Hello.
[ Maybe that's it. ]
Do you know if—
[ A beat, then; ]
I think Richard is gone.
[ Maybe that's it. ]
Do you know if—
[ A beat, then; ]
I think Richard is gone.
grief, i say, come in. sit down. i have tea. there is honey. this will take as long as it takes.
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portalling
2023-07-24 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
There is so much work to do.
Some is familiar — that feeling of a monotonous flatline and a body being discreetly wheeled away, weary defeat sagging the surgeon’s shoulders — but Strange has never been so intimately close to it. Not like this. This is an extension of his role; a somber duty he hadn’t considered properly until now, not the full shape of it.
You are a healer, but you’re also the person present when all else fails and you can’t haul them back from the brink. When there is no more to be done. Then your compassionate and professional hands will be there to clean debris, to pick out pieces of shattered metal, to wash dried and caked blood and dirt where it’s packed into the wounds. Cut loose their their torn and tattered and burned clothes. Look at the torn and tattered and burned flesh, and feel —
A part of you going very distant and very far away.
Meat. It’s all just meat. Charred and mutilated, and the summer is hot.
Blankets have been draped over the bodies for privacy, those unmoving hills and valleys. (If he just squints, they might be his patients under anesthesia.) Riftwatch takes care of its own, and so Derrica takes care of the women, and he takes care of the men, and he doesn’t look at their faces. Feels that iron fist close around his heart. Something shuttering, some horror yawning open.
He had only just decided to commit, here, to these people — to finally throw in his lot and consider himself more fixture than visitor —
“Have you done anything like this before,” Strange says, to break the silence, because the silence is unbearable and his heart aches. Still, his movements are careful, respectful, unflinching, and he keeps telling himself he has seen sights like this before.
Nothing is quite like this.
It had been so much easier to compartmentalise when they were strangers he’d only met for one fleeting consult, a series of rotating faces and CT scans to enter his case files, barely remembered, more a test of skill than a person. It turns out this is so much worse when he’s lived amongst them for the better part of a year. Sixteen bodies. Sixteen, to the count. Any hope of the reports being incorrect or discovering last-minute survivors had evaporated when those bodies were recovered, and then brought back to the Gallows in a slow procession, weighted down by cold runes.
Some is familiar — that feeling of a monotonous flatline and a body being discreetly wheeled away, weary defeat sagging the surgeon’s shoulders — but Strange has never been so intimately close to it. Not like this. This is an extension of his role; a somber duty he hadn’t considered properly until now, not the full shape of it.
You are a healer, but you’re also the person present when all else fails and you can’t haul them back from the brink. When there is no more to be done. Then your compassionate and professional hands will be there to clean debris, to pick out pieces of shattered metal, to wash dried and caked blood and dirt where it’s packed into the wounds. Cut loose their their torn and tattered and burned clothes. Look at the torn and tattered and burned flesh, and feel —
A part of you going very distant and very far away.
Meat. It’s all just meat. Charred and mutilated, and the summer is hot.
Blankets have been draped over the bodies for privacy, those unmoving hills and valleys. (If he just squints, they might be his patients under anesthesia.) Riftwatch takes care of its own, and so Derrica takes care of the women, and he takes care of the men, and he doesn’t look at their faces. Feels that iron fist close around his heart. Something shuttering, some horror yawning open.
He had only just decided to commit, here, to these people — to finally throw in his lot and consider himself more fixture than visitor —
“Have you done anything like this before,” Strange says, to break the silence, because the silence is unbearable and his heart aches. Still, his movements are careful, respectful, unflinching, and he keeps telling himself he has seen sights like this before.
Nothing is quite like this.
It had been so much easier to compartmentalise when they were strangers he’d only met for one fleeting consult, a series of rotating faces and CT scans to enter his case files, barely remembered, more a test of skill than a person. It turns out this is so much worse when he’s lived amongst them for the better part of a year. Sixteen bodies. Sixteen, to the count. Any hope of the reports being incorrect or discovering last-minute survivors had evaporated when those bodies were recovered, and then brought back to the Gallows in a slow procession, weighted down by cold runes.
