Child's Play

[circa.cipher]

It took little time for Shay to recover. Her young body was resilient, even more so than a usual girl her age's. When she awoke, she noticed a familiar form in the bed next to hers. Sitting up quietly, she blinked a few times to get the burned image of his form out of her eyes. It was bright in the room, and she slid out of bed, her hair and his shirt now dry with blood. Rubbing her eyes, she stood over his bed quietly for a moment before moving to find the nurse.

"Excuse me, Miss Nurse... do you happen to have showers here, or must I return to the dorm?" she inquired quietly of the confident woman, after fixing her mask to obscure her face once again. The nice, but stern woman replied that, indeed, there were showers in the infirmary that she could use, and if she only informed the nurse of her room number she'd have one of her assistants fetch new clothes for the young lady.

Mumbling a thanks and going to the washroom, she took a brief, but sharply hot shower. Her back was burnt pink and felt somewhat sticky from its rawness once she emerged. Her arms were free of scars, but were also raw from the scouring shower. Her cheeks were freshly pink as she put on the black and white diagonally striped mask that she'd been brought. They'd also brought her a dark blue shirt in a liquid metallic fabric that hung loosely on her and only to just below her ribs. She made up for the uncovered skin with the black skirt she wore around her thin waist, it falling only to the tops of her thighs, but containing so many white layers beneath to make it puff out that she wasn't worried about its length. It was finished off with a pair of black and white striped knee-highs socks and wedge laced black ankle boots.

When she returned to the infirmary, Donovan had been woken up by the nurse and was waiting for her. Blushing when she saw him, she couldn't help but smile. "Hi Donovan. Sorry about... falling... and... you know," she rattled on, clearly embarrassed. Her hair fell haphazardly down her back in a straight, damp wave. The curls she'd pressed into it had long since faded. "You didn't have to stay last night, but... thank you," she said her thanks quickly and quietly, looking down at her feet with her hands clasped in front of her.

[Faustus]

"Nancy m'dear." Nancy nagged. "You can call me Nancy."

With that Nancy instructed the young dear on where she might find the appropriate room to make her toilet. Donovan remained soundly asleep as Shay traipsed past, stirred into consciousness only at the behest of Nancy's beseeching hand at his shoulder. He came to in comical fashion. Startled, eyes darting wildly about, a thin strand of drool leading from his lip down his chin, and then sudden clarity as the memories from last night swam to the front.

By the time Shay came back, Donovan was looking dapper. Same clothes as last night, same general air, but his face was washed clean, his hands made pretty as well, and his hair combed back in quite the debonair style. The hair you could thank Nancy for.

When Shay walked in Donovan's face changed. Lit up with that smile. That smile. The smile meant only for Shay. It came and went, a whisper across his face, but shone so bright it left a lasting impression. Donovan stood up, right hand rubbing absently at the back of his head, as Shay addressed him.

With the events of last night, and Shay's current adorable outfit, Donovan could not help seeing her in a different light.

"Aww shucks Shay. You don't have to apologize for that. Not like you did it on purpose. At least I don't think. If you did, I admire your commitment." Another smile. This was one of his general ones. A filler to make his calculated pauses in conversation less awkward. "And you don't gotta thank me for staying with you either. Happy to do it. I couldn't . . . I couldn't just leave you like that or nothin' Shay, you know that.

"How you feeling? They did a number on you last night."

[circa.cipher]

Still smiling, Shay grew somewhat confused as he spoke. "My commitment to what?" she asked, moving to sit on a clean bed. The nurse warned her from in her office not to sit on a new bed with a small "Uh uh!", so she stood there awkwardly, but not unhappily.

Surprised by his reasons for staying with her, simply that he felt wrong leaving her alone, she blushed and laughed kindly, but with a tinge of nerves. "Oh, Donny, you didn't have to. It couldn't have been fun to be here. You should have gone back to the dorms and gotten some rest. These beds aren't very comfortable," she mumbled, moving closer to him and stopping once she got within a regular conversational distance, craning her neck to look up at his towering form. She sighed softly as she looked up at him, in a "what am I going to do with you?" manner that most people who'd met her likely couldn't imagine her doing.

"Well, let's get out of here," she suggested, smiling and starting past him towards the door, although walking slow enough that he could easily catch up. She was in no hurry to be out of his presence.

[Faustus]

"Awww shucks c'mon Shay. Weren't nothin' special. I just wanted to make sure that you were alright. And! And! What if you'd gotten thirsty at night and all the nurses were busy. How am I supposed to be able to get a good night's rest with that hanging over my head?"

