Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:22 am

Their interactions had not been altogether rewarding in the past, but far be it for the creature to let sleeping dogs lie. She had not missed the abrupt, startling way that Jule stared at her frame. He looked as if he were starving and she was a freshly-cooked slab of meat. It wasn't her that he was looking at, but the girl whose frame she had wrapped around herself.

The creature was not foolish enough to think that many would choose her over the sweet little girl in the white dress whose eyes sparkled. Not with those dimples. The whelp was wholly unaware of the attention heaped upon her, which, she supposed, was part of her charm.

That and the demon lurking in her brain that made men want to save her. In the end, they all wanted to be heroes.

It was not overly complicated to sneak past the woefully lax security to slip into the healer's domain. So, the spirit walked her host into Jule's room and deposited her upon his bed and went dormant again. She took her fingers off of the puppet strings and watched to see what would happen.

The haggard man who barely slept, with all manner of workplace matters whirling in his head, would be greeted with the sweet-natured girl snuggled among his sheets with a single candle lit to banish the darkness.

Feeling his eyes, her lashes fluttered and slate eyes blinked at him sleepily. Abruptly, they cleared and she sat up to take stock of her surroundings. The caged whelp shot him a wary look, as if he were the one responsible for bringing her here.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:42 am

His room.

No room, no way to live. Scattered in tomes and papers, his place of rest a wooden cot like those lining the canvas of medical tents pitched after a battle, where half-severed legs were finally dislodged and the screams of men were muffled by bloody rags so women could saw, saw, saw at the bone until white powder sprinkled the scarlet grass. A candle left burning too long, until it swam in a sea of its own wax-sweat, illuminated the windowless room. His place of respite. His office.

When he saw her upon entering, he became a statue.

A familiar girl sat like a half-broken idol amid his coverlets and quilts. In even the faint radiance, she was familiar. Familiar enough for Jule Mitchell, in robes of tired white, to flex the muscles in the heel of his worn boot so that ankle, tendons, and flesh pressed against the cold steel of a blade hidden beneath his hems.

In the quiet, in the darkness, her face, shining like a pallid half-moon, drew his attention.

He looked for oildrops in her eyes and saw none.

"What endeavor do you pursue," he said, "in the sanctity of my bed?"
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:56 am

The wildling cast her eyes upon the man who had entered, almost swallowed up by the meager size of his bed. Both her dress and his sheets were white, which made her seem some fanciful apparition. The man looked down his nose at her and demanded, with disgust, imagined or not, why she was there. The man who the creature watched with sheer amusement from the shelter of her host's eyes. His carefully crafted outrage to find the little gift in his bed was delicious to behold.

The young woman sighed, cold breath puffing out across warmed lips. Sometimes, she deeply resented the games that the creature played with strangers. At least life was never boring, she supposed.

The creature offered no silent explanation, so the whelp scooted to the edge of his cot and placed her bare feet upon the simple wooden floor. Her toes curled at the chill. Her gaze was cast about for her boots, which sat neatly beside the door. Beside his own left foot. When she caught sight of them there, she glanced up at him pointedly with lofted brows. He received a look that demanded he be properly admonished for not springing to action sooner to assist her. He might wonder how a slip of a woman half his size could make him feel so small, in that fraction of a second. For all her humble beginnings, she seemed stronger than even the creature, sometimes.

"I endeavor nothing at all, especially in your sanctity.," she drawled, an inkling of mocking in her tone. "I suspect I am something of a pawn in this game you play with my worse half," she grumbled. Another pointed look, as if he should be ashamed of himself.

"You are the one who banished me from the Rememdium, I assume?" She asked him, lips thinned.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:57 am

"I am."

Never a move. Neither flinch of spindly hand toward the door nor the scrape of boot against floor, for to find a woman, a girl in one's private chambers is a matter of caution. But of all girls, this girl; a being whose presence was as volatile as flour to flame. No, Jule Mitchell allowed his jaw no quarter, gave his eyes no freedom. Stiffness bled into his body. She could have allured, might have, should have -- but the only motion on his body was evinced through the in-out pace of his breath and the way it disturbed the underbrush of his unkempt beard.

"I suspect I am something of a pawn in this game you play with my worse half

"The bite of a snake, the poison of a spider," he muttered. "Do you know how they are controlled, Noura? If not by antidote or poultice, then by more violent means: the removal of a limb before necrosis spreads, the mutilation of flesh that the taint might be sucked out, rendered inert. The work is not kind, is not preferable, but it is necessary. I play no game with her, with you, with anyone."

