| Some Memories Need Healing, Other Memories Cause Harm | ||
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There are multiple hospitals around Denko, of course. Denko is a massive city. This one seems to mostly be more Herbivore biased, but a few medical personnel and patients are actually Carnivores. This might explain why Lillia wound up here along with that deer and the goat. The goat, Junji, is supposed to be in a room and the sign in reception shows that it is currently visiting hours. The lady at the front desk probably knows where to go to find him. After a trip back to Distant Oceans, Lillia returns to Denko, and has been exploring the city a bit. She is starting to feel more comfortable here, but has certainly made it a point to avoid going to the less traveled parts of town, especially after dark. She has been wondering how Junji is doing, and decides to pay him a visit. She takes a deep breath before walking into the reception area, and makes her way right up to the desk, greeting the receptionist with a smile before making her request in a very polite, perhaps slightly nervous sounding tone. "Um, hi. I would like to see Junji, if that's okay." "I'll be right with you," comes a soft-spoken reply. There is a little more typing to be had, but then the giraffe turns her attention to the individual in front of her desk. "Welcome to Kenko Hospital. My name is Tayori. You said you were inquiring after a... Patient?" Tayori lowers her head in almost comical fashion to get a closer look at Lillia. She blinks twice, slowly. "Juichi, you said? Oh, wait- I remember you. You must be looking for Junji the Boer-Kiko Goat," she 'corrects'. "Since you're a friend, you can go on up. Room 207. Take the elevator up, turn right, room will be on your left down the hall," she instructs as she pulls up information on Junji on her terminal. Ever so quietly yet clearly, Tayori adds, "Doctors may be checking on him, but it should be no problem to visit. What was your name again, for the record?" The elevator is clearly marked, at least, with designated buttons for up, down, and -- within -- buttons for each floor. Lillia nods to the woman when she corrects herself. "Yes, that's him." It did feel odd on one hand to be calling them friends when she's barely met the guy, but she supposes if you can't consider someone who risked their life to help save your own a friend, then who? She gives another nod and smile as the receptionist says she can go see Junji, and gives her name before heading off to follow the directions. "Lillia Amaryllis, and thank you." With that done, she heads over to the elevator, presses the button to call it, and walks inside once the door opens. She then hits the button for the second floor, and after arriving at the floor, she looks at the room numbers to see which way she should go. Soon she arrives at Room 207, and gently knocks on the door. The door opens after a moment and a horse, either a doctor or an aide, opens it. His eyes brighten a bit, although there's notable surprise at seeing Lillia's unique shape, before turning to address the goat lying in bed. "You have a visitor, Junji. Good timing. Come in, come in." The equine walks over to the bed and begins to fiddle with a mask that covers the goat's muzzle. It's strapped on and everything. "I'm going to give you a break from the CPAP, Junji, but if you have any difficulties breathing you alert me right away with the Call button, okay? It'll be a good time to sip on your water or I can send over some juice, but no straws. Okay?" The clear mask is removed to reveal the sound of running air. Pulling the mask and connected hose away, draped over a simple rack on the side of a machine, the machine itself has its process suspended with the push of a button. Stepping by Lillia, the horse leaves. The goat is there and looks both tired and somehow restless. A few cards and vases of flowers decorate the bedside table. Over on the nearby counter, a much larger grandiose flower display sits with a card beside it, too. Junji's horizontal pupils affix on his visitor. "I think I remember you." His voice is weak. It's not the same kind of softness from Tayori. This voice sounds as if it hasn't been used since that night. Lillia greets the equine with a warm smile, she was getting quite used to those surprised looks when people around here see her for the first time. Surprise she was fine with, fear and scorn were where she worried. She was a little surprised to see that Junji still needed a machine to help him breathe, though if the horse hadn't explained she would have had no idea what it was for, so the context given was appreciated even if it wasn't said for her benefit. When the horse leaves and Junji looks at her, she nods at what he initially says, a more serious expression taking hold on her face as she thinks back to what had happened. "I'm Lillia, we barely had a chance to see each other and a lot of things happened that night. I wish you got away as lightly injured as I was... Maybe if I had come a little sooner... who knows?" Honestly, she felt lucky herself to have escaped that night with just a single claw wound, and any variable could have changed the events dramatically, perhaps not for the better. "I... Don't remember much." Those words alone might explain why Junji doesn't fully and completely recognize the fawn in the room with him. "I think I remember when you showed