He smiled again. A coupling of his Shay smile and his Awkward smile to make something endearing and bashful all at once.

"Now if you think the beds aren't comfortable you should try staying the nigh in one of these chairs. It was . . . not that bad actually. I slept alright, so no more fretting over me. I'm just glad to see you're fine, your face," Donovan brought his finger to brush against Shay's left cheek in so desultory a manner it was as if it happened purely by chance. "Has plenty of color, you can walk just fine. Yeah, I think you're just about ready to go. Nancy! Oh Nancy!"

Donovan called the nurse back to her station and made clear his and Shay's mutual intent to find themselves without the infirmary. Nancy brushed off Donovan's persistence in that irritating manner that adults tended towards when dealing with children, but was quick to acquiesce otherwise. After a few quick checks on Shay, pupil dilation and reflexes and all that, Nancy dismissed the two children.

As Donovan and Shay wandered off, Nancy turned to the other nurses and giggled madly. She went on and on and on about how refreshing it was to see two young ones so in love, and neither party none the wiser . . .

. . .

Donovan led Shay out of the infirmary, across the academy grounds, playing a quick game of hopscotch by himself on invisible squares as they tread across the paved path leading into the great hall, and pressed onwards towards the temple. Gaianism had its merits but Donovan was not a true believer. The temple was always quiet and serene, and in these particularly placid hours of the morning, all the more so.

[circa.cipher]

Blushing as she thought about Donovan brushing his finger along her cheek, she started along a little faster merely from the increasing speed of her heartbeat. Lifting her hand to brush gently along her cheek in the same manner, she would look up to her side as Donovan easily caught up to her short clip. He seemed to enjoy himself as they traipsed across the academy grounds towards the great hall. They passed it, and moved towards a smaller building that was equally as grand.

"Donovan, what's this building up here?" she asked him, genuinely curious. She had no clue about Gaianism or Gaia even. That was especially odd since she went to a school named for her. It wasn't that Shay just didn't remember Gaia because she got no flashes of temples in her mind's eye or familiar feelings from this odd building; she simply had never even heard of the woman. She recalled growing up rather isolated on her farm with only her parents to raise her, and she wasn't even aware of the fact that there was something bigger outside of their planet besides the universe.

The thought of this frightened her, and she inched closer to Donovan as they approached the temple. "Are we gonna go inside?" she asked cautiously, stopping before it.

[Faustus]

"Why, that's the Gaian temple."

Donovan had a certain tone in his voice. Not that he intended to ridicule Shay for her lack of knowledge, but stark and genuine surprise that she did not know of one of the principle buildings of the Academy. The Gaians built the Academy after all, and funded the very programs that they and all other students benefited from.

But he shrugged it off. It wasn’t his place to proselytize or to educate people on topics they could easily educate themselves on if the will was there.

"Yeah we're gonna go inside silly. It's nearly empty and you never know what you can find around the corner. It'll be fine. They're not the mean kind of priests."

The passed through the threshold of the temple. Or, at the very least, if Shay insisted on staying behind then Donovan pushed on ahead as if to show her that it was alright. The sparse interior told a clear tale. More and more of the students swelling the dormitories, and the teachers populating the classes, were without the Gaian faith. The Academy opened its doors to the secular population the year after its inception, once the benefit to the all became clear. But priests were always in the temple, no matter the time or day. They slept there, some in the steeples above, but most in caverns and bunkers underground where, due to their gifts with manipulating earth, they could arrange or extend at will.

Donovan did not know much about Gaianism nor had he any desire to verse himself in the religion. His first taste of religion came at the hands of Atlus Arcantium, through his mentor Piercing Genesis as a vessel, and Donovan had been but a mere child then. Impressionable. Not just willing, but wanting to believe in everything the world had to sell him. At first glance no less. Now he was reasonable an a vicious skeptic. He did not discount the possibility of Gaia, but if She is so then he intended to find her all by himself. The pool of truth that parishioners drank from was too shallow for the boy; he wanted the fountainhead.

That is, however, not a primary motivation for seeking the temple this day. If Shay followed he led her, if he walked alone then alone he progressed, up the few steps that led to an alter that held a single bowl of clear water, the bottom of the basin engraved with a tree. The light that spilled through the stained glass windows surrounding them on all sides from on high painted the interior of the temple in beautiful strokes of pastel.

"You ever notice how quiet it gets in a temple?" Whether to Shay or to himself. "Is it reverence, or fear?"

[Faustus]

Off topic:
Putting this on indefinite hold from my end