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Post by demikara on Oct 6, 2019 17:04:24 GMT -6
Still with her arm in a sling, she made her way through the security measures until she was finally in the visitors' room so she could see her friend. It had been entirely too long, and she hadn't been able to do more than write and receive letters and phone calls. She still had to take it easy of course, but visiting her friend was not pushing her. She was eager to see her again.
Hopefully she hadn't got into too much trouble for the one phone call. It didn't seem like it, but that was always possible.
She stood and paced, waiting impatiently for the other woman to arrive.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 6, 2019 18:09:29 GMT -6
In the visits with the prosecutors and the other officials who'd all come to see the old woman with their own agendas, the guards on duty had learned it was most efficient when escorting her in to take her by the arm so she had someone to lean against for balance as she walked. Her steps were slow but less uncertain and halting, sending pain spiking through her knees each time either of her heels came down on the ground. She kept her jaw tight, eyes up to see Aerilyn as she came around the corner, at least now better able to manage her pace so she neither tripped over the leg irons nor had to painfully shuffle forward to attempt to reduce some of the pain in her hips and knees. The bruising on her face had almost entirely faded now, but the flesh where her ear had been was now unbandaged and knotted into a thick ugly scar furled about the side of her cheek and fading into her hairline.
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Post by demikara on Oct 6, 2019 18:13:51 GMT -6
Aerilyn smiled brightly at the sight of her friend and greeted her with a hug. "You look better." There was no bruising now. She was moving a little slow still, but it didn't look as painful at least, though it did look like it hurt still."I'm so glad I get to see you again. The hospital was terrible." She would gladly tell the other all about it, though she had already said quite a lot in her letters.
She had been glad that she had thought of writing the letters at all. Aerilyn took another look over and hugged her again, ignoring the guard entirely. By now, they certainly would recognize her, even if it had been a few weeks.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 6, 2019 18:36:47 GMT -6
"I'd hardly say so," said Drulović, smiling wanly. The guard escorting her helped her into the seat on the inmate's side of the room, and she took a moment to readjust her position until she felt as comfortable as she would be able to manage in the hard-backed chairs. "I've seen myself in the mirror, and I think I look rather miserable and wretched." She still looked more thin than usual, the bones of her cheeks noticeably prominent in a way they usually did not appear. "You're hardly the spitting image of health, but I can't say I'm surprised with what you've been telling me in your letters from that dreadful place. I'm glad to see you outside a hospital; I've always hated those places, you know." The old woman's smile had faded into her usual impassive expression, inflected with pain. They had at least finally prescribed something a bit stronger than Advil.
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Post by demikara on Oct 6, 2019 18:40:53 GMT -6
She took her seat and managed a smile. "I'm doing better though. Everything still hurts, but I think that's probably true for both of us." By now the other at least had her meds now. That was a comfort to Aerilyn. "And you eating enough? You're getting thin." She was usually thin, but not so thin that her cheek bones stuck out quite like that. She wouldn't be surprised if there was no consideration given to Arianne's diet, or her needs given the missing teerh.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 6, 2019 19:37:19 GMT -6
Drulović shrugged lightly, her expression revealing little other than physical pain. "I've partaken as much as I can during mealtimes, but I'm afraid I have no words of praise for what they like to serve and pass for dinner here. Frankly, I'd be ashamed were I required to offer this kind of so-called food to any guests eating and sleeping under my roof, and they ought to be so." The old woman's eyebrows arched in that imperious look she liked to affect around the politicians, the better to convey precisely how little she thought of them. "I trust you've had better to eat and perhaps enjoy while in hospital for your part." The food at Wrentham was passable, certainly better than the fare she'd had in prisons elsewhere in her lifetime, and technically sufficiently nutritious for most humans and closely related species, but Drulović had decided it was all incredibly over salted and otherwise bland and overly processed, only minimally recognizable as something she would have found on the outside. She hadn't been able to eat any of the meat yet either, as it was too sinewy and tough for her to chew any of it. Every few days, she'd gotten up the gumption to try whatever meat they'd dumped on the plate on her tray, only to find that even touching a bite to what remained of her teeth instantly sparking agonizing pain. She could manage the soups on days they had one, and when they'd offered what was labeled as mac and cheese, rice, mashed potatoes, oatmeal, or similarly soft foods, but that was about it.
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Post by demikara on Oct 7, 2019 6:27:18 GMT -6
"Well you do still have to eat. I'll see if I can send you something to eat as well." Something soft. Her teeth still had to hurt. It would be a long time for those to heal enough, if they did. "And hospital food is terribly bland, but otherwise passable. I'm glad to be done with it." She had missed her husband's cooking. Having a meal with him again where it wasn't bland food had been wonderful. "Ahmad sends his love. I'm so sorry about getting you in trouble with the phone call."
She couldn't believe they had been fussy over a phone call in which the two barely said a word to each other. It wasn't witness intimidation at all. She'd gladly keep tearing a new one to the idiots getting between her and her family.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 7, 2019 7:36:11 GMT -6
"It was good for us both, I think, to hear each other's voices, no matter what Ms. Olson's office has to say about it," said Drulović. She propped both elbows on the table, right hand over left to guide it, and brought her hands to rest gently on the table. But for the setting, she almost struck the image of a principal behind the imposing desk prepared to at once scold a child and offer her a bit of wisdom. "It was a small matter, really. One of the prosecutor's staff paid me a visit here with irritating and unnecessary questions, so rudely interrupting the evening hours. I can't say I've enjoyed those visits much." She considered Aerilyn, her own eyes bright but her visage lined with pain and exhaustion. They were alike in too many ways. "I had heard you'd received a visit of that kind for your own enjoyment while in hospital. I'm terribly sorry that you too found your repose interrupted over such a trivial thing."
