Fourth floor. The other tower, [ down the hall from his own. isaac may still take up an inn — ] There's a bag on my desk.
[ in the infirmary, he means. a traveling bag, to be perfectly specific, he hasn't wholly unpacked. ]
It has most of what you'll need. Venaras' station will have wine.
[ or brandy. something to render the poor saps less sensible. a pause, a grunt of effort as leander detangles. he steps free, lingers by the door. a glance to lexie, orlesian again: ]
Thank you.
[ he doesn't promise shit. it doesn't mean there isn't a debt. ]
[Since it appears you need not a change of clothing— Lady. Lea pants out something like a laugh, shallow—call it a pair of good-natured huffs, maybe. A grimace is like a smile, right? Breathless, he adds,]
Room H. Don't worry about— mn. Noise. The floor's nearly empty.
[A small gift in gratitude; she doesn't need to know exactly where Isaac lives if she doesn't already know. Not that she couldn't find out, easily, but still. It's the gesture.]
Thank you.
[Spoken at near the same moment, two voices overlapping. This time he does smile, barely, with his face turned away.]
[ a curse under his breath, soon as the sound of footsteps recedes. get him clean enough to get down the hall, out the courtyard, up another set of steps while upright —
get himself clean enough. there's nothing for it really, but to shrug on the second pair of nearly identical robes. it isn't what he'd hoped to do with these. it isn't going to hurt a dead man. ]
What you did to the door.
[ hates acknowledging that any further than he has, ]
Can it be done again?
[ that's one thing. doing it in this state, another. if it comes to it,
none of isaac's skills are suited to this. jam it and hope for the best. ]
[ The silence while Leander just looks at him, chin tilted down, eyes moving along his body in a meandering path as he wraps himself in that fabric, into that shape, so familiar—this silence is a long and heavy one. The blood streaked down his nose and mouth and chin (and elsewhere) has darkened; he's listing to one side; his blinks are slow and uneven, eyes threatening to roll with each. But he's still awake.
The urge to tell Isaac to stop touching things in the room comes and goes. He'd have been okay with it.
His own clothes—his shirt's going to dry, and peeling it free of so many scabs will be... unpleasant. Sluggish, he plucks at the fabric, sticky fingers holding a delicate shape. His mind finally catches up to the question; he nods.]
[ leander's still covered in blood. isaac still doesn't have any fucking water. but at least alexandrie de fontaine got the last word, so clearly this was all a splendid use of an unspecified favour and not a colossal waste of time better spent on a boat to the mainland —
he pulls a scarf free, while he's at it. pushes it between those tacky hands. ]
Lea. [ is he going to have to snap his fingers. he doesn't have water. doesn't have smelling salts, won't for another tower's distance so this must have been completely worth calling in the cavalry, ] Clean your face.
[ then the robes. then the door. it's not as though any ideas tonight have been good ones. ]
[Like a child, snapped at to clean himself up. Annoyance flares dimly, along with amusement; he probably does look like a child as he tries. He can't see, won't rise to find a mirror, can't muster enough clean spit to be helpful, and much of the grace has bled out of his hands. But he tries, and perhaps there's a sense of dignity in the way he straightens his spine while he does it, gathering himself for the long walk to come.]
Leander. [It isn't an impossible name to know by any stretch; still, they'd might as well be formally introduced. And since he not only stole a secret, but weaponized it, it only seems fair—] Named for a character in a book. By one of the sisters at the orphanage. [A pause to flatten the scarf over his palm, find a clean place, wipe it across his open mouth.] In the story, he dies.
[Again he folds the cloth to its cleanest, holds it up, doesn't look at Isaac while he does it. If any conspicuous smears remain, he'll have to do his duty as a healer and finish. Then Leander will be ready for the rest.]
[ it is at about this moment, having reached the door at the bottom of the stairs, that the greater situation and the number of floors needing to be traversed both finally make it to comprehension.
Since she can see no-one else, Isaac's crystal will chime to announce more Orlesian, which, despite the apparent privacy, is delivered in a soft tone of consolation in words easily explained away. ]
If you have not moved, stay. I will fetch what is needed to at least clean yourself.
