saving a savage :: spenser

"Oh!" Wil cried as she fell, tripping over something in the street. She'd been busy making a daisy chain as she walked home from work in the dark after a closing shift, not paying attention to her surroundings. She landed on her bottom, hitting the pavement with surprise.

She was more surprised, still, when she saw what she'd tripped over--a boy lying in the street. "Oh!" she said again, "I'm sorry!" But the boy didn't move. The light from a flickering streetlamp illuminated his face, and Wil saw with horror that he was covered in blood. She, herself, was kneeling in a stain left from a pool of it. Her stomach lurched.

"Oh, gods!" Her voice came out in a squeak, her heart started to pound. She looked around wildly, but no one was on the street. "Help!" she cried anyway, knowing it would most likely accomplish nothing.

She ripped open his coat and shirt, exposing a few wounds. Wil laid her head on his bloody chest, pushing her ear to hear his heartbeat. It was there, though it sounded faint. He was alive.

Ness, who had been fluttering above Wil's head, looking for the danger that had obviously passed through, did not like what suddenly popped into his clio's head.

No, he said sternly. No, no, no.

"I can't just leave him here!" she protested. "He'll die!"

Did you think about how he ended up like this? Ness asked sharply. Look at him!

It wasn't just the many injuries he sported that made Ness worry. Every bit of exposed skin was covered in tattoos--not all of them pleasant. His whole essence just screamed DANGER.

"He will die, Ness," she said again. The tattoos were a bit much, and it was obvious some of them had been chosen with intimidation in mind, but her breath caught in her throat when she saw a flower tattooed to his neck. A lotus flower. It seemed so fragile and beautiful. A tiny, innocent thing, mixed with the harsh words and designs elsewhere.

And so, against Ness' better judgement, Wil found the strength (enlisting a bush that grew on a patch in the sidewalk) to get the the boy home to the apartment she shared with Grey.

She laid him on the couch and got to work tending to his wounds the best way she knew how. Ness was panicking, flying from perch to perch, unable to get comfortable. This was bad. This was not good. He looked like he was in a gang or something. Something not good.

When he finally came to, he wasn't sure how long he had been gone. He wasn't even quite sure where he had gone. He blinked and squinted against the light. His head was pounding, his body felt like he had been hit by a train, his leg, oh gods his leg! It felt like it was on fire! He groaned and closed his eyes tightly. He didn't even realize that he was in an unfamiliar place, with an unfamiliar clio.

He felt his daemon stir at his feet and he began to panic. All he knew was that her name was Senua, but what was his? He sent desperate pleas to her, but she was just as clueless as he was. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. He tried sitting up, but it hurt too much. He groaned again, then heard movement to his left.

"H-hello?" He stammered. "Who's there?"

(OOC: For some reason I feel as if he'd remember his daemon, just because she's his soul? Idk though, if y'all think it's not possible, or doesn't make sense, let me know!)

Wil was wringing a rag out into a bowl when she heard the boy begin to stir. She turned back quickly, and saw him attempt to sit up.

Boy wrote:H-hello? Who's there?

"Oh!" she said, holding her hands up. "I'm sorry, I'm--I'm Wil," she said softly. She offered him a wincing smile, hoping he wasn't in too much pain. She'd done the best she could with cleaning him up, but they didn't have any pain relievers.

"How are you feeling?"

He laid back down, in too much pain to continue sitting up. He turned his head to face her, squinting until his vision cleared and he could make out what she looked like.

“Wil?” He tested her name on his tongue. “Where am I?”

He started to look around as best as he could. The room he was in was bare. A few dusty old pictures were hung on the otherwise sparse walls. The only word he could come up with was empty.

"Stonecraft," she told him. "In my apartment. I kinda, well, I kinda found you outside. Do you remember what happened?"

She watched as the boy looked around the room. There wasn't much for him to see--whatever was in the house had come from the streets. To Wil and Grey it was more than enough, fantastic, really, that they even had a place to keep the treasures they found. But she did wonder what the boy thought as he looked around.

What had happened to him?

"Stonecraft," she told him. "In my apartment. I kinda, well, I kinda found you outside. Do you remember what happened?"

She watched as the boy looked around the room. There wasn't much for him to see--whatever was in the house had come from the streets. To Wil and Grey it was more than enough, fantastic, really, that they even had a place to keep the treasures they found. But she did wonder what the boy thought as he looked around.

What had happened to him?

He finally looked back at Wil, trying to piece together what had happened. He remembered that there was a fight, but with who or why, he couldn’t remember. Everything seemed like a blur, he couldn’t even remember if he had any friends or family, though he felt like he should. Thinking about family brought on a flood of strange emotions that he didn’t quite understand yet.

