[P] lead me out into the light

[Samaira]

It was impossible for her to hide the mess. Well, it wasn't a mess exactly, but she'd had more than one equine arrive, complaining of a dry throat or an ugly cough. Fortunately, the thick cloud of smoke and ash had cleared, and the only major effects were some residual dry eyes and anxious hearts.

Oh, and some strange bridge made of cooled lava that lead to nowhere.

Samaira still hadn't had a chance to go out and investigate it, but she was planning to once she was done with her duties here at the hospital. She bustled about the room, attempting to organize the supplies and clean up a little bit. Alaunus was lingering next to one of the windows, half asleep and blissfully quiet for it. While she didn't normally mind the heron's chatter, the quiet helped her focus.

The pegasus stood back after a moment and observed the small room she used to aid patients. It wasn't as grand as some of the others within the hospital, but Samaira had only begun her tutelage here after her wing had healed. The process and the kindness of the hospital's patrons had inspired her.

And while she might not be a filly anymore, Samaira felt she was learning rather quickly under the guidance of her mentor. She felt comfortable doing many things on her own now, and with Alaunus' own abilities, they could take care of most ailments and injuries together.

The earthen woman was just about to suggest that Alaunus and herself go check out this phenomenon that had arisen in the ocean when her bonded raised his head. "It appears we have company," he said, glancing past her and toward the door. Samaira turned, already smiling a warm and welcome smile, "Hello! How can I help you?"

"Speaking."

---

@Florentine I hope this will do!

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[Florentine]

i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls

She still ached from the night before. It was the night she returned to Terrastella and joined in the revel Asterion had put on. She drew and laughed and painted and danced. Then in her room she had wept in her bed, with joy and with worry.
 
Lysander was gone, pursuing the life debt he was owed, seeking his vengeance. It was his moment beneath the sun and Florentine gave him that. She stopped, stood back and let him go. Yet she did not think that a child would come in his absence. She did not think as she let her broken wing dampen her spirits that a child would come and make nothing be about just her or Lysander anymore.
 
What good is a once queen with a broken wing and a broken heart? It is such a thought that drives her back up into the treetop walkways of the hospital. The last she had been here was as a dying queen with no memory of who she was. Such somber thoughts have the girl moving slowly along the wooded walkways. Emerald light gleams from the ceiling of leaves and tangled branches.
 
There is art in the hospital. Art of the Ilati, art of the woodland, and the art of healing. Florentine’s wing is bound tight to her side, the cloth dirtied and ragged. Her breath stutters in her lungs but she smoothes it out in a breath and lets a wing press against her side. Stopping at a door, she moves to knock and she might have done, had the healer not already noticed her.
 
An answering smile pours like caramel across her lips and her head bobs, “Hello… Are you Samaira?” The flower girl pauses for a moment, swallowing down memories of blood and agony from the last time she was here. “I broke my wing a while ago and I was told that you might be able to heal it for me?”
 
Sunlight filters through the boughs turning her glittering gold. “My name is Florentine, by the way. May I come in?”

@Samaira 

florentine
rocking your pretty flower world

[Samaira]

Samaira was somewhat taken aback when the woman at the door asked after her by name. She wasn't very well known, not as much as the doctors of course, and nobody had ever come looking specifically for her at the hospital before. Her silver eyes widen, and she might have beamed were it not for the next words that had been spoken.

The earthen woman pressed forward and gently extended her left wing, brushing the long primary feathers against the other woman's shoulder with a look of understanding. "When I first arrived here, my wing was injured."

There was a darkness in her moon-bright eyes for a moment. It was a shadow that never seemed to fully go away, no matter how many smiles she shared or good times she made. There was still a piece of her that felt empty, after it all.

"Come in, come in," Samaira said, brushing it away again for the time being. She stepped back and beckoned the golden woman further into the room, further into the light. "Let's see what we can do for you, huh?" she smiled reassuringly, and she hoped. Hoped for good things, for happy things.

"Might I?" the woman asked, gesturing toward the wrap, so that she could undo it and get a better sense of how the wing looked beneath. "Is there any mobility of the wing at all?" Samaira wondered which of the fragile bones had been broken in the injury and her heart ached.

"Speaking."

---

@Florentine <3

credits

[Florentine]

i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls

The brush of feathers over her shoulder was as welcome as a cool breeze in winter. Though her muscles tighten as momentary fear slips sharp and brilliant through her left side – what if the touch was not as soft as a sigh but enough to press just where her muscles and bones ached at their most intense?
 
But Florentine was a healer once. Once… for a moment she remembers that girl. The younger Flora, fresh into womanhood yet still clinging to her childhood as if it were cloth she could not untangle from her torso. That was before she was an emissary and then a queen. That was back when things were just so… simple. When she hunted out the healer in the Swamp and begged to learn all that she knew.
 
But she was now broken beyond her own help. She was so very different to that young girl who did not know what love was like – how blistering and wonderful and utterly consuming it could be. The girl who did not know what horrors the world could create – Florentine was not afraid of monsters, for the greater monsters were what they made for themselves and for each other. Her wing was broken by the very creature she brought back from death. Ruth. Oh that kitten, she still remembers how fragile that dying cat felt in her arms. Florentine was just a child then, buoyed by naivety and a belief she could help all. It had served her that day, and she would not have done anything differently. She would still have willed her own young healing into that other baby creature. They were children together, she and Ruth. But Ruth returned, changed by Time magic into a beast – the largest Florentine had ever seen. They did not recognize one another, and Ruth struck her from the sky as if she were little more than a moth. But it was not Ruth who brought on Florentine’s depression. It was not she who made the once-queen feel dark as death.
 
