A smile for a Penny?

[Mero]

Part 1 Ymdin 717

Chapter 2, A smile for a Penny?

I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
Ben Hecht

Ymdin 54th, Morning. Scalvoris Town


A room, four walls a window, a door a bed, and other things… but… the door, he could open it to leave, but it wasn’t like the cage, it was a place he could go, but it was also a place he could leave. He’d never had a room before, it was nice and quiet compared to the cage too, and it didn’t rock with the ocean.

The woman with the soothing hands had told him to stay in it, she was nice, they called her Faith. He decided he liked her, she had made a lot of his pain go away and had smiled at him when they’d met. He’d met several nice people but she was especially so. Looking at his fingers he listed the names of the people he knew he could like, they weren’t the tattooed man, but they came close. There was the tattooed woman he’d met first on the beach... her name was… Kali… then the little one, it was called Baya, and it had an animal with wings like his… then there was the big man, with the ocean eyes, He was called Pash, his hands didn’t make pain go away like Faith’s did but when Pash was around he felt safer. Then Faith the lady with the soothing hands… that was… one, two, three, four people…. That he could trust… he still missed the tattooed man but it was a duller emotion than it had been.

Waiting in his room after he’d awoken he sat on his bed, it was soft and comfortable and he didn’t want to leave it, he didn’t have a reason too either, like with his cage he was used to waiting and reacting to other people he didn’t have any goals to act out on, his stomach rumbled slightly in the morning hours wanting food. However even that had always come if he waited so that’s what he did, watching as the sunlight that peeked through his window.

Faith had said something about giving him a job, and while he didn’t quite understand what it meant it seemed to make her happy and that in turn made him feel a little good, he was happy to return the favor. So he waited, she’d said she would come back for him, he would be helping her at a place called Cally’s, he didn’t know who Cally was but he hoped that they were like Faith. That said he was nervous, he could hear people outside his window, and even people on the other side of the door sometimes. So many people, something that he wasn’t sure he was ever going to be comfortable with he didn’t like people, he could still fit the people that didn’t scare him on one hand, and while his first day at this place had proved that there were good people beyond the tattooed man. However he didn’t want to trust people, he’d been forced to, and while that didn’t sadden him he was sure that he’d just been lucky, people were almost always bad… they were.. .right ?

[Faith Augustin]

There was a lot of healing left for the young man to do. A lot, and not all of it physical, not by a long shot. Still, he was physically better than he had been and he had taken to the room she had led him to. It was small, not much, but it was comfortable and clean, safe and secure. That morning, she knocked on his door and Faith's voice called out. "Hello, it's just Faith." She poked her head around the door and smiled at him, seeing him sitting there. "How are you today?" Faith came into the room and knelt next to him, looking up and checking his eyes, his colour, that kind of thing.

"You look better. How do you feel?" Faith asked and then held out one hand, palm down and hand flat out in front of her. "The same," then she turned her thumb down, "worse or," thumb up now, "better?" She did that kind of thing, tried to make sure that he had choices which he could communicate, even if he did not speak.

Depending on what he did communicate, she would question further, asking him to point or show her where there were specific things, choosing palm up for pain, palm down for aching, that kind of thing. Once that was dealt with, Faith spoke to him again, this time sitting on a chair next to him.

"I wondered, do you have a name that you know?" If he did, Faith would ask if he was able to write and read, but if not, she had a means of dealing with that, it was not a worry, she assured him. "I think that names are important and I would like to call you by your name. Would you help me to find out what it is?" She was calm, the young woman in front of him, always calm and she kept a quiet and friendly tone. Yet, she never did anything for him that he could do for himself, although she helped him whenever he needed it.

In this moment, she waited to see what his responses were to her questions and she'd take it from there.

[Mero]

When she entered, he met her with the same blank stare he usually had though the corners of his lips inched up ever so slightly into a very thin smile, it didn’t come naturally, the expression, not to him at least he was used to wearing the neutral mask. But he was happy to have the company even if it was difficult to express. Letting her approach him he managed to mostly contain the kneejerk flinch that overcame him when people came near. He was still unused to people being near him even less to being touched, but she was allowed, since she was good at making the parts of him that hurt, stop hurting.

