infreefall | redacted ★ claude

... Are you?

(Can you?? Feel hunger if you lose your sense of touch???)

[ this is an excellent question that i did not consider until this very moment. neither did ochako, apparently? it's caught her by surprise. ]

No...? [ why does she sound so unsure. ] But I guess I didn't really think about it before I left the inn this morning... Elsa-san's usually the one who reminds me about breakfast.

Then let's get something to eat later, too.

(And to the first aid station they arrive! He'll set her down and begin to rummage around for some supplies. Bandages, alcohol, cotton swabs, the like. When he returns, he kneels down in front of her with his collection beside him,)

Let me see.

[ oh no... she doesn't answer that, focusing instead on gently patting her cheeks to convince them to stop blushing. or maybe she should... hm. ]

Would it be easier if I took the bandages off? It... looks pretty close.

[ the arrow is a little higher than her old injury, but close enough that they might get in the way...? she'll unwrap them herself if it'll help, trying carefully to avoid the arrow. ]

Yeah, we can switch those out, too while we're at it.

(He opens one bottle, giving it a sniff just to make sure it's what he thinks it is-- alcohol-- and soaks at some cotton to dab around the injury. It probably doesn't sting, does it? He doesn't really bother to look up at her face to see, instead, focusing on the injury itself,)

Usually, I would say this stings. (His bedside manner isn't totally nonexistent, he just isn't wasting his time when Ochako can't feel anything. Paying mind to it would only fluster her more, wouldn't it?) But I don't think it matters now.

(And once the area around the wound is cleaned and the arrow itself is quickly wiped down, he puts one hand down on her leg, alcohol soaked gauze under his fingers and holding her leg in place firmly. The other hand grips for the base of the arrow,)

Relax. Even if you can't feel, you might still react.

(He might end up kicked in the face!! And we wouldn't want to damage that, would we?

He shifts position, aligning himself with the path of the arrow and... he pulls. Quickly, swiftly, and hard. Tossing the arrow on the ground next to him and covers the now open injury, applying pressure,)

Hold it in place. (So he can get everything else ready,) Keep the pressure on it.

(He's done this before.)

[ she does react, but alas, not to kick claude in the face, but only to flinch at the sight. still unused to the sight of blood, her hands shake a little as she moves to press down on the wound. ]

Y-You've done this a lot, huh? Wouldn't think archers are supposed to help the people they shoot.

[ is that supposed to be a joke, ochako. ]

Yeah.

(He's done this a few times, one could say,)

We don't. (His answer is honest, a fact.) If I shoot you? I'm most likely not going to help you.

(While she has her hand down, he frees his own and begins to rummage through the gauze, the alcohol, and the bandages, getting things ready for a fresh application, )

That doesn't mean we don't get shot at, though. If a healer isn't around-- or if the healer is the one that's been hit-- we need to know how to take care of ourselves and each other.

(He leans in to take over for Ochako now, to switch out the cotton for a clean dressing,)

Everyone learns basic first aid.

(Before they go into a real battle.)

Oh...

[ it seems like such an obvious thing. somehow, though, it had never even occurred to ochako before coming to a place like this, where there are no healing quirks to fix them all right up. ]

That's... smart. I wonder why they don't teach us that.

[ recovery girl can't always be there to kiss away their injuries. ]

Aren't you a fighter? Or some sort of tactician?

(He remembers her profile. The same way he's committed most of them to memory. He sounds surprised... something like this seems so obvious and natural to him, he can't imagine sending someone into a fight without at least some basic idea of what to do if they or a comrade get hurt.

But he shrugs,)

I learned at school.

(And before that, too. But that isn't important.)

I'm not that good at it yet...

[ the profile makes her sound more skilled than she is, ochako thinks. ]

I only know a little, but even support heroes have to know how to fight. But it's the people with healing quirks that do all of the first aid stuff, I think. It's never came up in any of my classes.

(Finishing cleaning up that wound now and wrapping it up nice and tight. Not too tight, though. What does he look like? Dimitri?)

Like... a healing talent? (That's what a quirk is, right?) And you went to school to be a hero?

