Burn, Baby, Burn [Venezuela]

There was something to be said for fire, though. It was certainly effective, even if it did its job a bit too well and Izalene rather felt like she was choking on nothing. It could even be pretty, much prettier than without, at least. But not as pretty as the trees naturally were. Sometimes, the flames shot up in odd colors. It must be the firefighting chemicals, and perhaps remnants of the war. The fire must be crossing Venezuela's side of the fighting, given how little Izalene herself had managed to advance, lately.

What did Venezuela hope to accomplish, anyway? He did realize that he'd have to get all the way to the other coast to really get to the greater proportion of her population, right? He'd have Bolivia's help, but he still had quite a long way to go, and she was good at boats. Just not, apparently, whatever this was. It wasn't boats, that was for sure. She felt like she should point that out. Boats didn't work when they were on fire. Maybe that had something- no, wait, that was almost definitely wrong. Boats didn't work on land, it wouldn't matter if they were on fire.

Oh, wait. What about the poor sloths? They wouldn't be able to run away from the fire! They moved too slowly! Sloths were so adorable, too... They were even related to anteaters... They sometimes moved so little, moss grew on them. But they moved so little, they'd almost certainly not escaped any fire Izalene stay on topic and sloths almost certainly aren't a pressing topic, neither were boats or how pretty or not-pretty the fire was, her arm was bleeding out don't you think that's a BIT MORE PRESSING?

God, she was out of it.

Right. Back on task. Trying to better splint, or wrap, or torquenet her arm. Whatever would best slow the bleeding, which was beginning to heal on its own, actually, huh, but she still couldn't really move her arm and she really needed at least something to do so she didn't close her eyes for just a moment (but it would feel better) but it was a terrible idea and she couldn't just do that. So yes. Focus on this task that probably will only do a little bit in the long run but would prevent her from doing terrible things to herself and stop her from doing things like go off on tangents about sloths (sort of).

Then, suddenly, Vicente comes over, and really she doesn't care but she's glad he's helping and he gets the thing fairly well tied up, even if he's very, very rough about it. Her arm still hurts, but if it was already healing a little, it should definitely stop bleeding soon! Unlike the fire. Which was not stopping. Which she still did not have a solution to. Other than climb a tree, which really wouldn't help forever, once the fire got to them properly, it would just protect them for a little bit. Maybe it would rain!

There was- she wondered if she'd be up here long enough to see the Caipora. They hurt people who hurt the forest and helped those who helped it, wandering the trees- it had been a long time since she'd first heard that story. A long time indeed... Perhaps it would make them lose their way, erase the tracks and turn the trees around. Izalene was not blameless in this... Perhaps it would rain soon. She thought she felt it coming. And perhaps it would rain soon, and perhaps she'd lose her way home until Apekũ found her again, carrying her home- or away from it, if you asked the wrong people. Or maybe she should be thinking of what Mestre told her, instead...

No. Stop. Wait. there was- well, she wasn't sure if there was such thing as the Caipora, because she'd sworn she'd seen them, once, but she hadn't seen them in a long, long time, and it was smoky and dark and she was tired- maybe she should close her eyes? Her head nodded for a minute. She shot back up. She hadn't thanked Vicente for helping her. Or had she? She'd certainly said "thank you" many times over... Had she already said so now? Well, he did set her on fire, so she was pretty sure they were even, anyway.

She rocked for a moment, caught herself. Her head might be beginning to clear up some, but that wasn't really going to last long. Or maybe it would? She looked up and nearly fell out of the tree in a sudden spell of dizziness. She couldn't see if there would be rain or not, but she could, as she tightened what grip she had, see that she shouldn't be looking up. She was also sitting next to someone she was supposed to be fighting. Who had helped her? Had she thanked him for that? The confusion that kept on pounding through her was probably plain on her face. Was she in a dangerous situation or not? Probably? Don't close her eyes.

Right.

Close her eyes, that's what she said, right? No. No, that's not what she said, maybe her head isn't getting better and she wondered if the firefighting equipment might be doing more harm than good because that fire didn't look very fought. Perhaps mildly annoyed, a bit threatened, and rather angry, but definitely not fought. It could also possibly be happy? Was a blazing fire a happy fire, or was a fire so blazing clearly furious? This deserved further debating...

Wait. No it didn't.

Except she'd run out of better things to do. She didn't trust her still-swimming vision to read Vicente's lips well enough to put together the little sound her ringing ears would pick up, and she only had one arm available and couldn't communicate by signing, so perhaps she should go back to thinking about the fire? The rain hadn't come yet, and the fire drew nearer and nearer, threatening to swallow even their high perch alive. The smoke was beginning to come back. Suddenly, Izalene, in a moment of clarity, had an idea. She fumbled around her uniform, managing to pull out her radio (the one she was required to have, even if she was moving somewhat independently at the time).

She hit the button, but no sound happened, so she held it out in Vicente's face so he'd notice it, gesturing. Do you have one too? Do you think you could call for someone?

