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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.
@wythersake, afterward.
It rankles that he had to call for desperate assistance from someone he didn’t even remember existed a few weeks ago; that Doctor Strange looked at all his modern knowledge and years of complex medical experience and residencies and specialties and asked himself what else he could do for Ennaris Tavane, and the answer was, nothing.
Ordinarily he might be wielding more of his customary sharp sarcasm, but all these sleepless hours have wrung him out and sanded down those edges. He owes Isaac a great debt. He looks clammy, tired. The helplessness had been strangling him. And this, after Barrow—
Once the girl is safely out of the woods and stabilised and unconscious again, her breathing steady and fever gone, Stephen moves through the infirmary and goes for a locked cabinet at the back, by his desk. Unlocks it and removes two cups and a bottle of wine. Break in case of emergency, he thinks.
“Care for an Orlesian red?” he asks, weary. “Not white, since there’s no ice-box.”
no subject
Automatic, with no intention of touching the cup. He doesn't often drink, and this a poor time; rot in his nose and Fade at the door. The gesture stands. The drag of Stephen's voice does. Isaac pushes his face into damp cloth, breathes in. Tonight's seen lyrium in some quantity. Hardly his first brush with mana imbalance, but he's growing older. Every year a little slower.
(Whispers in another place: The man without a face, and so he doesn't close his eyes beneath the rag. He doesn't lift it, either. A child needn't look to know the monster's there.)
"You're very fond of her," Observation, muffled for the cloth. "Why is that?"
A warmup — there are other questions he means to have answered. It asks a very particular set of circumstances, to crush only one's anchor-hand, and not waste the upper limb; to choose amputation, before outside assistance.
He could press Tavane, Isaac was younger than her when he entered the liar's trade. But there's no point to underlining what he already knows. Hers isn't the tongue in question.
no subject
And then he considers the question in seriousness. It’s not one he’s ever sat down to consciously consider.
“She’s clever and a hard worker,” he eventually says, which sounds more like a good grade report but he makes himself push on, “and tried to help Riftwatch and people in Thedas even faster than I did. We saw some awful shit in Sarrux together, and she’s still been trying hard ever since. We’ve been working on her magic together. She’s a good kid.”
He might kvetch and complain and grouse about how he hasn’t the patience for people, but the truth is, it’s all noise. He’s reminded too much of another young witch with out-of-control powers he wasn’t able to help — another plucky teenaged girl who lost her parents, and barreled into him for a hug — an oddly-shaped absence in his memory except that he remembers a young voice, pleading, Come on, Strange, have a heart.
“Weren’t you fond of any of your students?”
no subject
Big words from a man wearing a washcloth. He doesn't make for the desk, not yet. Let eyes roll where they may of the distinction, but it matters: Everyone here is an adult. Young as she is, Tavane makes her own choices. If he thought otherwise —
(Breath in his ear. In, out. Ragged without lips to wet.)
"And I hope that isn't how she talked you into this."
no subject
Stephen’s always too quick on the draw and too fond of mouthing off, is the problem. So he starts talking and tips his hand a little too much before cutting himself short, words sheared off and interrupted and replaced with a fortifying sip of the wine.
Talked me into what? might have been the coy response, if he were trying to keep tossing up these veils and shadows and obfuscations.
But he’s tired, and it’s been a long several days, and his patient almost died, and he owes Isaac a great debt. The awareness of it keeps resurfacing, prickling and prodding at him, an undercurrent to the entire conversation. If he’s going to summon the other man from sleep for the equivalent of exhausting emergency surgery, he’s not going to fucking lie to his face about it. He’s used to being bluntly straightforward amongst colleagues in the O.R., and old habits are hard to break.
So in the end Stephen admits, world-weary: “She made a very persuasive, rational case both for amputating the anchor-shard, and for making it seem like a medical necessity. Lest everyone else all starts doing it.”
no subject
Which can't be a revelation. If Strange didn't follow her lead, then he knew how slim the chances of a fad. Maker, they might have simply carried out the charade elsewhere. Call it field surgery, spare her the pain, and Riftwatch the shock —
He tosses the rag down. Rises on creaking legs to find the cup, glance within. He doesn't often drink. Doesn't trust the company: Any cup can carry poison, and each carries the chance, a rational and persuasive argument to do as he please. He'd been drinking, the night Leander found his room. Bled on his floor.
"But you do stupid things for love."
Easier to justify, than to look it in the eye. He drinks.
no subject
(Every so often on the verge of sleep, the words hover on the edge of his mind like a half-remembered dream, without context.
Everyone who knows and loves you— We’d—)
But with the fortifying wine and the awareness of the girl asleep in the next room and how close they all came, he says, “Probably. It seemed— perhaps not a good idea as such, but at least a manageable one and reasonable enough. I underestimated the danger of a messy amputation, an already-risky procedure. Uncontrollable variables.”
It stings to admit weakness like this; a flaw, a fault, a mistake.