yinyangwizard | A Delicate Operation

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A Delicate Operation

Seimei leads the way into the cavern, which is lit with little oil lamps and festooned with shimenawa rope hung from little hooks drilled into the walls. After Ragnar comes through - looking more comfortable than Seimei expected in his ceremonial white robe - Seimei ropes off the entrance behind him as well.

"To keep bad influences out," he explains. "Like when you sat under the waterfall earlier."

He's pretty sure that Ragnar gets the gist of what he's saying, even if the translation spell he's hammered out isn't as good as the one in Milliways. Even if it isn't, he explained everything to Ragnar (and Gyda) before they left the bar.

At the far end of the cavern is a pool fed by a natural hot spring. Between Seimei and the pool are two of Seimei's assistants, dressed in their own white robes - a Japanese macaque and a (rather anthropomorphized) tanuki. They kowtow in unison as Seimei and Ragnar enter.

The pool behind them glows faintly with an enchantment of Seimei's own devising. In the pool is Gyda's new body, floating on her back with her face just above the level of the water. She's dressed in white robes, like Ragnar and Seimei, and her hair floats in a corona around her head. It's longer than Gyda's hair in her Milliways body. There are other differences as well: her skin is paler, and any scars from childhood mishaps are gone. Still, the body is very similar to what she's used to.

Gyda herself is in a small jade jar that Seimei carries before him. He gives it to the tanuki, who holds it at the ready by the side of the pool. The macaque fetches a stool and a wand covered in paper streamers. Seimei directs Ragnar to sit on the stool and hold the wand. The macaque brings him tattoo needles and a pair of latex gloves (Seimei believes just as much in biological sanitation as he does in ritual sanitation).

"If you've changed your mind about where to put the geas tattoo, now would be the time to speak up," Seimei says. There's a bit of levity in his tone, but he isn't kidding. They're already committed to this, and the location of the tattoo to anchor the geas is really the only thing that they can change.

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So many things feel vaguely familiar -- there is a feeling about the straw ropes and folded papers that mirrors exactly the strung-up small bones and shells in the Seer's hut, or in the holy precinct of Uppsala.

Nothing here is very strange to Ragnar yet.

"No, here," he says.

The inside of his right upper arm, mirroring the dove and the lark on the left side. If Athelstan and Sinric have that place on his heart-side, then his brave young daughter deserves the same on the sword-side.

"I am ready," he says.

Not even the white robe makes him very uncomfortable; special clothes for a ceremony is something he has worn before, undyed linen that would be drenched red with the blood of sacrifice.

There is no sacrifice here to stain Ragnar's robe: it will only be his own blood, if anything.

Seimei loosens Ragnar's robe so he can reach the indicated spot. He swabs it with alcohol, then picks up the tattoo needle in one hand and gauze in the other. He starts marking out the character 恩, or "obligation."

He is not inking it, yet. That will happen when the geas takes effect.

Ragnar leans back his head, quietly breathing as the needle enters his skin again and again and again.

His own gods ask much harsher sacrifice.

Seimei finishes tattooing the 恩 and has his macaque continue blotting it with gauze. He gets something else out of the little toolkit - a wooden bit, wrapped in surgical rubber rather than leather. He gives it to Ragnar. "Put this between your teeth, please," Seimei instructs. "You are obviously no stranger to pain, but when the geas takes hold it will hurt a great deal. Make sure to keep a firm grip on the wand in your other hand."

Stripping off the gloves, he goes to the pool and takes the jar from the tanuki. He uncorks it and breathes in the soft silvery light of Gyda's soul. Then he bends down over Gyda's body lying in the hot spring, and softly exhales the light into her mouth and nostrils.

The silvery light of the soul mixes with the golden light of the pool. They coalesce into Gyda, pushing out an oily dark cloud. Seimei jabs a finger at the cloud: it gathers into a tight black ball. With his pointed finger, Seimei directs the ball to the wand Ragnar is holding. The oily darkness zips down the wand, up Ragnar's arm, into his abdomen, and then into the little tattoo Seimei just made, where it glows with an angry reddish light.

Ragnar does take the warning seriously; he puts the bit between his teeth (to keep himself from biting his tongue when the full pain hits -- that is only sensible), and when the darkness hits him, he can't help but groan aloud.

Ragnar's a tough one. The last time Seimei did this the person in his position screamed around the bit.

In the pool, Gyda takes her first sputtering breath: Seimei reaches in and lifts her out so she won't inhale any water. "Calm yourself, Gyda-kun," he says in a soft voice. "Don't try to move. You're too weak for the time being."

Together, Seimei and the tanuki take Gyda out of the pool and put her on a tatami mat. There's a pile of fluffy towels nearby: the tanuki uses one to make her a pillow and another to start drying her off.

To Gyda, it felt like she was floating, like the moments after the fever took hold, before she saw her mother lighting the pyre. Just blackness and floating, she felt...just as she was.

Then there was heaviness and she was still floating, but she felt heavy, warm and wet and when she finds herself trying to breath she tastes water. Slowly her eyes open and she sees Seimie and some creatures carrying out of some water and onto some towels where the start drying her off.

He doesn't need to tell her she's weak. She tries to move her arms, her legs, but the best she can do is move her head. Much as she's...aware..that the ritual worked, her body feels as it did when she was sick (only without the fever).