up. There was somebody else." Junji's head turns to glance over at the large flower display. "Adler sent flowers. And a card. My mom did, too. And friends from high sch-" For a moment it seems that the goat's voice completely gives out on him. He reaches over for his glass of water and begins to drink some. With a moistened mouth, he finishes, "From high school. Mom visited yesterday." Junji looks over at Lillia. "My throat got hurt pretty badly. Back of my head, too. I don't remember... You know. Much about what happened. I get to go home soon. Have to use one of these machines at home, though." The more he talks the better his voice sounds, at least, although there's a tired edge that doesn't completely go away. That tiger really messed him up good, but it could have been a lot worse. Lillia nods, frowning a little. "I tried to stop them from hurting you, but... well I guess it could have ended a lot worse. But you probably don't want to talk about what happened? It was pretty scary..." It was only the second time Lillia had been in a situation where others were trying to kill her, and that night didn't feel any easier than the first. If anything, with how much feral bloodlust that tiger showed, the nightmares she had were a fair bit worse than when it was just human thugs going after her with their technological weapons. Somehow the primal nature was more frightening even with her limited understanding of technology. After a long pause, Lillia speaks up again while she reaches into a small pouch she carried. "I'm just glad you're ok. I brought you something, from my home forest." She pulls out what appears to be a pink lotus with a soft white glow coming from the center. She gently places it on the bedside table. "It's a spirit blossom." Now, gifting a goat or other Herbivore flowers is a tricky thing. They usually have to be carefully selected, just in case. Goats get a bigger reputation for eating things than most others do, but that's not necessarily undeserved. All the same, Junji watches as his visitor walks over to put the blossom down nearby. "I don't think... I've seen one of those..." It's probably a blessing that the goat can't remember much, although it's probably a mix between repressed memories and head trauma. He had disturbing dreams at first, but they were amorphous and mostly based on feelings of anxiety. There's absolutely no mention of the deer that night or his lion help and there was certainly nobody named Adler present, so it must be a different friend. Sipping slowly at his water, the teenager looks between the flower offered and the fawn herself in curiosity. Lillia grins a little as Junji comments that he doesn't think he's seen one of those flowers. "Well, if you hadn't guessed, I'm not exactly from around here. In some forests, those blossoms grow from the spirits of those that have passed on, which is how they got their name. In the grove where I'm from though, they come from dreams. Though, lately mother tree and the garden of dreams has gotten sick, and there haven't been very many blossoms." Likely making the one Lillia gives tonight all the more precious. Now that she's further into the room, Junji can probably see the part of her hindquarters that had to be shaved for the stitches she got, even though the fur has started to grow back. "I'm glad to hear you get to go home soon, maybe I can visit sometime, and maybe... when you're feeling better, and the garden is healthy again, you can visit my home." Junji does look, yes, although thankfully he's less spaced out today than he has been from pain medication. He's honestly getting better. "Well, I have one more year of high school. Maybe during summer next year. This is putting me behind on my midterms I was supposed to be studying for... I was going to meet up with friends to study. That night. My teachers are allowing time to recover, but it's really stressful. I'm going to have so much work to do at home when I get back." The life of a high school student can be rough. Still, what happened, happened. "You got hurt?" The goat lifts a hand to point. Even if his memory wasn't mostly missing, he did get his lights knocked out just before that happened, even if briefly. "Was that from-" Lillia smiles and nods. "Oh right, you go and do these classes here too, like the younger people in Senta City. I've wondered if maybe I should go to school myself. Might be helpful for learning more about the world outside the enchanted forest, or beyond Distant Oceans in general. I guess I should think about, and decide where I should, or even could, go to school." She ponders the idea in silence for a bit more, then at the mention of her wound, she nods, looking back at the spot. "Yeah, got clawed by the tiger. I spent a night in this same hospital, they cleaned up the wound and stitched me up like a ripped doll, never seen anything like it before." The hand that points moves to the back of the goat's head. Junji rubs his fingertips against the spot there that also needed suturing. The wound has healed up well, but the fur there is shorter than the rest still. "Yeah. Same. The tiger... My friends shared their names with me when they visited, but..." There's a brief pause while the mixed-breed goat looks somewhat defeated. "I don't remember." That seems to be the theme. "You might be able to go to a university. I think there are programs for foreign students, but I don't know who