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#hopefully I can hammer this all into a slightly more natural shape in the morning
starbuck · 3 years
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fic is going decently but Writing Machine Broke so I’m literally just writing chunks of dialogue with shit like this attached
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madefate-a · 7 years
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something that will remain | fic.
it’s harder to heal than to kill. 
“More? Goddess save us, there are only five beds left. Take stock, move the healed and try to reserve space for the sickest."
The hard work was never over – but had it been so wrong to hope for a reprieve after a mission fated from a higher power? Perhaps Kel would be restless without work to do, but Neal had spent a full week picturing his hanging on Traitor’s Hill, which only served to heighten his appreciation for a well deserved rest.
He’d said as much, too. Quite a few times if honesty was the name of the game. And his complaints had only been the briefest of distractions from New Hope’s construction. With so many hands for so much labor now, there was little he could do to delay the raising of walls and digging of latrines. Which meant he felt fully comfortable in running his mouth at every available chance.
This was not one of those chances – though he’d give an eye for a moment to throw his hands in the air and take a deep breath. War had not ended with Blayce. Maggur had not ended with Blayce. He was clearly growing desperate after the death of his pet mage. Here, a stone’s throw from the Vassa and the border, the raiding parties were riding in every other week and the number of homes and towns destroyed was rising heavens high. Apparently, with his victory not guaranteed, the warlord was hoping force would work as well as time had been not two months prior.
The strain of all of it was showing. In Merric’s pallid complexion, in the morning drills practiced before there were even enough rooms for the refugees. In Kel’s grimly set mouth and the set of her shoulders.
In the gods-damned amount of patients flowing into the infirmary.
"Sir, where do we move those who can stand?"
Neal watched the chaos unfold from the very center of the long rows of beds, one of his two entire healers hovering at his elbow. Frustration was a wrinkling of his brow and a desire to tell the wide-eyed young man that his growing resemblance to a horse fly did no lick of good in the woefully understaffed medical center.
"Fanche has the list of open rooms – send someone to check but don’t leave your post here. Not with another wave coming in."
He would check later what town these newly homeless, and largely ill, were coming from. There were few settlements left on the border and the knowledge was certainly important but there was only so much he could know – could focus on – at once. For now, it was down to his eyes alone and a sheet growing more inkstained by the moment to record all names and ailments until one of those marvelous clerks arrived.
I’ll have to send a courier at first opportunity. Perhaps father could spare some time, we’re going to be fifty patients to a healer within a week’s time –
"Sir!"
"I told you, send someone –"
"No, it’s Barden!"
Neal was sharp but remembering the names of two hundred odd patients was a monumental task in and of itself. He finished the last line and turned on his heel.
”– Mithros.“
Holls Barden – it was a man he’d personally attended to just that morning, one who’d been here for a week at the most modest estimate. The bandages that had, just an hour ago, been the pristine white that spoke volumes of cleanliness were now spotted crimson. Customary panic had Neal’s heart in his throat even as he abandoned his notes and half sprinted down the row, mind racing much more quickly than his legs as he mentally rattled off what he knew.
Bright color – recent bleed. But still a bleed, so internal complications? Something overlooked?
Overlooked. Even only thought, the word was a stone in his stomach. This was his work, his personal touch, his mistake. Before his hands were even on the man’s abdomen they sparkled with a crackling green fire.
"What happened?” Neal barked, looking only at his patient and missing the cowed look on the apprentice’s young face.
“I don’t – I don’t know, I was checking those who’ve been here a while, trying to free up space for the new refugees –…”
“Move."
Neal was more than happy to give the reins of command over to anyone capable of handling them on the battlefield. It was, more often than not, Kel and with her at the helm he knew that he would ride straight into the Black God’s furnace if he had to. But it was that very nature that hammered home the unfortunate consequence of his waspish demeanor when faced with taking control when he was required to. Hopefully the young man would understand.
