The Storyteller: Baby Boom

The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Dulcie » Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:18 pm

At first there was nothing terribly out of the ordinary going on at the Rememdium. Summer had come and with that also arrived the many births of Myrken babies that had been conceived during those long cold winter nights. It was hardly out of the ordinary that to see a pregnany woman or two entering or exiting the rooms of the Rememdium. What was unusual was how quickly the normal statistics had drastically changed. Within weeks there were suddenly dozens of young women who were filling the rooms at the Rememdium, some accompanied by pacing fathers or even husbands who waited in the lobby only to hear the confirmation that indeed the young lady was pregnant.

There were a few other factors that were strange in the scenario as well, the first of which being the age and names of the young ladies. Most of the women had barely reached adulthood, some who had yet to marry and others who had only recently been married, and all with variations of similar names. There were Josies, Josephines, Josette's, Jo's and Josanna's, amongst others.

The second strange fact came from the men that waited on the women. Fathers that were furious at their daughters and their lost innocence, husbands who claimed that there was no possibly way that the child could be their own. In fact the shouting matches had reached the point that at one point the Doctor's assistant had even gone and encouraged all the men to wait outside of the Rememdium so that their shouting would stop upsetting the women inside. It was a tense situation altogether, and while so women claimed their husbands to be the fathers, and others protested immaculate conception, a few had spoken quietly to the doctor or his assistant, whispering quiet descriptions of what sounded to be the same man, a handsome young man with a mop of curly blond hair and brilliant blue eyes, and skin that seemed to glow when they touched it.

It had been a tense week, and even as the day time patients had left the ears of the Rememdium staff were still ringing with the sounds of the men shouting down the hall, a woman sobbing in a patient room, or the mooney eyed description a blond haired glowing lover.
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Suede » Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:48 am

The last few weeks had proven to be simply ridiculous. At first it had just seemed a normal period of fertility, then a bit of an amusing coincidence with the names, but by the time things had really gotten hectic he was giving Janessa the occasional funny look just for the first letter of her name. The man was grasping for straws about the source of this nonsense, or just who all had been impacted. When the descriptions came in of this golden-haired man from multiple sources he knew a game was afoot, but be damned if he knew precisely what. And the doctor had been far too distracted to deal with the issue during the worst of it all. While Janessa played the gentle hand in controlling women and their men, Lucas had gotten far more frustrated several times and bodily tossed a few gentlemen out the front door.

Now, days after the worst of it when a few were still trickling in, he'd run away from the Rememdium. Not far, just to the garden, but he'd settled down out in that garden the druid had made. She'd vanished, but the plants remained with menagerie right beside. He wasn't an expert on the herbs, so he didn't know half of them, but they certainly looked and smelled nice enough to relax him. His clothing was disheveled, collar undone, sleeves rolled up, and he looked like he hadn't been home in a few days. Lucas had taken his leave to dwell on what was going on, obviously there was some weird connection and his first guess was some sort of incubus on a rampage. He had just finished writing a letter to the governor about the issue and needed to go back to the clinic to brave sending it off. He shuddered at the idea.

"I've heard about the chaos in Myrken, but I hadn't expected this."
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Dulcie » Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:12 pm

The Rememdium was blissfully quiet with the Doctor out in the garden and his assistant off counseling a woman and her husband, assuring them that something was not quite right with this whole situation and that she and the Doctor were doing everything possible to figure it out. The screaming masses had left, the hysterical women had returned to their homes, and the only soul who roamed the hall at the moment was one of the Josies.

Josie was one of the most recent patients, a beautiful girl who had just reached her 18th birthday a few months prior and until this moment in time she had been courted by a number of young men in Myrkenwood. Perhaps the courtships wouldn't be so plentiful now, though Josie found that she didn't care. In fact, there was very little she cared about anymore, other than the baby that she knew was in her swollen belly, and the strange blond haired man.

