open: "accidents" will happen.

[aberratic]

WHO: Ness Tavane (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.

Comments

for stephen & kostos, @portalling & @exequy

[aberratic]

Distantly, Ness is impressed by how well this part of the plan has gone. The heavy bookshelf has her pinned by the anchor arm, but nowhere else. Falling books pelted her about the face and body, but nothing hit her so hard she's concussed. Her arm must indeed be broken at a minimum, at least based on how badly it hurts. She's dazed from adrenaline, anticipation, nerves, pain—but she's conscious, coherent, and only as hurt as she intended to be.

Phase one went off as well as could be expected. Time to begin phase two.

She reaches for her sending crystal with her free hand, and opens a connection to Stephen. Her trapped arm throbs as she moves, and the first thing Stephen hears through the crystal is her shocked, high-pitched gasp.

"Doctor, Stephen," she starts, and then grits her teeth, cut off by another throb of pain from her anchor arm. Her whole body is prickling with the knowledge that this could get very bad, very quickly. "Please hurry, the Quartermaster's office—"

ota, visiting hours

[aberratic]

In the first few days following her "accident", it looks as though the worst complication to befall Ness may well be boredom—her arm is healing as well as can be expected under the circumstances, and Ness herself is taking the amputation in stride. She's allowed visitors, who she's happy to see, if only to reassure them herself that she's alright, she's not traumatized, she'll be rejoining them again before any ofthem know it—she particularly wants updates about the war, the Gallows, the work she's been unable to keep up with since being bedridden.

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.

ota, a fever of 103

[aberratic]

Nothing in Thedas can be easy, of course, and shortly after Stephen allows that Ness can be discharged from the infirmary—and despite the meticulous care and attention to her stitches on both their parts—her stitches tear, and she's right back in the infirmary for him to stitch her back up. This time, the wound begins to fester almost immediately, going red and hot by the end of the day.

Ness is determined not to panic, and insists no one visiting her at this time should either—she has the best doctor in all of Thedas attending her personally, after all—but it's undeniable that the situation has begun to deteriorate rapidly. The fever that started the morning of her second stay in the infirmary has only gotten worse, and she's begun to lose herself to bouts of disorientation and confusion. She needs the anaesthetic cuff on constantly in order to be able to sleep. Visitors, while Stephen will allow them, are now likely to catch her in a state of confusion such that she doesn't know where she is or why. Her magic is a little haywire at the moment, which could lead to broken beds in the infirmary, delirious telepathy, or worse.

for stephen & isaac, @portalling & @wythersake

[aberratic]

It's quiet when Ness wakes up, dry lips parting to drag a beleaguered breath into starved lungs. She tore open her stitches and had to come back to the infirmary less than a week ago—not that she knows that. She knows it's getting hard to breathe. Her arm is completely numb, she knows that too, but the rest of her body has begun to hurt. Pulling her thoughts together feels as exhausting as swimming through molasses, and her throat is so dry. It feels like her whole body is pulsing with some unnatural heat. She doesn't know why she feels like this, but she's not worried. Why isn't she worried?

The answer feels like it takes hours to reach her—time is fuzzy right now—but it makes perfect sense when it does: Stephen. Stephen will help her, he always does. Even when he didn't remember her he helped. He'll know what to do.

Ness reaches out with her left hand, the only hand she has left, searching uncoordinatedly for her nightstand and the sending crystal she keeps atop it when she sleeps—and hits something cool, flesh-textured. She frowns, distantly puzzled.

"Stephen?" Her voice is little more than a croak. "'m hot, 'm—am I in the infirmary? I don't remember..."

@wythersake, afterward.

[portalling]

It’s been a rough night.

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.”