He's been back to the clinic a handful of times since they first spoke - to correct the set of his wrist, to have the scarring minded, to refresh his little supply of salves and so on -, but all of them brief interludes. Today, Marcoulf's arm is lashed down by a tightened strap. The numb curl of his right hand has been flattened and is in the process of having dried salve and dirt and the general grime cleared away in preparation for--
Well, he's thought enough about what's to be done that Marcoulf feels no strong inclination to give it much consideration now. Instead, his attention (made gentle and wandering in part by what he'd smoked before coming along to this appointment) is split between the bottle of alcohol near to his functional hand and the streak of daylight in the clinic's narrow window. It's a keen not-quite-spring morning, all of Kirkwall's gray having cleared briefly away from the sky as if in memory of some still distant summer.
"Will it take long to do?" It's a strangely mild question, divorced entirely from the visceral parts of what Sidony is about to begin and made milder still by the rolling syllables of Orlesian.
Sidony has done the best she can - she is determined to make sure Marcoulf is well taken care of. It would be unprofessional for her to do anything else. There's no reason for her to treat him badly, especially since he is one of the first patients that she has had outside the battlefields. She has given him what he needed, taken care of him, and been prim and proper the entire time without pause.
"Not terribly long, no." Sidony's smile is calm and settled as she looks at him, tilting his hand one way and another to examine in. She had spend a number of hours the day before checking her books to make sure she was doing to do this properly; she doesn't want to cripple him for life, after all, and it would do very little for her reputation to have something as simple as this go horrificly wrong.
"Make yourself comfortable and we can begin as soon as you're ready." She spends her time gathering her supplies, her little bag of surgical tools, some of the things she had bought from the strange Potion Seller in Lowtown and some things she had spoken to Colin about. It's clear she's more than prepared for him.
"Whenever you like is fine." Nevermind the liquor and what he's smoked, the hand is largely numbd anyway. What harm can she do to it that hasn't been done already? That's the thought that's gotten him this far anyway.
"If it goes badly," he says, taking another absent sip from the bottle. "You're free to just hack it down to the pieces that are still useful. Better to be honest about it, hm?"
A sidelong look. A flashing grin there and gone. It's a horribly macabre joke (or half-joke, or seriousness made pliant by whatever he's used to settle his nerves).
"That won't be necessary, no matter how experienced I might be with amputation." Sidony settles down, making herself comfortable as she settles down beside him. If she was a little bit closer to him she might pat his cheek and do something a little tender with him, but she doesn't know him. He is a patient, not a friend, and she keeps that completely separate.
She would also recommend that he stops drinking, but if he has a vice that will make this easier for him then she can hardly pinch it from him. Sidony shakes her head instead, reaching for his arm and strapping higher up nearer his elbow, to help limit the blood flow as she works on the nerves and messiness that is his hand.
"I have some things here for the pain," she touches one of the boxes. "And something here after, to treat infection. I'm going to go in and fix the nerves and then stitch the wound, treat it with some herbs and perhaps a potion, and then you will have to rest the limb for at least a few weeks. Do you understand?"
That's said like it's a joke too, even if it's true. He would have to be, to have kept the fingers so carefully all this time, wounded as they were originally in the mud and blood and grit of Ghislain. He's been careful and studious; he has kept is clean and seen all the heat drained out of it and he has followed direction to the extent that it's been given. If there is an obsessive quality to it, or if saying so is unnecessary-- well, whatever. Marcoulf doesn't linger on that either, attention sliding away from his arm on the table and all her tools laid beside it to the clinic's door across the room.
With the line in place and her tools ready, Sidony adjusts herself. She already has something to cover her dress - something a little more drab than she might be wearing usually - and she ties her hair up, getting it out of her face and out of the way of any kind of blood. Only then does she settle in and lean over his hand, beginning her word, her voice slipping into gentle, rolling Orlesian as she speaks.
"Do you have any upcoming missions I should be aware of?"
He's aware of movement alongside him, but his face is turned far enough away that the shift of her hands don't register in his peripheral vision. It's all reduced to the rustle of cloth, the soft clink of small sharp things, and the strange phantom feeling of pressure in the parts of his hand that still have feeling. It will hurt soon, he thinks, but for the moment--
"Not that I know of. I'm meant to mind the gate to the Inquisition docks in the morning, but someone else is doing the work for me. Most of my duties can be avoided for a day or two, or they don't need a second hand to mind them." Ask him tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe things will have changed then, word handed down from the Forces office on tightly rolled scrolls.
Nodding along, Sidony focusses on her work. She can do two things at once, of course, but this is delicate surgery, the kind that she hasn't done a great deal of before - she wants to make sure that Marcoulf leaves her offices with his hand intact and the ability to use it corrected, not missing fingers or limbs because of a silly mistake she has made. That would not do her reputation any good.