to ask about that kind of thing. I don't want to think about college until next year." He has to make it through this one first, preferably without losing a year. That would be a mark on his record that he'd never get rid of. Really, he's just some kid that's been through a very terrible attack. He's spent most of the time alone at the hospital. The idea of getting to go home is probably really nice. Lillia may recall her conversation with Louis and how every day in a hospital costs no small amount of money, even if money is a new concept for her. Two weeks probably isn't very affordable in most cases. With the part of town that Junji lives in, that might say a lot about what this is going to do to his family, but what other choice is there? "Do I need to put it in a bowl with water?" asks the goat, looking back to the bloom. Lillia just nods. She doesn't even know what a university is, and probably is missing a lot of the prerequisite knowledge, but it is something she plans to look into. "I'll ask around about that I guess, and I do hope you do ok catching up with your school stuff." It's probably best that Lillia doesn't fully understand just how much debt this is probably making for Junji's family, as if she did she'd want to help, but wouldn't really be able to. At the question about the blossom, she nods. "It would last longer if you do, though it's um... special properties, let it last longer than a normal cut flower as it is." She explains while going out of her way to not call it a magical flower, after her earlier conversation with Louis. "Oh, okay. I'll ask the nurse when he gets back." Junji tries to drink more water, but he's had enough. Maybe even too much. Embarrassment washes over the goat's face as it hits him and he flicks an ear in anxiety. "Sorry, uh. Please excuse me." When Junji pulls back the sheet he reveals that he's not wearing his normal clothing. He's wearing a typical hospital gown. Sitting up, legs sliding free and over to dangle, the teenager passes a look toward the door. He doesn't have IVs anymore, so he's free to slip away for a moment. "I'm going to, uh, be right back. While I'm not attached to that machine." Junji is shorter even than Louis. It really comes to light in comparison there as he walks by Lillia, just how young and fragile looking he is. With a barefoot shuffle on the cold hard floor, he slips away into the connected washroom in a hurry and leaves Lillia, for the moment, alone in the room with all the cards and flowers and soft daylight shining through the room's window. It doesn't look like Louis sent anything, but he did say he wanted to keep things a secret. Even from Junji? Lillia takes a moment to look over the cards that were left for Junji. She didn't know any of the people, but the sentiments they gave were nice. She does notice that none seem to be from Louis, and as she doesn't know Adler is a fictional character, the pseudonym goes over her head. After a moment she'd walk to the window and take in the view for a moment while she waited for Junji to take care of whatever he needed to do. As she gazes out the window, she tries to imagine what going to school would be like, which is a little hard because she doesn't really know too much about it. Any amount of wandering around the island nation will show that here, much like many other places in foreign nations, students dress in uniform. That alone might be an interesting concept even without considering the idea of lectures and advanced sciences and mathematics. The card from Adler does show a depiction of a cartoon deer on the inside, though. The front of the card is very fancy, almost regal, with gold trim and floral patterns while the lettering states: 'Get well soon so you can...' The cartoon deer inside the card is shown throwing confetti while the multicolored font exclaims: '...go buck wild and party!' Running water finally ends, the door opens, the light cuts off, and the goat inside steps out and shuffles over to the window to stand beside Lillia and gaze out at things. "It's weird. I don't remember much about what happened, but I still feel...different...when I look at the world. Isn't that weird?" Lillia is broken from her idle thoughts when she hears the running water stop and Junji returns. She turns to face the goat and shakes her head at the question. "Maybe some part of you, deep inside, does remember, but the waking mind forgot. What have your dreams been like since it happened? Dreams are... somewhat of a specialty of mine, you might say." "Well..." The goat draws this out a while, at least stalling for as many seconds as he can, before relenting and admitting what might be a very predictable answer. "I don't remember." The inability to remember things is seemingly quite a source of frustration for the teen and has been manifesting more and more as the days have gone by during his stay in the hospital. "At first I would wake up, scared, panicked. Maybe I was dreaming about the tiger that attacked me? My throat hurt for a long time. Had to, uh, have one of those -- you know -- one of those breathing tubes down my throat at first since part of my airway was crushed and having trouble staying, er, open." He still uses a breathing machine, it seems, but it's a kind that requires a face mask instead. "Doctor says I'll need to use one of those things at home, especially at night when I'm sleeping, but it's really hard to