[Open] Hello, my name is Elder Sara

[okayimin]

WHO: Sister Sara Sawbones and YOU
WHAT: The Chantry meant to send a nun to check up on all you sinners, but accidentally sent a doctor instead.
WHEN: Late Harvestmere, before Satinalia
WHERE: All over Kirkwall
NOTES: may or may not add leech hunting as a prompt at some point

i. Kirkwall Docks

Sawbones has largely managed to avoid boats since coming to the surface. Boats and large bodies of water. Two equally unnatural things that topsiders aren't even a little bothered over. She almost misses the Deep Roads.

Almost.

Currently, she's more concerned with avoiding the bustle of sailors and merchants while coping with how inexplicably different the ground feels once one gets off a ship. The clean white and bright red of the Chantry habit at least makes her clearly visible to anyone glancing around, but she's also about half the height of everyone else and can't seem to manage a straight line of movement.

"Pardon," she says with a grim set to her decidedly green face, not especially paying attention to whose knees she's run into so much as staying on her feet and moving forward.

ii. The Gallows

a. Library
Of course there's another boat. Because topsiders are obsessive with living on every surface that stays still long enough to build a foundation. But the Gallows are less depressing than the name implies and it has the most important thing any building could have: a library. Sawbones does the perfectly reasonable thing and heads straight there with a single minded sort of purpose. This is the first time she's had access to a library that isn't Chantry controlled and she means to get an idea of what volumes they have.

Which is why there's quite suddenly a tiny Chantry sister in full regalia standing on a stool that's been set on a table and pushed up to one of the taller bookcases. Don't worry about it.

b. the Gallows' Chapel
It is entierly possible the whole reason Sawbones was chosen to act as a more visible representative of the Chantry within Rift Watch is simply because the scattered members of the Kirkwall Chantry didn't want to keep staffing the Gallows' little chapel.

Their loss. It's a tidy little space and Sawbones likes it more for the amount of exposed stonework on the walls. The pews are the perfect height and width for when she's too sleep fogged to recall how to get back to the group quarters with the added bonus of not having a Reverend Mother showing up to yell at her.

She doesn't actually know how many faithful are in Rift Watch and how many of that number bother going to the little chapel at all, but it feels like a more secure spot than accidentally dozing off at a Dining Hall table.

iii. A Case of the Rattles

Unsurprisingly, the chill damp of dawn and dusk bring sickness. Particularly to those without the means to stay properly warm and dry. An excess of phlegm followed by a rattling cough in the chests of those with particularly weak constitutions is more than enough reason for to worry. It leaves those who practice a nonmagical form of medicine feeling the war time scarcities more keenly than ever. Sawbones in particular is especially bad tempered with anyone who's not a patient as she makes her rounds to and from High Town and Low Town.

a. High Town

Almost in spite of the chill weather, the gardens of High Town are still immaculately maintained. A few especially are having particular good luck with their roses. Sawbones has been making special visits to those gardens and has given up any pretense of subtlety. It is amazing what the Chantry habit and an air of knowing what's best can allow one to get away with, even if one isn't an especially accomplished liar.

For instance: "My, what lovely roses, Sister Eloise will love them." delivered in an almost monotone to no one in particular, as Sister Sara fits on a pair of gloves and immediately starts to snip off lengths of blooms and leaves with a pair of shears she pulled from her habit.

b. Low Town markets

Honey is another problem all together. "You're absolutely mad," Sister Sara says, with a significant pause that suggest she's trying very hard not to call the merchant worse, "It's honey, not liquid gold. We need it for medicine."

"Times are hard, Sister," the merchant says with an enormous amount of sympathy for someone selling tiny jars of honey at three times the markup, "There's a high demand for all manner of goods. I've got a family to feed, you know."

Anyone close at hand will see the incredibly novel sight of a dwarven Chantry Sister clearly contemplating acts of violence against the honey seller.

iv. Kirkwall Taverns

On any given night, there's a brawl. And on any given night, she can be found wading through the aftermath. She's tending a group of dwarves tonight, stitching closed the ugly gash on one's arm while he drinks liberally from a bottle. They all share the same snake like brand on their left cheeks.

"This would take half the time if you nug fucked dust heads would just go and see a fucking mage," she says, wiping away pooling blood so she can see her work more clearly.

"Mages is freaks, Sawbones," slurs one of the dwarves cheerfully, shaking a jar full of water and glistening black sludge.

