in winter was the warming of the bed { catch-all log }

After her embarrassing scene in Town, she's been keeping to herself. Her sickness isn't getting better; in fact, it's getting worse. It's reminiscent of one of the worst moments of her life, even, as her back is aflame with pain and has all but debilitated her.

Her wings coming in actually aren't what's ailing her. It's the spines along her back and down her vertebrae. They poke through the layers of skin and since they're poison-laden, it's likely what's been making her so ill. She's nauseated, hurting, and worst of all: it's so similar to how she got her scars that she's just being thrust back to that time emotionally as well.

Demora speaks to her, soothing and apologetic, and Rosie does appreciate it. It helps to not be utterly alone even if she still is mostly. Time is a concept lost to the woman though after a point. She can't tell how long it's been since she found herself on the hard floor of her home sobbing. Her eyes burn and chest aches and she hasn't eaten in what feels like days.

The weather outside, too, goes unnoticed as snow starts to accumulate. She can't tell if that's a knock on her door or just an auditory hallucination anymore. Either way, she doesn't answer. Or more that she can't. "I'm sorry," is all the blonde can offer, small and strained. Sorry for a lot of things, but mainly: her lack of hospitality despite currently bleeding and suffering poison damage on her own floor.

The snow is really coming down hard now. Angeal has to admit that he never particularly liked it on the occasions when it snowed over in Midgar, and not back in the simulation either... but it's not so bad right now. He knows why. It's all the heat burning up inside of him, the benefit of being something naturally inclined to breathing out fire. Angeal has to admit its handy, even if he doesn't like anything else.

You know, like the tail he can feel poking out from the bottom of his spine now.

Genesis is never going to let him live this down.

Still, thanks to this internal heat dispenser, he can make it through the snow in a way that isn't half bad... and he does want to make it through the snow. With how it's only getting higher and higher, he's worried about how some folks will be fairing while tuck in their homes. If they didn't manage to get enough food, or firewood.

So it's for that reason which has him stepping out, going to speak with those he knows. Some of them don't need the check up and he knows it - like Elidibus and his whole crew. But he's thinking that Rosie in particular might appreciate a little extra food.

...At least, that's his thought up until he hears, past the silence of snowfall, Rosie's pitiful little voice. The apology with it.

Hopefully Rosie didn't lock her door, because Angeal is coming through no matter what, and he'll break down the damn thing to repair later. "Rosie!" Shit- he rushes over to her, kneeling on the ground to try and get a better look on her condition. The wings look bad enough but, unlike with the little Seph, there's something more to it... and he can't tell which is bad enough.

"I'm here, Rosie. I'm here." Before he does anything else too rash, he has to make sure that she can tell that much.

Her door isn't locked, no, and so he's able to come in without having to knock it down entirely. She probably should be a bit more careful, but- This Rosie hasn't had to learn that hard lesson yet.

The loud noise does draw her attention though. Even in a haze of feverish pain, she thinks that's real. "Angeal?" she questions, shifting slightly to try and look at him. It causes a gasp as unexpected hurt strikes through her though and she rolls back into the position she'd been in; prone, on her side. She's laying straight instead of fetal because of the jagged, uneven spines now protruding from her back that she hasn't yet realized are there. They're bright green and leaking a noxious substance mingled with blood.

"Sorry, I. I didn't mean to worry anyone, just- It hurts. Before I knew it, I was like this."

"Rosie, you do not need to apologize for being in horrific pain and getting caught off-guard by it," Angeal tells her, grimacing as he leans over to take in the condition of her back. Shit. That's a lot to deal with. And that liquid...

"Alright. I think you're leaking a new part of yourself - maybe like how I breathe fire, but yours is more liquid. And bright green." And all over her, fuck.

"Does it hurt when you lay on your stomach?"

He says she doesn't need to apologize, which- He's right. Part of her can recognize it. The other part of her feels weak, scared, and afraid she's going to be in trouble for not being able to just deal with it.

"Poison," she offers, as a possibility. "My breath weapon is. That. Someone mentioned I might be toxic too eventually, I just didn't think..." Her voice trails off as she grimaces. She didn't think she'd poison herself. Shouldn't she have an immunity or something? While she will, her changes haven't progressed enough for that immunity to have kicked in yet.

"Figures," she huffs, lucid enough to complain again at least. She does move to lay on her stomach since that doesn't hurt, no, and gives him a better look at those spines. They've torn through her blouse - stained with green and blood both too - and are pointed sharply at the ends that leak that green substance.