[ he has much better hair than dimitri, it's very unfortunate. ]

Quirks are like superpowers, or... magic, for some people, I guess. Almost everyone in my world has one, and they're unique to each person.

[ she laughs, a little sheepish as she flexes her leg to test the movement. ]

I guess heroes really aren't that common for most people here, huh? It's normal for me, though. A lot of people want to be heroes, and they have to make sure we're all trained well enough for it, so... we go to hero school.

Well, we have heroes back in Fodlan. Famous knights, great kings, wise sages... those kind of things. Some of them use magic but others use normal weapons.

(So the idea of a hero... isn't a strange one.)

Actually, I'm the great grandson of the grandson of the grandson of a pretty famous hero.

(Or something like that. He doesn't really keep count. It's been something like over a thousand years. He's also going to start cleaning up the area around him, gathering up a few things in a nice little pile next to him as he continues speaking,)

I guess that's why I go to school too. (Since its' that heroic blood that gives him a sort of divine right to rule... and as a future leader of Fodlan, he's expected to attend the academy.) So what you can do? You said everyone has something special where you're from.

...You go to school just because you're the... [ wait how many grandsons was that? uhhhh ] ...descendant of a hero? You wouldn't have gone, otherwise?

[ sounds like a weird system?? but okay. she'll just get up and help clean, then, since she's the cause of the mess, anyway. ]

My quirk is called Zero Gravity. When I activate it, I can remove the gravity of anything I can touch and make things float instead. See?

[ when she has a free hand, she'll show claude her hand, palm up. finger pads! ]

Yup.

(He sure does. And maybe he'll explain it later but for now, he's more interested in Ochako's power,)

Huh. (He leans in to look and notices! Wow, strange! Nothing wrong with it... but interesting!) Like... gravity magic?

(Maybe? He's never seen it and it's all sort of just higher theory stuff that he doesn't really get. He's got an open mind though! So he's trying to understand,)

Is there a limit?

(A weight limit? A time limit?)

[ she's making a mental note to ask more about that, because it doesn't make any sense to her? but for now, the distraction is okay.

...even if she does flush a little and look away. ]

I guess so, but I've never seen gravity magic. The limit's just however much I can handle before I get sick, though. Right now... I think I'm up to about six tonnes?

Six tonnes? That's incredible!

(Truly. He seems genuinely impressed by this and just... delighted by this?)

Well... not the becoming sick part. But I bet you can do all sorts of incredible things with that kind of power. You could carry anything! Fly? Well... I suppose it would be more like levitation?

(Think! About! The possibilities! Except she doesn't have to because... well, they're her powers.)

[ she seems... surprised? by this? ]

Yeah, I can make myself float, but it's pretty hard. It messes with your balance a lot, and if you aren't used to freefall, it's pretty disorienting, so I don't use it on myself that much. I catch other people with it a lot?. But mostly it just means moving things so I can help rescue people, or dropping things on someone I'm fighting.

(Why not be surprised when it's so cool!!)

I'd love to see it some time. (Which sounds so impossible when--) I know powers don't seem to work here... but if there's ever a chance, I'd like to.

...Actually, mine did work, for a little while - when we were stuck in that disturbance a few weeks ago. It stopped again once we got back, but that means our abilities can still work sometimes.

[ not. that it helps now, she supposes. ]

I wouldn't mind showing you, though, when it's working again.

Then maybe they'll come back for good some day.

(Ah, but as soon as he says that he frowns,)

It might make things more complicated though...

(Because. Murder.)

That's true... But if someone was found under a pile of rocks, you'd know it was probably me.

[ that's. a terrible joke. ]

I wouldn't be so sure.

(He's going along with this joke. Also he's going to hand Ochako some supplies! Gauze, bandages, anti-septic, some painkillers?? He's not so sure about those.)

Here. You can take care of yourself from here, right? Keep it clean and covered and if you regain your feeling, you can take these. I'm not too familiar with them but it looks like there are instructions.

[ she'll take them, but... ]

You don't have painkillers where you're from?

Not like this. Usually they're some sort of powder or elixir... something more natural from an apothecary.

(That sure is an old word.)

Or if you're in luck, you can find a healer who can take care of the pain and injury with magic.

redacted ★ claude

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