[ The fact that it took her this long to think of bloody boot tracks is—
a brief pause, and then, ]
If you can think of aught else you might need, I implore you to make attempt to overcome our shared heritage and ask outright.
[ He’s halfway to spitting himself when the crystal crackles into speech. Listens with eyes shut. If it’s reflex that finds malice in distraction — well, there are only so many reflexes that one can dull. ]
If there’s lyrium, take it. [ A mop’s somehow the greater ask at present. He’ll deal with that later. ] Something to jam the door. Venaras' tools might do.
[ If Leander can’t pull this off. Shit. Leander. (Malice,) ]
I know the story. [ A version of it, at least, which is all that any story is. What a name to slip past one’s Mother, with all it implies of certain vows. He wipes at the stray smear of an eyebrow. ] Not a Hero?
[His head being the current focus of stressed hands, Leander turns only his eyes in the general direction of the lady's voice, and then to the mouth in front of him as it moves in response. It seems wisest not to interject.
Then the mouth asks him a question, sharp, and he twitches a smile. To his credit, he is still when the cloth moves a little too briskly alongside his re-fractured nose, only closing his eyes against it, the short-lived frown of his brow his only tell. That and the crease at one side of his mouth, not quite a grimace, as he murmurs,]
No. She never fought with her doctor— [This one's a full grimace, though probably not about his face.] —and I'm in no condition to climb out a window.
[ Is telling, but only if you know the story; the natural state of windows and bars. It's been five years, but it was thirty before that. Iron, gaps. You wriggle. Slip out just as distraction does now: Attention more automatic than warmth. Another unwitting flash of belly.
You talk to sick men. You find the gaps. ]
She's coming back up.
[ A warning. Can't bring himself to make it a threat — worse, an apology. ]
[Thirty years, a lifetime; they all know how the world looks through bars; they're all bound together by the memory. But that doesn't mean anything is owed, and he knows better than to assume more than decent bedside manner: gallows humour, a distraction from pain. Warmth would be incongruous, would suggest a deficiency in recognizing the seriousness of violence—or else a disregard for it. At worst, an appreciation.
Still, he didn't need to stay. (Ilias didn't stay. Couldn't bear to see what he'd done, even to finish it.)
Cleaner now, the open wound hardly seeping, his hand finds the wrist again. While privacy remains,]
Thank you.
[His gaze clings to focus, a sharp point in the haze. The barest squeeze of cold fingers.]
[ Bones upon his. That same crawl of revulsion, the urge to snap that he doesn't understand a fucking thing.
Childish, even to his own ears. Too close to the swell of anger that brought them here. Isaac couldn't reach for a spell again if he wanted to; it's the wanting that spells trouble. The knock is,
A welcome distraction. He watches the door, frozen in the crack of light from beneath. Tries to number the odds that she's returned with guard in tow. There's nothing for it. Pries digits loose — gentle, and that's automatic too — to answer. Ushers her in before anyone else might see.
(Serra can be distracted. Artemaeus, cowed. Yngvi, diverted. But any hands might do it; no loyalty or guarantee.) ]
[ No guards, only white skirts—laughable, in this room. Alexandrie with a stuffed satchel slung over her shoulder heavily, the strap digging down into the pale of her shoulder alongside lace. (Pink beneath, when she sets it down. The audacity of it, to touch her so). She bends, opens buckles, frees waterskins and rolls of absorbent cotton bandage to set on the desk. Shears to cut it. Curved needle and waxed thread for what has already been cut. A roll of tools, a small bottle with a soft familiar glow of blue.
Their previous owners wouldn’t miss them.
A long exhale through her nose, as she turns her head to regard Leander even as she speaks to Isaac. ]
Was your need only for the delivery of such tools or their utilization as well, Enchanter? I know little of your skills in the arena of healing.
[ There are few things in which Isaac could be termed particularly useful; he has worked very hard to make certain this is one. But there are practices dangerous for a mage, and they don't begin or end with the Fade. He hasn't often cause to risk stitching — and all the lyrium in the world won't straighten a wobbling hand. This is Alexandrie's domain.
