Open Wounds II [Anton]

[Hector]

TIMESTAMP: 6th Sun's Zenith, 122 (Searing 35)
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On to the next, then. The visual contrast between the repaired part of the limb and the bruise-stained broken nightmare of the lower part of the arm was startling, really, but there was no time to admire his work. Hector was already covered in a thin film of sweat, adrenaline coursing through him from the physical trauma inflicted. His whole body was shaking and it made the work itself harder, but nonetheless, he had to endure.

Working on the elbow while the body was in a supine position would actually be fairly…questionable. He'd have to cut through and remove more flesh to see anything and even then the angle would still be inefficient. Unfortunately, he would have to roll his patient over.

"I need to roll you onto your stomach, okay? I'm sorry– this will cause discomfort to your remaining injures but it's necessary." Again, he spoke with an empathetic warmth, tone laced with affection and almost his own sort of pain in regards to harming the other.

In response, the elven mage merely sighed, nodding. He would endure what he must. And so he was repositioned alongside a grunt of discomfort as the broken bones agitated the complex web of flesh and nerves woven around them, bruises were poked and so on. It felt like a large amount of static, sharp in some places, dull fuzz in others. One could compare it to the uncomfortable feeling one gets when they accidentally cut off circulation to a foot when sitting or the like. The Pheromancy made it not too terrible on its own, but the severity will raise discomfort fast.

Once the elf was properly situated lying prone, he could make his next incision. Beginning about an inch above the elbow and stopping about a half inch above the wrist, the single long incision still managed to pull a bit of a reaction from the patient despite this now being the fifth time it had happened in the pastforty-eight hours. Not that it really was something one could easily get used to.

With the incision now made, he took the embalmer's tongs and placed them near but not on top of the elbow to hold the flesh apart. Using the same Crystallize method, the incision did not bleed. Following his typical agenda, Vergil drew out all of the blood that flooded the cavity and placed a hand within the wound to heal anything that bled with Vicissitude, leaving but one open wound behind to allow Thaumaturgy to redirect the blood back into Hector's circulatory system and then closed that final wound. With blood out of the way and any flesh wounds, including bruising, restored, the doctor could properly focus on the bones.

With forceps, he began the process of collecting any broken, out of place pieces of bone and setting them beside the elbow on the table. Once collected, the very tedious process of placing each piece where it belonged began. Vergil had to spend a pretty decent chunk of time doing this as both the ulna and radius had broken in numerous places and the joint was, as with the others, in abject disarray.

Despite his superior hearing, he didn’t notice the sound of somebody entering the room and continued on with his work, placing the last few pieces of bone where they belonged. Fastidious and careful, everything appeared to be exactly correct. Then, he placed fingertips to bone and allowed the tissue to knit back together, restoring this portion of the young elf's skeleton once more– with the added bonus of reinforcement as a bit of a gift.

Some, though ignorant, might confuse this cast for Necromancy. However, anyone that knew any better would know that Necromancy is not from cast spells, it is from enchanted tools– one cannot restore flesh and bone using Necromancy with their bare hands. Vergil was unconcerned with this, though, as he thought he was entirely alone other than his patient.

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'Thoughts'
"Common Tongue/Speech"
"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"
"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"
Aidolon Speech

[Anton]

Something bothered Anton about the surgeon and his companion that they had rescued from Zaichaer. They had the sound of magic about them, but they were clearly not members of the Order. While he was vaguely aware of the Covens, he had never been trusted enough to have been initiated into their secrets himself, and could not possibly be able to tell whether or not someone was a member from their aura alone. Even stranger was the Rune each of them bore, and what could be described only as a hunger in their songs. The only time he had heard anything close to that before was with Dreyfus.

After confirming that the surgeon had no patients and that the station should be empty apart from the pair of them, Anton descended below decks to confront them and, more importantly, get a clearer read on their auras. He succeeded beyond his expectations, though not in any way he had planned. There was a surgery underway, and one that evidently took all of Vergil's attention. Judging by the tie that sung between the two men, such intense focus made sense considering that his patient was young Hector.