The most she can do is turn her head, a smile crossing her features when she sees Ragnar. "Father.."

She's not sure if it's the water or the spell, but even her throat feels weak.

Ragnar has something in his mouth, but he takes it out.

"Gyda," he says. "You live. You are alive again!"

Seimei is genuinely touched by Ragnar's elation - and privately more than a little relieved, for spells of resurrection do not always work out well even under favorable circumstances. They aren't quite out of the woods yet, but the most dangerous part of the endeavor is past.

He pauses to let Ragnar embrace his daughter (for how could he do otherwise, in such circumstances?) and then says, "Gyda-kun, please let me have your wrist so I can make sure everything is all right." Seimei takes Gyda's arm in his left hand hand, and with the index and middle fingers of his right, probes her chi meridians. It looks like he is taking her pulse very carefully (and he does that as well).

"Everything is going as well as can be expected," he says. "Even so, it will take a little while for you to fully adjust, Gyda-kun."

Heavy as her arms feel, she forces herself to return the hug, relieved as he is that the ritual worked. To see his face, if she weren't so weak, she's so relieved she's close to crying herself.

At Seimei's request, she lets him have her arm, though her other remains around her father's shoulders: both for support, and just because. "Why've you been calling me as 'gyda-kun?"

He'd addressed her as that before, when they were talking about the ritual, but she was so focused on the subject that the question of her name never entered her mind.

Edited 2016-02-22 21:34 (UTC)

Ragnar holds her while Seimei works on her arm.

He listens to her breathe; that is good enough.

Seimei chuckles at Gyda's question, just because it's so incongruous with the situation. But he does owe her an answer. "It's an honorific used in my country," he says. "It means 'young master' or 'young mistress.'"

At least, that's the closest translation he can give.

"You will be able to walk short distances without assistance in a day or so. It will take a few weeks to regain your full strength. For your initial recovery, you can return to Milliways if you like, or stay at my residence." Seimei addresses Ragnar. "I have prepared quarters for both of you, should you wish to avail yourself of them."

He looks down at Gyda again. "Either way, I will need to be close at hand to periodically check on you. In matters such as these I leave nothing to chance."

There was no such distinction back home, not even when her father was Earl. She only became curious when she had a mind to focus on it, certainly better than focusing on how weak she felt.

She tried to shake her head, managing a small jerk for her efforts. To stay here, or milliways made no difference to her. "Might be best if we stay here, if you need to check on me."

This place wasn't so bad. Even if it ached to move her head, her eyes looked all around, trying to absorb it all.

"Actually," Ragnar says, "I don't want to make Athelstan wait for the good news, or miss us at all."

He has enough to worry about without being in the dark about this important outcome.

"I can do what I need to do in Milliways," Seimei says. He doesn't need to be watching Gyda like a hawk - just close at hand for the occasional check-up, or to handle any unanticipated problems.

"It is all up to your preference. I was also trying to account for the possibility that you may want to keep this matter private, although from what you have said that is not a concern in your case."

Patrons of Milliways might not be bothered by resurrection spells, but a lot of people in Seimei's world get a little weird about them.

The mention of him had her trying to sit up: trying and failing as a dizzy spell hit her. "Then Milliways. We need to tell Athelstan the spell worked. And my friend, Cassie, she was also worried."

They both needed to know, and both were the only ones really aware of what she was trying to do. "They're the only people who really know about..this."

Everyone else, she'd just say she'd fallen ill. That could be enough to explain how weak and pale she was, without drawing much attention.

"Good thing you brought a tall, strong father," Ragnar grins, "who can carry you home without batting an eyelash."

Never mind that the burn from the tattoo is only slowly settling. He can ignore that.

"For my part, I will keep quiet about the matter. I expected no less," Seimei says. "If I am asked directly I will say that it is private and I am not at liberty to discuss it."

Which is true, and it's a response he has down pat.

"Fortunately, Gyda-kun, the story you suggested is quite plausible. I am not sure about your people, but mine have a tradition of performing exorcisms and other rites for those suffering from serious illness."

Not so much these days, but in the time Seimei came from...most definitely.

Gyda was fully able to roll her eyes. "I'm not that heavy." She may've felt heavy, but she also knew her father well enough to call him on it.

"Let's go." Her stomach growled. "And get something to eat as well." Or drink: if her muscles were this sore, she didn't want to think of how her stomach would be.

Ragnar lifts her up, and stands.

"Let's."

Seimei takes down the shimenawa rope from the cavern entrance, and ushers the two back to the torii gate by which they came in. It will take them back to Milliways.

He stays behind to address his two assistants. "You did well today," he says, favoring them with a slight bow. He also gives them each a slip of calligraphied paper plucked from within his sleeves. Then he follows after Ragnar and Gyda.

Yes. Everyone did well today.

Even as they head to milliways, Gyda kept trying to move her arms and legs. She didn't feel numb or that she couldn't move, rather it was that everything ached, like after one of those workouts Cassie made her do.

She wondered if this was how babies felt when learning to walk.

"You have time, Gyda," Ragnar says. "No need to start again right away."

Then, he steps over the threshold and looks for Athelstan.

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A Delicate Operation

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