(1311-05-15) Questions Unanswered
Summary: A foreign patient is questioned at the infirmary.
RL Date: 15-16/05/2019
Related: None
kalisha jacquet 

Infirmary — Jardins d’Eisheth

Situated within the beautiful greenery of the gardens of Eisheth, along the coastline not too far from the harbour and in view of the Citadel that guards the entrance to the port of Marsilikos, is the infirmary, a one storey building of white stone and simple architecture that has been enhanced with classical elements, as if inspired by the buildings of ancient Hellene culture. Traces of columns, half-worked into the walls can be found on all sides of the infirmary. An archway frames the sturdy oak door of the entrance, white stone worked with impressive masonry skill into a bas-relief, depicting a female in robes holding a roll of bandages and a vial of sorts to the left and a male healer to the right with a scroll in one hand, while the other is lifted in lecturing gesture, as if he were giving a medical diagnosis.

The hall beyond is agreeably cool during hot summers and kept warm in cold winters, through a large hearth that governs the center of the long wall to the right. It is here in this hall that the majority of patients will be treated immediately, and so there are a number of curtains that divide the space into areas with cots. In times of need, the space can be stacked up to hold two dozen beds. The vicinity of the gardens allows for the soothing tranquility of nature to become part of the process of recovery, chirping of birds, wisps of casual conversation reaching those inside through the line of arched windows that sit higher up at the walls. It also serves a source of lighting during the day, whereas a number of oil lamps at the walls are lighted during evenings and nights.

Close to the entrance, there is a door to the left that leads to the infirmary's office, where records of patients are being kept, along with other book keeping of supplies and the like. Another archway opens from the hall into a hallway, where secluded rooms are provided for harder cases, long-term treatments and those of higher standing and the wish for more privacy. These chambers are plain yet well kept, immaculately clean, with sheets of the more comfortable beds being changed regularly. In each chamber, an arched window offers light during the day, and a pair of two chairs offer seating to healers or the occasional visitor a patient may receive.


“Arggggh…” groans a patient from foreign lands turning to lay on her back. Her eyelids tremble and she slowly opens those large blue eyes to stare up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Kalisha raises her hand and gently rubs a painful right temple. Her fingertips feel the bandage which tightly is wrapped around her head. “Ummm…” She sighs and slowly pushes herself up to sit in the bed.

Her left hand reaches for the metal cup standing on a small table beside her bed. The young woman scoops the cup up and brings it in front of herself. Her eyes scan a blurry reflection of herself on the metal surface. Trembling fingers of the right hand slowly trace the blue ink which surrounds her eyes and almost half of the face. “Kalisha…” She whispers quietly for herself.

But then a panic overshadows her features. She sets the cup aside and once again pushes herself up. This time she tries to sit on the edge of the bed and her voice calls out, “Where am I?!!!” The words are spit out in the Caerdicci tongue. “Is anybody here?!!” She asks again looking at the door on the other side of the room. This time Kalisha’s question is in the language of Skaldi nation. But then finally, almost to her own surprise, she adds in d’Angeline “Hello?!”

She tries to raise up from the bed setting her feet on the ground carefully.

—-

Someone had reported an unusual patient in the infirmary to the city watch. And what lucky coincidence, for Jacquet, that the patient seems to have awakened just in the moment, he arrives at the entrance of the infirmary and inquires about the foreign guest currently in these halls. Perhaps the healer, he spoke with, insisted that the young woman had not regained consciousness yet. And perhaps he had insisted, to be shown to her nonetheless.

Startled as Kalisha may be, the sudden knock to her door may startle her even further. The door is pushed open, and the sergeant of the city guard enters. He is a man in his forties, with gruff and scarred features. A man who has probably seen many a battle. His dark eyes come to linger on the foreigner, and then he looks to the healer. “She’s awake.”

The healer rushes in just right after him, and moves to Kalisha’s side. “Please. Lay down again. You are not well,” the woman tells the patient. “This man here is of the city guard. If you can… please answer his questions.”

