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WHO: Cho and you
WHAT: visiting the coma patient?
WHERE: "Cho's rooms" in the palace (even though she hasn't actually spent a single night there until now).
WHEN: From the end of Loki's ice plot on GHB1 through GHB6 (and possibly extended a bit longer, idk)

NOTES: Let me know what day they're visiting either in your tag or the subject line.
WARNINGS: I honestly can't imagine any cropping up.

Cho hadn't come down from Loki's ice tower under her own power. By the time they'd actually overcome all obstacles, she'd been badly injured and running on magic and willpower alone. The confirmation that there was no danger had been her undoing. Another of Loki's stupid pranks. And she's succumbed to the pain and fatigue, her magic catching her right at the brink of death and slowing her body's natural reaction in order to mend it. She'd been carried back to town, still and barely breathing, skin and lips blue and ice cold, and Loki had immediately foisted her off on the first peasant who looked sturdy enough to carry a hundred pounds of sorceress and miscellaneous gear without dropping her on her comatose head.

The man had taken her straight to the palace, and her assigned staff had been only too happy to take responsibility for her. They'd dressed her in the most ridiculously frilly dress the palace seamstresses had made for her, brushed her hair out into a shining black cloud around her, arranging it and her clothing to cover the horrible dark bruises that marred her skin and spoke of the extent of internal bleeding. As long as the nasty bits of life were hidden, the villagers seemed more than happy to pretend they didn't exist.

Now she was laid her out carefully in bed as though she were only sleeping. With the windows thrown open, butterflies had begun to gather in her hair and small birds had taken up residence in the canopy of the bed. Tiny woodland creatures found their way into the room, bringing with them wildflowers gnawed off at the stem.

She looked every inch the beautiful fairytale princess. Probably because she couldn't move or talk.

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Rumors of a sleeping princess were a bit of a cause for worry when they started, especially when there were so few of them... Last time there had been a whole complicated mess with spinning wheels that he had been caught at (again!) but this time...

Finally, he had braced himself for the inevitable and asked where this princess might be found.

A half hour later he escaped from the resulting gaggle that had clustered around him as they were fighting over what the proper outfit for a Mage acting as a Prince would be and headed for the castle.

He gently shooed away the birds and butterflies as he moved to the bed. "Cho? It's me, Bakura, can you hear me at all...?" he asked.

Hopefully he could just use his magic to break whatever spell she was under...

She was aware of him, in a strange way, the way that sounds of the real world occasionally filtered into dreams - alarm clocks became fog horns, ringing phones became bicycle bells. But for an outward reaction, there was nothing. Her chest barely moved, so slight and slow an inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, one might think her dead or frozen.

It didn't take long for the butterflies to come back, landing on Bakura, too, now. And the birds weren't far behind.

The shooing motion was almost distracted this time as he watched her, a worried frown growing on his face. "I wonder if it is a spell..." he though aloud. He hesitated a moment before very gingerly putting a hand on her chest over her heart (taking great pains to void touching anything other than flat skin,) before closing his eyes in concentration.

A soft white glow began to build up around him before he very gently sent his consciousness into the sleeping woman to try and see what magic or injury lay inside her.

New moons were never the best time for her, always leaving the feeling of danger in the back of her mind, but it was doubly so in a new place. And the fact that the locals kept talking about monsters on the night of the new moon was especially troubling to Selene, who had already spent one day sequestered away inside the castle, and was likely to remain there for a few more.

So when the smell of squirrel and robin teased her, it was a little too tempting not to follow the scent. Being a princess, it was actually a little difficult to slip into the room (and whispers as they left made her worry the girls were going to complain or something, even after they burst out in giggles). As she stepped into the room, she turned, closing the door, and then turned back, looking the room over.

Despite the strong scent of prey, the room seemed empty of animals; she sighed. Even on the new moon, she probably still smelled like a wolf. Her eyes settled, eventually, on the bed.

Sif has given certain matters little thought. She takes a seat beside Cho's bedside, and seeks to maintain the same mentality.

"You look like a particularly ornate doll that a distant aunt once gave me," she observes, tucking one knee up towards her chest. "Granted, the only animals that paid it any attention were garden meal worms."

She doesn't expect a response, truly. She has no idea what to say to this woman -- who helped save a damsel that was never truly in distress, who Sif dragged along on a mission that she should have seen as false from miles out.

Her heartbeat was steady, if incredibly slow. Too slow. But her body lived, and her mind held on to life, stubbornly, curled inside her magic. The tiny little flame that was Cho, held safe and far away until it was strong enough to burn on its own again.

But that was a long way off. Her body was still a mess. Internal organs, ruptured and torn, mending slowly. Bones, too, and so much blood, pooled under her skin, leaving her a mottled mess beneath the ridiculous gown.

A valet sat in the shadows near the window, watching them both. Or perhaps he'd fallen asleep, lulled by the warmth of the fire and the chattering of the maids. Difficult to tell.

The animals surrounding Cho didn't seen frightened of the intruder, didn't scatter as they should have with a predator in the room. If anything, they grouped closer around the sleeping woman, as though they thought to protect her.

