closed | take my lungs, take them and run.

[portalling]

WHO: Stephen Strange & Viktor
WHAT: A visit to a potential benefactor goes a little awry.
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Hightown, Kirkwall
NOTES: Chronic illness things.

After the exposition last year, and after Halamshiral, Riftwatch have gathered some cultural cachet. Enough that they have a few fans in the higher echelons of Kirkwall society, who’ll listen to them and chip into the latest rifter lunacy. So they’ve brought along some of their more portable inventions, offering a practical demonstration while visiting Marcher nobility, a certain eccentric Lord Abel in Hightown.

At least it’s a shorter trip, for Viktor: not out of town, just up those elevators to this other world (the Piltover to Lowtown’s Zaun—), a place of luncheons and champagne and white tablecloths. A ‘salon’, they call it, gathering interesting people in one room. Strange was more excited until he realised the variety, and that it is not, in fact, just Research: someone here is a particularly good violinist; another has a trained nug in a tutu who does tricks, or something. Humiliating to be presented alongside Princess the Nug, but if it’s a spectacle which means trade agreements which might mean rare materials, then hell. He’s game.

He’s been trying to coax Viktor out of his shell by letting him cover the practicalities and the inventions, while Strange schmoozes the nobles themselves. Sometimes this is their division: prying themselves out of the workroom, plastering on a smile, greasing palms, cranking up the charm. People listen to you and fund you if they like you. Stephen’s no Tony, neither of them are, but they’ll try.

But it’s been a long day. After lunch, their group has been offered a tour of this Hightown manor, and the day is wearing thin. Some of the other visitors are Antivans, boisterous and a little wine-happy, chattering about some large portrait adorning the hall while the rifters huddle by a sideboard. Strange is nibbling on one of the canapés and their hosts have temporarily stepped aside when there’s—

a wavering next to him, Viktor looking even paler than usual.

“Hey, you good?” Strange asks, shooting him a sidelong look. Maybe it was the shellfish.

Comments

[grindset]

The hand is accepted, albeit not in kind—under his arm, please, there'll be no hand-holding today—and with this help he lurches upright. Mildly, he waves off further assistance and instead props himself up on the crutch in a half-enfolded huddle, like he's willing his body to fuse with it. That humorous dust lands well enough; Viktor doesn't come anywhere close to smiling, himself, but he does let out a thin huff.

Whatever else his response may have included is cut by an eruption of mayhem in the room they left behind, starting with a noisy crash of plates and glassware and the pings and rattles of scattering cutlery. A running rhythm of grunts, and not unhappy ones, then comes flying down the corridor.

She's got the tablecloth—
Well, grab it!

Someone stumbles just outside the door, grumbling as he picks himself up—Blasted nug.—and rejoins the pursuit.

As it fades, Viktor deadpans,

"That answers that question."

potential 🎀

[portalling]

The nug thing is going to be tremendously funny when Stephen thinks back on it later, but for now he’s so fixed on their discreet escape route. He stands by the door, head cocked and listening for the commotion, waiting for the pounding feet to finish rushing past their room. He waits, one beat, two, before opening the door and sticking his head into the corridor.

“The coast is clear,” he says.

And then it’s a coordinated effort: Viktor laboriously heading straight for the exit, leaning weight on his crutch, while Stephen does a quick detour to find the nearest servant. (Elven, and that’s something he’s still getting accustomed to about high society here.)

The primly-dressed elf makes noises about fetching their lord, I’m certain he’ll want to say goodbye personally, but Doctor Strange is quick to wave off the concern, wielding all the peremptory dismissiveness he can. They’re leaving behind the quill cutter. No, it’s rather pressing, they have to leave immediately, pass on all best regards to his lordship, thank you very much for your time, they’d be happy to return in future.

And then it’s quick striding down the hallways again, brisk steps descending a staircase, out to the front drive and to reunite with Viktor and summon the carriage to return to the Gallows.

Later on, the follow-up will temporarily slide off the docket, as other more immediate emergencies arise: demonic impersonators, the demons’ abductees, an attack on the Gallows and Kirkwall itself, Viktor’s concern for Lowtown and insistence on prioritising Lowtown, priorities, endlessly reshuffling priorities.

But the doctor will eventually wend his way back to this topic; he always does, in the end.