At least now he has a little bit of a better idea on where the poison is coming from. As he looks over everything, Angeal mutters to himself. "The poison glands and such may have developed before your body could catch up in terms of immunity. Probably would take a real fuck-up for that to happen naturally, but nothing about this is exactly normal."

So fuck ups like this are much more likely to happen.

Taking a breath, Angeal rubs his hand against his face, mind going as fast as it can. "Okay. Rosie, I'm going to go for a second, okay? I'm going to come back with a knife, to cut through your shirt. I'm also going to grab what cloth I can, to press down along your new spines." Just don't think about it. Just think about crisis mode. This is fine and he will handle it. "Hopefully, they'll start to absorb more of the poison than your body."

What else? Shit. Maybe he can grab some snow, melt it for water, see if that will dilute it? His brain is rattling a bit and making it harder to deal with this, but he will deal with it, dammit.

The danger, she supposes, of strangely accelerated growth into an entirely different species. It wouldn't happen naturally, no, but like this- Who could have known? Her own poison breath hadn't made her sick so she assumed incorrectly she was already immune. Maybe it was just the gas form of it though and the actual liquid she wasn't completely safe from. It'll be something to note, maybe, she thinks in a haze.

Don't leave, she almost says. Not again. The last time she was in such a state, she'd been purposefully left to suffer on her own. It was to teach her a lesson. She can recognize this isn't the same, by a long shot, but it still makes her heart ache. He says he'll be back though and she wants to believe in that. "Okay," is what she settles on, tired and small.

Honestly, she's just feeling more and more tired as this progresses overall. There was a part of her that said to keep fighting, keep surviving like always- But now? It's harder to hold onto. Part of her does just want to close her eyes. Rest, finally. But she knows she can't. Not yet. "Please come back," she lets slip, in a moment of unexpected vulnerability.

Just those three little words are more than enough to make Angeal stop in place, heart clenching in his chest. "I will," he tells her, not even having to think about it. But words are easy. They both know that.

So he shifts forward, carefully pulls at the coat he's wearing with attention paid to his claws, until he can shrug it off. Gently lift her head, and tuck it beneath her.

"I'll be back for this too, alright? You and the coat together. So don't worry."

He's not leaving her alone for long if he can help it.

The only thing that really sets him back in any way when he finally steps off to get what he needs is his lack of familiarity with Rosie's space - both in this particular house and in general. Not to mention the mess... But he's determined, and his nose can still work a bit even if not as well as he'd like it. Sooner or later, he finds what he needs, and comes back, speaking so she knows he's around.

"Any changes in feeling like shit, Rosie?"

"Okay," she repeats, unable to articulate much more. She feels the way her head is gently lifted and something softer than the floor now cushioning it. It smells like him and that's a comfort right now.

Words still have weight, she'd say. How many times had she believed Charlie's words, only to be hurt when his actions said otherwise? How many times in Amani had a different her believed honeyed words from similarly horrible men only to cry over their contradictory actions too? She knows actions speak louder, but she wants to believe in words anyway. It's foolish of her, she'd say, but she can't help but hope someone's words will be true.

Angeal's are, which she appreciates more than he knows. When he returns, she's still prone on the floor but at least her neck won't ache as bad thanks to that coat pillow. "Hurgh," she gurgles, in place of an actual response at first. "No. Obviously, just- Sorry. Still super nauseous."

"That's just to be expected after you've been poisoned, I think." Actually, there are way worse ways to be poisoned, which he is more than familiar with... But he does have to admit that the bog-standard kind of poison one is most likely to come in contact with back in his world does make people nauseous as hell. "Just hold on. Eventually it'll pass a bit, and I can get something in your stomach."

It might help. Hopefully. But for now... Carefully, delicately, he begins to dab at all the poison along her back. Get some of it soaked up before it can further cause her harm.

"Has the dragon that's hitchhiking with you had anything to say on this?"

"Yeah," she answers, which- Did Angeal know about her scars in Amani and what caused them? It's not something she imagines she'd tell anyone. Even for as much as he probably does know, that's... a tale even closer to her chest than most. "I wish I could say I didn't know, but. I do." Those days and nights were a blur of agony, mostly, not entirely unlike now.

But at least unlike then, she isn't caged and alone. They'd isolated her from Ren, but she heard he nearly tore the throat out of the guard that got too close to sneer at him about being separated from her. And even then, she'd considered the notion romantic so- She's probably just doomed to conflate violence and romance, much to Angeal and others dismay.

