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Entry tags:
open: "accidents" will happen.
WHO: Ness Tavane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aberratic)
WHAT: An "accident" and an amputation
WHEN: Backdated-ish to mid-March
WHERE: The Gallows/Infirmary
NOTES: CW for amputation of a limb, illness from infection in said limb, confusion and disorientation as a result of fever. Lmk if you need any other cws and I'll add them!
aberratic)WHAT: An "accident" and an amputation
WHEN: Backdated-ish to mid-March
WHERE: The Gallows/Infirmary
NOTES: CW for amputation of a limb, illness from infection in said limb, confusion and disorientation as a result of fever. Lmk if you need any other cws and I'll add them!
It's early morning one balmy day in the middle of Drakonis, and the central tower of the Gallows is quiet. A few early risers have already made their ways to their offices, not to mention those who fell asleep in their offices—or those who never slept in the first place—but most of Riftwatch is still asleep, or at least milling about the dining hall. Coffee and tea are still brewing, breakfast is still being served, the work of the day is still at least an hour away for most.
This is purposeful; it means there's no one near the Quartermaster's office to see what happens. There is only silence, and then a sudden cacophonous crash to break it, and a high, sharp scream.
This is purposeful; it means there's no one near the Quartermaster's office to see what happens. There is only silence, and then a sudden cacophonous crash to break it, and a high, sharp scream.
ota, visiting hours
Throughout this period, she's following all of Stephen's instructions about how to care for her residual limb meticulously, sticking to the schedule of cleanings and dressing changes he prescribed even if she has to rope a visitor in to assist when Stephen isn't there to help himself. Ness is a dutiful and patient patient in most all ways... with one notable exception the longer Stephen keeps her in the infirmary: Anyone who comes to visit her without any particular agenda of their own will be treated to good-natured and easily side-stepped requests for work to do while she's out of commission. Nothing strenuous, she insists, or that she'll have to get out of bed to do! And if Stephen finds out, she won't snitch, she promises.
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She says, "Hey," as she holds up her kit. "How're you doing? Strange said you're due for a refresh."
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"Right on time," she smiles, and shifts forward in her bed to proffer her arm for Abby's attention. "It hurts, but no worse than could be expected, I think. I'm taking that as a good sign."
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She never saw what was underneath of Yara's bandages or sleeve so it's part morbid curiousity that has made her interested in seeing. She starts to take the dressing off, working slow.
"Strange said it was a compound fracture. That fucking sucks. I've seen one before."
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Ness has a strong stomach, a hardy constitution, but the thought of seeing her own bones mangled, her flesh misshapen, her muscle exposed and red and wriggling—anyone would be distraught, she thinks. It's an extraordinary man who has the fortitude and temperament to be a surgeon.
Beneath the dressing, her residual limb is tender to the touch, and Ness hisses when even Abby's slow attention irritates it—but it's healthy, or at least on its way to. The stitches are clean, the skin knitting itself slowly together around them. Fluid in the wound has left the residual arm somewhat puffy, but not concerningly so. There's no inflammation, no sign of infection. It's as good as an amputated limb could hope to look, under the circumstances.
"I have experienced some very painful things," she says, her eyes transfixed on her limb, "but the fracture was the worst. If not for Stephen's cuff, I might have gone a litte mad with it. I'd never broken a bone before."
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But that she wants to look now, is the interest hereditary? When she peels back the bandage, going slow and careful, the work underneath impresses her, the careful, neat row of stitches and the skin in the act of repairing itself. Obviously there hasn't been any lasting nerve damage — she feels it, when Abby removes that last bit of wrap and discards it. She makes a sound like it hurts.
"It's not great." The worst pain she's ever felt — something does come to mind but she doesn't say it. There is balm to apply to the surface of the residual limb that contains elfroot, spreads on thin and will provide pain relief. She'll go slowly, only touching what she has to. "Got my elbow broken by a Venatori once and then had to get myself back to our side. It was rough.
"What happened?"
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It seems likely that Strange will confiscate anything that seems overtaxing, but it hardly seems that she should be prevented from any occupation whatsoever. If one is well enough to find healing tedious, one is well enough to be provided with some consolation, surely.
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"Terribly," she confirms, and pushes herself up to sit a little taller in her bed. It's less effective with only one hand with which to brace herself, so she has to wiggle a bit and really think about it to get herself in the position she wants—something to work on. Finally upright with a respectable posture, she lays her hand in her lap, and tries to look very, very healthy.
"I've finished the book the Doctor brought me, and every time I try to help with stocking duties someone yells at me."
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“Familiarising yourself with these will not, I think, tax you so that anyone feels the need to scold for it,” she says, setting them up in the stand; she has already organised them by chronology (and priority, where appropriate). “But so as you might not feel quite so apart from what’s done in your absence, or lost when you return from it.”
A long-standing habit of her own, even if sometimes she’s asking Julius to read them to her so she can fall asleep.
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"Oh, this will be so useful!"
Ness reaches to run her fingers over the contraption, a little less coordinated with her left than her right (but less so than might be expected), noting now it unfolds, its beautifully simple mechanisms.
"Thank you, Madame," and you can tell she really means it because it takes her a few seconds to look away from the contraption in order to meet Petra's еyе. "Where did you find such a device? I must purchase one for myself."
Because surely this is merely a loaner, not a gift.
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no pun intended.
“Monsieur Walding is a bookseller by his primary trade,” she explains, sitting by Ennaris’s infirmary bed once she’s set up the stand near enough to be useful, “but he has expanded his vision somewhat— to read is his passion, I understand, and so he has solved many such problems for himself, and thought perhaps that his clientele would likewise appreciate his solutions.”
