================== Eldarin Calendar in Sindarin ===================
IC time is: Dawn About 5:18 AM
IC day is: Orithil Moon-day
IC date is: 13 Echuir Stirring
Moon phase: Waxing Crescent HIDDEN
Earendil: Gil-Estel is not visible.
IC year is: Loa 4 o Yen 22, Nelandran o Endor TA 3028
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RL time: Thu May 08 17:46:06 2003
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(2 IC days after previous scene)
Field Hospital
You are in a small clearing cut into the thickets. All about you, the bushes
and trees grow thick and unwavering, blocking out most of the sunlight and
dimming the atmosphere. Despite the lack of sunlight or moonlight, the clearing
gives of a calm, quiet, secure feeling. Here is where the Cuigrithweg have made
their Field Hospital. Several woven mats are laid about on the ground in neat
rows and a pair of small chests rest at the north side of the Hospital. High
above the mats, a large tarp is strung to provide some shelter on the off
chance that it should rain.
Once again it is dawn, and Lothdaimoth's eyes open even as Anor rises into the
sky. A chill moisture-laden breeze rattles through branches and tugs at the
loose edges of the covering that protects the minister from cold, dirt, stray
leaves, anything that might hinder his healing. He is propped up a few inches
by a flat pillow. The bruises around his eyes are beginning to fade; from
purple-black to green and yellow. And the dark eyes within their multi-colored
rings seem a bit more aware than they have been.
Dawn rises, and Lothdaimoth awakens, but Caelwen does neither. The elleth
sleeps, yet seems to find no rest in it as her tense body does not relax, and
her breath is light and quick. She is curled on her side next to the Minister,
and does not touch him save his shoulder, which her mouth and nose gently press
against, each breath puffing into the cloth of his sleeve and diffusing away.
Lothdaimoth shifts a little, uncomfortably, and a soundless sigh puffs warm air
into the cool morning. The hand farthest from Caelwen raises a little and goes
first to his head, prodding gently at the bandage wrapped around his forehead.
A little wince of pain accompanies the exploratory poking; then he feels at his
chest. More wincing. But it is only an attempt to move one leg that brings a
muffled sound, and instantly, he is still again.
Caelwen shifts a little in her sleep at his wincing, but it is the sound that
snaps foggy green eyes open. "Do you--" her voice is rough with sleep, and
ambling, and she stops herself at the sound of it. Her owlish, blinking gaze
travels up, and she pushes herself up to an elbow.
"Do I what?" Lothdaimoth wonders. His voice is still a little hoarse, a little
weaker than usual perhaps; with a rough edge of hidden pain. He turns his head
carefully towards Caelwen, and an unnoticed tension releases its hold on his
muscles.
Caelwen blinks a few times and searches through her foggy mind for words. "Do
you hurt? Do you wish to sleep more? Are you thirsty? Or hungry? Does it st--"
She stops, and rubs at her face, ere whispering beneath her breath, half to
herself, "I oughtn't ask you so many questions..." She looks away, to the
healers, a tiny line placing her stress between her copper brows.
A smile tugs the corners of Lothdaimoth's lips up the tiniest fraction. Slowly
he begins to answer her, "Yes, but not so much, I don't think." A tiny frown
wrinkles his brow and is gone. "No, not now. A drink would be welcome, but I am
not hungry. Why shouldn't you?" There are pauses between all his sentances,
between some words as well. A thin branch bends willow-like above them and two
bright black eyes peer downwards for some seconds. Then, with a flirt a bushy
tail and a scolding chatter, the squirrel edges further along the branch;
bending it with its weight, hops to the ground and skirts away behind a tree.
"I don't wish to tax you so much." Caelwen keeps an anxious eye on his face and
eases slowly away, then hops to her feet, coming back swiftly with a cup that
clings dropets to its curves. She eases herself to sit cross-legged beside him,
and pauses there, studying him with an odd gaze-- the corners of her eyes are
sad, and tender, all at once. As she leans forward with the cup, a snarled curl
falls over one side of her face for a moment.
"Tax me?" Lothdaimoth shakes his head, a very little, from side to side. "You
do not tax me.." his glance is tender, but then his eyes go to the cup and
linger there.
Caelwen bends the reed, so it brushes to his lips, and pushes back the coil of
hair.
The minister's lips open and the reed straw slides between them. He lifts his
head perhaps half an inch and sucks greedily at the cool clear water, at last
pushing the cup away and sinking back onto his pillow. His gaze drifts randomly
about the clearing before returning to Caelwen. "Have I been here long?" he
asks, but in his voice is the disinterest of the very old or very ill.
Caelwen sets the cup out of the way and touches his temple, her fingertip
fitting in the curve of his face. "I don't know." Her brow wrinkles in
concentration-- time... what is an hour, a month, or a century to an immortal
elf? "I believe... not seven days?"
"Oh." But even as he responds, his mind wanders somewhere else. "What
happened?" he asks, with the same lack of caring. He touches his forehead
again, softer this time and his hand drops back to his side.
