ten_fwd | Team #6: Trapped in the Caves

Somehow, they've been separated.

No. He knows how. She'd been speaking with a number of the new arrivals he hasn't yet met in the main room, and he'd wandered companionably with one of the tour groups, and one room feel away to another until he was down here and she was not, and then the world cracked open under his feet and above his head in a cataclysm of dust and falling rock, a sudden sick lurch of the ground that was meant to be solid, stable, unbroken.

It lasts for an instant and an eternity: the people he's with shout and duck, and he shouts and ducks, instinct leaping to the forefront of conscious thought and wiping it clean, as if an arm thrown over his face could save him from being crushed by a boulder or the weight of the earth above him, as if some frail human reaction could stave off razor-sharp rock edges, spurs of stone, the drowning dust and collapsing ceiling. He's vaguely aware of the child in his group, of throwing himself towards her, in the wild hope that his body might somehow protect hers from the wreckage tumbling around them, but he's too far and the ground bucks and tosses him off his feet, throws him into a wall that hadn't been there before, knocking the air from his lungs and filling his vision with dancing spots.

He rolls. Finds his feet. Thinks: out. Thinks: escape. Knows, with a sick drop of his stomach that's more complete than words: the world is ending, here in this new universe, and they've been separated.

He can't hear his own voice when he shouts Marian! and couldn't say why he tries, or why he makes a last frantic push for the way he came, one arm shielding his head, and the other reaching like he might find a hand --

And then --

And then there's nothing but settling dust and a low ringing buzz in his ears, and a leaden weight on his chest that only lets him cough out, feeling something shift and twinge unhappily in his back. It's a moment before he can push to his feet, blinking through wide, watering eyes, and then he sees it.

The way he came. The way they walked only moments before.

It's a riot of jumbled rock, sharp edges and implacable stone, and impossible weight, and he coughs as he sizes it up with a glance, before turning what's left of the cave they'd been viewing, waving his hand before his face like it might clear some of the moody, persistent dust, taking in the moving figures, the motionless ones. The ground is littered with loose rocks and debris, and he picks his way carefully in the direction of the little girl he'd seen before, trying to peer through the wall of dust, and his heart is hammering in his ears, narrowing his vision, but his voice, though dry and scratched, is the cutting ring of a ship's captain calling for his crew, an army's commander wresting the attention of a field of soldiers.

"Is anyone hurt? Sing out if you can, do it quick!"

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"I can see you okay. You're blurry," she says, very much trying not to look down at her arm.

"My head hurts, and my ears are ringing. I'm cut," she says, trying to list off as many details as she can. It might work to take her mind off the fact that they're trapped and injured. She blinks up at Caspian and at Gold with a look that belies how little she actually functions like a child, breathing deep and slow and even. "My arm's broken. I can feel the bones moving. They hurt," she says simply, because simple says everything she can.

Gold could feel the break as well, unfortunately he could also tell the break was far from a clean one. At least none of the bones had broken through the skin, though if they weren't careful in how they moved her arm, that could still happen. He gave the other man a brief glance at the greeting, but refrained from returning it in favor of trying to judge just how badly the break was and how best to tend to it given he was incapable of repairing it via his magic currently.

There was also a passing regret that he had left his cane behind in Neverland and never thought to conjure a replacement while on the ship. He'd had no need of it then however, thus he hadn't given it a thought. Something he found himself ruing now, given he needed something akin to it to splint the girl's arm. He had his scarf, but beyond fashioning a sling from it for her, it was next to useless without something stick like to act as a brace.

"Does anyone have anything that could be used to create a splint?" he called out as he focused for the moment on at least easing the amount of pain that Sinthia was no doubt in. he wouldn't take it all, pain was a valuable tool, but too much was just as bad as none at all.

There's a cough from somewhere closeby, and then through a cloud of dust and the tumbling of rubble emerges one skinny, tall male nurse.

Just what the ~~doctor~~ crew ordered, right?

He doesn't look too badly hurt, just a couple of surface scratches and some already blossoming bruises. He rubs his head with one hand, groaning and squinting as the dust settles.

"What just happened?" he asks, before his eyes settle on the young girl and what clearly looked like a broken arm, if the swelling and the slightly funny way she holds her arm are any indication.

Suddenly, it's like he's been revived, because his own pain and grogginess are gone.

"Right - d'you mind if I take a look?

"I'm a nurse."

Sinthia isn't in great shape, that much is easy to see. Her head is bloody from the gash on her forehead, and it's seeping into her hair, and out of the cut no one's yet discovered on the back of her skull, which explains a great deal of why her vision is blurry. And her arm, well. It's difficult to tell exactly what condition the break is in without an x-ray, but it's not good.

"I don't want you to move it," she says, through the fog of headaches and telepathy that's picking up on all the worry of the few people around her, and worry of her own that they might be trapped and she can't move. "It hurts," Sinthia murmurs, face pale and dirty.

"I won't move it, promise," Rory says, crouching down towards the girl, hands in front of him in a means-no-harm gesture.

He nods, his movements slow and deliberate, and yet very much gentle. First he inspects her forehead, making a mental note to check on that gash a little later.

"What's your name?" he asks, as he turns his attentions now to her arm.

"Sinthia," he says, partly to answer the man's question, and partly to keep her attention on him. His hand goes to her cheek, and he smiles, comforting and calm. Her cheek is warm under his hand, her hair dusty and full of grit as he brushes it back from her forehead.

"I know it hurts, dear one. Be brave. It'll be all right. We'll have you out of here and back on the ship in no time at all."

"I want to go home now," she says, looking straight up at Caspian with her lip between her teeth, voice wavering. It's not the same kind of pain as before, when everything hurt for hours while she was in that machine, before she ever came here.

"I don't want to be here anymore," Sinthia murmurs as her heartbeat rises. She keeps oddly flickering--not teleporting, but it's hard to keep control over abilities like intangibility when you're hurt and worried--and her breathing hitches.

"I know."

He won't lie to her. Comfort is still a fair, fine line from false hope, and he won't say they'll take her home now, or that they can escape as soon as they pull her free. They cannot, and he won't.

But he can keep his hand on her hair, and keep her eyes on his. "I'll take you home soon, Sinthia. Back to the ship. We'll find our way out, and they'll come for us --"

The words drop off like pebbles over a cliffside, and his fingers stiffen, but do not leave her hair. "Sinthia? Are you doing that?"

She bites down on the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste the dirty copper taste of her own blood pulsing under the thin tissue layers.

"Y--yes," she whispers, trying to tamp it down and not succeeding. and now she's looking anywhere but at Caspian and Rory and the others, because that will only end in reciprocity, sharing memories and thoughts and things she desperately wants no one else to see, ever. "I can't stop. Please, I wan to be able to stop."

He reaches for her hand, to hold it firm in his own warm, solid one, without flinching at the strange flicker, as if she isn't really real --

But she is. Just a scared little girl, no older than Lucy when Lucy first stepped through the wardrobe and broke the wintry spell of Old Magic. "Shh." Soothing, low and comforting, hoping to distract her so the nurse -- Rory -- can examine her wounds. "It's all right, little one. I know it's frightening, but you're not alone. You can do this. I'm right here."

"I c--can't stop," she whispers, and the flickers are lasting longer each time, periods where she's there, but she can't be touched, things will go right through.

"I want to go home, Caspian." Even being with her father would be better than this, than being trapped and unable to get free.

Team #6: Trapped in the Caves

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/imma just take this one then

Re: /imma just take this one then

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