The Seers of Rivain dwell so close to death. Derrica had been raised with the spirits of those had passed at her elbow, aware of how thin the Veil was where it draped between this world and theirs.
She has bathed the dead before in the hold of wooden ships, laid across tables, far from shore. They had been men she'd known, who'd died too suddenly or too brutally for her to save. Those men, she had stitched into heavy sailcloth. Followed near to say the words when they'd been heaved up and over and consigned to the sea. But here—
There is only one sailor among them, and she has not asked Commander Flint what he would wish done. The rest, they are for pyres or for earth, and maybe they should have different words spoken over them.
That is for later. Now, there is a basin of cool water and an endless stack of clean cloths to wipe blood and ash and dirt from their skin. When he breaks the silence, Derrica has Abby's hand in her own, carefully drawing the sodden cloth across the expanse of burns racing up her arm.
"Yes," she answers, a hush muting the volume of her words. As if they might disturb the rest of those laid around them. "I was the only healer on many ships before I came to Riftwatch. And sailing can be dangerous."
Piracy can be dangerous, but Derrica isn't volunteering that now.
"Do you need to stop?" is posed very gently.
She has bathed the dead before in the hold of wooden ships, laid across tables, far from shore. They had been men she'd known, who'd died too suddenly or too brutally for her to save. Those men, she had stitched into heavy sailcloth. Followed near to say the words when they'd been heaved up and over and consigned to the sea. But here—
There is only one sailor among them, and she has not asked Commander Flint what he would wish done. The rest, they are for pyres or for earth, and maybe they should have different words spoken over them.
That is for later. Now, there is a basin of cool water and an endless stack of clean cloths to wipe blood and ash and dirt from their skin. When he breaks the silence, Derrica has Abby's hand in her own, carefully drawing the sodden cloth across the expanse of burns racing up her arm.
"Yes," she answers, a hush muting the volume of her words. As if they might disturb the rest of those laid around them. "I was the only healer on many ships before I came to Riftwatch. And sailing can be dangerous."
Piracy can be dangerous, but Derrica isn't volunteering that now.
"Do you need to stop?" is posed very gently.
Because he’s stubborn, the word No leaps to the tip of his tongue on instinct. He’s fine. This is fine. He can push through.
Stephen has kept his gaze trained on his work all afternoon, and refuses to look over at Derrica’s station. It’s modesty, yes, but he continues to avert his gaze even after they’re cleaned and re-dressed. Abby and Clarisse were so fucking young. Cosima will be there, too. And he had realised, abruptly, with the sharp sudden immediacy of a knife between the ribs, that he simply does not want to see Gwenaëlle’s crumpled form, her broken body, her closed eye. One glimpse at Granitefell had been enough.
From the front, she didn’t even look injured at all —
His work. Focus on the work.
Someone on the field had broken off the (many, too many) crossbow bolts buried in Ellis, snapping them for transport, but now he has to work loose the metal heads, still mindful to not cause any extra damage as they’re removed. Minimising the mess. Their loved ones will still need to see them, after this.
He’d always thought the medical examiners in the morgue were, frankly, weirdos, but some other instinct is settling into place now, some realisation of the act of respect. Stephen doesn’t go through all the steps someone in his hospital might’ve, however: no private dictation into the crystals to identify the killing blow, the individual cause of death, the likeliest injuries. What does it matter? They’re dead anyway.
But the next one is— difficult, to look at. Jude, it must be Jude, but the damage it must have taken to bring him down —
So. Stephen changes his mind just as quickly. “I want some fresh air,” he says. “A break. Do we have any more of those mint sachets?”
To hold to their face even as they step outside, to help the smell. It could have been worse; thank god for magic.
