February is World Building Month. Day x: Addergoole/Fae Apoc

Physical damage, Ellehemaei, Hawthorn and rowan

I was starting a story and realized I hadn’t determined how Ellehemaei dealt with damage.

So:

A normal Ellehemaei (defined here as a fae who has a Change and the ability to use Words) heals damage the same way as a human and at the same rate; the only difference is that an Ellehemaei can survive damage that would kill a human, and the older the Ellehemaei, the longer they can hold out without healing. (For example, hypothermia, bleeding out, poisoning).

Ellehemaei can, of course, heal themselves, too, with the proper Words (Jasfe (repair) Tlacatl (Flesh of Makers). (And is it not interesting that the same Word covers all fae and all humans?) (And possibly aliens…) They can repair almost any sort of damage, even lost limbs (although something that severe may take Meentik (create) as well as Jasfe.

When hawthorn and rowan get involved, things get complicated. The two woods are poison to all Ellehemaei; hawthorn, in addition to being poison, also inhibits magic use in its presence; it’s hard to Work, hard to Work around, and if it gets into the bloodstream of a fae, it’s almost impossible for them to do any Workings at all while it’s running around in their blood.

A wound made with hawthorn or rowan will act like an acid burn in addition to any stabbing or slicing damage done. The wound will be slow to heal without magic, very slow, and will be difficult to impossible to heal with magic, depending on the power level of the Worker involved. If a limb is amputated with hawthorn or rowan, esp. if the sap is used on the wound, only the most powerful fae in the world can repair it.

On the other hand, they don’t appear to age quickly, and when they do age, they can always use Workings to repair some of the signs of age.

(Thanks to @KissofJudas for help figuring this out)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/688227.html. You can comment here or there.

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