#♡ ━━━━━━ ❝ recovery ・ 【 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 】 .

[motheruin]

THE WORD OF DOUBT HAD SPREAD TO THE BISHOP AT THE WINDOW OF HER CONFESSIONAL, fallen from the lips of a guilty soldier. he laid his heart at her feet and, against a deeply rooted urge tearing past her ribcage, she had not crushed it beneath her heel. 

instead, she listened, silent on the opposite end of the table. he spoke of the urgency in which he had been recruited, taken from home to serve a paranoid lord, and how quickly he had thus been disposed of. and, she listened, silent in the face of one’s failure. he spoke of the unfair fate his fellow friend had been condemned to, ordered to return home despite her hard work under her lord’s roof. and, no longer listening, she offered her consolation,

“you will not be taken back until you show them what they have lost. prove your worth and let it sink into the flimsy ranks of their protection. do not put down the sword, but also, do not storm into their manor. for realization to bear fruit, there must be enough time for sincerity.”

that, at the time, had been all eremiya saw to it. the rest would not be for her to decide, as her job began and ended once the doors to her office were opened. he gave his name━━━william, and his friend, harper━━━though she advised not, and with that, he left. to where? eremiya could not find it in herself to care. but the lack of empathy proved ineffective, as william had found her days later and, upon recognizing the drawl of her voice, eagerly invited her to partake in the training segments he and his friend had created for other soldiers of similar fates.

she agreed, as someone with a heart would do, though quickly came to the stark realization that the group was deemed to fail upon re-entry into the ranks of their lords. but eremiya remained, night after night, until now, seated in a chair that had been dragged into the field, she watched an unfamiliar face approach the group. smiling, bounding towards them with the curious tilting head of a child.

bishop’s hands trembled in her lap, tightly intertwined, but she smiled back at the boy, as she was who he’d need to pass to convene with the soldiers behind her. “do not mind them,” she said, “they are training for a purpose beyond their capability. i have already signed off on the reports posted by the church.”

a pause; pale heather eyes take in the sight of the student. “what are you doing out this late? should you not have retired to bed already, boy?”

partner tag : @optimismxmagicism !

♡ ・ and the world laughs. / holds my hope by the throat. ━━━ eremiya & ewan

MISSION BOARD: RECOVERY / any skill +1 prompt.

[motheruin]

SHE NEARLY RETREATS FROM THE SHAME OF IT ALL; stoic and immovable despite trembling hands and pale knuckles, as though the offer, in itself, is anything than more than what it is━━━an offer. transparent in its generosity. a faint, yet present glimmer of this strange alliance they find themselves stepping to and fro into. 

through the blurred haze of displaced emotion, she forgets what prompted the invitation. what spurred general duessel to lay the unfurling prospect of indulgence; to share a fondness not many had. it is a memory she cannot retrieve and, expectedly, distrusts.

. . . terribly anxious and dizzy, eremiya stands before him, conscious only by the grounding scratch and dig of her chipped fingernails over immortal scars. duessel extends the sunhat for her to take and, suddenly, she must unearth the realization that it truly is for her and not some semblance of an gift meant for another.

you are, at least, worth meager protection for today, it says. and eremiya swallows her snide mutter, steels her facial expression, and accepts it carefully from his hands.

a curt nod before she reluctantly forces herself to relax, not able to comprehend the impossibility of self-imposed steadiness, "i will take it." a pause. "but. . . your kindness is unwarranted, sir duessel. you shouldn't have. . ." but a gift is a gift, so she bows her head ever so slightly and raises the sunhat until it fits comfortably over her hair, an exchange for the headdress she forwent this morning.

how does it look? not uttered, merely existent within apathetic(?) eyes. thank you, but she has not the heart to allow someone else this measure of generosity.

"what of you?" eremiya asks instead, quickly pulling her hand from the rim of the sunhat upon realizing its stagnant position. "breaking the boulder will exhaust you, especially under this sun."

& 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴

[RECOVERY] gauntlets + 1, eremiya and duessel.

[motheruin]

WHEN THE MOTHER WOKE AT DAWN, her hand had, at once, flown to her face, nearly digging her nails into the soft flesh of her eyelids. by the time she fully came to, there had been a fresh ache between her eyes, a thrumming pain that spread to her temples and carved itself a home in the back of her head. despite an attempt to rest until the irritation bled from her pores, and a later occurrence spent kneeling by her bedside, massaging the light of a faith spell into her forehead, nothing became of the respite. 

it remained and swelled until the pulsing birthed a voice, obstinate no matter how much she bore upon it a prayer and plea.

and He stayed within her, even when a monk presented themselves before her chamber door and reported the urgency of assistance in the infirmary. of course, she dressed at once and followed suit, gripping onto her staff as she allowed herself to be led forward into the prong of bodies, both those restless and those unmoving. 

unprepared, she was, to the exact intensity of suffering within these walls. to and fro, those capable of healing rush to any open bedside, and eremiya, in all of oddities, stood completely still, incapable of breath, until a fellow sister brought her to the bed of a sleeping patient.

and another.

and another.

and another, until eremiya had begun to move on instinct, from patient to patient, from sister to brother; press a hand to their forehead, note the temperature, check the wounds, heal what has split again, clean their skin, clean the bandages, redress, step to the side to allow food and water forward, and repeat. and repeat. but when her hand lowered to the forehead of an older man, she instead met the topside of a pillow.

bishop blinked, suddenly more aware than she had been in the last few minutes. she rose back up, narrowing her eyes at the man and peering through a thin haze of exhaustion. “sir jakob,” said almost with a bite, a twitching frown pulling at her lips, “lay back down. you are in no condition to resist treatment. sister adelinde said you have not been tended to for some time.”

and there was little hesitation when eremiya pressed her palm against his shoulder, placing enough pressure to gently urge him back down. but defiance remained, despite the obvious bend to her words. thus, she sighed, “are you thirsty? what is the last meal you remember being served? lay still, sir jakob.”

partner tag : @indevouement !