"That, I suppose, you can do," her accent is not as good as it might be normally, but she's distracted. "As long as it does not requre too much use of your fingers. I'd like you to do as much as you can to rely on your other hand for as long as possible."
"Fair enough. That's more or less what I've been doing, so it should be easy." The slip of her accent is escusable - it's not like he's being particularly clear either, one Orlesian word wandering blithely into the next.
There. The edge of something cutting. Hot pain courses through his arm and the surprise of it makes him forearm twitch hard against the strap binding it down. He goes very sharp, teeth snapping as a surge of adrenaline penetrates the fog of...everything else, only to slip through his fingers once on the other side. For a split second, he can hear blood in his ears, sense some flash of fear and the urge to look at what she's doing. Instead, Marcoulf takes another drink from the bottle wrapped tightly in his good hand. He counts the bolts in the door.
"That does mean no fighting, you know, and doing your best not to pick any, if possible." She might raise an eyebrow if she was able to look at him, but since she's not focussed on his face she keeps it to herself.
Reaching with one hand, Sidony takes some wood, carved and shaped properly, and offers it up to him, resting it on the table in front of him. He can bite on it if he would like to, something that might help manage the pain, and she takes some of the potion she had purchased and leaves that too.
That makes him laugh, a sawing wheezing noise exhaled through his teeth. The tension in the line of his shoulder doesn't abate and there's a muscle in his neck that's flexing, but surely the survival of his humor is a good sign. Does he look like the kind of man who fights for pleasure? Probably. He'd brought his sword with him today. The silvered rapier is leaned against the table, it's very fine pommel and the elegant twisting lines of its basket hilt hooked just there to keep it from slipping. There's the wickedly long knife in his belt too, though it's been some time since he drew it.
"I'll do my best to avoid it," he says, before downing the concoction she'd passed to him. The wood too he sets between his teeth, pressing his tongue hard at the edge. It's fine. It doesn't hurt. It's fine.
Her lips twitch, just a little, and she stops herself from letting the laughter shake down into her hands - that would be a mess, surely. Sidony doesn't imagine that he would deliberately pick any fights, not really, but it's better to be safe than sorry; she has a job, and that job is to make sure that her patients know the risks and are well taken care of, no matter what he decides to do once he leaves her office.
"Thank you, I appreciate it. I am putting the time in, after all." It's said with an edge of cheer, at least, something teasing. She keeps working, leaning closer to his hand as she focusses, brow creasing.
Another huff, this one muffled by the piece of wood set between his teeth. It hamstrings him as a conversational partner, but that's probably for the best as she gets to the-- meat of the matter, little ticks and scrapes and grinding that feel like she must be twisting the delicate interior parts of his hand like a thread about its spool. He's remains steadfast about not looking, trying instead to ignore the strange sensations as they crawl up the length of his arm and gnaw at his elbow, his shoulder. Eventually, he just sets his face in his good hand and stares at some abstract portion of the tabletop and sweats under his shirt.
At least the last few months have given Sidony the experience to know how to handle these tools properly and with more skill than anyone might have ever been able to expect from her. There's a snide part of her that says that this is the largest 'in your face' she might be able to muster for Ilias, but now is hardly the time for her pettiness.
"It won't be long now," she tells him gently, not even blinking as she does her work. "I will finish it, stitch it, apply some herbs and give you some potions, and then you can go."
There's a low answering noise, but he gets no farther. Minutes ago, when he'd first made himself comfortable in the clinic, his mind had wandered relatively freely, untethered by a sick uncertainty for the first time in weeks thanks to some combination of the smoke and the drink and the fact that he had finally had no option but to do something. What had he been thinking of then instead of hurting? He tries to remember it now. That the weather had been good. That either way, this would decide something. That after this he might go and sleep and wake up again and he might find himself in a good mood after all. That Anna will laugh at him after all this. That--
But the immediacy of the pain despite the thick taste of the potion in his mouth keeps him here in this room. But it's fine. The hurt is a good sign, he thinks with all the vicious determination of a dog's jaws clamped shut on a bone. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
The surgery goes on and on, and Sidony can feel the exhaustion creeping up on her. It's painful for her to sit here for as long as she has been - but she knows that the pain she is feeling, the awkward ache and the tiredness cannot be anything compared to what poor Marcoulf must be feeling. He must be suffering in near silence with that wood in his mouth, not able to do anything except accept the fact that he is going to be in pain for longer.
She pauses, leaning back, glancing at him for a moment.
"I have you," she says gently. "About another half hour, maybe an hour, and then you can go home. The pain will be over sooner than that, I think, once the herbs start to work."
