Solo Log: Empathy

**ATE 35, before dawn**

*[cw: gidim infestation stuff]*

Brakken of Heffanita has spent the last twenty-four hours on the *Guiding Star*, and considering the glimpses of Ursalina he's picked up from the King of Risur and his retinue he won't complain. The group had retired almost immediately upon their return, only Minister Harkover Lee stopping to share that while the primary objective had been met there was still substantial cleanup work to finish. The young team was going to need the better part of the next day to wrap things up in the previously infested city, at the least. He hopes that with the gidim presence cleared, it will be safe to venture into Ursalina proper and help.

The minotaur has never described himself as nosy before, but he is a sensitive empath and it is nearly impossible to ignore the distress around him, especially when it is so prominent.

It helps some that the Risuri ship is too small for him to comfortably settle in the cabins. This provides him with plausible deniability when, for the fourth time since he turned in for the night, he's awoken by a sharp spike in panic. He finds the Royal Spirit Medium now anxiously walking the length of the ship's deck. This isn't where he had seen her several hours before (in the galley, curled tight in front of the fire; pacing atop the roof over the cabins; sitting silently with the King himself as he tunes his instrument and cleans his rapier.)

He doesn’t even have to speak; the gnome jumps with the creaking of the door, the whirlwind of indistinct thoughts *(disfigured bodies like puppets, cloying potpourri concealing the scent of decaying flesh)* skittering to an abrupt stop.

"I woke you up again," Hoya murmurs, wringing mittened hands anxiously as she shuffles on the far side of the deck.

It isn't a question.

"It's cold out here," he answers, frowning. "You really should come in."

The flash of panic *(filthy, filthy, filthy–the feel of vines crawling over every inch of her, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and still clinging like a second skin)* surprises him. Brakken can't help how he instinctively searches her up and down, looking for the plant life she's so disgusted by; he is decidedly unsurprised to see nothing.

"I–" she shivers, visibly flagging in the freezing winds. "I'm j-just going t-to wake--or I'll just k-keep you up–"

"Your coworkers have been soundly asleep for hours, and I am already awake."

His tone isn't argumentative, even as he ducks back through the door to the galley and holds it open for her. She wraps her arms around herself, eyes wide and anxious as she examines the windowless galley *(the vague sense of being suffocated, trapped, flesh walls writhing with unnatural life)* before finally trailing in after him.

Inside is blessedly warmer, and he goes to the fire and sits without preamble. There are pillows by the hearth already, two that Brakken has claimed for himself and a third that is suspiciously Hoya-sized, as though this had been his plan all along. Once inside she doesn't hesitate to come to the fire, peeling off sea-damp layers, her tiny teeth chattering. Wordlessly he helps her arrange her cloak, mittens, and hat where they will hopefully dry by the time they have to head back out; when she sits, he slides a mug of tea towards her.

He has no intention to pry. They all carry secrets, big and small, and though he cares for their well-being as he would anyone else's it is not Brakken's place to wheedle information out of them. Certainly when it isn't his information to have. He already knows, in broad strokes, what took place in Ursalina; further details are not his to claim even if he is curious.

*(Limbs encased in the flesh of another creature. Skulls with nothing in them but a yawning void.)*

Beside him, Hoya chokes, pressing the heels of her tiny hands to her eyes. She shrinks, curling into herself, making herself as small as possible.

*(Disembodied screams as flowers burn. A tentacled creature melting into fungus and reappearing uncomfortably close.)*

Brakken grabs for the tea before her shaking can spill it. He reaches carefully to rest a hand on her shoulder, hopeful that the point of contact might be enough to pull her from her rapidly spiraling thoughts.

*(A young redheaded woman, eyes sprouting across her flesh, confused and terrified. Possessed. Murdered.)*

The gnome breaks into great, quaking sobs, trembling violently under his touch. Brakken hesitates long enough to consider Hoya's distress, considers what to offer, what to say. In that time her mind has become nothing but indistinct images and fear, fear, fear; the time for words is long past them now.

Gentle, he wraps an arm over her shoulders and tucks her safely into his side, shielding her from the dim light in the galley. She only cries harder, hysterical. And though she burrows herself against him, tangles her small hands tight in his shawl, shakes until she must be exhausted, she doesn't settle. A soothing hand over her back doesn't ease the panic. Careful rocking doesn't quiet the racing thoughts. He mumbles indistinct reassurances, but she continues on undeterred.

Brakken doesn't intent to pry, but after nearly half an hour even his stubborn best intention to not overstep any boundaries has been tested beyond his considerable patience. *(A quiet copse of trees in an autumn-turned forest, leaves gently drifting on a cool breeze.)* The quaking begins to slow. *(Sun-kissed flowers on a summer afternoon, laying on sweet-smelling grass.)* The sobs trickle into hiccups, quiet attempts to catch her breath. *(The scent of books in an old library, reading by the fire in the glow of warm candlelight.)* Exhaustion has replaced the high strung anxiety, and she slumps where she leans against him.

*(The same redheaded woman, brushing fingers through rich green curls, laughing softly as she tucks a blanket over the both of them.)*

Hoya fights the pull of sleep every step of the way, forcing his hand. Reintroducing thoughts he has picked up from someone before is sloppy, heavy-handed suggestion: a dirty trick, Brakken might even say. But when the images of her wife finally smoothe the gnome's jumbled thoughts into a mind quiet with sleep, he can't help the sigh of relief. Just for a little while, he tells himself, he'll continue to blanket her with soothing thoughts. Long enough for her mind to settle itself. For rest to replace the exhaustion leaving her wrung-out, nearly insensate with fatigue.

Just a little while.