(He was tired before coming here, he is exhausted now.) ]
[ She takes a moment to look—really look—at Isaac. Drawn, pale, over-used. She’d not had too much cause to observe mages expended by their magic. Once or twice after Ghislain, but near everyone had looked the same. She softens with what little kindness grows in her garden today, and nods, pulling off her gloves and folding them inside the satchel before stretching to begin the process of undoing the line of delicate pearl buttons that lies along her spine. ]
This I can manage, but it may happen that I need your aid when lacing myself back in.
[ The barest of bright spots on her skirts might be memorable, never mind what would occur were she to whisk them across the slaughterhouse floor, kneel to attend to Lea where he lies prostrate, so she peels herself bare perfunctorily. Little ability to disguise the flat-handled knives strapped to her thighs now, but there’s nothing for that. They and their sheathes will join the slowly and neatly accruing pile of gown, frothy layers of petticoat, corsetry, fine silk stockings. Even the pearls around her neck, the gold and pearl earrings. She’s left in her hair when she retrieves what she needs and makes her way over to the bed without a single iota of embarrassment.
(For the last two steps, the red is vivid on the white of her feet, a bloody swan.)
She touches Lea’s broken nose with the very tip of her finger, and offers him a small wry smile. ]
[Moving free of Leander's grip needs no strength at all, and once released he takes his hand back into his lap and leaves it there, both palm up, fingers and arms loose. (Minimal discomfort; he knows from experience.) He follows Isaac with a slow turn of his head to witness, dimly, the furtive entrance and exchange.
Alexandrie steps out of her clothes and comes to him just the way she is, and surreality finally closes over the crown of his head. Sensation of floating. The writhing of his subconscious prying and squeezing itself into waking time: a smooth-skinned celestial vision juxtaposed to suffering and gore.
He's still sitting upright, still hasn't fallen over—Isaac asked him about the door, there's work yet to do and he must be present for it—but again the sag of his posture says his body's considering it. Glassy eyes and silence. This time, he doesn't smile back. But he is pliable; he will do whatever is asked of him.
(And, captivated though he is, he will keep turning his head to make sure Isaac is still there.)]
[ He nods. Peculiar how a sight can render pornographic not for the layers one sheds, but retains. But then her necklace is gone, the stockings,
The knives.
Those wouldn’t surprise if he’d ever stopped to think of it, but behind her back Leander will spy his skin crinkle the same. Isaac turns, sets to the brief business of adding water to basin, shrugging Ilias’ robes again. His own shirt follows. Boots. Trousers. It isn’t the first time he’s been naked beside a lady of breeding — or had his cock out before Leander. Both moments more pleasant than this.
[ Despite Leander’s persistent consciousness, Alexandrie judges it easier to cut the shirt from him than get it off any other way. It’s not as if it’s salvageable. Nimble hands and sharp shears make quick work of parting it, her fingers peeling it from him with slow care afterward, stopping to wet the cloth if it sticks.
(Whole over the cuts. Whatever opened the wounds for use, it didn’t go through the cloth. The spell itself, then?)
Her lips thin, clinical. There are... it’s a lot. Brutal looking and clean, bisecting his chest. Myriad and exacting on his upper arms, too orderly to be anything but chosen and placed. More haphazard on the forearms—wait. A slight frown. Those she’s seen. Or at least, she’s seen them closed and healed and old, light lines storytellers of a life near violence as he paints.
(Scars... made new wounds to cast from? One cut to make many quickly to cast something larger? That would, perhaps, fit the story she’s been fed. Other stories wear it equally well.)
Alexandrie sucks in a sharp breath when she checks his back and finds the deepest of them, still bleeding. Says something unladylike on the exhale and moves quickly to thread the needle, maneuver onto the bed behind him. Pauses briefly, then sets to making smaller holes in his flesh to close the large. She is more careful than she is quick; it will take some time. ]
[As the fabric leaves his chest, he drops his chin to look at the line carved down his breastbone. Lifts a hand to it, though this simple act of flexion squeezes at the lacerations lining his arm. His fingers hover close, poised as though to delicately pull back the front of a garment that isn't there—as though he's thought to open the seam of his own flesh and is puzzling at how, precisely, to go about it.
