✞27 Days since my Last Confession✞

[13th_crusader]

[†]Ezekiel 7:22

My face will I turn also from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place; robbers will enter it and desecrate it.[†]

[☨]The commlink was smacked amidst the thin threads of sheets, to meet the bandaged face of the archbishop, twisted in a disquieted but blind sneer. After a few days of falling in and out of a concussion force-fed to him through a two-ton bible to the face, he stirred in agitation as those last conscious moments replayed in his waking mind and shot him straight out of bed in a flurry of ribbons and tattered blond hair.[☨]

Defilers! M.. MURDERERS! I'll have you hanged on a halter of--

Che!?

[☨]Clawing at his face he realizes he can't see a damn thing, and his horizontal position which was upon something much harder last he recalled, was now a tiny mattress with a familiar horrible squeak.[☨]

Kssh.. You blasted mother-hen, unless my brain-matter was leaking from my ears, I told you not to bring me back here!

[☨]Whether anyone was in the hospital bedroom to hear him was anyone's guess, yet the pounding in his head gave him little reason to care as he mewled melodramatically and fell back over the commlink's lense.[☨]

Comments

[heinesangel.livejournal.com]

[No surprise there.

Nill tried to avoid the commotion from before. The wailing and... other strange noises coming from the patient room. Not to mention the ominous chatter from the other doctors (at least as much as she could understand with her patchy foreign language skills).

It did nothing to set her mind at ease, and the poor girl ended up turning her head to look over at the room several times as she passed by in the middle of her chores. -- She didn't even know what happened to the Archbishop, or had a way to talk to him as per the norm. Not with those bandages.

So. Here she was, standing before the door to that room, wondering if visiting would do more harm than help or not.]

...

[She swallowed hard, and hardly knowing what to expect, Nill gently rapped her hand against the door. 'Excuse me...'

It creaked open on old hinges, and a pair of dress shoes stepped quietly over the floor.]

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[The Holy man flinched visibly, his senses on high alert what without being able to see, and every paganistic creature known in this horrible sewer of vermin coming in and harassing him.

The knock had him hoping, praying, Anderson had come back from whatever errand or act of horrible good-will was distracting him from his lame chief.

Sitting up, not being able to see especially in the dimness, he didn't bother to turn his head towards the doorway when he answered, his voice noticeably listless from the prior madness.]

A.. Anderson...?

[heinesangel.livejournal.com]

[There was no answer. But the footsteps stopped as Nill looked up at Maxwell with an uncertain expression--he was expecting someone else. ...Before they slowly turned in place and started to approach his bedside.

This kind of situation wasn't all that strange to her. At least his blindness wasn't. Only because her caretaker was blind too (except not from bandages alone).

It was so quiet. You'd never know that someone was standing right beside him, reaching her hand out to gently touch a few fingers against the top of one of his. Fingers too small to be those of Father Anderson.

You were wrong.]

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[Pallid and willowy digits quavered slightly under her touch, as if he were completely foreign to the very sensation itself. Warm, but delicate as tiny daisy petals, he stifled to move, frozen by what would be the grace of a figure far more pure than he could ever hope to be. A small sough lapsed past imperturbable lips, the silence, deafening, but golden.

If only because it was the 'sound' of her.]

Ange...

[There was a twitch at the corner of that poisonous mouth, as if he were failing even to simper. It hurt to smile like that. The kind that were of pure sincerity, and not that of some sadistic glee that oft splashed across his sinister soul.]


li..na... . .

[heinesangel.livejournal.com]

[A small sigh of relief answered him back, and her shoulders sank down, slacking up from the former tension. It eased the position of her fingertips down the slightest bit. Nill had to wonder if the Archbishop could tell if she was smiling, even without having to look at her face.

He was right this time.

To emphasize, she gently pushed at his hand down ('Excuse me, Archbishop...') so that the top of his palm rested comfortably on the mattress of the hospital bed. Then she pressed her fingertip against his open palm, moving it around and leaving the slightest tickle behind as she went--like a paintbrush. It was a familiar shape, if he thought about it, and tried to picture it in his head.

Y. E. S.

'Yes.'

She paused, waiting to see if he understood. And leaning forward to examine the bandages around his head more closely without him noticing. '...Archbishop, you didn't try to loosen them, did you?']

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[Oh he did. Numerous times without an ounce of victory over them. Whoever tied them was a master of their craft. They were there for his benefit after all. The blow to his skull as caused his eyes to swell up, the bandages were there to keep it down.

Long digits curled slightly to each of her faint swaths along the soft pad of his palm, the letters drawing clearly in his mind. His slender brows knit at the ingenious of this little winged girl. Heaven sent, should there have been any doubt?

Swallowing down the desert on his tongue a wry smile wriggled it's away onto him as his general ill will simply faded with sound of silence. He almost hated breaking it.]

I... wouldn't have come and taken the vacancy of this room of my own accord.

[The blame went straight to his Mother Goose, Anderson.]

I really.. should not be here. Just a small bump on the head.

[That knocked him out for the better half of the week.]

You.. needn't fret yourself.

[heinesangel.livejournal.com]

[Unhindered by prying eyes, her smile faltered. She could see it, but there was nothing that she could do about it. Not to stop him from tugging at the bandages, or to tighten them in place without being concerned about hurting him in the process. -- Better to leave it in a doctor's care.

That, and... even if his words meant well, they still brought forth a look of concern from her. That's no good...

With her free hand, she reached up and barely touched the bandages near the top of his head with her fingers. Not applying any pressure, but indicating the point.

It's more than that, and she's not dumb enough to not realize it. That it's more than 'just a small bump on the head'. Furthermore... it would have been even harder for her to do anything about it, if she didn't know anything, and he had to rely on only himself and the Father elsewhere...]

...

[She removed her fingers from the bandages, focusing on her writing again.

'Better here.'

--it would have been more painful.]

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[Better here...

He could have refuted that, over the course of the many bad things coming to this hospice had brought him. Yet maybe he could have overlooked all the bad to see the one good thing it had granted him. What a terrible life, to be blind to goodness, to only see and reflect the wretched things in life.

And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

Maxwell looked hesitant. Anxious. Like he wanted to sprint a mile that second. Or hide in some deep dark safe place.]

Heh, better.. perhaps.. But not for long, I can promise that.

[He would set his lack of sight on retreating back to his real sanctuary as soon as they would permit him to walk. Pausing long enough to pull his mess of blond hair from his shoulders, he raised his free hand as if he were about to dismiss her.]

I know you have others far less strong than I to ...care to.

[Yet it paused, just short of touching her cheek, fingertips curling. Unsure. As if to touch her would be like splintering fine stained glass. The words that flowed from his tongue came of their own life and will, without his calculating mind to control them.

...And his palm settled softly upon her crown.]


Yet I am .. content you are here.

[heinesangel.livejournal.com]

[Nill eyed him curiously, tilting her head to one side a bit--just like a small dog--as that anxious look came over him. Other than feeling that her presence might have been making him feel a bit nervous, for whatever reason, she couldn't really fathom what came over him.

--...or why he seemed so eager to leave the hospital. Was he worried about the church being left empty? If so, then surely she or the Father could always--]

...!

[She blinked as the Archbishop raised his hand, eyes glancing briefly up at it before they focused back on his bandaged face.

There... was some truth to that, but then the hospital would always have plenty of people to care for. He wasn't deterring her from caring for them too. Eyes still following the movements of his fingertips.]

...

[She sank down, only to rise back up as that palm settled down on her crown, and then... the girl smiled sweetly to herself. Those words made it all seem worthwhile, and a soft, content note in the the air she breathed could only express it briefly.]