Stephen has kept his gaze trained on his work all afternoon, and refuses to look over at Derrica’s station. It’s modesty, yes, but he continues to avert his gaze even after they’re cleaned and re-dressed. Abby and Clarisse were so fucking young. Cosima will be there, too. And he had realised, abruptly, with the sharp sudden immediacy of a knife between the ribs, that he simply does not want to see Gwenaëlle’s crumpled form, her broken body, her closed eye. One glimpse at Granitefell had been enough.
From the front, she didn’t even look injured at all —
His work. Focus on the work.
Someone on the field had broken off the (many, too many) crossbow bolts buried in Ellis, snapping them for transport, but now he has to work loose the metal heads, still mindful to not cause any extra damage as they’re removed. Minimising the mess. Their loved ones will still need to see them, after this.
He’d always thought the medical examiners in the morgue were, frankly, weirdos, but some other instinct is settling into place now, some realisation of the act of respect. Stephen doesn’t go through all the steps someone in his hospital might’ve, however: no private dictation into the crystals to identify the killing blow, the individual cause of death, the likeliest injuries. What does it matter? They’re dead anyway.
But the next one is— difficult, to look at. Jude, it must be Jude, but the damage it must have taken to bring him down —
So. Stephen changes his mind just as quickly. “I want some fresh air,” he says. “A break. Do we have any more of those mint sachets?”
To hold to their face even as they step outside, to help the smell. It could have been worse; thank god for magic.
There is so little left of Abby's face. Derrica has arranged her braid very carefully over one shoulder, but in the end, she knows that the linen will need to cover her entirely.
She'll have to tell Ellie, Derrica has thought. She'll have to show Ellie where they lay Abby down, because otherwise it will be difficult to guess—
Derrica is thinking this as Stephen reverses course, poses a question. She doesn't answer him until she has drawn the fresh linen up in a cowl, then securely down to veil Abby entirely.
"We do," she reassures.
Even with the windows thrown open, the infirmary was not truly meant for this. Derrica dips her own hands back into the basin, wrings a shower of drops from her fingertips before stepping away from the table. She passes him a sachet from the bowl set by the more common place tools they rely on in this place, bandages and poultices, bottles of healing draughts.
"Sit with me," she invites, as they move towards the door, waiting until they have stepped into the sun to ask, "Have you done this before?"
She'll have to tell Ellie, Derrica has thought. She'll have to show Ellie where they lay Abby down, because otherwise it will be difficult to guess—
Derrica is thinking this as Stephen reverses course, poses a question. She doesn't answer him until she has drawn the fresh linen up in a cowl, then securely down to veil Abby entirely.
"We do," she reassures.
Even with the windows thrown open, the infirmary was not truly meant for this. Derrica dips her own hands back into the basin, wrings a shower of drops from her fingertips before stepping away from the table. She passes him a sachet from the bowl set by the more common place tools they rely on in this place, bandages and poultices, bottles of healing draughts.
"Sit with me," she invites, as they move towards the door, waiting until they have stepped into the sun to ask, "Have you done this before?"
Stephen rinses his hands, and they step out into the fading light. He wishes he had a drink, or that he smoked, or if there were something-anything other than this. Instead, they sit down on the front steps, leaning back against the infirmary’s outer wall, his legs stretched out. Very unofficial, but who’s to judge. He tips his head back and breathes in the crisp clean scent of the outside world. Feeling the sun-warmed cobblestones beneath them. The incongruously lovely summer day.
“No. Not like this. I’ve worked through a mass casualty event, been pulled into surgeries for hours, and I’ve had people die on my table, but the aftermath is… It’s always someone else’s job. At a fully-staffed hospital.”
And Riftwatch isn't exactly a bustling Metro-General, with a full rotation of doctors. Even moreso now.
He holds up the sachet and breathes in the mint, his thoughts skittering, landing on: “Our world did have a disaster, billions dead, but it was— bloodless. We were ash and dust, dissolved in the wind. There wasn’t anything to bury.”
We is a surprising way to phrase that, maybe. He hasn't considered the fact that he hasn’t really talked about the Snap with her before. But something about it feels relevant, his metaphorical fingertips reaching out and grazing for the topic.