"Demora has been apologetic, mostly," she says, trying to probe her mind for thoughts beyond the dazed pain. "It isn't supposed to be like this, she knows too, and I don't blame her or anything." Talking helps distract her from the sting of that poison being dabbed away. It'll help rather than allowing it to pool and seep into her skin further at least.

While they talked about a lot of things together in Amani, and he's learned more than some... It wasn't everything. So while he can note the agreement, there's no indication of just why.

And that doesn't really matter right now. Not as he patiently keeps soaking up the poison and setting it to the side, out of the way. He'll have to get even more cloth to help with this whole thing, and do one hell of a job for what's already soaked up poison.... He'll work it out as he goes.

"It sounds like you both got a good relationship going on," he says soothingly as he works. "What's she like? She chatty? Voridin never shuts up on my end, but mostly when it comes to backseat cooking."

He'll know someday, her Amani self would say. (Maybe she'll even actually pop in briefly for a visit to this timeline at another point.)

The woman gives a small hiss and then relieved sigh at the poison pulled from her body. Despite what still seeps into her skin, it'll be less than before at least. Manageable, eventually, and maybe she won't feel like the world is spinning constantly. "So far, I think," she agrees, about her and Demora.

"She's not too talkative, but speaks up when it matters." Or, at least, that's what Rosie has gathered from the moments she's chosen to be more of a presence. "She tried to tell me not to keep ignoring this, actually- And look at where that got me." They both seemed to struggle though to a degree with taking things on their own so the frustration on her dragon-soul's side felt more sympathetic than anything. She knows.

"Ah, so the voice in your head is the common sense you've been missing all these years," Angeal says, voice light and teasing, not serious. Just something to keep her occupied, words for her to process. Something to cut through the pain and nausea.

"Sounds like you've gotten a bit of a better deal than me. I'd love some peace and quiet. I think my guy only shuts up when I'm doing work with Mithrun. Although I guess that shows he does have some good qualities - he can see that it's not exactly for the skill upgrade that Mithrun does baking." Work work work. He should send a message back to Genesis that he'll be a bit late getting back, when he has a second to write. This is going to take a while.

"You read much about any of the other places in this land, or heard things from Charlie and Dimitri? Anywhere you'd like to visit?"

Thankfully, this Rosie is able to take that fine. "About time," she answers. It's also easier when she's also trying to find the levity amidst the brain fog of hurting. "She's got her work cut out for her still though." Look, again- She's at least a smidgen of self-aware now and again.

The woman wonders about what Mithrun does do baking for, but doesn't get the chance to ask before a new wave of nausea rolls through her. After a couple of deep breaths, she's alright. "Not really," she mentions. "I mean- Not that I don't want to or anything. I like traveling. Or, I did. I just haven't wanted to get out as much because of all..." Her voice trails off, but it's clear what she means. 'This.' Not just the poison spines and sickness, but the furthering changes.

They've already talked about it. So has Popp, Avan, others still- It's just an unfortunately difficult process of detangling the notion that she's lesser for her changed looks.

Indeed, they've already talked about it. But Angeal knows, perhaps more than some, that occasionally you need to have conversations over and over again. Chip away at the brick with patient consistency until a hole is made.

So he nods along. "I get it." It makes his own skin crawl sometimes when he remembers just what he looks like, when he focuses too long at the scales over his forearms, when his horns catch something stupid. Still. "You shouldn't let those just stay ideas, you know. It's you, Rosie. No matter what, you'll always shine bright."

Eventally, she'll get it. Although not starting from exactly square one here, it was a lot more ground to cover than her Amani counterpart. There is a stab of guilt there too at what he says again that she isn't the woman so many remember, that so many people came to care for- Will she ever be? Demora chimes in, at least, that this isn't the time to dwell on that. She's already feeling bad enough physically as it is, there's no sense in allowing her thoughts to linger on painful things too even if it's easier in these moments.

"I try to," she at least agrees. "And I'll get through it, y'know? I always do." Always, even when it feels impossible to pick herself up sometimes. "When I do, I'll probably see about exploring more again."

"Yeah you will." Another discarded bit of cloth. They're soaking up a whole damn lot, he has to say. "And you know you'll have people here to be with you and help out." A small huff of amusement at himself.

"Even when we have to break into your house to do it. I'll clean up everything, by the way. So you just focus on feeling better, okay?"

"Is it really a B&E if I'm glad you are here?" she asks. Technically, yes. She would say he's welcome to break-in anytime though, which- Maybe not phrased quite that way. For as much as Angeal knows she enjoyed a bit of 'romantic' stalking, it's probably best not to outwardly encourage it.

