beneath a different sky | Glowfic Constellation

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Tadesse - an immortal mage currently in the body of a teenager, it's complicated - was planning to explore the other continent on Velgarth. Things are not going according to plan. He's been adrift in the ocean for days, now, clinging to the crushed remains of their storm-wrecked ship, for days at this point. The water didn't feel that cold at first, but over hours and days it's leached all the strength from his limbs, and he can no longer feel his extremities. His mage-gift is too drained to manage a heat-spell.

He tries to open his eyes, and can't. He's no longer sure if it's day or night. He's...no longer sure if he's holding onto the boat, actually, his body is slipping away from him.

He tries to draw in air and there's only water, cold yet burning in his lungs, and in a final moment of wrenching panic, he finds the strength somewhere in himself to raise a Gate.

Well. Attempt to raise a Gate. His last conscious thought is that it's not...working...right...

A limp, unconscious, nearly-drowned and profoundly hypothermic teenager (or someone who looks like a teenager, at least) spills through a glowing portal in the hallway of the Renown Hospital ER in Reno, Nevada, along with quite a lot of cold seawater, and lands in a heap on the tiles and doesn't move.

The ER is bustling, doctors and nurses rushing between curtained-off beds and the main station. An alarm starts blaring as one of the monitors detects a life-threatening change in a patient's vital signs.

A nurse walking down the hallway does a double take at the puddle of seawater and the limp body in the middle of it. She yells out, "Code Blue, critical hypothermia, main hall!" Three doctors and two more nurses come running, carefully lifting the unconscious teen onto a gurney. They wheel him into a trauma bay, cutting away sodden clothes and attaching warming blankets, IV lines, and monitoring equipment with practiced speed.

"Core temp's 79 Fahrenheit. We need to get him warmed up fast or we'll lose him." The team works seamlessly, raising the teen's temperature degree by painful degree. After an hour, he's stable but still completely unresponsive. The lead doctor frowns, examining test results that make no sense. The teen's body seems human, but his physiology is somehow off. She has no idea where he came from or how he ended up nearly drowned outside their doors, but she's determined to save his life.