The worst of his wounds, made by a single vigorous application of a short knife, punches through the meat of his trapezius muscle, right alongside the spine, and the way the skin pulls taut with his bent neck will make Alexandrie's mending difficult to begin. So, too, will the quick and heaving breaths that suddenly arise: first snuffled through blood-crusted nostrils, then in an openly panting struggle for self-control. The occasional reedy hint of his voice. Face creased as if he's only now decided to acknowledge the condition of suffering.
Finally agreeing to lift his head and hold it there for her guiding hands seems to calm him; the first push of the needle is a welcome point of focus, like a star, small and bright.]
I can hold, [he rasps, in case it's still in doubt.] Keep going.
[Staring forward, breathing through relaxed jaw, more slowly with each stitch. Eventually, calm. (He does not look at Isaac.)]
[ She assumed he could. Hold, that is, even without the benefit of the whiskey she’d filched along with the tools.
Leander might want it, though. Alexandrie might, to splash the wound she’s begun to put small stitches into, more even since he’d lifted his head. She’d not brought it over with her. An oversight, perhaps, but it was an unwieldy size and weight along with the rest. Remedied easily enough; she looks up from her work to seek Isaac’s gaze and then makes a gesture towards the bag on the floor. ]
The bottle in there, if you please.
[ If not all of the liquor in the bottle makes it over, well, that’s to be expected. ]
Later. Later that night, alone in an unstained room, he'll open another. Read a letter. Days after, still drunk and sore for the space beside him, he'll pour it into the fire.
A better man — rather: a more present one — might have offered the bottle sooner. But now he stalls, recalled abruptly from his work (every whine broken from Leander's chest punctuates the swipe of cloth against board). It takes a moment to process, to hand it over and brace Leander's head.
It isn't Leander he looks to now for a decision; it isn't Leander's decision whether to drink. Not if it might disrupt her task. Rip free that careful thread. ]
[A pitifully human reflex, to take the closeness of any body, the touch of any hand as an anchor of comfort, and even conscious awareness of it has the same effect, drawing focus away from the importance of all Leander's severed, blazing nerves. He'd have rejected the bottle for this same reason. (He'd have died without their bodies, their hands.) Nevertheless, his thoughts crawl along their limbs, into branches, into necessary plans.
What's left to preserve? The line drawn down his breastbone, nearly identical to Ilias's own scar—the sight of it new again, running fresh, is what crumpled him so suddenly—and the contents of his own journal, reverently curated. The Speaker's modest collection of personal effects, ultimately meaningless, should be sent back to the Maker along with the rest of him. The phylacteries: important, so important, more symbolic than a marriage vow. To think the one he made himself can never be revived—
Interrupting himself, strained, desperate,]
How many more?
[The people Ilias knew. Sidony, his discarded apprentice; whatever unease may have grown between them no longer matters. Kostos won't want the attention, but it isn't up to him. Casimir... wherever he is... Isaac. Whose hand cradles the back of his skull.]
[ Calm and absent, the sound of a woman who takes it as a foregone conclusion that she will be finishing her work to her own satisfaction. It’s a bit late for the sluice of liquor to burn over the parted flesh, but she relieves Isaac of the bottle to pause and do it anyway, pat it dry with a folded square of bandage, and then two stitches later release Leander from the heavy thread that joins them with the shears. ]
There.
[ A quick glance reveals that to be what most needed the extra aid in sealing. His chest might want for one or two. Alexandrie reaches for the same folded square, comes around to scrutinize the bisecting wound. ]
Are you in a hurry to bleed upon another room?
[ But she makes the concession of folding a pad of cloth to place over the line of stitches— although she then looks at its placement with thinned lips. There’s no truly elegant way to bind it, although across his chest and back... that requires the chest wound done first. A morbid logician’s puzzle. She pulls thread. ]
Two more.