"Mages don't need leeches. Now put those down before I decided to let them have a go at that shiner of yours." She is entierly ungentle when she finishes the stitches and starts wrapping the injury before turning her attention to whoever made the mistake of wandering to close, "Right, what do you need?"

WILDCARD

Comments

[taxonomy]

"You've such fascinating wildlife in the Deep Roads! Wildlife that doesn't always succumb the way other creatures do, say, wolves or bears that become blight wolves or bereskarns if they don't die outright but deepstalkers seem to get on just fine don't they?" A hand reaches out to find the edge of a table ruining what could be a casual lean because people are supposed to just trust that a table will be there to support them instead of checking but he doesn't want to break anything in his backside, it's so bony. "And the nugs there's so little to eat down there and yet they thrive!"

If there's credit to Tavin's passion then there's probably this: he doesn't apologise for it. (Or maybe it's Nevarran nobility does not feel the need to apologise for doing what he has learnt to do.)

"How long ago did you join the Orlesian Chantry then? I had little contact with it during my studies," does the accent give away why, Nevarran practices and all that? "Oh...I mean draconology is a keen interest, I went to Hunter Fell often as a boy it started all this but it's how all of them connect. What is related to the next. Why a thing is how it is."

[okayimin]

The sheer amount of talking he does is definitely something that becomes easier with exposure. She fancies knowing Tavin long enough with lead to her being able to absorb what he's saying without having to puzzle out the important bits.

"The deepstalkers are acidic little bastards, no reason their blood wouldn't just burn off the Taint. Mind you, nugs for an Ozammar dwarf isn't too different from your sheep." And there was little better to feed a Duster on the mend than roasted nug, but Surfacers could be a bit prickly about that. "I joined four years or so ago, before the Mage/Templar war."

[taxonomy]

"And yet," how rare, how delighting to hear it from someone associated with the Chantry in particular, "there are spiders for instance that become corrupted who are arguably about as poisonous. Now as far as nugs and sheep go, sheep still need graze, we'd not have the University in Markham if we didn't need to know such weighty matters as how to fatten your ewes up over the winter when they're carrying."

Scholastic snobbery? Maybe a little.

"But a nug? What is there to eat in truth in some of the places you'll find a nug? Little but bare rock itself and that begs the question." Tavin can't help but hold for a moment, not entirely aware that he does it since he's made that argument more than once in his life so he's swept up in it easily enough. And how the meat doesn't poison people since he's seen that happen in other cases? Remarkable. "I can't even remember where I happened to be four months ago sometimes let alone four years, how was it? Most I've met have been...of a rougher persuasion hired on for expeditions I'm part of, or merchants, it must be odd to be a dwarf in a Chantry there. It's Orlais, anything that's not them and they're craning their necks."

[okayimin]

"You'd be shivering in your small clothes if you didn't have them who knew how best to tend to your sheep," Sawbones says tartly, "And of course, there's not bare rock in the Deep Roads only. You're looking at t with surface eyes, but there's plenty of fungi and water to be found in the Deep Roads. And the wild nugs aren't anything like what surfacers see, the heavy, pink ones are all Duster kept."

Not that animal husbandry is anywhere near Sawbones' expertise, but the well being of nugs was a matter of importance among Dust Town residents. As to the rest, Sawbones only snorts, waving it off.

"Oh, the shine of me's worn off by now for the lords and ladies. Common folk got other concerns than a short Sister, even in Orlais."

[taxonomy]

"Oh wool would be a death sentence some of the places I go; I mean have you seen a sheep ford a river? Try doing that wearing one, dreadful business." Horrified, no, faintly scandalised at being found in wool - if that's the implication - in the field. Or just wool or sheep being involved in the life of him, Tavin Sokolov because perish the thought, when would that ever be allowed?

Never is when.

"Some of the creatures regretfully startle with certain lighting, that's true," it's an observation he's made note of amidst over things but it's good to have yet more confirmation as it is, "but no one seems to be working on anything to help with that and engineering aren't my strong suit and well...have you ever gone to Serault?" He did. Only way to get glass for some of his instruments and what mad fish all of those folk they were, very...uncomfortable ideas the lot of them.

Still, he hasn't his papers to properly talk of the nugs right now but later he can get hold of her, find a table - why wouldn't anyone be interested?

"Everything is and isn't a passing fancy in Orlais, that's the trouble with the place I've found. There are closer Chantries that aren't. Orlais." Your Nevarran is showing.

