Log available here in Word format
Gerard wheels himself into the infirmary, licking the last bits of sticky sugar from a pastry off his fingers. "Brennan, Lucas," he says by way of greeting as he rolls over to a low sink, where he washes his hands. "I see you two have been extracting what's left of your sword from your back, Brennan. Have we found the anesthetics yet?"
"It's a just flesh wound, a bunch of little scratches," Brennan says, with what is going to become practiced patience. "Lucas was just finished taking the bigger slivers out. We hadn't bothered with anaesthetics."
"They're here," says Lucas. "Close to the antisceptics. But I trust such measures will not be necessary."
He slides himself off the corner of the table where he has been perching. "Well, having done my little bit to be helpful I believe - unless you require me further - that I should go and change for Court. The air of studied informality is, after all, not acquired so easily."
"Lucas, ye shouldn't give away your secrets so easily," Gerard mock-admonishes. "Tell Solace I'd like to see her sometime over the next day or so, when it's convenient for her, will ye?"
"I shall," says Lucas. "And my thanks."
"You're welcome, Lucas."
Brennan looked like he was going to quote an aphorism, or quote himself (no reason it couldn't be both!) but leaves it with Gerard's directive. "We'll talk again soon, Lucas. Give Solace my best."
"I will," says Lucas, and he heads off.
Gerard wheels over to the low examining table to take a look at Brennan's back.
"I think Lucas got most of it, Gerard, but we might as well make sure." As Gerard starts to work, he makes conversation: "I wonder if Young Garrett learned anything from all that. Other than not to fence Bleys and Werewindle."
"Mmm, Lucas has a neat hand. Not surprised by that, somehow. His ma has sewed up more than one slice nicely in her day. So you were fencing with Bleys? What exactly happened?" Gerard asks as he works.
"It started out as fencing with Martin," Brennan says, "something of an exposition for Garrett, to show him what he's in for once he starts his training... and what he's got to look forward to at the end of it. Then Bleys challenged us both in parallel. And he used Werewindle." He snorts. "His blade and mine had a bit of a disagreement."
Brennan muses for a moment. "I don't think either of us were banking on younger brothers to watch out for," he adds.
"I don't think so eith--" Gerard cuts off in mid-sentence. "Who is it?" he asks, his eyes not looking at Brennan at all.
Brennan recognizes the look of a Trump contact and waits patiently, watching his expression.
There's a long pause, and Gerard's eyes grow wide. "Yes, at once. I'm in the infirmary." He adds to Brennan, "Clear the table. There's been an attack on Castle Amber and wounded are coming through."
And because he was watching Gerard's expression, he saw his eyes grow wide. He's already hopped off the table and shrugging into his silk robe by the time he speaks. When he does speak, he secures his robe with his sword belt without wasting his breath to grumble that he's only got his short blade.
He scoops up the metal splinters that were removed from his own back and puts them out of the way, high up on a cabinet corner, somewhere, wipes the table clean, and gets ready for Gerard to start handing people to him.
First come two adolescents that Brennan doesn't recognize. They're naked and they've been in some kind of fight--they seem to be bruised and scratched up. Both of them have reddish hair.
Right behind them comes Paige.
As the Twins and their mother come through, Brennan is already as much in triage mode as he can be while people are popping out of thin air between him and Gerard. So when he connects the two youths before him, mentally, to the Twins, he barely blinks.
He does size them up as quickly as he can, medically, and decides that none of them bear life threatening injuries. Not physically, anyway. He does run his hands through their hair in a reassuring gesture, before he scoots them off to the side to keep the arrival area clear.
He mentally tags Brooke and Leif as being Paige's to watch, and tries to convey that to Paige by eye contact.
"I'll keep them out of the way while you deal with Brita first," she offers as way of apology for coming through before her cousin.
Next comes Brita, who has also clearly been in a fight. She's been bitten and bruised and beaten, and has burns all over the front of her body. The intense pain of her wounds and her burns is beginning to come through the shock and the remnants of her berserk haze. To Brennan's eye, she looks to be in much worse shape than the children, if only because of the burns.
When Paige and the Twins came through, Brennan is concerned. When Brita comes through, and the acrid smell of a dead man's ashes roll in with her, his nostrils flare and his eyes snap to her. Now he's truly alarmed. Whether she needs it or not, he helps her to and onto a table, seated so that she's facing away from the Twins.
After Brita comes a youth in the garb of a Ranger that Brennan doesn't recognize, although he seems vaguely familiar to Brennan. He stumbles through the contact. He's bloody, beaten, and dazed, but there are no obvious major injuries.
Last, after a brief pause, comes Conner. Everyone has blood splashed or smeared on them. It looks to Brennan's eye like they've all been in a hell of a fight.
The ranger and Conner both get quick looks, too, before Brennan moves from triage to treatment. He's already decided that Brita is the worst of the lot and needs immediate attention.
