[ it's not quite midnight when she calls, but it's close to. closer to than she's reached out to him ever before this, and if he's not already awake her voice is quiet enough to be ignored—that's why she's told herself this is okay, it's not too terrible an imposition, if he's already asleep he just won't hear her and she can ask later— ]
[ and the man is a habitual workaholic and insomniac, worse since sarrux, worse again with gwenaëlle temporarily away from home, and so stephen strange is not asleep. he’s reading in his study on the houseboat, a dozing cat in his lap. he leans over and reaches for his crystal after it lights up, sparking the smallest affronted noise from small yngvi. ]
[ oh, thank goodness. she breathes a small sigh of relief, deliberately off-crystal, then opens her mouth to ask
a really strange question, now that she's thought about it and isn't working herself into an anxiety spiral about it. hmm. ]
I'm not in any immediate danger, or anything, [ hedging, trying to come up with a way to ask that won't sound fucking unhinged,. ] Merely... You know how it can be, in the middle of the night? Ruminating on the worst possible outcomes, working yourself up over things that may never come to pass.
[ okay, that's probably enough preparation, right? any more beating around the bush and it'll be even weirder. just... out with it. let's go. come on! ]
If the worst should happen, and someone should be uncharitable about my magic, would you—that is, could I impose—
[ FRUSTRATED NOISES. ]
Could I come to you? For my anchor, and to get me out?
[ after a moment, sheepishly, ] I know it's not an easy thing to ask. You're the only one I can trust, though.
[ strange is a perpetual multi-tasker, so during the conversation he’s still been scritching small yngvi under the cat’s chin as implicit apology for the disruption, but he goes still and motionless now. finally swivels and pivots all of his attention to the crystal, brow crinkled.
the man loves feeling more important than anyone else, so there’s the smallest flicker of automatic kneejerk pride — you’re the only one i can trust — but, still. ]
I doubt it would come to that, Ennaris. Riftwatch has been headquartered in Kirkwall for years, and we’ve built up goodwill with the city. People here, specifically, already know we house a bunch of freaks and weirdos and rifters.
[ but above all, he’s pragmatic, and there was a logistical question being asked. ]
But if for some reason it was absolutely necessary— yes. Sure. I’d do it for you if I had to. Our eluvian network gives you options; it’d be practically easy to vanish to another city or country overnight. Hell, perhaps you could still work for Riftwatch but headquarter yourself elsewhere.
[ his voice is calm, hopefully steadying, straightforward: ] But my ultimate point being: don’t catastrophise. The rifter Head Healer before me did blood magic. If he wasn’t caught and run out of town, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
[ she suppresses a scoff, holding her crystal away from her mouth while she breathes through the flush of anger that nearly overtakes her. stephen's agreed to help her, and that should be good enough, but it's so frustrating. obtuse. dismissive.
ness is just stressed out enough, just tired enough, just hurt enough to push back, for the first time in their acquaintance. ]
That it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. It only means that we have, to this point, miraculously dodged both chance and the fates, and that bill will come due. I will have to pay it, whether with my freedom, or my life, or the one and then the other.
I will be fine until I'm not. The sword over my head never disappears, Doctor, it only falls.
[ part of it is the way she’s pushing back at him for the first time; that firm edge of steel in her voice, a welcome surprise. part of it is her accidental choice of just the right words, striking a chord: the bill comes due.
he remembers mordo’s voice, echoing, warning. it takes him a moment, a beat to swallow it down and wrangle his tone back to being even and steady. ]
I make a habit of weaselling my way out of paying the bill, to be honest. I do, however, respect having contingency plans upon contingency plans. What’s that thing they say, there’s no such thing as luck, just good preparation—
So. Your plan: chop off the anchor, leave Kirkwall, quit Riftwatch, blend in as a local?
[ would that ness had the option to weasel out of this bill—but she doesn't say so, because he's accepted her perspective, if not her point.
she stood her ground with someone, and the world didn't end, it's a miracle. ]
More or less. I think I can pass for a Marcher, at least, and make my way down south. Anna Keyes has never been to Fereldan, and now that her village's been laid waste by Venatori, she's got nothing keeping her from exploring.