When she held out her hand he watched her as she adjusted it while talking. Same, flat… worse… down… and Better… up… he could comprehend that he’d never had someone talk to him in such a way, giving him easy-ish way’s to respond but it was easy enough to understand. So when she asked how he was feeling he pointed his thumb up, saying that he was indeed feeling better, he wasn’t too thirsty or hungry and his skin had stopped tingling from the heat, his cut’s and bruises had even faded. As she pointed to different parts of him he got into the motion of what she was asking and replied in earnest excited by this new form of communication the woman had offered, it was a little exciting to be able to “talk” to someone else. Either for the most part he was feeling better or the same, the only place that he had any pain at all was that same left wing. He didn’t know how to express it, it didn’t “hurt” so much as it felt strange, like… it wasn’t fitting in right like his other wing. Whenever he tried to adjust it, it protested with a dull discomfort. However, all he was able to say about it was thumbs down. He frowned that even with this newfound way to express himself he was at a loss for a way to tell the nice lady what she wanted to know.

"I wondered, do you have a name that you know?"

He replied with a thumbs up, he had a name, everyone did, even though most people had called him mean things… the captain sometimes called him his name, he didn’t hear it often, but he did know it.

"I think that names are important and I would like to call you by your name. Would you help me to find out what it is?"

Giving the affirmative gesture once more he gave another thin lipped small smile. He didn’t mind he knew her name and he didn’t have any reason to hide his, but he didn’t know how to tell it to her, but he would help her if he could. Sitting cross-legged on the bed before her he waited to see what she would do, he wasn’t sure of what the emotion he was experiencing was, but he liked it, it wasn’t like the eternal wait on the boat, he felt like…. Things were better…. Even if he know longer had the cage that kept others out… maybe it wasn’t so bad letting others in… he liked it when people talked to him too, they were nicer than the captain had been, and much much nicer than the crew.

[Faith Augustin]

When he pointed his thumb up, Faith smiled. "Oh, I am so very glad." Her face showed her very genuine emotion and she looked at him, watching him with care as he communicated with her and she with him. Nodding her head, she answered him. "Your left wing. I understand. Let me look again, I'll be as gentle as I can be, alright?" She was, indeed, gentle and calm and she examined him carefully. Then, she knelt back down on her haunches in front of him.

"I'm sorry if I'm telling you things that you know, but I need to explain." Faith said with a smile. "Everywhere we have that moves, like this," she bent her elbow and put her hand on the elbow to show him. "these are called joints. Inside you, they work a bit like this." She cupped one hand over the other, which she'd closed into a fist. Then, she moved around her arms, exaggerating the movement to show him. As she did that, she was careful to be far enough away that she was in no way threatening. "What's happened is, your wing at the back, one joint in there, it's slipped out and I need to pop it back in."

Thus far, she hadn't lied to him and she wasn't going to start now. "For a brief trill, it will hurt. But then, this discomfort you are feeling, it will be gone. It's up to you, I can do it now, or later on when you've thought about it." Holding out her hand again, palm up. "Now?" Faith turned her hand, palm down, "or later?" Whichever he wanted, that would be what she'd do. Popping it back in should be fairly straightforward and when she did it, she'd do it quickly and then bind it with herbs to help it heal.

Whichever he chose, though, once he was able to, Faith would sit opposite him and explain how she wanted to find out his name. "First, we need to both know how many sounds are in your name. So, if I was doing this, then I'd think about 'f', 'ai' and 'th' and I'd hold up three fingers. How many sounds are in your name?"

Once they knew that, Faith nodded and smiled. "So, now we just need to know the sounds. You think about the sound and listen to the ones I'm making. Then, when I make the right one, point and I'll repeat it. Once we're sure it's right, I'll write it down here." She motioned to a book next to her.

Then, she went about playing a very strange game of guess the sound. She started with consonants, common ones first and she thought of people who she knew. So, she started with P, C or K, T and M, and so on. She enunciated carefully, but it depended on his ability and willingness, of course, to co operate.

[Mero]

She seemed happy when she saw that he was doing better, it was strange he thought, to be happy for someone else, though happiness was not something he understood very well. Letting her examine him she paused when she came to his wing. Letting her examine him was mildy unpleasant the area she probed at was tender but so was her touch, so he grimaced and allowed her to continue her work until she was finally done.

