What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

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Bella
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What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Bella » September 12th, 2017, 11:05 pm

OOC: TW for self-destructive/cutting behavior.
The hour had grown late, and the bells for all Novices to be asleep had long since rung. There was a small window in the shared room, and weak moonlight slipped through it. It was just enough to see by, although concentration was required to make much in detail. It was just enough.

Isla couldn't sleep. She had started to sleep, but then awoke from a bad dream. Memories of her time as prisoner, rather than soldier, came to her in the night. Once she left that behind, sleep did not come again. Not easily, at least.

This was the time when the dark thoughts came. Once the initial shadow wormed its way into her mind, it consumed her...little by little, until there was nothing else she could think about. The thought would not be chased away until it was acted on. The longer she resisted, the more painful it became.

Finally, she couldn't hold back the tide.

Isla lifted her head and spied the next bed over, seeing that Nyaine was asleep. So she reached under the box under her bed, pulling out the knife she had stolen from the kitchen. With one more check on her roommate, she carefully and quietly pushed herself to a seat and rolled up her sleeve.

This was not the first time she'd done this, and she knew--with a sinking, sick feeling--that it wouldn't be the last.

Finding the familiar line of her half-wound/half-scar that would never heal, she placed the tip of the knife against it and moved the blade along the ragged line. She bit her lip against the sharp pain, but then the warm blood followed and she let out a long breath. Agony and relief mingled as she held her forearm straight, letting the blood pool on top.

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Daniel
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Daniel » September 14th, 2017, 12:52 am

Nyaine Nyaine woke. She had dreamt something entirely silly, having already forgotten the details, only remembering that it had involved a dress and some sort of gathering back home. Sleepily she opened her eyes, trying to gauge the time. The wall looked fuzzy and moonlight-pale, so there was some time left. With a sigh, she tossed around and drew her covers back in place. About to close her eyes again and attempting to get back to sleep, she caught a motion in the room.

She blinked, trying to clear her eyes with moderate success and raised her head. There was a dark silhouette on her roommate’s bed. Was Isla up? The dim light made it difficult at best to see details. Nyaine pushed herself up groggily, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and blinked again a couple of times for good measure.

Isla was indeed sitting on her bed. She seemed to look down at her arm, her face mostly hidden in her own shadow. She had something in her other hand, that Nyaine couldn’t quite make out. What was she doing, why was she not sleeping? “Isla?” Nyaine slurred, irritation and sleepiness tinting her voice, intensifying her clipped Cairhienin accent “What are you doing, Isla?”

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Bella
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Bella » September 17th, 2017, 9:54 pm

Hearing her roommate's voice startled her--she dropped the knife, her head jerked up, and her arm shook. Blood splattered the top of her nightgown and her blue eyes went wide as she stared across the dim room to see Nyaine sitting up in bed. She sounded irritated. Had Isla somehow made noise that had woken her? She thought she'd been quiet!

"Uh..." she stammered almost unintelligibly. She kept her arms down, trying to tug her sleeve back down but her hands were shaking too badly to do so as inconspicuously as she wanted.

She swallowed hard. Where had all the air in the room gone? It felt like it had vanished, and she had to gasp quietly to get any of it as the panic sunk in. "I... I... I couldn't sleep," she said. That was the truth, at least. It just wasn't all of it. But how in the Light could one explain something like this? She had never imagined how to explain it if someone caught her... "I'm...sorry if I woke you?"

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Daniel
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Daniel » September 19th, 2017, 12:04 am

Nyaine Her eyes followed the falling object as it slid from Isla’s falling hand, landing loudly on the floor. Nyaine looked back up at her face, the other girl was stunned, she seemed to be staring at her in shock or was that the light playing tricks on her? She appeared to be shaking as well. And what were those dark spots? Nyaine was sure, she was awake enough by now to not be imagining things. She looked back to the object on the floor. Was that a knife?

“I woke up, it just happened, I don’t really know why, but do not worry,” she replied calmy, “Are you okay, Isla? What’s going on?”
Her eyes were drawn to those dark spots again. Were they growing? They were on her arm, too. Was that blood? Her mind seemed to have trouble catching up, grasping what it was that had happened in her very own bedroom. She pushed aside her blankets and stood up. With the pale moonlight not bringing out the red colour, it had been difficult to see, but that was blood. Oh, Light!

Quickly Nyaine rushed over to Isla’s bedside, kneeling in front of her. “What happened to your arm? You need healing! I can help… Or should we go to the infirmary?” Already Nyaine closed her eyes for a few seconds, imagining herself on the banks of a river, embracing saidar, before looking up at her roommate questioningly.

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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Bella » September 20th, 2017, 11:02 pm

Panic flooded through Isla in a great torrent now and she felt like her heart would hammer its way right out of her chest. Her rib cage would explode outward and that would be all anyone ever wrote of Isla Arkema...

Yet, somehow, her heart remained in her body.

"No!" she exclaimed, half-shout and half-squeak. "No infirmary... Please, please. Don't take me there. If you take me there, then they'll know..."

Isla shook in every corner of her body and watched as the blood she had managed to keep so carefully pooled on her forearm slid off and onto her nightgown. Some part of her, far removed from the rest, knew she'd have to do something about that. Burn it? She knew blood was almost impossible to wash out.

She pressed her lips together, feeling tears rising in her eyes. The tears burned, and the emotion in her throat nearly constricted it until she couldn't get a breath.

"Please, no one can know," she whispered hoarsely.

