Red & White

[Serrus]

The door flies open after a boot finds the mark, unbolted this early in the eve, it swings open freely to whack against the wall, where chips and pockmarks line a wall of chased stone where so many other men had desperately done the same thing. It wasn't the fact people always wanted to create a sense of the drama, it's simply because trying to open a door while carrying a wounded person in both arms often proves close to an impossible task.

Amber torches and lanterns line the hall brightly, and there is much noise inside, mostly from healers at work or the few sick and maimed who find no solace in the poppy milk and herbs given to them. So much blood can be seen from the diminutive white figure draped in his arms. It soaks through the small holes of his studded brigandine, and he begins to feel it trickle through the mail hauberk underneath. It had taken him a long enough time to realize she had no tail, the thing that put him on edge around her, the horns and sharp teeth and long tail – more perhaps fae than demonic, though the peasants could never tell the difference. But now the tail is gone, and he doesn't want to know the how's or the why's, in fact, part of him feels he isn't sure he cares. But there's a voice in the back of his head, that irritating voice of the sad cripple of a coloured girl, speaking of innocence and care for those she held dear. What is she to him? A friend? An acquaintance? An employee? Whosoever she represents, she'll likely be dead soon without a healer to see her needs.

He moves down the hallway, droplets of blood forming a trail in his wake. A young girl dressed in the usual white gowns and cottons comes forward as he approaches a door, and it doesn't take her long to see the immediate problem at hand and note the great cuts and marks upon the pale white skin. The Rememdium is a place that hasn't been known to shy away creatures that are not human, and while the young girl, perhaps new, does look with trepidation at the odd looking creature, she is quick to remember her duties.

"Ser? Ser, what happened?"

"Found 'er this way, o'er on t' porch at t' pub."

"The Broken Dagger?"

"Aye."

"This way please ser, quickly."

She leads him down the hallway, making a right, then a left, to a small unattended room. "Here," she says, and the sheet draws back in a great flurry, thrown off, the thick wool-lined matting underneath to absorb the blood, cleaned and ready. He works carefully, gingerly. "Easy now," he says to the bloodied Nova, lowering her to the mattress. "Easy…. Easy… there y'go, luv." There is a great tearing sound while the young girl readies bandages from the very clean sheets she'd removed, and Serrus stoops over the bed, watching the white homunculus warily.

"Necklace... "Y'stay awake now. Stay awake." A hand reaches to bat against her cheek a few times. "Y'keep them eyes open, now."

The young girl works quickly, covering what she can. "Press here," she says, guiding his hand to the largest of the covered wounds, and her eyes cast up to him. "What happened?" she asks softly.

"Like I bloody told yer, I found 'er this way, lyin' on t' porch."

The young girl's eyes do not waver from the sellsword's firm expression, baby blues against dark browns, and there is a gleam of scepticism from the at Serrus' words, a look that doesn't waver.

"Don't you give me that bloody look, girl. Saint Aisa, don't you fuckin' dare. Where's them 'ealers? Where's Sera Mercy?"

"I'll fetch Ser Mitchell for you." The young girl steps back, her firm gaze unwavering, while the sellsword's expression could not have changed quicker, his eyes gleaming with ire.

"I didn't bloody well ask for Ser Mitchell, I asked for Sera Mercy."

"She… she's sleeping, ser, retired for the night—"

"WELL GO FUCKIN' WAKE HER UP, THEN!"

The young girl backs away a step, then is gone in a quick flurry of footsteps, unable to hide the flushed anger across her face as she makes her way back down the hallway, leaving Serrus holding a white sheet that's already drenched in a bright red pool.

"Neckl -- Nova. Stay awake, girl. Then 'ealers'll fix y'up, aye? Then y'can make me some more bolts. Pref'bly ones that'll bloody shoot straight."