Gerard says, rather sharply, "Solange, be careful," and then his attention is back in the room. His dark eyes sweep the group and settle on Conner as clearly least injured. "Captain Conner, report! How stands Amber? Who is injured and who is dead?" As he speaks, Gerard is pulling out his own Trump deck, which he tosses to Brennan.
Brennan catches it in one hand, and snaps his fingers to make sure he's got Paige's attention: a twirling finger says she should keep the Twins looking away from Brita. If there's a privacy curtain, he draws it.
Regardless, Brennan sets about stripping or cutting Brita out of her clothing wherever it's covering burns. From the ashes and odor, he's expecting full thickness burns. When he finds only second degree burns he's perplexed, but relieved.
Although the heavy formal jacket she normally wears - especially when seeing the Queen - may have helped somewhat. She allows him to cut the heavier cloth of the ruined coat free although she assists in freeing herself of the blouse underneath.
He tries to keep an ear on Conner's report, but not at Brita's expense. He talks to her in a low voice, watching her for signs of shock and other injuries, letting her know what's going to happen. "Keep those fingers apart until I bandage them." He gets a bunch of clean washcloths soaked in cold water. "This is going to sting. Don't move." He begins to wash the burns down. He's as gentle as he can be, but the point is to cool the skin and stop the process of burning. "Keep those fingers apart." He continues through the rest of a proper treatment for burns and her other injuries-- cleaning, debriding, stitching, bandaging, as necessary.
Brita does seem slightly in shock, although it is more a lingering effect of coming out of her Beserker Rage than the damage she conciously accepted in an attempt to stop the Death of Adonis. "The Children," she says. "The Ranger? Conner?" Her eyes dart around the room assessing. She keeps spreading her fingers at the insistent commands which finally register somewhat. A half laugh escapes her, "I may be less adept at our Chess Matches for a bit, Doctor Brennan." Her eyes are dulled by the pain, but she seems to be accepting it without complaint.
The coat is indeed ruined, and underneath, Brennan finds that Brita has fewer cuts and tooth marks that require stitches than he expected. In some places, she has hard bruises where she was bitten. One of the bite marks that did pierce the skin seems to be fanged, and probably wouldn't have pierced her skin otherwise. Nothing quite human has teeth like that.
Brennan notes all this with a clinical eye, building up an image, no matter how partial, of what it was Brita had been fighting. "They're all here," He continues talking to her in low tones. "You brought them back with you." From the behind the privacy curtain, it shouldn't interrupt Conner's recitation at all. "All right, now the fingers and the hand." Brennan has destroyed most of a bedsheet to make large, loose bandages for those burns, well ventilated, but secure. "You'll have plenty of time to concentrate on your chess lessons, now." Brennan works quickly and efficiently, as a man who might have done similar duty under the pressures of a battle.
He turns his attention to the cuts and contusions, next, obviously less concerned about those.
Paige has set the children on beds and found robes for both of them from the infirmary wardrobe if available. "Are either of you hurt?"
"No, mother," Brooke says. Leif looks around and asks, "Where are we?" before his attention is taken by Conner's story.
At Gerard's tone Conner stands noticably straighter with his heels swung together. 'Old habits die hard, it seems. At least I didn't salute.' Conner thinks to himself wryly.
"Amber stands firm. The incursion was a directed assault of Arcadian origin against the twins." Conner reports. "It was repulsed but at great cost." Conner takes a breath to steady himself. "The twins, the ranger and two others were taken over by the one Adonis calls Grandmother. She released them in an attempt to control Adonis instead and he wrestled with her absorbing that energy into himself. I thought that was the end of it, that Adonis had won." Conner shakes his head. "The victory was temporary only. He merely held her influence at bay. And so to spare us all, he set himself aflame. Adonis burned to ash in seconds." Conner falls silent. There really was nothing more to say.
Behind the curtain, Brennan exhales like he's been hit in the stomach. He pales. He draws a heavy breath, looking at the ashes on his hands that he's cleaned from Brita.
"Sacrifice," he whispers softly. Behind the curtain, only Brita can hear him.
Brita nods but whispers back, "Martyr."
"Horn and hoof," Gerard murmurs, aghast. He looks at the children and Breeze, who is leaning against a wall, shivering. "Come here, lad, let's let Conner here have a look at you. Brennan, how are things going in there?" he calls to the bustling privacy curtain as he rolls toward Paige and the twins. Brooke has begun to cry during Conner's recitation, and Leif puts his arms around his sister protectively.
It's a long moment before Brennan answers, filled with the sound of water as he washes his hands and face. "She's strong," he says, at last. With Brita bandaged and decent, and the burn tissue covered, Brennan pulls the curtain back so Brita can see the room, and the room can see her.
Gerard looks over at Brita briefly, and seems satisfied with what he sees.
If Conner has Breeze in hand, Brennan slowly joins the knot of Paige, Twins, and Gerard, helping where he can. He expects Brooke, in particular, won't want Brennan poking and prodding at her, and so leaves her to Paige or Gerard. "You're safe now," he says. And with a gentleness that would surprise most of his cousins, he gives Leif as much of an examination as he'll submit to. He does not try to separate him from his sister.
