+- World of Pern (https://pern.second-pass.net/forum)
+-- Forum: Ista Weyr Boundaries (https://pern.second-pass.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=143)
+--- Forum: Ista Weyr (https://pern.second-pass.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=144)
+--- Thread: [G] [P] [EVENT] 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures (/showthread.php?tid=5004)
742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Zelana - 04.Apr.21
Zelana curled up on the infirmary bed, clutching at her stomach as she eyed the glass of foul liquid on the little table next to her with disdain. She hated it. She hated the smell, the taste, the texture, the fact that it sucked the joy out of having anything in her mouth, but most of all she hated that it was the only thing she could keep down for the moment.
Still, it could have been worse from what all the healers had been saying. Hopefully Lazerat wouldn't find out, she'd managed to tell A'tay in time that she didn't want her brother to worry, and she couldn't think of anyone else who would try to send him a letter. By the time she saw her brother she would probably be fine, and hopefully her stomach would be up for a proper spicy meal. Zelly wasn't sure what she'd do if she couldn't eat spicy food again. She supposed taking her medicine was probably for the best and pushed herself to set up with a soft groan before taking the glass and chugging it down as quickly as she could.
A wave of nausea and pain shot through her stomach and she grimaced as she waited to see if she'd end up needing the bucket on the nearby floor. Once it had passed she settled back down and turned her attention to Casa on the neighboring bed. If it weren't for her quick thinking and the terrible black liquid she'd made them both drink, they could have died from what she'd heard. It was an odd and fascinating thought.
"How did you know what to do?" Zelana had already expressed her thanks to the woman, and now she was filled with curiosity. "Do you know any other things?"
RE: 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Casa - 05.Apr.21
Casa shifted carefully after drinking the latest concoction, curling in on herself and hoping she wouldn’t hurl it back up. Her stomach hurt. Everything hurt. She didn’t think she’d ever spent so much time puking in her life, and wanted it to be over. The puking – not her life. Groaning softly, Casa lifted her bland gaze to look at Zelana, blinking before risking a yawn. She still worried she’d spontaneously start projectile vomiting.
“What do you mean?” Casa asked softly, before chuckling lowly at the next question, managing to give Zelana a coy smirk. “I know many things,” she teased gently, wishing her stomach felt better and all the associated muscles would stop aching. She hadn’t puked in a while now, long enough that the aching soreness was very much annoying her. She felt Thallyath’s exasperation, though whether it was at her internal bitching, or her playing dumb at Zelana’s questions, Casa wasn’t sure. But she’d needed a moment to come up with a suitable response.
At the time, Casa hadn’t considered the repercussions of saving Zelana’s life from the poison they’d been dosed with, it had been second nature once she realised what was happening. Besides, Casa wasn’t so heartless as to let the other girl just die to hide her secrets. Unfortunately, that meant she had to use her brain – which was not cooperating – to come up with a suitable reason for why she’d realised they were being poisoned, and how to counteract it so quickly. Casa knew spilling the fact that she’d been getting lessons in poisons and other herbal concoctions wouldn’t be her best move in general, never mind the spike in deaths from just such things lately.
“When we were kids in Katila,” she said after a few moments, shifting to try and get more comfortable. “We were all pretty heavily versed in what plants were known to be poisonous, and what to do if we ate it by accident.” Which wasn’t a lie, but it did make it sound like she had paid a lot more attention as a child than she really had. Besides, Casa couldn’t recall any of her friends eating any of the poisonous plants back in the day. Zelana didn’t need to know that, though. “It was just… second nature, I guess.” Which was true, but not for the reason she’d given. It should work, though. Casa rubbed her face, and then brushed her hair away. Hopefully Zelana wouldn’t ask why Casa had had the charcoal concoction on hand.
RE: 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Zelana - 05.Apr.21
Zelana fought off another wave of nausea as she tried to focus on Casa. Maybe it was just stomach troubles, but it certainly seemed like there was more to this than paying attention to poisonous plants in Katilla. There was a moment of uncertainty as she wondered exactly how much A'tay's sister knew, and more importantly why she knew it. She doubted it was for anything terrible though, certainly not those muffin attacks or the other poisonings.
This was all speculation though, it was hard to think really clearly herself as another stomach cramp hit and she winced. Maybe it didn't matter how or why Casa knew these things. Still, if it was a secret it was probably better to try and help keep it, considering how the woman had saved her life. Zelana opened her mouth to ask a question and immediately covered it as she gagged, but thankfully nothing came up. This time. She cleared her throat and softly asked, "Do you think you could teach me any of it?"
She looked around to make sure no one was snooping first and then added, "I can keep it a secret if that's important. I know people like to keep their recipes a secret." And maybe if she knew the recipe she could make it taste better in case she ever had to drink it again. Another wave of nausea did send Zelly to her bucket and she grimaced once she'd finished, wiping her mouth off with a rag. "You don't know anything else that could help do you? I think I'd do anything to make this suck less."
RE: 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Casa - 08.Apr.21
Casa shuddered as her stomach gurgled, roiling messily and bile flaring on the back of her tongue. The young woman swallowed, hoping to remove the urge to puke, and shuddered at the lingering taste of the bile. Lifting a hand, she scrubbed at her face before Zelana’s words processed, and she blinked blearily at the other girl. “Um, sure,” she mumbled, somewhat wary of puking when she opened her mouth. “Its not a secret,” Casa smiled wryly, “fairly common. A lot of parents know how to concoct it, because children are idiots who put anything in their mouths.” A huge part of why Casa had no plans to have any herself.
