Open RP: Mel in the Great Hall

[totallyluminous]

Mel stumbles into the Great Hall from the outside doors, carrying a sword made of pure light.

She doesn't look very well, owing mainly to a wound on her shoulder and lesser to a few scratches on her neck, made from a Hell agent's weapon. Her clothes look sun-faded after only a few days away, and Mel herself looks plain illShe shuts the door by

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[maid_brienne]

Brienne knew what someone looked like after a battle or a tournament bout. She could practically feel the ache of wounds and pulled muscles herself when she saw the girl in the Great Hall.

She moved quickly to the wounded girl's side. "What happened?" She was already looking for a roll of bandage in the bag slung at her side. Sparring with Jaime meant she needed to keep salve and suchlike with her.

[totallyluminous]

Mel raises her sword, almost surprised someone has supplies of what she assumes to be medical equipment so handy. 'A mission went awry,' she explains. 'A fight went wrong for me. I came off best, but...yes. I don't think we've met,' she adds, suddenly wary.

[maid_brienne]

"We have not met," agreed Brienne, attention for now focused on the wounds and the need for triage. "I am Brienne of Tarth. I think it may be difficult for you to tend your own shoulder," she added, looking askance at the raised sword, "but I would help you."

[totallyluminous]

'Thanks,' Mel says gratefully, putting down the sword. 'I'd really appreciate it. I'm Mel, by the way. It just needs dressing--I made the bleeding stop.'

Brienne OF Tarth?

'Are you, um, a lady? Should I curtsey?'

There are some people who insist on it, after all.

[maid_brienne]

"Mel," Brienne repeated, sure to get the name right. It was short and simple. She thought at first she would have to cut away the ragged fabric over Mel's shoulder wound. Then she found the shirt was made of some kind of stretchy textile, a thing very foreign to Brienne. Between the stretch and the looseness of the too-large garment, Brienne could pull shirt away from wound. "I got these from the potions master when he fixed my face," she explained parenthetically as she took wound-cleaning and dressing supplies from her bag. "They're magic, I suppose. I'll leave your shirt on but it's going to get wet." In her hand was a nozzled bottle of some transparent blue fluid.

[totallyluminous]

'What happened to your face?' asks the Tactless One. 'I can dry my top--' and here her hands start to gather a soft golden glow--'But I can't fix my shoulder yet. What's that going to do?' she asks, feeling like a kid again when Mum cleaned a graze.

[maid_brienne]

"Someone bit a chunk out of it," came the blunt answer. "My face, that is. The priests sewed it up as best they could. When I got here the potions master told me that the healers in this world can fix that kind of thing. And he did." It makes me no less ugly. "What this will do is clean out your wound the way that water would, except it has the secretions of some magical mollusk in it, the potions master said. I cannot recall the name of the animal. I beg pardon." As she spoke she had pulled the shoulder of the shirt down, its neck catching firmly around Mel's upper arm as it could stretch no further. Now she began to squirt the cold solution into the wound. "It will tingle," she said. "You'll be brave enough to stand that if you were brave enough to bear sword against a foe."

[totallyluminous]

Mel's eyes go wide. 'No way,' she breathes. 'I'm sorry.'

The coolness of the solution catches her offguard, and she inhales rather sharply. 'I wasn't brave, my training just kicked in. I...I thought if I got there, then I could stop her...'

Her voice trails off. 'It wasn't a fair fight, anyway. One swing of this--,' she hefts the sword--'and he melted away. He got me a fair few times.'

[maid_brienne]

"The flesh regrew. It is amazing what can be done by magic," said Brienne, finishing the irrigation of the wound and capping the bottle. "If you will use your magic to dry it, I will apply a salve, which is also magical, and then the dressing. May I inquire of your blade? I have not seen its like." She assumed it was some property of a rare metal that made it shine so. Oathkeeper was a rare blade too.

[totallyluminous]

'It's made of light,' Mel says softly. 'It gives me a light overdose when I touch it--I have no clue what it will do to humans.'

She touches her hand to her bare skin and lets it dry.

'Are you a swordswoman?'

[maid_brienne]

"I'll not touch the blade, then." Brienne was wary. "I'd not have touched it anyhow, not uninvited. Yes, I can be called a swordswoman." A knight, damn it. She'd been one of Renly's Rainbow Guard, his chosen seven. But a woman could not be called 'ser'. She spread the salve evenly over the torn flesh. "I would try to stitch this if we were in Westeros. Because we are in this magic place, the salve I am putting on the wound should help the wound to knit together on its own. There is something in it that accomplishes this, that comes from a plant I have never heard of." She felt stupid. Professor Maturin had explained these things to her when she had shyly taken him up on his offer to undo what Biter did to her face. It was not that she did not know wilderness craft, but that she had been too nervous about what the professor was doing to pay attention to what he was saying.

[totallyluminous]

Mel frowns at Brienne's phrasing. 'What would you call yourself, then? And--where's Westeros? Thank you for the salve.'

It's true her shoulder feels better. 'You're good at this,' Mel offers, biting her lip. 'I mean, the not making it hurt part.'

Mel sometimes wishes she was back in the Heavenly City, where nothing ever hurts. And then she remembers she was human.

[maid_brienne]

"I call myself Brienne," she said simply. "Westeros is far from here, I think. I am one of the many who came here unintentionally, as are those from my country who are also here." Mel's compliment at Brienne's skill went unheeded; Brienne had had to learn to care for routine wounds and she ought to have some measure of competence. Her hands had been cleaned by the same solution she'd used to irrigate Mel's wound; now they were sticky with salve, and she fumbled a bit with the jar's lid in recapping it. Then for the bandages, a wide roll that she unwound gingerly, passing it over and under Mel's arm in the tight gap between shirt and flesh.

[totallyluminous]

'Everyone seems to come here unintentionally,' Mel hazards, as the bandage sticks to the salve and the skin. 'I've maybe met four people, myself included, who came here for a reason. Even if I don't know what my reason is...'

Mel doesn't try and explain The Call.

'Is it in the same world? Do you have an England there?'

[maid_brienne]

Brienne finished the businesslike field dressing and tucked the shirt back into place. "No England, no. I never heard of such a place."

[totallyluminous]

'Cheers,' Mel says happily, exhaling. 'We're in Scotland now. By England. I used to live in this century--what about you? What year, I mean?'

If this had happened back at Park Hall--say, if someone had got a wound on their shoulder from something--no-one would have had a clue what to do. Mel is therefore intrigued.