She walked the halls quietly, her soft leather shoes making barely a sound on the crisp, clean floors of the Rememdium, the girl moving almost as if she were in a dream. She was supposed to have gone home after she had seen the Doctor, but she didn't. Something in this place made her want to stay, drawing her in further. She remembered once when she was a little girl that her mother had called her sensitive to things that weren't quite natural. Not a witch herself thank goodness, but she had an uncanny knack for noticing the things that didn't belong in this world. Perhaps it was that sense that lead her to the room of the Southerner.

She made no knock at the door, nor did she wait for permission to enter, she simply drew herself into the room, looking just like the vision of a girl that Guiseppe might have seen in a dream, her long brown hair tied back in a simple ribbon, her gown made of soft pale colors that would only look perfect standing in a field of flowers. She sighed dreamily when she saw him and made quick work of throwing herself to his side, paying no mind to his illness as she found herself a place at the edge of her bed before trying to drape her arms across him. "Oh my beloved! I knew you would be waiting for me!"
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Glenn » Thu Sep 27, 2012 9:00 am

Draping hurt.

Draping hurt badly. His body was still covered with burns and bruises. Breaks. Other terrible B words that he didn't like thinking about. He didn't scream. There were enough screams. The fever came and went. Obviously his stay at the remedium was paid for somehow (it wasn't always necessary but in the case of long stays, it certainly helped). Without them tending to him, he would be dead. Very dead.

There was little company. Genny had sent flowers, he had learned, and wasn't that nice? It almost brought a smile to a broken southerner's face. Almost. He didn't much feel like smiling anymore. One old lady. That was about all. One old lady who seemed like a dream, a dream that was nipping at the edge of his consciousness as this woman draped herself over him. Were it not for the pain, it might have been a dream he could lose himself to even now. As it was, it was tempting. "Sorry, Bella." He grunted through the pain. "All my beloveds are dead. Except for myself, of course, but really, give it a week."
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Dulcie » Fri Sep 28, 2012 10:26 am

Josie wasn't the most perceptive young woman in Myrken, but anyone could notice that the man laying in the hospital bed wasn't well. She'd pull back away from him, scooting herself over a little to his side as she tired to grasp his hands in her own. "Oh no! Oh you're hurt! Was it the fairy queen like you said? Oh she's wretched isn't she. Oh!" She'd look about herself, over her shoulder with a bit of a paranoid look for someone that wasn't behind her. "Oh.. oh I haven't told either, just like you said. Not a word of what you told me!" She'd take a long breathy sigh and look back at him.

"Oh no, I know it's you! You look different but I can -feel- it. Everyone says so, I'm good at these sorts of things. Maybe the Fairy Queen changed you? It's possibly you know. Those fairies can do just about anything. It'd figure they'd take away all your beauty and break your bones! Oh but that won't stop me loving you! And the baby! Oh the baby is just going to love you too!" She'd say, blissfully ignorant to the fact that there were at least a dozen other girls who were pregnany by the same presumed father. She'd try to take Guiseppe's hand and place it on her belly, and while it was still too early to feel the baby within it was quite obvious that the young woman was indeed with child.
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Treadwell » Sat Sep 29, 2012 2:03 am

Meanwhile, at the nearby Church of Tubbius. . . .

A rainy, gloomy cloud settles over the church and its surroundings at the moment, watering the land and washing the walls of the buildings on the church's grounds.

Inside it, his breakfast being interrupted by a worriedly pacing Dr. Bill Jacobson, is a certain extra-rotund fellow whom all of Myrken know in one capacity or another; Aloisius Treadwell sits at the church's dining hall table, bleary-eyed and blinking at the nervous doctor who tends strictly to the needs of those in the Church of Tubbius.

"Well, Bill?"

Huffy-puffy breaths accent the faint whum-whumf of feet stopping their pacing near the yellow-robed, seated elder. "I've been watching, Lord Tubbius, and it leaves me fretful! I know you said months ago, and you so announced to the church body (both men and women), that the women folk in this church were being blessed by Marta, Tubbius's divine and holy wife, our holy mother--"

"Go on, mmph mmph. I know all of that, hmm hmm!"