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Daniel
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Daniel » September 21st, 2017, 9:43 pm

Nyaine Nyaine still felt overwhelmed by the situation. She never really had to comfort anyone else. All she been in her life so far was a little daughter and younger sister. She was the one that got comforted. Still kneeling in front of her, tentatively she laid her hands on Islas shaking knees, trying to be a rational and calming presence.

“Okay, alright, not the infirmary,” she replied. What did she mean with ‘they’ll know’. Know what? That Isla was bleeding after she hurt herself… with a knife. Oh! Had she cut herself? Did she want to kill herself? Nyaine glanced at knife now lying next to her on the floor and then looked up towards her roommate’s face where the moonlight’s glittering reflection was an indicator of tears. She realised she was still holding on to saidar, having embraced the source for the purpose of offering Healing. That brought her thoughts back to present.

“But, Isla, we have to do something about your wounds,” she continued pleadingly, her pretence at calm already failing. “Will you allow me to Heal them? Or at least let me bandage them with some…” She trailed off realising that she did not really have an idea of how to do that last part. All her accumulated knowledge was utterly useless in this situation. Despite her not being the one sitting on her bed bleeding, Nyaine felt helpless.

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Bella
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Bella » September 23rd, 2017, 9:51 pm

With the realization that she would not be forced to the infirmary, and thus not forced to confess to anyone what she did in these sorts of moments, she began to shake less. She forced herself to try to breathe longer and slower, try to calm her racing heart before it thundered its way right out of her body.

"I...I always wrap them," she admitted softly. "There are bandages under my bed." She knew that this was admitting to several aspects of the moment--that this was not the first time, and that it happened often enough she had supplies and a routine. But it was better, safer, to admit it to Nyaine now than to any adult.

Pressing her lips together for a moment, she added, "You... Please, don't tell anyone?"

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Daniel
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Daniel » September 26th, 2017, 3:20 am

Nyaine Being told that bandages were under the bed, Nyaine regretfully let go of saidar. Isla had not reacted to her offer of Healing twice, so it seemed unlikely she wanted it. The room went back to grayscale. She reached under the bed, feeling for the bandages, quickly discovering them and pulling them on to her knees. She sorted out beginning and end and then frowned at Isla’s arm, thinking about how to apply gauze.

As she was arranging the fabric, she was trying to recall what Isla had sad. She always wrapped them and was prepared to do that, too. Did that mean she had it done it repeatedly, on purpose? Was she doing it at night while Nyaine was sleeping? The image of Isla sitting on her bed like this, applying her kitchen knife while the Carhienin lay there, fast asleep and unsuspecting, made her shiver.

Now Isla had asked her not to tell anyone, to keep the secret. Could she with good conscience do that? If she didn’t tell anyone would her roommate seriously hurt herself, maybe even kill herself? She gritted her teeth to keep from shivering again. But no, she had done it before as Nyaine had just deduced. She pursed her lips, hesitating to reply.

“I will remain silent,” she agreed slowly and held up the bandage. “I also don’t really know how to do this…” That was easy to admit in the situation. She took a deep breath. “Isla… you need to stop doing this. Since... since I now know anyways, if you want to talk…” There, she had made the offer, what else could she do? That feeling of helplessness had not diminished much, she noticed, hoping she would not have to break her promise after all.

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Bella
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Bella » September 29th, 2017, 8:41 pm

Isla took the bandage and began to wrap it around her own arm. The way she managed to do it showed that not only did she have "some" practice at it, but clearly had a great deal of it. She moved methodically but without a single hesitation, holding the end of the bandage against the heel of her hand with the tips of her fingers while she wrapped her forearm.

Her brain churned through the things that Nyaine said. Stop... Yes, it would be smart and even necessary to stop, but was it actually possible to stop? Isla didn't know if she was strong enough.

She bit her lip. And the other...to talk...

So far, she had done a pretty good job of not telling anyone about her past. The Mistress of Novices and some others up there must, but of those her own rank, she kept it very close to her chest. Now, though, there was a story asking to be told. She just wasn't sure she was brave enough to do that either.

"If I tell you," she whispered, "you'll hate me. If I explain and you know where this came from...you won't want to be around me anymore."

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Daniel
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Re: What We Leave Behind [Attn: Nyaine Lintelle]

Post by Daniel » September 30th, 2017, 2:52 am

Nyaine Nyaine watched as Isla bound her wounds with apparent skill. It looked well-practiced, just as Isla had said. How often had she done this? What could possibly compel someone to hurt oneself so? If she did not shy away from cutting herself, how safe were others around her? How about the novice sharing a room? Nyaine shivered, her eyes wandering towards the knife still lying on the floor.

Straining her ears to understand Isla’s whisper, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. If her roommate did not want to share, should she force her? Especially if this would somehow be offensive to her? No, she decided. It was not Isla’s place to predict how Nyaine would feel towards her. How dare she presume Nyaine’s reaction? The Cairhienin pushed herself up from the hard floors, her knees already aching, standing in front of Isla, her hands on her hips.

“Yes, I might hate you,” she said quietly yet sharply, noticing that Isla’s excuse had quite angered her. She took another long breath and sat down next to Isla. She was done with making gentle offers, done with subtle inquiries. It was time for hard facts. She continued coldly. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can remain silent and I will be wondering what it is that you think will make me hate you, afraid every night not knowing whether you might be using that knife on anyone else but yourself. I imagine I would find it hard to be around you then. On the other hand, you could tell me and yes, I might hate you, though I find it hard to image how that could happen, and the outcome could be the same.” She put a hand on Isla’s thigh, her voice soft again. “The choice is yours, Isla.”

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