[ And reaches to brace a delicate hand on his chest. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ in the infirmary, he means. a traveling bag, to be perfectly specific, he hasn't wholly unpacked. ]
It has most of what you'll need. Venaras' station will have wine.
[ or brandy. something to render the poor saps less sensible. a pause, a grunt of effort as leander detangles. he steps free, lingers by the door. a glance to lexie, orlesian again: ]
Thank you.
[ he doesn't promise shit. it doesn't mean there isn't a debt. ]
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Room H. Don't worry about— mn. Noise. The floor's nearly empty.
[A small gift in gratitude; she doesn't need to know exactly where Isaac lives if she doesn't already know. Not that she couldn't find out, easily, but still. It's the gesture.]
Thank you.
[Spoken at near the same moment, two voices overlapping. This time he does smile, barely, with his face turned away.]
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A briefly raised hand in acknowledgement, nevertheless, and then she is gone. ]
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get himself clean enough. there's nothing for it really, but to shrug on the second pair of nearly identical robes. it isn't what he'd hoped to do with these. it isn't going to hurt a dead man. ]
What you did to the door.
[ hates acknowledging that any further than he has, ]
Can it be done again?
[ that's one thing. doing it in this state, another. if it comes to it,
none of isaac's skills are suited to this. jam it and hope for the best. ]
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The urge to tell Isaac to stop touching things in the room comes and goes.
He'd have been okay with it.
His own clothes—his shirt's going to dry, and peeling it free of so many scabs will be... unpleasant. Sluggish, he plucks at the fabric, sticky fingers holding a delicate shape. His mind finally catches up to the question; he nods.]
I can try.
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he pulls a scarf free, while he's at it. pushes it between those tacky hands. ]
Lea. [ is he going to have to snap his fingers. he doesn't have water. doesn't have smelling salts, won't for another tower's distance so this must have been completely worth calling in the cavalry, ] Clean your face.
[ then the robes. then the door. it's not as though any ideas tonight have been good ones. ]
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Leander. [It isn't an impossible name to know by any stretch; still, they'd might as well be formally introduced. And since he not only stole a secret, but weaponized it, it only seems fair—] Named for a character in a book. By one of the sisters at the orphanage. [A pause to flatten the scarf over his palm, find a clean place, wipe it across his open mouth.] In the story, he dies.
[Again he folds the cloth to its cleanest, holds it up, doesn't look at Isaac while he does it. If any conspicuous smears remain, he'll have to do his duty as a healer and finish. Then Leander will be ready for the rest.]
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Since she can see no-one else, Isaac's crystal will chime to announce more Orlesian, which, despite the apparent privacy, is delivered in a soft tone of consolation in words easily explained away. ]
If you have not moved, stay. I will fetch what is needed to at least clean yourself.
[ The fact that it took her this long to think of bloody boot tracks is—
a brief pause, and then, ]
If you can think of aught else you might need, I implore you to make attempt to overcome our shared heritage and ask outright.
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If there’s lyrium, take it. [ A mop’s somehow the greater ask at present. He’ll deal with that later. ] Something to jam the door. Venaras' tools might do.
[ If Leander can’t pull this off. Shit. Leander. (Malice,) ]
I know the story. [ A version of it, at least, which is all that any story is. What a name to slip past one’s Mother, with all it implies of certain vows. He wipes at the stray smear of an eyebrow. ] Not a Hero?
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Then the mouth asks him a question, sharp, and he twitches a smile. To his credit, he is still when the cloth moves a little too briskly alongside his re-fractured nose, only closing his eyes against it, the short-lived frown of his brow his only tell. That and the crease at one side of his mouth, not quite a grimace, as he murmurs,]
No. She never fought with her doctor— [This one's a full grimace, though probably not about his face.] —and I'm in no condition to climb out a window.
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[ Is telling, but only if you know the story; the natural state of windows and bars. It's been five years, but it was thirty before that. Iron, gaps. You wriggle. Slip out just as distraction does now: Attention more automatic than warmth. Another unwitting flash of belly.
