To cure rotting earth (Ithea, Moore)

[Anastasia]

> roll 1d20+19 Rosa
<Serith> Kotono roll for Serith < 29 > [d20=10]

Rosa doesn't react. Her eyes are wide, staring off. This goes on for several moments until a great, heaving sob tears through her, then another and another. She shakes on the bed like a frightened child, screams following moments after. "Mother! Mother!"

[Merc]

Ithea winces, not sure how to react. Uncomfortably, she just sits there, keeping Rosa company at the moment.

[Anastasia]

Rosa shakes and curls into a fetal position, blanket knocked aside. She seems uncaring of her nudity, rocking back and forth as she sobs and cries for her mother. This goes on for a little time until it at last winds down. Her breathing is ragged, "Terrible, terrible, so terrible," she mutters, starting to rock faster. "Unclean. Filthy. 9 souls to create 1. 99 to create a nightmare. Numbers, we're just numbers."

[Merc]

Knowledge check to verify that the statement references the necromental? That's what it sounds like? Also, man, she doesn't even have one of those hospital gowns under that blanket?

[Anastasia]

K:R.

[Merc]

[23:04] <Merc> roll d20+42+6 K:R+inspiration
[23:04] <Serith> Merc roll for Serith < 58 > [d20=10]

[Anastasia]

It might, Ithea thinks. More than anything else, it seems coherent but not really realted to necromentals.

The Jarl just didn't think of dressing her. His tack was to get the job done, cover her up without looking and leave her be once her status as a living, breathing elf was confirmed. He's a doctor, but dressing the tiny (relative to his giant sized body) wasn't really comfortable with him. He didn't foresee her having a breakdown, either.

[Merc]

This REALLY isn't Ithea's area of expertise. She moves closer, somewhat uncertainly, as she tries to hug the distraught woman. "You're not just a number, Rosa. You're not."

[Anastasia]

Rosa shakes in your grasp, just rocking back and forth. "You don't get it," she bites out, "He...everything...it's cold numbers. Every atrocity...numbers! He doesn't hate us, we're beneath hate. Everything's just something for him to use. I saw when he had me, Ithea. I saw so much."

[Merc]

Ithea takes a deep breath. Speeches don't tend to work out well for her, but she'll give it a shot here...

"Hey, hey. Listen, don't think about what what drives someone like Lixer. So it's numbers to him? So what? Taelfagn props himself up with the idea that what he does is destiny. It was destiny that Lifasa would fall. It was destiny that the child would be born. It was destiny that we'd be enslaved, that we'd fail, that we'd suffer. Fuck him, and fuck Lixer. Okay? We've beaten him time and time again in spite of his destiny. We've beaten Lixer as well. There have been setbacks, there have been tragedies, there have been some really, really fucking shitty things going on...but we fight on. Because they're wrong, okay? And someone has to show them that, Rosa. Someone has to, because if not, someone else will suffer. Over and over. Because it's numbers, or because it's destiny, or because who the fuck knows why. And it's all stupid and unfair and it's just not right."

[Anastasia]

Rosa listens, looking up at Ithea with teary eyes, nearly face to face with her. "Why?" she asks quietly, "Then why is he so much? Why are there things like that in Creation? Why?"

[Merc]

"...I can't really answer that. I don't get it myself. I never put much of my studies into philosophy, I'm afraid," Ithea says with a shrug.

[Anastasia]

Ithea hears a whisper in her ear, "I'd invite Tepen, but he's busy. A visitor from Jaela and company's dealing with him now," Elena says, "Hang in there, Ithea."

Meanwhile, "Why?" Rosa dissolves into sobs again, clinging to Ithea desperately.

[Merc]

Do I know who the voice is? Cosplay-chan? Stille? Someone else?

[Anastasia]

It's Elena, sorry. Fixed.