ways_infirmary | (no subject)

"Who can treat this man? I don't know what injuries he's obtained, but they're likely magical in nature," Tom calls out, as he finds an empty bed and carefully lays Arithon down upon it.

Svava normally is not in the infirmary- But Tom's dash carrying Arithon across the bar was hard to miss. So she is soon next to him, carefully looking over Arithon on the bed.

"What happened?"

"Blodwen Rowlands. I found him in her bloody pantry. I don't know how long he's been there, or what she's done to him."

Svava blinks, and stares at Tom for a long moment, before turning back to Arithon.

"If she did that, in your own home, then- then we can use that against her, can't we?" Frowning, she starts tracing sets of runes in the air above Arithon. Healing, then countering poison- time in the pantry or no, he still has the look of tienelle-use on him.

"He's dehydrated, badly- we need something for that."

"Water?" He makes a glass appear and holds it in his hands, ready to give it to the unconcious patient. Somehow.

"... If and when he wakes up." Svava glances at the glass, then back to Arithon.

"But he's not." She bites her lip, and steps down to the foot of the bed to poke at Arithon's feet.

Deal with anyone who's reflexes are liable to get you stabbed upon waking them, and you take precautions.

Arithon doesn't awake. "Maybe the books say something about this?"

Tom reaches for a nearby reference book, looking up dehydration in the index. Flipping quickly to the most likely section, he scans what's written there.

"Er. I think we need something called an IV."

Svava looks up.

"... its not too... technological things? And they have them in here? Because that is probably the best we can do, until he wakes."

"I've no bloody clue. It doesn't appear to beep, though. It just requires needles and insertion into a vein."

Just.

Bloody Blodwen Rowlands.

There is, a moment later, a Hank coming in the door. At first he is raising a hand to say hello... until he sees Arithon.

then he is rushing forward.

"What happened?"

His scanner is out and working almost immediately.

Svava explains about the poisoning and dehydration.

Tom adds, "Please, no technical devices once he regains consciousness. Anything that beeps or smacks of futristic stuff frightens this man to the point that its use wouldn't help him. I think he might need an IV? For the dehydration?"

Tom is more than happy to hand this over to a professional.

Hank nods, reading his scanner even as he looks the man over.

"Yes.... he is dehydrated and needs nutrients and liquids. And IV will work. Is there any way to wake him?"

He begins setting up for an IV. The scanner gives him a baseline for Arithon and a few long minutes of fiddling gets the correct dose of nutrients and liquids.

"I don't know if he's ready to wake."

Hank finishes the IV set up and gently searches for and finds a vein. He sets it up and begins the drip. Then he stands back and nods. Only after that is done does he look up at Tom.

"What do you mean? And by the way, I'm Doctor Henry McCoy, Hank to most."

"Tom Riddle, and this is Svava. Aside from the poisoning, we don't know what was done to him, but I found him hidden within a pantry. He was placed there with magical violence; I'm certain of it. he might, I don't know, need to not remember that at the moment."

He nods to Svava.

"We've met, but nice to meet you, Tom."

Hank nods.

"Sounds like we have something new going on... any suspects?"

He draws a curtain around Arithon's bed, writing a brief note to the man in case he wakes before he returns, simply saying that he is in the Infirmary and Hank will be standing by at need. Then he leads them out towards the Bar.

He nods as he's being led off, quite glad of the fact that someone else is taking over. While he's sure the doctor is a fine physician, but he'd rather not play his hand quite yet. Svava he trusts to be circumspect.

"Indeed, Doctor, and Security has been informed. The nature of the incident is rather... delicate at the moment. I'm afraid I don't wish to speak more on the matter until Arithon is awake."

He gives a small bow to both Svava and Dr. McCoy. "Svava, I should like to speak with you once he's awake. Do let me know. No owl post right now, though, as you know. And thank you, doctor, for all your help. Look after him - he's a good friend."

With that Tom heads back to the House of Arch.

A glance back to the infirmary, then Svava nods at Tom.

"As soon as he wakes up, I'll let you know." She bites her lip.

"Take care."

Few things could so grab Rachel's attention as to have her head snap in the Bar's direction and her feet consequently plunge into the lake. It was far beyond distraction, a sudden focusing of all her energy elsewhere, not the safest thing to do while walking on water all told...but Arithon was back in the Bar...and not.