Finally, he breathed. There had not been once since he stepped across the threshold into his place, into his home.

"Your continued presence chanced visitation of harm upon those others for whom I am responsible, Sera Noura. Your intrusion now," he told her, "only confirms my decision. But if you are here..."

He turned to his squat desk, slid rolls of parchment aside, and gripped the handle of a simple, tin kettle left from his midday repast.

"I would be remiss to not offer you a cup of tea so that we may spend this time conversing with at least the illusion of comfort. Don't you agree?"
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:18 am

He did not offer her the boots that sat beside him, so she pulled her legs back up and onto the cot with her. She folded them in front of her and tugged at his covers to hide the bare skin from the chill in the air. If he neglected his manners, she would remain just where she was. Here, in his bed, instead of leaving as was his preference.

He spoke of poisons and of her toxic presence, and she sighed. Still, soon enough, he moved towards his desk and claimed his kettle. Pale eyes lightened and she couldn't seem to help the edges of her mouth from curling up with amusement as he offered her some tea. She nodded mutely and watched him work.

Jule Mitchell, who was oft alone, was regarded thoughtfully by the girl whose demon had commandeered her form and gifted her to the young man who would never claim her. She toyed with the edge of his fraying blanket as she watched him move.

"You don't like me," she observed, finally. "It's not just the creature that you don't trust. You are wary of me, too," she remarked, her head tilted to the side. Her hair cascaded like a waterfall, freshly washed. Her skin smelled of soap. "There must be something, though. Some reason why she left me here instead of coming on her own." She just didn't understand what those reasons could possibly be.

Finally, her discomforting gaze left him to wander the room instead. "Do you live and work here?" Incredulous.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:58 am

"It's neither like nor antipathy--"

--two cups of hardened leather pinched between his fingers are retrieved; he placed them upon the battered desk, and with a finger keeping the kettle's lid in-place, he filled each cup to its brim with cold tea--

"--but a lack thereof, Sera Noura. Should I let emotions temper my perceptions, whether for better or worse, should I see people as more than just problems to solve, my work suffers greatly. It is the same with any calling. You, I pity. I regret that you must suffer at your demon's will."

He turned his head enough that his bristling chin touched his shoulder, but his eyes never left the bureau.

"Those emotions are petty, miniscule, for neither pity nor regret are strong enough to overcome logic: she is dangerous, and thus, you are dangerous, especially if you cannot control her. Do I condemn you? No. My purview extends to Rememdium alone; you will condemn yourself well enough without my judgment." But whether or not he lived here, in this squat room in the ribs of the infirmary, was a question that received no retort. As he raised the kettle away from the mouths of the tanned cups, his palm slipped. Quivering fingers -- did they reveal a tension, a fright his cool words did not evidence? -- broke their grip from the tin decanter as he lifted it. Its butt swung, struck--

--the taper of the room's only candle, overturned the little porcelain plate, and sent the guttering light to the floor. Wax instantly smothered flame. The plate shattered.

Darkness drowned the room.

"Shit," he cursed.

Jule Mitchell was, unavoidably, very human.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Sun Oct 12, 2014 8:41 am

She was quiet and he avoided her gaze. He spoke, calmly, of his lack of emotions and his career. He spoke of his pity and her demon, but he never once lifted his gaze towards her own. She barely dared to breathe at all, truth be hold. The creature's gifts let her slow her heart and the need for air. Just so she would not interrupt nor distract him in his quiet disregard.

Eventually, she spoke. Only when he had let silence descend for a moment. "How truly lonely," she remarked, as if her very heart bled for him. She met his pity with her own empathy. "Perhaps," she began, after a moment's thought, "Since you will not see me as a patient, I am not a problem to solve. Your work would not suffer if we were to become friends, would it?," she hazarded, her words carefully chosen and tested before speaking.

There was a good heart buried beneath her breast, whatever he might have thought. Perhaps the reason the creature had chosen her.

The light flickered out and bathed them in confining darkness. There was silence for a moment, though his hissed swear lingered in the air. Briefly, there came the sing-song of her laughter. Kindly, "Don't move. You'll cut yourself." Then, nothing.

