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."
Sidony tsks immediately, reaching out to steady his arm and lower it gently, frowning a little as he just draws his arm out. She goes to collect a sling, placing it down on the table between them, not daring to wipe her own brow or undo her hair just yet.
"You can use this if your hand starts to ache. Like I said, it would be a good idea to keep from moving it for a little while. Here," she puts a few small vials into a bag, packing them up. "Something for the pain. None of them are magical, all herbal, and they should be taken in the morning or if you are struggling to sleep."
He's fantastically inert as she collects the bottles, the sling - just sits there with his arm set stiffly against his chest and takes measure of himself. His feet on the ground. The wavering, ill feeling high in the back of his head. She's giving him instructions. Fine. They sound fine. The little bag is accepted without question, then he rouses with a sharp jerk of the shoulders. Dark eyes briefly gain some razor sharp focus.
"Did I pay you already?" This is broad, heavily accented Trade. Forgetting the discussion they had on this point. "I don't have it with me. I'll bring it tomorrow."
Sidony watches him for a long, long moment, her eyes flicking over his face. A part of her wants to demand that he stay here so that she might keep watch over him, but that won't do either of them any good. He can take care of himself, grown man that he is.
For a split second, it's like he might argue with her. He goes sharp and bristling, some shifting behind the curl of his beard indicating the suspicious set of his jaw. Then he gives, the cotton-wrapped quality of the pain-and-liquor-and-Andraste-knows-what-else smothering his protests.
"If you say so." This still in Trade, sound clipped and brusque in a way the Orlesian doesn't. One handed, he reaches for his sword where it's leaned against the table. Stands abruptly and bangs the table edge with the beautiful hilt of the lovely sword as he tries to grab both it and keep his balance.
Either way, Sidony would take any money he gave her and donate it somehow. She's being paid for what she does - not enough to keep her in luxury, but enough that she is able to live and work and feed herself, and dress herself. Money isn't her issue right now (and if she was truly suffering she could write her brother or her mother, of course).
"I do." Her smile is thin and careful as she begins to take care of her things, wrapping them up and putting them away. Some of the tools are put to one side to be cleaned, but she glances back when he speaks again.
"In a few weeks, just to make sure it is healing. If you develop any problems then you should come back sooner."
"Easily done." More easily done than hooking the rapier back at his belt is presently, so he doesn't both with that one. Just tucks it clumsily under his arm, then gathers the little packet she's prepared for him and takes that too. He stays there for a few seconds longer, hip set firmly against the table's edge like the hard line of it will do some good to ground him more firmly. Then--
"Thank you. I'm sure it will be fine."
And then, with a great fumbling and jangling of small metal pieces and the thump of his sheathed sword against the clinic's door frame, he's gone. Seems that much - breezing in and out, gone almost as instantly in the way he'd first stumbled into the clinic, bottle in hand - remains habitual.
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The minutes tick by as she works, barely breathing or blinking as she works on fixing this poor man's hand.
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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.
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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?"
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"I'd rather be done." Said plainly, before segueing into some rambling nonsense sentence: "This is worse than the Fade."
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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."
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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."
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"You can use this if your hand starts to ache. Like I said, it would be a good idea to keep from moving it for a little while. Here," she puts a few small vials into a bag, packing them up. "Something for the pain. None of them are magical, all herbal, and they should be taken in the morning or if you are struggling to sleep."
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"Did I pay you already?" This is broad, heavily accented Trade. Forgetting the discussion they had on this point. "I don't have it with me. I'll bring it tomorrow."
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"The Inquisition pays, if you recall."
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"If you say so." This still in Trade, sound clipped and brusque in a way the Orlesian doesn't. One handed, he reaches for his sword where it's leaned against the table. Stands abruptly and bangs the table edge with the beautiful hilt of the lovely sword as he tries to grab both it and keep his balance.
A moment. He forces himself to steady.
There. It's fine.
"Will you need to see it again?"
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"I do." Her smile is thin and careful as she begins to take care of her things, wrapping them up and putting them away. Some of the tools are put to one side to be cleaned, but she glances back when he speaks again.
"In a few weeks, just to make sure it is healing. If you develop any problems then you should come back sooner."
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"Thank you. I'm sure it will be fine."
And then, with a great fumbling and jangling of small metal pieces and the thump of his sheathed sword against the clinic's door frame, he's gone. Seems that much - breezing in and out, gone almost as instantly in the way he'd first stumbled into the clinic, bottle in hand - remains habitual.