The Famished Ascetic

RE: (OPEN) The Famished Ascetic

Wei exhaled as he felt weight being put on his staff, and noted that there was less of it than there was before. He was grateful for that, because he knew he wouldn't be able to handle all of his weight like he did before. Every atom in his body only wanted to run away, but if he actually did run and left someone who very clearly needed help, he would never be able to forgive himself. He'd throw himself into the ocean and drift until he washed up somewhere else or died.

"Well yeah," he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world, taking a careful step to test his footing and balance, before starting up his normal walking pace again. Or as close to his normal walking pace has he felt he could get with a severely weakened man on the other end of his staff. "If you wanted me dead you would have had several different opportunities to do it. If I'm not dead yet, I don't think you'll be the thing that kills me."

Once he'd said his piece, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, pulling him along towards the infirmary. He hung left on the path as he'd been told, following Hari's directions. As he walked, he took deep breaths, calming his nerves and trying to fight off the onset of lightheadedness that came from his blood still pooling in his extremities.

RE: (OPEN) The Famished Ascetic

It took almost their whole trudge down the path, but Wei finally got his heart to stop beating so hard, and the blood returned to his head. He had to blink a could of times to get rid of the overbearing amount of white that had seeped into his hazy vision, but now he was more or less back to normal, and he couldn't believe that he had actually considered, seriously, leaving someone on the brink of death to save his own skin. His mother would be ashamed.

Hearing him mention something about baking, his ear perked up. "I like bananas!" he said, his voice cheery and light. "I also like carrots. And bugs, but only the crunchy ones." Color rushed to his cheeks when he remembered that eating bugs wasn't something that people-people did. It was something that monkey-people did that they got from plain old monkeys. "Ah, but don't tell anyone I said that! Apparently that's just a monkey thing and people look at me weird if I say I eat bugs!"

Finally, they came to the stairs. It would be easy to get him up stairs, but going down would probably prove to be more difficult.

"I have an idea. Wait here." Wei slowly lowered Hari to the ground and hopped down the steps, standing at the bottom of the landing. He spread his feet and held the staff up towards Hari. He took a deeo breath and muttered something as his staff elongated back up towards the weakened man. "Climb on!" Once he was on, the staff began to shorten back it its normal length.

RE: (OPEN) The Famished Ascetic

Wei gasped when he mentioned banana bread. He had no idea what that was, but considering that it had banana in the name, and also bread, he assumed that it was some kind of tasty bread-banana amalgamation. And bananas added to anything sounded like the tastiest thing he'd ever thought of. The idea of a carrot cake was less appealing though. He couldn't imagine carrots and cake coming together in a way that would even close to tasty.

But banana bread...

"Banana bread sounds tasty! Is it like... bread with bananas in it? Or is it... bananas with breadcrumbs?"

Once Hari was on the ground, he propped his staff on his shoulder and waited for him to get oriented again before continuing on their way. Pulling him along, Wei walked him to building he claimed to be the infirmary, opening the door with as much flair as he could muster. As soon as his nose smelled the sterile cleanliness of the infirmary, he because aware of how much his muscles were aching. He felt like he could flop bonelessly on the floor at that second.

"Well... here we are," he said, glancing over his shoulder.

The thought of bread that tasted like bananas sounded much more delicious than the idea that he had, which was a full banana, peel and all, stuck through the middle of a normal loaf of bread. While he didn't doubt that that would be delicious because everything with bananas was delicious, perhaps bread that simply tasted like bananas would be much more logical.

Once he saw Hari leaning against the counter talking to the nice lady (at least she looked nice, he didn't think Hari would talk to her if she wasn't nice, but then again he had to talk to her to get to talk to the doctors who would help him not die, so maybe she wasn't nice) he let exhaustion take over, flopping back onto the ground bonelessly, his shoulders and arms aching from physical exhaustion. He could feel the muscles in his legs seizing, clenching and unclenching in a way that was half painful and half absolutely agonizing.

He looked up when he thought Hari was talking to him and gave him a half smile. Gods, even the muscles in his face hurt. "That's… good. I'm… glad. I'll be right here. Probably." He said from the floor. Wei couldn't even think about making a fist or picking up his staff or walking without some part of him screaming in protest.

Wei started to bend his legs and arms experimentally, and grit his teeth as pain shot through his arm. "I guess it's a good thing I'm here," he muttered to himself. The pain he was feeling wasn't totally alien to him--he'd felt it before when he over-exerted himself when he had fun or played sports. He'd probably strained his muscles while helping Hari.

All he needed was ice. And his mom often made him consume a thick pulpy soup with white flowers in which killed the pain and put him to sleep in a matter of minutes. He thought he saw some growing in the corners of the sports field. He was sure they wouldn't mind if he just borrowed some.

Wei, from his place on the ground, shook his head. He could tell that something was wrong. His arm hurt in the familiar achy way that told him that all he really needed was to stretch and take it easy for a couple of days, but there was something about his left leg that didn't sit right. He couldn't really bend it, and he got the impression that if he tried to stand up then he would immediately collapse and start crying.

Still, he didn't want to inconvenience someone who just went through a near death experience, and he didn't want to stay in the infirmary period. It smelled sterile and dead and nothing about it was pleasant. He thought he would feel much better curled up in his dorm, under the familiar scent of his blankets.

Though, he would have a hard time convincing Hari of that.

"I'm fine!" he said, shooting him a toothy smile. "I'm just tired. All I need is a couple of minutes and I'll be on my way back home."