Casa’s face lost what colour it had when Zelana dove for her bucket, the sounds stirring the already unhappy contents (or honestly, lack there of) in Casa’s own stomach and she curled up tighter, grimacing and hoping against hope that she wouldn’t need to use her own buck—Casa moaned as she scrabbled on the bed for her own bucket and hacked up what little was in her stomach, the attack on her muscles, which were sore from excessive puking for what felt like years, caused tears to stream down her face and her nose to run. Casa scrubbed at her face with her sheet as she pushed the bucket aside for one of the poor junior healers to take care of.
“My brain isn’t working past the pain,” Casa admitted softly, scrubbing at her face again and brushing strings of hair away from her face. She’d do anything for a nice hot bath, but apparently all the bathing rooms had been put on lockdown due to some of them being tampered with. Casa was fairly sure her private bath would be safe but no one appeared ready to let her take that risk. “What I wouldn’t do for a bath,” Casa whined – not for the first, nor the last, time. She gave a wobbly smirk as she wrapped her blanket around herself. “Maybe an orgasm.” Her eyes sparkled, but then she groaned and flopped her head down on her pillow, curling into herself in misery.
RE: 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Zelana - 08.Apr.21
This really was the worst. Sure other people had died, but they hadn't suffered through this as far as Zelana was aware of. And sure, it was a terribly selfish thought, but she was having a hard time caring about the misery of others at the moment when her own was so profound. At least she had the good sense not to mention it aloud though as she shakily grabbed some water to swish in her mouth and spit into the bucket to try to get some of the taste out.
Zelana blinked at Casa, trying to process what she was saying for a moment before nodding. "Yeah... thinking isn't great right now," she said in agreement, her voice sounding almost as miserable as she felt. They could probably talk more about things she could learn later, assuming they made it out of the infirmary. The Healers seemed confident they would, that they'd somehow dodged the worst of it (which Zelly couldn't even imagine), they just needed a little more time for their stomachs to recover enough so that they could properly eat things that weren't bland bits of bread or crackers or whatever gruel it was they had been offered.
"Hopefully soon... soaking in a bath sounds nice." The other item on Casa's wishlist made Zelly giggle softly before the sound turned into a miserable whimper. "Hopefully soon for that too." She closed her eyes and focused on taking a few deep breaths as she tried to distract herself from how miserable she was with more positive thoughts. "Maybe both, a nice bath and sex party to celebrate. Or a nice swim and sex party, relax and have fun on the beach." Zelana clung to that bright and warm happy thought, hoping it would help hold her over until her body felt less awful.
RE: 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Casa - 14.Apr.21
Casa pouted softly, trying to ignore her unhappy stomach as she looked at Zelly across from her. Casa sighed dramatically, “It’s already been too many days without sex,” Casa grumbled. How long was it going to be now? Casa had no idea what had been used to poison them, thus no idea how long it would take them to recover. She was thankful she’d had the charcoal concoction at the ready, but was worried about how effective the poison had been in the short time it had had in their system. Perhaps Azrin would be able to help her figure out what it was. She’d have to contact him once she was on her feet again.
“Oh!” Casa said, half startled and half moaning in pain as she grimaced a smile at Zelana. “You didn’t get to come to my beach party.” A wistful smile took over Casa’s lips and she winked at Zelana, forgetting her icky feelings for a few moments, shifting where she was lying to support her head on her hands, her knees pulled up to her chest in an effort to ease her unhappy tummy. “I have this special tea,” Casa said with a conspiring smile, “some of the guys call it ‘Sex Klah’.” Casa whispered, glancing towards where their healers were chatting, before grinning at Zelana again. Talking about her sexy beach party was doing wonders for ignoring her stomach.
“Most of the people who came drank it. It was amazing. Sex on the beach in every direction.” She giggled, rubbing her stomach as she stretched her legs out cautiously. “I’m sure we could have another one this summer,” she said thoughtfully, pursing her lips together for a moment. They’d probably need something as freeing as a sexy beach party after all the mayhem that was currently happening – if any of them were left alive. As if to remind her of where she was, and why, Casa’s stomach cramped viciously and she groaned miserably as she quickly curled back into a ball.
RE: 742.04.04 | Unappetizing Cures - Zelana - 17.Apr.21
Zelana very quickly nodded in agreement. It had definitely already been too long for anything honestly; too long since she'd been able to properly eat, too long since she'd had a nice cuddle, too long since she'd had a good stretch on the beach. It had been too long since she'd had anything nice at all, other than surviving she guessed.
"Awe you had beach parties without me?" Zelly pouted, a silly gesture since she knew it was probably an event that happened before she was searched. Just in case her honest pained frown made it harder to detect the joke she added aloud, "Probably before I was Searched though, that's fine."
She listened with a keen interest when Casa started to describe the Sex Klah, fascinated that there was a drink that could do that. What other secret recipes did the woman know? What other seemingly magical effects could be gotten from a beverage? Could the same thing happen to a soup or other food item? Like the opposite of those terrible poison muffins, some sort of... good poisoned food? Drugged?
This was a much more interesting line of thought than the unpleasantness they were currently experiencing. "How do you make the s-" Zelly cut herself off as she quickly glanced around and then more quietly asked, "special tea? Do you know any other fun recipes? I think a summer party would be nice. Something to look forward to." That and new recipes were things that Zelly could cling to, and as curious as she was, she still wasn't up to her normal energetic self.
"Maybe we can talk more later... after we feel better. Or we can talk now if that'll help distract from things, but I might fall asleep." Casa should probably try to get some sleep too, she thought, but she wasn't about to suggest it like some sort of cruel joke, especially when the stomach cramping made it so hard to sometimes.