[semi-closed]

[rebuildyourruins]

Who: Thor + various
Broadcast: no
Action: the First Breath, some other places
When: May 20th - May 27th

[After engaging in some extremely extra behaviour with a bunch of other extremely extra immortals, Thor came down with a brutal fever on the First Breath and has been holed up in Loki's room ever since. Still, there remain some things he needs to do.

If you want your character to find Thor during this time, hit me up on PM/dudemeister and I'll toss up a starter for you! Otherwise if they would just try to call or message him, feel free to use this post to do so.]

Comments

[watermarks]

[ ...right, well. She can see see where this is going. She interrupts, hopefully, before they end up kicking each other off the bed. ]

Well, I hope you two don't mind if I take a look at you and help out a bit so you both can get your rest. I have healing abilities and I've trained as a doctor. At least I can warm up the soup.

[dothelokimotion]

[ Loki squints at her suspiciously. ]

What form of healing abilities?

[watermarks]

[ How to explain this... ]

I use my bending to encourage your chi to flow down the right pathways and speed up your natural healing process. If it's a regular infection, I can help your bodies antibodies to overcome it more quickly and strengthen your resistance to speed up recovery, or I can just use it to help diagnose what's wrong and get you some medicine.

[dothelokimotion]

[ The suspicion is not letting up. ]

I am unfamiliar with chi, but what can it pick up?

[watermarks]

[ Why so suspicious, Loki, gosh. It's not like she's hiding it from you, she's saying it flat out. ]

Your chi is... in some worlds, people called it chakra? It's basically like the flow of life in your body. I can sense blockages or knots or inflammation or infection. Then I encourage the chi to flow down its normal, natural pathway, and it speeds up the healing process.

[dothelokimotion]

[ It's his nature. But he stiffens at the idea, regardless. While it sounds fine . . . the less that is known about Loki, the better. ]

Well, I have no such thing. I will wait until my body fights off the infection.

[watermarks]

[ Somewhat dryly: ] I've met animated skeletons that have chi, Loki.

[ So don't you give her that nonsense, please and thank you. But as it is, she's gathered enough from Thor to know that their physiology is very different, and she has no idea if their base temperature even runs the same. In order to properly diagnose and treat Loki, she'd need to ask all kinds of questions that, if he is denying the existence of chi in his body, she somehow doubts he'd be inclined to answer. Still, she can offer. ]

But I don't need to use my healing to treat you, especially if you have the same thing Thor does. Or I can just warm you up some soup and leave you some ginger snaps. [ A small smile. ] It's up to you.

[dothelokimotion]

[ Loki frowns, but he's also too miserable to make that much of a fuss. ]

The latter is suitable.

[watermarks]

[She almost rolls her eyes, but she doesn't.]

Okay, I'll go do that. And how are you feeling? Cold - clammy? Or warm and nauseous?

[dothelokimotion]

[ Cold? Loki hasn't really felt cold in a while. He has the illusion of coldness in his mind but he can't tell how true it seems. ]

Mostly clammy. I don't sweat and I rarely feel cold.

[watermarks]

Alright... [ Hmm... that's not much information to diagnose, but she doesn't think he's exactly going to welcome her touching his forehead to take his temperature - or even if she'd be able to tell if his temperature was the same as a normal person's. Thor's chi certainly wasn't the slightest bit normal, and they were brothers, after all. ]

Have you been throwing up or mostly just feeling weaker than normal?

[dothelokimotion]

The latter, mostly.

[ Loki brushes his hair back, glancing at Thor with a frown. ]

He had the worst of it.

[watermarks]

[ Which is why you've been taking care of him. ]

Right. So I'll go warm up the broth, and let's see how that stays down. Then maybe you can try some toast too. I'll be right back.

[rebuildyourruins]

[It's a good thing Katara interrupts, because Thor was gearing up to punch Loki in the knee. He switches to scratching at his neck, shaking his head.]

I don't mind. It's been the same for days now.

[watermarks]

Okay. Sometimes it doesn't do much with a cold or a fever and it just has to run its course, but it's faster to try to diagnose this way.

[ She withdraws some water from the waterskin at her side and pools it over her hand like a mitten. She places her hand on his forehead and the water begins to glow the reflected blue light of an iceberg as she closes her eyes to concentrate on his chi system. He'll feel a sense of cool, like coming into the shade on a hot day or applying aloe on a burn spread through his body, but since she's not yet healing anything, it will be very slight. ]

[rebuildyourruins]

[He's a little curious as to what she's doing, only the fever makes it hard to be too interested. What does come as a relief is the mild cooling sensation of her hand on his forehead. Sure, it doesn't do much, but after four days of burning up any sense of relief is welcome. He lets out a sigh.