“No one had to do this, after that happened. I’m realising now it was a small mercy.”
“No. Not like this. I’ve worked through a mass casualty event, been pulled into surgeries for hours, and I’ve had people die on my table, but the aftermath is… It’s always someone else’s job. At a fully-staffed hospital.”
And Riftwatch isn't exactly a bustling Metro-General, with a full rotation of doctors. Even moreso now.
He holds up the sachet and breathes in the mint, his thoughts skittering, landing on: “Our world did have a disaster, billions dead, but it was— bloodless. We were ash and dust, dissolved in the wind. There wasn’t anything to bury.”
We is a surprising way to phrase that, maybe. He hasn't considered the fact that he hasn’t really talked about the Snap with her before. But something about it feels relevant, his metaphorical fingertips reaching out and grazing for the topic.
“No one had to do this, after that happened. I’m realising now it was a small mercy.”
The pieces Stephen Strange gives to her of what his healing was, the role he played in it, are of such interest to her. Normally, she would like to have this new piece that illustrates a kind of collaboration, of healers moving in tandem, passing all parts of their duty between them.
But that information, like the bloodless description of loss that follows, cannot fit into that kind of discussion or examination today.
Sitting alongside him, Derrica pulls one ankle up beneath her thigh. Turns over the event he is describing in his mind. Feels how it chimes against her recollection of Dairsmuid, what was done there.
In the slip of space between them on those front steps, Derrica reaches for his hand.
"Were you ash?" she asks, because she knows that sometimes, Rifters come to them this way too. Dead, passed from their own worlds already.
But that information, like the bloodless description of loss that follows, cannot fit into that kind of discussion or examination today.
Sitting alongside him, Derrica pulls one ankle up beneath her thigh. Turns over the event he is describing in his mind. Feels how it chimes against her recollection of Dairsmuid, what was done there.
In the slip of space between them on those front steps, Derrica reaches for his hand.
"Were you ash?" she asks, because she knows that sometimes, Rifters come to them this way too. Dead, passed from their own worlds already.
There’s a faint, almost imperceptible jolt at that encroaching touch, like a startled cat twitching in surprise at the physical contact. His gaze snaps down to her hand.
One gets the impression that this man is unaccustomed to friendly contact. Some instinct for it has atrophied over the years, as the sorcerer retreated into himself and magic, bricking up all the walls behind him. But Derrica is a crack in the armour, is water patiently eroding a barrier, slipping through all the nooks and crannies, and so his hackles settle and he eases. Catches her palm, gives it a reassuring squeeze of his own. Taking what comfort she can give, and offering it in return.
“Yes,” Stephen says. Then, words which sound on the surface like his usual gallows’ humour but it’s lacking any of the spark, it just sounds tired: “But I got better. They brought me back five years later.”
(Somewhere, in the back of his head, that thought and that possibility is going to worm deeper and start to gestate, slowly, as the days track onward and he starts to emerge from this numb fog. But not yet.)
“It must have been difficult. Being the only healer.”
One gets the impression that this man is unaccustomed to friendly contact. Some instinct for it has atrophied over the years, as the sorcerer retreated into himself and magic, bricking up all the walls behind him. But Derrica is a crack in the armour, is water patiently eroding a barrier, slipping through all the nooks and crannies, and so his hackles settle and he eases. Catches her palm, gives it a reassuring squeeze of his own. Taking what comfort she can give, and offering it in return.
“Yes,” Stephen says. Then, words which sound on the surface like his usual gallows’ humour but it’s lacking any of the spark, it just sounds tired: “But I got better. They brought me back five years later.”
(Somewhere, in the back of his head, that thought and that possibility is going to worm deeper and start to gestate, slowly, as the days track onward and he starts to emerge from this numb fog. But not yet.)
“It must have been difficult. Being the only healer.”
They ease into this link, this small contact between them. Derrica runs her thumb along the edge of his palm.
If the work has strained his hands, he hasn't said. And Derrica is careful in her own asking, mindful of plucking at another painful thing when they are both weathering so much.