Suddenly, there was warmth at his elbow and a hand reached out towards his arm with gentle, questing fingers. Her thumb would seek to sweep over his arm in apology before she stooped to grope around the floor for the miniscule remainder of candle. Her skin was warm, overly warm. There was no trace of the demon's chill in her bones.

"So, if I came to your door again in the dark of night with my belly cut open and my organs threatening to spill out, you would turn me away, Healer Mitchell?," she asked, as she searched, stooped in front of him. This was an inappropriate conversation to be having at this point in time, but at least she let him have some distance with his title, if not her proximity. "I have trouble believing that. You have kind eyes."

The darkness around them was confining and he was alone with a girl who housed a demon. At least the blade at his calf was some small comfort. A small bleat of pain sounded, likely from the plate shattered around them.

"Oh. Right," she seemed to recall something and then a red, sickening light began to glow from her runes. It was dim light, but it would help. She glanced up at him from where she knelt at his feet, the hum of restrained power around them.

"Oh!," she announced, with triumph, and held the bit of candle aloft for him, innocently enough.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Sun Oct 12, 2014 9:54 am

Your work would not suffer if we were to become friends, would it?

In the momentary lack of light: "You intrude upon my home in an institution from which you have been strictly forbidden to ask for my friendship?"

He laughed too, a dour retort to her own mirth. In the darkness his eyes burned, ached for some sort of light. Her body slipped and slithered around his with a soft, burdensome warmth; he clenched shut his eyes and recalled an old poison--

("You're a sweet boy, Jule. It sounds like a gem. I've never seen a gem before," a Myrkener girl told him.

"I have to finish my studies now," he told her.

"You're always studying. Don't you ever do anything else?"

"It's very important; I'm going to be a fantastic soldier, you know! Stop distracting me."

"You've just never had the right distraction, Jule."

So she gripped his hand, frail and untouched by the dirt of the fields, and traced the pads of his fingers across the lace of her tunic. His middle digit slipped between the prison of leather and sinew and found the smooth, soft mound of skin just above her heart, a girl's breast, a girl's breast, a girl's breast, a girl's--
)

"Should such a time come that you arrived in that state, I would give you the care you required. If so much damage had been done, it would suggest the beast's absence that it had not repaired you; I would care for your body to the best of my ability."

He dared not move under her request. The touch of her palm against his forearm startled him enough that the thin muscle beneath his sleeve tensed in obdurate preparation. Her scent caught his nostrils, woody and damp, a natural aura that whispered hints of the trees and ferns--

Runes glowed to life. He took the candle gingerly from her grip and placed it on the bureau. After, he offered her a cold cup of tea. He embraced no other solution to the dull, vacuous blackness of the room except for the innate hum-and-burn of her scimshaw radiance. "Eyes lie," Jule told Noura. And then: "Yours always have. I implore you, Sera Noura, to sit. That you've taken the pains to skulk your way into my abode means I should, at the very least, give credit to your efforts until I demand your departure.

"Why are you here," Jule asked. "Why have you come?"
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:37 am

His words were angry and she could not anticipate his reasons. His laughter, stilted with incredulity, made her own fall flat and silent. Still, she would move forward to find the candle that he had dropped. She would brave the shattered glass upon the floor so that he did not have to.

Her eyes were pearl-colored in the soft red glow of her runes as she peered quietly up at him from the floor. When he took the candle from her fingertips, they brushed against his own in a manner he might find unpleasant. Crimson blood smeared across his digits in their wake. The glass had found her skin in her search, and a hint of the smell of iron blood seeped into the air. As soon as the candle's soft glow burned, the runes winked out. The pulse of magic at their temples subsided and left the air empty. Wanting. They were left with only the pale light of the single flame.

She found a cold cup of tea pushed impatiently into her hands and she rose with only minor difficulty. She attempted to avoid the shards on the floor with her feet. Her eyes dropped to the cup meekly and she backed away until she was seated on his bed again. She perched on the edge, as if she were liable to bolt at any moment. The corners of her mouth slanted downwards with her unhappiness.

"I did not come here, nor did I willingly intrude. The creature claimed my form while I slept and I awoke here. I am -," and here she paused, to gather her wits and to swallow the sudden emotional outburst that threatened. "I am sorry," she continued, once she swallowed the lump in her throat, "to force my company upon you here. I never intended..."

Well, she rarely intended for anything that the creature did. Gloria claimed that meant that she was responsible for its actions and the wildling struggled to remember that. She pressed her wound to her thigh, blood staining the white cloth.