♡ ・ i am the shape you made me. / filth teaches filth. ━━━ eremiya & jakob

MISSION BOARD: RECOVERY / infirmary prompt.

[motheruin]

FAITH HID ITSELF BENEATH THE SKIN OF CORPSES, as had eremiya, hidden among the knights and students assigned to travel north, though the church had seen that she would aid differently than her companions. thus, she had been debriefed along the journey, reminded of the conflict that held ties to the last mission took a wealth of the monastery’s populace. and a deeply rooted effort to seek what had been stolen from her kept her aware and empathetic, nodding in time to each of the monk’s pauses.

upon arrival, she had realized how wholly unprepared the discussion had left her. when her foot met the ground, the carnage that lay before her was a cracked mirror to the destruction she, too, pledged, years ago. no. she was an honest woman now; a month ago, her hand had dismissed similar instances of unrest as quaint necessities. and here, where remaining families confessed the horrors to stationed knights and others huddled with their youth before the debris that was once their home, eremiya fought to mask her turmoil.

just in time, thankfully, for her countenance to deem itself neutral before the eyes of a local knight, short in stature yet fiercely optimistic if their smile was a window into their mind. when they met, they met awkwardly, their hand extended in the time that she had lowered her head in a bow. so, they laughed, all teeth and forgiveness, before directing the extended hand to the girl beside her━━━whom the bishop had not even noticed until now.

“it’s great to see that the church kept to its vow,” they began, “as there is plenty of work to be done. before your arrival, all preparations were able to meet the deadline, and have set up camp at the entrance of the village. we’ll visit there in time but first, i need to know how much experience you all have with this kind of aid.”

their gaze rose to eremiya and, thus, she responded, “carpentry is not a skill of mine i claim. on behalf of the church, i was sent to console the public but, if need be, i am━━━” her breath stuttered, as if the word was to be torn from her throat instead of offered. “━━━willing to lend a physical hand, too.”

the local knight nodded, their dark hair swaying from where it was tied back in a braid, “well, it’s possible. we need as much support as we can. and words can only do so much.” but they were oblivious, maybe, to the immediate sharpening of her once-empty gaze, as they had turned to her companion and smiled. “what about you, kid?”

partner tag : @anruraiocht !

♡ ・ inside me, something seethes ━━━ eremiya & miranda

MISSION BOARD: RECOVERY / axe +1 prompt.

[motheruin]

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT FELL HEAVY OVER FAERGHUS, gloom spread across the sky and brought plumes of smoke and grief upon the city. all were thrown to the feet of five sinners; kneeling before the head of this town to await trial. of course, the trial had been swift━━━the whispers of the commonfolk accused two of the men of crimes akin to robbery and, to the immediate dread of the bishop, accounts of reckless arson.

and this was whispered into the ear of the bishop, with the bearer of news oblivious to the reality that she, too, had driven wedges through villages at the hand of untamable fire. thus, the whispers grew into fits of rapid, abrupt objections in the streets, before the first blade had been drawn against the protestor.

eremiya had evaded the moment that blood first spilled. she left the side of a knight, who rushed headfirst to mediate the aggression, and instead, retreated beneath the canopy of an empty storefront. her hand rose to the other, scratching the sepia skin where knuckle met finger, retracing the invisible edges of old, burn scars. and there she stood, idle if not for the teeth of her nails, her gaze steady as it fell to the masses in the town square. by the flicker of her attention, she had caught the sight of the ruffians, bound by iron from wrists to ankles, being escorted from where they once knelt on the wooden deck.

but when her gaze was led stray, again, it found the pitiful sight of a man, one foot forward yet frozen in his stride. he, too, watched the unrest swell among the public, but where she remained, he must have wished otherwise. so, the bishop took a moment to approach, unhurried despite the wake of shouting and violence at their front. pale heather eyes rose but had not met his gaze.

affiliated with the blue lions, she knew. he had joined her on the carriage ride across borders, tasked similarly with the simple order of being aware. ephraim, he introduced himself as. yes, ephraim, but the specifics of his affiliation left her.

“step back,” eremiya said, raising a reddened, scarred hand to hover over his chest; a ghost of a restraint, “the masses will unfurl the chaos themselves, lest the officials beat submission into them first.” and she pronounced this with utter calmness, offering not a smile nor frown as she spoke. not so much bored as she was apathetic.

she continued, “the fate of those sinned has already been decided, fair and all-knowing. there is nothing more they, or you, can do.”

partner tag : @solarsbrace !

♡ ・ your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue ━━━ eremiya & ephraim

MISSION BOARD: RECOVERY / public opinion prompt.