faderift | All we do is play it safe [Open]

WHO: Vanya, assorted visitors
WHAT: Vanya has a Bad Time getting off lyrium
WHEN: Various points during Kingsway (feel free to handwave relative to mod plot if you'd like your character to be there for a certain portion)
WHERE: Various points in the Gallows
NOTES: Content warning for themes related to (fantasy) drug use and withdrawal. Medical stuff possible but definitely not required, especially in the infirmary starter; if you want to hit that one but not have anything medical in it beyond what's mentioned in the starter itself, just let me know oocly and I can avoid it.

I. The Infirmary

Permission obtained from Commander Flint, Vanya approaches the infirmary staff with his intentions. He intends to burden anyone else as little as possible, and part of that is making sure the relevant staff know of his plans and have input (within reason) as to his approach. The upshot of this is that, despite his protestations, the early days of the process are spent in the infirmary, under supervision.

It's best that they insist. The cravings and the thirst would be hard enough to endure without the disorientation that accompanies them. Depending on which day Vanya gets a visitor or a colleague in the infirmary for their own reasons, he may or may not recognize them. But he does his best to talk to anyone who engages them, regardless of how lucid he is or isn't.

II. Former Templar Tower — Vanya's Room or Communal Lounge

Eventually, the confusion ebbs. He's still thirsty and tired, and his head is splitting more often than it's not, meaning he's not yet fit to resume his exercises in the training yard, much less his duties. But he's not bed-ridden. He can fetch his own food and move about the Gallows as long as he gives himself enough time and doesn't push himself.

Mostly, though, he sticks to his quarters or nearby. His instinct is to hide, but he doesn't fully give into it; if nothing else, the infirmary staff checks on him often enough that it feels only polite to leave his door ajar in case he falls into a doze.

He wonders, more than once, if someone would give him lyrium at this point if he said he'd changed his mind after all.

He doesn't ask. That said, he gives the impression of a man who would be grateful for a distraction. At night, his neighbors may be unavoidably aware that he's having nightmares, though that's not as rare in the Gallows as it might be.

III. Aftermath

One day he reappears, resuming his usual routine as if nothing had happened. Someone has cleared him, presumably, but he seems to be going through the motions in part by pure force of will. He seems a bit gray and peaky, but he reports for training, duty, meals, all as usual.

Occasionally, though, he finds himself staring into the middle distance, unsure why he walked into the room or how long it's been since the person sitting next to him at dinner last said something.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Like most aspects of Riftwatch, the infirmary doesn't have the manpower that would be ideal. Given that most of those it does have are some flavor of mage —

Gwenaëlle has sat at sickbeds a hundred times before. The bleak joke, “Hopefully you'll fare better in the long term than they did,” is not not funny, but her qualifications in this particular role mostly involving what could be described as end of life care is, well. It is what it is, and the main thing that it is right now is an extra pair of hands to offer relief from a task that those obligated to do it might find understandably distasteful.

She can watch over him; assist, where magical intervention is not explicitly required. Her bedside manner is brisk — efficient, neither kind nor unkind — and she doesn't flinch at much, isn't squeamish. Points out where in the infirmary she once made Abby hold a light for her so she could sew her own injury, tells of learning how to do so in Halamshiral, because her father would never hear of a physician when he'd been drinking and she'd learned the servants' remedies and done her best.

Her sewing keeps her hands busy and her mind free, when he needs nothing but someone there in case he needs something.

Vanya has spoken to her on multiple occasions, but it's not been evident whether he's fully registered who she is for any of them. He's more lost than agitated, as if he's become somewhat unstuck in his own timeline. It's clear, sometimes, that he thinks he's in Cumberland and is confused about the decor. Other times, it's not obvious where he thinks he is. But he's never loud and he's always polite, even if it's obvious that he's unsettled and unwell. When she tells him things, he listens attentively, asks questions that are very logical, but also gives no real sign as to whether those questions have any tie to memories of other times they've spoken.

Eventually, as she's sewing, he says, "I told the Commander it was partly your idea, you know." It's quiet, and a bit raw. He's so thirsty all the time, and he has no idea if it's because his throat is actually dry or if that, too, is purely in his mind. He doesn't suppose he's going to do himself any mischief drinking more water than he technically needs.

Gwenaëlle is patient, when he is— absent. She explains the same things as often as he needs her to; she judges, sometimes, that it is better to say we had to move you to another room, don't worry about it than agitate him further when he doesn't understand why the infirmary looks the way it does. She isn't sure if it's right, but she isn't sure if he'll remember it later to critique her, anyway.

She wonders what it was like for Cullen, and who sat with him. They've long since fallen out of touch, another little guilt to add to the collection. How unhappy she had been to be sent off to Kirkwall, petulant and sullen and letting fall the connections she'd built amongst the advisors, and how small and stupid the grievance seems now.

When Vanya speaks, he interrupts her thoughts but not her sewing as she glances up, saying, “Is that so,” first, which isn't a question. He's not in the habit of saying things just for the sake of having said them, in her limited experience of the man. He's barely in the habit of saying things. “You don't want to be the only one on the hook for this decision, then?”

She doesn't sound particularly concerned she's going to be in any trouble for it.

If he'd been feeling better, he might have hurried to correct her. As it is, he pauses a moment, and then says deliberately, "It was important to me that I not take credit for something I don't deserve to be credited for. I have no doubt I'll take the full portion of the blame if it turns out to have been a mistake, regardless."

He's tempted to try to sit up, but he knows that's probably a bad idea, so he stays where he is, half propped up with a bolster and some pillows so people can help him get water and broth down periodically.

"I hope I haven't been too bad of a patient."

Flint hardly needs the reminder that Gwenaëlle is an over-confident busy-body,

the problem with being ill-suited to stillness, and surrounded by things that need doing is that she is going to try and do a good half of them, regardless of whether or not she should. And here they are, but she doesn't think this one is so much her doing as he says. At any rate, she's certainly not doing the hardest part.

“I've had worse. How are you feeling?”

"Like I've been dragged by horses over several leagues of bad road," he said, frank. "But on the other hand, I'm aware that I am in the Gallows infirmary as a member of Riftwatch, and I know who you are, so I believe that counts as a good day, under the circumstances."

A brief pause, and then he adds, "I could use some more water, whenever someone has a moment." He's drained his again.

All we do is play it safe [Open]

the infirmary.

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