The moment his emerald fire sank into Barden’s skin, Neal’s world became blood. Medicinal Sight was overwhelming at the best of times but this – it took full, precious minutes to wade through the liquid filled cavities to find the source of the flood. By now the bandages did nothing but provide just one more barrier between the wound and the world, and the world still won. It escaped his notice how red soaked his hands had become in so short a time.
There. It was so slight he thought his first glimpse confirmed only a shadow. But there it was – a separation of the thin tissue of a small artery. The two halves still showed where they had been joined by magic’s force, pulled into a shape meant to help them heal back to wholeness. A shape that would need only hours to fully seal. A shape that had almost held for long enough.
Driven by instinct, threads of green circled the tear. They frayed slightly, towards the ends, reacting to the erratic pulse in Neal’s throat. But it should have been enough – was enough to knit flesh against flesh until it was smoothly joined.
It was only when Neal pulled back, returned to inhabit the entirety of his being, that he learned Barden’s heart was no longer beating.
"Sir?"
Blue-violent shadows had already blossomed around Barden’s lips and under his eyes. His nose played host to drying blood – the same that coated his mouth, stuck to his chin. His eyes red rimmed. His eyes were open.
"Sir?"
"Check the rotation,” Neal heard himself say, “Give his name to the grave-digger on duty. Do not tell anyone else.”
“You want me to go myself?"
He knew he should have been annoyed by the question – no matter how much this order contradicted the one he’d given only minutes ( minutes? ) before, it was still a command. But the only thing Neal could think in that moment was that the young healer’s name was Tymon, and that his Gift was the same yellow as a winter sunrise.
"Go,” he said. Tymon went.
And then he couldn’t think much of anything. When he turned, he nearly started out of his skin when he saw Gil’s powdery beard and dark grey eyes, sharp even in death and memory. And when he took a step backwards, he half expected the cool, rigid flesh of Haven’s corpses to press against his back, stiffening and rotting where they had died. 
Maybe there were excuses. First it was Merric’s voice in his mind, supplying things that should have helped: “Gil died on the battlefield. What could you have done? You had to save your reserves, there was no telling who would need what." 
You had to wait until the dust cleared – you had to wait for Kel –
Kel was in the newly erected Keep now, testing out her unlearned fear of heights by mapping the viewable land from that perch. Merric was riding on his noon patrol. Neal was killing people in his infirmary.
He had known – had always known – that he would not be enough. He was no legend; not a true-born hero like Kel, nor gods-touched like his father or his knight mistress. Not meant for greatness like – like Graeme. Never meant to carry the family name, not educated enough to carry an entire infirmary on battle patching and crossed fingers and lucky breaks.
When he was outside, Neal realized that he’d been walking. Away, thankfully, from where Kel might see. She would have to know and would probably not blame him, but hopefully it would be hours or even days before she checked the list of the dead. Because she should, really, give audible voice to that blame. Any decent human half worth their weight would have argued that a barely-educated healer had no business trying to save lives and surely the Crown could have spared a university graduate. 
Sunlight burned his eyes – or maybe they were just burning in the sunlight when he looked down at his hands, rusty red up to the elbows. When he saw the last stragglers being ushered in through the front entrance. 
He shouldn’t wait. He didn’t wait. This was, after all, nothing new. 
It was not his first kill. Merely the first without a sword. 
