The elevator swept down its long shaft, slowing in its decent as it reached the main floor of The New Rydynn Memorial Hospital. Bliss Lovejoy stood next to the young boy that she thought of as her son as the doors to the elevator swept aside, revealing the lobby of The Hospital to her. Bliss stepped through the doors, taking in the room, surveying the scene. Movement across the way, somewhere near the main reception desk. She smiled.
"Hi Terra." Bliss said, recognizing Dr. Terra Lowinn, a researcher with the Union of Medics.
"Hey there Bliss." Terra responded, looking up from the file she had been reading. "What're you two up to?"
"I'm just taking my friend here to get something to eat." Bliss said, giving Keahgann's hand a gentle squeeze and looking down at his innocent face.
"That's great." Terra grinned from Keahgann up to Bliss. "I believe there's something new in the cafeteria tonight. Some kind of vegetable stew. Its..." She paused for a moment, grasping for the right words. "Well, it's. ...Quite, Uh, TASTY." She said at last, for lack of any different word.
Keahgann smiled up to bliss, tugging on her arm towards the cafeteria. "We eat now?"
"Yes, we eat now." The girl said back to him, giving his hand another gentle squeeze and giving into his demanding tugs down the hallway.
Terra turned to a fellow medic who had stepped behind the front desk for a moment to get a chart. "Could you take the desk for a while? I'm going to go enjoy my tea."
The two women made their way down the hall to the Hospital's cafeteria with Keahgann between them.
Abruptly Keahgann tugged on Bliss's sleeve, looking up at her as they walked further into the Hospital.
"What is it Keahg?" Bliss said looking down at her smaller companion.
"She's FAT!" Keahgann said pointing very conspicuously at Dr. Lowinn's swollen stomach.
Bliss and Terra both laughed at Keahgann's statement. "That's because she's going to have a baby or two Keahgann. She's pregnant." The trio pushed through the double doors that lead into the cafeteria and Bliss looked down at Keahgann with a smile. "How does a double helping of veggie stew and a tall glass of water sound?"
The young boy's eyes grew wide at the mention of food. "Good." Without another word he hurried into the maze of tables and chairs to pick out the perfect one while Bliss went off to gather up their meal.
She smiled to herself, chuckling at how sweet and perfect Keahgann was, she ladled out two bowls of stew, she glanced up towards where she knew he would be, to his favorite table.
There he was climbing up into a chair, shooting a glance over his shoulder to where Terra was waddling up behind him. "Hurry up, I'm hungry." Bliss wasn't sure whether he said it to her or to Terra, but she answered anyway.
"Just a minute Keahg." He sat down, looking rather impatiently as Bliss filled a cup with water and then a mug with coffee for herself.
Terra looked over at Bliss as she began making her way towards Keahgann's table, balancing the two bowls and cups in her hands. "Do you need help with that Hon?" Bliss looked back at Terra with a look of concentration. "No, I'm fine, you just sit down." Terra gladly did just that, setting down the cup of tea that she had brought from the lobby on the tabletop and watching Bliss gracefully weave through the tables to where Keahgann sat waiting impatiently. Bliss set the dishes down gingerly, dropping a fork next to the Keahgann's. "Now, remember to chew Keahgann, no one is going to take it away from you." Bliss said as she ruffled his scraggly blonde hair with her free hand. He immediately dove into the stew, shoveling spoonfuls of the lukewarm mess into his mouth, being careful to remember to chew.
Bliss settled into the uncomfortable plastic of the hospital chair and let a grin slide across her features, digging a spoon into the bowl of stew. She moved the vegetables around in the broth as she admired the small boy she had come to know as her son. He was so content to eat the stew; so captured in the simplicity of the act. She admired that. It seemed that as of late her life had only become more and more complicated.
Keahgann was quickly finished with his bowl of stew and began to hopefully eye the bowl that Bliss had slowly been stirring as he had eaten. With nothing but a smile exchanged between the two of them Bliss pushed the bowl across the tabletop to Keahgann, who immediately began in on a second helping the stew.
Bliss looked away from the boy, content to know that he was eating, only to find Dr. Lowinn engaged in a conversation with woman she had seen about the Hospital before, she let herself pay attention to what was being said for a few moments, letting their words of orphans and gangs and the Church and the factions roll about inside her mind for a bit, ignoring them and paying them heed at the same time. She smiled, thinking of Keahgann. She frowned, thinking of the Cult. It was a miracle he was still alive after how they had treated him. It was a miracle he was as sweet and innocent and, well, childlike after how he had been abused and neglected by the Cult.
Her daydreams and half-listening were interrupted by the clink of a dropping spoon against the bottom of a scratched, cracked ceramic bowl.
"Read me a story now?"
She gave him a warm smile. "Yes, Keahg, I'll read you a story later. When we go back upstairs." Keahgann was already looking somewhere else in the room by the time Bliss had finished her reply, he was waving to someone behind her. Bliss looked over her right shoulder, spying Dr. Adeline Frostt.
The doctor smiled warmly to Bliss and offered her a friendly wave before returning her notes.
"Is this your little brother?" Bliss heard a voice behind her ask. She grinned over to the woman who had been talking to Terra.