[okayimin]

"Wouldn't mind going some place where you didn't need five layers to step outside," Sawbones says, the trace of amusement bleeding into her words again. She's only ever met Chantry scholars before, she doesn't fancy Tavin is one of those.

"Only been up to the Abbey once." Truth be told she hadn't found them much stranger than the rest of the Surface. They referred to Serault like a dwarf would refer to the Stone and it had been something of a comfort. "They make a good wine." To the rest, she rolls her shoulders in an easy shrug. "It was the Orlesian Chantry that took me in when I first came to the surface. They weren't too eager to send their shiny new convert off to Nevarra just then. Serault herself was a stretch."

[taxonomy]

"I'd say the Anderfels in the summer but given the state of affairs we'd be roasting ourselves in armour." Which is less layers, overall, because Tavin does remember those lessons but probably not what she's going for here. No one wants to go to the Anderfels in the summer anyway, it's miserable and it was only good for the Grey Wardens and...

Less said about that sorry mess the better.

"We had to go, something something good students, something." The eyeroll of someone who isn't at all bitter about it now but who was once, and could be again at a shove. "You know I've got Nevarran spiced wine, the good stuff actually out of Nevarra City not what gets fobbed off as 'authentic' if you want to try some," because all friendships are formed over wine or most are when you've been burning the midnight oil and wine is all that'll see you through. "Oh we're probably whispered as being as bad as everyone in Serault: we don't burn our dead and still drink tea with them, Serault has...cult to the wild Andraste? Something with a hint of the Dalish about it last time I was talking to some folk on an expedition.

"So, what're you here for then? The Chantry line or a bit more? I know we've a new Divine but we all have our own stake in it." He's smiling because he likes her more already than most anyone who's been out of a Chantry in Orlais thus far, but if it's because she's dwarven or not that's colouring it he can't say; still, there's plenty to be said for someone not trotting out the party line for once.

[okayimin]

"Imagine that's why they didn't send me. Had a hard enough time convincing me burning a body isn't from taint or disrespect." It was a given that their souls wouldn't go to the Stone, but burning still seemed over the top. "I'd like to see the Grand Necropolis some day, but I wouldn't mind a bit of spiced wine in the meantime."

And sadly, he'll get the party line. It's spoken in the monotone of the most unenthused student: "Oh. I'm here to help reestablish a connection within this organization in the hopes of assisting the faithful in Kirkwall." And then in her normal Dust Town drawl: "But the important matter is we've all these people walking around now with shards in their hands that might blow the whole thing off and no treatment for it."

[taxonomy]

"Maybe if they stopped warring for five minutes they'd not have the problems that have them wanting to burn them in the first place." But that's none of his business and his father wouldn't want him saying that anyway, Nevarra's not got the moral highground do they? "I think it'll have to wait until after Riftwatch associations are done with; whatever the Inquisition did went down like throwing up on a dowager's feet."

But the wine? The wine he can manage, the wine he can absolutely sort out.

Tavin just about resists the urge to roll his eyes, something he's had plenty of practice with over the years of academia. "You think it can be treated? What's happened to them, maybe not the ones who came through rifts but some of our own, people who've been born here, it's happened to them too."

[okayimin]

For diplomacy's sake and for the sake of at least pretending to give a toss about Chantry relations, Sawbones sidesteps the first bit and addresses the more important part:

"Haven't a clue, to tell the truth. I've heard there's ways to treat it with magic to keep it stable, but that kind of specialized care is gonna be a problem if someone gets a shard in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we could get a more mundane treatment that could at least hold them over til they can get to a mage, that would be something."

[taxonomy]

"A hand for the most can be removed with little issue unless it happens to be the dominant hand, I know enough in the army who've suffered a wound without a healer or mage about to see them cutting it off to stop them from dying." And they get on well, grumble about it but some of them were happy enough - more than, men and women reliving their glory days no doubt - to discuss it with a little boy peering round a study door for stories. "I suppose for what I've heard of them doing with it, the hand makes the most sense but elsewhere...I mean lyrium for instance or people who spend too long around a Blighted thing? You can't cut it out. It's there, it's in them. I mean I hardly need to tell you that but the Blight I've seen in beasts and I've had to study it a long time, even a small wound that might otherwise come off and see them well? No. That much magic together could even be too much but obviously I'm no Mortalitasi."

He's Nevarran, he cannot help but deflect to them as the highest authority on magic; given that there are spirits there and this is something to do with the Veil? Maybe it wouldn't be so far off the mark.