He did not consider himself particularly stealthy, but staying still and silent was easy enough of a task for him to perform as he examined the pair of them - and how the elder worked. An outside observer would no doubt assume Anton had an iron constitution or a truly bloodless demeanor, staring unblinking as he did at the active surgical operation. Of course, he had no clue how he would have reacted to the sight of gore, the experience filtered so heavily through his rune as to be entirely academic. Almost as if one were reading a description of surgery in text, rather than having to see it with their own eyes.

That being said, he was still quite familiar with the works of Necromancers, having been seen to by some of the finest graduates of the Imperial Academy in his youth. Whatever Vergil was doing to Hector caused his Rune to pulse that some hungering tune, the man's hands seeming to repel the very blood of the site away from the flesh. Very slowly, he rested a hand upon one of Vanessa's pistols that he wore upon his belt, finally making his presence known.

"I hope I'm not interrupting, Captain Quill begged me to give her thanks to you. Many aboard would've perished without your services," he said in a guarded voice, hoping that it would come across as an attempt to appear stern in the face of blood.

[Hector]

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He’d been lost in his own work for long enough to have established a complete focus on it and his patient; his surroundings were the ghost of an afterthought. Which they should be…Vergil had no expectation of being disturbed. He was pretty sure that he was the only one capable of making any real use of the place and most people weren’t too keen on the prospect of interrupting something like this. However, that is most people, not all.

As the surgeon slid a finger down the shaft of the ulna and pressed to see how much give it had once repaired, a voice rang in his ears. He froze completely. Golden eyes first flit to Hector, who, face down, appeared to tense his entire body. From the way he had his head, the two of them couldn’t make eye contact. Then, he withdrew his hand from the incision site and turned his head to address the source of the voice.

His gaze was defensive with eyes narrowed, yet it held within it the piercing ferocity of a hunter that felt threatened. Beyond that, the older vampyre’s face was expressionless and emotionally, he kept himself stable, calm, yet wary, guarded. The mage was not blind to the hand the other had placed on his weapon. Hector’s heart rate had raised even more than it had been and the younger of the two was trying to stave off panic. Vergil was not oblivious to this, either.

“You are.” The surgeon’s voice was both deep and cold. “...but as the Captain’s ward, who am I to question your jurisdiction? I am your guest, after all.” At the same time, he did opt to keep an air of cordiality.

“Might I inquire about the reason you’ve felt the need to reach for your weapon, young one?”

The fact that he’d chosen to do this had told Vergil all he needed to know. The noble had put two and two together; he was very likely educated enough to tell the difference between Necromancy and the power of a rune, and which rune would aid him here but that of Vitalis? Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to admit to anything or threaten the other– it was not his territory, not his move to make.

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'Thoughts'
"Common Tongue/Speech"
"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"
"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"
Aidolon Speech

[Anton]

This was an intensely dangerous situation for all involved, and while the paranoid voice screaming in the back of Anton's brain told him to draw his borrowed gun as quickly as Vanessa had trained him and put a bullet in the man's chest, he restrained himself. Examining the auras of the pair, he found himself relieved that the younger one was panicking. Perhaps the worst case scenario hadn't come to pass. Perhaps this was all a misunderstanding.

"I am no expert on runes, but this is... far beyond Necromancy," Anton said after a long pause, his hand still on the grip of his pistol, but the weapon remaining holstered. For now. The only two possibilities that made any sense was that the pair belonged to the Order, or one of the city's Covens. If it were the latter, then they had no quarrel with one another, and he could rest easy that their healer was more competent than he had expected. But if they were the former... Well, it would not do to consider for what reasons Order members would hide their identities and abandon their city in its hour of greatest need. Certainly, none of them were good.

