OOM: AU Child! Ibani

[last_kallig]

The last few months have been even harder than usual, after the death of her mother figure. Perhaps grief made her weaker, more vulnerable to sickness, because she knows she's dangerously ill. She hadn't meant to wind up here, wherever here is, but it has shown up in the nick of time.

Ibani shivers against one of the walls of Milliways, her body wracked with fever and hunger both. She's somewhere between seven and ten, clothed in fabric with far too many holes in it, and wearing a slave shock collar around her neck. Her bones stand out too sharply against her skin, and her eyes are fever bright and darting around the room.

She's not sure if this is some dying hallucination, if she's gone mad, or if she truly HAS wound up somewhere utterly strange. Whatever this is, instinct and her body DEMAND food, fuel to fight the sickness that is killing her. Untrained in the Force, she's grasping on instinct for any energy it can give her.

Maybe, maybe if she gets close enough to one of the tables she can steal some food without anyone noticing. Yes, yes that's a good plan

Comments

[27_53]

There are always many options for food in Milliways - and the variety is incredible. Different cultures, different preparation styles, different levels of "healthy".

At a table nearby where Ibani has found herself shivering against a wall, there is a man (at least he LOOKS like a man, maybe he does not feel exactly like one if you are paying close attention) who is settling in with several white boxes of folded paper that he has fetched from the bar. His coat is also threadbare in places, patched on the elbows and some...questionable...staining here and there is visible.

"Would be easier if the rats would just bring it," he mutters to nobody in particular. He struggles with the carton that contains the spring rolls, once he rips it open after fighting with the tab, a spring roll goes flying and ricochets off the bench across from his booth, hitting the floor beneath the table.

Whatever. The Loompas will clean it up. He has bigger priorities.

[last_kallig]

Threadbare and stained it might be, but he's arguably better dressed than she is, right now! And he does feel different, strange, but this whole place is strange.

Food! Her heart jumps in her chest, desperate longing surging inside of her. But she has to be careful, so careful. She's so weak right now, too weak to make him not see her as she sometimes does with the guards in the mine.

She creeps forward, slow, but her fever is so high that her coordination is suffering a little. And Skellig hears so much more than most. He might hear her frantic heart, her ill sounding breaths, even the malicious buzz not normally audible to humans of the shock collar around her neck poised to strike if anyone sets it off.

[27_53]

The pork char sui with green beans is the next thing he opens (after grabbing his own spring roll and shoving it into his mouth with hardly any thought for breaking it into two - he is hungry and could care less who sees him) and thankfully this does not go flying.

Typically when he is in Milliways he has 'trained' his senses to relax just a bit, not listen so closely to everything around him within the bar. Otherwise, he might find himself going truly insane.

But the girl is close (he can see her, at the edge of his field of vision) and she is just...LOUD. Her heartbeat is quick and irregular, her rattling breath in her lungs sounds horrendous, and there is a high-pitched whine from whatever that thing is around her throat. (It makes him cringe slightly, while chewing on his mouthful of spring roll.) And she just is LOUD, her energy scattered and jumpy and unhinged.

Normally he would glare, but in this case he does not - because he is hungry, and he could care less about anything other than food right now, and listening to this child as she creeps closer to his table.

[last_kallig]

She creeps underneath the table where the springroll bounced to, shoves it into her mouth heedless of potential pain from the heat. She barely even chews before she swallows, as if she's afraid the food will be taken away from her.

Up close, he can see a series of numbers and letters scarred into her skin below one eye, like a cattle brand. Her bones stand out too sharp against her skin and she's dangerously flushed with fever. If things continue on as they have, she has perhaps a day of life left before she walks with Death.

[27_53]

The numbers and letters branded into her skin interest him, and he cocks his head curious as he leans back slightly in the booth so he can get a better look at her, where she is hiding beneath the table.

"You do not have to hide yourself," he says matter-of-factly.

Another spring roll is plucked from the carton, and dunked into the sticky-and-sweet red sauce that they typically are enjoyed with. It makes a bit of a mess as he offers it underneath the table to her, the gooey substance sticking to his fingertips - but again...not his problem. "They are better with the sauce."

[last_kallig]

Ibani looks decidedly skeptical of his assurance that she does not have to hide herself. She tilts her head, as if she's listening to something. The Force is her primary sense, even at this age and without any training. She doesn't know what it IS, but she has learned to trust it.

Once she's sure Skellig does not mean her any harm, she snatches the piece of springroll, shoves it in her mouth, chews, and swallows. She doesn't come out from under the table, but she does move closer to him rather than away. HE feels safe, but other people here might not be, and she is weak!