"I guess he is now." Bliss replied, grinning over towards Keahgann. He looked up at the woman who had spoken to Bliss.
"I Keahgann Lovejoy," he nodded and pointed at Bliss, beaming "Bliss is mine."
Bliss looked at the woman a moment, trying to place her face, she had seen her about the Hospital before, she thought that her name was Mara. Her gaze was stolen to a man who had just walked through the Hospital's large double doors, wearing a poorly stitched together coat, consisting of patches of different materials and colors. He shot a gaze around the room as he filled the air around him with the sound of a phlegm-filled cough and hack, he dug a hand into a pocket, searching for something. The sound of clicking plastic against plastic came from his searching fingers as he stood in the doorway.
"Mind if I join you?" Came the question from behind her. It was Dr. Frostt, she had come from across the Cafeteria and now stood, smiling to Keahgann who pushed out a chair for her to sit in. She slid her slim figure down onto the cool plastic of the chair, thanking him. Terra grinned over at the blonde doctor from behind her tea.
"So, you met Quentari?"
Adeline looked over at her. "I did, he's an interesting character." She paused. "He tried to scare me with his stories, but other than that he seemed rather gentle."
"Well, I didn't see any initial signs of violent tendencies, but then all of a sudden he just, snapped, pulled a knife." She shook her head a bit in bewilderment, then took a sip of her tea.
Bliss broke her conversation from the conversation from a moment as Adeline said something about chemical imbalances and socio-violent behavior to stretch her neck, smiling when she felt a satisfying pop at the base of her neck. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Keahgann mimicking her and smiled to herself, feeling her chest feel with a warmth she had felt few times before. She grinned over at him, as Terra and Adeline both said something about their hopes for medicine and controlling urges. She admired Keahgann for a while longer, until her concentration was broken by the sound of two loud gunshots from somewhere outside the Hospital.
Keahgann jumped up instinctively, hearing the twin gunshots and Bliss immediately went to comfort him. "It's all right dear, everything's okay."
A figure came flying into the cafeteria from a back entrance, it moved quickly, like a pile of rags that seemed to flow across the cool tile of the floor, not pausing until it was safe and cozy in a chair.
Bliss caught a glimpse of the child out of the corner of her eye, turning to look at her after calming Keahgann. The figure stood from its place on a chair and moved over to the serving line, sampling the cafeteria's soup du jour before returning to the relative safety of the cafeteria chair. As the figure hurried back across the floor Bliss was able to catch a glimpse of it's face, there she spied the face of a frail little girl, a fragile young thing whose eyes darted about the room as she settled into a crouch on the cafeteria table, beginning to shovel the soup into her mouth.
Bliss sat for a time, thinking to herself about her life, about where and who she was. Her mind drifted back to her grandparents and then forward to her 'boys'. She thought of how young she was-barely eighteen-and about how old she had to pretend to be, about how people regarded her as an adult and expected her to act as one at all times.
"Good food." The words came from Keahgann. Bliss looked over to him with a smile as the boy rubbed a hand over his now full tummy with a sigh. Bliss reached over to him, using her arm to pull him closer to her, running a hand affectionately through his hair. She then withdrew a small, worn children's book from her pocket, placing it onto the table for Keahgann to leaf through. She grabbed him under his armpits and lifted the boy up onto her lap, letting him leaf through the book, saying the names of the animals pictured out loud.
As he read, Bliss looked around the cafeteria. It had become a bit more crowded as she had daydreamed, people had found their way into the Hospital from the outside, trying to do something to fight off the encroaching darkness of the New Rydynn night. Bliss looked over to the table where the small girl had been perched earlier. Bliss thought she had heard her name somewhere, but couldn't quite recall it.
Keahgann pointed to the book, then turned his eyes up to Bliss, grinning. "Ratt."
Bliss smiled and nodded to the boy letting him know he was right when he'd pointed out the picture of the ratt. Returning her gaze to the girl wrapped in rags she saw that the mound of rags that hid the girl were brown and dirtied, her face caked in dirt and blood. The girl sat, looking across the table at a man who had only one eye. He looked back at her intently, eating the Hospital's stew.
"Strett." Keahgann said, pointing to a picture of a scavenger that thrived in the cities before the war and again smiling to Bliss.
"Very good Keahg." Bliss said, ruffling his hair and turning her gaze to an old man who she had noticed earlier, he sat staring down into his own bowl of stew, in his own world. Her gaze drifted to where a few of the city's Freemen had gathered, conversing over coffee. She looked over to Drs. Frostt and Lowinn who's conversation had drifted from Terra's pregnancy to her mental state and work ethic. She stifled a yawn and noticed Keahgann mimicking her. She reached out and gently took the book from Keahgann, putting it back in her pocket. "Come on Keahg. It's time for bed." She said, lifting the boy off of her lap and putting him on the ground next to her. "Boy Keahg, you're getting big, pretty soon you'll be too big for my lap." She smiled as she said this, looking down at the child.
The boy shook his head looking at Bliss. "Nope, I stay little."
"Sure you will." She said gently, walking him down the hallway to the main elevator. She pushed the up button and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Sure you will."