ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Arrows

Vignette - Arrows
Dramatis Personae Isra, Khalida
In Absentia	2014-02-13 Khalida frets; Isra makes it worse.
Location <NYC> Khalid's Flat - Morningside Heights
"So far, so good." Khalida tapes down the edges of the wound dressing, smoothing over the cloth tape against the gray skin of Isra's chest with the pads of her fingers. "Insha'Allah, we'll have these bandages off soon enough. You've always healed quickly, but do go easy on yourself for a while, please." Isra only nods. She perches on the exam chair--custom ordered from who knows where--bare from the waist up, and hardly moving a muscle. Other than breathing and the slow involuntary sway of her tail behind the chair, the the only motion she exhibits is a occasional drift of her gaze to the window. Though Khalida had drawn the roman shade down over venetian blinds, some wan winter sunlight still finds its way around the edges and wreathed the window in a soft, rectangular halo. "I really do wish you'd consider moving out of the City," Khalida says, checking the bandage on her patient's arm, as well. "It's not particularly convenient to your work, and it /clearly/ isn't safe. We could find you a flat in Westchester if you don't like living out of a dorm room." "There truly is little point in my maintaining an apartment near Columbia anymore, but I do not expect I will quit the City so easily." Isra tugs her wrap tunic back on, nearly upsetting the sphygmomanometer stand with an errant wing. She rights it nonchalantly with the same wing. "Safe or not, I have developed certain /attachments/ here." "I'm sure your friends do not like you getting shot full of arrows--" "--it was /one/ arrow." Isra folds her wings down tight again. "And my friends are in as much danger as I." "That is a terrifying thought, considering how often I see you injured." Khalida strips off her nitrile exam gloves. "First flying, then martial arts, now this..." "That is the price of living free, and I'd not trade it for the relative safety of hiding even if I could." Isra stands up, careful to extract her tail without knocking anything over. "Ah, and one more thing. I thought you should know that..." She hesitates, picking up her tote. "I have become sexually active." Khalida drops the pen she had just retrieved to scribble some note or another on a legal pad. "What?!" She looks up, brown eyes wide beneath the brim of the cheerful pink khimar wrapped around her head. "But who..." "...would want a freak like me?" Neither anger nor sarcasm mars Isra's voice, but the lower register does grow louder. "Other freaks, I suppose." "Habibti, you're not a /freak/." Khalida takes one step toward Isra, lifting a hand as if to touch her, but then dropping it. Isra, with inhuman swiftness, catches her doctor's hand and wraps in it her long, talon-tipped fingers. "But I /am/. For the first time in my life, I love it; and I love him." Khalida squeezes her hand back, but does not sound mollified in the least. "I am happy for you. I truly am. But I am also concerned. You have gone through so much." Her eyes flit up, toward Isra's horns, and she hastily adds, "I don't just mean those changes. The outbreak, the quarantine...you almost died! And you've seen your blood work; we don't even know how to interpret what your hormones are doing. Maybe this isn't the best time to--" "If not now, when?" The alto part of Isra's voice drops out as it is wont to when she speaks softly, leaving only the deep, rumbling bass. She brings her other hand up to clasp Khalida's. "I know you worry, as Father and Mother must, too. However, I am not a child, and I will decide for myself what risks are worthwhile. You cannot protect me from that." She pulls her hands away gently. "I love you, Khalida, but I want to live my own life, with my own people." "I love you, too." Khalida's eyes glisten, but she blinks them clear with a faint smile. "Sometimes I forget, you are your mother's daughter." "If we lived in a more rational world, I might be /your/ daughter, too." Isra shoulders her tote and turns toward the door, wings tucked around her body like a cloak. She pauses at the threshold and looks back. "His name is Dusk."