faderift | [open] and I miss the days of a life still permanent

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teren von skraedder

[open] and I miss the days of a life still permanent

WHO: Teren and you
WHAT: misc, convalescence
WHEN: Wintermarch
WHERE: the Gallows
NOTES: cussin

I.

Likely to the dismay of some, Teren is up and about again. She is, however, much slower than she's ever been, and has to use a cane to propel herself around, which does a person's image no favors when she's as intent as she is on defying her age.
The cane is, hopefully, temporary, but anyone who comments on it, or on its wielder, is sure to feel its impact sooner or later.

II.

With mobility being rather difficult still, Teren isn't about to go on any major excursions to the mainland. This means she has to occupy herself right here in the Gallows, and when Warden business or other similarly shady ventures aren't calling for her attention, she's lounging in the dining hall, stitching elaborate patterns into her Warden's armor or playing bones with whomever wants to join in.
Excessive talking is frowned upon, but she can't exactly run away, so it's really up to one's discretion.

III. (closed to Sister Sawbones)

There is absolutely no way anyone could convince Teren to go to a healer of her own volition, so the best way to go about ensuring she actually receives medical care is, much like a disagreeable cat, to either trick her into thinking it's something else or tranquilize and restrain her before she can slash anyone's throat.
It's honestly a wonder she's in as good of shape as she is, though it helps to remember that Anders, after years of pressure, finally became the one person she would allow to inspect and heal her injuries at great risk to his self-esteem. Unfortunately, Anders is gone now.

Apparently intent on willing her pain away, Teren has resisted any and all summons to a healer, and is currently making the mistake of taking an early evening rest in her room.

IV. (closed to Caspar)

Non-magical healing is slow and exhausting, and the older one gets, the more true that becomes. Teren finds the process dismal and demoralizing, but has found that going out to the training pitch to practice throwing knives at the dummies is an all right way of cheering herself up and staying sharp.
This is where she is now, sitting on a stool that she dragged over and idly chucking blade after blade into the blank face of a dummy, clearly bored but at least doing something.

V. Wildcard

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Sawbones wasn't a stranger to reluctant patients. Carta Dusters were notoriously hardheaded at the best of times and, more bleakly, Legionaries rarely saw the point of doctoring. What with the constant looming inevitability of a miserable death. But Sawbones is Sawbones and she takes her duty seriously.

So she's here at the behest of a few concerned Wardens, hauling her bag with her and only knocking once before she enters Teren's room.

"Excuse me, Warden Teren?"

And she has been forwarned enough that she's ready to duck and roll any of those knives the Warden is so fond of.

A grunt comes in answer, as it seems whomever knocked is about to just let themself right in-- and she does, and Teren angles her head to see who's entered just in time for a stubborn scowl to fix itself on her grizzled face.

"No," she says plainly enough.

The single word gets her a bland expression in return.

“I understand you received a number of severe injuries recently.” Her tone has already settled into the brisk, authoritative calm she uses with all her patients. “I’ve also been informed you haven’t completed any follow up appointments with Riftwatch’s healers. So.” Sawbones approaches the bed and sets her bag down on the floor, “Tell me what you’ve taken for the pain and if you are in any pain currently.”

"Health potions," Teren says evasively, "and I'll continue with that regime, thanks, so you can see yourself out."
Her eyes narrow at the glimpse of ginger beard she catches in the doorway, behind the healer.
"Barty," comes a warning growl.

Edited 2020-01-09 01:41 (UTC)

He might be the sort to be caught out as guilty if he weren't, firstly of all, enjoying this argument far too much for his own good. Secondly? He isn't guilty. You need a professional to look at this, Teren, and since the Wardens are fresh out, then it's time for a bit of your own medicine.

"Now, Warden Skraeder, you knows as well as I do that potions cans only do so much," He says, remorselessly. Barty has with him a basket, and that basket has a lid, and under the lid is a variety of preserves and hard cheeses. They are a gift for the hardworking healer. No she does not get to say no, "...And I do recall someone's orders being to take care as we don'ts got ourselves a pack of Mage-Wardens sittings round the table at the moment, comes to think of it. Do you happens to recall who it was that saids that?"

I told you so is a double-edged sword; it cuts both ways.

"Now if you're nice for the good Sister here, you coulds be hurling knifes at folks what cant's keep their mouth shut again in no-time ats all. The way you're whining, I'd as soon assume you liked havings the rest."

Sawbones spares him only the barest glance over her shoulder as she produces a small leather bound journal and a quill and ink from the folds of her habit.

"You didn't answer my second question, please tell me how much pain you're in or where specifically you've been feeling pain." She flips the journal to a blank page and begins to make notations in incomprehensible chicken scratch, "I would also like to know which alchemist mixed them."