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Wampus Collection: The Doctor’s Orders
Here's a story from /x/ credited to some chick named Wampus. Nothing in this thread has been edited in anyway. This is good shit. Shit that can shrivel Josef K's manhood. - Tower ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Since it seems /x/ related, I’d like to tell you some stories about my family. I’ve never really thought to write this down, but people seemed to enjoy my last thread so I thought I’d share more. Plus, /x/ is a little out of sorts tonight, and I’d like to help if I can. Hopefully there are people around still interested in hearing. In my last threads I talked about my mother’s side of the family, and their curious beliefs and practices down in the Deep South. I told those stories, not because they were especially paranormal but because I’m most comfortable with them. My childhood was filled with them. I grew up down here, and although it’s a strange place, these are eccentricities I understand. Unfortunately, while the stories about Often and my mother are cute and occasionally spooky, they don’t really compare to the /x/-factor that leaks down from my father’s line. If it's okay with you guys, I'm going to repost the backstory before I begin since I don't think the thread is in the archive yet. I can also post the first story if that would help too, but there's no plot or anything, so it's not important to the grand scheme of things. To say that these stories have been difficult to come by might be sugarcoating it. Up until a few years ago, I had always assumed that my grandmother’s family was filled with a bunch of alcoholics or petty criminals. Something vaguely tragic but hardly interesting enough to warrant juicy gossip. Asking after them would usually make my already cold grandmother clam up and either deliver a smack to the wrist or tell you to go play in the yard (read: in traffic). Recently though, she’s started to open up about her strange past. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe she realized that after all these years of running from it, that world has finally died off. Maybe she’s actually begun to look back at her life and miss what she had. I don’t really know, and I guess it’s not that important. What is important for you, /x/, is that my grandmother ran away from the circus. And not just any circus. She ran away from a travelling medical show. As always, I make no claims toward the truth behind these stories. Most of these are cobbled together from my great grandfather Max’s journal and the notes of his brother Arthur. Max may or may not have been somewhat of a drunk, and Arthur really only wrote about things his good nature and soft heart would never allow him to speak out loud. My grandmother gave my brother and me these journals a few summers ago, and I was hoping to get some scanned pages for you, but if I keep waiting for my brother to do that, you may never get to hear these stories. What I do know for certain is that these people did exist. I’ve changed around some of the names and locations to protect those involved because it’s surprisingly easy to Google them. So whether or not you choose to believe Max’s stories, know that he is real, as is the show and the performers mentioned. The only thing I’m adding are some adjectives, transitions, and the supporting details my researching drummed up. The stories included are only a few from the years and years they spent on the road. These are the ones I find most /x/-related and in some cases most disturbing. I’ll start before my grandmother was born. If you like these stories, I’ll continue. If not, that’s fine too. While I’m no expert on anything relating to circuses or performances therein, here is what I know. Max and Arthur were brothers. Max was a bear of a man who spent his youth winning boxing championships and had hands so fast his favorite game was to dodge the hammers of men driving tent stakes into the ground. Arthur was more sensitive, a gifted musician and talented gymnast. Both were absolute gentlemen and both loved to put on a show. The brothers somehow fell in with a man who went by the name of Doctor DuMonde (like the café in New Orleans). The Doc, as they called him, was likely not a real doctor, but he prided himself in his travelling show of medical wonders. The show featured acupuncture, herbal remedies, medical oddities, and the usual circus acts to catch the less scientifically minded. Arthur and Max performed as magicians, acrobats, clowns, assistants, barkers, and anything else the doc needed, while other performers included an amazing trick rider, a man who performed with bears and dogs, a sword swallower/fire breather, and a psychic. Over their years together, DuMonde came to appreciate the fact that Max and Arthur’s many talents made them valuable allies, while the brothers came to appreciate the fact that the Doc was a couple rings short of a circus. Doc was forever hunting down medical oddities, if not to recruit them then to at least examine them. While he may not have held a medical degree, by the end of his life, no one could claim they knew more