"And they're all a good seven months along and doing fine! But, well, you know that my room here overlooks that inn and the hospital, and, well, there are lots of young mothers out there--" a flappity-flap of a hand at the far wall--"who certainly aren't any Tubbians at all! It looks like nearly all of the women in Myrken are carrying babies in their bellies for one reason or other!"

Treadwell shlurrrrps at his bowl of soup, listening. Finding that the doctor has nothing more to say, he grunts and nods his head.

"Marta did indeed, mmph mmph, bless us all--but only us all who follow the precepts set down in the Folds of Tubbius! I've done my share of looking about myself, dear boy, mmph mmph (or do you forget that I collect the taxes in this town, too?), and I'll have you know that while the Great Mother is pleased by this much new life coming on fast, hmm hmm. . . ."

The Tubbian doctor's ears wiggle as the fellow listens; his hands absently scratch his goodly gut, fat fingers wiggling into the paunchy flesh. Another soup shlurp quivers through the silence between sentences.

"While She is pleased, sir, Marta is hardly--that is to say, not at all!--behind the rest of the town deciding it's a good time to, hmm hmm, have a bit of fun at night and set babies to growing!"

"Well, Lord Tubbius? What is it we should do?"

"By my blessed belly, mmph mmph, not a thing! It's not your job, hmm hmm, to deliver any babies or tend to any injuries or. . . ." He fades off as he talks, pausing again to gulp down more soup. With a feisty drum of his fingers on the table after that sets his spoon to clinking against his bowl, he resumes. "Or do whatever all it is you do as a doctor to anyone outside the grounds and faith of this church! Now, if I'm called in as the tax collector to, hmm hmm, do something about it all in that capacity?"

Great, round shoulders shrug beneath the yellow robe Treadwell wears.

"But until that time, you don't go asking questions about who's out there making babies, mmph mmph, and we--as in we who attend this church and show reverence to Tubbius and Marta!--don't do a blooming thing about any of it! I don't care about what all you're seeing from your bedroom window regarding this. We stay out of the whole, messy affair, mmph mmph!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Glenn » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:43 am

Giuseppe was fevered still. Burns would do that. Broken bones would do that? He wasn't sure right now, but burns would, the sheer damage to his body would. What if the feeling could last for ever, he had asked? What if the dream could last forever? Had he asked that? To who? An old lady? It was all a blur now. "The fairy queen." Was that his voice? He felt a bit better for a moment. Still fevered, but some of the pain faded a little. The fairy queen had struck him down with dread magic. Angry magic that shattered bones. Not the sort that burned. It'd explain the fever. His injuries were all wrong, weren't they? He wasn't burnt at all, was he?

"The fairy queen?" It was only when his hand fell upon the stomach that he blinked. A baby? That seemed right. Josie seemed right. His beloved. The one who the jealous fairy queen struck him down for. He looked down at his body to see no burns at all. He began to smile at her. Their secret. Their future. Thei... the fairy queen? Ariane Emory? A fairy Queen? Reality hit him hard, very hard, too hard. There was a moment of harsh, cruel laughter, and then, with a blink, the burns that covered his body were there again. He could see them once more and he could FEEL them. The pain returned in drove and Giuseppe screamed, his eyes rolling back in bitter agony.
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Dulcie » Sat Oct 06, 2012 3:28 am

"Oh it was wasn't it! Oh she's horrible!! All those awful things you told me about her trying to drag you into hell! If she was here right now.. well, I'd beat her with my very own fists! But you don't need to worry now. You're safe here. Everyone knows that they can't get you inside the Rememdium. Oh my darling!" During the moment that he was drifting into the fantasy she'd try to cover all the unharmed pieces of his face with a shower of little kisses, only stopping when she heard that laughter. She'd draw back and look at him with a puzzled expression on her face, right up until the moment his eyes rolled back.

