open | i been up all night no sleep

[okayimin]

WHO: Sister Sara Sawbones, Jenny Lou, Sol Noon AND YOU
WHAT: Catch All
WHEN: Post Satinalia and forwards
WHERE: the Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: Sawbones is having a bad time post murderhaus, Jenny Lou is up to some wildly stupid meme shit, Noon's just chilling.

Comments

OTA

[okayimin]

1.
The knife wound in her shoulder had gone straight through, an emergency cauterization kept her from bleeding out, but did very little to repair the damage done. Sawbones' gives every appearance of alertness, insisting on helping get the others settled where she can. If given nothing to do, she stands, staring into the middle distance with a glazed look.

She isn't here. Not really.

2.
Medics make for terrible patients and Sawbones is no exception. She disappears into the smallest, darkest hiding spot as soon as she's left unattended. She doesn't reappear for a few days, but when she does, it's to totter off towards the bath.

She sways a little and needs to keep one hand on the wall to support herself. Her eyes are bright and alert and her face is set in a determined scowl. She smells especially rank, there's really no getting around that.

3.
Dwarves don't dream, but they do remember. All the more reason not to sleep. So Sawbones doesn't. She spends a great deal of time in the chapel, the rhythms of Chantry duties soothing. The rest she spends in the gardens and in Kirkwall.

Winter is coming and that's all the reason she needs to be particularly onery about making sure the Gallows infirmary and Lowtown healers are well fortified. And maybe she goes and growls a little at the Chantry Brothers and Sisters who feel their time is better spent yelling at Marchers to join the Exalted March then doing literally anything productive.

4.
There is a very small brawl between the two dueling parties. Sawbones is very much in the middle of it, attempting to drag out some hapless Brother who's somehow earned himself a blackeye.

4.

[innerharbor]

Small brawls become big very briefly when Amos enters them, and then they're over. Two quick punches, one kick, and Amos' nose is bleeding down into a toothy, psychotic smile.

The crowd that had formed begins to ebb, curiosity losing to self-preservation.

He adjusts his face into something more blandly amiable. "What happened?"

[okayimin]

She almost expects him at this point. The smile doesn't phase her, instead she scowls up at him.

"You're going to pulverize that nose of yours someday," she scolds. Sawbones lets go of the Brother she'd been trying to drag out of the fray to start searching her pockets. He is a bit more put off by their helper.

"Maker preserve us!" he gasps in Orlesian, before Sawbones smacks his thigh (the highest spot she can reach).

"You don't even start," she snaps, her scolding shifting to him, "What are you lot even doing down here without Sister Ophelie, she's the only one of you idiots with any sense-" She'll carry on like that while gesturing for Amos to lean down so she can clean his face. Her hands are only shaking a little.

[innerharbor]

Amos' smile takes on a different sort of dimension, blankly promising violence, until the Brother leaves. Then, he looks to Sawbones. "Take a breath."

He doesn't lean down. He just waits.

[okayimin]

Her jaw closes with a click and for a moment, he's too large. Everything is and there's no escaping the empty arch of blue behind him. She flinches, eyes glassy and face blank. Then she tips her head back and glares at him.

"I am breathing," she says primly, "And you're bleeding."

[innerharbor]

"I know." He starts walking, looking for a private alcove of the hall. He finds one-- goddamn place is full of these things-- and sits on a windowsill. "C'mon."

[okayimin]

She follows him, curiosity overriding a little of the fear. She's still shaken, feels hollowed through from it. The alcove is a lure of it's own. Not quiet as small or dark as the places she usually goes to hide, but close. She sighs and leans against the wall next to Amos.

[innerharbor]

Amos wipes the blood off his lip with his sleeve, waits for it to stop bleeding on its own. It was a small wound, a vessel that's been broken so many times it's used to it. He doesn't care how it looks. He never has.

"Look," he says, "I dunno what happened with you and Cap in the dead psycho's basement," he begins promisingly, "and I'm not much help with that shit. But if you got anything you gotta say about it... I don't judge."

[okayimin]

She tips her head back to look up at him. She doesn't say anything for a long moment, but...

"Do you know anything about the Deep Roads?" She doesn't recall what parts of it Mhavos had put in the pamphlet, the sight of the Casteless mark a strangely overwhelming thing.

[innerharbor]

Even if that pamphlet was yet published, Amos wouldn't have bothered reading it. "Nope," he says amiably.

3

[heorte]

"I've been looking for you," Ellis says, marking his arrival in the garden as Sawbones works.

It's only been a day or so since they returned. His circuitous route through looking in on people would have brought him to her eventually. She looks tired, he thinks, but pointing that out isn't going to get him anywhere.

"Will you scowl at me if I ask how you are?"

[okayimin]

She scowls at him regardless, throwing in an indignant little huff on top. "I'm as well as anyone can be," she says, "What do you need?"

Because the idea that he's been looking for her only to ask after her health is ridiculous.

[heorte]

Surprise, that is exactly what Ellis is doing.

Of course, he isn't going to say as much, because no one likes to be fussed over. Instead, he extends his hand to her.