You talk to sick men. You find the gaps. ]
She's coming back up.
[ A warning. Can't bring himself to make it a threat — worse, an apology. ]
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At worst, an appreciation.
Still, he didn't need to stay. (Ilias didn't stay. Couldn't bear to see what he'd done, even to finish it.)
Cleaner now, the open wound hardly seeping, his hand finds the wrist again. While privacy remains,]
Thank you.
[His gaze clings to focus, a sharp point in the haze. The barest squeeze of cold fingers.]
I understand now.
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Childish, even to his own ears. Too close to the swell of anger that brought them here. Isaac couldn't reach for a spell again if he wanted to; it's the wanting that spells trouble. The knock is,
A welcome distraction. He watches the door, frozen in the crack of light from beneath. Tries to number the odds that she's returned with guard in tow. There's nothing for it. Pries digits loose — gentle, and that's automatic too — to answer. Ushers her in before anyone else might see.
(Serra can be distracted. Artemaeus, cowed. Yngvi, diverted. But any hands might do it; no loyalty or guarantee.) ]
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Their previous owners wouldn’t miss them.
A long exhale through her nose, as she turns her head to regard Leander even as she speaks to Isaac. ]
Was your need only for the delivery of such tools or their utilization as well, Enchanter? I know little of your skills in the arena of healing.
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I'm at your disposal.
[ There are few things in which Isaac could be termed particularly useful; he has worked very hard to make certain this is one. But there are practices dangerous for a mage, and they don't begin or end with the Fade. He hasn't often cause to risk stitching — and all the lyrium in the world won't straighten a wobbling hand. This is Alexandrie's domain.
(He was tired before coming here, he is exhausted now.) ]
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This I can manage, but it may happen that I need your aid when lacing myself back in.
[ The barest of bright spots on her skirts might be memorable, never mind what would occur were she to whisk them across the slaughterhouse floor, kneel to attend to Lea where he lies prostrate, so she peels herself bare perfunctorily. Little ability to disguise the flat-handled knives strapped to her thighs now, but there’s nothing for that. They and their sheathes will join the slowly and neatly accruing pile of gown, frothy layers of petticoat, corsetry, fine silk stockings. Even the pearls around her neck, the gold and pearl earrings. She’s left in her hair when she retrieves what she needs and makes her way over to the bed without a single iota of embarrassment.
(For the last two steps, the red is vivid on the white of her feet, a bloody swan.)
She touches Lea’s broken nose with the very tip of her finger, and offers him a small wry smile. ]
Sneeze on me, and I shall sew your nose shut.
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Alexandrie steps out of her clothes and comes to him just the way she is, and surreality finally closes over the crown of his head. Sensation of floating. The writhing of his subconscious prying and squeezing itself into waking time: a smooth-skinned celestial vision juxtaposed to suffering and gore.
He's still sitting upright, still hasn't fallen over—Isaac asked him about the door, there's work yet to do and he must be present for it—but again the sag of his posture says his body's considering it. Glassy eyes and silence. This time, he doesn't smile back. But he is pliable; he will do whatever is asked of him.
(And, captivated though he is, he will keep turning his head to make sure Isaac is still there.)]
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The knives.
Those wouldn’t surprise if he’d ever stopped to think of it, but behind her back Leander will spy his skin crinkle the same. Isaac turns, sets to the brief business of adding water to basin, shrugging Ilias’ robes again. His own shirt follows. Boots. Trousers. It isn’t the first time he’s been naked beside a lady of breeding — or had his cock out before Leander. Both moments more pleasant than this.
(They've moved well into the realm of the lurid,)
He scrubs. ]
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(Whole over the cuts. Whatever opened the wounds for use, it didn’t go through the cloth. The spell itself, then?)
Her lips thin, clinical. There are... it’s a lot. Brutal looking and clean, bisecting his chest. Myriad and exacting on his upper arms, too orderly to be anything but chosen and placed. More haphazard on the forearms—wait. A slight frown. Those she’s seen. Or at least, she’s seen them closed and healed and old, light lines storytellers of a life near violence as he paints.