She chooses, in this moment, to take the strangeness of those words as they are. His latter statement is a kind of appeal, and if she pursued her own flicker of confused curiosity, maybe that appeal would slip away.
But she understands this: he had been gone, turned to ash and dust, and someone, whoever they might be, brought him back.
"I wasn't always the only one. There were more of us once. But even then, I was sometimes the only one who had seen..."
A trailing pause. Finding words. Rifters did not always know the history of Thedas, and Derrica doesn't wish to invoke the full weight of it now.
"Casualties," is what she settles on. "Many of us are prepared to see a natural death, but it isn't the same when it's violent, like this."
A life cut brutally short, is what she means.
If the work has strained his hands, he hasn't said. And Derrica is careful in her own asking, mindful of plucking at another painful thing when they are both weathering so much.
She chooses, in this moment, to take the strangeness of those words as they are. His latter statement is a kind of appeal, and if she pursued her own flicker of confused curiosity, maybe that appeal would slip away.
But she understands this: he had been gone, turned to ash and dust, and someone, whoever they might be, brought him back.
"I wasn't always the only one. There were more of us once. But even then, I was sometimes the only one who had seen..."
A trailing pause. Finding words. Rifters did not always know the history of Thedas, and Derrica doesn't wish to invoke the full weight of it now.
"Casualties," is what she settles on. "Many of us are prepared to see a natural death, but it isn't the same when it's violent, like this."
A life cut brutally short, is what she means.
“No. It isn’t.”
He had thought himself inured to it. Because he was, in fact, inured to a certain kind of planned violence: gloves reaching into viscera, all wet gleaming tissue, slippery nerves and cerebral cortexes and scalpels peeling through layers of flesh. He’d rotated through different specialties, learned at others’ doctors’ sides, seen horrors. And a childhood on the farm: animals slaughtered, animals giving birth, an axe to the head of a dying pig to put it out of its misery. Practical. Solid. A strong stomach. Stephen had always prided himself on his strong stomach, his steady nerves, his chilly and unaffected demeanour.
“I’m not,” he starts, then stops. Head still tipped back against the stone wall, looking out into the sky over the Gallows rather than at Derrica’s face; but he can feel her presence in that warmth by his side, the hand in his. “It was impersonal. Before. I know that’s the simplest goddamned thing to say, but it wasn’t even living on a ship and treating my crewmates. My patients were all strangers, before.”
Christine had always tried to recruit him for her trauma ward, insisting that on-the-ground emergency work was how you did the most good, and he had always demurred, and —
Now here he is. Funny, how that works out.
He had thought himself inured to it. Because he was, in fact, inured to a certain kind of planned violence: gloves reaching into viscera, all wet gleaming tissue, slippery nerves and cerebral cortexes and scalpels peeling through layers of flesh. He’d rotated through different specialties, learned at others’ doctors’ sides, seen horrors. And a childhood on the farm: animals slaughtered, animals giving birth, an axe to the head of a dying pig to put it out of its misery. Practical. Solid. A strong stomach. Stephen had always prided himself on his strong stomach, his steady nerves, his chilly and unaffected demeanour.
“I’m not,” he starts, then stops. Head still tipped back against the stone wall, looking out into the sky over the Gallows rather than at Derrica’s face; but he can feel her presence in that warmth by his side, the hand in his. “It was impersonal. Before. I know that’s the simplest goddamned thing to say, but it wasn’t even living on a ship and treating my crewmates. My patients were all strangers, before.”
Christine had always tried to recruit him for her trauma ward, insisting that on-the-ground emergency work was how you did the most good, and he had always demurred, and —
Now here he is. Funny, how that works out.
Impersonal is a foreign approach for Derrica, but she knows it is not the same for every healer. And even if it is not impersonal for her, she knows some part of what he is describing is present in her too. There is a necessary level of detachment. A withholding of herself, a stepping back to think clinically rather than let emotion drive every part of her work, choose how she spends her spells.