[girl]

Mercy hasn't been sleeping well; she is nightly visited by the self-borne criminations of her own inadequacy. Her nights are fitful at best, and leave the young physician worn and flagging by midday. On this particular evening her only visitor arrives on two legs, and is accompanied by a flurry of sharp, urgent knocks. The physician's mind, as beleaguered as it is, winds these sounds into her dream--they are the rapidly increasing heartbeats of a patient who is dying on her table.

She sits up with a strangled sound that falls short of an actual vocalization. She struggles, legs tangled in the bedclothes, to remove herself from the bed, once she realizes that the sounds are a person trying desperately to get her attention from the other side of the door. A small voice yells her name repetitively: "Seramercy, Seramercy, Seramercy," spaced primly to sound between each of the rapid knocks.

"Anon, I come," the physician calls from her sheet-trap bed, her voice hoarse from both sleep. She manages to escape a few moments later, and drags herself to the door, wrapping a blanket haphazardly around her sagging shoulders. The story is relayed in short and halting order, the girl red in the face as she neglects to leave out the bits where she'd suggested Physician Jule over the physician in whose room she currently stood.

Mercy is unperturbed. As soon as the urgency made itself known she began bustling about the room, pulling on a pile of petticoats that, from the way they were sitting on the floor, appeared to have been stepped out of earlier on in the night. Over the chemise she tugs on a kirtle of pale green linen, not bothering with the time expense required to find and put on the white robes.

"Don't just stand there gawping, lace me up, girl," the physician commands, in a very no-nonsense voice that just dares the red-faced chit to disobey. While the girl gets to work on the laces, Mercy herself is busy with stretching and snagging her cloak. She whips it around her shoulders, effectively shooing the girl off, and snatches her gloves on the way out.

The pair run as quickly as their legs and the snow will allow them, and she bursts into the Rememdium already firing off orders. She points at each attendant to make them apprised of their specific duties: one for her specific bag, one for sterile water, one for more linens (no, more...much more than you think necessary). She is directed to the room and she arrives, breathless but awake and ready.

"Serrus," she greets, briskly. She might've smiled, were the situation different, but as of now she was a vision of efficiency, removing her gloves and coat, pulling on a thick, bleached leather apron. "Do not move, please. If you decrease the pressure, she may not survive. She has lost an awful lot of vitae," the physician instructs the sellsword.

"Tell me of her wounds, as best as you can remember, so I might prepare." The physician fixes him with a stare that is at once fully attentive and hollow, her ink-black eyes unblinking.

[Serrus]

Any man such as Serrus could be no stranger to blood. If such proves the case, the man is nothing more than a pretentious hack, an untrained drunkard in men-at-arms clothing. Few had seen his proficiency, and some might wonder with his usual overconfidence and dry quips whether he just had a mouth that bore no teeth, but this was not the time nor the place to demonstrate such expertise. Blood… yes, the sellsword certainly received his fill of it. An eye turns to the sheet, bright red blooming across the clean hemp, roses in spring upon thistles, and it spreads and drips out onto the floor. Something so small, and so much blood. Some told him it was just coloured water, while those of the True Faith told him it was the life force connected to God and the soul. Blood, meat and bone. That's what we're all made of. Everything else is a lie.

"You stay awake now," the man reiterates to the white creature, her own wounds a reflection of the very sheets used to stem the blood. White upon red upon white upon red. "Y'can sleep when youre old an' grey." The fingerless gloves upon his hand are soaked red, as he presses, trying to us the other hand to keep her still, and his mind was a flurry of questions. Where had she gone? Back to her master, perhaps, who sounded, by Nova's own explanation, quite capable of doing such a thing. And Risen… Risen, she'd said. What was that about? A person.. A place? Something from the shadows, something small, something diminutive, something black, burning of fire.

Forget her, she's nothing to you now. Never was.

Mercy's arrival has his thoughts back upon the present, and he turns, nodding once. "Guess I'm t' bloody window knocker for today," he says mildly. Woken up out of her slumber to assist, but the healer carries a no-nonsense look in her eyes that says she probably would not tolerate his usual sarcasm in such circumstances.