For a moment, it's like he doesn't hear her. He's not still - there's a faintly shifting quality to the line of his shoulder, to the set of his fingers against his face and unseen, his heel is jumping against the stone at jerking intervals. He's going to vomit, he thinks. He's sweating through his shirt as if fevered and soon it'll make him sick. (It's fine. It's fine. It's--)
A croak. He straightens by a few degrees and for the first time glances toward her work.
It doesn't look very nice, she's sure, thin metal instruments poking at his hand as Sidony concentrates - but it looks better than it was. She's repairing what was broken and when she stitches it up it won't look as terrible as it had when he walked in, but the process of getting there will be the most painful part of it. Healing will be much, much better - itchy, but better, she's sure of it.
Glancing at him, she breathes out softly. "Not long. Do you need to pause? Another potion?"
It's an ugly, fleshy thing - strange shapes that don't seem like they belong to anyone much less at the end of his own arm. He looks for a while, pale under the shade of his hand, turns his face away again. A low noise. No further protest. It's fine. He's fine. Just get it over with.
If that's what he wants, then Sidony has no room to complain or fight against it. She turns her attention back to his hand and focusses completely, head tilting as she leans forward. Her tongue doesn't quite stick out, but the feeling of it is there - she's still so young and her focus, while concrete, comes with a few little signs that give away her youth.
The minutes tick by as she works, barely breathing or blinking as she works on fixing this poor man's hand.
And that's how it goes: a girl (because she is one - young and small and fierce in a way youth describes) with her metal tools and her sharp mending needle and her sturdy waxed thread leaning low over the flayed open hand as Marcoulf, pale and sweating and stupid in turns either from the pain of the work or from the thrumming insulation of the heady herbal sludge he'd drunk down, breathing low deliberate breaths. Time passes. The light in the clinic window must shift, but the change is incremental enough that he doesn't register it. His jaw aches. His thigh is stiff from the anxious bouncing of his heel and knee. Eventually, his teeth are sore enough that Marcoulf discards the piece of wood.
Lightheaded. Distant. Feels like he should be farther from this point, but his boot soles are bound to the floor. After some time, he says, "I'm tired," like some exhausted complaining child might.
There's not too much left now, Sidony thinks, and her focus is an intense thing; she is playing with nerves that could destroy a hand for the first time, really, and she has to make sure that she's doing something good. She doesn't want Marcoulf to leave here devastated; she wants him to leave here healthy, put back together, able to do all the things that he could do before.
When he speaks she leans back, putting her surgical tools to one side and picking up her needle and thread.
"I need to stitch it now. Do you want to pause for a few moments?"
"I haven't been, so I can't quite make the comparison." Said with the idleness of talking about the weather.
Sidony doesn't waste time, then. She stitches up the wound with perfect efficiency, rubs in - carefully - some of the things she had bought to help prevent infection and wraps it, gently, in bandages, to keep it safe from the grim and dirt of Kirkwall.
Wrapped so, it's as if nothing at all has been done and he has merely been sitting here for hours and sweat through his shirt for nothing. Marcoulf reaches immediately to ease the strap about his arm. Despite everything, his left hand remains shocking dexterous. The buckle comes open easily. He draws his arm free with a halting noise.
"Good. That's fine." Like saying it makes it true. "Thank you."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action;
Well, he's thought enough about what's to be done that Marcoulf feels no strong inclination to give it much consideration now. Instead, his attention (made gentle and wandering in part by what he'd smoked before coming along to this appointment) is split between the bottle of alcohol near to his functional hand and the streak of daylight in the clinic's narrow window. It's a keen not-quite-spring morning, all of Kirkwall's gray having cleared briefly away from the sky as if in memory of some still distant summer.
"Will it take long to do?" It's a strangely mild question, divorced entirely from the visceral parts of what Sidony is about to begin and made milder still by the rolling syllables of Orlesian.
no subject
"Not terribly long, no." Sidony's smile is calm and settled as she looks at him, tilting his hand one way and another to examine in. She had spend a number of hours the day before checking her books to make sure she was doing to do this properly; she doesn't want to cripple him for life, after all, and it would do very little for her reputation to have something as simple as this go horrificly wrong.
"Make yourself comfortable and we can begin as soon as you're ready." She spends her time gathering her supplies, her little bag of surgical tools, some of the things she had bought from the strange Potion Seller in Lowtown and some things she had spoken to Colin about. It's clear she's more than prepared for him.
no subject
"If it goes badly," he says, taking another absent sip from the bottle. "You're free to just hack it down to the pieces that are still useful. Better to be honest about it, hm?"
A sidelong look. A flashing grin there and gone. It's a horribly macabre joke (or half-joke, or seriousness made pliant by whatever he's used to settle his nerves).
no subject
She would also recommend that he stops drinking, but if he has a vice that will make this easier for him then she can hardly pinch it from him. Sidony shakes her head instead, reaching for his arm and strapping higher up nearer his elbow, to help limit the blood flow as she works on the nerves and messiness that is his hand.