He scrunched up his face in frustration before saying, “I don’t even remember who I am.”

His voice sounded desperate and foreign to his ears. It bothered him.

The boy looked like he was having some sort of painful revelation when he finally admitted he couldn't even remember his name.

"You don't remember your name?" Wil asked, shocked. She wished she knew a doctor, or could even afford to get him one. Forgetting your name because of a blow to the head sounded...serious. She bit her lip and pushed some hair behind her ear. Soon Grey would be home, and this boy was no better off than when she'd found him.

"Are you...how are you feeling?" she asked.

He looked away, only to turn his head and stare at the ceiling. He felt embarrassed, like an invalid. He hated seeing the look of shock and pity on her face. He wished that she had just left him to die, wherever she had found him. This was all too much.

Wil wrote:"Are you...how are you feeling?"

He continued to stare intently at the ceiling, too ashamed to make eye contact with her. How was he feeling? He was in pain, exhausted, embarrassed, angry, he felt like death. Instead of unloading all of that onto her though, he just said, "I'm...okay..."

That didn't sound too convincing, Wil thought. She bit her bottom lip. "Can you sit up?" she asked. "It'd probably be a good idea for you to eat something. I can make soup?"

She thought about the few cans of soup in the kitchen cupboard. He didn't looked starved, this boy, but there was no way of telling when his last meal had been. Wil would share whatever she had (though it was definitely not much).

He continued to lay still for a moment, not bothering to answer her right away. He was just trying to sit up, but it hurt too much. It made him a little dizzy. But maybe with her help, he could.

He turned his head slowly, to look directly at her. "Can you help me?"

"Of course!" Wil said quickly, wrapping an arm around his back and gently lifting him. He smelled of sweat and dirt. Whatever had left him in this state was certainly a fight of some kind--and whoever had won had left him for dead.

That should bother you, Wil! Ness said angrily. It did bother Wil--but, naively, not for the reasons Ness was implying.

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"There we go," she said, easing him back so that he could lean against the wall. "How does that feel?" she winced for him, knowing from the sounds he'd made as she moved him that it didn't feel great.

He grunted and winced in pain as Wil helped him sit up. Once he felt his back against the cold wall, he had to shut his eyes tightly as dizzying light danced before him. He took several, deep breaths until the pain finally subsided and the world had stopped spinning. He sighed and opened his eyes, finally really looking at Wil, now that she was closer. She was lovely, he realized, and smelled like spring time.

"A little better," he replied.

The corners of Wil's lips turned up slightly. He was lying to her, but the fact that he was able to bear whatever pain he was feeling gave Wil hope. Hope that he would be okay.

She waited a few moments before disappearing around the corner to grab soup. She couldn't heat it up but it would have to do. She brought it back with a smile on her face, happy to have something to give him. "Here you go," she said brightly. She brought it to him still in the can, but also was able to hand him a spoon. She and Grey had been collecting small things like that now that they had a home. It was nice.

They sat for awhile, talking as the boy ate his soup. "You know--I think maybe we should pick a name out," she eventually said, sick of thinking of him as the boy. "Just until you remember yours." She gave him a silly grin.

When Wil left, he looked around at the room, studying it more intently. It wasn't bare at all, and he hadn't realized that before. It was covered in different kinds of plants and flowers. All of them beautiful and healthy. When she returned, he ate the soup greedily, despite it being cold and canned. He realized that he was starved. Who knew when he even ate last. He and his daemon certainly didn't.

Wil wrote:"You know--I think maybe we should pick a name out," "Just until you remember yours."

"A name?" He asked, while wiping off a dribble of soup from his chin. "Well...what did you have in mind?" He was in no state to think about naming himself.

When she smiled, he couldn't help but smile back. He liked her smile.

Wil pursed her lips. "Hmmmm." She looked around the room, pondering. Her eyes trailed along the many flowering plants around the apartment.

Suddenly, she had it. She looked back at the boy with a spark in her eye. "Your tattoos," she said, like she'd come to some sort of epiphany. She reached out slowly, gingerly, so that he wouldn't be startled by her fingers on his skin, and traced lightly along the ink on the skin of his neck.

"Lotus." She smiled. The tattoo was the reason she'd chosen to bring him home. Everything else etched onto his body had a hint of danger--but the beautiful flower on his throat had called to her.

He reached up instinctively when Wil's fingertips touched his throat, but he didn't remove his hand from hers. He smiled at her again, feeling so grateful that this was the woman who found him. If it had to be anybody.

"Lotus," he repeated, testing it on his tongue. "I think I like it."

Wil and Lotus continued to talk quietly together for a little while, before he became exhausted. She helped him lay back down, and he fell into a fitful sleep.