"The cold makes it harder for me to use it," he says of the bent fingers, old injury healed poorly. "I wondered if you knew some remedy that would make it a little easier. Maybe a salve to create some heat?"

[okayimin]

No one likes to be fussed over, but that's never stopped Sawbones from being the one to do the fussing. And having a problem to address makes her more clear eyed and sharp.

She frowns and takes his hand, feeling for scar tissue and testing for motion range, "Elfroot and willow bark. Nothin' I have in stock, but Colin ought to. Meantime, let's get you some hot stones."

And they're going to the kitchens now. No, he doesn't have a choice.

[heorte]

There's no intention to protest. Maybe the range of motion in his hand isn't so high on Ellis' list of concerns, but Sawbones' expression sparks and brightens at the prospect of solving it, and she is high on his list of concerns. Means to an end.

"Tell me what I should do with them," he prompts. "Set them in my pocket to reach for when the hand gets too stiff?"

[okayimin]

She nods, trundling along down to the kitchens, "Wrap 'em up and the heat won't be as harsh, but what I've in mind is rubbing them against your hand. A good flat stone warmed up ripping hot and pressed to the area where you've stiffness should help a good bit."

And in the kitchens, she bustles about, producing several large flat stones from her habit pocket and neatly tucking them into the embers of the fire.

"Tea," she says, "Since we're here, might as well get your hands properly treated."

[heorte]

"Get some for yourself," Ellis suggests, settling at the small table in the corner. Easier to suggest while she's at work, in motion at the fire. He's left his hand obligingly on the tabletop as he watches her.

"The stones are a good idea. I never thought of it."

The truth: he hasn't spent much time thinking of the hand beyond what needs to be acclimated to in the moment. He's gotten used to the ache of it, the stiffness that lingers. There's some novelty in the idea that she's giving him some pointers that might actually ease the long-present inconvenience of it.

1

[nonvenomous]

As patients are sectioned off and attended to, or otherwise dispatched back to their quarters to nurse traumas less physical, a pair of long legs separates from the herd, and crosses the infirmary for Sawbones. There, Richard sinks into a crouch to search her face at eye level.

He’s gone a little tatty, for a snake, sharp clothes and fine trimming given way to leather armor and road-weary scruff. But his eyes are still clear blue, and he’s taken time to wash his hands before he reaches for her shoulder with the one that isn’t broken.

“Have you seen anyone for this?”

[okayimin]

It takes her longer than it would normally to respond. She blinks, puzzled that this giant thing is here and apparently speaking to her. Then time shifts back into place a little and she shakes her head.

"Not since that shrieking nug-" As fond an address as Edgard's going to get for a while, "Cauterized it for me. Reckon it's a mess by now."

Shoulder wounds having taken a backseat to the two different gaping abdominal wounds others in their party had suffered. "Someone look at your hand?"

[nonvenomous]

“I did.”

He secures his grip at her shoulder, confident enough in her fortitude (or fugue) to pry his thumb lightly at the wound’s edge to give himself some scope of the depth. There’s no accompanying grimace of sympathy. He’s just looking.

“Why don’t we take a walk to the chantry, and I'll see to it that you don't rot from the inside."

[okayimin]

The touch causes a sharp surge of pain that chases away a little more of the fog she feels trapped in.

"Bit early for rot," she says, tone mild despite the way her jaw tightens. Her eyes sweep over their surroundings, lighting on any of their companions in sight and pausing on them briefly. Once she's done that catalogue, she nods to Richard. "All right, let's go."

[nonvenomous]

“Consider this preventative maintenance.”

Elbows boosted off his knees, he pushes back upright, tired joints popping against the shift of his weight. A gesture encourages her to lead the way -- or at least to walk in time with him, as well as she can when she has to take two or three steps for each of his.

“Have you been able to sleep?”

He waits to ask until they’re well on their way, far from prying eyes and ears.

[okayimin]

It's the distance from the others that allows her to sigh, something heavier than her usual indignant huff of air.

"Not much," she tells him, "Don't have to deal with dreams, but I still got plenty of things to remember. New shit layered up on top of old shit. You had any luck?" With dreams or sleeping or both. Or shitting, frankly it'd be an interesting diversion.

[nonvenomous]

“The pain has made it difficult.” He reaches to open the door for her.

The chantry within is dark and empty, little-used in her absence.

“Also,” he continues, deadpan as he holds the door, “the irrational but inevitable anxiety that another egomaniacal human could infiltrate Riftwatch and drag me into their underground torture chamber at any time.”

[okayimin]

There's comfort to be had in the quiet of the chapel and it's carved stone. Even if it's not the sort a Revered Mother would prefer she take.

"They do go in for that kind of thing," she says, with a humorless laugh, "At least the ones we got already aren't inclined in that direction."

She leads them back to the little office stuffed full of books and smelling strongly of herbs. Her docotr's bag gets hauled out of it's corner and plopped heavily on a tiny (though not dwarf sized) desk. "Think I got some Royal Elfweed left. Has a stronger kick to it than the regular strain."