[ she doesn't have a whole backstory in mind, or anything, nothing so prepared. but a name, and a reason to be missing an arm and far away from what's supposed to be home... she might have been thinking about that for a while. ]
For what it’s worth, Anna Keyes, I would miss you. [ a beat, an attempt at being jovial and skirting around that sincerity, ] Who else would listen to all my stories so raptly?
And on the bright side, I have a pain-numbing enchanted cuff now, so that simplifies amputations considerably. Y’know, hypothetically —
Certainly not the Captain, [ drily, it's fine, she doesn't believe he'd really miss her anyway! ]
Hypothetically, that's very good to know. ...I wonder what kinds of enchantments went into it. Freezing, probably? Have you put it on to see how it feels?
[ move aside tony and bruce there's some new science bros in town. ]
It’s not so very different from his many late nights at the Gallows library himself, staving off sleep, for the first year-and-a-bit before he got an office of his own. And he’s already restless tonight, so it’s an easy thing for Strange to accept her invitation, get dressed for the brisk autumnal air, cross over to the tower, and climb those familiar stairs.
He’s wearing a new dark-red coat, a nighttime chill clinging to its fabric, but he unbuttons it as he enters the library, warming from the climb. Once he finds Ness’ nest at the back of the library, he pulls up a chair to join her and deposits said enchanted cuff on the table: stylish, inlaid with runes, of Tevene make.
“I’m not sleeping well anyway,” he says, skipping right past the cursory hellos, “so I don’t mind the distraction.”
Hellos are for people who don't have better things to do—Ness reaches across the table and scoops up the cuff, looking it over with bright, curious eyes. She traces her fingers over the runes, turns it this way and that to see each side of it, holds it up to one of the bottles she's set in front of her candle for better light.
"Damn if the Tevene don't know how to enchant things, hm?"
Shame about all the slavery and imperialism and such.
Ness hands the cuff back over to Stephen and rolls up her sleeve with quick, precise movements, holding her bare wrist out to him over the library table. Her curiosity and excitement mean that she's not self-conscious at all about the state of her hands, ravaged as they've been by her compulsive skin picking in the wake of Sarrux.
“I can’t really admit this to a local, but if we could just have all of Tevinter’s enchantments and knowledge without, y’know, everything else—”
The corner of his mouth tugs into a smile as she lays her arm out for access. It’s the sort of thing they’ve bonded over: their willingness to do the work, to make the sacrifices, to test the magic even if it’s risky. There’s nothing better for learning how this cuff works than to simply try it on yourself.
But as Strange’s gaze drifts down to Ness’ hands, there’s a passing cloud over his expression, before he manages to smooth it out. The skin of her hands is broken, ripped and scabbed with impressions of her nails. First warning sign.
Still. He wordlessly reaches out and affixes the cuff, sealing it around her wrist.
And as he does so, there’s something else: the more carefully clinical physician’s mask sliding into place as he sizes her up, looking at her not as a mentor or a friend, but as a doctor. Ness is raccoon-eyed from lack of sleep, which could be normal enough, except that her eyes are even more reddened and bruised than one would expect; her hair dull, skin a little waxy. Her hands are clean beneath his, but desperately picked-over. He’s not a good judge, but she looks notably skinnier than a few months ago, cheekbones a little sharper.
Strange knows what lack of self-care looks like. (His own hair and beard gone unkempt and scraggly in the year after the accident, wild-eyed, clothes in tatters.) But he doesn’t say anything just yet —
He activates the rune instead. Her entire arm from shoulder to fingertips goes nearly completely numb, all sensation and pain fading into nothing, nerves magically dulled. (How does it work? God, how he wishes he knew. Again: shame about Tevinter.)
She notices the change in him but can't place it; while she puzzles over it he turns the cuff on and she is immediately distracted.
"Oh," she almost yelps, startled, eyes snapping from his face to the cuff. "Knots, that's strange."
