masquerade

PAPER FACES ON PARADE. blood magic. trauma surgeon. vervained six ways to sunday. ;)

[221brownstone]

Lucy Liu visits CBS This Morning in Midtown Manhattan (Apr 30)

[daliazhang]

kitcarter:

“Are you okay?” Kit asked after rushing past the other on his skateboard. He managed to swerve around them in time but he was still worried he might have hit them. He came to a halt and kicked the board into his hand. “Sorry about that, I didn’t see you there until the last minute, I was a little bit spaced out.”

Countless times a patient re-entered the hospital via Dalia’s OR because they disobeyed their doctor’s orders and did something that caused them to reinjure themselves, and here Dalia was doing just that. It wasn’t his fault. The skateboarding witch didn’t come close enough to her to potentially cause damage, but the swift movement made her head swim and she stumbled and nearly fell, suddenly feeling ill all over again. “Not your fault,” she said with a weak smile. “I shouldn’t be out yet but cabin fever happens to the best of us, doesn’t it?”

[daliazhang]

galexdavenport:

“There’s no such thing as bad ideas. Just poorly executed, slightly dangerous ones.” Gale offered, showing a sheepish crooked grin. “So when I say that this will work, I’m eighty-five percent sure it might… Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”

Dalia’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head slightly. “Sounds like something an immortal being immune to death would say,” she said flatly.

[daliazhang]

drmiapeterson:

Mia was taken aback by Dalia’s anger, though this remained internal. She inhaled sharply, nodding slowly with her exhale. She understood the older woman’s response; magic was such a key piece of a witch’s existence. Having it turn against you like that.. Mia could only imagine the anxiety that would induce. Compounded by the physical symptoms, it would be enough to rattle even the strongest of individuals. The psychiatrist took a cautious step toward the woman, freezing at the next flare-up, a response based on instinct, not fear. 

“If you kill me, you kill me,” she responded, “But I’m not letting you die of blood loss in a bathroom.” It was a reversion to her old life, to deployment, allowing her mind to remain clear and present despite the terror she knew she should’ve felt. Mia didn’t know anything about blood magic; in a family filled with white magic, some questions were best left unasked and unanswered. But something told her that leaving the woman alone, surrounded by the substance, would only make matters worse. 

Dalia’s mind raced. She always thought all of her coworkers were mundane, but it appeared someone let Mia in on the secret or she’d grown up with it. She could be witch-adjacent or... or a hunter. The idea sent ice through the witch’s veins and she remained still. Right now, Mia seemed more concerned with helping her than putting her down, and so she hoped convincing a hunter not to kill her was not in her near future.

She was right, however. Without help, Dalia would cough  up blood until she passed out, and then either die of blood loss or choke on it and neither of those sounded like a comfortable way to die. She paused a moment, lifting her eyes to meet the other, then nodded slowly. “If I lose control, you get away from me,” she said.

[daliazhang]

drmiapeterson:

Mia knew it was pointless, but she couldn’t face her inability to aid the woman.  With every potential solution that crossed her mind, the psychiatrist immediately saw the ways in which it would fail. “I’ll find a bed for you.” She knew full well there were none left, though she was willing to give her the couch in her office - where she’d spent these last few nights - if it offered the surgeon any relief. “We’ll figure something out,” she added, beginning to turn towards the door to seek some assistance when out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement.

Though she’d never witnessed it before, she knew was it was instantly, having no time to process before the noise jolted her toward the ground. She knew it wasn’t a gunshot, but muscle memory and instinct overruled. Embarrassed, she looked back up, watching the woman - the witch - for a quiet moment. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” The words escaped her lips before she realized they had. “Magic only makes things worse.” She retraced her conversations with her mother and sister. Everything had gone wrong when they tried to practice magic. But Dalia hadn’t tried, at least as far as Mia could tell. This was magic operating entirely of its own accord. She furrowed her brow at Dalia’s words. “I’m not going anywhere.” If there was one thing Mia was incapable of, it was abandoning a patient.