Watcher, Minder, Witch. They had to be one of the three. Anton kept staring at the men as he thought, attempting to craft a sentence that if answered truthfully would give him the certainty he needed, but where if they lied the deception would be blatant enough for it to flare in their auras. There were endless ways that this could backfire or otherwise fail, leaving him with either less information than he started, or worse, provoking a pointless conflict. Ultimately, he decided to go with the direct approach.

"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Order of Reconcilation?"

[Hector]

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Vergil stood cold as stone in the tense silence that followed his question. He’d done nothing wrong, committed no crime…so if this young man was suspicious of him, what else would it be other than his Vitalis had been detected? He’d already admitted to being a Necromancer and clearly that wasn’t an issue at first.

The first words spoken in response only seemed to confuse this theory, though. Not an expert on runes, he says. So he can only tell that what he’s doing reaches far beyond Necromancy’s scope, yet not precisely what it is? Then what, pray tell, could possibly be the problem? This revelation somewhat irritated Vergil– leaving Hector laying like this with an open wound for what? Paranoia? Why had he even come in here? His annoyance broke the stoic expression he wore, even if only slightly. The smallest flare of disgust pulled at his lips and nostrils.

“Oh? ‘Beyond Necromancy,’ he says.” For as cool headed as Vergil usually was, these words were almost mocking in their tone. “Astute observation. Easy enough to lie when most have little to no knowledge on the subject, but I suppose I can no longer walk that path with you, then?” When he spoke again, any emotion had drained from his voice. He sounded like cold steel, eyes widening ever so slightly along with the intonation of his question. His annoyance was becoming harder to mask.

Honestly, this was not a way of speaking Hector was actually all that familiar with. Vergil had always been so warm with him, even in the beginning. When he typically spoke to patients, even those that he knew annoyed him to the highest heavens, he was able to maintain a facade of friendliness and his standard charming bedside manner. So this? This was actually kind of disturbing to hear from the voice of somebody he thought he knew so well.

There was another painful gap of silence before the young noble spoke again, and when he did…Vergil just laughed.

Oh, did he laugh. He was stunned; he had no other reaction. Loud, sharp and ringing with a sort of bright relief to it.

“Oh-...re-really? Is that what you think? You’re funny, but no.” The vampyre pushed a deep sigh through his nose before he spoke again, “I’d be happy if they burned, truth be told. Alas, with most of their order all the way in Kalzasi…such a wish wasn’t granted.” At this point, Vergil’s voice had shifted to something much warmer, charming– rich in depth still but with all hostility drained.

“Care to share why you’ve come to us with a question like that? If you reveal your secret, I’ll even tell you what our unidentified rune is…provided I believe you.” He swallowed, shifting his head back and forth as if he were weighing his thoughts. “I’ll throw you a bit of a bone– we are Coven members, though. Grymalka for me and my dear friend here is a member of the Kindred.” At this point, he’d stabilized and spoke amiably with a naturally smooth rhythm.

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'Thoughts'
"Common Tongue/Speech"
"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"
"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"
Aidolon Speech

[Anton]

Whatever Vergil might have thought of Anton, one thing was clear. As soon as he began laughing at the notion of being a member of the Order, the young man's hand left his gun, and most of the tension in the air began to dissipate. But only most. While the Augur was able to clearly discern that the healer told no lies, it was unnerving to see him become so unabashedly mirthful conssidering the situation at hand - and the severity of the crisis at home.

Somewhat flummoxed by the reaction, Anton did what he did best when he needed to buy time. He talked about everything except what actually vexed him. "I imagine it must've been relatively easy, most Zaichaeri barely know anything of Necromancy beyond the fact that it's sanctioned." Few could afford such however, and fewer still actually availed themselves of it. Legal did not always translate to wise or accessible, and in a mage fearing state mundane alternatives were always politically preferrable. Sometimes they were only options actually available.

The notion of sharing secrets was an odd one to Anton. There was, in truth, no reason to bother with the masquerade anymore. Everything that he had feared and worked to protect, the entrenched power structures, the game of status and power, respectability and family honor, all of it had been rendered meaningless or utterly destroyed in the wake of the Doom. Who cared if a Zaichaeri general had a blind son when there wasn't much of a Zaichaer remaining?

