closed: onboarding with hr

[dirthsal]

WHO: Talin Shira'nehn, Bene, Stephen, Gwenaëlle, Clarisse
WHAT: Talin (finally) completes his onboarding
WHEN: Hella backdated to his arrival at the end of September
WHERE: Various area of the Gallows
NOTES: Individual starters in comments!

After helping get the fennec family relocated, Talin is finally free to actually go about signing up for Riftwatch. It's mostly a boring affair, giving his name for records, making his mark on this paper and that. Who would have known saving the world involved this much paper?

It takes a long while, but the end result is this: he's an official member of the Riftwatch now, with all the protections and responsibilities that provides. His first mission: meet with the various leaders and answer any questions they have for him.

Comments

[dirthsal]

"Vetter-nare-yan?" sounds extremely dubious. Why use a big fancy Tevene word when plain Trade "animal healer" works just as well? Better yet, use the elvhen, with all twelve apostraphes and the sounds shemlen can't wrap their tongues around—

He's distracted from amusing himself imagining the Healer tripping over a long elvhen word by the questionnaire held out to him, and Talin immediately makes a face, this one entirely genuine. He does not take the questionnaire.

"Read it to me," comes wholly un-self-conscious, halfway between a demand and a request. "It'll be faster than me trying to make sense of it myself."

[portalling]

“… Ah,” Strange says, missing a beat, but then pivoting smoothly to keep going. This part isn’t new, at least. Runasdotten had needed the assistance as well.

“Well, if it’s going to be an interview, then take a seat.” He gestures to the open chair in front of the Head Healer’s desk, and then goes for his own seat behind it, thumbing his crystal to start recording the man’s answers for later transcription. He begins, his voice crisp and professional, starting to run through the questions with the familiarity of well-worn procedure:

— Name?
— Age?
— Are you a rifter? I’m assuming not.
— Do you have an anchor-shard?
— Do you have any pre-existing conditions? Including food- or herb allergies, poor eyesight, lung issues, old troublesome wounds or missing limbs, et cetera.

[dirthsal]

Talin sits in the offered seat, noting the crystal recording, that the healer doesn't set to transcription himself—the tremor is disruptive enough he can't write, then, struggles with his finer dexterity. That's filed away, and then he turns his attention to answering Strange's questions—Talin, 25, not a rifter, no anchor shard—

and then he stops. The pause is enough to indicate the answer to that isn't no, but it takes a moment for him to decide what he wants to say about it.

"It's not troublesome," he says slowly, glancing at the crystal, "but I did sustain an injury to my back some years ago. As far as I'm aware it healed well, and scarred with no issues."

No physical issues, anyway.

[portalling]

“Oh?”

No judgment, no personal interest, just clean crisp professional curiosity. Strange is taking note of this, too. “What sort of injury? Some old ones can cause lingering issues.”

Pressing slightly in the conversation, just enough to wonder: is this something he needs to know about. Just in case.

[dirthsal]

It shouldn't be a difficult question, there's no reason to stumble over it—slash wounds, made with a sword, tended to with a mix of magic and herbalism and healed for five years by now—but still, Talin hesitates. He considers what to say, how to give answers without inviting further questions or lingering too long in memories deliberately left untouched for years...

And then he gives up considering and stands instead, turning his back to the healer and pulling his tunic over his head.

Five years ago, when he'd finally recovered enough to be coherent, he'd learned from the Wolf's agents that most of his healing time had been spent fighting off an infection—the wounds themselves weren't all that deep, actually, and the scars reflect that. In hindsight, the almost perfunctory nature of the slashes makes sense: killing the clan was never the goal of the Exalted March, after all. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, convenient target practice for a group of jumpy humans looking to convince themselves they weren't marching to their deaths. The humans weren't trying to kill the whole clan. That they did was, to them, just a happy bonus.

Aside from the two scars on his back, Talin has a handful of others scattered over his skin which suggest wilderness survival more than frequent combat. Either bicep sports black smears too dark for shadows, though it's difficult to tell what the tattoos are meant to be when seen from Stephen's position.

[portalling]

“Oh, well—”

A surprised noise, but then Strange understands what the man’s doing. He rises and circles around the desk to get closer to Talin’s back and assess the old injuries. And they are old: years gone, so it isn’t exactly the sort of thing which seems to require active monitoring, but…

But the specific location on the back gives him pause, and brings it closer to his realm of expertise.

“Were those from a sword?” the doctor asks, and perhaps it helps that there is absolutely no attempt at warmth or pity in his voice. They’re complete strangers to each other, newly met. He doesn’t actually care. This is another blue sheet-wrapped carved-up body for inspection and analysis. A professional puzzle, a file to jot down.

“It looks like they’ve healed up well enough, but spinal injuries could cause ongoing issues. Did it seem like it nicked the spine at the time? Have you had any lingering pain or loss of movement or sensation in the lower half of your body?”

[dirthsal]

It's far from usual for Talin to have his back bared for such scrutiny, but if he's uncomfortable, it doesn't show. He holds still under the doctor's professional assessment, breathing with nary a tremble or clenched fist.

"Hard to say what I felt at the time," given everything else going on around him, how the physical pain was hardly a needleprick to the pain in his heart, "it hurt. I fell. Face-down, almost drowned,"

in a puddle—barely a puddle, just a soggy patch of underbrush, wet enough to clog the noise and obstruct the lungs,

"got infected, that might have gone deeper in the spine than the sword. I don't remember any of that, I woke up healed. Magic, I was told, as complete as could be managed. No pain, no paralysis. Just the scars to remember it by."

🎀

[portalling]

“Ah, well. That’s good.”

Absolutely none of it is good, but Strange is clearing his throat and hemming-and-hawing his way through this particular stage of the talk, trying to skirt those conversational potholes.

Back to more solid ground, fumbling his way back to professionality. He doesn’t ask what circumstances might have left Talin Shira’nehn face-down drowning in a puddle, a sword in his back. He drums through the rest of the rest of the consultation at businesslike clip, foraging only pertinent details as needed, along with a polite little You can put your shirt back on now.

There’s a story there, there must be, but he doesn’t pry for more. The other man’s history is his own.