Tales of a Child Eternal [NSFW]

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene raises their hand on command; as he suggests, they do the same with their other hand, and (with some effort) are able to follow his finger with their eyes. So it seems they are not damaged badly, just... unable to speak. Stricken dumb, as it were. 

[NPCs]

The Grower sighs a little, then blinks. "Oh! Why didn't I..." Standing back up, she moves to the seat she'd been on earlier and gets the lapdesk and writing supplies. Putting her scratch paper on top, she moves back to Helene. "Let's see if you can write down what happened, instead of speaking, shall we?"

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene stares down at the paper, gripping the pencil. Lothan couldn't see-- it wasn't the voice that was the problem, it was the words. They didn't come out; they got stuck, half-formed, in their mind, unable to be expressed. 

After a moment, they turn the pencil, beginning to sketch. A curved line; another, some shading. Soon the image of a dog appears, twisted, pawing at the air-- no, the water, as they add in a waterline above its head. A dog trapped underwater. Well that's.. informative. 

[NPCs]

Lothan peers at the picture, frowning slightly. "...are you the dog in the picture, Helene?" she asks gently.

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene's pencil stills, and they stare down at the picture for a long moment. Am not the dog. The dog is.. important. There is something important happening here.

Helene puts the pencil down, glancing at the window where a light rain is starting to pick up. The dog. What is the dog?

[NPCs]

"...Helene?" Lothan prompts Helene, her voice filling with concern again. Need to form simple, direct questions. "If you're not the dog... is there a dog you're worried about? A real dog?"

[Helene Dakesh]

A real dog...

They flinch, bowing their head and beginning to rock as they recall the morning's activities. Lottie. Spackie. The dog is-- the dog will drown. There isn't much time.

They look up, then, a determined look in their eyes. Without a word, they rush forward, heading for the door. 

[NPCs]

Lothan is fairly elderly and has had a sedate life, so she's a bit slow off the mark to react. Helene makes it to the door and gets it open, but that's as much as their head start grants them before Lothan's larger frame allows them to catch up.

[Helene Dakesh]

Something unusual happens when the Grower touches the Seeker. There's a jolt of energy, spreading from the hand on Helene's shoulder and spreading up through the arm and straight into her chest; when it lodges there, it turns into a deep, blind fear. Something bad is happening, something horrible will happen, something has gone wrong.

Helene slips free, leaving the Grower behind as the rain picks up, quivering where she stands. When it wears off, Helene is gone, lost in the storm. 

A search party is dispatched; Grower Lothan, feeling guilty for allowing this to happen, leads the party, searching for where Helene could have gone. Not the library; not the schoolhouse, not their home, not the riverbank. Though the river... the storm still seems light, but the river is raging now, almost overflowing its banks. Recalling the drawing, the dog, Grower Lothan leads them toward the duck pond, praying nothing has gone horribly wrong. Praying to be there in time.

Almost she thinks she isn't. When she arrives, she can see a waterlogged body, floating face-down in the pond. Grower Lothan wades in, and the body stirs  -- no, there's a pup underneath the body, trying to swim to the shore as small blue hands are locked tight around its neck. Lothan rescues them both, using her divine blessings to restore breath to the little body, her healing touch causing Helene to vomit water until they can breathe once more. 

They remain unconscious, silent. All Lothan can do at this point is pray that whatever damage their little mind suffered has not been made worse by this experience....

[Helene Dakesh]

A rainy evening, and Voice was in full swing; seems for some people there's nothing for a damp, cold evening like a warm, moist body. Helene, of course, stays away from even the front parlor at such times. As Madam Zevvy has work to do, Helene instead busies themself with staring out the window... and with casting the bones. 

There's nothing for it, they decide, frowning at the result. I'm going to have to go back there. They hadn't been back to their little treehouse cave since they had been taken from it, months before; they had sent Isabela to retrieve a trunk of clothing and their money, and had decided to retrieve the rest of their things later. They had planned to go back, truly, but... Voice was safe, and warm, and comfortable, and had Clan in it, while their cave was cold and dark and lonely. And yet, they had left many of their writings in the larger downstairs cavern, which was prone to flooding in this weather; the journals would be damaged irrevocably if they did not move them upstairs to the mirror chamber. And yet... A storm like this...

Nervous, their hand twitching, they slip downstairs. Almost, they leave without saying anything, but the memory of a similar storm long past stops them, and they head for the kitchen instead, asking for Zevran to be sent there when he has a moment. Hopefully this doesn't delay this one too badly...

[Tethras Clan]

Five minutes later, Zevran slips into the kitchen wearing fishnet stockings, a leather belt and lip stick stains on his jawline and abs. "Helene my darling, what need have you of this one?" he asks gaily, still flying from his performance high. He winks winningly at one of the chefs, getting a fond eyeroll in reply.

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene smiles back at Zevran, though they avoid eye contact. "This one is going out in the storm," they announce. "This one felt that it was important that Clan know of this one's whereabouts."

[Tethras Clan]

Zevran nods, but only for a single downstroke. "Wait, what? Storm? But- Helene's it's simply pouring out! What do you need that can't wait until Uryll gets bored?"

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene flinches a little. "This one's abode is... during a storm like this, certain things must be secured. This one will travel there and see to the necessary arrangements. Then... then perhaps this one will remain there until the storm passes and it is safe to travel once more." In truth, they hadn't thought this through; the idea of spending the night in that little cave with the bottom floor flooded, unable to leave until the storm passed, listening to the water pour and hoping the flooding didn't suddenly decide to triple and drown them, was... not welcome. 

[Tethras Clan]

"Pish-posh on that," Zevran says simply. "Give me three minutes to get out of the nets and I'll walk you there and back. It's far too nasty out to be going Under by yourself. I wouldn't be comfortable going by myself."