faderift | I've got thick skin and an elastic heart; [closed]

WHO: Rey, Anders, possibly will add an open later.
WHAT: Rey can't quite judge when something is A Terrible Idea and cuts herself to see what happens. Then she needs to go find a healer.
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Healer tents
NOTES: Blood??

[ For Anders ]

The revelation that people had died from whatever was sweeping through the Rifters, and that no one really seemed to be making headway with fixing it was something that unsettled Rey. She had been to the healing tents a few times, but usually ended up wandering away. She can't sit still, and it's stressful being around others who are sick.

She's used to fixing problems with looking at what's under the surface. Wires, circuits, components beneath a glossy surface that reveal exactly what's going on with an engine or other piece of equipment. The knife on her belt is out before she's really had time to think about it, and she slashes it down her left arm. Deeper than she meant to and she immediately cries out, which makes Padawan jump up from where she's laying and rush over. Pushing the dog away Rey looks at her arm, hissing through her teeth as blood flows from the wound, down her arm. It looks wrong though. Too thin, like it's been mixing with the blue sweat on her skin.

Padawan's frantic pacing and huffing makes Rey stop examining the blood running down her arm, frowning as she grabs a rag to try and slow the bleeding.

"Right, I know. Not my best idea," she grimaces at the dog, standing and making her way out of the room.

The rag is soaked in her blood by the time she reaches the healing tents and she's feeling a little light-headed, but at least she made it here under her own power this time. Padawan is glued to her side, almost supporting her.

"Hello? I- I need some help."

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"Of course." He's quick to respond, holding open the door and ushering her in, eyebrow climbing high when he sees how soaked the rag is.

"Sit, quickly, let me see." It's not what he's privately calling Blue Flu, so thankfully he can heal the wound. Carefully, already casting to stem the flow of blood, Anders peels away the rag and... pauses. Her blood doesn't look right. There's fear in his chest that he keeps off his face as he reflects on what Solas had said. Then he resumes the safe healing, because he's damn well not going to lose a patient to blood loss.

"What happened?" The rag gets tossed on his desk. He'll be keeping it, if he can.

Rey knows that he saw the blood. She isn't sure which healers are working more actively on trying to discover a cure and which aren't, but she had been hoping at least one of them was around. Maybe she should have waited until getting down to the tents to try to open herself up, but what's done is done.

"Someone said on the crystals that the people this plague spread from were bleeding from their skin." Rey starts, the thought having made more sense when she'd first had it. "We're sweating blue. I wanted to see what color my blood was. It's wrong, isn't it? I know what my blood is supposed to look like, it isn't that."

He takes a shaky breath, looking up at her.

"Solas said that," he confirms. There's a pause, before he glances around and then speaks in a lower voice. "Your blood looks wrong from what I know. That's why I didn't toss the rag in the bin, because I want to try to look into it, but it's... dangerous, here. Trying to study blood borders on blood magic, which is illegal. But we have to find a cure."

Anders watches her closely, hoping she's not going to run off and try to turn him in. "Will you tell me, as precisely as possible, what your blood is supposed to look like? I can..." He needs to stop stopping in the middle of a sentence, but he's on thin ice here. He takes a breath. "I can cut my arm, see if what mine is like looks like what yours is supposed to, but you cannot, under any circumstances, tell anyone. Please."

"I know about blood magic," Rey says quietly. She's been in Thedas long enough to be familiar with the various types of magic, even the mention of the darker things. She bites her bottom lip, eyes focused on Anders.

"I don't want to die. I won't say anything, if it will help save us." She doesn't see the harm in just looking at blood, studying it. In her galaxy, if someone is sick and you can't figure out why, testing blood can be the best way to figure things out.

Anders nods, slowly, both to her and himself. He's actually going to do this. It's not crossing a line yet, he reminds himself as he retrieves the knife from his belt holster. The cut takes barely a second, pain fairly unremarkable as a little blood wells up from the meat of his upper arm.

It's amazing how small an action can get him so scared, but it does and his gaze flickers between her and the entryway. "How similar is this to what yours is supposed to look like?"

She watches intently as Anders cuts himself, entirely focused on the action at hand. If it solves this problem, she wants it done. Her nostrils flare as blood wells from his arm, her eyes flicking from the wound to him.

"That's what it's supposed to look like, exactly."

He exhales heavily and nods before healing the wound and cleaning his knife off on a strip of fabric that is deliberately not her rag. There are a lot of swear words he'd like to say right now, but he's restraining himself. She doesn't need to hear his frustration or worry.

"So it's changed your blood." He was wrong when talking with Solas and Myrobalan earlier, then. The biggest question is if the blood is made altered, or if it's getting altered after the body makes it. One would be an issue with the body itself, the other would be maybe some sort of foreign matter, the way people fell seriously ill when hit by an contaminated arrowhead.

"I wish I knew a blood mage," he says finally, rubbing his temples. He most wishes he knew where either of the blood mages he did know, Merrill and Hawke, were. "Thank you, Rey. Get some rest, please. That was a lot of blood you lost and it will take time for your body to recover from that."

Anders jerks his thumb to indicate the cot not five feet away. "I work quietly aside from some muttering, you're more than welcome to rest there."

Oddly enough, knowing that her blood has changed doesn't entirely make her feel better. It's a piece of the puzzle solved, but she doesn't know what it helps. Looking down at her hands, her fingers running along where the now-healed cut had been, she exhales nodding.

"Still bleeding, if this blue stuff is in our blood," she comments, her fingers swiping up some of the blue sweat that's been impossible to shake. She looks over at the cot, standing to go lie on it. Padawan is immediately at her side again, supporting her.

"Thank you, Anders. If you need me to do anything else, I'll do it." maybe once she has a nap, though. She nearly falls onto the cot, Padawan jumping up next to her and laying down, protective of her master.

His expression goes a little sad as she touches the sweat. She's right. The Rifters are all bleeding through their skin, exactly as Solas had relayed. They're dying.

"Rest well," he says quietly. "I'll be here when you wake, and we can talk about any other ideas that come up."

They need ideas, badly, because this isn't looking good.

I've got thick skin and an elastic heart; [closed]

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