So soon, there is a Rachel, dripping wet and still focused on a single being, heedless of who she had shoved or flew past to get here. "Ari" worry, fear, utter desperation...label the tone what one would, it didn't matter, her voice couldn't reach where she was headed.

Telepaths could slip into a person's mind, each with their own style, Rachel...she Dove.

[Works?]

Physically he's laid out and looks at rest, if not peace. An IV drip keeps food and liquid going into him, and there is nothing that goes "beep" close enough that he could see it when he woke up.

Mentally he's curled into a tight ball and its all shades of which is all internal, all normal except for the fact that its looped and twisted and he can't even tell that there is a real world while he watches again, and again and again the failures and deaths that haunt him.

She ignores the exterior. He's alive, but he isn't really home, so the acoutrements don't matter. That does not mean she is rough though, her fingers laying feather soft upon his forehead, her body stilling beside his bed.

It is not hard to find the centered knot that is her brother, she need only follow the strongest emotions deeper and deeper yet, and she does so, recklessly, without care or concern for herself, or her return.

And so, a flickering light in the depths, star forge white and deepest, hearts blood red, she stands beside him, watching. Her form shifts and blends, sometimes winged, sometimes human...but it matters not, he knows what she is. He reached out to her, and she does not hesitate to do the same, a flame wreathed hand sliding into the coiled morass of memory...

She is integrated, seamlessly, into the whirlwind of pain/regret. He's failed her so many times as well, ghost Rachels are already there to berate him.

He didn't rescue her from Gaunt, he didn't keep her from going, he wasn't able to be at her side every second of every day until she was perfectly healed.=; what kind of brother is he?

Within his mind he attempts to stand between everything and everyone; Jieret and knowledge of the death of the clan, Stevien and Death, the clans of Rathain and Lysaer, Lysaer and Desh-theire, Rachel and Gaunt, Bianca and all things, Svava and Ragnarok and he fails.

And fails.

And fails.

He can not even cry for forgiveness; he has lost so much.

The guilt, the shame, burdens...they cut. As easily as any of Gaunt's knives did, as deeply as any of her own mistakes...

...and the cuts bleed fire...

It's not warm, no, but burning, painful, hot. Stolen deep from the vein and nearer the heart. The first things to ignite are the Rachels. The mirror images, the copies, echoes of herself lodged deep within her brother.

::I ask no shield::

Spoken from a dozen lips and more, the first threads of light within the vortex.

Not Arithon, but his guilt, responds to her. What he is for, what he was created for, to protect and defend.

I pledge myself body, mind, and heart to serve Rathain, to guard, to hold unified, and to deliver justice according to Ath's law. If the land knows peace, I preserve her; ward, I defend. Through hardship, famine, or plague, I suffer no less than my sworn companions. In war, peace, and strife I hold myself to the charter of the land, as given by the Fellowship of Seven. "

She had not expected it to be so easy of course. Her own echoes and images smiled though, a knowing, painful smirk...leaking fire into nearby memories.

Rachel though? Ah, she hunted the very foundations of that answer. The voice of the guilt that held sway at the moment, wading and wreathing through the vortex like a hound through a storm tossed thicket.

::All people::

::You are of Rathain::

They are much alike, Ari and Rachel, far more than would initially seem. She too, shields by her nature...and if she can trace the guilt...she may be able to silence it for just long enough for him hear her...

Is the response, and the guilt is everywhere. It is twined into his soul at a level so deep that it could be broken...but only by breaking his mind. There are barriers, fragile constructions of shining magic (not Arithon's) and pure will (Arithon's) that served, once, to hold it in check.

They were frozen and shattered, and the guilt spilled free. One tiny part of Arithon, with no time to spare to speak with her, attempts to close the barriers again, to rebuild them and help himself.

One man is no match for Arithon's guilt.

Rachel knows no magic, nor perhaps would it be wise for her to learn, as strange and fierce as she already is...but her lack she knows mourns in passing as fingers...

...talons...

...wings...

...wrap gently about a shard and examine it. It is steeped in the heavy emotion, dripping yet, or shedding new guilt perhaps. A heady, poisonous stain that darkened even her flames for a moment.

No, she knows no magic, but she can see what was achieved here, once. She is adept at seeing the picture through the pieces. And she has enough will and strength to offer...

...should such strengths receive a guide...