sleep with this thing stuck to your face, you know?" Lillia nods about the machine helping him breath and how hard it would be to sleep with that on. "Can't say I have experience with that, but it sounds like it would be pretty annoying. But um, I don't think I can help you with your memory in general, and I really hope you're able to remember what's important for your school learning and such. But for the dreams, well, I might be able to help you know what sort of dreams you're having, and if they are nightmares, help you conquer them and have better dreams instead. You see, I can directly interact with the dreams of a sleeping person. I recently helped a guy named Link back in Distant Ocean's Village..." She trails off from there. The fact that it would probably be awkward to Junji to have this strange fawn in the room while he sleeps doesn't faze her, but she realizes she's sort of talked her way down a path that is going to be pretty hard to explain her way out of without just saying that she can do literal magic in relation to dreams. "Oh, like hypnotism? Is that really a thing? I thought it was all fake." Hypnotism. That's the same word that Louis used when discussing Dream Magic that was used to put the tiger to sleep. "I mean, I don't know that I believe in it, but we'd have to ask the doctor. And probably my mom? Yeah. Probably." Junji's ears move when he hears the door handle start to turn, but stop, with a voice of conversation happening just outside the room. For a moment he thinks about sneaking back into bed, but instead he just turns around and leans back against the glass when he remembers that the hospital gowns can be a bit revealing in the back. The fact that he actually remembers this detail, however, goes overlooked. "Not that I'd mind? I dunno. Maybe you can use it to make me want to study better instead of waiting to the last minute like, uh, heh. Like the week before." He tries to laugh, but that's something that still hurts a little. A hand moves to his neck to idly rub. "Bet they want to do a checkup on me again." Lillia chuckles a bit at his request. "Maybe I can help you dream about your studies, or would that be a nightmare?" She asks with another laugh. "Anyway, it's a bit more than hypnotism, maybe I can tell you more about it later." She adds, hearing the door, and Junji mentions they probably want to check up on him again. "Maybe I should get going, I don't want to get in the way, but I would like to see you again. Um, I got talked into buying this phone thing, not sure how to use it really, but I was planning on playing with it and seeing if I could figure it out. Maybe you can, what was the guy at the store saying... message me on it?" She asks as she pulls out a cheap smartphone and holds it out to Junji. "Oh. Oh, I mean, sure. Yeah. We can do that." Footsteps lead the goat over to the countertop where the big flower display is where his own phone is currently charging. He disconnects the cable and unlocks it while walking back over to Lillia. "Okay, just pull up your contact code and I'll scan it, or you can scan mine. If you ever join BeastBook, I can add you through your phone number." He tries to show off what to do with his own phone which isn't too much more expensive than what the fawn has. "You just push this button and this button on the phone at the same time then let go of them together. It'll pull up this screen here, see? With the code on it?" It's more like a strange pixelated triangle than a code. "Then you just point the camera at it and it'll pull the details and add to your Contact list and send a request to the other person. Um..." The medical practitioner walks in at this point with a clipboard in hand, notices Junji out of bed but says nothing, and instead wanders over to pull out some equipment for basic examination. "I'm still learning those things myself," admits the horse. "I still have one of these," he says, then pulls the tail of his coat to the side to show off the pager clipped to his belt. Lillia doesn't really understand everything Junji is saying, but she follows along as best she can by watching what he does. "BeastBook, I'll have to remember that." She comments as she scans his code and now their contacts were added in each others phones. "Wow, that was easier than I thought it'd be actually. She turns to the horse as he shows off his pager and looks at the device curiously. "What does that do?" Junji fiddles with the contact info that is linked to his phone and he sees the number, but there's no name. Lillia probably has yet to set up full details under the user profile. "Uh, what was your name again? I..." Forgot? He can enter it by hand while wandering back over to the bed. "Oh, my pager? If any animal calls my number it'll show and I can call them back, or they can attach a small message in text, or a voice message I can check later with a phone. Good for the weeks where I work on-call. Now, Mister Junji, I need you to finish up with your friend for now because I need to get you back on the CPAP. You're not fully better just yet, but we'll at least get you home soon." The horse stands near the bed, waiting. He's not being impatient by any means, but the doctors and aides all have schedules. Lillia avoids frowning, but really does hope Junji's forgetfulness is not a permanent ailment, for his sake. "Lillia Amaryllis." She answers the request for her name, she'll have to