about the abject horrors the human body could produce. So when Max answered a knock on his wagon one early August morning, his stomach had good reason to lurch with unease. “Max, my boy,” Doc greeted. “We have an errand to run.” If you need a title, you can call this one “The Doctor’s Orders” or “What became of that unfortunate soul.” Unlike the larger circuses that dominated the railroads, the little medical show still puttered along in the old ornate wagons and trailers. This made travel much harder but allowed for the doctor to make his own curious, meandering paths. Max often wondered how his life had been hitched to every whim of this strange little man, but as Arthur reminded him, if he really cared that much they could have just quit. This particular detour had led them to a small town in eastern Iowa. A brutal drought left the fields near scorched, and summer heat made the small crowds sluggish and irritable. The morning sun had only just begun to crawl up above the treetops and already Max felt his shirt clinging to him. The Doc wore his standard three piece suit and kept time with a polished cane. The old man rarely ever showed the wear and tear of the roads. Probably because his trailer had an icebox. As they made their way on foot, DuMonde informed Max that this was a house call. He was responding to a letter mailed by a desperate family seeking help for their unfortunate child. And why had he brought the former boxing champ along? Simple a precaution, rest assured. The young man had his doubts, but the farm house they were aiming for was no more run down than any other lonesome homestead in the middle of nowhere. As they approached, a solitary donkey sounded the alarm, and his braying brought the owner of the house out the door. He was a short, stout man with a weathered face and an unnaturally tired look. Max thought he saw others peering through the windows at them, but after very brief introductions, they were lead away from the house and over to a storm cellar. “Heard about you coming to Des Moines last season,” the man explained. “Thought you might be able to do something about this.” He threw back the cellar doors and led them down into the darkness. It was difficult to see much of anything with nothing but the morning light shining in to guide them. The stench down below was unreal. The unmistakable odor of rotting meat and feces reminded him of neglected monkey he had once seen locked in a barren cage. The only thing that kept him from gagging was the fear that the smell would get into his mouth, and even the decorous doctor covered his nose with a handkerchief. Once Max’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light, he realized there was a pile of badly stained blankets near the wall to their left amidst piles of dung and fly-ridden scraps he couldn’t identify. The farmer took a rake that had been resting near the stairs and poked at the lump. The thing that shot out from beneath the blankets was such a confusing flurry of limbs that even Max had a hard time understanding what he was seeing. It was human, though really only by technicality. The boy crawled about on four twisted limbs, but a fourth and fifth leg jutted out from his midsection and right thigh respectively. Though shriveled, these forgotten appendages twitched and flexed as he scurried about. His mouth was torn by a severe cleft palette, though that didn’t stop him from hissing and snapping with teeth grown long and somehow sharp like rodent incisors. He was naked but covered in sores, growths, mud, shit, and rust colored stains Max didn’t want to think about. One eye bulged out slightly, causing it to look off in a different direction, though the odd shape to the iris raised doubts over its ability to see anyway. The boy darted wildly to the end of the rope that had been tied around his neck and presumably anchored somewhere out of sight. He nearly choked himself trying to reach for the three men, and when that didn’t work, he resorted to spitting and finally pissing at them. “Don’t have a right mind,” the farmer said as he stepped away from the spray. “It’s our second boy, but you can see why we keep it down here. Eats just about anything and doesn’t do much but raise hell. Killing it would be a sin against the Lord though.” Max had to hold his tongue to keep from asking what that made keeping the boy alive down there. “Very unfortunate,” DuMonde agreed. He kept his face covered with the handkerchief, but leaned in as close as he could without getting hit. For a terrifying moment, Max thought the Doc might actually take the boy. While he understood wanting to put it out of its misery, accepting the thing instead meant trying to integrate it into the show. And that meant Max would have to deal with it. “I am sorry,” DuMonde said finally. “While this is a very sad case, I’m afraid I have no room for such a child in my show.” “What?” the farmer asked. His look of detached exhaustion gave way to a visible wave of grief and then rage. “You said you handled this kind of thing! You take these monsters off those folks’ hands! Now take this away!” The man’s rising tone made his son launch into