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WHO: Holden, you!
WHAT: A catch-all for the month(?)
WHEN: After Satinalia and onwards
WHERE: Kirkwall, Gallows
NOTES: There'll be post-murderhaus stuff in here, so there may be references to some of the horror movie occurrences!
WHAT: A catch-all for the month(?)
WHEN: After Satinalia and onwards
WHERE: Kirkwall, Gallows
NOTES: There'll be post-murderhaus stuff in here, so there may be references to some of the horror movie occurrences!
Starters will be in the comments! I'm sorry, I'll write a real log one day.
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It had seemed like just his stomach, but in fairness, the injury there had been so serious that it would have taken precedence regardless. She gives the shirt one sharp shake before stepping back to offer it to him.
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Technically, everywhere else, on a molecular level, but. Anyway. The shirt's so shredded at this point that it's easy enough to shrug whatever's left of it off his shoulders, and to turn one arm towards Derrica so she can see the reddish, raised triangle of skin and exposed bit of metal of his implant. The whole thing glimmers blue, faintly.
"Have you ever seen something like this before? The blue glow."
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"Did he put this in you?" She asks softly, fingers drifting to touch the silver gleam of metal. The color of the light is wrong to have come from a rift, as far as she knows. But it doesn't make sense; no one else had come in with such a thing. She'd have at least heard Sister Sara reacting to one if she'd discovered it on someone else.
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But it's still strange; not a place he's used to being touched, except sometimes by Naomi. He's always self-administered his own meds, or did before Thedas.
"No, no," he says, shakes his head. "Souvenir from home. It's a medical device."
He figures the phrase is going to be self-explanatory enough, whether or not it's one she's heard before.
"But the light is new. It never did that before I got here. I thought it might be some kind of magic you might know about."
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Derrica trails off, frowning a little over whatever conclusion she's circling. Holden doesn't flinch, so she lays her palm cautiously over the device embedded in his skin, breathes in deep. The tingle of energy coming off it is familiar, even if nothing else is.
"I don't know if it's magic," she tells him. "It feels like lyrium. Do you know what lyrium is?"
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He frowns at her answer, thinking back to his first days in Thedas, the primer on living here.
"I know touching it is supposed to be bad for your health."
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It isn't dwarf-made. He'd have said as much if it were. The blue glow leaks through her fingers.
"Does it exist where you came from? Would it have been used to make this?"
The sensation coming off it reminds her of her Harrowing, of the bitter potions she'd used to bring lightening cracking down at sea. But that's far removed from this device in his skin. It isn't a benign thing, but she's never seen or heard of anything like it in her lifetime.
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The only thing that glows blue like this is something that definitely did not come here with him, had no part in his implant.
"This is just technology. I know you don't have anything like it here, but I know how it works. Worked."
He had to; so he could know how to use it, and to not be in the dark in case of malfunction or just maintenance.
The logical conclusion is that something about it changed when he fell through that rift. He could've guessed that much from the new glow, but the how still makes no fucking sense. How it changed; how it works now. Exactly how screwed he is without the crucial other component for its function.
"It's fine if you don't know."
He'll just reach out — ow, more carefully — for the tunic she was offering earlier.
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And she's a little hesitant about where exactly to tell him to go next with his question.
"What did it do?"
The end result is still going to be directing him towards Research. Or Julius, maybe. She isn't certain which of their resident mages was given to tinkering, and she also can't say with any confidence whether another Rifter would know any more about it than Holden.
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In a universe where oncocidals are a pretty standard supply item for any ship's medbay, and not particularly difficult to synthesize — and where everyone knows about Eros and the role the Roci played in it — this is an straightforward admission. As time passes and the function of the glowing becomes more clear, it will be again.
Right now, though.
"It's technically a port. Easy way to inject medicines, if you need to."
And, after saying that, he's going to be putting on the clean shirt.
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"Does Amos have one?"
A clarifying question, as she tries to decide which form her next questions will take.
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"No," admitted, as he gingerly pulls the shirt's hem over his midsection.
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"Is there some medicine you need?" is the next question, asked very softly. It narrowly beats out: Are you ill? But it needs to be asked. How can they do anything for him if they don't talk of it?
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"I've been taking something since an accident a few years ago." Not daily, luckily, or he'd be well and truly fucked by now. "Nothing you'd have on hand here."
Of that, he's positive. Science and tech, medicine, in Thedas is in the dark ages when compared to his universe's baseline.
He shrugs, smiles faintly, and concludes, "It's fine."
Maybe the lyrium luminescence means his implant will power itself; maybe it doesn't. Frankly: either the radiation damage'll kill him or it won't, and that's always been the case since Eros. He'll know soon enough.
my extreme lol
Silently, Derrica reaches over to take his hand. There are traces of his blood on her skin, smudging slightly as she laces her fingers through his. It's an unspoken expression of comfort, and the fierceness of her grip marks out just how unwilling she is to turn away from whatever it is he isn't telling her. Maybe she won't press him now, but it's only because he only recently had a massive stomach wound.
"We'll figure it out," she says, softly. "Riftwatch has a lot of people who know so much more than I do. So don't worry yet, alright?"
winks
There's no Rocinante in Thedas, in the Gallows, and the title is functionally meaningless. Except: he worries about Amos, his well-being, keeping him safe, making the best decisions while they're both here. He worries about Naomi, and about Alex, and whatever it is that they may be dealing with, whether or not they're even experiencing Holden's and Amos's absences. He worries about the unsteady peace in their system, Cortazar and the sample of protomolecule, the protomolecule-killing tech on Ilus and the beings that made them. He worries about the people he knows here. The others who were on this mission, wounded physically and mentally, the friends he's been starting to make, the mistreatment of whose who aren't human, who have magic, the looming threat of Corypheus and more.
The uncertainty of his own condition is, too, a buzz in the back of his mind. But it slides down the list, past these more pressing concerns.
He gives her hand a squeeze, cants his head, smiles a little lopsidedly. Says, "Me, worry?"
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That's a shared trait, Derrica thinks. For better or for worse, she recognizes that habit in him that she's so prone to. Her hand tightens on his.
"Worry less," she amends. "And get some sleep. We can figure the rest of this out tomorrow."
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And with that said, he'll gently slip his hand free.
"The others'll also need looking after."
As in, infirmary staff might be kind of busy with the lot of them, in these next few days. She doesn't need the reminder, but he can't help himself.
"But try not to work yourself too hard."
gently ties bow on this thread.
In case Holden had any misconceptions that he's now off the hook. But Derrica parting smile is very kind, before she leaves him be.