@TheCell @Kava
Apologies for failing the last few days. Have three.
Some of these get a little long. Apologies.
23rd October. Prompt: Hysteria
Hysteria is a difficult ailment to treat, for you see, it is not one carried by the diseases which pass for our purview. Instead it is under the control of the humours of the body, and thus requires other tactics to influence.
A hysterical dragon should be infected with hormone-creating bacteria altered to produce sedative effects, which should then be erased from their system upon taking effect. While this does not treat persistent hysteria, it can treat singular bouts of it rather effectively and is a simple enough procedure that even the newest Necromancer may enact it.
For longer-term treatment it is advised that the Necromancer look into more therapeutic tactics, rather than solely the physical.
-- Excerpt from Codices on Curses: Unusual Treatment Tactics by Rubella of the Plaguelined Shore. One of several books penned by this Pearlcatcher specifically on on the treatment of non-plague diseases.
24th October. Prompt: Jewels
Of all the Necromantic practitioners of Tethys' clan, only two wear jewellery. Both of them are female and Haema knows that most of the clan assumes they wear their pieces for that reason.
Haema knows otherwise.
Traditionally amongst Necromancers jewels are worn as signs of status - privilege and power, might and the right to rule. Plague visitors would assume that instead, she knows.
And, again, she knows otherwise.
Nosoi wears a belt, jewelled with giant garnets. It was a gift from Haema, a courtship gift of a kind, before Nosoi and Intestinum had had their brief partnership. Aerugosanguis has no interest in Nosoi, but he understands her interest in her, the Ridgeback who was her companion in the Infirmary for so many weeks. Nosoi had, tentatively accepted the piece. It in turn had been a gift to Haema one Nocturne Night, but it was a large and heavy piece and not something Haema's questionable strength was willing to withstand. Nosoi on the other hand was more than strong enough to bear it and, Haema knew, it carried more meaning than just a pretty piece of silver and stone.
Nosoi thought herself a failure. A wreck, a ruin. But, to Necromancers, to Plague Dragons, jewellery has another meaning.
Haema knows that Nosoi remembered this when she gifted her the belt, and she has seen how, many times, Nosoi strokes her claws along the jewels to remind herself against her fears.
The other who wears jewels is one no Plagueborn would expect. Pestilentia, Necroservus Aide and Apprentice to Pleurisy, wears two bronze and amber anklets.
A Necroservus. Wearing jewels. Plagueborn would deem it arrogance, or, if they were generous, believe it a gift from her master to mark the strength of her plague.
They're not entirely wrong. They're not right, either.
The anklets, Haema knows, were one of a few things the pair kept in their crossing from the Plaguelands. A gift once given to Pleurisy in thanks. In travelling, the two shared everything, and Pleurisy does not generally forbid his apprentice anything within reason.
Then again, Haema thinks, it is quite possible he lets her keep them to intimidate people with the idea of a Necroservus so strong as to wear jewels.
25th October. Prompt: Woe
When the moon rises Nosoi does as well. Slowly she paces through the quiet halls of the clan caves, and walks outside, into the field of ash and stone just beyond.
The moon shines. For once, the sky is clear.
She paces across the field, down the slope. Round a bend and past some charred trees. After a little while she finds it: the spot she had first touched down on. The place she'd crash-landed.
She sits and from her bag pulls a number of things.
First she pulls out candles. Beeswax and yucca thread, some of them are blue but most are golden. A horn and bone scrimshaw, carved with the Goddess's image, and a terracotta statue of the Goddess of her new home. A moth-eaten mith doll, worn and faded. A skull of some small feline thing. Not the one she'd eaten as she'd crossed but another, traded for extensively.
She sets them, carefully, in a neat line. Goddesses at either end, mith before Plague and skull before Flame. The candles are a neat line between them. Nosoi lights each candle, lets the ash slowly settle as she sits in quiet.
And she cries.
It's been a long while now, that she's been settled with this clan. A clan that took her in and gave her a home. Have given her friends and a family. A place to belong.
But no matter all that because she cannot, can never, forget. where she was born. What she lost.
She strokes the mith doll - it had been that of her dearest friend, a friend she'd failed to save.
She trails her claws over the Gloomwillow skull - a creature much like this had fed her on her journey. Perhaps not the best food for a creature better suited to seafood, but she'd had no better options.
She sits. She weeps. She remembers.
This one night of the year - the night of her failure - she sets aside all she's grown and gained from everything that's happened, and lets herself feel woe and grief.
Everyone, after all, even a Necromancer, must grieve.
Apologies for failing the last few days. Have three.
Some of these get a little long. Apologies.