"I have some things here for the pain," she touches one of the boxes. "And something here after, to treat infection. I'm going to go in and fix the nerves and then stitch the wound, treat it with some herbs and perhaps a potion, and then you will have to rest the limb for at least a few weeks. Do you understand?"
no subject
That's said like it's a joke too, even if it's true. He would have to be, to have kept the fingers so carefully all this time, wounded as they were originally in the mud and blood and grit of Ghislain. He's been careful and studious; he has kept is clean and seen all the heat drained out of it and he has followed direction to the extent that it's been given. If there is an obsessive quality to it, or if saying so is unnecessary-- well, whatever. Marcoulf doesn't linger on that either, attention sliding away from his arm on the table and all her tools laid beside it to the clinic's door across the room.
no subject
With the line in place and her tools ready, Sidony adjusts herself. She already has something to cover her dress - something a little more drab than she might be wearing usually - and she ties her hair up, getting it out of her face and out of the way of any kind of blood. Only then does she settle in and lean over his hand, beginning her word, her voice slipping into gentle, rolling Orlesian as she speaks.
"Do you have any upcoming missions I should be aware of?"
no subject
"Not that I know of. I'm meant to mind the gate to the Inquisition docks in the morning, but someone else is doing the work for me. Most of my duties can be avoided for a day or two, or they don't need a second hand to mind them." Ask him tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe things will have changed then, word handed down from the Forces office on tightly rolled scrolls.
no subject
"That, I suppose, you can do," her accent is not as good as it might be normally, but she's distracted. "As long as it does not requre too much use of your fingers. I'd like you to do as much as you can to rely on your other hand for as long as possible."
no subject
There. The edge of something cutting. Hot pain courses through his arm and the surprise of it makes him forearm twitch hard against the strap binding it down. He goes very sharp, teeth snapping as a surge of adrenaline penetrates the fog of...everything else, only to slip through his fingers once on the other side. For a split second, he can hear blood in his ears, sense some flash of fear and the urge to look at what she's doing. Instead, Marcoulf takes another drink from the bottle wrapped tightly in his good hand. He counts the bolts in the door.
no subject
Reaching with one hand, Sidony takes some wood, carved and shaped properly, and offers it up to him, resting it on the table in front of him. He can bite on it if he would like to, something that might help manage the pain, and she takes some of the potion she had purchased and leaves that too.
"Use them if you need to."
no subject
"I'll do my best to avoid it," he says, before downing the concoction she'd passed to him. The wood too he sets between his teeth, pressing his tongue hard at the edge. It's fine. It doesn't hurt. It's fine.
no subject
"Thank you, I appreciate it. I am putting the time in, after all." It's said with an edge of cheer, at least, something teasing. She keeps working, leaning closer to his hand as she focusses, brow creasing.
no subject
no subject
"It won't be long now," she tells him gently, not even blinking as she does her work. "I will finish it, stitch it, apply some herbs and give you some potions, and then you can go."
mobile dw, pls
But the immediacy of the pain despite the thick taste of the potion in his mouth keeps him here in this room. But it's fine. The hurt is a good sign, he thinks with all the vicious determination of a dog's jaws clamped shut on a bone. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
it hates you
She pauses, leaning back, glancing at him for a moment.
"I have you," she says gently. "About another half hour, maybe an hour, and then you can go home. The pain will be over sooner than that, I think, once the herbs start to work."
no subject
A croak. He straightens by a few degrees and for the first time glances toward her work.
no subject
Glancing at him, she breathes out softly. "Not long. Do you need to pause? Another potion?"
no subject
no subject
The minutes tick by as she works, barely breathing or blinking as she works on fixing this poor man's hand.
no subject
Lightheaded. Distant. Feels like he should be farther from this point, but his boot soles are bound to the floor. After some time, he says, "I'm tired," like some exhausted complaining child might.
no subject
When he speaks she leans back, putting her surgical tools to one side and picking up her needle and thread.
"I need to stitch it now. Do you want to pause for a few moments?"
no subject
"I'd rather be done." Said plainly, before segueing into some rambling nonsense sentence: "This is worse than the Fade."
no subject
Sidony doesn't waste time, then. She stitches up the wound with perfect efficiency, rubs in - carefully - some of the things she had bought to help prevent infection and wraps it, gently, in bandages, to keep it safe from the grim and dirt of Kirkwall.
"There."
no subject
Wrapped so, it's as if nothing at all has been done and he has merely been sitting here for hours and sweat through his shirt for nothing. Marcoulf reaches immediately to ease the strap about his arm. Despite everything, his left hand remains shocking dexterous. The buckle comes open easily. He draws his arm free with a halting noise.
"Good. That's fine." Like saying it makes it true. "Thank you."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)