Thor's chi is not hard to locate. He positively flares with it, a strong force that extends far deeper than any Katara might have felt before. There's a slight frenetic energy to it as well, like static electricity. Nothing seems immediately odd though, beyond the differences his own system brings.]

[watermarks]

[ Katara is startled by the depth and strength of Thor's chi, though at least the pathways all seem to flow into their normal places - nothing has been moved or knotted, but it's hard to tell more than that until she gets a firmer grasp on what 'normal' for him is like. She's quiet for a long moment, even closing her eyes to concentrate better. ]

It... doesn't feel like anything out of the ordinary, or like it has a specific source. It feels just like a regular fever. [ She opens her eyes. ] Which... doesn't make sense, because with your chi like it is - I'm shocked you can even get a regular fever.

[rebuildyourruins]

[Thor opens his own eye in turn - without the patch, he tends to give the odd impression of being stuck in a wink.]

I haven't had one in nearly a thousand years, so it came as a surprise to me as well.

[Less of a surprise and more of a major annoyance.]

[watermarks]

[ The eye without the eye-patch is a study as well, one which snagged her attention earlier. It is very clearly missing an eye. It is also very clearly... the neatest wound she's ever seen. It's healed over so well, that it could almost be a natural defect instead of a grievous loss.

But her attention is more on the immediate concern, which is -- can she even use his chi to diagnose what's going on with him when it's like a waterfall in comparison to the rivers she is accustomed to dealing with. Not even Chouji's chi felt like this, and he'd been so strong... ]

...a thousand years? That explains the depth of your chi pathways...

[ She keeps her eyes closed and moves her other hand - more water streams out from her waterskin to join it, the response of the water seems automatic - and she "blindly" places her hand on his chest. It too begins to glow as she uses the resources at her command to better understand Thor's chi. ]

[rebuildyourruins]

If they get deeper with age, then it would. I am 1500 years old.

[That's a curious concept. He wonders if that sort of thing was picked up by Asgardian healing aids, like the Soul Forges. They didn't measure things like 'chi', but there were certainly magical markers that healers used when diagnosing problems.

He sighs. This probably won't get them anywhere.]

It is probably the Atroma's doing. One of their 'glitches'.

[watermarks]

[ She could feel the rush and thrum of his chi. As she accustomed herself to it, she was able to see the subtle ways his chi had been impacted. If she took the equivalent, made the adjustments...

Oh wait, Thor'd said something.

She opens her eyes to look at him, still feeling the movement of his chi in the back of her mind. ]

Why do you say that?

[rebuildyourruins]

[Thor blinks at her, only belatedly realising what he'd said. This fever is addling him to the point of saying stupid things that he can't discuss further on the ships.]

Um. [Good start. Keep talking.] Because it's weird, and I know they can do things like this. Why else would Loki and I get it at the same time?

[It's only half-rhetorical. It's been a long time since Thor's bothered to think about how illnesses work.]

[watermarks]

...because that's often how viruses work? Especially if they're airborne. If not, it's often through contact... [And, well, sharing the bed has probably not done their recovery any favors. She wonders if anyone else on the ship has become sick.

But the how is less important, currently, than the what.] Anyway, it doesn't feel like it's anything that serious. We just need to make sure to keep you hydrated.

[Because if his chi hasn't fought this off yet... either it was going to wipe out everyone on the ship, or he was right, and it was the Atroma.] Is anyone else on the ship sick?

[rebuildyourruins]

Well they shouldn't work that way on me.

[Not some bargain-basement regular virus. He meant it when he said he hadn't gotten sick like this in a millennium. When he has the presence of mind to think about it, it's downright offensive.

At the question, he squints at Katara then looks at the door, as though that's going to provide an answer.]

I don't know. I haven't really seen anyone since being here... Loki keeps insisting I stay put.

[He only managed to get out to meet Katara because Loki was asleep at the time.]

[watermarks]

That's probably a good idea.

[ Honestly, Thor really should be staying in bed. She streams the water back into her waterskin. Then she places her hand on his forehead and chills the residual moisture there - not freezes, but it'll be the equivalent of a cool cloth on his forehead for a little bit. ]

I'm going to go warm up your soup and monitor your symptoms for a little while.