a frenzy of yowling and jumping. Max was more focused on the rake the farmer was brandishing, however. He stepped between the farmer and the doctor and took in a deep inhale. He instantly regretted doing so, but at least it puffed out his chest and straightened his spine. The farmer was no weakling by the looks of him, but Max was well over six feet and nothing but muscle. He stared the man dead in the eyes. “Now, the doctor said there was nothing we can do. We’re real sorry about your son, but that’s all there is to it. If you don’t mind, we’ll be going now.” Max let his words hang in the foul air between them for a moment before waving his hand for the man to lead them out. The farmer looked as though he might argue but swallowed whatever bile he had brewing and said not a word to them as they took their leave. The only response a farewell from the Doc got was a spit straight into the dust. The pair got the message and wasted no time getting back on the road and putting the house far behind them. “Such a shame,” DuMonde murmured as the safety of their tents slowly came into view. “Such a poor, poor child.” “I’m glad you didn’t take it though,” Max admitted. “I would have made you carry that thing back.” If the story ended here, I’m sure that everyone would have had a good laugh, learned a little something, and the credits could roll safely. Obviously, that’s not the case. This wasn’t nearly the last time Max and DuMonde had to deal with the Unfortunate. Their troubles were only beginning. The next night, Arthur was called to the ticket booth by one of the few roadies that travelled with them. Max was tied up helping with the bears, and DuMonde had no interest in dealing with the ordinary nuisances of running the show. He approached the depressingly short line and was directed to a wooden box sitting off to one side. “A wagon rolled up and dumped it off here,” the roadie explained. “They ran off before we could stop them. Thing split open and some kind of animal jumped out, but crawled off into the bushes faster than we could catch it.” “What kind of animal?” Arthur asked, but the roadie only shrugged. “Didn’t get a good look. It didn’t look like a dog though. Too big to be a cat. One lady said it might have been a person, but who knows.” “Box’s firewood then, I guess,” Arthur replied. Secretly he hoped it was a monkey. Arthur loved monkeys and never did understand why their show had horses, mules, bears, birds, and dogs but not a single monkey, especially now that Ringling had Gargantua the Gorilla. Later in the evening once everything had closed down for the night, he mentioned this to Max. Max went pale and stared at his brother as if the young man had grown a third eye. “Was it a person? Did they see? Was there a man in that wagon?” “I’m sure there was a man in the wagon,” Arthur answered. “Someone had to drive it.” Max was in no mood to argue with his brother. Instead he rushed off to DuMonde’s trailer, and Arthur followed close at his heels demanding to know what was going on. When Max gave a hurried explanation, Art shut up and helped pound on the Doc’s door. Dumonde listened to their concerns with his usual stone-faced quiet. When they finished, the older man smoothed out his heavily waxed moustache and nodded. “Gather the dogs. Tell the young ladies to remain in their wagons. Search the area for it, but if you find nothing, then I suppose we have nothing to worry about. “ Max roused Carl, the dog and bear trainer. Carl was a short man who loved alcohol and had been occasionally accused of letting his beloved bears drink with him. His dogs came in all shapes in sizes, and though he insisted during the act they were all purebreds, he had once admitted to Arthur they were nothing more than strays he couldn’t possibly turn away. They gathered up the four largest mutts and a couple of guns, and met up with the other roadies Arthur had called out. The only woman among them was Ellen the token bearded lady who was probably at least as strong as half the men there and refused to be left out of the fun. “We’re looking for…something,” Max tried to explain. “You’ll know it when you see it. Just be careful.” “That narrows it down,” Arthur muttered helpfully. They took up lanterns and fanned out through the brush surrounding the campgrounds. They’d taken up temporary residence in a lightly wooded area on the outskirts of the small town. Much to Max’s dismay there were plenty of places for an evil little monster to hide, and every rushing bush or snapping twig made him jump a good foot in the air. He wasn’t entirely sure what the boy could actually do to them, but the pit that was weighing down his stomach told him nothing good could come from this situation. Unfortunately, he didn’t have to wait long to find out. Two men’s screams shattered the nighttime stillness, and Max and Carl went racing towards whoever was yelling. One voice rose above the other in obvious agony, and the pair tore through the bushes fueled by instinctive panic. They arrived close behind another search group, but that didn’t stop Max from nearly getting clubbed by a hammer. “He broke my hand!” a roadie leaning against