"My father desired an heir with no shortcomings. I had many. He corrected this, but refused to ever admit that such was necessary, and so no record of my Rune exists in the Order's records. I suppose that in a sense that makes me a witch as well, though I am in no coven."

[Hector]

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The young man did answer his question, though not with an exceptional amount of detail– doesn’t really matter, though. Some people aren’t prone to sharing their entire life story with a stranger so soon, but the point of the question was answered: the son of a man in power who’s shortcomings were remedied with magic. A Rune, no less. A strange strategy, truthfully. Technically, that would make him illegal in Zaichaer given he lacked the grace of a Coven’s protection…and that was likely because his family must not have wanted the association thereof.

Vergil opened his mouth as if he were about to speak but just as quickly cut himself off and turned to look at the open incision site left on his wounded friend. Given that this area was all but complete, it would only take a second to close it. He lowered his hand, making contact with the elf’s skin with only a few fingers as muscle and skin knit back together. The other mage’s hand was still mangled but that would take far more of his focus than he could really afford right now so instead, he opted to change the focus of his Pheromancy for a more concentrated release of endorphins within the other. Off the top of his head, it would have the most positive effect in regards to both his pain and his mood.

And with that done, he turned his head to look back upon the young noble.
“...If you were born with shortcomings, what exactly does that imply? If the issues were physical, why wouldn’t a man of means simply pay to have his son repaired? There are ways for the wealthy to remedy any physical deformity there is. I’d know– I’ve bore witness to those with…advanced magics, let’s say, rid people of even the most malignant of maladies.” The older man’s tone was a combination of curious and skeptical.

Sure, he believed him on the surface. That wasn’t exactly the problem; no, it was that there was obviously more to the story because why would making your son into a witch be worth the risk instead of simply having somebody fix him? For the wealthy, morals in situations like these go out the window and he wouldn’t have been remotely surprised should they have paid one of the more senior vampyres that hid in the Covens. There was even another one who, like him, masqueraded as a Necromancer– only she was significantly older. He had no doubt someone like her possessed skill consummate enough to fix…anything, really. Thus, the problem had to be more esoteric– likely arcane.

“I will say that that is one thing the three of us share. Covens or not, we’re all illegal mages in one way or another,” though he laughed a bit at the end of this sentence, he looked notably bitter. “Only Hector and I possess something far more ancient that even the Covens would struggle to defend; we've both neglected to mention the runes to them, too. But do tell me, what was so broken about you that your father would risk making you a mage to fix?” That was probably not the most considerate way to ask that question but he was past caring about niceties at the moment.

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'Thoughts'
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"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"
"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"
Aidolon Speech

[Anton]

Now it was Anton's turn to be surprised. This man was making many assumptions, and making himself even more confused in the process. His aura was pulsating with the same hungry growl as before, and as it did Hector's wound began to close under the power of whatever Rune he wielded. A potent magic, but the lord could not help but wonder what about it made it not just forbidden, but never spoken of at all. While it could've been Mendicus, it felt... wrong, compared to how he imagined that power's aura would feel.

"My father did pay to have me repaired. Doctors, surgeons, Necromancers, even a Mystic. They all worked, to one degree or another, but none solved everything. Fevers, chills, weakness, fatigue, every infant ailment you care to name. A fortune spent on stabilizing me, and then another to repair the damage, but there was one thing they missed."

Anton paused, contemplative when Vergil mentioned that he and Hector bore a rune that even the Covens knew nothing about. The secret of their power, that even the witches of Zaichaer were kept ignorant of. For what purpose would they possible do that? The two men only became strange and stranger, and what was odder still was that as far as he could tell he had yet to be lied to.

"Despite all the effort in the world to see me hale and hearty, it was not perfect. As II said, they missed one crucial piece. The payment for my health, it seems, was my sight." This was something known only to perilously few people, and those he made an effort to ensure consisted solely of people he trusted. He did not trust either of these two, but instead he realized he no longer cared. "This was unacceptable, and so I was granted Semblance."