So she knelt in the dark and poisoned mental grounds, planting the shard gently at her feet and letting flame flow upon it until it glowed far hotter than any forged metal. A beacon in the night.

::ARI::

Offer, prayer, command...

One man is not enough, true...but he is not alone, and perhaps she can stand as barrier in the shattered remains for a time. Long enough, perhaps, for those of greater use to be found.

::Rachel.::

A gasp, a breath, and he knows just how much power she has to offer.

For once, he'll even ask.

::May I borrow your flame, sister-to-my-soul?::

The guilt wraps around him, and flows ever outward to play in his memories and torture his soul.

There are few she woudl ever trust with such powr, as much as she would never ask to weild it, still true that far better her than another...

Arithon is not on the long list of the untrusted though.

Far from.

Her answer is unwavering and immediate, a strengthening of that link between them, a forging of that single thread into a channel...

::Take::

Simple, trusting, sure. Where he falters, she can lead, as he has her.

He does.

Even fire casts shadows, and some sorcery works with light. He takes, and he twists, and he slowly rebuilds the walls that Garion made for him; twisting them into his heart and soul and mind. Into that bit of Ath that defines Arithon s'Ffalenn.

The guilt left out of the barriers rages, and surges, and hurts him with green agony; but nothing new is let loose.

Which is where the mental representation of Arithon lets the power that Rachel allowed him flow back to her, and then collapses into her mental arms with a sigh of pain;

::I have failed so many, sister-to-my-soul, I fear to go back and fail again.::

Her own arms shake, but not so much that she drops him. She cradles him close, wrapped safely within her arms...

...wings...

She does not wish to look beyond him, to what damage her flames may have wrought, or below to where her mental blood still hisses and drips...

No, she holds her own guilts tightly in check, a better time and place exists in which to ask herself the harder questions. Later. Later.

::You haverhealed more than hatmed, saved more than failed brother-mine...:: she whispered gently, the words burning in the air above them.

::...and hiding...:: Is not an option for either of them.

The mind of the Master of Shadows is chilled; her flames have burned nothing, only thawed what the Dark left frozen.

He listens because it is Rachel: no one understands like Rachel does. Even Avar has the safeguards that the Fellowship built them.

He listens, and he holds her, and then

he wakes up.

And there are tears on his cheeks that he feels no shame for, and he reaches to take her hand and kiss it in thanks.

It takes her a moment longer to stir, to pull free of so deep an immersion, but her fingers move in his after a time, squeezing gently.

::I can't thin it once more:: she offered sadly, bending to kiss his forehead. Cannot unweave a deeper channel that power had flowed along...

But she cannot regret what that price bought.

Why hadn't she heard...?

Later.

Her voice, when she speaks, is husky with the tears they share, and singing with relief "Do I get to call you idiot now or when you're well enough to poke me for it?" she asked softly, teasing gently...because it's what sisters do.

::I do not wish you to.::

He says without hesitation, his mind touching hers like an embrace beside a fireplace during winter.

"Now and then, of course. Now and then. Perhaps you will join with Bianca, and Nynaeve Sedai, and call me fool in three part harmony?"

To tease, so as not to cry.

He doesn't remember what caused it.

He doesn't want to try.

This is after he is awake, but Bianca doesn't know this yet. She's coming in to check on him, expression worried now instead of the utter fury of the other day.

Rachel may or may not still be there.

The IV is not.

Arithon is sitting up, drinking a glass of water slowly.

"You're awake." She says, weakly.

His voice is a little rough, but he smiles at her and holds out his hands,

"That's normally a given." Bianca points out, before sighing and walking over and clutching his hands.

"Should...should I ask?"

His voice is soft, hesitant.

He doesn't want to remember, either.

She leans over and kisses his head.

"Then I will not ask."

He knows she knows. He wants to say it anyway.

"I know. I love you, too."

He reaches out to touch her, and not a sliver of the number of false Biancas who berated him in his coma touches mind or face.

The real Bianca was planning on berating him for a while (it was either get angry, or get hysterical), but that vanished the moment she saw him awake.

So she just wraps her fingers and hands around his, and bends her head to kiss them.

"And. You have good timinig. Faith's...wedding is tomorrow. Do you think you are well enough?"

He says quietly, a faint smile on his face.

Ruefully,

"That's not QUITE what I asked."