Almost instinctively, when there is a knock on the door and someone opens it, Kalisha grabs the cup - the only item which may serve as a defense weapon. She stares at those strangers rushing into her room. Her one foot is already resting on the ground but the young foreigner still is half sitting in the bed. Even when the healer speaks to her, Kalisha’s eyes do not leave the sight of the older soldier. Just after the pleading of the other woman, she lowers the cup. Actually, she even sets it back on the table.

“A guard?” She asks in a heavy accent. “I need no guard.” She assures. Her head slowly turns toward the healer. While her eyes focus right behind the healer’s shoulder, she whispers, “No. She is not right. I am feeling well and I need to go.” Then she chuckles and looks down at her own lap where she turns her hands up and down, up and down, scanning them and a few inked runes on her wrists. “Questions?” She asks in the Skaldi language but then adds in D’Angeline as if all languages she has learned would be mixed up in her head, “What questions?”

Her intention is noted immediately. The gaze of the city guard hardens, and his hand moves to the pommel of the sword at his side. He gives her a steely stare, relaxing only slightly when she sets the cup down. “I’m not here to guard you,” he clarifies, in his gravelly voice. Her next word of question makes him frown. “Questions about your business here.”, Jacquet then explains, when she repeats her inquiry in d’Angeline. “Questions of what happened to you. We need to keep the city safe.” And then, after a moment, an introduction of sorts follows, “I’m Sergeant Jacquet, of the City Watch.”

The healer remains in the room. She looks towards Kalisha and offers her a reassuring smile. “You will be alright,” she says, “Monsieur Jacquet is only here to investigate what happened to you.”

The foreigner listens for the two strangers with her gaze dropped to her lap. But then she glares over her right shoulder and mumbles a few sentences where words of different languages mix up. One can hear Skaldi, Caerdicci and even more northerner sounding words. Some even sound as if invented by the patient herself. Then she settles back into the bed, covering her inked skin with a blanket.

Her blue eyes find the guard then. “Where am I? Why I am here?” she asks in his native tongue. “Kalisha. Kalisha. Yes, Kalisha.” She repeats a few times a name which sounds so familiar to her. “Me.” The young woman confirms.

“Who are you?”, Jacquet asks. He remains standing, and his eyes flare with dark fire, even as his tone remains relatively quiet and calm. “Kalisha. Kalisha who? Where are you from? Where were you born? And yes.” A wry sort of smile settles on his scarred features, “Why. Why are you here? What is your purpose?”

As the guard doesn't make any effort to provide answers to Kalisha’s questions, the healer turns towards the young foreigner. “You are in Marsilikos, capital of the province of Eisande. This is Terre d’Ange, Mademoiselle.”

Kalisha slides a bit further away from the guard. Well, technically, she doesn’t have space to move. Her back presses against the wall and it seems as if she is ready to get through the wall and out of the room, but she can’t. Every question brings more and more panic into the young woman’s eyes which soon find a pleasant voice of another female.

“Eisande?..” She repeats slowly. “Why am I here? I… I do not understand, Who are you?” She repeats one more time and looks at the guard then. “No… You are the guard. The woman is a healer.” Her gaze focuses on the edge of the door behind the man. “I don’t know why we are here. Stop asking. I do not understand…”

“You were found on the shore,” the healer cuts in. “And brought in by fishermen. They brought you here.”

Jacquet gives the healer a look, then his focus returns onto Kalisha. “You speak our language,” he tells her, “so you must know that there is a country that is Terre d’Ange. Close perhaps to the borders of your own.” One of his hands clenches into a fist, a curious detail, perhaps. His tone remains calm, even if a bit gruff. As Kalisha seems to address someone behind of him, his head half-turns only to see there is no one there. He looks to the healer then and shakes his head, ever so slightly.

“I…” Kalisha looks to the moving blanket on the other end of the bed where her toes nervously move under it. “I do not know why I speak your tongue, man.” She states and chews on her bottom lip for a bit. “I… They call me Kalisha. That I do know. I am not sure where am I coming from. I can clearly hear a few different tongues whispering in my head. I do understand the words…” She frowns and ponders there for a moment. “What I mean is that I know more than one language. I am not sure where they are coming from. Not they. I mean, the language.”

