Adelaide, what were you going to be able to do about it when I wasn't there? Telling you it was worse would only be another thing that you'd worry about on your kind of huge list of things you already worry about - like rituals, for example. I didn't see the point in making a big deal out of it.
( Ah. Her sigh is sympathetic. )
You'll figure it out. Maybe... not planning for it to not work will help, though. Hope is kind of a potent thing.
Record your symptoms, gauge your pain, prepare for your arrival so I have more on hand than some mild painkillers for your previous discomfort rather than your current. Information is everything, Red. Withholding it from your physician is foolish and you are smart enough to know you should have called.
[ Such anger, such disappointment. ]
Hope, the spirit itself aside- is a thief. It borrows time and effort better spent on planning or executing what must be done. Had I not planned for the possibility of failure, I would be dead, not singed.
( She was not prepared for the anger. Maybe, all things considered, she should have been. It takes her a second to find her words. )
I'm sorry, okay, I get it. I screwed up. ( Muttered in a breath, ) Big surprise.
( And that is a decidedly horrible thing to say, on two levels. ) Hope doesn't mean you aren't careful, it just—
( Nothing she says seems like it'll be convincing in the wake of being very ready to die in the Fade, and the realisation makes her deflate. ) Hope is what makes us keep going at all. If you didn't hope then you wouldn't keep trying.
This is an ideological debate better saved for when you aren't in pain and attempting to climb a mountain.
[ Hope is-
You don't have hope, you have theories. You work, you study, you test, you prove. Hope is a fickle, fragile thing that Adelaide held in her hands when she started this mess but after each failure it'd seemed wisest to let go rather than clench her hands and risk shattering it. ]
Cautious optimism is, I suppose, better than blind optimism.
( Somehow — somehow — her tone is not hideously flippant, it's just as casual as she can make it when her hand feels like it is being held in a pit of coals. )
I don't know, maybe I'm being blindly optimistic trying to climb a mountain. I could fall to my death, or get lost, or I could get eaten by a bear.
( She is not being entirely reasonable, but she is trying to be... well, the optimist. Sort of. Unseen, she scrunches up her face as she runs that back through her head. )
[ The sooner she is able to tend to Red, the better- and while there is a wry bite to her tone, and while Adelaide remains annoyed by Red's not reporting this in-
She does not take the bite personally. People in pain lash out- more so when they are picked at. As she has a shit bedside manner Adelaide is more than a little familiar with such things. ]
Swooped up by a dragon, lost in an avalanche, catch a cold, robbed by bandits, mauled by wolves- well. Actually I think you would be able to handle bandits and wolves quite well- Yes I need one saddled, no I don't care which, yes it is an emergency-
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crystal;
( she should stop talking, probably.
more seriously, though— )
Singed?
crystal;
[ Wound up (as though that takes much work at all) she leaves her table in the library to start down the stairs, heading for the stables. ]
The ritual did not go as planned. Or rather it did not go as planned, which I planned for, so in that sense it went exactly a planned.
crystal;
Adelaide, what were you going to be able to do about it when I wasn't there? Telling you it was worse would only be another thing that you'd worry about on your kind of huge list of things you already worry about - like rituals, for example. I didn't see the point in making a big deal out of it.
( Ah. Her sigh is sympathetic. )
You'll figure it out. Maybe... not planning for it to not work will help, though. Hope is kind of a potent thing.
crystal;
[ Such anger, such disappointment. ]
Hope, the spirit itself aside- is a thief. It borrows time and effort better spent on planning or executing what must be done. Had I not planned for the possibility of failure, I would be dead, not singed.
crystal;
I'm sorry, okay, I get it. I screwed up. ( Muttered in a breath, ) Big surprise.
( And that is a decidedly horrible thing to say, on two levels. ) Hope doesn't mean you aren't careful, it just—
( Nothing she says seems like it'll be convincing in the wake of being very ready to die in the Fade, and the realisation makes her deflate. ) Hope is what makes us keep going at all. If you didn't hope then you wouldn't keep trying.
crystal;
[ Hope is-
You don't have hope, you have theories. You work, you study, you test, you prove. Hope is a fickle, fragile thing that Adelaide held in her hands when she started this mess but after each failure it'd seemed wisest to let go rather than clench her hands and risk shattering it. ]
Cautious optimism is, I suppose, better than blind optimism.
crystal;
I don't know, maybe I'm being blindly optimistic trying to climb a mountain. I could fall to my death, or get lost, or I could get eaten by a bear.
( She is not being entirely reasonable, but she is trying to be... well, the optimist. Sort of. Unseen, she scrunches up her face as she runs that back through her head. )
That didn't make any sense.
crystal;
[ The sooner she is able to tend to Red, the better- and while there is a wry bite to her tone, and while Adelaide remains annoyed by Red's not reporting this in-
She does not take the bite personally. People in pain lash out- more so when they are picked at. As she has a shit bedside manner Adelaide is more than a little familiar with such things. ]
Swooped up by a dragon, lost in an avalanche, catch a cold, robbed by bandits, mauled by wolves- well. Actually I think you would be able to handle bandits and wolves quite well- Yes I need one saddled, no I don't care which, yes it is an emergency-
crystal;
( ha ha ha she's hilarious )
Wolves do tend to like me. I'm the alpha. ( Is she joking or being serious? A mystery. Dryly: ) I could also fall off a horse and get trampled.
( Helpful, Ruby. )
crystal;
[ Yes she knows how to ride, no she does not need assistance, get out of the way-
The sounds of mounting up, the jangle of the reigns, and a curt order to run for the love of the maker covers whatever else she might have to say. ]