[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

[doneisdone]

Teren simply nods at that, since she'd guessed as much.

"What brings you to the surface?" Based on what she knows of dwarves, certainly nothing good, but it's up to the girl whether or not she wants to answer.

[okayimin]

She answers directly, "I was exiled from Ozammar."

Which is a simplification of. Everything. Meager existences pushed past a breaking point, the riots and the night she was yanked from her shack and tossed into some deshyr's cell. The entirety of the Deep Roads. But it's direct and drives Orlesian busybodies longing for gossip to distraction, so she likes it.

[doneisdone]

"...pity."
There's not much actual pity in the word, as the girl doesn't strike Teren as someone who needs it. But exile is never a pleasant subject, least of all with victims of it.

"What is it you do with Riftwatch?"

[okayimin]

She ignores the pitiless 'pity' entierly.

"At the moment? Nothing. I hope to assist with researching the Rift and those that carry the mark. It's a unique malady, we ought to learn more from it."

[doneisdone]

"Aye, that it is." Hard to disagree with that. "You'll find many a like mind on that subject. You ought to speak to Thranduil, head of the research division."