I just want you to know your idea of Daphne using a cane after coming back to life is such a galaxy brain idea and I adore it.
Thank you! I know I hold the “Revived Daphne is disabled” headcanon extremely close to my heart, yet I can’t remember if and where I have written about it before...?
But any case, she spends a long time recovering in butterfly verse, as having spent 20 years as a spirit left both her muscles atrophied and her unused to operating a physical body. And she has to deal with magic withdrawal on top of it, as her body is just then processing the sudden loss of the Dragonflame. So she is bed bound for a while and in physical therapy. She is well enough afterwards to sit up and walk short distances, but is mainly an ambulatory wheelchair user until she gets stronger and is primarily using her cane for support. Getting to share the Dragonflame with Bloom boost her recovery, getting more independent from a wheelchair and needing less breaks, but it doesn’t cure her. Neither would/will getting all of the Flame back and Daphne will always be more fatigue-ridden than someone of equal nymph-level powers.
As someone with a chronic health issue, I dislike the notion that disabled people simply don’t exist in magical settings, or if they do they “chose not to” so to speak, because they can magic their disability away and become abled. Magic in my opinion would much better be used to create accommodations that are not possible in the real world: ultra lightweight chairs, magic ramps, floating beds, magical scribes and seeing-eye intelligent magic creatures.
I can absolutely understand if other disabled people do say they would rather wizard their problems away, but I for my part am hesitant to draw on such daydreams because I know that’s never going to be possible, but dreaming of novel assistive technologies might eventually inspire people with the necessary tech/engineering knowledge to make them a reality!