She flexes her fingers and feels nothing, has to watch her hand to know she'd moved at all. A number of thoughts occur to her all at once—how deep does the numbing go, could she break bone and not feel it, how does it work—and she starts pinching and jabbing at her arm, harder and harder the more she does and feels nothing.
"Do you have a knife? We should test how effective it is."
The saner reaction, perhaps, would be an outright no Ennaris that’s an absurd suggestion, but, again. Their willingness to do the work. Strange can’t say he didn’t do something very similar when he was first testing the workings of the cuff too; it doesn’t have to be a deep cut, after all.
What he does point out first, though, dryly: “You do remember I’m not a real healer? I can’t magically fix you after.”
"Then don't cut in the wrong direction," obviously. She shakes her wrist at him a little, hey, come on, let's go, and then makes a face at how bizarre it is to be gesturing around with a limb she can't even feel.
Strange rolls his eyes at her, fondly beleaguered, and then summons up a small spirit-blade, approximately the size of a letter opener.
Once he’s holding it, however, he realises the flaw in the plan.
Combat is one thing. Utilitarian cutting through rope or bandages is one thing. But he’s remembering he hasn’t held a surgeon’s scalpel in a few years now. It feels— hopelessly familiar, horribly uncomfortable, with a sickening swoop in his stomach. He knows precisely the amount of weight and pressure to break through exactly how many layers of skin and epidermis; but his nerves don’t behave the way they should. Signals misfiring, messages not received, precision lost. That jarring tremor which might (will) send that sharp blade skittering out-of-control, deeper than it ought to, harder than he planned to.
“Hm,” Strange says, thoughtful, scrutinising the canvas of Ness’ pale arm. But he can’t let her do it either, because her senses are even more off. (Maybe this is a bad idea?) But whatever tiny voice of reason piped up just then, it soon vanishes — he has potions, they’ll manage, this isn’t actual surgery — and so he presses that sharp edge to her forearm.
He’s more hesitant than she might expect, however. The touch too delicate, afraid of losing control and pressing too deep into the skin.
Despite the appearance of impatience, as soon as the spirit knife is actually in Stephen's hand Ness settles, watching him in silence. Disturbing a professional at work is a fool's errand, and she's more than willing to believe Stephen is making calculations of pressure and angle that she doesn't have the knowledge to even consider.
Patience wears thin, though, when the knife finally touches her skin. She doesn't feel the cut, but then, would she have? Even without the cuff, she doubts it. It must be his tremor that concerns him, and that's easily accommodated for: Ness pushes her chair back so she can better stand and lean over the table, inspecting the precise angle at which Stephen holds the knife, the exact placement of his fingers to guide its movement.
Satisfied with her observation, and without a word or barely a thought spared for permission or instruction, she lifts the knife from his hand and pulls her numbed arm back toward herself. Her angle is precise, the placement of her fingers a passable if inexact mirror for his as she sets the blade to the shallow cut he made and deepens it severely with a swift slice.
"Oh," she breathes, watching her own blood start to well in an unfeeling wound. Her mind races, adrenaline and fascination and a little horror drowning out any objections Stephen may be trying to voice. "Not even an itch! How do they make these?"
A thought occurs, fevered, and she raises the knife again.
"You know anatomy, yes? You can tell me if my bones look right inside."
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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crystal; as discussed 👀
Doctor Strange? Are you awake?
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I’m up. Is everything alright?
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a really strange question, now that she's thought about it and isn't working herself into an anxiety spiral about it. hmm. ]
I'm not in any immediate danger, or anything, [ hedging, trying to come up with a way to ask that won't sound fucking unhinged,. ] Merely... You know how it can be, in the middle of the night? Ruminating on the worst possible outcomes, working yourself up over things that may never come to pass.
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Middle-of-the-night catastrophising? Yeah, sure.
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[ okay, that's probably enough preparation, right? any more beating around the bush and it'll be even weirder. just... out with it. let's go. come on! ]
If the worst should happen, and someone should be uncharitable about my magic, would you—that is, could I impose—
[ FRUSTRATED NOISES. ]
Could I come to you? For my anchor, and to get me out?