Brennan and Paige and Gerard are able to look over the children. They're bruised and battered, and have some slightly fractured bones (greensticks), but they'll recover completely if they're as resilient as children, no, young adolescents of their apparent age. The blood on them is mostly someone else's.
The twins are naked, and the visual examination suggests they're normal children of their age. They don't seem to know or care that they're inappropriately dressed for company. What they need is a bath and some clothes and bed rest, probably with their mother or someone familiar nearby.
Brennan has clean rags, and washes Leif down with them. There are more for Paige and Gerard to use as well. He also tries to get Leif to wear the robe his mother brought for him.
Paige pulls the robe over Brooke after washing her down gently with the rags that Brennan procured and Leif will get a stern look if he argues with his Uncle Brennan about his robe.
Conner is grateful for the gift of something to do and leads Breeze over to one of the examinating tables. Conner's usual bedside manner is absent. Breeze is examined almost mechancially and any wounds found are treated promptly and well. Conversation is at a minimum and confined to asking where it hurts.
Breeze has been scratched and bitten and had the crap beaten out of him. He's in shock. He has broken ribs and one of his elbows has been smashed. Conner may wonder whether he'll get the use of it back completely. He, like the twins, needs rest and a bath and fresh clothes and more rest.
Conner does not know he is family, but that doesn't stop him from setting the elbow right anyway and using whatever medical supplies are at hand to immobilize the arm.
Brita starts to get up to stand near Conner. Drawing strength from his presence. She quickly realizes that it's going to hurt a lot and she'll probably fall and mess up Brennan's carefully-wrapped makeshift bandages. Both Brennan and Conner can see what she's up to before she gets up and that it will come to a bad end.
If Brennan wore glasses, he'd be looking over the rims at Brita. "Sit back down, or you will be sat." He never raises his voice, even a hair above conversational levels.
"Rest, sister." Conner says to her calmly. "Let me put this man's arm back together and then I shall be with you."
Brita huffs softly to herself, although she does, in the end, remain seated. Brennan can probably hear the subvoiced grousing, "I am not a Child. I know my limits; they just needed to be tested."
Brennan, satisfied, returns to his examination and cleanup of Leif.
The scratch at the jamb is pro forma and as the heavy door swings in, Celina enters the room. She stops---surprised at how many people are here.
But a second later, she realizes that the battle in Amber must be the cause. She steps aside to put her back to the wall and keep out of the way: a clear signal that she doesn't have a medical background. "The King is now with the Queen, who is here. Is there news the King must have immediately?" Her voice is low but steady. It is not apparent that she expects an answer from any particular person in the room.
Conner barely looks up from working on Breeze. "You may tell him that the immediate threat to Amber is over." He comments. "I think the rest should wait for a full recital before as much of the family as is here." Conner sighs heavily and then pushes those feeling aside once more to focus on his task.
Brita seems like she wants to add more, but she follows Conner's lead in the matter.
"Can someone point us to the baths and a room?" the redheaded woman asks. "The children need rest," she adds, stating the obvious.
"In a moment," Gerard says.
When he finishes with Leif, Brennan runs his hand over his hair again, in a you're-safe-here gesture, and turns his attention to Conner. That's what he'd been forgetting. As soon as Conner is done with Breeze, Brennan wants to give Conner at least a cursory examination, to make sure that, yes, the blood is mostly or all someone else's.
He signifies this waiting politely, arms folded across chest, watching Conner work and then staring at him. "Your turn, Cousin."
"You'll find naught to treat, cousin." Conner informs him. "I was far from the front lines. See for yourself." Conner allows Brennan to look him over.
Gerard says, "I'll take care of that. Conner, you come here. You go to the King, Brennan, and give him a report. Celina, please help Paige and her children find a chamber."
Celina switches her gaze to the redhead mother. Paige.
Paige finally connects Celina with the woman looking for news for Random and offers a warm smile. She seems immediately at ease.
"Brita, you stay on that gurney for now; we'll find you a room in a little while after I've had a chance to look Conner over. You, lad, what's your name?"
"Breeze," the young ranger answers. He's clearly still in shock.
"You're staying here too, for the nonce," Gerard tells him firmly. He looks at his nieces and nephews as if waiting for them to obey his orders.
Brennan looks at Conner like he'd have preferred to make sure he was hale with his own hands, but shrugs, nods farewell to the toom and all in it. He turns and strides out of the room, still in silk pants and silk robe with his sword belt buckled over it.
Celina tracks him across the room and out. She shakes her head and walks to stand beside Paige. She does not reach for a child without permission. "Lady, if you would come with me. I think I can help you settle your little ones."
Paige helps the twins off the bed and kisses Gerard on the cheek in thanks before following with a child under either arm.
As they exit, Celina nods to Conner and Brita as a placemark for later introductions.
Read this log here in Word format
XLII: Seeking Help and Offering Advice | Index | XLIV: Dash to Amber