[Hector]

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So it was something more than a mere medical issue. This young noble was very troubled as a child, it would seem. In many ways, the mystery of whatever it was intrigued Vergil; medical rabbit holes were always fun to tumble down. Figures why the older vampyre worked mostly in diagnostics. However, the man before him was not his patient…and so it wasn’t his job to figure it out, especially since such a problem had already been effectively resolved. Nonetheless, it was a fascinating concept that the only solution such a powerful father figure could manage was to literally pay for his son’s health with one of his senses.

The doctor’s head tilted back and then he nodded in understanding as the other finished speaking. “What a headache figuring all of that mess out must have been…for everyone involved. Though I can’t help but wonder to whom the payment was given, or perhaps to what. Regardless, you answered my original question.” The man’s voice had little empathy in it, more or less regarding what he’d been told as if a colleague had read him something from a stranger’s case file. He paused, though only briefly. “The power we wield is that of Vitalis. Does that fill in the blanks for you, or is it an empty word?” For this, his voice was mostly blank, though there was a spark of interest. He was, admittedly, curious about how the noble would react.

For many, Vitalis was a foreign concept. For some, it was a fairytale— something they told their kids to scare them, or folks told one another for entertainment. There are few that have their suspicions, but without proof, they are not much more than conspiracy theorists. For others, it was a very real thing. Whether they are vampyres themselves, associated with or are the victims thereof, or hunters of the beasts; there are many camps in which the noble could fall. Granted, it was very unlikely he was in any of the latter three.

Vergil had never lifted his hand away from his companion, instead he dragged his fingers down to rest just above where he could feel the other’s pulse. It had changed pace several times during this encounter, though it notably slowed after he’d changed the focus of his Pheromancy. The older man’s admittance of their rune caused a spike, but one that did not last. In truth, Hector didn’t really care; by now, he’d taken to thinking that the stranger likely wouldn’t mean them harm provided they would not mean him or anyone else on the airship harm…and they didn’t. The two of them just wanted to live and to move on from the wreckage that had become of their home.

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'Thoughts'
"Common Tongue/Speech"
"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"
"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"
Aidolon Speech

[Anton]

Anton was already predisposed to dislike Vergil, he had spent years refusing to speak the truth to anyone, and found the probing questions off putting. The fact that it genuinely no longer mattered was somewhat immaterial compared to the sense of intrusion by someone so unfamiliar and persistent. Still, he had answered truthfully, borne more by a desire to see what secrets the two strays that he and Vanessa had picked up more than out of a sudden outpouring of trust. This being followed by a joke almost soured dislike to anger.

But only almost. Despite the absurdity of the claim, the man openly admitting that he and his young companion were the vampyres of children's stories, every element of his aura screamed that he spoke true. Hector's did much the same, neither of them showing any sign of duplicity in Vergil's impossible words. This simply could not be true, Vitalis was considered a Lost Magic for centuries, and if there was one thing that the Order would not tolerate, surely it would be that dread magic. The notion that the Covens would also seemed... unlikely if even a tenth of the stories about them were true.

Yet, once again, they seemed truthful. At very least they believed what they said was true, as absurd as that sounded. And after witnessing a catastrophe as grand as the one that had destroyed Zaichaer, it made a certain amount of sense that everything else from childhood scary stories was roaring back into life. There was a desire to draw the pistol again, to end the monsters who prowled the night, but Anton now doubted if such would do the job.

More importantly, they had saved those who had come into their care. That was not nothing, and Anton was nothing if not aware of when he owed a debt. He would not reflexively judge those who had ensured that those who might have otherwise died now lived.

"I believe you," he said in a soft voice, crossing his arms across his chest to move them even further from his weapon in a sign of good faith. "So that's why so many pulled through, huh. Guess it's true then."

"What are you going to do now?"