figure out how to fix that in her phone later, or have someone teach her how. When the horse mentions needing to get Junji back on the CPAP soon, she nods and smiles to Junji. "I am starting to feel like I could go for some juice and a bite to eat myself. It was nice meeting you, in a more casual situation, hope you get better soon and we can meet again. Good luck on those midterms." Whatever they are, she could also go for some fresh air, but felt it would be cruel to even mention that in the company of someone stuck in a hospital room. She offers a wave to both Junji and the horse, then makes her exit. Junji does his best to figure out the spelling on that and does a quick test message that he taps out quickly. At some point soon, Lillia no doubt gets a notification, maybe even with a sound and/or a buzz, along with the text and multiple flower emojis: [Thx 4 t flower :3 ] "Can I get a bowl of water to put this bloom in?" he asks of the care professional. "I don't see why not. I'll ask the ladies at the desk down the hall to get that for you." The goat switches off his phone and puts it beside the flowers on the stand near the bed before hopping up onto it. "Thanks, Lillia. I- Um, I appreciate your visit." Before the aide can do any examination, however, Junji turns to grab his glass of water to finish it off. The CPAP machine tends to dry his mouth and nose out. "We can text later. My mom would probably like to meet you. She doesn't know anybody else but the police helped. Isn't that weird? I barely remember you and the other animal that stepped in, but I know I didn't imagine it, and the police never bothered me about it. Guess it was because it was such a clear cut case." "Okay, now, Junji, that's enough talking. You'll strain yourself. And you: Lillia, was it? Thank you for dropping by," offers the horse with a genuine smile as she leaves while Junji gives an awkward wave. Lillia turns back to Junji before she leaves, smiling as she sees the message on her phone, being short enough that it fits entirely into a notification. "Sure, I'd be happy to meet your family, till then, we can, text." Soon as I figure out how, she thinks to herself. "For now, get some rest and don't push yourself too hard, hopefully your memory will get better." She doesn't comment on why the police didn't mention her or Louis, keeping the promise she made to Louis. Elsewhere, at the Furumau Detention Center: "Right, well, that's another successful session together, Anthony," states a leopard wearing glasses as he peers over at the tiger seated nearby. The tiger rubs one hand against a wrist while blankly staring over at the other feline. "It'll be a bit longer that you'll stay with us, of course, until we're sure you're beyond the worst of your Withdrawal. You've been taking your meds, too, with no incident. Good. No need to prescribe anything more just yet." "When am I getting out of here, doc?" "Now, Anthony, we've already discussed this. You still have a sentence to serve for what you did. You may have been bio-psychologically driven to an act of violence, which is why your sentencing was reduced in favor of treatment and care, but time you don't spend served with us is going to demand an equivalent in jail." This doesn't do anything to make the tiger feel any better, though. He lightly growls under his breath. "What about my friends? You said you'd tell me how they were doing, where they are." The leopard reaches up and removes his glasses. "Very well, Anthony. Your coyote friend, Christian, had surgery to remove two bullets and is being held in our medical wing, here at Furumau." "What?! He was shot? When?! I don't remember that happening. Who the fuck shot Christian? Who the- You had better have caught the bastard." "Anthony, please. If you don't calm down I'll have to sedate you. Indoors voices. Report says he was shot by the police in self-defense. He's in very bad mental shape and it's going to be a long hard road for him to rehabilitate from his Meat-Addiction, but he's in good hands. I promise you we'll do our best for him as well as you." "Damn it... What about Kemuri?" asks the tiger of his wolf friend, instead. He'd very much like to demand more, but he does not want to be drugged up again any more than they already keep him. "Kemuri is still in Kenko Hospital. He suffered broken incisive and nasal bones and a cracked maxilla of the skull as well as a fractured radius of the arm." This news greatly unsettles the tiger and the leopard watches closely the entire time. There are guards nearby, too, ready to jump in if things go badly. "He's being fed through a tube and he may not be out of the hospital for a few months. I'm not happy about it, either, but the police wouldn't have shown such force if you and your friends hadn't been doped up on Bloodbone." "They didn't- Only I- Nh. Grrrrrr. The police didn't do that to Kemuri! Some other fucker did." "Language, Anthony." "And there was that other prick I could barely make out in the glaring light. And that weird-ass hybrid!" "Anthony, I won't warn you again. Besides, what I'm reporting is what I was given through official channels. You were high and feral. You were probably mistaken." "I wasn't- Tsk." The tiger relents, but there's something insidious that burns deep in his eyes that he isn't afraid to let the leopard see. "Yeah, sure, doc. Whatever you say. I guess we'll just have to see. Won't we?" | ||
