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Weaver chuckles at that. ”You’d think people would just take it to get better.” Except she knows that’s not true, and probably even less so here. They would all be too stubborn to go see a healer in the first place, let alone take the medicine. In Halo, injuries were common and there was a level of ‘toughness’ in pretending you were fine. ‘Oh what, that? You mean that giant hole in my side? It’s nothing.’ ”I’m not sure that’s going to get any better here, but I promise, if I am required to drink something awful I will do it without complaint. Or well, much complaint.”
She shifts slightly, crossing her legs and growing increasingly comfortable leaning against Maea’s wall. ”You should be,” she says in a mock matter-of-fact voice. ”And I definitely have been,” she adds, her voice a bit teasing and suggestive, though not overly so. ”I am not sure you were ready for that side of me.” After all, though they may have gotten drunk together the first time, he’d been in a pretty dark place. Still was, even if he was working on it. He didn’t necessarily need to be distracted by her and her bad habits (which for all her talk, were largely uncommon things save for the drinking). ”Also, it’s really hard to find cigarettes around here,” she adds.
Lips twitching with amusement, Loren nodded. "You'd think." Spreading his arms, he grinned at Weaver. "And yet..." Voice trailing off, he laughed a bit. Then he narrowed his eyes at her. "I'll have you know that my medicines taste just fine, thank you very much." Speaking in a mock offended tone, if she looked closely she'd see the mischief sparkling in his eyes.
Snorting, he shook his head at her quip. Raising his eyebrows, he gave her a teasing look. "I don't know. I think this is one of those seeing is believing things." Then he tilted his head to one side. "To be honest, the smell of smoke makes me sick." He confessed that in a sheepish tone.
”I assume they taste like medicine,” she says in retort, though her tone is teasing and playful. Thankfully she doesn’t tend to get sick, not that it’s never happened. She’s far more likely to come in with a broken bone or a hole stabbed into her side somewhere. ”Besides, you can just heal me with magic.” What need do they have of medicine when they are able to be healed by magic? There are some perks to being what they are.
She chuckles slightly, not offended that he doesn’t like the smell. ”It is rather terrible, but there’s something pleasantly calming about it. Though I don’t need to smoke around you.” Clearly it’s not something she does regularly. She’s not addicted, can go without, but she does enjoy it. ”Really though, most of those things don’t happen that often, besides the drinking. Usually too busy trying to put food on the table to waste time.” Not that she didn’t waste it occasionally.
Loren raised his eyebrows, still playing at being offended. "And who are you to say that medicine can't taste good." Sniffing, he winked at Weaver to let her know he was kidding.
As the topic turned to why he even bothered with traditional cures, he shrugged. "Yes, but my energy isn't unlimited and not everyone can be healed by magic. Besides, I can't be everywhere at once even if I can heal at long distances. Even if I could, I can really only take care of one person at a time." It came out in a matter of fact and businesslike tone, though there was something almost proud as they exchanged what for him was shop talk.
"Sounds like me and fighting. I appreciate you refraining around me though." He grinned at her, before nodding in understanding. "I should really go hunting more." There was something chagrined about his expression and tone.
”Nothing that’s ever been forced down my throat has tasted good, so I am drawing on experience.” It was always too syrupy, too sticky in its sweetness. And that coming from a girl who did enjoy her sweets. Any medicine that wasn’t sweet tasted like a plant, and one that didn’t get her high. If she was going to suffer the taste, she at least wanted a little euphoria with it.
He explains more though, and she really does listen, though in traditional Weaver fashion her answer is hardly practical. ”But you can heal me with magic, which is all that matters in this particular conversation.” Her tone is teasing though, because she appreciated healers. After all, she owed her life to them, to poultices and medicines and things designed to keep the wound from getting infected. They’d lacked any healer strong enough to cure her by magic alone.
”Hunting and fighting are not quite the same thing,” she points out. ”Though luckily for you, you know a girl who is very good at both.” He is probably far better trained than she will ever be, but she enjoys a fight. The adrenaline, the way everything else disappears. And she enjoys a challenge. After all, she’d agreed to spar with Wessex, with Deimos...she seemed to pick targets that were out of her league.
Loren grinned, his mind going in quite a different direction than Weaver's. "Nope. Too easy." Tone teasing, he let out a huff of laughter.
"Oh so what, you just expect me to drop everything and come running when you need healing?" Reaching over, he shoved her shoulder gently. "You can heal yourself. Even I need a break every now and then." Still, it was clear he was mostly kidding.
Nodding in agreement, he smiled. "I'm aware. Then I guess I've got to do more fighting too." Raising his eyebrows, he grinned wickedly at her offer. "Lucky me indeed." He sounded almost eager to test himself against her.
She laughs at the double meaning of her words, and she can’t help but give him a playfully suggestive little wink. That statement might hold true in all its forms, though let's be real, no one has ever forced Weaver to do anything she didn’t want to do, besides take medicine. Though at the time, she’d been half unconscious for a good chunk of it, so it’s not like it mattered much.
Her grin, still playful and clearly teasing, grows as he shoves her shoulder. ”Clearly that’s exactly what I expect,” she says, though he should know her well enough by now to know it’s not. ’I can only save myself from papercuts.” She sticks out her lip in a very mock, petulant look, though she can’t hold it long before she cracks into a laugh and gives it up.
She likes the eagerness in his voice, and she grins, giving him a slight nod. They would find a time and a place, test their skills against one another. He would give her a hell of a challenge, she is sure, but she does love a challenge.