It is worth noting that, should Izalene not have been in this particular situation, there's an almost guarantee that her injuries and the resulting effects wouldn't nearly be as severe. It also didn't help that the smoke she was inhaling now was being compounded with the smoke inhalation she would have likely gotten if she'd stayed in Rio. Still, now that it was properly wrapped and she'd mostly stopped moving it when she could, her arm was definitely healing quite a bit now. Her woozy head- less so. She still wasn't thinking straight, and still wasn't entirely certain she could walk straight.

That would be funny, actually. Being unable to pass a sobriety test but, this once, by some twist of fate, actually completely sober. Still shouldn't drive, though. Nope! That would be a bad idea. Driving when your head is fuzzy, or especially when you're dizzy, is something Izalene knows that she should Not Do. She made that mental note. Would she be able to walk in a straight line? She'd much rather sleep than walk- but she couldn't do that, either. Even if her eyes kept on trying to drift closed, she couldn't sleep.

the flames drew closer. She made the mistake of looking too close, and then looking up. Her eyes flashed with color, and for a moment, her head hurt quite badly. She felt Vicente grab her as she wobbled. Some part of her that was still thinking at a reasonable rate wondered this: wouldn't it be easier just to drop her? Maybe that was a bit too vindictive or cruel- wait. He had helped her climb? Yeah. He had helped her climb. Had she thanked him for that? She was pretty sure she'd thanked him for that.

Izalene made a noted, concentrated effort to nod when Vicente pulled out a flare. Good. He'd understood her point! Even with her head slowing down, she wasn't losing as much blood anymore, so she could easily note that her current lack of ability to sign combined with her reluctance to try to talk at the moment (for a multitude of reasons, not the least being the way her ears were ringing) was probably going to make communicating difficult? Especially given that her vision was still swimming too much to properly read Vicente's lips... he didn't seem to be saying anything, though. That was good? She was pretty sure that was good...

She almost started to follow the flare with her eyes, but the bright flash as it started to go off was disorienting and she quickly looked away. Which, in turn, only made her dizzier. She put her not-injured arm on the tree to hold herself as once again her vision briefly went white for a spell of powerful dizziness, like standing up too fast but much worse. She, consequently, doesn't see if the flare clears the trees. All that was left now was to wait. For the rain? Maybe not. For a helicopter, or some other airborne unit, probably. The rain would help, though. (She'd still be waiting for the rain, for even if it would not arrive in time to help her out of her immediate situation, it would help her at some point).

An odd shudder passed through her for a moment, though, and it took her several minutes to realize that she was also probably feeling so bad because she was losing this fight. Badly. She hadn't been prepared for massive fires, and Vicente's army had, and it was beginning to show, and he was one-hundred percent right- most of her population was on the other side of the country, by the coast. Which was good in some ways, given that it meant Vicente had yet to take any important population centers. It was bad in that Vicente was using it expertly for his advance. Of course, Izalene's thoughts weren't quite that coherent. She mostly just had another moment of dizziness because she was losing.

She didn't much like losing, and by all rights she shouldn't be! Probably! She wasn't sure? She couldn't quite remember... She knew she was significantly bigger than Venezuela, so that meant she had more people? She'd also held off on joining the Allegiance, though, and intelligence had come in saying something about a canal (so much for that). At any rate, that was probably part of why she was feeling so bad, too. Though she thought it was maybe beginning to clear up some? It might be beginning to clear up some!

Not enough to remove enough ringing from her ears for her to notice the helicopter blades- someone had spotted the flare. Also not enough to realize that if someone found them, if she was losing the battle, those wouldn't be her troops, and that there would be consequences for that.

Maybe she should take a nap? Only a few more minutes and she could. Just a few more minutes...

Somewhere, in the very back of Izalene's head, she acknowledges that this is an absolutely ridiculous situation and her life must be going in some horrifying direction if this was happening to her. This thought did not get past the back of her head. The back of her head tended to freak out about silly things like hailing a helicopter with someone who might just be her worst enemy at the moment from the top of a flaming tree with a slowly healing arm and a strange feeling of what might actually be sympathy/camaraderie/who the hell knows. Honestly, these things (apparently) just happen and it's best to just go with them.

Her head's still foggy enough that she also fails to realize how ridiculous it was that a helicopter actually found them before the tree caught on fire and, instead of going back to base to avoid enemy troops or, as it looked like was more likely, trying to quench the fire. See, some dull part of Izalene thought, this is the appropriate reaction to a burning rainforest, not 'oh lets make more fire because that's totally an acceptable war tactic that's in no way absolutely horrible and harmful to more civilians than military targets'. Believe it or not, this was also sort of a sign that her head was clearing-

As the helicopter came near, the noise threw her off, causing her to briefly lose her balance again. Luckily, she caught herself. Nearly falling out of a tree didn't say much for having regained her clarity. She was catlike, she knew how to land, but she wasn't some panther with the ability to survive fire or something, that would be ridiculous, and she was pretty certain the fire one was the snake Boitatá, not a cat of any kind. She'd probably just burn if she fell, and that wouldn't be very good.