Anxiety warped itself into rage and it flashed across her face in a look of frustration. “I’m well aware magic makes things worse!” she snapped, then closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She could feel magic at her fingertips again, fighting against the remnants of the witch’s willpower to lash out again. Her head throbbed and every breath shot pain through every nerve, and to top it off, a wave of nausea overtook her and blood rushed from her mouth and into the sink. The brief loss of control allowed more magic to escape, this time freezing both blood and water all the way through the faucet. Trying to survive the night let alone however long this lasted might be impossible.

“Blood magic is dangerous at best, even with an experienced user,” she said finally, wheezing as she tried to catch her breath. “I could kill you and myself.”

[daliazhang]

helenagrimaldi:

ouroxkenz:

Mackenzie was trying her best to stay under the radar from her family while she helped other people. She knew they would be disappointed if they found out, so she was doing what she could without anyone really noticing. 

While walking through the streets, blood on her hands from helping, she saw someone stumbling around. Of course she had to look around to make sure there were no Ouroboros or family members, but she soon quickly moved forward. There was something about knowing she was at fault for this, something about the guilt that struck her chest at the thought that this woman was struggling because of her.

“Hey It’s okay, you need to relax.” The young witch said as she continued to move towards her, hands held up in a surrendering pose. She knew that putting out so much energy would only make the sickness worse. “Sit down. It’s going to be okay.”

‘Observation duty,’ the dark witch though to herself as she headed down the street towards the Lennox Hill hospital. As much as she usually loved it, Helena had been having a pretty exhausting week with the Ouroboros. Once the illness had finally set through and began to spread, she was really hopeful to get a little bit of a break. Instead, her father had her taking notes and seeing the results of the contagion as it began to fully take it’s form. It had been fairly boring besides the occasional run in with some of the more prominent families, but still she really just wanted some sleep when she saw familiar faces. Her eyebrows curved slightly as she tried to squint, wanting to be sure that the two she saw standing next to each other was in fact who she thought. The dark witches instinct was to run directly for them, but stopped herself quickly. Kenzie wasn’t supposed to be in this area. Actually, Helena was pretty sure she wasn’t even reported to be patrolling at all and worry filled her. If she decided just to dart forward, earpiece on with her father listening, the dark witch could find herself trying to explain why the fellow member was here at all and began rapidly clicking it off.

@daliazhang​

Despite the vicelike grip she usually kept on her magic, the constant waves of nausea, dizziness and pain caused it to flash from her fingertips like lightning, sigils forming out of red droplets where ever her blood-slicked hand found purchase against a wall. It caused cracks and sometimes more pain for the witch, and it only served to infuriate and terrify her. She knew this was a potential problem with blood magic; if it slipped out of her control, she would very quickly travel the route of a monster.

Even still, she tried to use it to protect herself even as it disobeyed her every second. When the shifting, blurry shadow before her became the image of her father, every ounce as horrible and angry as she recalled him, something snapped. Rage ignited in her veins and without trying, she gathered power from whatever pool or streak of blood was nearby. “I will kill you a hundred times if I have to,” she growled. Her head still swam and her own magic threatened to eat her alive, but she’d take him down with her if she had to. Every time. All she had to do was cut him and she could get in his system, just like last time. Blood from her own hands gathered and she whipped it at the figure like a knife, aiming to slice her father’s chest.

@ouroxkenz​

[daliazhang]

drmiapeterson:

Security more than had their work cut out for them, Mia thought as she heard the sound of smashing glass. Not another window. It killed her that they’d had to turn away patients - but with beds lining many of the hallways and no end in sight, she couldn’t see another option. She’d been called away from psych; with so many doctors down it was an all hands on deck situation. Walking down a gurney lined corridor, she nodded to a dermatologist she saw doing a work up. Since when did they do that? 

Her time was split, between trying to do whatever she could for the physical health of the patients - IV fluids, blood transfusions, pain medication - and, for those patients who were already far gone, psych consults. Delusions and hallucinations seemed to be the extent of it, though she couldn’t ascertain why. The exhaustion? The stress on the pain receptors in the brain? She sighed, defeated and weary. It was all a guess. She turned the corner, pushing open the heavy door of the women’s restroom, stopping in her tracks at the realization that it was occupied. “Oh, shit! I’m sor..” she began, starting to back out, when she noticed the blood on her colleague’s scrubs. 