(Scars... made new wounds to cast from? One cut to make many quickly to cast something larger? That would, perhaps, fit the story she’s been fed. Other stories wear it equally well.)
Alexandrie sucks in a sharp breath when she checks his back and finds the deepest of them, still bleeding. Says something unladylike on the exhale and moves quickly to thread the needle, maneuver onto the bed behind him. Pauses briefly, then sets to making smaller holes in his flesh to close the large. She is more careful than she is quick; it will take some time. ]
no subject
The worst of his wounds, made by a single vigorous application of a short knife, punches through the meat of his trapezius muscle, right alongside the spine, and the way the skin pulls taut with his bent neck will make Alexandrie's mending difficult to begin. So, too, will the quick and heaving breaths that suddenly arise: first snuffled through blood-crusted nostrils, then in an openly panting struggle for self-control. The occasional reedy hint of his voice. Face creased as if he's only now decided to acknowledge the condition of suffering.
Finally agreeing to lift his head and hold it there for her guiding hands seems to calm him; the first push of the needle is a welcome point of focus, like a star, small and bright.]
I can hold, [he rasps, in case it's still in doubt.] Keep going.
[Staring forward, breathing through relaxed jaw, more slowly with each stitch. Eventually, calm. (He does not look at Isaac.)]
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Leander might want it, though. Alexandrie might, to splash the wound she’s begun to put small stitches into, more even since he’d lifted his head. She’d not brought it over with her. An oversight, perhaps, but it was an unwieldy size and weight along with the rest. Remedied easily enough; she looks up from her work to seek Isaac’s gaze and then makes a gesture towards the bag on the floor. ]
The bottle in there, if you please.
[ If not all of the liquor in the bottle makes it over, well, that’s to be expected. ]
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Later. Later that night, alone in an unstained room, he'll open another. Read a letter. Days after, still drunk and sore for the space beside him, he'll pour it into the fire.
A better man — rather: a more present one — might have offered the bottle sooner. But now he stalls, recalled abruptly from his work (every whine broken from Leander's chest punctuates the swipe of cloth against board). It takes a moment to process, to hand it over and brace Leander's head.
It isn't Leander he looks to now for a decision; it isn't Leander's decision whether to drink. Not if it might disrupt her task. Rip free that careful thread. ]
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What's left to preserve? The line drawn down his breastbone, nearly identical to Ilias's own scar—the sight of it new again, running fresh, is what crumpled him so suddenly—and the contents of his own journal, reverently curated. The Speaker's modest collection of personal effects, ultimately meaningless, should be sent back to the Maker along with the rest of him. The phylacteries: important, so important, more symbolic than a marriage vow. To think the one he made himself can never be revived—
Interrupting himself, strained, desperate,]
How many more?
[The people Ilias knew. Sidony, his discarded apprentice; whatever unease may have grown between them no longer matters. Kostos won't want the attention, but it isn't up to him. Casimir... wherever he is...
Isaac. Whose hand cradles the back of his skull.]
Bandage me up, we'll do the rest later—
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[ Calm and absent, the sound of a woman who takes it as a foregone conclusion that she will be finishing her work to her own satisfaction. It’s a bit late for the sluice of liquor to burn over the parted flesh, but she relieves Isaac of the bottle to pause and do it anyway, pat it dry with a folded square of bandage, and then two stitches later release Leander from the heavy thread that joins them with the shears. ]
There.
[ A quick glance reveals that to be what most needed the extra aid in sealing. His chest might want for one or two. Alexandrie reaches for the same folded square, comes around to scrutinize the bisecting wound. ]
Are you in a hurry to bleed upon another room?
[ But she makes the concession of folding a pad of cloth to place over the line of stitches— although she then looks at its placement with thinned lips. There’s no truly elegant way to bind it, although across his chest and back... that requires the chest wound done first. A morbid logician’s puzzle. She pulls thread. ]
Two more.
[ And reaches to brace a delicate hand on his chest. ]
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