Closure

Slavina

Mid day, wheels creaking and plant-cart-feet scuttling through softly lit woods. The weather's cleared up enough for long enough that the cart has finally (mostly) dried out. Slavina is, as usual, taking an afternoon nap. Or rather, a morning nap that has now stretched into an afternoon nap and if left uninterrupted is likely to continue into an evening nap. She's draped over a few fuzzy-leaf cushions near the back of the cart's sleeping pod, most of her clothes folded up in the storage nets in deference to the heat.

Aaren

Aaren steps into the cart (the wood creaking as she mounts the steps) and comes in, not bothering to moderate her volume. She breezes across the golden wood and over to Daina's little indoor herb garden. (The outdoor one is much more extensive, but these ones like the indoor conditions.)
As Slavina wakes, Aaren sings, "Good afternoon, Slavina."

Slavina

Slavina peeks at Aaren through one open eye, and pulls herself up to a sitting position with movements that are simultaneously laborious and graceful. She rests her arms loosely on her knees and leans her head back against the leaves of the wall. "Is it afternoon already?"

Aaren

"Yes." Aaren sings, to the songs of the herbs she is selecting. "And you missed lunch." Aaren pulls a dried just-a-fruit wrap that is conceling a huge potato and meat dumpling and hands it to Slavina.

Slavina

Slavina eyes the wrap.... dumpling... thing... like she's just been handed a sticky rat. "Missing implies it was accidental." She half-teases. Then says in a more serious (and ever so slightly worried) tone, "I really don't feel good. Really. Don't suppose you have a song for that?"

Aaren

What kind of not good is Slavina feeling?
That Aaren can tell, I mean. Which obviously is everything because my character gets to know everything, obviously.

Slavina

Lots of not good. Basically most of the standard flu symptoms minus fever, her heart feels like it's beating too fast, so exhausted it's hard to function, and she's about an inch away from breaking out in tears again. This is about how she's been for the last couple weeks.

Aaren

"Sure." Aaren sings. "Would you like me to use it?"

Slavina

Slavina nods.

Aaren

Aaren sits down with her herbs and her mortar and pestle and gets to crushing. She sings Slavina's song for a moment, and then gently seguys into a Slavina song where Slavina feels well rested, healthy, and calm.
"I wouldn't advise leaving the cart." Aaren sings. "It'll come back hard, and that will suck."

Slavina

Every muscle relaxes as the song washes over her. Slavina takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. "Thanks."

She eats her dumpling wrap thing.

Once she's done, she wipes her fingers off on some napkin-petals and pulls her hair out of its now-frazzled braid. She combs it out with closed eyes. As she does so she asks in a low, quiet voice, "Can you tell what's wrong with me?" A slight pause, and she adds, "I mean, aside from the obvious."

Aaren

Aaren frowns and refocuses her attention. (She's mostly been listening to the pet bird, cagged generiously just outside the door. "Well, it sounds like you're still exhasted from being in between for too long. Your symtoms are consistant with what you described earlier. Are you expecting something different?"

Slavina

Slavina frowns - just a thoughtful frown, since she still feels pretty okay what with the song. "I should be better by now. Not all the way better or anything," she finishes combing and gathers her hair back to begin dressing it. "But by now I'm usually feeling like this - like that? - just sometimes. For a few hours in the mornings or if I'm particularly tired. Not... not basically all the time."

Aaren

Aaren looks at her for a long moment, eyes going distant as she thinks about Slavina's song. Then she sings, "Are you taking into account how tired you are from being sad? When you're thinking about how you expect to feel?"

Slavina

She gives her ropes of hair a few more twists as she thinks about this. "I'm sad?" she asks, eyebrows inching closer together.

Aaren

Aaren, being a practiced professonal, does not smile. "Yes. Don't worry, it's not unusall not to notice in stressful circumstances like these." She pauses to listen to her crushed herbs for a moment, and then stands. "Would you like help making a list of all the things you might be sad about? I find that helps." She walks over to the drying box and spreads the herbs out in it. "Experincing your sad is an important part of caring for it correctly, and it can be easier to experince if you have an idea about why it is there."

Slavina

"Okay." She nods. "But that's gonna be a really long list." She swirls the twists of hair together up on top of her head and holds them in place with one hand, using the other to place pins. "Should we just list the things that happened since last time I was burned out?"

Aaren

Aaren puts the box near the fire, where it latches in with neat little vine-hooks, and then cleans out the mortar and wipes of the pestle. "Sounds reasonable."

Slavina

"Okay." She takes a slow breath (the thing she does instead of saying "um"), and scootches her heels in closer to her butt. "I left Truong and Soheila behind. That was really hard. And I met Krissy and Brian and Borya again and that was good but also sad because it was... different."

She takes another breath, sets the pins down and starts on the puff of curls underneath the first braid-wrap. "Also Milusha is dead." She stops there, not really knowing what to add or where to go.

Aaren

"I'm going to let you feel your sad now, is that alright?"

Slavina

Slavina hesitates, and says, "Can I eat another burrito before I start feeling bad again?"

Aaren

Aaren nods, "Good idea." And she calls out the door for more food.

Slavina

Slavina finishes up her hair and ties off the last braid. Then she takes the dumpling burrito thing that Kelly hands Aaren who hands it to her. She eats it with big chomps and pointed chewing.

Aaren

"What do you have planned for dealing with being sad?" Aaren asks, while Slavina eats.

Slavina

Slavina shrugs (since her mouth is full), then after she swallows says, "I've been writing letters to Truong and Soheila and everyone. That kind of helps, or it probably will once I get better at letters. And.... I guess I just wait through it with my other friends. Meditate about it and pay attention to how it's manifesting in my dreams and stuff. That's what worked with Truoung." She tilts up one shoulder in a half-shrug and takes another more reasonably sized bite of burrito dumpling.

Aaren

"Hmm." Aaren sings the contemplation song for a moment, and then, "Do you have any plans for a funeral or a private goodbye for Milusha and her family?"

Slavina

Slavina shakes her head. "I.... how..." she takes another deep breath. "I've never done something like that. I wouldn't know where to start."

Aaren

"What does your family normally do for funerals?"

Slavina

prepare for potential retcon, since I'mma make up some Liudzi customs! IM A LOOSE CANNON YEEHAW

Slavina

Slavina finishes her burrito before responding. She wipes off her fingers again, pulls her shirt on, and shifts so her knees are resting to one side and she's leaning against one of the storage compartments. "When someone died we'd stop traveling for three days. The first day the women would clean the corpse, dress them nicely, and everyone would sing mourning-songs and weep for them..." she goes on to describe the rest of the funeral: a very communal, public affair with open displays of grief, much tearing of hair and clothes, and rituals to ensure the deceased's spirit will be as safe as possible until it can find a new body. But when the funeral's over it's over, and grieving from that point on is typically a quiet and very personal affair.

Aaren

Aaren sings a nod. Then she offers to help Slavina come up with a couple of ideas that might work for her, and the two of them spend a few hours chatting about funeral customs and Slavina's self expression.
Then she lets Slavina go back to feeling awful.