"Thank you," the words are a weak whisper as she shivers under the table.

[27_53]

Even with her snatching the springroll from him in a hurry, her fingertips graze his for just the briefest of flashes and it is enough to give him what he wants to know - at least a start.

"Stay here," he says. "I will be right back."

He tends to sit near the bar normally anyways (as the people watching is more entertaining, especially at Happy Hour) so he does not leave her line of sight as he scoots out of the booth and walks to the counter. After a brief conversation with Bar herself, he returns with a few things in a cardboard box and then sets it on the floor beneath the table. Then he grabs the takeout boxes and sets them down there as well, before he climbs down on his hands and knees and moves himself under the table.

(He may give off 'predator' energy in the slightest sense with the 'owl' being part of him, but he is not hunting here tonight in the bar - there are rules, after all. So she will likely not notice it, or find it concerning.)

There is a blanket in the box, which he pulls out and hands over to her, before he moves and sits beside her, with his back to the bench seat. (This still gives her an escape route, should she need it. He knows he feels more comfortable with one always available.) The next thing he hands to her is a bottle of a juice drink - something with electrolytes, Bar said it would help - and he opens it for her.

"Slowly."

[last_kallig]

She senses the predator, but he's not hunting HER, she knows that in her bones. And if he is a predator, maybe he will keep other predators away?

She wraps the blanket loosely around herself, because she feels cold. But something keeps her from wrapping it too tight, as if part of her knows her temperature is already too high.

She drinks, slow, makes a surprised noise at the taste. It tastes good, which isn't something she's used to. (She has no memory of drinking anything but water.) A tiny surge of Light in the middle of so much pain.

This close, he might be able to get some sense of what the collar around her neck does. It's somewhat similar in function to shock collars sometimes used on animals in his world, although THOSE don't explode if you try to take them off without the key.

[27_53]

Typically, Skellig would not hesitate to simply reach out and touch a child who was obviously so very ill, so very close to walking with Death (perhaps that is why she was guided to his table?) but in this instance, he is actually unsure if that would be the best course of action, here.

Somehow, he senses that she is not often (if ever) asked permission to touch her body, and that disturbs him somewhat. But this is not the time to deal with that emotion, either, and he tucks it away.

That collar around her neck will need attention, and he can sense other wounds, deeper. But the worst thing that is glaringly obvious right now is the fever, the wild light to her eyes and the sweat beading at her temples.

"Little one," he says carefully, offering out his hand (palm up, no threats here, no reason to be scared). "Could I see your hand, please?"

[last_kallig]

The only person Ibani can remember touching her without intent to harm her was Ma'Vena, her mother figure.

Ibani nods, clearly surprised at his question, but she puts one hand carefully in his palm while she slowly drinks from the bottle. Her hands are calloused from hard labor with a tool of some kind, perhaps a chisel, and fever hot.

[27_53]

No child's hands should feel this calloused, this worn - though it goes to say that no child should look like this either, the way she does, barely clothed and clearly very ill.

(More feelings and emotions he manages to keep held close, still unsure of just how much she can sense.)

"Do not worry," he says gently. "I will not harm you."

Allowing his Light to carefully seek out the wounded areas in her energy (he has never encountered anyone else who carries the Force within them, so hers is strange and vaguely unsettling, but he does not present a threat) and her body itself, he slowly works to heal her. Grab hold of some of the bacteria that have caused such a high fever, wrap them up and pull them from her to lower her body temperature. There are wounds, scrapes and scars (and some he suspects he has not been able to find, yet) and old breaks in bone, some things will take more time - but getting rid of the fever is the most important and will be the fastest way to help her to feel more comfortable.

[last_kallig]

As her fever lowers and her mind clears, she senses what he's doing, stares at him in awe and wonder.

"You glow," she says, voice soft. "Like me. I'm, I'm not a freak."

[27_53]

"You are not a freak," he mutters quietly. "And yes, I do glow."

Or at least, he does something of the sort. They are not the same, him and this child, but there is something 'extra' about both of their energies that is similar enough. If she describes it as 'glowing', then he will work with it to ease any worries or fears she might have.

"Name is Skellig," he adds after another moment of allowing his energy to work through her, lifting his gaze to hers. "My name," he corrects himself. "Is Skellig."

[last_kallig]

"Thank you, Skellig," she says, smiling softly, shy. "I have a name too, even if no one uses it anymore. I'm Ibani." There's a touch of stubbornness, of defiance in her energy.