"I will go, if you will give me leave, Ser Mitchell, " she offered, suddenly, never once meeting his gaze. Never once lifting the cup to bring tea to her lips. Instead, her teeth chewed her lips until they were plump and red with irritation.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:37 am

"No."

A gleam of blood on the edges of his fingers from hers, sticky and viscous. The candle flickered tiredly, illuminating their eyes more than ever it could their flesh.

"At the behest of whatever desire the creature delivered you, you'll not depart until I give your permission. The creature has made herself my business; the creature has made you my business. Drink in good company, and let me see your hand."

He unhanded his own tea and instead motioned for her to sit more comfortably upon the cot. He had intended that she leave, at first, but now -- now -- Jule Mitchell was obstinate against her desire to flee. With fingers tugging rough, white robes to a more comfortable drape around his knees, he occupied a seat across from her and extended one of his palms for hers. "It would only be appropriate," he said, a begrudging hum in his voice that was too warm, too kind to be anything but guilt, "that I dress the bit of skin you sacrificed for my comfort.

"I hope that you understand, however unpleasant or unfair you may believe it, my stance: a soldier would wear no primed crossbow on his back for fear it would loose its quarrel. Likewise, as the current director of the Rememdium's affairs, I would be gambling blindly to allow a demon into this place unchecked."

A resigned breath blew from his nostrils as he watched her, never looking away.

"Tell me. Sera Noura, how you believe we might most easily remedy a plague if it came to our door. Speculate, if you will, and humor me."
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:19 pm

He refuted her and she blinked at him, startled. Her mouth opened to protest and it worked open and closed once in effort to find words that her surprise denied her. Eventually, her lips pressed together with displeasure, but she remained settled upon his cot with acceptance. He waved her towards the edge and she considered the benefits of irritating him by remaining just where she was with folded legs and arms, sullen.

Eventually, she sighed and scooted towards the edge with her eyes focused somewhere on the ceiling. She gave him her hand, rough calluses of a woman used to working scattered here and there. His own were likely much softer, as was beneficial for one of his status and career. Softened digits revealed more details of the human body than roughened ones did. Her fingers wriggled, less than helpful, in his grip as he leaned in to inspect the damage. Petulant. "You have refused me treatment, I think you made that abundantly clear."

She gulped down her tea, the handle clutched by the opposite hand. Its chilled temperature was less pleasant than when it was warm and she swallowed it for courtesy's sake alone. "Since when do you regard the creature's desires with any serious consequence?," she asked, her fingers stilling as soon as his skin touched her own. Startled, perhaps, if the expression on her face was any indication. "I sacrificed nothing at all for you, just for the light," she amended, pointedly. "Pain is no serious concern, especially so fleeting. Life is pain and it is best to be reminded that one is alive upon occasion."

The waifish creature in front of him had a far different outlook than his own. She attempted to abruptly close her fingers over his own to trap him there. Her spine bent as she attempted to lean closer. Her eyes searched his own, far too close for his comfort. She was as pushy as that girl long ago. "I will answer your questions if their answers are mirrored with your own. That is the game we will play. Matching question for an inquiry, answer for explanation." She frowned, once. "You must also stop calling me Sera as if you have an unpleasant taste in your mouth." Only then would she release him, assuming she had managed to claim his hand in her own.

"I do not understand. I had the understanding that healers did not allow their personal feelings to steer them from their craft. You condemn me, so easily. Are there others you have turned away, just as dangerous? There are those that have powers far beyond my own." She shook her head and licked her lips. "This seems personal, whatever your claims, and I am sorry for all the creature has done to you." The words were honest, sweet.

Her opinion on plague was asked and she rocked back to consider it seriously. "I suppose I would take those wishing treatment and keep them contained for their own benefit. Do you mean to confine me?," she questioned, pointedly.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Tue Oct 14, 2014 5:03 pm

"You've already been confined. That world, out there, is your prison. Here?"

She released his hand, and he motioned at the miniscule office set like an afterthought into the Rememdium's heart.

"This is my world. Not one under my command, but one that falls within my power to protect. The people who must be within these walls, who cannot escape it, who seek treatment, solace, or merely comfort before death, are my charges. This requires that I think for them; this requires that I close the doors on beings who have not yet learned to harness their...darker halves. What transpires between us is not personal, Noura; it is the coldest manifestation of necessity that can exist."