Kalisha chuckles after a short pause. “Was I found looking like that? Where are my things?” She then looks at the healer.

Jacquet narrows his eyes at her, considering the foreigner for a moment, before his gaze flicks to the healer.

“When you were brought in, these were the only things in your possession. Of course… we cleaned you and gave you a clean shirt. Your things are over there.”, the healer says, pointing to a spot in a corner of the room, where Kalisha’s personal belongings are forming a small pile. “You had taken a heavy injury to your head… which may explain why you don’t remember some things. Also… a broken rib. You need to be careful when you move, but it will heal alright.”

“Great!” Kalisha cheers up and once again tries to raise from the bed. Her attention is focused on that pile of her belongings. “Agggh…” She frowns and flinches feeling a disturbing pain in her ribs but the eagerness to learn more about herself is stronger. It grants her some willpower to actually push up and land on the ground on both of her feet. “I need to take a look. Dress up. Go. I need to go.” She explains sending a brief smile to the healer.

The foreigner tries to make a few of her first steps but she stumbles and her hands reach out to hold onto the healer. But Kalisha tries her best to get her balance. “How long? How long I was with no mind?”

—-

“Unconscious? Two days.”, the healer replies. “But… wait, you should lay down. You aren’t in a state yet to… Where will you go?”

When Kalisha moves over towards the corner, Jacquet doesn't step aside. On the contrary, he lifts a hand and then leans down to have a quick look over her belongings. “You don’t know who you are, and where you’re from, lass,” he grumbles. “But you know that you need to go? Where to? I can escort you right to the city gates.” His dislike for her is hardly concealed.

Kalisha pauses mid-way. She notices the twinkling of the blades hiding under some leather and furs in that pile. So, she steps closer to the guard. The slim and small foreigner tiptoes and glares at the guard. "Don't you dare to talk to me like that. It will take only two seconds for me to slice your throat and leave!" She snorts like a wild stallion and then limps towards the pile of her belongings. She leans down moaning in pain in order to raise what appear to be trousers. "Hmmm… I do not know where to go but…" She looks to the right. "Well, tell me then. Just tell me!" Kalisha snorts again and looks back at the guard, "I feel like I was on an important mission. Something big was about to happen."

<FS3> Jacquet rolls Perception: Failure. (5 4 3 2 5 1 5 3 5)
<FS3> Jacquet rolls Intimidation: Great Success. (8 3 8 7 2 7 6 2)

Jacquet straightens, if only a minimal fraction. But it stabilizes his stance, with his booted feet rooted firmly to the ground. Kalisha’s glare is met with a gaze of something lurking beneath the feigned passivity. Dark eyes flashing with fire, as if he tried to dare the foreigner to overstep and give him a good reason to draw his blade. “I very much doubt that,” he rumbles back. “You should take the healer’s advice and lay down. Or accept my offer. Or you’ll end up in one of our cells at the citadel,” the guard points out. “It’ll be a roof of sorts over your head, but apart from that, believe me, this is not a place you’d like to be.” Disregarding her babbling, Jacquet moves then to allow her to get to her things. If there was any glitter of metal beneath her belongings, it seems he missed it.

Kalisha drops her clothes back to the pile and moves to lay down in bed. "No. No need for a cell." She shakes her head. Her gaze slides from the healer to the guard and then focuses on the wall in front of her. "I can't answer to your questions, guard. I can not remember anything except that I was on an important task. I am told that big things are coming. Yes. Something great. To us. Yes. I understand it. That is all what I can understand. When can I go out?" She asks the healer. "Where would I go?"

“Good.”, is Jacquet’s curt reply to Kalisha’s realization. “No cell then.” He watches her return to the bed, in ominous silence. Before she addresses him again. “The name is ‘Sergeant Jacquet.” He looks towards the healer, “Any questions may be answered later. But… Mademoiselle Kalisha. I want you to know that we will keep an eye on you.”

The healer seems to be relieved as the city guard takes his leave. To Kalisha, she replies, “In this I cannot help you. For as long as you haven’t fully recovered, you can stay here, at the infirmary.”

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