Caelwen pulls her hand back into her lap and looks at him dubiously. "Do you
really wish to know? I don't think you ought to speak of it, Meldanya."
B
A tiny spark of interest flares and dies in Lothdaimoth's eyes. "Why not?" he
wonders curiously, before worry crowds out the question. One hand reaches out
for the potter, clutching at her sleeve, and he lifts his head incautiously.
"Why not?" he says again, with more urgency. "What has happened? Is.. has
someone..." He stops and swallows, and looks around the small clearing again.
His breath comes quicker now, and fine lines of pain etch themselves into his
paling face.
"Ai! No, stop it!" Caelwen pushes her hand at his shoulder, not daring to push
his head. "Nay, all are well. You are the worst of it. And.." she begins
hesitantly, "..and I'll not tell you more." She sets her chin stubbornly.
Faelwen enters the Field Hospital,and wonders what is going on,being the
curious elleth that she is.
Entering the Field Hospital to check on the patients from the
inconvenient mine collapse, Knight Legarwin o nos Aderthad moves to where he
see an elleth next to a laying edhil. He gives a curt nod to the elleth and
kneels next to the badly injured one. "Mae Govannen, mellon. How does thee
feel?" He speaks in a gentle voice that has a soothing tone to it.
"But.. " Lothdaimoth lays back, white-faced, and shuts his eyes for a moment.
Then they flutter open again, darting towards the new-ariven elleth and back
to Caelwen. "What happened?" he asks again, intensely. Legarwin's appearance
gives him another target for his anxiety. Ignoring the Knight's question, he
demands yet again. "Why am I here? What has happened?"
"You were hurt." This is all Caelwen says, and for all her firm, unyielding
voice, her eyes flinch guiltily away from Lothdaimoth and she hunches a bit. To
Legarwin and Fealwen her attention goes. "He is better," she answers. "A
little." Her skin flushes pink and she braves a glance to the battered edhel
again.
"That was a horrible accident that he had been in. It cheers my heart
to see him alive at this time." Legarwin studies the body that is bandaged
before him. "I think he might have hit his head a bit too hard as well with the
collapse." The Knight thinks back to what he happened having only known about
the mine incident when he heard the falling and tried to help free those stuck
inside.
"What accident?" Lothdaimoth demands of Legarwin, his voice cracking a little
from frustration. "What collapsed?" Anger starts to burn through the fear and
worry that darken his eyes and he turns his head towards the potter.
"Caelwen... you must tell me."
Caelwen tucks her knees up close, bowing her head further. "The mine collapsed,
Dar." Her eyes, abashed, watch him from within a deeply flushing face, until
she turns her head to try to catch the glance of a healer.
Legarwin looks from the edhil to Caelwen before moving away and
signaling the potter to follow. "For is it our kin has been harmed further then
believed?" He can only stare with his firey blue eyes at the one laying down.
The Knight remembers being in that situation but that had been much time ago.
Caelwen does not yet catch a healer's eye, and though she looks with alarm
after Legarwin, she does not follow him.
Not being followed, the Knight Legarwin decides to seek some better
help for the edhil. He quickly disappears from where he stands to head to the
city.
Lothdaimoth's eyes widen. "The mine... collapsed?" he asks numbly. "All of it?
And I was inside?" He turns his head towards Legarwin and says somewhat
querulously, "I am not hurt." The obvious untruth of this statement is ignored
and he stares back to Caelwen. "The mine?"
"Yes... no, I mean. Not all of it." Caelwen's hands flutter over him, ere
deciding on one of his hands and clasping it in hers. "Shh, don't think about
it."
Long fingers slide around Caelwen's hand, and suddenly wearied, Lothdaimoth
shuts his eyes. "Was anyone else hurt?" he asks, his voice gone quiet and
distant. "I .. do not remember..." No matter how hard he tries, nothing comes
to mind save flare-shot darkness and a faint distant rumble.
"Oh, none so bad as you, melda," Caelwen says, her fingers tightening to a
trembling state. "Only two. And you are the only one so wounded. Do not think
on it so!" she pleads.
Caelwen's hand shakes in his and Lothdaimoth opens one tired eye to look at
her. "What is wrong, beloved?" he asks, forcing the words through a great
weight of exhaustion. "Who else was hurt? And why should I not think of it?" He
frowns a little, asking at last, plaintively. "Why can I not remember?"
"You are hurt," Caelwen's voice gathers distress to it, lifting a bit. "And
when your remember it you are pained. I don't /want/ you to hurt anymore." Her
eyes tremble liquid again. "Gilrowen was hurt." She glances away, at the
mirdan's form. "A miner. But you mustn't worry about them. They are fine."
Lothdaimoth's eyelids slide shut again. "I cannot remember..." his voice slurs
into sleep, his fingers loosening their hold on hers. Then something pushes at
his mind and he struggles to wakefulness again. "Gilrowen? She heals well?"
"Aye, love," Caelwen's voice is forced into a soothing timbre, fingers brush
whisker-soft across his brow.
And reassured, he looses his hold on consciousness, sinking back into the all
encompassing sea of sleep.