Tincture and Wounds Both Young and Old

[Quio]

94th of Ashan, Arc 717
evening

It was nearing sunset when the Blackheart finally made it to the docks of Ne'haer.

The ship had made excellent time except for the break or so they had been waylaid when they first came in sight of land. Black sails meant pirate to most, and it seemed they took pirates more seriously here than in Rynmere. But a lifeboat had been sent over and Quio had explained his ownership of the Blackheart. After that he had been begrudgingly allowed to pass, though with the express order to 'get new sails'.

It was a hassle he didn't need. He didn't have the inclination nor the money to afford sails, and even after a short season's worth of one-sided arguments Yanaqi was still pestering him. Why aren't you angry at me? she asked him, over and over, and because of this and the sails --and because of other things-- Quio was at his rope's end.

He just wanted to sleep.

The dock workers were a blessing compared to the sailors who had stopped them before, and they all spoke Rakahi. They directed Quio to an area where private vessels might moor. There was a lot of water traffic around the city making it tricky to navigate, something Quio did not remember from his short time here in the fall or even from his childhood. Probably his mind had been occupied with other, more dire things when he'd visited before. Besides, he thought, They might have cleared the way for U'frek's tallship. The magnificant ship, which in his mind was called the Humble Son, would have come in dauntingly fast as it approached the mainland. It had traveled from Rynmere to Ne'haer in a little more than three days.

Now Quio was distracted for other reasons, and he almost disembarked before he realized that he didn't have to, this place was not like Andaris. In Andaris the water was far away from the city, a trial or two's walk from the gates. Here, the ships could nearly run aground.

Rubbing at his eyes, he ignored Yanaqi as he passed her again going back onto the ship, and found a place to rest his head, and rested it there.

The bunk where Derek Smith had died was not too far from him, still stripped of its sheets, and Quio turned on his side so he was facing away.

At night, even in late Ashan, the ship felt empty and cold.

---

When he awoke the next morning it was to find Yanaqi standing over him. He started, tensing, and then relaxed all at once. "Morning," he yawned.

"Sleep well?" Yanaqi bit out at him. She was angry, he was not, wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? But at least she backed off some, gave him some room to move. Quio turned and sat on the edge of the bunk, stretching.

Why was it he felt so damn tired and creaky all the time, even after sleep? There had been storms at sea but nothing too bad, just a little rain and wind, and they had made it in record time without even a trial wasted.

Maybe this achiness was his body's way of welcoming back the land. The rest of him didn't want to be in Ne'haer as much as his mind and soul. But he had come here for a reason.

If only he might figure out that reason, then he could go.

Breakfast was unpleasant with Yanaqi staring at him and sitting as close by as possible. Quio kept his eyes on his plate. He did the dishes after, slow and methodical, and left them laid out on the table to dry. His store of unspoilt grog was running low after such a long journey, and he supposed he should go to town and figure out where and how to get more. Alcohol, preferrably rum, he could buy at any bar he chose. It was the water he wondered about. Did they have piping or wells?

Somewhat reluctantly he took his first steps down the gangplank and off the ship. Yanaqi was close on his heels.

"Please leave me alone," he told her, as soon as he was on solid ground. He felt like his legs weren't holding him steady, but he knew the feeling to be false. He was just used to the rocking of the deck.

"No," Yanaqi answered, and he noticed his things --the masterwork cobolt blade and the masterwork dao sword he'd gotten off U'frek's ship-- lashed to her hips.

"Give me my stuff back."

"No," Yanaqi said again.

Quio stared at the ground. "At least the saber."

"Never."

He didn't have anything more to say to her. There was no use. He started walking. Yanaqi followed.

"What are you going to do here?" she eventually asked him, unable to stand the silence for more than a couple bits.

Quio didn't answer. Before, on the ship, he had shifted form from Earnest Freeman to his 'true' form-- the pale human one with strawberry hair that he had assumed as a baby, now all grown up. Yanaqi had noticed; how wouldn't she? He rubbed his hand along his jaw.

"This is where your mother was killed, wasn't it?" his half-sister prodded, "Her murderers are here. Somewhere."

"Here or somewhere else, it doesn't matter," Quio told her, not rising to her bait, but it mattered. It really did.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

95th of Ashan, Arc 717
mid-morning

A couple breaks later and he felt he had the layout of the city memorized once more. He had held off on restocking the ship and had instead wandered around, stretching his legs and looking but not looking for faces he recognized. A lot of the people around the city square looked vaguely familiar, though he knew they wouldn't know his face. He had been in his Biqaj form when he'd come for the immortals' war.

The ones he thought he did remember were men from the battlefield and those he had tried to help. One with a burn down his arm, which might have happened when the living fire hit the walls and busted in. Another who showed no external wounds but seemed pointedly alone as he walked, giving the impression that his friends and family were no longer with him.

How was the city still standing at all? There was some rubble left, here and there, some talk and work of construction, and a lot of the buildings stared brand new and unliving like they did not yet have occupants... but that was nothing. Shouldn't the entire town have been destroyed? That awful screaming fire had come to the gates and it had been something frightening, something inhuman. He remembered. The horns had sounded and he had fled and there had been a mountainous crash. He had thought then, no, he had known that the city had been leveled just as had the Halls of Minaih, which had practically flown to pieces over his head in thunder and smoke.