[ after a moment, sheepishly, ] I know it's not an easy thing to ask. You're the only one I can trust, though.
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the man loves feeling more important than anyone else, so there’s the smallest flicker of automatic kneejerk pride — you’re the only one i can trust — but, still. ]
Define ‘get you out’?
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[ oh, no, she asked too much, didn't she, presumed too much on their relationship— ]
Just, looking the other way, perhaps, while I fled the city. No money, or supplies. I don't...
[ this shuddering breath comes over the crystal loud and clear, and maybe that's intentional, maybe that's manipulation. ]
I don't want to die again. I don't want to lose this second chance. Better to be on the run from templars forever than lose a miracle so quickly.
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[ but above all, he’s pragmatic, and there was a logistical question being asked. ]
But if for some reason it was absolutely necessary— yes. Sure. I’d do it for you if I had to. Our eluvian network gives you options; it’d be practically easy to vanish to another city or country overnight. Hell, perhaps you could still work for Riftwatch but headquarter yourself elsewhere.
[ his voice is calm, hopefully steadying, straightforward: ] But my ultimate point being: don’t catastrophise. The rifter Head Healer before me did blood magic. If he wasn’t caught and run out of town, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
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ness is just stressed out enough, just tired enough, just hurt enough to push back, for the first time in their acquaintance. ]
That it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. It only means that we have, to this point, miraculously dodged both chance and the fates, and that bill will come due. I will have to pay it, whether with my freedom, or my life, or the one and then the other.
I will be fine until I'm not. The sword over my head never disappears, Doctor, it only falls.
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he remembers mordo’s voice, echoing, warning. it takes him a moment, a beat to swallow it down and wrangle his tone back to being even and steady. ]
I make a habit of weaselling my way out of paying the bill, to be honest. I do, however, respect having contingency plans upon contingency plans. What’s that thing they say, there’s no such thing as luck, just good preparation—
So. Your plan: chop off the anchor, leave Kirkwall, quit Riftwatch, blend in as a local?
no subject
she stood her ground with someone, and the world didn't end, it's a miracle. ]
More or less. I think I can pass for a Marcher, at least, and make my way down south. Anna Keyes has never been to Fereldan, and now that her village's been laid waste by Venatori, she's got nothing keeping her from exploring.
[ she doesn't have a whole backstory in mind, or anything, nothing so prepared. but a name, and a reason to be missing an arm and far away from what's supposed to be home... she might have been thinking about that for a while. ]
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You’ve really considered this.
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And on the bright side, I have a pain-numbing enchanted cuff now, so that simplifies amputations considerably. Y’know, hypothetically —
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Hypothetically, that's very good to know. ...I wonder what kinds of enchantments went into it. Freezing, probably? Have you put it on to see how it feels?
[ move aside tony and bruce there's some new science bros in town. ]
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If I purposefully let myself be mutated over and over, a numbing cuff’s nothing —
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Well, if you've tried, I must. Come to the library?
[ ...it's almost midnight and she's in the library and that's fine and normal. he doesn't have to come if he's tired. ]
action;
He’s wearing a new dark-red coat, a nighttime chill clinging to its fabric, but he unbuttons it as he enters the library, warming from the climb. Once he finds Ness’ nest at the back of the library, he pulls up a chair to join her and deposits said enchanted cuff on the table: stylish, inlaid with runes, of Tevene make.
“I’m not sleeping well anyway,” he says, skipping right past the cursory hellos, “so I don’t mind the distraction.”
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"Damn if the Tevene don't know how to enchant things, hm?"
Shame about all the slavery and imperialism and such.
Ness hands the cuff back over to Stephen and rolls up her sleeve with quick, precise movements, holding her bare wrist out to him over the library table. Her curiosity and excitement mean that she's not self-conscious at all about the state of her hands, ravaged as they've been by her compulsive skin picking in the wake of Sarrux.