Then she explained to him what was wrong, it didn’t make too much sense but he tried to remember the words she used as best he could. She told him about joints and that was what made you able to move. It was strange to think that there were parts inside him that worked like that, he’d never thought too much about how his body worked it had always been enough to know that it did. But she seemed to think it was important so he listened dutifully. She told him that the reason he was in pain was because his wing joint, was not in it’s right place. That didn’t really make too much sense to him, his wing hurt, but it was on his back where it always was, right? The she said it wasn’t going to hurt if she fixed it. Frowning he hugged his knee’s to his chest he didn’t like hurting, but if some pain now would mean it wouldn’t hurt later, wasn’t that better? It was just scary though he didn’t really understand what she meant or what she was going to do, letting her put his wing back in it’s right place seemed too weird to be real… but…. He trusted her.

Slowly loosening the grip on his knees he looked at faith searching her eyes for any hint of ill will, though he didn’t see anything on her face that made her look like she was out to intentionally harm him. No he was afraid, but… he didn’t want to hurt later any more than he wanted to hurt now. Biting his bottom lip he decided that he trusted Faith enough to hurt him if it meant it would help, even if he shivered a bit at the thought of pain. Slowly he held his hand out once more in the sign of affirmative. Ready to let her do whatever it was she thought was necessary to make his wing better even if he still wasn’t sure of what a joint was exactly.

name game

I want to revisit the name game after this, but it felt weird to write about both it and the dislocation in the same post, hope that isn’t too inconvenient for you

[Faith Augustin]

He held out his hand in the affirmative and Faith smiled and nodded. "It's frightening, I know. I understand that. But I will be quick and you'll feel better after, alright?" She put her hand on his and her smile was gentle and encouraging. "Thank you. For trusting me enough to let me help you. I'm sure it's difficult. Thank you."

Then, she made her way and looked at what she was going to have to do here. Reaching into her medical kit, she got together some analgesic herbs which would help him and gave them to him to chew and then swallow. Once she'd given those instructions, she fell into prayer. "Blessed Moseke," she whispered, "help me heal your child, take away his pain, if it is your will that your servant does this. In your name, heal and help him if it is your wish." Again, she used the Moseke's light ability to heal the area, but only after she had popped the joint back into place.

The re-setting of a joint like that was something which Faith knew and had done a number of times, so she was careful and gentle, but she did it quickly. That way, she knew, it should be the case that by the time the injured young man felt the pain, he also felt the relief from it being back in place. With the Moseke's Light then healing the damaged area, Faith's hope was that he would be feeling better quickly.

So, she moved back around and looked at him. "How about now? The same, better or worse?" Faith repeated the hand gestures and waited for him to respond, before deciding what to do next.

ooc

No worries! When you feel that it's appropriate / depending on Mero's reaction, just add it in to your post and we'll go from there?

[Mero]

He didn’t understand what the woman was preparing to do as she went to work, however what hew came to understand rapidly and concisely was that even if you are aware that pain is about to happen, it does not particularly do much for actually lessening said pain, if anything it might actually make it more acute. When the lady with the healing hands went to heal him it felt more like she was ripping the very wing she said she’d be fixing out. His lips tore open as a silent scream etched itself onto his features. Tears welling in the corners of his eyes.

Then it was over slowly unballing his fists and relaxing he let his body go limp, it still hurt a lot, but it was still less than it had when she’d been wrenching on him and the pain was slowly fading as she worked on him. Focusing on his breathing Mero let the pain ebb, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt pain like this in the cage, a pang of regret for ever leaving struck him. Looking up after some time he saw faith still with him and she hadn’t skipped a beat in moving along with things. He wondered if all people on land were like this, they were all so strange. Though their strangeness, kindness even, was to thank perhaps for his life, so to worrying about it seemed like a waste.

The she started talking about Names again, agreeing to her game Mero paused, when she said her name she counted out three fingers. Trying to comprehend it he frowned. Three sounds? Wasn’t a name one sound not three? Or maybe it wasn’t, he did not understand much about things like that names weren’t something he was used to, but if it was going to make the woman happy he was willing to try, and unknown to him his mind struggling to grasp numbers and names was distracted from the pain in his wing. Bobbing his head back and forth as he thought about his name it took him a few runs of it before he decided that his name had two sounds in it, Me, and Ro. But communicating that was going to be difficult.
When she made the first M sound Mero gave the affirmative signal with his hand excitedly. That was the first sound in his name for sure. He could tell by the way the woman pressed her lips together to make the sound and how it sounded to know it was right. Happy to be off to a good start Mero sat up watching the woman curious as to what she’d do next.

