Closed Cursed Conversations [Shir]

[Oralie]

59th Spring, 522

There seemed to be more and more to do around the Inn recently. Not so much the cooking, for food still appeared in the coolbox and breads and sweets occasionally popped up on the counter, but everything else. Maybe the Innkeeper really was now spending their days in the Outpost as Oralie had mused to Naadiya a few days prior. Honestly, The Kelvic could hardly blame them if that was the case. Who would want to be living amongst so many curses if they could choose otherwise?

Oralie, for one, would have loved to be able to escape hers. The shadow being was lurking on the other side of the kitchen, ever watchful with its unblinking silvery eyes. At first it had seemed mostly harmless, just following Oralie around and not doing a lot else. It had felt wrong from the start, the feeling seeping from it akin to the raising of gooseflesh along one’s arms, but it hadn’t acted malicious.

As the season had trudged onward though, it had started to change its behaviours. Initially it was just irritating - little noises here and there, silly pranks like swapping out her hairbrush for a seashell. Then it had started to affect her directly. Oralie would wake up with a great pressure on her chest, gasping for breath. It would wail and shriek, keeping her from sleep. And now? Now it had started trying to hurt her. Now Oralie was truly scared of it. She had no idea when or how it would do anything.

The guests breakfast was finished for the day and Oralie was just about done with the clean up. The final thing she needed to do before fixing something for herself was to sweep the floors. She took up her broom and started to collect the crumbs and trails of sand from under and around the big wooden table, gathering it all into a neat pile. When she was satisfied that she had it all, she brushed it out onto the deck, coming up short as she was met once again with a pile of sleeping Ixam.

Oralie rolled her eyes and swept the dirt around them and off the side of the deck. Lately the Ixam had been crowding the main deck of the Protea Inn more and more often. She had no idea why they had taken a liking to it all of a sudden. The Kelvic herself did not really mind, but she didn’t want the group to break anything. They could be quite rowdy in the evenings and she often had to shoo them off so that the guests could have a chance at some sleep and so she could ensure that the Innkeeper’s home stayed in one piece.

She headed back inside, letting the creatures sleep for now. From what she could tell of them a large scarlet male had collected a grouping of females and they all stuck together in the group. They would probably move off the deck as the day grew warmer to find some food or a better patch of sun to bask in.

The broom was returned to its store and Oralie set about filling a pot with water to boil for some tea. She cast a glance behind her, checking that the shadow being wasn’t doing anything. It never was, when she checked.

She grabbed a mango from the plentiful selection of fruit they had and started to chop it with a large knife. First she cut it in half to make it easier to cut into slices. She then flipped one half so it was flat on the counter before doing her best to evenly slice the fruit into manageable pieces for eating. They went onto a plate before she grabbed the second half to slice in the same way. Just as she was moving her hand with the knife to cut, a scraping sound came from behind her and before she could react something hit into her back.

Her arm was pushed forwards and the knife bit into the pad of her thumb on her left hand, leaving a long red slice in her flesh. She yelped in pain and dropped the knife, which hit the floor with a clatter, and stumbled backwards into a chair. It caused her to trip and she went down, pulling the piece of furniture with her.

Oralie glanced wildly around the kitchen. The shadow being was off to one side, but she knew it had caused this. It must have shoved the chair across the kitchen at her. She glared at it from the floor, clutching at her bleeding hand. Slowly she stood up and picked up the knife, carefully placing it back on the counter. She hoped that she hadn’t disturbed any of the guests, for the whole thing really had made quite a racket.

+808

[Shiress]

Shiress handed Ian his plate, guided the toddler over to where the dirty breakfast plates were being collected and helped the little boy place his neatly on the stack. It was a fairly routine visit to the eating area for Shiress and her son, though Shiress herself usually chose not to partake in the early day meal. Eating so early caused the doctor an unsettled stomach, or, at least, that's what she told anyone curious enough to ask why she wasn't eating while her son stuffed his face.

Truth be told, Shiress hadn't had much of an appetite for any time of day lately, and, as the days marched ever closer to Summer, the doctor knew her less than stellar eating habits would eventually take their toll. She had never put much stock in the patients that would blame their lack of appetites on their day-to-day troubles; how this worry or that concern would keep them from eating healthy meals. Unfortunately, Shiress now knew better and could very well be the advocate for stress starving.

Even the very thought that her dead slavemaster's ghost might appear at any given chime caused Shiress to feel sick, and knowing that the ghost only attacked during the night, a realization she had made in the early days of her curse, robbed her of sleep. Shiress had become the epitome of someone being sick and tired.

Dark circles of exhaustion outlined Shiress's sunken eyes, and the sharp outline of bones protruded from skin where there used to be smooth roundness. Shiress had taken to wearing loose-fitting shifts and the nicer of the sheer nightgowns she owned and let her hip-length hair hang loose around her pale face. Shiress remembered a time long ago when she used to hide behind a curtain of hair, and now it seemed she had come full circle.

Shade had been right about many things since they landed in Syka. Still, the one thing that the monk had reiterated repeatedly that Shiress had taken to heart was that her son needed her. So every day, despite her wretched appearance, Shiress pulled herself together every day and cared for her son, even if everything else had fallen by the wayside.

Another thing that Shade had inadvertently taught Shiress was for her to keep her fool mouth closed. Because of this, Shiress held many things close to the vest and shared very little about herself and her son, and found herself spending less and less time around others, hence her and Ian's late arrival to breakfast.

The sound of a commotion came from around the kitchen corner, followed directly by a yelp of pain, then the distinct sound of a body hitting the floor. Shiress shoved Ian's plate away, hauled the toddler up and onto a hip, and hurried in the direction she thought the noise had come from.

As she rounded the corner, Shiress spotted a young woman standing by a table, one hand cinched around the wrist of the other protectively. Beside her, on the table, laid what looked to be the offending sharp knife.

"Are you okay?" Shiress called, stepping closer, gaze dropping to scrutinize the hand the girl held close.

Noticing the blood leaking from her fingers, Shiress sat Ian in the closest chair and approached the young blonde, one hand planting hair behind an ear as she stretched the other out toward the injured female, beckoning.

"May I?" she asked, voice gentle, "I'm a doctor, and I can help with that." she tilted her head slightly to indicate the injured hand, "Looks like it might be deep."



Word Count - 628