And yet now when he came to rest it was outside those same Judgement Halls, and they stood as strong, as untouched as he remembered. Had the immortals put everything back together then, or had he only imagined the damage to be so great? The very walls of the city spoke the same story. There they were, whole and white. Hadn't they been blackend with soot and crushed down to metal and bits by the fire that had come?

No. Or if they had they were perfect again. The city was repaired so easily. It was almost infuriating.

Quio had fought and almost died in that war. He couldn't even remember the last half of the battle at Treidhart, or how it had all ended, or how he had gotten home-- and no one had bothered to mend his ails as they had these walls. It didn't make sense. Why fix the city and leave the people broken?

There must be something here still hurting as Quio himself was. As if to seek that thing out, he did another run-through of the town, stopping by every working construction site he could find. He looked for something, he didn't know what, work maybe, or peace of mind since it felt like he needed something to do. But nothing seemed right. There were no fires to put out like he had before. There was no one crying out in pain. There was nobody to fight. The best he might do was construction and he didn't know anything about it; the most experience he had with building was when he and Hart had put together the Jovy Akor. That had been arcs ago, and even then it had been mostly Hart. Quio thought about finding someone to ask for direction but everyone looked so busy. Surely they didn't have time for him. Surely they wouldn't be able to help him find whatever he was looking for.

Somehow through it all he wound up at a board for odd jobs, and he searched through them with increasing despair. People needed things, at least that hadn't changed, but there was nothing he could give them, and so had anything actually changed at all? He was useless. He was no healer or hunter or knight.

"Stop upsetting yourself," Yanaqi said behind him, and how had he all but forgotten she was there? He had nothing to say to her. Then someone else spoke.

"I'm sure what she meant to ask was if you need help with something?" someone said from the side, and Quio looked over.

"I didn't," Yanaqi protested, but the woman looked past her at Quio.

Whoever she was, she was tall and blonde-haired, smelt of flowers and herbs, and she had a gentle face. "Hmm?" she asked again, and Quio said, "Um, yes. Or-- or no. I don't want to--"

"You're not a bother," the woman told him, and he couldn't help but sway slightly towards her. He couldn't find the right words to speak.

"How about you help me, then?" the woman asked kindly, and Quio nodded at her. "Good. I work at the Gardens, do you know them?" Quio shook his head. The woman smiled. "They're this way," and she was leading him through the mid-trial crowds. "I'm Ealine, by the way," she said, looking at him over her shoulder.

"Eckhart," he answered without thinking, and Yanaqi cast him a glowering look.

"And you are?" Ealine asked of his sister, but of course she wouldn't answer. Yanaqi stomped along after them, looking distrustful.

"Her name's Fara," Quio told the woman, and the female Yludih shot him with glares like daggers once more.

They went to a place closer to the far walls of the city, an area of healthy kempt garden called the Lochgrass. Quio immediately liked it, it was calming, and he knew Hart would have too. The air smelled fresher here, not like the rest of the city and not quite like the open ocean, either. Green somehow. Less like fish, more like land. It was like leaving the city without actually leaving it at all.

Once more he wondered how such beauty, such orderliness, could come to exist so shortly after times of war.

"The Order of the Adunih is running short on certain medicinal herbs and plants," Ealine explained, once they were seated on a stone bench in the midst of the gardens' splendor. Yanaqi stood stubbornly off to the side, watching with a sour look on her face. "And early tomorrow morning the Seventh Hand --our city's merchant guild-- is leading an exploration into the Willow Woods, where rare and not-so-rare plants grow. It would be helpful for the Order if a volunteer went out with the guild and brought back certain plants, then helped to sow them here or in the Order's private greenhouse."

"I could do that," Quio said, because he could tell it was what the woman expected him to say. Ealine smiled at him. He remembered the Willow Woods. They had once been his home.

"Wonderful," the healer said, then rummaged in her clothes until she brought out a charcoal and piece of paper. She began to write. "This is a list of the desired flora you might find." Aloe vera, marigolds, a couple other things he didn't know quite as well. Aloe vera he thought Hart had used before on sunburns. Marigolds were flowers sort of like daisies. Honey was on the list too, which wasn't really a plant. But he had heard of honey being used on wounds.

"Okay," he said, as she seemed to be waiting for a response from him.

"If you could collect seeds or samples, or even uproot and bring back a young intact plant or two, the Gardens and the Order would be grateful."

"Okay," he said again. Then, "Is there a library in town?" He didn't know what some of these plants were. He would need drawn images of them.

"Yes," Ealine said, "It's called the Written Wisdom. But it's more a bookstore than a library."

"I'll manage," Quio told her, and stood as if to go.

"No, please," Ealine asked him, and hesitantly he sat back down. Yanaqi had gotten bored and was wandering away, looking around and sniffing every once and a while at different plants. She seemed unimpressed.

Quio felt her absence and was able, for the first time in the city, to let the tension out of his shoulders. He breathed deep. Ealine smiled at him again.

"Stay awhile. I'll be over there if you need anything," the kind woman said, and then meandered away.

In the end he probably stayed longer than he should have. Ten bits. Twenty. Thirty. Longer still. But he couldn't force himself to go, not when Yanaqi was willing to leave him be for once. Her constant presence wore on him like nothing else. Without her there, reminding him of her crimes and of what he had lost, he was able to just sit and exist. He felt almost like himself again. At least for a while.

Then the smell of smoke drifted over, maybe from someone's chimney or a nearby bar, and he remembered it all.

"Fara," he said softly, standing to leave for real this time, and maybe she hadn't been that far away because she was there again, shadowing him, in an instant.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"