Winking back at Weaver, Loren grinned. It turned into a rueful smile as he folded his arms across his chest. "I'm easy but I'm not that easy. Better hope you don't get something worse than a paper cut." Tone teasing, he raised his eyebrows a bit. "Or I can train you so you can treat something a bit more serious than a paper cut."
As he looked around the room, he felt his expression grow more serious. "When...if there's no body, how do Halovians honor the dead?" When Edy had been eaten, they'd burned her possessions, but he didn't know the traditions here. He really should, though.
”Fine,” she says, with what is an absolutely exaggerated sigh. She throws up her hands in the universal ‘I surrender’ gesture, even though she had agreed to at least a few lessons. ”You can train me. Though you may have to do it at the Kraai.” Weaver was a busy lady, after all. Still, she knew she would find time for the lessons, or at the very least, for him. Though she cannot make it that easy, because then she wouldn’t be her rather impossible self.
His expression grows more serious, and she crosses her arms again, sobering at his question. ”You build and light the pyre anyway. Say the rights. Some people will burn possessions, some won't. But it’s thought that the spirit will hear it all the same and feel at peace enough to pass on to Mort’s realm, whether the body is physically there or not.” There is perhaps some real truth to that, though also, Weaver has always suspected that funerals were as much for the living as the dead. Having missed her brother's, she knows what its like when there isn't that final goodbye.
04-26-2020, 12:52 AM (This post was last modified: 04-26-2020, 12:52 AM by Loren.)
Loren let out a huff of laughter. "Good thing alcohol is used to treat wounds." Giving Weaver a pleased grin, he nodded in agreement.
The grin faded as he listened to her explain the traditions when there was no body. Rubbing his cheek, he sighed. "Should we do that for Maea?" For all the dead woman's preparations, she hadn't left instructions for her funeral. Nor had Sunjata made any plans, so far as the healer knew.
As he waited for the huntress to respond, he glanced around at their surroundings. His eyes lit on the notes, which would be a shame to burn. Shaking his head a little, he leaned against a nearby wall. "How many pyres have you built?" His eyes had grown distant again. "You don't...you don't have to tell me if it's too difficult."
”So I can just pour vodka down my throat?’ she says, teasing as always. If that worked, she’d be the healthiest woman in the world probably. Okay fine, she didn’t drink that much, but she drank enough that she’d be up there.
She pauses for a moment, uncertain. ”I don’t know,” she finally says after a long moment. ”She was not actually from here. I’m not sure if it would be better to do something that she would have done, if she were still in the Grounds. Though she belonged here, in a way, so perhaps? Perhaps something small and simple for her.” At least it would be a way to honor her, a way to say goodbye.
She shifts slightly, watching as he settles in against another wall. They could sit, she supposes, but that feels wrong. It feels wrong that they are still in this room, talking about life that keeps going on even as Maea is gone, and yet she is thankful for the easy conversation between them. ”I have helped with far more than I care to count. Many people in the town will help for each funeral we have, and we have too many here.” She pauses for a moment, images of the town coming together for everyone who passed flitting through her mind. ”I have only been responsible for two, those being my parents.”
Grinning, Loren nodded. "Yes. As the Grand Healer, I can definitively say that works." Letting out a huff of laughter, he gave Weaver an amused look.
Biting his lip, his brow furrowed slighty as he considered it. Finally, he sighed. "I don't think there's a right answer. Nor do I think she'd mind whatever memorial we choose to hold for her." He shrugged, sounding not at all certain about that claim.
Listening carefully to what she told him, he smiled, expression both sympathetic and understanding. "I was partially responsible for the pyres for my mother, my step-mother, my father, my eldest brother, and my cousin." Even now, after all this time, his expression grew grief-stricken as he listed all the many family members he'd lost. "I'm sorry about your parents." It came out quietly.
Weaver chuckles at that. ”You are the best healer I’ve met, then.” She gives him a sly grin, playful. Though he was perhaps the best healer she’d met. If he’d been here when she’d been mauled by the ursur, her odds of survival likely would have been better.
He considers, and she nods at his words. ”You might be right about that.” Though she too is not sure, she doesn’t think Maea would mind. Particularly given all that they had found in this room, so many plans left waiting to be picked up. If Maea had wanted a particular funeral, then perhaps, she would have left them with those instructions as well. ”We could do something small, if you’d like.”
She takes a step closer to him then, reaching a hand out to rest on his arm. ”And I am sorry about yours,” she says, something shared in their sorrow. His list is far longer than hers, though her family had never been large. Still, she doesn’t think it matters how long the list. It will always hurt. Some part of you will always burn on that pyre with them, time and time again.
Letting out a huff of laughter, Loren grinned. "Like there was ever any doubt about that." Although his tone was teasing, there was also a proud expression on his face. At least he managed to keep it from veering into smug territory.
Nodding, he swallowed, the happy smile fading away once more. "I think something small would be nice." He glanced around at the room once more, which seemed lacking, now that its inhabitant was gone.
Sighing, he bit back his instinctual response to deflect or downplay his sorrow. Instead, he reached up to lay his hand over hers. "Thank you." He shook his head sadly, trying to muster up the amusement from earlier. "Gods help us if anyone walked in here right now. We look like we ransacked the place." However, his words were fond. Still, he bent down to start cleaning up at least some of the mess from the freak wind? spirit? event that had led them to the belongings that mattered.