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The corner of his mouth tugs into a smile as she lays her arm out for access. It’s the sort of thing they’ve bonded over: their willingness to do the work, to make the sacrifices, to test the magic even if it’s risky. There’s nothing better for learning how this cuff works than to simply try it on yourself.
But as Strange’s gaze drifts down to Ness’ hands, there’s a passing cloud over his expression, before he manages to smooth it out. The skin of her hands is broken, ripped and scabbed with impressions of her nails. First warning sign.
Still. He wordlessly reaches out and affixes the cuff, sealing it around her wrist.
And as he does so, there’s something else: the more carefully clinical physician’s mask sliding into place as he sizes her up, looking at her not as a mentor or a friend, but as a doctor. Ness is raccoon-eyed from lack of sleep, which could be normal enough, except that her eyes are even more reddened and bruised than one would expect; her hair dull, skin a little waxy. Her hands are clean beneath his, but desperately picked-over. He’s not a good judge, but she looks notably skinnier than a few months ago, cheekbones a little sharper.
Strange knows what lack of self-care looks like. (His own hair and beard gone unkempt and scraggly in the year after the accident, wild-eyed, clothes in tatters.) But he doesn’t say anything just yet —
He activates the rune instead. Her entire arm from shoulder to fingertips goes nearly completely numb, all sensation and pain fading into nothing, nerves magically dulled. (How does it work? God, how he wishes he knew. Again: shame about Tevinter.)
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"Oh," she almost yelps, startled, eyes snapping from his face to the cuff. "Knots, that's strange."
She flexes her fingers and feels nothing, has to watch her hand to know she'd moved at all. A number of thoughts occur to her all at once—how deep does the numbing go, could she break bone and not feel it, how does it work—and she starts pinching and jabbing at her arm, harder and harder the more she does and feels nothing.
"Do you have a knife? We should test how effective it is."
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What he does point out first, though, dryly: “You do remember I’m not a real healer? I can’t magically fix you after.”
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Once he’s holding it, however, he realises the flaw in the plan.
Combat is one thing. Utilitarian cutting through rope or bandages is one thing. But he’s remembering he hasn’t held a surgeon’s scalpel in a few years now. It feels— hopelessly familiar, horribly uncomfortable, with a sickening swoop in his stomach. He knows precisely the amount of weight and pressure to break through exactly how many layers of skin and epidermis; but his nerves don’t behave the way they should. Signals misfiring, messages not received, precision lost. That jarring tremor which might (will) send that sharp blade skittering out-of-control, deeper than it ought to, harder than he planned to.
“Hm,” Strange says, thoughtful, scrutinising the canvas of Ness’ pale arm. But he can’t let her do it either, because her senses are even more off. (Maybe this is a bad idea?) But whatever tiny voice of reason piped up just then, it soon vanishes — he has potions, they’ll manage, this isn’t actual surgery — and so he presses that sharp edge to her forearm.
He’s more hesitant than she might expect, however. The touch too delicate, afraid of losing control and pressing too deep into the skin.
no subject
Patience wears thin, though, when the knife finally touches her skin. She doesn't feel the cut, but then, would she have? Even without the cuff, she doubts it. It must be his tremor that concerns him, and that's easily accommodated for: Ness pushes her chair back so she can better stand and lean over the table, inspecting the precise angle at which Stephen holds the knife, the exact placement of his fingers to guide its movement.
Satisfied with her observation, and without a word or barely a thought spared for permission or instruction, she lifts the knife from his hand and pulls her numbed arm back toward herself. Her angle is precise, the placement of her fingers a passable if inexact mirror for his as she sets the blade to the shallow cut he made and deepens it severely with a swift slice.
"Oh," she breathes, watching her own blood start to well in an unfeeling wound. Her mind races, adrenaline and fascination and a little horror drowning out any objections Stephen may be trying to voice. "Not even an itch! How do they make these?"
A thought occurs, fevered, and she raises the knife again.
"You know anatomy, yes? You can tell me if my bones look right inside."
cw self-harm, sort of
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🎀