Welcome to the Arztenritter

[baldrshand]

Who: Ethlyn + anyone interested in healing + anyone else
Where: A clinic near the edge of town
What: Arztenritter healing brigade training! Feel free to put up your own toplevels too.
Warnings: None


The Willow Clinic wasn't the one nearest the center of town in Aldrip--more towards the fields, and crucially, near a horse paddock as well. It was where Ethlyn had found employment as one of the clinic's standing healers and where she'd first proposed the idea of what she now liked to call the Arztenritter--"doctor-knight" in old Jugdrali--who could ride out all over town and beyond it in case of emergency medical needs.

After starting on the idea with people she already knew and putting up flyers around town for a general interest-and-training day, Ethlyn made her way to the clinic bright and early in the morning to get things set up for a day of medical and horsemanship training combined.

Comments

[baldrshand]

[For a few moments, all Ethlyn can do is cry. She hasn't cried about it once since she arrived here. She's spent so much time trying to not think about it--stepping back when she gets to close as she would step back from an unexpected cliff-edge.

Maybe. Maybe it's true. That was why Quan left Finn at home in Leonster with the rest of the troops--they thought that was where Thracia would strike, not that they would try to destroy Leonster's future by killing the heir and his young wife. But Travant had proved himself to be cunning as well as brutal.

She will never forget the cold chill in Quan's voice. I... This was all a mistake...]

Brutal and cunning. [She echoes her own thoughts.] S-so... so maybe my daughter will survive. A hostage.

[It's a bleak view of little Altena's future. She was meant to inherit the Gáe Bolg, to inherit Leonster, but now the best Ethlyn can hope for is that her daughter will be locked away and raised as a prisoner in an impoverished land.]

[snowslip]

[ No...Marianne doesn't want to believe that anyone would be so cruel as to harm a child, but war is cruel. She's witnessed it firsthand. But still...Her hand finds Ethlyn's and closes around hers gently. ]

Your daughter is precious to your kingdom and its people. Maybe they'll find her, and one day, she'll return home.

[ Marianne is not a hopeful person by nature, but in the bleakness of this moment, she hopes for a miracle. May the goddess deliver the little princess safely into the arms of her family and friends again. Someway, somehow. ]

[baldrshand]

[But how can they? Ethlyn wants to wail. Thracia is naught but mountains, and its people are wyvern knights; if they want to hide Altena away in the craggiest peaks there is no way to stop them. But no, Marianne does have the truth of it. Finn is still alive. Ethlyn knows he will protect Leif. And if Travant uses Altena as a hostage, then Finn will move heaven and earth to rescue her.]

Y-yes... yes. [She sniffs loudly, feeling like a child.] One day--one day she may return.

But it's so hard. I'll never know what happens.

[snowslip]

I'm sorry. It must have been painful for you this whole time.

[ Not knowing your loved one's fate can be worse than knowing. The lack of closure, the tug of war between hope and despair. Pain that never truly disappears. She doesn't know what to say. There are no words to make this right, but Marianne will stay with her, and hold her for as long as Ethyln needs. ]

[baldrshand]

[Painful? Yes. Painful, when she's allowed herself to think about it. She's been doing everything she can to stay ahead of the anguish, to fill her time with dozens of busy little things. Organize the healers, repair the iceboxes, travel through the woods, bandage and stitch and soothe and reassure. Because what can she do about her troubles? She didn't see her husband fall, but she knows he must have. She knows that her death will wound Sigurd deeper than a sword--as though things weren't bad enough for him. And Altena and Leif, left without a mother and father in a land of cruel and unforgiving kingslayers....

She failed them both so utterly.

It takes a bit more time for her to be able to speak. Marianne's arms are comforting, and her quiet is soothing. It helps, to hold and be held. To not be alone with this ache in her heart.]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put this all on you. [She sniffs loudly, feeling like a little girl.] Thank you.

[snowslip]

Don't be, it's alright.

[ Ethyln's helped her so much, yet Marianne hadn't seen the pain she was carrying inside. Ethlyn's thrown herself into helping others, put together the Arztenritter, done so much for everyone. It's the least Marianne can do to offer her a shoulder to cry on in this lonely time. ]

Would you... like to pray together? For your little one. Or if there's anything else...

[ Anything she can do, Ethlyn need only to ask. ]

[baldrshand]

[Ethlyn takes a final deep breath, gaining control over herself again. She feels drained, but--better. The part of her that has trained in medicine for twelve years thinks like pus, you must drain it. Which is an awful, inappropriate comparison, but now that she has actually spoken her guilt and her fear out loud... she feels more equal to living with it.]

Yes... [How long has it been since she prayed to the god of her family? Not since she arrived here, at least. She ought to remedy that.] Yes, I would like that. I've made myself too busy with things here to remember praying.

[snowslip]

[ Nodding quietly, Marianne lets go of Ethlyn but remains by her side. She clasps her hands together, lifting her head to the stars up above where the goddess dwells. She wonders if, somewhere, their loved ones are also looking at the same starlit sky.

Marianne bows her head and prays.

Dear goddess, protect Ethlyn's family. Protect her little ones, so young and innocent and undeserving of the evils in the world. Guide her people, for they've lost a great leader, a brilliant woman they'll never get to know. If the miracle that has brought Ethlyn to this time and place can happen again, then let her be reunited with her family once more. For all this and more, Marianne prays. ]