Teren grinds her teeth as Barty talks, and there's no telling when the wall above his head will be dented with a knife's blade, but it will undoubtedly be soon.
"I'm fine," she barks, "and I don't bloody know, whichever one supplies Riftwatch with all such things." She's sat up in bed, and would no doubt have taken her leave by now if she thought she had any chance of outpacing either of them.

"That'll be the Quartersmaster," Barty adds, beatifically refusing to acknowledge the death Teren is attempting to will him into, presumably through sheer force of eye contact. For now, "We usuallies gets the same as the ranks and file, nothing much special."

He might have short legs, Teren, but he can run all day. Good for you that you see the futility in escape.

All right, this is going nowhere fast. So.

Sawbones closes the journal and sets it and the ink and pen aside. "Warden, I will be direct. Dosing a single person to the extent that you have been is a drain on Riftwatch's supplies, especially during winter when most ingredients aren't available for harvest. Furthermore, having a trained Warden out of commission to this extent is a waste of both your talents and expertise during a time when we need both. I need you to answer my questions clearly and honestly so I can help get you back into the field."

The Or else isn't spoken, but given Sawbones' tone, it needn't.

"And I'll be so as well," Teren snaps back, fixing her gaze on Sawbones, "I'll stop using the bloody potions and get off my arse if it puts you out so much, but if either one of you so much as touches as me, you'll lose your stubby hand." At least the 'or else' was included.

Even for someone as chronically brusque as Teren, her hostility in the moment is unusually high.

Sawbones' response is immediate and firm: "The multiple injuries you sustained need to be examined before you're cleared for field work, Warden. That's not up for discussion." Her head tips slightly and she studies Teren, "Why exactly are you resistant to treatment? There are mages adept at healing here and if it's pride that's keeping you from seeing them, you'd be dead by now."

She looks like could spit, glaring daggers at Sawbones (to supplement the many actual daggers she has hidden away around her bed).
In her hesitance to answer, she at least seems to realize there's no answer she can give that will be either rational or satisfactory; a person with a total need for privacy will never find an easy compromise, even when it comes to personal health.

"...just don't like healers," she grumbles, shooting a warning glance at Barty, daring him to comment.

"What she means is, she don't likes people pryings into business and most Healers have an idea that they's gots to pry intos every little thing," Barty tells Sawbones, while making calm and steady eye contact with the ceiling, "Of course, knowings your usual clienteles, that'd be exactlies why I reccomendeds you in particular to the job, Sister."

You could write a book on all the things Barty doesn't dare. It'd be quite short. But that doesn't mean he doesn't know what shame is.

"You're a dwarf what knows what her own business is and hows to minds it, and I saids to myself, that's a lady with her heads on straight. Goods in ah, ah, in a crisis you might say."

Which is what you call it, Teren, when you try to scare or threaten everyone who isn't a Warden into abandoning you to rot.

Barry earns himself a sharp look for the mention of her usual clientele. An instinctive rush of fear at the sound of an Ozammar voice speaking outloud about her occupation.

But well. He has a point. Sawbones is Sawbones for a reason. Her usual roster of patients came to her for that reason. She folds her hands on her lap and sits up a little straighter.

"Warden," she says to Teren, "Let me be clear. I am not a Healer. I'm a Sawbones. I was trained in the occupation of doctoring by Old Sawbones in Dust Town, where Casteless dwarves are forbidden from taking any occupation that could be done by a Caste dwarf. Sawbones don't talk, because Sawbones don't exist. Understand?"

"I don't need anyone to speak for me, Barty," Teren snaps, her temper raising again, "why don't you make yourself useful and get the fuck out."
She's not usually this mean to him, but ganging up on Teren, however benevolently, tends to yield this effect. She looks warily back to Sawbones, no less on her guard.
"What's to stop you from poking and prodding as you please," she grumbles, "if you're accountable to no one?" If she's warming to her at all, it's only because Sawbones isn't a man; that's not enough to convince her on its own, but they're making progress.

Barty, who anticipated this level of wet-cat attitude, merely makes an expression which says, almost completely free of hurt or rancor, well that's just rude. But he doesn't say it aloud.

What he says instead is, "Simple as dirt; even a Duster's got friends."

Which is to say, he isn't above most things, when it comes down to it. The book of things he won't dare really is very slim, and when it comes down to meting out the natural consequence for harming Teren by accident or a'purpose, Barty is a practical man with practical means.

"But if you gets good results, don't need for worry, and I gots no fear. You?"

Sawbones nods at Barty's words, a trace of dry amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Most of the folks I sew up are Carta," Sawbones says, "I don't do my duty, I start acting out of my place? there's plenty of Dusters who won't think twice about gutting me." Strange to put it into words, to have to explain something that was so basic.

There's something very simple Teren has been trying to communicate before she's willing to advance the conversation, and this time she hopes to punctuate it by chucking a knife (where did that come from) at the door right above Barty's head.
"OUT!" she roars, at him specifically.