It's true, Cho can't do much more than lie in the bed, looking unnaturally still and beautiful, but not in a real way. Beautiful in the way of paintings and sculptures, imitating life but too far removed.

Cho can hear her, though, filtering through the heavy haze she floats in, inky black but somehow not dark. Light. Light and black and safe. So safe. Safer than her body has ever been. The magic will keep her, won't let anything hurt her again. Not ever. She's safer here than she is in that body that can still be broken.

But her attendants don't think like that, don't acknowledge what it is that makes Cho unique, that makes her a hero. No, they only whisper excitedly, because the Prince always saves the Princess. That's how the story goes.

She ignored the valet as a matter of form, watching the animals on the bed only half-heatedly. Most of her attention was taken by the young woman on the bed, someone she'd never met. Selene stepped into the room, taking a deep breath. Something smelled off, not quite right, but Selene was too new to the kingdom to know more than whispers regarding anything that had happened in Loki's little scheme.

She knelt, and began to gather up several of the flowers that lay strewn across the floor. She left all of them which were on the bed around Cho alone, which was a better option than fighting a squirrel or two over them. Instead, with what she could gather, she sat in a chair a little ways off from the bed. Pulling a couple ribbons from the hem of her dress, she began braiding them together with the flower stems.

The first he is conscious of it, he's pushing her off of him, twisting away from her, his aching body protesting each and every movement. Still has the tingle of her lips on his. He hurts, all over, from exhaustion and injury, and he is trembling simply because his muscles aren't strong enough to keep him still.

He breathes.

"What," he snarls, "is the meaning of this?"

Edited 2012-11-17 05:41 (UTC)

Cho's consciousness filters in slowly. It has a very long way to travel, after all. She becomes aware of the beat of her heart, the weight of gravity pulling her to a planet, cool lips moving softly over her own. And then she's awake, groggy, in pain, staring into red eyes just as shocked as hers. Loki.

The last thing she remembers with any certainty is the maze, the tower of ice, Loki's cold and uncaring face. Bastard. Cho's mad at herself, at her body, for feeling safe here. She's mad at him for being in her bed, mad at him for existing, furious with him for having the gall to act like he's the injured party here. "Bastard," she hisses, her skin going colder as she moves too quickly.

She's woken up early, not yet ready, but Loki's magic touching her own, it slams her back into her body, calls her home. She pulls the heat from the air around her, bringing the energy to the places inside her that are still weak, still healing. Her leg comes up automatically, kicks him hard in the center of his chest. And he doesn't move. He's heavier than he looks, and she is lighter.

So, though her kick connects solidly with his rib cage, Cho is the one who goes flying off the side of the bed with the force of it. To be engulfed in a seemingly endless pile of frilly, itchy fabric. "What the hell am I wearing?" Loki's anger did not move her staff, but at the sound of her voice, they scatter. Should have known she'd stop being the perfect doll the moment she had free will again.

The animals settled, slowly but surely, as Selene remained calm. Scent of a predator, but no aggression. She was close enough to Cho to be caught in the pull of her magic, if she let herself. She could see things, sense things, perhaps even touch the young woman's mind. But only if she was brave enough to let go of her own.

Not good, not good at all... It was with an almost clinical detachment that he began working, energy sinking into every broken and battered bit of her body, feeding the cells as it encouraged them to regrow and heal. Blood began to be absorbed as the bones knitted and organs sealed themselves back up, Bakura's consciousness flitting from place to place as he poured his own life energy into her, guiding and fueling the healing process as best he could.

Loki, ordinarily, is quite good at thinking on his feet, adapting, comprehending. But this quick chain of events -- the kiss, the impact of her feet against him, the mess of hoops and frills and absurdity that she becomes -- renders him entirely speechless.

He focuses on her. "Did you kiss me?"

It helped. It didn't wake her up, didn't heal her completely, but Bakura was more than capable of helping things along. He was also able to see just how bad the damage was, just what a close call it had been. And the more he tried to heal, the more he probably realized that her magic dealt in balances. Fixing her began to cause him pain, and something that probably felt an awful lot like Cho tried to push him out, to protect him.

"You're in my bed." Her voice seems to come from the inside of a puffy pink bath scrubbie. She looks like a taffeta dandelion. There's a struggle, a bit of grunting, the sound of tearing fabric, but for the most part she doesn't move much, doesn't emerge from the mountain of poof even though it shakes with her efforts. "You kissed me." Hoops have tangled with each other, snagged on draped fabric and gotten caught against embroidery and jewels, and she's stuck. "I hate my life," she mutters softly to herself, voice laced with frustration and pain.

He winced slightly, but pushed on, giving whatever he could despite the pain until his energy was weak enough that he lost his hold and his consciousness all but flew back into his body.

He groaned slightly, reaching up to put a hand to his forehead as he assessed his own magic levels. He'd lost some HP in that... Maybe about half of it. Nothing too terrible but still exhausting all the same.

Hopefully he had been able to do enough...

“I didn’t kiss you,” he snarls, offended at the very idea. What need would he have to steal kisses from the comatose? “Blame the servants -- your servants, as I had nothing to do with this.”

He eyes her.

“I suppose you should blame them for that, too.” Referring to the dress, of course.

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