She was so close to him, as if she thought that peering into the gems of his eyes could merit her some deeper, more soulful absorption of the truth engraved in his heart. He did not retract, did not draw away; even this close, Jule Mitchell was guarded, a citadel of a man whose body was parchment but whose convictions were wrought of iron.

"I have seen it inhabit bodies of the dead, Noura. I will not expose those under my care to such sacrilege; I will not see them defiled."

With a ginger attentiveness in his hands that rivaled that of a matron, a governess, he wrapped the wounded breadth of her fingers in crumpled muslin and thrice-boiled cheesecloth. Then, more softly, he continued: "You awakened in my bed. Had the villain in your veins deposited you into the company of a man more ill-composed than myself, the beast may have threatened your being soiled at the hands of a cruel, impulsive boor.

"Perhaps I misjudge the creature's intentions," he reasoned, "and perhaps she believes you safe within my chambers. But perhaps she too misjudges."

His bearded chin lowered; his beady gaze flicked toward Noura's emptied cup of tea. Not a drop of his own had he imbibed--

Jule Mitchell was, unavoidably, very human.


"The sedative," he said, "will work slowly. We yet have time to speak."
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:40 am

"You worry over nothing. The creature will not leave my body for another's," she insisted, with a sharp shake of her head. Frustration was written in the lines of her body and the frown of her face. "It can only shift bodies in the moment of death and it only left my frame because Gloria Wynsee asked it to save Niall," she explained, as if that made it better. "The creature longs for power. My magic makes me an attractive companion."

Her gaze settled on their hands as he dressed her wounds with the utmost efficiency. She thought his bedside manner could use a little work, but perhaps he was just this way with her. She was dangerous, in his eyes, and a threat against his charges.

"Fine, I will leave and speak to the creature about returning," she began, until he mentioned the dangers of being dropped into a man's bed. Her lips quirked upwards with amusement. "You would be foolish to do so, as would these hypothetical men who might assault me. I'm hardly without protection," offered briefly, gently. Whether she meant weaponry or her magic prowess was anyone's guess.

He mentioned the lapse in judgement and glances towards the cup. He mentioned a sedative and she snatched her hand away from his own. Her eyes were wide and feral, an animal trapped in a corner. Perhaps she disturbed the bandage, but she had little care for such things as she attempted to leave his cot. She would seek to slip by him, or shove her way through, as she fought for the door.

Her comment about containment, quarantine ran in her head and chilled her heart.
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Rance » Fri Oct 17, 2014 1:17 am

He never sought to stop her or intercept. Jule Mitchell remained seated, never even turned his eyes toward the girl's ghostly figure as she scrambled from the bed and, like an animal betrayed, moved herself toward the door.

"I want nothing to do with the creature, Noura. But you..."

Elbows mounted on his knees. Steepled fingers raised against his lips. Thumb-knuckles rustled across the crest of his beard where it sprawled from his chin. His gaze had leveled on some angle of the bedding disturbed by her body, a new landscape afforded by the unintentional buffeting of feet that hadn't belonged there.

Measured, his words. Cool and circumspect, a surgeon's deft hand--

"I recognize, in all of this, that you suffer the judgment of your acquaintances. But in this place, in this moment, I seek to bring you no harm. Had I the inclination it could have been poison, but I'd not bring you pain in a place of healing. I operate by particular standards; however unfair you may believe them, I am scrupulous in regard to their details. And what I will not do is harm a being unless absolutely necessary.

"No, Noura," said the attendant. "What I wish to do is help you maintain control of It."
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Re: Sheep, Wolves, and Dogs

Postby Guppy » Sat Oct 18, 2014 1:41 am

She scrambled, the whites of her eyes easily visible in her panicked dash towards the door. He did not lift a hand to stop her, merely stared at the canvass of sheets she'd left in her wake. His voice detached itself from his actions and he woke as if it were the only option. "Rhetoric that I have often heard before, Healer Mitchell. so much for not being an impulsive boor," she snapped, over her shoulder.

Her heart hammered in her chest as her thin fingers closed over the door's handle and it shuddered with her grip.

Her runes, having quieted just moments before, began to glow with renewed vigor as danger nipped at her heels, whatever his intention.

Finally, the knob turned a little more and the door yawned open. She made her way into the hallway, but her vision began to swim. She managed to catch herself against the wall, blinking to clear the blurred expanse of the hallway.
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