[Faith Augustin]

"I'm sorry," Faith said after she moved back around and put her hand on his. "I know that hurt, and I don't want to hurt you. But it will feel better now, I promise." She gave him the time he needed to get himself together, not rushing him but just being with him and calm. It must be completely overwhelming, she knew, and she wanted to try and help him as much as she could.

When he was ready, though, she introduced the idea of finding out his name and he seemed happy with it as a way forwrd. He was more than willing to try and for that Faith was grateful. One of the things that she very much appreciated was that he seemed to want to communicate.

The 'm' sound was the one that got his attention and Faith nodded. "Mmm, that is excellent! Alright. That's a great start. Let's go with the next one?" The 'm' sound, she thought would be followed by a consonant so she went to Ma, then Me.

And so she would continue. Me was a great start, but now there could be anything next. So, Faith started again with the P, C, M, T, R and so on. Then, if she got the R, she'd do the vowels again first. Hopefully, that would get them where they needed to be.

ooc

Didn't want to take it too far. Sorry for the short post!

[Mero]

It was incredible really, he didn’t understand it but it was like the woman knew some kind of trick for learning peoples names, with the little game they played it hardly too the woman any time to make the next sound in his name, though it still sounded a little off the sound was mostly right, the “r” sound that he recognized. He gave an emphatic thumbs up as they neared the end of his name and after a few moments the woman again amazed him with the sounds he knew as “o”. Excited to hear it he made the sign of approval with both of his hands happy to hear his name for some reason, he hadn’t heard it in a while and hearing it said by someone who wasn’t scary was nice.

Sitting before the woman he beamed for a moment the expression on his face a genuine if awkward smile, something he still wasn’t used to doing. But that was his name, she hadn’t pieced it together and said it fluidly but he had heard all the parts to it. “M” “e” “r” “o” . The discomfort he still felt from his wounds was miniscule in comparison to the new emotion that he was feeling.

However his elation was broken by an unnerving sound, a bass rumble that emitted from his stomach informing him and the world that he was hungry. Looking down embarrassed Mero lost a little bit of his excitement at the realization that his stomach was being more vocal than he was, and against his will at that. Frowning for a moment he decided it would be wise to try and communicate what he wanted since he didn’t want to let the nice woman think he was being rude, He still didn’t know how to act around people and the shame he felt for his body behaving against his will worried him.

Pantomiming eating he brought his hands to his mouth once before sharply clicking his teeth together a couple times. He didn’t like the idea of asking for things, he’d rather only take what was given and not have to ask, but this place was different. He hoped she wouldn’t yell at him for making such a request. For a brief moment he felt a pang of loneliness as he wished that the tattooed man was here, then he wouldn’t have to ask for anything.

[Faith Augustin]

"Well, Mero, it is nice to say your name," the earnest young woman said with a smile. Names were something she understood the value of, in a strange and almost messed up kind of way. So the fact that she was now able to say Mero's name and introduce him to others, too, that was excellent to her.

Faith would have said something more, but then Mero's stomach gave a rather loud rumble and Faith looked at him with an immediately contrite expression. "I'm so sorry, Mero. You are hungry. Come with me, I'll show you where the food is. You can eat here, whenever you want. We provide you with three meals, but there are always extra snacks around." Down into the communal eating area, then, where they were serving food. Home made bread with herbs and dried tomatoes and a thick and tasty stew, full of nourishing vegetables. Faith was determined that the trainees got good food, not fancy or expensive but rich and filled with goodness. It was important, she knew, that in order to make the body strong, they had to fill it with rich and healthy food.

She had a small serving and sat with Mero. "Here, this place, you can live here until you are well and we will teach you things. A trade, if you want it. Working the farm, either the produce or the livestock. Or you could work in the kitchen. We will help you get a job." If he was good at what he did, Faith had already decided that she would take him on here, if he wanted it. After all, being mute meant that he was unlikely to get a job easily. But still, that was in the future. "We ask you to work, while you are here. Then, we will feed you and teach you and help you. Does that sound like something you would want?" If it was, she would explain that she would show him the farm, the restaurant and so on, so that he could make a decision on what he'd like to do. But it was only if he wanted it. Otherwise, she'd help him do whatever else it was that he wanted.