“Dr. Zhang,” her voice was tentative, as she inched back into the room, closing the door behind her. “Please tell me that’s a patient’s blood.” It was a pointless question. The answer was clear. Mia’s heart started to race, not from the illness (she only had a headache) but from the anxiety of the situation. And then, without warning, it went perfectly clear. “Hemoptysis. Is that your only symptom?” She took a step closer to the woman, attempting to get a general feel for where Dalia’s condition had progressed to. “I’d order a CT to check for fluid in your lungs, but there’s a backlog til tomorrow.”

The pounding in the witch’s head made Mia’s voice sound fuzzy and distant, and so she focused on trying to get herself to her feet. She gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles turned white and she forced herself to stand. After fighting with this illness that grew in severity all day, she didn’t have it in her to lie anymore. “Not a patient’s,” she confirmed weakly, the roughness of her voice betraying the way blood filled her lungs. She turned and coughed again despite her best efforts to suppress the urge, then spat another small mouthful of blood into the sink and washed it away with a heavy, exhausted sigh.

“Call me Dalia, we’re way past any sort of formalities,” she mumbled. The idea of a CT scan only frustrated her and she shook her head. “What’s the point? We know I have what they do. It’s progressing--” Quickly? She stopped and coughed violently, her knees buckling as she grabbed at the still slick sink again for leverage. Blood splattered the white porcelain again, but instead of washing away, it remained in place and then coalesced on one point. Something inside her grappled desperately to regain control, but it was too late. A sigil formed out of the moving droplets and a moment later, a sound like a gunshot rang throughout the bathroom as a crack formed in the sink. Had the sign that formed been something else, she might have been able to play it off, but there was no recovering from practically shattering a sink.

“Do not run,” she commanded, her voice forceful despite the obvious notes of pain and exhaustion that laced it.

[daliazhang]

lindenxilo:

“I keep seeing him,” she whispered. Amos her former Beta kept walking outside her hospital bedroom and every couple of hours or so she’d see him clinging at the end of her hospital bed begging for his life. He kept telling Linden it was her fault. Her fault he died, her fault his sister was forced into the new Beta position. If she had fucking stayed in Europe Amos would still be alive. “He won’t stop blaming me! It wasn’t my fault he got killed. Was it my fault?” 

Dalia didn’t know who she was talking about but knew better than to ask, and so she carefully took a seat at the edge of the bed and placed a hand atop the girl’s. She wasn’t a particularly soft woman when it came down to it, but she could recognize fear and something deep inside her ached to quell it, even for just a moment. “It’s the virus,” she said gently. “There’s no one here but me.”

[daliazhang]

Dalia was not known for rash decision making, but she filled this day with them from the second she began to cough up thick mouthfuls of blood. She was never quite so arrogant as to think she was beyond harm, but the iron taste in her mouth and the difficulty breathing that came with it created a severe sort of memento mori the likes of which the woman had never experienced until now. And so, desperate to survive or at least to die somewhere other than the floor of her office, the witch managed to sneak out of Lennox Hill without anyone noticing, and she hoped that it would be an uneventful walk home. She was wrong.

Blood on her lips and each breath more painful than the last, Dalia forced herself to keep walking the route she knew by memory, but as she walked, she realized she probably couldn’t make it and that there was a good chance she wouldn’t be able to get beyond the quarantine barrier.

Not that it mattered. After five blocks, she fought for every breath and her ears rang as the familiarity of the city began to slip away until it was an unrecognizable wash of murky color and the constant, repulsive coppery tang of blood in her mouth. A figure approached, small but its silhouette shifting as though made of smoke or... something. She squinted and felt magic rush to her fingertips, cold and almost itchy. “St-stay away,” she commanded, then coughed so hard her torso pitched forwards and she expelled another mouthful of blood onto the pavement. Perhaps the horrific silver lining to all of this was there was blood everywhere--despite being on the edge of death and her magic barely obeying her will, the abundance of blood made her a singularly powerful opponent if she wished it.