Josie leapt up from her place on the bed and looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes. "Oh you're hurting! Oh no no no, that's not good at all! Let me call for the doctor, maybe he can bring you something for the pain. You have to get well, you just have to! For me and the baby!"
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Glenn » Sat Oct 06, 2012 3:38 am

When one was in Giuseppe's line of work, as dark as twisted as it was, in a world askew, wrong, full of magic and things that happened to go bump in the night, past the Southerner that was, you dealt with all manner of things. Curses. Mages. Demons. His own soul had been stretched and skewered within the last year. You learned how to deal with those who attempted to ensorcle you, who tried to influence your thoughts. Were it not for his injuries, the fantasy would not have been able to touch him at all. The fever was a flame which empowered it further within him. Were it not so much better than his current helpless, ruined state, he likely would not have been lost to it at all. There was one thing, however, that would break anyone's hold over you if you knew how to use it, knew how to channel it. Pain. And he had that in spades.

"Are you really here?" Teeth grit, head arched in agony, eyes barely able to focus upon her. "Or are you just the madness creeping in." He still fell the tug. A different life, one where his injuries would heal quickly due to their magic fairy nature, one where he wasn't burnt, one with a wife, with a child to be, all out of a story. He felt the tug. All he had to do was quit, to give into it and it would all be better. Unfortunately, Giuseppe was never one to give in.
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Dulcie » Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:47 am

"Of course I'm really here! How can you even ask such a thing?" Those welled up eyes would spill over, the tears running down her girlishly rounded cheeks. She'd come back over to his side, this time cautiously dragging a chair over with her so that she wouldn't make his wounds worse. She'd reach out and try to take his hand in her two delicate little feminine ones. "Can't you feel my hands? I don't understand.. I thought that if we suffered through everything that you would turn back to normal. That it was all just.. what did you call it? A glamour? What did she do that hurt you so badly?" She was on the verge of absolute misery. Here lay the man that she loved laying in his bed injured, and there was nothing she could do about it!

"Oh don't give in to the madness. It's not real you know. You told me that. None of it's real at all. Nothing but us, and this. Oh I know it's true." She sighed heavily, her bottom lip trembling a little as she tried ever so hard to hold back the tears that were already streaming down her face. "I don't know what she did to make you forget. I.. you said you'd love me forever, and now you can't even remember who I am. I'm Josephine, don't you remember that?"
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Glenn » Sat Oct 06, 2012 11:23 am

A glamour. Those words brought him back to reality with all the sharp and thorough pain of the burns and broken bones. His body had atrophied in terrible ways and he could feel the slackness, the weakness, the loss of muscle mass, the inability to get up even if his bones were not slowly healing. There was more though. He KNEW the burns had gone away before. That hadn't been just an illusion. There had been magic in the air. He just had to find a way to access it more fully. Oh, there'd be a cost but no cost could be higher than the one he was paying for his failures. That he had been hallucinating ALL of what he had felt never even crossed his fevered mind.

"Josie." His voice was serious. "I'm not there. I'm not back yet. It's all a blur. There was an old woman here, not long ago, to see me. She helped destroy the glamour, but her work was undone. Could you search for her. She comes to the remedium regularly. I need to speak with her alone. If you tell her that I requested a story, she'll come and hopefully free me the rest of the way." Was he using a pregnant woman for his own ends? Well, yes, but desperate times called for very desperate actions.
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Re: The Storyteller: Baby Boom

Postby Dulcie » Sun Oct 07, 2012 5:56 am

"Oh! Oh it was all so much worse than I expected! Of course I'll help you search for the old woman. I'll start looking straight away. There isn't a minute to lose, oh I want you to come back and be well so badly!" She seemed relieved that there was at least something that she could do. She'd take one of Guiseppe's hands and kiss it with soft kiss, giving him a lingering gaze and a smile before she'd get up.

"I'll have found her before you know it. I'm good at finding things that have to do with magic. Everyone says so. Stay safe my beloved." She'd touch her hand to her heart and give him one last long lingering look before she'd sweep out of the room, off on a mission to go find the old story teller.
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