"Which is to say: thanks. Like, yeah, I could go it alone but- Always nice to not have to." Even she can recognize that despite the ways she might fight against it.

"I mean, technically," Angeal says, always one to try and help his friend try to have at least a little more standards. He's not asking for a miracle, but just a little. One bit of sand onto another until maybe he can give her a private beach of common sense. "But we'll chalk this occasion up to a medical emergency."

Gently, fondly, he reaches down to brush some hair away from her face. Just to make sure she's at least a little comfortable.

"Hey, when the weather lets up, we should go to that other town, on the coast. It's not like my hometown, but I know a little thing about beaches and water. We can have some fun out there. Really see the sights. I bet you I could find all the place the locals really like that they don't tell outsiders about." He has a sixth sense for this.

"Sounds good to me," she decides to concede. They can address her issue of being comfortable with men breaking into her house if she thinks she wants them to another time then. The brush of her hair does draw her attention enough that she gazes sidelong at Angeal and smiles as much as she's able to. It's not quite up to her usual standard but she is trying.

"So does going to the coast. There's fun to the sea when it's cold like this, sure, but I am already looking forward to summer." Since by then, she might have a better grip on... all of this. She can only hope so. "You can handle the water though. Not really my thing." Here, she's still as afraid of drowning as she was in Amani's beginnings. With no Seteth to help her tackle that and associate the sea with good things, well- It'll just take a little bit again.

"Hey, it's fine. I said the beach, not the ocean, right? There's plenty to do even then." And, well... Maybe one day he can help her out with that fear of the water too. But that can be in the future. For the present, he just keeps working on cleaning up her back as best as he can, going through numerous pieces of cloth that help soak up all the poison instead of letting it bleed further into her system.

It's a long and arduous task. Especially since there's only so much he can do with limited amounts of cloth, even as he tries to wring out and clean what he's used before. Still, Angeal got where he has because - well, partially because of the human experimentation, but also because he is inherently a stubborn and patient individual.

So he works. And he helps try to adjust her position, so that it leaks a little more outside her body. And he starts heating up water, for the soup he's going to make her whether she likes it or not, once he's sure she's a little more stable.

Lots of work, before he leans back on his knees with a puff of air. "Alright, hourly check in. How do you feel now?"

"Everyone will probably expect me in a bikini," she sighs, faux dramatically. "Unfortunately, I'm far too fair. It'll be full coverage and a parasol for me." Okay, so- She might not go that extreme. She'll definitely be more covered than not though and not just because of self-consciousness. Granted, by that time she'll be entirely a dragon. Won't she? So, it might not even matter.

It does like she has a bit more spirit at least. So, at the next check in she does manage: "Okay. Not dying, anymore. Still sick to my stomach and, like, feeling gross but- Thanks." She's already thinking of how she can repay him, of course. What flowers might he like...? It isn't really much, but it's one of the only things she can do here.

"Just tired now. But I'm also scared to sleep, just in case." She doesn't sleep well to begin with, honestly, but she does need to now and again.

Honestly, they still have to have some talks about her and bikinis and all that... Apparently the chat at the party wasn't indepth enough, although Angeal was aware before now. Still, he doesn't push at it. He does have some mercy for the sick.

"Well, so long as you're making some progress, that's good... and if we're lucky, then your changes will hopefully be spurred on by all the poison and give you some resistance to it." Or else this is going to be a long and miserable time. "If you want... I could stay here with you for the night." With the snow being as it is, that may be for the better anyway. "I can let Gen and Seph know I'm over here so they don't worry."

She would appreciate it. Even if it is her attempt at trying to make light of things, the undercurrent of truth is still a bit too pronounced for it to be any kind of actually funny. Yet! Maybe someday, she can poke fun at things but- Right now, suffering on her own poison and shivering in the cold of her home? It's difficult, to say the least.

"Gods, I hope so," she sighs, stretching out a little now that she can without as much searing pain. At the mention of saying, she does glance outside and sees that- Oh, yeah, it's still coming down and hard.

"I don't wanna' keep you from your partners," she says, maybe assuming a little much but- Look, she and Genesis were similar in some ways and that included not being shy about the hot men they'd staked their claim on. She just didn't have any hot men of her own to do that with here. "But also, it might be dangerous to try and go that storm alone, so- If it's easier, then I can get things ready for you to. You can use my bed since I don't wanna' ooze poison all over it anyway."

A joy hard learned in winter was the warming of the bed { catch-all log }

❥ torn apart. { closed to angeal } | cw: body horror, ptsd, self-harm.

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wrapping around now?

wrapped!!