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Post by demikara on Oct 7, 2019 11:22:01 GMT -6
"I think it was too. I'm afraid I wasn't particularly patient with them when they came. They think you'd be served best with a lawyer to actually make sure your needs are met. Including your food." She pointed out, though she was as gentle as she could be. "I really hope you'll consider it." She knew the other wouldn't. "If only because one might be able to make your stay here a bit more comfortable." Not much more, but even a little bit may help. "I can only do so much by annoying the administrators." Though she definitely did her best.
"But the visit itself went...smoothly." Though she was rather harsh and would double down on her position.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 7, 2019 11:41:50 GMT -6
"I'm glad for that, but more so that you are home with Ahmad," said Drulović. She moved to brush some of her hair from her face, leaning forward and down slightly to do so to avoid fumbling the motion with the handcuffs. Her hair looked a bit better, but did not have the careful preparation she'd managed before Andrade had had his way. She had been able to make it to the showers at least every couple of days by now, and she had figured a strategy for it - carefully walking along the walls, turning the knob for the water, and then sitting, crouching really, on the cracked tiles to let the water wash over her and reduce the risk of another fall. This week so far she had only fallen twice. The old woman knew she probably shouldn't be walking much at all, but what choice did she really have. "As for a lawyer, well, what use would I have for one inflicting their misery onto my life," said Drulović, cupping her hand upward. "I am fine, truly. I have been able to eat and sleep and worry about you recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest," she added, nodding pointedly toward the sling keeping Aerilyn from disturbing the still healing wound area too much. "I can't imagine I have much more to ask for in life. I do have an old friend in the Justice Ministry, and he has always been kind to me. He lost his son many decades ago. I'm afraid I do not think he can do much for me."
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Post by demikara on Oct 7, 2019 11:53:44 GMT -6
"A lawyer would be able to do a bit more." She pointed out. "And you'd possibly get food you could eat and rest that you need. I was shot yes, but you were tortured, Arianne. You need a chance to recover from that." And she wasn't going to get it here. "And you can't be eating too well. You've lost weight since I saw you last." Aerilyn tapped her sling gently. "I'm have gunshot wounds before, though it's bee a long time. I've also been tortured before. I know what's needed to recover and I know you won't get it here."
War was hell. This was rapidly becoming worse. Her friend was hurt and denying herself aid. At least the other had learned to move with the handcuffs, despite how depressing this entire situation was.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 7, 2019 12:28:27 GMT -6
"Yes, and I have been in that position before myself too many times, a particular kind of horror I would not wish even on my worst enemies," said Drulović, her lips drawn into a small frown. "I remember too well the Ustaše's camps at Jasenovac, what privations I suffered in Lipljan, the years wasted on Langara." Her body never stopped reminding her with its phantom pains, memories of torture burned into joints and ligaments and tendons and bones. She'd once seen what her bones looked like on x-ray - they looked like a mosaic with tiny lines from old fractures running every which direction. "I did not remember my arrival at Lipljan, you know, because I'd been shot in the chest, and the UDBA officers simply carried me unconscious there. I had had no chance to see what happened that I might have a memory of it. I did not know where I was when I was finally awake long enough to look about me, and I did not walk again for nearly two years. Our interrogators liked to beat us while they kept us in chains - cowards, of course, tormenting victims who could not fight back at all. One of the security forces officers who'd arrested me - if you can really call it an arrest, to haul away an unconscious and wounded person - told me he'd thought I was dead after they'd shot me and I'd fallen down the stairs, those damned rickety things in that decrepit house where we'd met. I don't imagine I'll ever forget those years." Her face was drawn. She had wanted so much to forget but those ghosts never left her.
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Post by demikara on Oct 8, 2019 10:17:38 GMT -6
Aerilyn fell silent, and let her hand ball into a fist as she shot the guard a nasty look, full of loathing. "They shouldn't be doing this to you. They shouldn't have you penned in like that, not after all you've given for Terra." When was enough? When would they be satisfied with how much they had already taken from her? Would they ever be? She was one of Terr'a heroes and now she was in jail for it. And maybe she deserved it, but they shouldn't just treat her like this.
Of course, that was what this was all about wasn't it? How they treated the old guard.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 8, 2019 10:33:33 GMT -6
The guard in the room, a mid-aged, freckled man with worry lines criss-crossing his face, returned Aerilyn's look with a stony expression of his own. He received those kinds of looks all day long, mostly from inmates, and he had long since stopped reacting to them. It was usually best not to stoke the flames.
The old woman shrugged again, her gaze resting on Aerilyn across from her, her face shrouded in pain. "Perhaps what I have done for Terra has yet to augur reward or praise that may be rightly owed and long past due, but, well, you see for yourself where we now sit, and I do not think present circumstances portend favorably for me." She did not blink, her dark eyes piercing and demanding on their own. "Or perhaps it is right and well that I find myself in what circumstances we now observe about us, because, as you well know, we always reap what it is we have sown. At least I am no longer at Lipljan or on Langara or Hadante. What else can there be for me to suffer now?" She inclined her head. "Well and I thought so many times then that surely I was damned to die in those hellholes. Now, I know I will hasten to my death from this soulless place and go to meet my maker."
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Post by demikara on Oct 9, 2019 16:33:11 GMT -6
Aerilyn's shoulder fell and she placed a hand between them, as close as she dared to get, given all the restrictions. "At least you aren't there." she agreed, quiet. "It could be so much worse." They were lucky. They were so incredibly lucky that she was even as okay as she was, that Terr'as prison system was at least kinder than the other possible ones out there. "We'll be here for you the entire time." She assured her friend. "And...by then, surely, Ahmad will be allowed to see you again." Surely the other would live past the trial.
Aerilyn had so many doubts on that score.
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