@onemusemanyfandoms a familiar face ( kly ) - [ x ]
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As soon as she was certain he wasn’t going to bleed out quickly, she withdrew her hand. She used her storm magic to dull his nerves in the area around the injury so he’d be in less pain. Now that the worst of the wound was treated they had to move. Now. Those men would be back soon.
Kly took off her outer robe and pressed it on his abdomen. “C’mon, they’ll be back, and I’d rather we not be here when that happens,” she offered as she started trying to heft him up so he could get his feet under him. She would likely be dragging him most of the way. Maker, she hoped no one had a mabari.
Of all the things to happen on top of what had already come to pass in this day, this “healing” feels more like torture. But she offers it with the kindest, sweetest hand, his head rested upon her lap and her cold hands against his burning skin, seeking out the danger and injury to staunch it.
He hates being touched without permission. If he had a single ounce of strength left in his flagging body, he’d protest, but he cannot. Before he can do anything, in fact, she has her hands on the wound, holding him there, and for his face screwed up with pain, he cannot see the procedure being enacted on him, just that it hurts more than any smite he’s ever suffered, more than any sharp pang of hunger he’s felt on strike or any rack imaginable. He can feel his earthly source roil and fight the magic at play, mana and blood at war with one another. He can’t help that his body fights her magic in this case, but he does recognize one fact: she is a blood mage, just as him, and if she were not, if she were healing with more delicate arts, it would not be like this, and he would not cry out in the pain it dealt him. He’s suffered many pains before, some even self-inflicted, but nothing, never like this.
Rosal has never known a blood mage to be a healer before, though he supposes it makes sense. On more mundane, or those detached from the Fade, there would be little difference. On ordinary mages, they’d not have the slightest idea, save, perhaps, that it seems different in its form. On a fellow maleficar, however....
Once she’s done, and the pain around his side begins to dull, if only slightly, he lets the stick drop from his lips. As well as profanities.
“Bloody void,” he wheezes, tears still leaking from his eyes. “Mythal’enaste, Maker’s tits... fenedhis... flames and damnation... if you need... do that again... please kill me first out of mercy.”
His breathing comes in ragged heaves of air. Beneath him, his legs shake and quiver like a newborn lamb, and the way she hefts him up pulls at the injury rather unkindly. Still, his mind swims with the grips of half-consciousness as he stumbles forth at her bidding.
It isn’t as though he has any other choice in the matter.
In the time he’s known Lyna, she’s ever been practical as she is perceptive, not that it requires exceptional perceptive skills to see something wrong about Rosal, even to passerby or acquaintances, in this particular instance.
He can think of it clinically, for sure: the anxieties that claw at him for the mere fact of being here, being periodically brushed too suddenly or handled (though with good intentions) roughly… they all remain that, anxieties. But this time of year comes with a particular melancholy, during which period all of it grows more intense. He’d nearly attacked Oghren for the mere crime of touching his hand during dinner, and that is the precise reason he’s secluded himself to his room in the keep, curled in the corner and nestled against his knees when she comes to his rescue.
Not that he particularly needs saving, he thinks, but Lyna’s vallaslin-marked face feels like a raft in a storm: familiar, perhaps even life-saving.
Rosal extends a trembling hand and takes the tankard from her, lifts it to his lips, and remembers his thirst through the haziness of his mind. He gulps down several greedy swallows, and tentative, rests it on the flagstones beside him. It’s likely certain manifestations of his trauma are apparent in this moment: redness around his forearms in streaking paths against old scars, the sweat that beads against his brow, the way his pensive expression twists with every shift of the environment around him.
He feels guilty that she even finds the need to tolerate this. There are around twenty other Wardens in this keep at this very moment, one of whom is truly the victim of this scenario, who she might spend her time better than with him, a miserable sodding fool…
“Why?” he croaks out, voice barely there.
Why bother, he wants to ask. Why him, secondarily. There are plenty of questions thus starting he can’t muster more to acknowledge. Maybe she’ll have the words he lacks.
because I'm stressed we're getting stress headcanons today.
ros shows he's stressed in a couple ways.
first sign to look for is his sentences get shorter. his voice gets thinner as he's beginning to lose the capacity for speech altogether. his body language closes up and he starts to get snappish.
once he stops talking, he usually starts signing to communicate. just out of respect. it's "safe". he just stops talking. sometimes he has to write on paper what he needs to say when someone hasn't yet learned how to sign. but most of the time he'll just give up.
even in a situation where signing is possible, he can move on to being even more stressed. his hands go to his wrists and he begins to scratch his scars. sometimes he does this when he's not realizing he's very stressed; it's a stimming method he's not fully aware of. if left unchecked he very well might reinjure himself. he will scratch until he bleeds at times.
if things continue to get worse, he'll distance himself from the problem with all due urgency. it's at this point you'll probably hear people say he's overreacting, but he's not. people just didn't see the signs before and it's built up long enough he feels he's in serious danger. used to, when he was a young child, he'd lash out at this point. but he knows better now.
in severely overwhelming moments that he either can't find a safe place or knows he'll need to come back to the situation, only then will he break down and self harm. again as a teenager and child this was much worse, but this should be regarded seriously in his adult life because self-harm without accompanying magic is a sign he's willing to endanger himself for no reason other than his stress. this is the part where he needs some kind of intervention. get that man a healer stat.
anyway rosal surana is a deeply mentally ill character and while I don't endorse or support his coping mechanisms, it doesn't mean this shit isn't real. heck I'm sure the rpc has seen this stuff before irl, and to remove this aspect of his characterization is to remove a key part of his struggle and arc. he's constantly in a state of trying to learn and progress and heal and it's imperfect and at times seriously fucked up.
so yeah I get rosal ain't healthy, let it be known i never said he was, literally ever.
I'll get a whole meta on his abilities up soon but for now:
Rosal's primary school, which he trained in the circle, is spirit magic, followed by entropy. On paper, he's an arcane warrior. He carries a simple broadsword, and while he's not the best physical combatant, he's not against fighting dirty.
On that: he uses blood magic to his benefit. To evade templars or disruption of his mana flow, he'll tap into more earthly abilities. He sees nothing wrong with hurting himself to give his abilities a boost. (In previous threads elsewhere, he's used his own blood to navigate with his spirit and entropy magic.) Bass boosting it, basically.
While he's not trained with them, he's looking to begin using polearms. It's a staff, but more pointy-stabby. Fits right in with his style.