And if she can’t quite relate to his enthusiasm for the form itself, she has certainly benefited from his problem-solving.
“Often he will have one or two available, but in the event he does not, I believe one might only wait a week or two for one to be made.”
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Ness visibly restrains herself from spending too much time poring over the card, imagining what this Monsieur Walding is like, pre-scripting the conversation and how to describe what she wants out of her book stand. She sets the card on her bedside table, close to hand but not her focus, at the moment.
"Thank you, Madame," she says, with all the depth of gratitude she can muster. If she'd managed to do as she'd intended from the start, go two years, even a year, into her time in Thedas before resorting to this, she'd have found these little solutions herself. She'd have made it a point to. In half a year she taught herself to write with her left hand, taught herself to tie her laces with one, to feed herself and dress herself and tend her own hair with one hand and no mirror—but there's so much to account for, so many gaps to fill in. Too much to think of on her own. Having help, without having to ask for it—it means so much.
But there's no call to get weepy about it. Madame de Cedoux isn't here for her to cry all over about the effects of this thing she did to herself. Ness smiles, soft and a little sardonic as she leans toward the folder to peruse the work in front of her.
"I was told before this that I need to rest, but somehow I imagine this is not what the Doctor intended."
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but whatever is percolating within her mind on that subject, she is not minded to weigh Ennaris down with it presently. She says, “Well, that is as may be,” pleasantly non-committal on the subject of Docteur Strange’s edicts, “but for as often as it is called blissful, I have never found ignorance a restful state of being.”
And surely, it is better to mitigate that as easily as reading a few reports than to burden a time of healing with distraction?
(It can come as little surprise to anyone that she has, herself, never made for an easy patient.)
“I can only imagine he intends what is best.” And what kind of heartless person might call this otherwise? Checkmate, medicine.
infirmary buddies
It's an odd thing to say Barrow is looking a little thin, but there are shadows around his eyes to match the heavy stubble on his jaw as he shuffles by to sit nearby, offering a smile as warm as it is sad.
"What're you in for," he asks gently, only to notice a half-second later and regret the question. A low whistle, and he shuts himself up.
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"If you'd like to ask a different question, I can pretend I didn't hear you."
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“All right,” he agrees, “does it come with a good story, at least?”
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She waves her residual limb demonstratively—then winces. Yeah, that's still a long way from healed enough to be indelicate with.
"I'm told this is why it's important to anchor shelving to walls."
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"You know there are people taller than yourself," he remarks, "who you can ask to-- well, what's done is done." Something doesn't quite add up in the story, but he's hardly in any position to call her on it. People need to be able to tell themselves what they will.
"Hope it's not too painful, at least." He looks down at his hands.
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"The fracture itself was... awful," she says instead, and she doesn't have to lie about that at all. "Now..."
She moves her residual limb slowly, flexes the remaining muscle. It hurts, her body trying to carry the message to move down to tissue that no longer exists, and Ness hisses sharply... but she doesn't scream. There's pain, but it's not unbearable. Not all the time.
"I'll survive. That's the important thing. Doctor Strange took very good care of me."
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"He," Barrow begins, like he's about to say something sarcastic, but his resolve crumbles. He can't mean it, it's too fresh, it's not the doctor's fault-- "he does that."
Still, the truth of it doesn't quite meet his eyes.
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She hasn't pressed Stephen, purposely, and for now it seems like everything is going actively better than expected for "major surgery without modern equipment or antibiotics." At least Ness has the energy to put up a front, if that's what it is. Cosima likes Ness, though she doesn't assume they're especially close, and if this goes better than expected, well. She won't begrudge the other woman a bit of luck.
"So have you reached the bored out of your mind stage of surgical recovery yet?" Cosima asks, lightly, as she comes to sit by Ness's bedside for a while. As in their chat before the event, if Cosima has any feelings about the choice to amputate, the choice to stage it as an accident, or both, they're impossible to read in her manner. As usual, the vibe is laid-back but warm.
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"I've been spending the time considering what should be done with me now—I'm something of a singular resource, aren't I, at least while Madame de Foncé is in Orzammar?"
Perhaps it's a bit gauche to refer to oneself as a resource, but Ness doesn't seem bothered by it. It's merely a practical description of what she is now, after all.
"Do we have records of what experiments were run on Madame after her own amputation? It would be prudent to determine if their conclusions are replicable with me."
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That said, Cosima isn't going to dismiss the idea out of hand. To wit: "I have Madame de Foncé's report, and some notes of my own from discussing the matter with her. And Viktor co-authored the study. If nothing else, it would make sense to carefully observe your relationship to lyrium, though as you know better than most, lyrium's a tricky thing to work with." Quietly; she can imagine it's not the thing Ness is most looking forward to, but it is the most measurable.
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"Two is more than one. We can begin to see if patterns emerge, at least, and that's more than we have now!"
She looks at Cosima, pale and unkempt and maimed... and yet it wouldn't be a stretch to say she's never looked happier, more energized. A future stretches out in front of her now, no more uncertain than anyone else's. She might die at Venatori hands in a month, she might fall to a fatal accident tomorrow, she might drop dead of a sudden apoplexy in the next five minutes—but she's not going to disappear.
"I can't wait to see what we learn. I can't wait to see how Thedas changes because of us."
She gets to stay.
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"What has Doctor Strange been saying about your recovery? Any prognosis so far, or is he still keeping that close to the vest?" It's not, under the circumstances, a change of subject so much as a reminder that all of the many experiments Ness is picturing will remain theoretical for at least a while to come.