World Tree MUSH

    After the nightmare of the Sumeragi facility, zombies, Elise, and Copen, Rydia's wild flying panic meant that there was no lingering. As soon as she could call the chocobos, people loaded up, and made way right back for Kaipo.
    Kaipo is a little desert gem, an oasis village built up around the cool clear waters of a lake that provides nourishment and life for small patches of greenery in the desert. But beyond this... Kaipo is nowhere. It's only redeeming quality is its proximity to Damcyan, and that's it.
    Retreating back to the inn for the night all that was left was to calm down, regroup, and recuperate. Something that has not been so easy for some, moreso than others.
    Rydia locked herself in her room and refused to come out all night. The next morning though, the green-haired girl was up and about. ... And checking on the others, judging by the knock on the door to the room provided for one of the offworld visitors that have been quite prevalent to the little desert town, of late.

    Thanks to Cecil, the wound wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. And the bullet, thankfully, did not lodge in the wound. But it still marks the first time Yumi Tachibana has suffered serious injury. And while she was still conscious and technically capable of movement when Whyt grabbed her, she was very grateful for the dragon doing the heavy lifting. She spent the whole trip trying not to focus on being overwhelmed by pain.

    "Come in," the girl calls out when Rydia knocks. When the door opens, it is immediately very obvious that she is not enjoying her second trip to Kaipo. She's sitting in bed, but with her back against the wall, and a look on her face that is both very tense and utterly exhausted. She must not have slept. And yet, the older girl is still trying to put on a warm expression for Rydia.

    Cecil has his merits. They're usually 'feeling bad for himself', 'beating himself up' and 'getting in the way of attacks for other people without thinking'. He's good like that, but it's not him that's knocking on the door. At the call to come in the door opens up just a crack, one jade eye peeking in first before the door opens more fully.
    "Hi."
    Rydia has recovered enough for that, but it looks like she's not just checking in for a social call, considering the basket of medical supplies held in her arms. "I was just... Coming in to check up on you. After last night." The girl murmurs softly.

    "Hello," Yumi greets. The expression gets a little more natural. She's genuinely glad to see the young summoner up and about. "That's kind of you. Thanks." She hasn't missed the medical supplies. And there's no way in hell she'd use the bandage that... that person left behind. "I've never been shot before. At least, I don't /think/ I have. It hurts a little more than I expected." She sits up a bit more on the bed - a movement that comes with a little wince of pain. "What about you, how are you doing?" He shot at her, too, after all. And she was pretty upset last night in general.

    "I'd never seen a weapon like that before." Rydia says. "I'd only heard of it from Zelda. And I've seen what it can do." She adds soberly as an afterthought. The door shuts quietly behind her as she makes her way for the bed and pulls up a seat. "Let me see it." The wound she means, deciding to just get to the heart of the matter and deal with it before she loses her nerve to do anything thanks to the terror still fresh in her mind from the night before.
    "I'm fine." Rydia's answer is somewhat guarded; not quite true and she's not doing a good job of hiding it as she settles in. "He missed me because of Whyt, so I didn't get hurt." Physically anyway. "... Sorry we had to properly meet under these circumstances."

    Carefully, Yumi peels away the cloth she'd been using to staunch the bleeding. All things considered, it could be a lot worse than it is, but it's still a fairly solid wound. "He... he's the one who did that to her, isn't he?" the redhead asks, her expression growing troubled. Hardening a little. "I don't... I don't know what he had against that girl we ran into. But whatever it is, if he thinks you and Zelda are sinners, he's wrong. Five minutes with either of you is enough to tell." It's bothering her. Maybe more than the gunshot. There's a pause, and then a faint, self-effacing smile. "Jeez, if anything, I should be the one apologizing. I don't have magic or cool weapons or anything, and here I am, making everyone look after me."

    Lips purse and Rydia scrunches her nose at the sight of the wound revealed to her. It could have been worse, certainly, but just seeing it as is brings back vivid flashing, nightmarish, memories of similar wounds on the Hylian princess. Rydia shakes the thoughts from her head.
    "He hates people with magic." She explains. "Zelda told me. I didn't think I'd meet him but..." But she did. And the burning hate in those eyes shook her to her very core. The child blows an errant shock of green hair out of her eyes. "Thank you." She does manage to the consolation. She is not a sinner. "It's just. Magic is so common here, I didn't think there would ever be a kind of person who would be like that. I guess I'm learning a lot, very fast." Said as she sets to her first task. She has water and clean cloth, and the first thing she seems intent on doing is re-cleaning the wound, dabbing very delicately. "Sorry, this is probably going to be uncomfortable for a bit." She does warn, before shaking her head. "You helped out a lot, too. Cecil and I would never have been able to figure out those... Com...puters?" She ventures, faltering on the word as though making sure she was getting it right.

    Frown. /Frown/. "Someone like that is..." Yumi shakes her head. "I can't understand it. That blind hate. Especially for someone like you." Her fingers curl a little - then there's a soft hiss as her shoulder protests at the tensing of muscles. "Just... don't take it personally, okay? You're a good kid." And one that's having to deal with a lot more than she should, Yumi muses... never quite realizing the irony in her own thoughts. There's another little hiss as the cleaning starts, but the orange-haired girl just squeezes down on the cloth in her hand again.

    For lack of anything else to focus on, Yumi latches onto the topic Rydia just mentioned. "Computers, yes. They're sort of... like convenience machines, and entertainment machines, and research machines all in one. On worlds that have global networks, you can-" She winces briefly, but soldiers on. "-look up just about anything people know about anything. They're also good for playing games, watching shows, reading..." A little shake of her head. "I'm kinda rambling. I could teach you how to use one some time. They're made for just about anyone to use, so the basics are pretty easy."