[27_53]

Skellig can sense the flare of the defiance and the stubborn streak - and he admires it. She still looks awful, even if the fever has abated, and that damned collar is still whining with that high-pitched sound he had been ignoring.

"Ibani," he says softly. "I am glad to meet you."

He nods towards her, towards her neck.

"Who put that on you?"

[last_kallig]

"I'm glad to meet you too," she chirps.

Ibani frowns in concentration as she ponders his question. "Don't know," she says, sagging a little. "First thing I can remember is years ago, when I was littler, and I already had the collar on then. Maybe whoever owned me before put it on?"

She shrugs, matter of fact. "The guards have never taken it off, even when I was being marked for the property tax." Property tax, because she's not legally a PERSON.

[27_53]

That was not the type of answer that Skellig was expecting to hear from a child - and given the way that she is so nonchalant with her answer, so matter of fact in her reply - this has been her reality for as long as she can remember.

And he does not like that reality.

Urging his own inner-self to stay relaxed, he nods gently.

"It looks tight," he says. He does not make a move to touch it - because he does not like the energy he gets from it, even with it just being a metal object. "What is needed to take it off?"

[last_kallig]

"Is," she replies. "But you have to have a key to get them off, or they explode."

She shudders, closes her eyes against a remembered mental image. "Saw it, once, don't want you to get hurt."

On the other hand, Bar might be able to supply a key...

[27_53]

"I am very hard to injure," Skellig says flatly, keeping his tone neutral. "And there is no violence in the Bar, so it will not explode. I even suspect that she may be able to help us."

He places a hand on her knee (she is SO skinny, it breaks his heart and infuriates him all at once) as reassurance.

"I will go ask Her," he says. "If she has a Key. But she has all sorts of other things. Is there anything you might want? Anything at all?"

[last_kallig]

"Taza's head was all over the wall," she says in a strangled whisper, swallows hard. "No mind to care about rules."

Ibani blinks in confusion at his question. "Want? I, no one has ever asked that before," she stammers. "More of the drink, please?"

[27_53]

"More of the drink," he nods. "That I know she has. I will be right back."

Nobody is bothering the booth while they are sitting under the table - it could be in part to the RESERVED sign that has been placed on top of it, easily translated in whatever language to whoever might look at it. It could also just be because Bar has Ways and Means to take care of things, including two of her 'lost' children who have turned a table into a fort.

Skellig scrambles out from beneath the counter, and true to his word, he is only gone a few moments. When he comes back, he has another bottle of the drink, a Key in hand, as well as another bag that Bar has given him - there are some sort of wipes, cleaning solution, a few others things that he paid little attention to.

He settles in next to her again, and cracks the lid on this bottle of the drink, hands it over to her. He REALLY wants to get that collar off of her, and Bar said the key would work (along with some other things she informed him of regarding it, which only worked to anger him, he has pushed that down before returning to their 'fort') but the juice is more important.

[last_kallig]

"Thank you," she chirps happily. She's so THIRSTY. (She lost a lot of fluid, electrolytes, with the fever, and her body is trying to make up for that.)

She doesn't ask about the key, it seems entirely too much to hope for even in a near death hallucination. (Which this MUST be, obviously, because she feels better and even kolto doesn't work that quickly.)

[27_53]

He allows her to drink for a moment, before he speaks again.

"Bar said that once I take the collar off, I am to bring it to her, and she will get rid of it for us," he says, as he reaches into the small bag and fishes out the key. "And then she gave me some other things that would help you get cleaned up. Which we cannot do here, but I keep a room here that we could go to after, if that would be okay with you?"

He is purposefully allowing her to make choices, have control - if he feels it is getting to be too much, he will lead her (respectfully, of course) in decision making, but for now she seems to be managing well enough. "Just tell me when you are ready for me to unlock it?"

[last_kallig]

She blinks in surprise. "Oh, um, you could take it off now."

She laughs a little, reaches out to pat his hand. "You are a very nice near death hallucination," she informs him, smiling. She's not distressed at that the fact that she believes she's dying, that this isn't "real".

[27_53]

With the fever gone, she should not still be as delirious as she is currently acting - this puzzles him slightly, but his focus doesn't linger on that for long. His attention is on the collar, getting that off of her.

"It should be simple...Bar told me how to turn it."

He carefully examines the slot where the key fits, and mutters something in another tongue under his breath (a ward, to protect against any errant injury should something go wrong, which it won't because Bar promised the key would work just fine) as he unlocks it. And then works to loosen it from her skin, where it is...stuck?