She folds her hands both over his. Turns in just so, facing him even as Stephen Strange directs his eyes upwards.
"It's harder," she tells him, acknowledging and admitting all at once. "When it's people you've known and cared for needing your skills."
In which skills becomes a broad stretch of a word, encompassing so much of what they are and have been called upon to do. Encompassing the bodies laid out in the room behind them, still wearing all the wreckage of their death.
"But I think it's a comfort for them, knowing us. I think it would be comforting for them if they knew we were the ones tending to them."
Not strangers. Or worse, not a mass pyre on a field far from familiar faces.
She folds her hands both over his. Turns in just so, facing him even as Stephen Strange directs his eyes upwards.
"It's harder," she tells him, acknowledging and admitting all at once. "When it's people you've known and cared for needing your skills."
In which skills becomes a broad stretch of a word, encompassing so much of what they are and have been called upon to do. Encompassing the bodies laid out in the room behind them, still wearing all the wreckage of their death.
"But I think it's a comfort for them, knowing us. I think it would be comforting for them if they knew we were the ones tending to them."
Not strangers. Or worse, not a mass pyre on a field far from familiar faces.
It had been a topic of discussion. The efficient thing would have been a mass pyre at Granitefell, moving on before their enemies had a change to return and plough into the reinforcements, but sentimentality had stopped their hand. Had laden the wagons with cold runes for their long journey home. In the end, it was probably better for morale — and believing in what had happened.
Still, that usual science versus spirituality wars within him at Derrica’s point, because there is still that little voice saying: They’re dead, it doesn’t matter to them any longer,
but he’d once spoken with a dying woman in a moment trapped between heartbeats. He walked the astral plane. He had heard the spirits of the dead, screaming. The universe was so much bigger than he once thought it was. So, who the fuck knows. Maybe, somewhere, it matters to them.
“I’d like to think that,” Stephen says. “We try. Even if I knew them but didn’t know them too well.”
Which is a sticking point. Here she is, comforting him, her hands folding over his when he would stubbornly like to insist that he doesn’t need it (he does), so Stephen tilts his head to finally meet Derrica’s eye again and look at her.
“Were you particularly close? With any of them.”
He’s trying to parse where her own wounds are, what fractures she’s been papering over throughout the day.
Still, that usual science versus spirituality wars within him at Derrica’s point, because there is still that little voice saying: They’re dead, it doesn’t matter to them any longer,
but he’d once spoken with a dying woman in a moment trapped between heartbeats. He walked the astral plane. He had heard the spirits of the dead, screaming. The universe was so much bigger than he once thought it was. So, who the fuck knows. Maybe, somewhere, it matters to them.
“I’d like to think that,” Stephen says. “We try. Even if I knew them but didn’t know them too well.”
Which is a sticking point. Here she is, comforting him, her hands folding over his when he would stubbornly like to insist that he doesn’t need it (he does), so Stephen tilts his head to finally meet Derrica’s eye again and look at her.
“Were you particularly close? With any of them.”
He’s trying to parse where her own wounds are, what fractures she’s been papering over throughout the day.
Brother Vesperus isn't much for the blue sending crystal he keeps in his pocket. Moreover, he certainly doesn't often avail himself of it in order to announce his intent to drop in—less a strategic matter of ambushes being most effective when they are a surprise, and more (it would seem) that the man acts with a very particular definition of the word 'impulsiveness.'
For example, the inciting point of this visit has been itching at the back of his mind for some days—some weeks, maybe, if one were to account for certain undone timelines. But it's a public request over the crystal that serves to clarify its shape in the mind. Then, with the reliable pacing of a metronome counter and as if he had planned it all beforehand, the rest falls naturally into place: he pulls the three texts most relevant to his translation work from the Gallows' library; he does not yet cut the most relevant pages from them, but he wants to have them to hand in case doing so becomes necessary; he spends an hour organizing all the Riftwatch work at his desk in the Diplomacy workrooms into a reasonably tidy arrangement, helpfully annotating this sheaf or that with the most pressing details should someone else find themself responsible for them; next—
He appears in the doorway of the Project Haven office, predictably suddenly and just as reliably gaunt and grim in appearance. Obviously, he has a thick stack of paper with him.
