Prim Everdeen (
primeverdeen) wrote in
ten_fwd2015-09-17 04:39 pm
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Wandering lost - OTA
Prim promised her friends she'd make the effort, and she was trying. Trying to have reasons other than feeding her animals to live, to keep moving. But it was hard, so hard. Her limbs felt leaden and her head ached and all she wanted to do was sleep. But she promised. So she was trying to find Killian and Fatima. Show them she was alive, so she could go back to her quarters again. With the ghost roommate who couldn't tell her if the lack of Katniss' ghost was a good thing or a bad one.
The lack of Katniss. Tears welled in hollow eyes. Would this feeling of being scraped out and empty ever go away? No Katniss. No Mom. No district who needed her. No Panem who saw her as the sister of the Girl on Fire. Without Katniss, without her mom, in a place where they don't need medical help from a kid like her... Who was she? What was the point of her?
The lack of Katniss. Tears welled in hollow eyes. Would this feeling of being scraped out and empty ever go away? No Katniss. No Mom. No district who needed her. No Panem who saw her as the sister of the Girl on Fire. Without Katniss, without her mom, in a place where they don't need medical help from a kid like her... Who was she? What was the point of her?
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"Hi," she said softly, presuming the question was for Fatima, anyway.
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"I wanted you to meet my friend Prim," she said to Beverly, putting her hands on Prim's shoulders gently. "She helped me get my footing when I got whooshed here. Prim, this is Beverly Crusher. She's a very, very important person."
And a doctor. Someone who could help, she hoped. Surely, Beverly could see how frail the girl was.
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"It's nice to meet you, Prim. You can just call me Beverly. Fatima is pretty important, too, but don't tell her I said that." She means it as a gentle joke, since Fatima is close enough to hear clearly. "I'm the head doctor here, but I think I've been doing more doctoring of plants today than the crew."
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"They don't need you either?" she asked softly. If they didn't even need their head doctor, what hope did Prim ever have of being useful? Of being anyone. So long she had always been Katniss' little sister and the next generation of herbwoman, medical assistance for the district. Future doctor - such as one could be in the districts, her mother's daughter, Katniss' sister. These were how she had always defined herself. Buf if she wasn't needed, and she was alone... did she even exist?
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Well. Spilled milk and all.
But she was more than a little relieved to have Beverly around. Damned if she knew how to respond to something like that. As it was, she felt entirely useless on the Enterprise. More of a burden and an oddity than anything else. She'd expressed as much.
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"Of course they do," she says warmly. "If it were up to me, I would spend all of my time in sickbay. There's always something to do. But we have duty shifts, certain times in the day where we work. Right now isn't my time to work, so I'm somewhere else. I like to keep busy. Just ask Nurse Ogawa. I can't count the times she's had to force me to take time off." A soft but very warm laugh bubbles up from her, as she hopes to put Prim more at ease.
"Is there something you were thinking of doing today?"
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Still, for a moment, there had been almost a glimmer of hope there. If only... if only they could use her, she could help, could learn the medicine here... then she'd have a reason, a way to help people. But she knew that wasn't going to happen. She was just some girl from the districts, useless outside of them.
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Problem was, kids also had a harder time dealing with emotions.
"I think she's just looking for an excuse to loaf around in bed," Fatima said, perhaps laying it on a bit thick. "But with hands like hers, I think she'd make a halfway decent gardener."
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"Well, I'm sure I can fix that," she says warmly. "I'm always looking for assistants. And while we're working, you can tell me what you like to do."
She's sure they can figure out something for Prim to do with her time.
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Prim handled them after, washing them, helping to prepare the food and medicines. None of which was needed here.
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"Looks like she wants your help with plants, kiddo," Fatima said, giving Prim's shoulder a squeeze. "You better listen really carefully. Beverly knows her stuff."
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She glances at Fatima, her lips tilting upwards for her friend as well. The compliment is true, though she does appreciate it all the same.
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But she wasn't stupid, and while her education was different from Philip's, she still had one. That... still mattered... right? Not that there was anything she could teach this woman, but if this woman knew she had the basics down... maybe she'd teach her more? Enough to let her help sometimes?
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It was getting easier to talk about Zelien. Especially now that the funeral party was likely. But joking about it was still hard. Fatima forced herself to, if only to stay sane. But she immediately felt guilty about doing it in front of Beverly.
Well. Spilled milk.
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Or so she keeps telling herself.
"She's right. We could have used someone else well-versed in medicinal plants there," she continues, moving around until she finds a patch of plants she thinks will be good to start with. "Why don't we start with what we have here? You can tell me what you already know and we can work on from there. How does that sound?"
If you want to tell me what plants there are/let me choose, her posts can be more detailed. :D
She followed Beverly to the patch of plants and leaned over one carefully. She touched the leaf and moved her fingers across it, trying not to harm the plant, but trying to get a scent and feel of the resin like she would if the plant were cut, the way she was used to seeing most of them. She took a deep breath in through her nose, and timidly smiled, as she realized exactly what the plant was.
As if reciting a lesson for school, though with a touch more pride and confidence, she began to explain the plant, using it's common name in the districts, along with the properties of the plant, where it grew, what it could be used in aid of, and how. They had been very creative, her mother and her, in figuring out ways to get the most out of a plant, given how few options they had, and she was pretty sure that some of their ideas hadn't really been tried outside of 12. Then again, she was pretty sure that Capitol hovercrafts were the closest they'd ever get to space flight. So she could just be showing her district dis-education again.
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Suddenly, she was nine years old again, out in the garden with her mother, reciting her own lessons.
And what's this one, Tima?
Mint.
What does it do?
Settles the stomach.
And this one, Tima?
Cumin.
Very good.
She lived through it all again, the good and the bad. She remembered how safe and secure she felt against her mother's side. And how she would resentfully look to the road and see other people going out to do fun and exciting things, while she was stuck in a garden all day. Childhood was complicated enough, without the multiverse.
Poor Prim.
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"Very good," she says once Prim is finished. "Let's see. There's another good one around over here."
She steps off to the side. With luck going over plants can help keep all three of them occupied and relatively happy for a few hours at least.
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She liked the scents, the feel of her plants. It reminded her of being home, but in a good way, sorting through what Katniss brought, consulting the big book, trying to rouse her mother, and sometimes succeeding, and then working with her. Knowing that what she was doing would help make someone feel better.
She was being more herself, the more she got lost in the plants, and spending time with these two women. She could almost believe Katniss was just taking a nap, or out with Gale in the woods for a second round, or trading. It felt like all the best parts of being home.
Her stomach growled softly as she worked. For the first time in a while, her appetite was waking back up, she was waking back up. And being so close to plants that could be used for cooking, as well as for medicine, was only making her more aware. But she didn't want to stop, and she'd worked through hunger before.