Her injuries, what of them could he tell? He hadn't known what happened, nor where she'd been struck, but they are clearly evident and are grave. There are many knife wounds here and there, and her face appears battered, such off colour against the usual milk white. But the most grave of all is of course the one thing that’s not evident, and that is the missing appendage from her person, where much of the blood flows from.

"I don't 'ave a far clue what 'appened," he replies to the healer. "Found 'er this way outside t' Dagger. Some mangy cunt did this. Did all this, an' sliced off that tail of 'ers." She had a tail, didn't she? It was probably one of her more notable features, apart from her albino skin and eyes, and the fae qualities with the elongated teeth and horns. Though he wasn't sure if Mercy had ever met the creature. Fingers press hard where she's indicated, and his eyes look to the physician, unsure of himself and patient.

"Not too bloody sure where she's from, or 'er ancestry, if she's got any." Eyes turn back to the creature upon the mattress. "She's not human, if aught else. She's some magical… construct, or summat like. Used to 'ave one o'them magic types as 'er master. Fuck's sake, I don't bloody know." His hands upon the sheets are wet with her blood, and he shakes his head. "Shite, she don't 'alf bleed like everyone else does."

Killing and maiming, coercion, intimidation. Fencing, dirk and buckler, horsemanship... These things he knew. When it came to healing, he was lost, and he wold turn to Mercy's instruction, but being that Nova wasn't human, it stands to wonder whether traditional medicines will work, and from what Serrus knew, when creatures lost their tails, they oft did not survive for long afterward.

[AnE]

She'd been limp in Serrus' arms all the way to the Rememdium, the only sounds coming from the (comparatively) diminutive girl being a series of low moans, whimpers, and the occasional unintelligible murmur. Perhaps it was the rhythm to be found even in swift and potentially frantic steps that soothed her and kept her quiet. Perhaps it was the heartbeat, though it's not likely to be something that she could hear under his armor, even with those pointed ears.

The most reasonable (and unfortunate) possibility is simply that she's on the verge of losing consciousness thanks to her draining blood. Voices draw her eye, that glassy gaze lifting, following the hazy sight of Serrus' face and slowly moving towards the strange girl. While Nova has always been extremely pale, she is without the usual flush that tends to color her cheeks and ears, without the soft, mystical luminescence that's had her compared to the moon above. In this maimed and mangled state, the artificial young woman looks almost startlingly mortal.

The world around her shifts and the pain returns with renewed vigor. She releases a strained cry of pain and writhes atop that pad until the sharp sensations digging into her back make her go still, quivering from head to toe.

"I'm going to ... rip you apart." It came from ruby red lips that hid vicious fangs, with amusement that danced behind eyes as red as her own had been.

Now, those ruby eyes are dull and pale, a smoky kind of grayish-pink that doesn't so much look at Serrus as through him, unable to focus on any one part of his face.

"Nngh, N-n-neh...la-- lace... y-you call m-me..." Dizzy murmurs from a half-conscious creature, fighting with amounts of pain that are foreign, struggling against the urge to simply lie down and die. Could she do that? From someone who could go from girl to sphere of light in the blink of an eye, from someone who would often nick herself and watch the wound heal without flinching, this was a change, her lying there, helpless, bleeding, and in rather apparent agony. Perhaps if she tried to change she would simply cease to be?

A flash of light, a scream of searing pain, but not from Nova. Shadows close in around her, becoming tangible, real. "Now you've done it, little demon."

Her gaze rolls away from Serrus, then, falling upon Mercy, but again, those eyes seem half-dead already, struggling to retain their focus. Her cheeks are quickly becoming stained with tears.

Why does it have to hurt like this?