Vicente was looking at her funny. It took Izalene a somewhat embarrassingly long second to realize that the bucket, she was supposed to climb into the bucket. That would make sense. It also took an embarrassingly long time for her to actually get herself into the bucket, but luckily, she managed to fairly quickly. The moment she was somewhere a bit more relatively safe than the tree, her eyelids drooped. She shouldn't sleep. That would be a Bad Idea. Still, she was safe, wasn't she? She could just drift off now... no one... would have to know...

Now that the adrenaline was rapidly wearing off, Izalene, even if her head was now in a somewhat-capable-of-reasoning state, wasn't going to be long awake- she was injured, technically now in enemy territory, still technically theoretically on fire in a weird way, and had lost pretty badly this day. The combination of things meant that, at this point, she mostly felt exhausted. It... it couldn't hurt to sleep now, right? The clearer part of her head, though, was setting off alarm bells...

She didn't notice much of the ride, swimming in and out of wakefulness. However, once she got to the base properly and was unloaded from the helicopter, something finally clicked. Namely, the uniforms. Hers looked nothing like that. She was also surrounded. The rational part of her brain told her that this would turn out badly for her. The exhausted part just wanted to sleep. The combination tried to come up with a way to get Izalene out of this situation, preferably towards somewhere she could sleep.

For some reason, what she finally does is just sort of clumsily start walking in the indeterminate other direction and say, looking back so they could read her lips, a bit louder than she intended to, though actually in Spanish (which was better than should have been expect of her at the time), "I need to walk my anteater."

Needless to say, this was a terrible attempt at an excuse, let alone an escape.

She made it all of about ten steps before running into more people and just kind of sitting down instead. At this point in time, the bit in the back of her head indicating how ridiculous of a situation her exhausted self was in was blaring at her a bit louder. She wasn't panicking, though- that would take too much energy.

She supposed that, had she had enough oxygen for the last approximately who-knows-how-long, that she would probably feel a bit more like fighting and a bit less like falling asleep. Normally, it was very difficult to fall asleep while surrounded by enemy soldiers, but maybe they'd just leave her alone for a minute? She was still fairly certain that there was some element of falling asleep that was also a very bad idea- something to do with falling asleep and unconsciousness and waking her up every half hour? No, wait, that might be for head injuries, not- whatever this was.

Vicente seems to maybe be shouting about something now, anyway- she can't even begin to tell what it might be, because his back is facing to her and it mostly just sounds like a dull noise. She's only certain that he is shouting because of the way his hand gestures are going- while she knows plenty of people who couldn't talk if their hands were tied together (actually, that sounded horrible to her, making her try to talk without getting to use her hands, the injured arm was bad enough, never do that, please), she didn't know so many who gestured quite like that unless they were upset about something.

She could also determine that he'd spoken by the fact that every gun on the platform was suddenly pointed at her. She looked around. If she wasn't already a bit beat up and also didn't feel like collapsing and falling asleep as soon as possible, she might have actually tried to fight them some- they never expected the martial arts, not from her, at least- but for the moment, she felt like the number of weapons pointed in her direction was probably overkill, given that she'd probably just sneak away overnight or something, not try to hurt anyone now.

Unless they would let her go so she could go feed her animals, that was. That was totally a possibility, right? She'd mentioned it- though it was a stupid excuse, Apekũ could feed himself. She should have mentioned the birds. The birds were less good at feeding themselves. Safira would probably help them out, and her various states would be able to do something, but they did need feeding. Before she could mention this, though, her mental filter managed to turn back on and remind her that no, no this was not a good idea and she should not ask them about feeding her animals, if only because Vicente wouldn't care.

More shouting. He was shouting a lot. Maybe he could turn around and actually face her so she could figure out what he might be saying? Turn around, face her, and talk at a somewhat more ordinary volume, preferably- it would make his lips a bit easier to read... An officer's shouting things now, too. It doesn't help. Everyone's still pointing their guns at her. "All this for me?" she said, looking around. Sneaking out overnight was definitely the better option, then- given that they were still technically in the territory she'd win back some day and not in Venezuela itself, she didn't doubt that she could still navigate herself to somewhere they wouldn't be able to find her if she managed to slip out.

After a bit more talking- could someone please turn around and face her she's feeling rather left in the dark here- Izalene was approached by a man with a medical bag. Oh. That was nicer than she expected from Vicente, but she mostly just wanted a nap. "Do you speak Portuguese, or Venezuelan Sign Language- I don't know as much of the latter, haven't looked it over in forever I mostly learned it when I realized that sign languages were things that were acceptable and was on a high from that, but my hearing is giving me trouble right now so I'd prefer it over Spanish or something, I mean, Libras would be best but I doubt you know that, don't tell Vicente that I know even a little of that sign language by the way I'll never hear the end of it," she rambled, her voice still much louder than it should be, the way her words were accented making it clear she couldn't actually hear her own voice properly at the moment.