That was all Florentine.
 
Yet Florentine smiles, for healing was everything. Her gaze travels thoughtfully over Samaira’s wings. Each seemed whole and perfect, unblemished. “Oh, really? I would never have known.” And Flora’s eyes are bright with hope. “Who healed you then?”
 
The healer gestures toward the bandage that wrapped about her slim torso. “Please.” Florentine murmurs and then, sheepishly she laughs, “I am sorry it is so dirty. I travelled from Denocte only a couple of days ago and I have not found a suitable replacement for this bandage yet. So it is a little road-worn.”
 
But all of Florentine is as rough and wild as the woodland that surrounds the hospital. Her mane is as wild and free as the grasses and roots that grow in beautiful tangles. Her flowers are like those that bloom within a free meadow.
 
There is a silence that descends upon them, as the bandage is unwound, the degree of her twisted wing revealed, nothing like it once was: once whole and working and beautiful. The muscles are fatigued, weary with misuse the bones fused, bent and wrong. Florentine sighs softly as she looks to it and then away, as if ashamed – in part. “I wish to get it fixed-“ She begins in a small voice, a whisper, a confession. “So I am healthy for when my child comes.” Her smile is small, shy, quite unlike her usual open manner. But maybe that is the nature of first confessions, of the first realization of motherhood. They are enough to make one shy, nervous. Besides, she needs someone to tell, especially since Lysander is not around.
 
Her lashes lower across her cheek, deep and rich. They shadow her face in a fan and Florentine gathers her breath as her eyes close. When they open they are brighter, more joyful. “There is some movement…” And her wing lifts a bit, but not enough. Slowly she moves it through its range of motion, always a bit but never enough. Then with a sigh she returns it to its place. “And now it aches… Do you think you might be able to heal it?”

@Samaira 

florentine
rocking your pretty flower world

[Samaira]

Samaira waits with patience and a gentle smile as Florentine sorts through her emotions. They are ones that she can understand all too well, having been prevented from flying her entire life and then finally coming to a world where she was free too only to be injured. This is why the earthen woman is determined to do whatever she can to help the other mare. What use are wings to a pegasus, if they cannot use them?

“Oh, well, I was set on the path of healing by one of the doctors here at the hospital,” she says, and then glances at Alaunus who has since made his way over from the window to the two equines, “But when Alaunus and I found each other, he healed what was left of the injury.”

“His abilities are quite remarkable, really.” Alaunus fluffs his feathers and stands a little taller at the praise, though he is already quite the large avian. His soft blue eyes appraise Florentine as Samaira begins to undo the wrappings about the golden woman’s barrel. “It’s no worry, you’d be surprised the kinds of muck equines track into here from the swamp,” Samaira says with a small laugh.

With the bandage undone and discarged, she stands back to allow Florentine room to move the wing through its full range of motions. When she confesses her expectancy, Samaira’s expression grows warmer. “I promise, we will do everything in our abilities to help you, you have nothing to worry about. By my honor, you will fly with your children when they are ready.”

It is a big promise, but one that Samaira feels sure in making. Perhaps, if it was only her working on the wing the task would be almost impossible, but with Alaunus to help her, it will be much easier. “Alaunus, would you alleviate her discomfort so that I can do a physical assessment?” she says, turning toward her bonded with bright silver eyes. The shimmering white heron simply nods and steps closer to Florentine, gently splaying the feathers of one wing over hers.

While there is no outward indication of his magic, it doesn’t take him long to finish and to take off out the window and into the forest. “He will return soon, he is simply ridding himself of the ailment,” Samaira explains as she steps closer and begins to very gently run her tele over the wing. “Let me know if anything I do hurts you immediately, okay?”

It’s easy to see the difficulty of this job, and that is that the wing has been long healed in this twisted, broken postition. The injury is quite old, which means that the bones will have to be reset before the true healing can be done. It always gets worse before it gets better, unfortunately. But, they have a path forward, and if she can reset the bones properly then Alaunus could begin a regimen of healing over the next couple of weeks to speed up the process.

There’s a flurry a wing beats behind her and she turns to see Alaunus re-entering the room. Samaira takes a step back and he comes to a rest at her side. She meets her bondeds gaze. “It might be the most difficult task we’ve taken on,” she says to him, “But I think we can do it, and as a team we are better.”

Alaunus, to his credit, is very wise for being such a young bird, and though normally very talkative seems to understand the weight of this situation. “I trust your judgement on this, and I will do whatever you need of me to help her,” he says, and she knows he would smile if he were capable of it. “Thank you, Alaunus,” Samaira gently brushes her muzzle against her bonded’s forehead before turning back to Florentine.

Her smile means good things.

“I do think that we can help you. It won’t be quick and easy, but we will be there with you every step of the way.” She can only hope that Florentine will be ready for the road ahead, and if so they will start immediately.

"Speaking."

---

@Florentine <3

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