@helenagrimaldi @ouroxkenz

[daliazhang]

✉ Dalia + Mallory

Mallory: I hate that I can't help you.

Dalia: Yeah.

Dalia: Take care of yourself, I'll try to keep you posted.

[liunaticfringe]

[daliazhang]

✉ Dalia + Mallory

Mallory: Realizing how tactless that was...

Mallory: Sorry.

Dalia: Don't apologize, I'm stressed, I didn't mean it like that.

Dalia: Sorry.

Dalia: We're over capacity and I haven't felt afraid like this since I was nineteen.

[daliazhang]

✉ Dalia + Mallory

Mallory: I'm trying to make it home. I'll do my best to check the grimoires when I get there.

Mallory: I'll be okay. Deathless, remember?

Dalia: Right. Lucky you.

[daliazhang]

✉ Dalia + Mallory

Mallory: God no. I'm surprised the text message are even coming out coherent.

Dalia: Okay. I'll figure it out.

Dalia: I'm probably in no condition to be of any use, but please let me know if you think I can do something help you.

[daliazhang]

lindenxilo:

“Move to New York they said. It’d be safe they said,” she muttered to herself as her body shook from the chills. She had checked in Thursday afternoon at Lenox after feeling extremely unlike herself the evening before. Thinking her body would just shake it off like any other cold, this was something new entirely. She’d been vomiting all night and was receiving breathing treatments around the clock. The TV in the room displayed it was some type of virus going around and a section of the city was quarantined. Looking at the person in the shared room with her she asked, “Hey, you doing alright?” 

“Whoever told you that lied,” the witch replied flatly as she looked at the chart of the sleeping patient next to the girl who spoke. She felt weak and irritable, and the constant ache in every inch of her body only made her mood worse. She tried not to cough while overseeing patients but it happened anyway as the illness progressed, but by now no one had it in them to complain. They’d get through this or they wouldn’t, and there wasn’t any way to ask for a doctor who wasn’t ill anymore. “I’m fine, you just rest,” she said as she returned the chart to its place. “Feeling any worse?” she asked as she made her way to the one who spoke. She glanced at her chart for a name--Linden--then grabbed the edge of the blanket and gently tucked it closer around the girl’s body as she shivered. 

[daliazhang]

✉ Dalia + Mallory

Mallory: No, it definitely was not.

Mallory: I couldn't even imagine being human right now.

Dalia: Agreed. I'm not sure if it's better or worse knowing this is supernatural.

LONG SILENCE

Dalia: Don't suppose you can recall a spell to nullify magic? Locally, I mean, not to solve all of this.

[daliazhang]

When Dalia slipped out of the ER, it wasn’t to keep people from worrying about her or to put on some sort of brave face. She couldn’t be around people anymore, not with the taste of iron on her tongue and the sickening sensation of fluid--probably blood--in her lungs that rattled with every breath. She made it to a thankfully vacant employee restroom just in time to enter a violent coughing fit that sprayed a mist of blood across the nearest sink, followed by a much more concentrated amount as the witch continued to cough. Her entire body ached and she wanted for nothing more than to curl up in a corner and sleep, but she couldn’t, not when the other part of this illness presented a far more dangerous problem.

It was a stupid idea, one born of panic and a desperate need for a little relief. With a shaking hand, she wet a fingertip in one of the larger blood stains in the sink and began to draw a small sigil on the back of her hand with it, one she knew would ease the pain on a normal day and with all of this blood everywhere, it should have been easy to accomplish. It did the opposite, however. The soreness associated with a fever increased tenfold and brought the woman to her knees as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart pounded in her head and she managed to grasp one of the faucet dials with a slick hand to turn it on, then immediately placed the blood sigil under it to wash it away. Thankfully, the pain it brought subsided and Dalia sighed as she pressed her forehead against the cold ceramic sink. Her attention was drawn by the sound of the door open and she managed to drag herself to her feet.

“I’ll be back in the ER in a minute, just needed... needed space,” she managed to lie weakly as she furiously tried to rinse the blood off the sink and faucet.

@drmiapeterson