a tree wailed. “My hand!” “There was a monster on you!” the one with the hammer insisted. Max took the weapon away from him anyway. The man’s eyes were wide with shock and terror. “And then you broke my hand!” the injured man yowled. The man had more than a broken had to worry about. According to the pair, a monster had rushed out of the bushes and attacked the man, clawing like a monster and ripping a good chunk out of his arm. In an effort to save his friend, the roadie had swing blindly but was too slow to connect with the creature and instead had shattered the poor victim’s hand. “You think that thing had rabies or something?” the roadie asked Max as they dragged him back to the camp. “You think I’m gonna get sick?” Max thought back to the conditions the boy had been held in and didn’t have the heart to tell the man about it. He ordered everyone else back to the camp. Searching the brush in the dead of night was just going to get more people hurt or worse. Instead they opted to lock doors, sleep with guns, and get the hell out of this place as soon as dawn hit. With all the yelling and nervous energy in the air, every animal in the show was riled up beyond hope and the humans weren’t all that much better. Max and Arthur found themselves sitting up in their trailers, playing cards and casting nervous glances out the window. “Why would they dump that thing on us?” Arthur asked. “Because they’re cowards,” Max replied. “They’re probably hoping we’ll kill it for them, and then we can go to hell instead.” “Is it really that bad?” his brother asked. “You can let me know if you get a good look at it,” was all Max would say. Some time after midnight they had both managed to dose off. Max was fading in and out of restless dreams, and the incessant barking of Carl’s dogs kept jarring him back to the waking world. He had almost gone under for the last time when a sudden sharp yelp of pain and vicious growling made him leap out of his bed and grab his gun. Both he and Art flew out of their trailer, but though they were the closest and first to respond, they were already too late. In the moonlight the Unfortunate was even more hideous than in the dark of the cellar. Its twisted spine heaved and pressed unnatural ridges against its skin, and the greasy, patchy hair on its head hung in oily ropes down to its shoulders. What skin wasn’t covered in blood and filth was a sickly white-gray, and its vestigial limbs were flicking wildly at the air. The monster had gotten one of the small dog’s cages open, and it was in the process of ripping the poor animal to shreds. When the boy jerked his head up to look at the brothers, the dog’s neck tore with a wet, meaty rip. The animal continue to try to yelp, but the only sound it could make were gurgling, trembling gasps as it shook and bled out. Max was too stunned to quickly read his gun, but another figure was on the scene. Carl took one look at what the boy had done to his beloved dog, and the little man’s face actually grew red with wild fury. While the Unfortunate was distracted by the brothers, Carl took the opportunity to jump onto its back. The thing thrashed and howled, trying to buck the man off or at least get in a good gouging bite, but this was a trainer who routinely wrestled bears, both friendly and not. Carl bellowed out obscenities and slammed the boy’s misshapen skull into the remains of the cage, and when those gave way from the pummeling, he pounded the monster into the earth instead. There was finally a sickening crack as the Unfortunate’s skull split from the force. When Max and Arthur finally dragged Carl off the boy, only his frail, shrunken limbs still flexed reflexively at the night air. By this time the whole camp was awake and watching the commotion. Doctor DuMonde made his way through the small crowd too look upon the remains of the fight. There was still a strip of the small dog’s neck between the boy’s rodent-like teeth, and Carl was now covered in blood and whatever else had been on the child. He was panting and staring at the body of his pet, making no effort to fight the brothers as they pulled him away. Pools of human and animal blood soaked into the dry ground beneath them. “What a shame,” DuMonde said, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry, Carl. Max, when you get a moment, carry the body to my office if you please.” The Doctor’s office was a wagon where he held many of his exhibits. At least the ones that weren’t living. The walls were lined with shelves filled with glass jars and odd creatures pinned to the walls like grotesque butterflies. There were some workers who refused to set foot in the place, but after so many years the brothers had grown accustomed to the good doctor’s collection. Max had to wrap the corpse in a blanket to avoid touching the filth, and ignoring the smell and the unpleasant stiffening setting in by the time he gathered the courage to pick the monster up was no easy task. The Doctor, however, could not have been more pleased. Not two days later, the stuffed and posed corpse had a place of honor on the wall behind his desk.
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