well, i think i see another side, maybe [OPEN]

[milkruns]

Who: June and YOU!
When: Day 28
Where: the trailer park, the medical tent, Around
What: Mom has arrived! Come say hello. Maybe bring one of those molded jello trays. Everyone loves those.

The last thing June was expecting when wandering into a carnival she hadn’t heard was coming to town was to get tricked into some kind of arcane contract by a mysterious being, but then, last week she’d been kidnapped in the trunk of a transforming alien sports car, so these days, she doesn’t really know what to expect. She is pretty annoyed about the part where she’d been manipulated into it, and if it weren’t for the promise that she’d be returned home afterward...well, she doesn’t know how solid that guarantee really is, but she doesn’t have much choice but to trust the Ringmaster right now. It’s not that June is opposed to a little adventure now and then, but she has responsibilities. Jack doesn’t exactly have a dad anymore, and while the Autobots have proven to be dedicated guardians, he still needs his mother. That’s what June’s telling herself, and it’s true — but if she were honest, the prospect of going an entire year without seeing her only son is...a little bit of a difficult one.

She’ll make do while she’s here, though, and they’re apparently in need of medical staff, and that’s something she can do. As long as she’s able to help people, keep busy, she’ll be alright. She hopes the people around here are at least a little less...eccentric than the Ringmaster seems to be.

backyard
June is doing her best to settle into her trailer — she doesn’t have much with her, but she’s trying to at least make it feel cozy. Mostly so far it feels more...dorm-y, which simultaneously makes her feel both younger and older than her actual age. Hopefully in the near future she'll have more of a chance to collect some decor, plant some flowers, make this place feel a little more homey -- but for now, it'll do. Well, the mailbox is a little crooked, but she can fix that.

"Home sweet home," she sighs wryly, righting the mailbox and stepping back to have a look at her trailer, just to take it all in. It's a lot to take in. After a moment, the mailbox lists to the side again with a squeak.

Ah, well.

medical tent
Seeing as this is where she'll be working, June might as well familiarize herself with the medical facilities. Well...what facilities they have to speak of, anyway. She wasn't exactly expecting a fully-outfitted emergency ward, but she was sort of envisioning something more than...a tent. Well, she'll make do -- she always does, and she's got enough experience to make up for it.

She hasn't met the doctor yet -- West, she's pretty sure his name is -- but she's glad there is a doctor on staff, at least. (Later, when she finally meets him, she will retract that statement.) He's got a little office partitioned off in here, and while June is ordinarily the 'respect other people's privacy' type, she is definitely having a little look around, just to see what they've got to work with.

June hasn't met any of the other staff yet either, and she isn't exactly set up to work, but hey, she's still in her scrubs, and if anyone comes in needing treatment, she'll do her best to help them.

[ feel free to hit me up at runawayballista if you'd like to plan something else! ]

Comments

[milkruns]

June is...visibly thrown by Cole's response, not the least because he is definitely the most unusual patient she's worked with, but she's easier to throw for a loop right now, when she's still finding her center in this place.

"If I'm treating you, you're a patient," June assures him. She's glad the strange-looking cut on Cole's hand doesn't hurt, but now she's starting to wonder if she is unusually underqualified to work here. Fifteen-plus years of emergency nursing, check. Ancient fae carnival...not so much check. Well, if Cole won't, or maybe can't explain just what 'odd' means, she'll find a way to work it out on her own. She reaches for his already bandaged hand in an offer to redress it, and see if there's anything else unusual she hasn't seen. "May I?"

[hurtcomfort]

Cole pauses for a moment before offering June his bandaged hand. It's obvious he really doesn't want to be here. He's fine, he just doesn't want it to touch things! Still, she's the doctor, he'll offer her his hand.

As June unwraps the bandaged hand, she'll find that the abrasion on this hand is a mirror image of the one on the unbandaged hand: deep straight line of a cut, raised and puckered skin around the line, no signs of bleeding, bruising, or anything of the sort. The puckered skin feels tender but that's about it.

"You'll learn," Cole quietly murmurs. "They all do."

[milkruns]

The weird thing is that as much as Cool is low-key wigging June out, she also kind of wants to just give him a big hug? He is putting out some unique vibes and June isn't quite sure what to do with it. She frowns slightly at the identical cut on his other hand, but since there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it, she starts rewrapping his hand, more neatly this time. She makes a mental note of it, though, and she'll have to ask the other medical staff about Cole, if there's any context that might help her make more sense of it.

"Learn what?" she asks quietly, tilting her head.

[hurtcomfort]

"About magic. About the people here and how things change."

It's said in a very obvious tone of voice. June doesn't know what's going on. But that's okay, she's new, Cole didn't know what was going on when he was new. Now...well, there are still moments where he doesn't know what's going on, but there's less of them now.

He remains still as June starts rewrapping his hand, though Cole's ears are a constant mess of nervous, twitchy activity.

[milkruns]

"Magic," June repeats, except by now it's less dubious and more like she's saying it as though to remind herself, or cement it a little more in her mind. She's had to accept a lot in the last twenty-four hours or so, and she's still kind of processing it. It's...weird. It's all so very weird. The word 'weird' is starting to lose meaning altogether.

"Changes like those?" she asks, nodding at Cole's ears poking out of his hat. She assumes, anyway? Maybe he always looked like that, she doesn't know.

[hurtcomfort]

And Cole nods! "I didn't have them before. But because I'm here, I do now."

That is an absolutely terrible explanation but Cole's sticking with it. In his defense, there's no way he can explain 'being around faerie magic changes people in fun and exciting ways' without it sounding like a goddamn mess of an explanation. Cole isn't good on things like explaining details.

"You'll change as well. Eventually."

[milkruns]

Well, that explains...a lot. It's also deeply uncomfortable. June shifts her weight slightly, smiling awkwardly in lieu of any other response, because she's not sure how to respond. She decides not to dwell on the idea that it's apparently inevitable that she'll start to look as...odd as everyone else here does.

"Where were you before? What's home, for you?"

She realizes that whatever it is, she'll probably have zero context for it, but maybe it'll give her some context for Cole.

[hurtcomfort]

"It's called Thedas." Which isn't an answer but thankfully, Cole knows it isn't much of an answer. So, he continues talking, trying to best explain it. Because Cole's got a feeling that since June's having trouble adjusting here, she'll have even more trouble adjusting to the idea of Thedas.

"It's like here. There's magic and mages. We try to keep people safe. But it's also not. The carnival has less dragons."

[milkruns]

At some point in this conversation June will stop expecting not to feel a little thrown by everything Cole says. This is not that point. That is...a lot.

"Are you a mage?" she guesses. "See a lot of dragons?"

[hurtcomfort]

Cole shakes his head slightly. "My friends are. But I'm just Cole."

He's so much more than 'just Cole'. But June's freaked out, June's confused, June doesn't know what to do with dragons and magic and the fae. So for the moment, he's just Cole. "I have seen plenty of dragons, though. At least five!"