"Dusters be tossed, I won't discuss a single bloody thing with a man here," she spits to Sawbones, her hands beginning to shake from adrenaline.

Barty does not move, very carefully does not flinch. He waits for the knife to stop humming in its place, reaches up over his head, and pulls it free. A few ginger hairs float down with it.

"...Fair enough," he says, wisely making no note of the way she had borderline threatened him into the room in the first place, "Basket's for you, Sister. Don't gots much in the way of coin, but I takes care of my people."

And then he leaves in the same manner of someone trying not to let the absolutely fictional demons hiding in the completely empty and not terrifying dark basement know just how spooked they are; casually, and then all at once.

Sawbones does flinch, but oddly enough, it's not the first time she's had a knife thrown over her head so she recovers her composure relatively quickly. The only acknowledgment she offers Barty is a nod of thanks, more focused on the woman in front of her than the specific words being said.

"Well," she says once the door is closed, "As you seem well armed and perfectly capable of responding to any poking or prodding." Feeling the matter settled, she flips open her field journal again, "Now then, where have you been experiencing the worst of the pain?"

Well. Time to face the music. Teren still seems reluctant to answer, and still very much on-edge, but at least less angry now that there are no witnesses to her indignity.

"Ribs," she grunts.

That's better. Sawbones settles down into her usual self. Steady and calm with a measured, no nonsense tone.

"Do they give you any pain when you breathe? Is it a sharp or dull pain?"

"Impressive form," Caspar says as he wanders onto the pitch, and he isn't completely lying. She's doing quite well for someone who's injured, seated and bored. He's holding a pair of knives, absently wiping them off with a small cloth while he watches her throw.

It isn't all pretense. He did come here to work on his technique. He'll still make a show of it, even, but a few practice dummies are hardly more interesting than an infamous ex(?)-spy.

There is a formidably long list of things to be done to prepare for the trip into the Vinmarks. Luckily, Flint has to concern himself with next to none of them outside of writing the list (as doing anything about the items on it officially falls within the purview of Matthias, moderately tortured assistant that he is). There are of course questions of routes, the drawing up of assignments, a duty roster, and thinking at length on who will effectively deal with the issues the Viscount suggested might lay in wait for them without killing one another in the process, but very little of that is finicky supply work.

But there are exceptions. And so when Teren finds her way to the Forces Division office, she will not find the Commander toiling over paperwork, bent over maps, or the issuing or orders. Instead, he is engaged in one of the office's attached rooms. It is nominally meant to be the apartment, though by the piecemeal and pin neat look of things it appears as if Flint hardly lives in it. A virtually empty chest is open at the end of the bed and Flint, standing over it, is in the sullen process of sorting wool socks.

"Have you spent much time in the mountains, Warden?" This asked without looking up, though he does nod to an armchair near the window for her use.

"Not much," Teren grumbles, tense and watching Sawbones' hands, on the verge of flinching every time she moves them.
"Dull. I know they were broken. Think they've mostly healed up."

Before she's even looked to see who's speaking to her, Teren grunts a dismal affirmation. Yes, very impressive, for a woman who's feeling very old and irrelevant these days.

Finally, she turns her head to see someone she recognizes, though she can't place why, or remember his name. She narrows her eyes, but if he catches her looking, she just nods a greeting and throws another knife. Sure.

Seeing that she'll be waiting a while if she wants to speak about anything official-- which she doesn't, really, she's just healing and bored-- Teren sinks down into the chair in front of Flint's desk and crosses her ankle over her knee, setting her walking stick aside to watch him with vague interest.

"More than I ever wanted to," she dismally replies, "if you recall, you lot thought we were all dead. It was a bit much." Tugging a flask out of her inner jacket pocket, she takes a swig from it.

"I shan't be going back this time, if that's where this is going. Not unless you supply me with a palanquin and an assortment of virile young men to carry it."

"I was under the impression that was what your Wardens were for."

This, said mildly while pairing socks in the spirit of avoiding topics such as the check of not recalling. No, he hadn't remembered. Or perhaps he'd never mentally earmarked it in the first place. At the time, he'd had pressing concerns beyond the assumed death of some woman he knew predominantly by the shape of her boot on the neck of some Venatori spy.

"It's for the best. I'd prefer to be certain there is someone capable of organizing here should something occur while we're away."

"If you want me rolled off a cliff, maybe," Teren says with a smirk, trying to imagine it. Alistair on one side, Barty on the other. Ellis? No, fuck Ellis, he can walk behind.

But there are other matters at hand. "You mean in case you all bite it," she helpfully supplies, "that's a bleak prospect. I fucking hate paperwork."
She idly drums her nails on the desk as she watches him pack. "Anything in particular you'd like me to handle while you're away?"