    "I don't get it, either." Rydia agrees. "Magic has always been a part of my life. I'm still a little unsure how other places can manage without it. Or why anyone could hate it like that." Rydia says, pausing at the hiss before she resumes. Her touch is gentle, careful. She's had to tend to wounds like this before, it looks like. But once the cleaning is done she... Doesn't go for the fresh bandages just yet. "Convenience machines..." Murmured thoughtfully as she furrows her brow, trying to imagine it. "Maybe." She decides on the topic of learning a computer. 
    Right now though there are more important things, as she sets her hand over the wound directly. "This might feel a little funny if you've never had it done before." The child points out, funnelling her magic into her palm. It's a warm sensation. And it's not much, but she starts the mending process right then and there with some carefully applied White Magic. "I can't risk pulling out whatever's inside there without hurting you more. Sorry I'm not as good as this as a real White Mage. I just learned a little from my mom."

    "Without magic..." Yumi thinks for a moment, then smiles. "Humans are really adaptable, you know. If we don't have a way to control our environment, we figure it out. Worlds without magic, they just put everything into science instead. If you can understand how the world works, even down to the tiniest level, you can change it like that instead."

    She falls silent while the healing magic starts, and then the strange sensation gets a little shiver out of her. "Oh, that... that really does feel weird." But then she shakes her head. "It's alright, I think the bullet went right through. There's nothing in there that I could find." Wait, she checked her own wound over? Girl's got nerves of steel. "Thank you, though. I don't know how I'd explain a bullet wound when I got home." Already, relief is sprading across her face as the pain dulls.

    "You checked it, yourself?" Even Rydia sounds surprised by that one, wincing involuntarily at the thought. "What kind of horrible weapon was that- that can go through platemail, the man inside it, and on through to the next person." She huffs. Adaptable though. "Mn, I suppose." She concedes.
    "That's still going probably to leave a scar." She does warn. "It wouldn't if I was any better at this, but you're going to have to make do and might want to work on an explanation anyway." She gives the forewarning, pulling her hand away. It's already looking better now, though like she said, it's not a perfect patch job. The rest is on Yumi's healing ability, as Rydia starts to unravel a fresh bandage. "Let's get you wrapped up."
    A girl her age really shouldn't have this kind of knowledge, but she does.

    Yumi's smile grows a little more bitter. "Guns? They're the kind of weapon science produces. I don't know if his gun was something different, but a normal one... it just shoots a little shaped piece of metal, but it uses a small charge of explosive powder to do it, so the bullet is usually going faster than the speed of sound. It takes a different design of armor to stop a bullet, just a sheet of metal won't do it." With the healing finished, Yumi rolls her shoulder experimentally. That's already much better. She can pretend normalcy, at least. "It's alright, I won't have to worry about the explanation. There's no one who'd know I didn't have it before anyway." She carefully shifts herself forward, where it's easier for Rydia to do her work.

    A weapon that can launch something faster than sound... "I didn't know sound had a speed." The girl admits. It's not exactly something one learns in a backwoods town where people bend magical creatures to their will. Still, she starts wrapping the bandage snugly around Yumi's shoulder. "This shouldn't take much longer." Added as Yumi makes her life easy by being a good patient. "I'll have to see to Cecil after this." Murmured thoughtfully, before shaking her head out. "The both of you, I swear... Jumping in the way like that..."

    That just gets a guilty look out of poor Yumi. "I... I dunno. I'd say I didn't think twice about it, but really I don't think I even thought once about it. Once I realized what he was doing, my body just... I couldn't get out of the way. I couldn't let him. It was automatic." She does frown a little. "...people keep getting hurt, powerful people fighting powerful people, and I'm over here just... normal. Nothing I can do to protect them. But my heart is screaming that I should. That I have to find some way to help." And that really /does/ bother her.

    There. The bandage is done. One little knot, and Rydia has completed her task of tending to the off-world guest. It wasn't the best healing the Blue Planet had to offer, but without a White Mage, it would have to do. But something Yumi says makes Rydia tense.
    It was automatic.
    Her heart was screaming that she should.
    Rydia's hands ball into fists as she trembles in her seat. 
    "Why...?" She whispers.
    Cecil is self-sacrificing on bad levels. Zelda borderline suicidal with it. And now Yumi- a third person in Rydia's expanding pool of barely-known social acquaintances says that she was just reacting in the moment without thought.
    "You could have been killed. Cecil could have died." That girl /definitely/ would have. One hand comes up and Rydia is rubbing at her face. Once again she finds herself with one same horrible thought turning over and over in her mind.
    In this world... Bad things happen to good people...
    "Why is everyone so quick to try and throw away their lives?"

    The way Rydia puts it... that earns a wince from Yumi. But after a second or two, the older girl's arm - her left arm, the injured arm - comes up to rest on the young summoner's shoulder. "Don't think of it like that. We're choosing what's important to us. We're choosing to protect it. If I'd just stood by and watched that insane man shoot a defenseless, cowering girl, it'd haunt me for the rest of my life. I can't just let something like that happen to someone. I wish I knew why I feel this way. I wish I knew what happened to me in my life to make me want to protect people so badly. But I don't think it's wrong. I mean..." There's a soft chuckle. "I guess we were wrong about the girl, but we didn't know that until after he shot us anyway. In the moment, that girl needed someone to protect her."

    A shivery breath and Rydia tenses under the contact of that arm. Though she lets it remain there for a time, eventually she eases herself away. "I'm just tired. Don't think about it." Muttered as she starts for the door, to let Yumi rest properly.
    Yes, she is tired. Tired of seeing people get hurt.