[girl]

Serrus' comment about being a bloody window knocker is met with a blank expression, the physician's mouth pressed into a particularly stony line. She'd opened her mouth to reply, but there were a gaggle of women bustling in, one of them pushing a cart bearing quite a few instruments of various apparent levels of torture. She moves away from the pair of them, while Serrus is still speaking, and sets about washing her hands in the basin in the corner. She listens to the man's very unhelpful recounting of the girl's condition while drying her hands off, only to sputter incredulously at his uttering of the word 'tail'.

"She's missing a tail and you both put her on her back?" The query, though forceful, is uttered in a very level tone. She surveys Nova again, superficially, in the wake of the fragmented muttering. Her mouth contorts into a displeased expression, and her gaze diverts back to her assembled, hand-wringing team.

"We're going to need to flip her. And from you," she points at the girl who'd woken her from her sleep, who straightens sharply after her chastisement, "I will need the tools for cautery," the physician says. The girl bows her head in compliance and disappears, closing the door behind herself. The attendants move into their conscripted positions at shoulder and hip. Mercy's attention slides to the sellsword, and that businesslike expression slips, replaced with a smile and a gentle hand to her forearm.

"Ser Belcaw, there is little more you can do here. I promise that I will take the best care of her that I am able," she says, her voice a thing made of softness and unassuming confidence. Another smile, and she attempts to draw the man out of her way. If he is unwilling to be dislodged through gentler means, she uses her person as the wedge between herself and the bleeding Nova. Once settled, she looks around the table at the attendants.

"Ladies, as I instructed you, and on my count. One, two, three--" she bobs her head on three, and the women, working as a well-oiled machine, very gently maneuver Nova first onto her side, and then onto her back.

"GAUZE," she demands, once the patient has been settled comfortably. The medical games begin with the sound of the physician making a single snip in the back of the fabric of Nova's freshly red-dyed dress and then the crackling and complaint of cotton splitting as she cleanly rends it from the girl's body.

[Serrus]

"On 'er side, more like," the man corrects, but it too little too late, there's not much to defend the negligence of his actions, though he would not be quickly held to account. Had there been damage or wounds caused by his actions, he's unsure, and has not the knowledge to judge. More healers come as one leaves, he finds himself autonomously stepping away from the bed as the physicians move into place like clockwork.

There's nowt I can do for 'er. His own words echo in his head as Mercy advises him that his services are no longer required. Part of him does not wish to stay and those words are a boon to those sentiments. The air is rancid with the metalic smell of blood, a feeling of helplessness creeping in. You can't kill a wound to make it stop bleeding no more than you can beat a bruise to stop the swelling. The best care of her that I am able. "Aye," Belcaw remarks, perhaps for the briefest of moments showing a break in his usual bravado and overconfidence, watching as hands move across the small white form. The young girl comes back, bringing with her tools that stank of soap, of water and of iron, the same smells that came from a farrier with a branding iron. "Let me know first thing," he mutters, looking slightly unsure of himself again, before he makes his way out, a slow backpedal.

One, two, three, and they turn the small form over easily as if she were but a mattress, and he watches them, the door looming closer, the hallway looking more inviting with each moment. There's nothing he can do for her. Not now, not here. His boots find the hallway before he knows his left from right, the physicians working their strange art of non-magic on a being that was magic, and he didn't know the what or why. Might be she'll just fade away, like leaves in the fall. Through their white gowns and hustling movements, he can briefly make out the form of Nova among the pools of blood trickling onto the stained floor. How many others had bled and died on this bed? He supposes he will never know.

The young attendant from before comes forward to the door, baby blue eyes regarding him as they had before; silent, accusing. Eyes he'd seen before. Tears that would not fall from eyes that would not blink. Forget her, she's nothing to you now. Never was. The girl's fingers slip around the door frame, and he takes one last look toward the slumped white form upon the mattress before the door latches with a soft click.