23rd October. Prompt: Hysteria
Hysteria is a difficult ailment to treat, for you see, it is not one carried by the diseases which pass for our purview. Instead it is under the control of the humours of the body, and thus requires other tactics to influence.
A hysterical dragon should be infected with hormone-creating bacteria altered to produce sedative effects, which should then be erased from their system upon taking effect. While this does not treat persistent hysteria, it can treat singular bouts of it rather effectively and is a simple enough procedure that even the newest Necromancer may enact it.
For longer-term treatment it is advised that the Necromancer look into more therapeutic tactics, rather than solely the physical.
-- Excerpt from Codices on Curses: Unusual Treatment Tactics by Rubella of the Plaguelined Shore. One of several books penned by this Pearlcatcher specifically on on the treatment of non-plague diseases.
24th October. Prompt: Jewels
Of all the Necromantic practitioners of Tethys' clan, only two wear jewellery. Both of them are female and Haema knows that most of the clan assumes they wear their pieces for that reason.
Haema knows otherwise.
Traditionally amongst Necromancers jewels are worn as signs of status - privilege and power, might and the right to rule. Plague visitors would assume that instead, she knows.
And, again, she knows otherwise.
Nosoi wears a belt, jewelled with giant garnets. It was a gift from Haema, a courtship gift of a kind, before Nosoi and Intestinum had had their brief partnership. Aerugosanguis has no interest in Nosoi, but he understands her interest in her, the Ridgeback who was her companion in the Infirmary for so many weeks. Nosoi had, tentatively accepted the piece. It in turn had been a gift to Haema one Nocturne Night, but it was a large and heavy piece and not something Haema's questionable strength was willing to withstand. Nosoi on the other hand was more than strong enough to bear it and, Haema knew, it carried more meaning than just a pretty piece of silver and stone.
Nosoi thought herself a failure. A wreck, a ruin. But, to Necromancers, to Plague Dragons, jewellery has another meaning.
Haema knows that Nosoi remembered this when she gifted her the belt, and she has seen how, many times, Nosoi strokes her claws along the jewels to remind herself against her fears.
The other who wears jewels is one no Plagueborn would expect. Pestilentia, Necroservus Aide and Apprentice to Pleurisy, wears two bronze and amber anklets.
A Necroservus. Wearing jewels. Plagueborn would deem it arrogance, or, if they were generous, believe it a gift from her master to mark the strength of her plague.
They're not entirely wrong. They're not right, either.
The anklets, Haema knows, were one of a few things the pair kept in their crossing from the Plaguelands. A gift once given to Pleurisy in thanks. In travelling, the two shared everything, and Pleurisy does not generally forbid his apprentice anything within reason.
Then again, Haema thinks, it is quite possible he lets her keep them to intimidate people with the idea of a Necroservus so strong as to wear jewels.
25th October. Prompt: Woe
When the moon rises Nosoi does as well. Slowly she paces through the quiet halls of the clan caves, and walks outside, into the field of ash and stone just beyond.
The moon shines. For once, the sky is clear.
She paces across the field, down the slope. Round a bend and past some charred trees. After a little while she finds it: the spot she had first touched down on. The place she'd crash-landed.
She sits and from her bag pulls a number of things.
First she pulls out candles. Beeswax and yucca thread, some of them are blue but most are golden. A horn and bone scrimshaw, carved with the Goddess's image, and a terracotta statue of the Goddess of her new home. A moth-eaten mith doll, worn and faded. A skull of some small feline thing. Not the one she'd eaten as she'd crossed but another, traded for extensively.
She sets them, carefully, in a neat line. Goddesses at either end, mith before Plague and skull before Flame. The candles are a neat line between them. Nosoi lights each candle, lets the ash slowly settle as she sits in quiet.
And she cries.
It's been a long while now, that she's been settled with this clan. A clan that took her in and gave her a home. Have given her friends and a family. A place to belong.
But no matter all that because she cannot, can never, forget. where she was born. What she lost.
She strokes the mith doll - it had been that of her dearest friend, a friend she'd failed to save.
She trails her claws over the Gloomwillow skull - a creature much like this had fed her on her journey. Perhaps not the best food for a creature better suited to seafood, but she'd had no better options.
She sits. She weeps. She remembers.
This one night of the year - the night of her failure - she sets aside all she's grown and gained from everything that's happened, and lets herself feel woe and grief.
Everyone, after all, even a Necromancer, must grieve.
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No one can live your life for you. That means they can't tell you who you are - what you are - either. Question others. Question yourself. Come to your own conclusions. ??? Pronouns. UK Time. |