This is what office hours are for.
"Derrica. We should go over some of my notes if you have time."
For example, the inciting point of this visit has been itching at the back of his mind for some days—some weeks, maybe, if one were to account for certain undone timelines. But it's a public request over the crystal that serves to clarify its shape in the mind. Then, with the reliable pacing of a metronome counter and as if he had planned it all beforehand, the rest falls naturally into place: he pulls the three texts most relevant to his translation work from the Gallows' library; he does not yet cut the most relevant pages from them, but he wants to have them to hand in case doing so becomes necessary; he spends an hour organizing all the Riftwatch work at his desk in the Diplomacy workrooms into a reasonably tidy arrangement, helpfully annotating this sheaf or that with the most pressing details should someone else find themself responsible for them; next—
He appears in the doorway of the Project Haven office, predictably suddenly and just as reliably gaunt and grim in appearance. Obviously, he has a thick stack of paper with him.
This is what office hours are for.
"Derrica. We should go over some of my notes if you have time."
Hey Derrica, you don't know of a magical way to like... make somebody fall slower, do you? Or catch them?
I'm training the griffons to catch people if they fall, but I think our riders should have a backup, just in case things... take a nosedive, I guess.
You'd need to find one of us who specialized in it. It's not an easy discipline, and we don't all learn to use it.
[ however— ]
I can be there when you practice. If they fly low, a barrier might help blunt the fall and if there's any injury, I could heal it.
[ however— ]
I can be there when you practice. If they fly low, a barrier might help blunt the fall and if there's any injury, I could heal it.
Sounds good. I'm working with burlap sacks right now just to get 'em used to the idea, but once I start doing jumps, I'll come get you.
It'll be just me at first.
It'll be just me at first.
Marcus maybe?
And- is this gonna be new to you guys? The practice could come in handy at some point. Catching things, I mean.
And- is this gonna be new to you guys? The practice could come in handy at some point. Catching things, I mean.
I know you’re busier with Diplomacy these days, but if you have a spare minute, Derrica, I have a few— work-related questions I’d like to broach with you. Some rather sensitive, some not.
( Oh no he already regrets this. )
( Oh no he already regrets this. )
[There's work aplenty to be done in Kirkwall—rubble to clear, injuries to treat, the Guard stretched thin as the Viscount's Keep struggles to keep from plunging into outright chaos. So:
This is not the first time James Flint has appeared in an impromptu healers tent to fetch Derrica away from her work. This time, at least, the hour is a reasonable one and there are a half dozen other healers—a mage from one of the mercenary companies so prolific in Kirkwall, even—to hand to fill the gap she temporarily leaves behind.
This time though, there's little need to stray far. Instead Flint simply climbs the scaffolding rattling up a building adjacent to the square cleared for the work, finding something like privacy in broad daylight simply by dint of being a half story removed from the hustle and bustle.]
I'm for Carastes as soon as the Walrus can be victualed, [he says, once they have settled under the shadow of the second floor jagging out above them.] I've a contact there who I suspect will prove relevant given all that's happened in Minrathous. I thought you should be made aware.
This is not the first time James Flint has appeared in an impromptu healers tent to fetch Derrica away from her work. This time, at least, the hour is a reasonable one and there are a half dozen other healers—a mage from one of the mercenary companies so prolific in Kirkwall, even—to hand to fill the gap she temporarily leaves behind.
This time though, there's little need to stray far. Instead Flint simply climbs the scaffolding rattling up a building adjacent to the square cleared for the work, finding something like privacy in broad daylight simply by dint of being a half story removed from the hustle and bustle.]
I'm for Carastes as soon as the Walrus can be victualed, [he says, once they have settled under the shadow of the second floor jagging out above them.] I've a contact there who I suspect will prove relevant given all that's happened in Minrathous. I thought you should be made aware.
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