[AnE]

The room becomes more noisy, more hectic, and Nova's face begins to twist up in mild displeasure. Every noise makes her head throb, serves as a sharp reminder of the pain that's threatening to tear her apart from the inside. A weak hand begins to lift, but it barely makes it off of the mattress before it falls limply to her side again. She can hear their voices, but just like their faces, they're a blur, moving fast and slow at the same time, and focusing on just one has become impossible.

Strangers, all moving about in their white, with the sound of a rolling cart ringing in her ears; it's all rather overwhelming to Nova, evidenced in the way those pink eyes dart here and there, never settling on one thing for more than a fleeting moment. "Hnh," A sharp puff of air is pushed through her blood-crusted lips, her head rolling heavily to one side. She searches that room, her attention slipping, settled on Mercy, the one who seems to be in charge. But eventually, her eyes are searching for Serrus, who the physician is shooing off.

"I didn't come 'ere t'hear about Sera Nova's tragic bloody tale! God's fuckin' arse, is it really that bad for you?" He'd been frustrated with her, then. She'd been whining, then. What had she been whining about? It all seems so silly now.

Fingers twitch, though barely, a soft, dizzy moan heard from the homunculus.

"You have nothing to worry about. Take away the blood and the skin and the magic's still there... s'the important bit, anyway..." Where is the magic now, when her skin is town and the blood is freely flowing? She tried to assure Serrus - and perhaps herself - that she was utterly unstoppable. Nova says silly things sometimes.

Is this what dying feels like? She finds the strangest thoughts running through her head all at once, some making her lips tug, as though she might smile. If only she had the energy. She wanted to go to the sea. Wanted to forget about all of the pain caused by Elliot, who she hadn't seen in ages. Wanted to see him one more time to tell him that it was okay that he had a new life now, even though it wasn't. Wanted to make more bolts -- not arrows, because they aren't the same. But those thoughts are consumed in a blaze of white as pain envelopes her once again. Movement is agony, and the act of being shifted onto her back elicits a series of gutteral sobs and squeals of pain from the wounded girl, though she doesn't seem to be in any shape to struggle.

As crimson-drenched fabric is cut away, the extent of her injuries immediately comes to light. It goes beyond a battered face, beyond cuts from an altercation. Someone had deliberately sliced her open with very clean cuts, possibly just to see what would happen. The backs of her thighs, the tops of her hips were gashed just as sections on her belly and collarbone.

"I'm... not... a demon!" Nova had insisted. "What are you, then?" That silk-wrapped voice had taunted her, and she's hearing it even now as she lie there on her belly, shaking and weeping. The intent of the act could be no clearer than in the removal of her slender whipcord tail; the thin appendage had not simply been sliced away. There was no twitching stump to found, instead, it was almost as if someone had stripped it from her body like one would pull a hangnail from their finger, only cutting the bone, then letting the blood flow freely from exposed flesh of the teardrop-shaped wound at the small of her back. Hopefully they found what they were looking for.

Even as Nova finds herself prone and aching, with tears and blood staining the mattress below, she searches with frantic eyes. Strangers everywhere. When she looks for that bit of familiarity, though, it's backing out of the room, and she's in no condition to follow. "Take me with you!" She'd asked this of Serrus once before, and there's no doubt that those pale, wet eyes are wordlessly doing the same now, as she doesn't even have the strength to reach out or beg.

This time, the only response she'll receive is a closing door, left behind in the care of the physician.

[girl]

She did everything she could. If Mercy were going to have a tombstone, she imagined that this is what her mourners might inscribe upon it: "She did everything she could." It's both an affirmation or a damnation, not indifferent but ambivalent. She'd done the best she could with Nova, cautery on the most egregious of wounds, waxed silk and burned needles on the lesser wounds, poultices and fatty creams and antiseptics for the lot of them.

It was very early in the morning when the physician finished her work on the strange, now-tailless Nova. With tired eyes and a strain-induced tremor in her right hand, she left detailed instructions for the girl's further care. Her duties completed, the physician collapsed like a sack of bricks in an empty room and slept for the entirety of the day.