Edited 2020-01-24 22:57 (UTC)

"I meant in case some Tevinter fire ship comes sailing into the harbor to wreak havoc while half our forces are herding goats." Though the look he gives her is all, 'But sure, that other thing too.'

As to the specifics: "I expect reports in from agents along the coast, and there are likely to be dispatches from the Orlesian front line and a rare friend or two in Cumberland. If you're willing and able, I would appreciate having eyes on those as soon as they're received. I trust you to recognize a priority that should be sent to the Viscount's lodge by raven when you see it, and what can wait for my return. Paperwork," he adds, more sly than apologetic.

"Well then we'll have some fun," Teren muses, but nods, catching his drift.

"Both willing and able, I suppose." Her nose wrinkles slightly at the notion of more paperwork, but at least most of it is being set aside or forwarded, which is different from having to handle all of it herself. In the interest of keeping things running smoothly, it makes sense to have a reasonable person doing it.
"All I ask is that I'm able to call in a favor of equal importance at a later date." Which is to say, no assassinations or exonerations. Just bureaucracy, most likely.

"Would you prefer I have Alistair or Ellis stay behind to do it? I can just issue the order to either of them."

He looks at her, pausing in the process of sorting through a series of dark colored shirts. This is, he thinks, ostensibly a certain kind of favor already - a series of nominally sensitive documents bound for the desk of leadership outside her own division, over which she might otherwise have no visibility whatsoever until Forces, her Wardens included, were directed to act on them in some way.

"Told you I'd do it," Teren replies with a touch of irritation, "you're like to need both meatheads up there with you." Now if she can just get rid of Barty too, it'll be a perfect staycation.

Apparently satisfied, he returns to the perfunctory task of sorting through the selection of clothes laid out at the end of the bed - a series of twill and wool and some sensibly sturdy coat.

"I'll do my best to return them to you in the same condition as when they left." And, lightly, with every appearance of being more thoughtless than his selection between two shirts: "In the unlikely event of some issue making itself apparent while we're away, I might recommend Mr Silver as an able hand to assist you."

Don't bother, she almost says, but even in jest it's best not to have to kill him for returning Alistair in any shape but whole.

"Mr. Silver?" she asks, "not sure that we've met." They probably have, or at least spoken over crystal, but she'd remember if anyone had introduced himself with a name like that.

The nod is met with a small smile, comfortable silence falling as he lines up with the neighboring dummy and readies a throw. The silence doesn't last long.

"Caspar Perakis," he says, followed by a brief pause as he considers the target. The throw's smooth and seems a bit light, but it sticks the landing.

"I believe we have a mutual acquaintance."

That could mean a lot of things. A sideways reference to other spies or contacts, or to a dead king. He's not above speaking in code. In this case, however, it only means one thing: my boyfriend won't stop complaining about you.

“That so.”

Consider her hackles effectively raised- if this were about being from the same hometown, there’d be no need to couch it in clever evasion.

"Just so."

His tone is pointedly friendly, followed by another short pause and another throw.

"Nikos Averesch," he clarifies. "Unless I've mistaken you for someone else."

He hasn't. His network isn't exactly thriving within Riftwatch walls, but her identity's older news. Caspar holds his last knife as he waits on her response, nonchalant.

She pauses, and then she smirks. And then the smirk becomes a chuckle, then the chuckle becomes a belly laugh, and Teren is near about to fall off her stool by the time she speaks again.

“You’ve come to kill me then,” she wheezes with a grin. hahahaha fuck nikos

The laughter's surprising only by dint of how cagey she'd seemed — the logic isn't, unfortunately. Caspar smiles, giving her a moment to catch her breath.

"A reasonable guess, but no. I suspect that's an honor he'd save for himself."

A beat, then very moderately:

"If it came to it."

“Oh he can fucking try,” Teren sighs through a laugh, but catches her breath and wipes her brow.

“Are you his elusive partner, then? I seem to recall him mentioning a Caspar somewhere in the midst of his constant bellyaching.”

"I am. I believe we've also got a division in common, actually."

Casual delay as he throws his last knife, also casually. It hits its mark, same as the others, but it's got too much spin and not enough speed to be useful in a fight. Serious knife throwing feels a little out of place with small talk.

"Elusive there, too, admittedly. I only visit the offices on special occasions."

Like when he wants to heckle Nikos. Most of his work can be done by messengers, useful gossip neatly organized and delivered. He doesn't loiter often, and he's skirted responsibility on most of the missions. Busy running a business, very legitimate.

"Have we indeed."

That doesn't surprise her, but what does is how much more circumspect this fellow seems to be than the person they're discussing. She, too, takes a break from the knife throwing, if only to have a proper rest for a moment.

"Occasions like what?"

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[open] and I miss the days of a life still permanent

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