• PM To Join • [Order Outpost] Hanging by a thread

[Ronan]

123rd of Vhalar
5 bits to midnight, 10 bits after these events
Order of the Adunih Outpost

There was a lot commotion by the door leading into the Outpost and the doors suddenly burst open. Supporting a massive figure, a young, green cloaked and hooded figure stood in the opening of the door. "Help! Somebody help me! I need Mistress Valed right now!" He shouted into the entrance hall to the Outpost. At this time of night there were only a few people about, patients who had trouble sleeping or healer's who lived here or where on duty to care for the sleeping patients, you never knew when someone needed help. Whoever they were, the sudden entry of the young healer had them all jumping or turning in shock towards the entrance. The usual soft spoken, serene aura of the healer's Outpost was broken. Bren, the young healer, tried to carry Ronan further into the building but stumbled over the initial step and both men went crashing to the ground.

Bren wore his Order robes, green and hooded, showing his rank within the order. Where his clothes had been only dirty from travel before the fight, he arrived with one side soaked with blood and dirt all over his outfit. He didn't carry anything else as his pack had been left behind at the scene of the attack. For anyone highly perceptive, various splinters of wood and slight abrasions on his palms were the only injuries he seemed to have suffered. Ronan, on the other hand, was in much worse shape. He was barely dressed upon entry. His shirt had been torn in the front, hanging down from his body. On his hip, a cut was trickling blood down towards his pants and on his back there was a large cut diagonally across and a wound near the right shoulder, the latter bleeding worse than the first. There were various cuts in his pants as well, especially around the upper legs and a large, blood soaked cut on his left calf. The entire front of his chest as covered in a hardening jelly as well as each cut on his body. Despite the sealing agent being in place, blood continued to poor out from under it for some of the deeper wounds. Other wounds had darker skin around them, as if the blood was pooling just under the surface. Every single cut, no matter how shallow, had some of the same sealing agent spread on it. Anyone perceptive enough would notice that, despite the blood on them, neither his hands nor his forearms had any sort of wounds on them.

Ronan felt the pain all over his body but the cold stones of the Outpost floor managed to soothe some of it. Even though he'd only been on the floor for a trill or two, blood was already staining the floor around him, dripping from various wounds. Most of his body was covered in the hardened sealing jelly used by many healers to prevent diseases from getting into wounds. Ronan had picked up the trick some arcs ago from another Order member after he'd left Rynmere but in this case the wounds, the trips or the haste with which the jelly had been applied had caused the sealing jelly to be ineffective to some degree. Bren was equally out for the count. He'd never carried anything as heavy as Ronan and was near the end of his stamina. Despite that both men stubbornly refused to stay down and were beginning to push themselves up, one more successfully than the other.

"Come on, you big lump! On your feet. There will be no bleeding out on the doorstep of the Order for you, my friend." Bren's hands wrapped around Ronan's arm and tried to pull him further up on his feet. It was in vain as both men struggled together. Hasty footsteps came running down the hall and another green robed healer joined them. She seemed shocked by the sight in front of her and, much like Bren had in the beginning, hesitated, unsure of where to start. Bren, however, had long since gotten used to it. "Grab his other arm. We need to get him in a bed and operated on." The green figure looked up at Bren. "But.. the blood, the wounds." Bren seemed to get irritated at the delay. "It's not going to stop. It hasn't even clotted since he got stabbed ten bits ago." Ronan helped as much as he could to get back up and tried to explain to the two healers why he kept on bleeding but there was only some mumbling from his cracked lips.

A gold cloaked figured appeared around the corner, flanked by two other green cloaks and, at a glance, could see how bad it was. "Dhatri, prepare an operating room and fetch every blue, gold trimmed cloak in town. I don't care if you have to wake them up at this time of the night or how long it takes them to get here. Hurry. Squid? Can you go and check on miss Faith and see if she is up to helping out. I could really use her help." The little kid nodded and the pattering of his eight year old feet disappeared down the hall. The gold cloaked figure approached and took Bren's place as a support for the massive Element Trooper in training. "Tell me everything I need to know Bren." The young healer, winded though he was, started to explain what had happened since their arrival back in Scalvoris.

[Faith Augustin]

"You really don't need to come out this late at night, you know." Faith said, glancing over to the man whose arm she was holding on to. He'd insisted on escorting her, on her taking his arm too. Somehow, she didn't have it in her to argue. "I know," Cyrus Augustin, Padraigh's grandfather said. Faith looked at him and sighed slightly as they walked through the streets together. The freezing temperatures meant that the floor was treacherous, especially at this time of night and the young woman was, by this point, just into her third trimester of pregnancy. "But that grandson of mine isn't here to do it, and he wouldn't need to either."

And that was the end of that argument.

Faith was more grateful than she could express that Cyrus had come with her. The ground was slippery and she was, she had to admit, tired and somewhat surprised at having been called. She'd finished work in the Order three trials ago, but apparently, they needed her. Faith was who she was and, when Squid had knocked on the door, she immediately got herself ready as quickly as she could and was trying to do so quietly without disturbing anyone else in the house. She thought she'd succeeded too, until Cyrus had been waiting by the front door, dressed and ready to go out with a thick cloak for her in his hands.

Squid, too, had been a little surprised but he was rather awestruck by the older man and the fact that he had this ability to apparently just appear but when the exuberant young boy started to ask him, Cyrus turned a steely gaze on him and Squid did not speak again.That was one scary old dude living with Faith, Squid decided. Still, Cyrus kept hold of her arm and as Faith tried to hurry at what Cyrus considered an unacceptable speed for a pregnant woman walking on snow and ice in the middle of the night, he slowed down. Faith, of course, didn't dare to tug at him as she would have had Padraig been walking with her. Which ended up with meaning that she wasn't out of breath and huffing by the time they got there.

They got there, though and Faith dropped the warm cloak she was wearing and pulled her gold cloak around her shoulders then walked, or more precisely waddled, into the room. She looked at the man, her eyes watching what was happening and she frowned slightly. He was bleeding everywhere. "Squid, get some Fist Nut. Powder and liquid. Now." First things first, they had to get that bleeding stopped and Fist Nut was a known coagulating agent.

Then, she moved over to the patient. Cyrus moved to help her and Faith waved him away. "You got me here. Let me do my job." Cyrus raised an eyebrow and did not argue, because actually this was a different side to the young woman and he understood it. So, she moved to the man and she looked at one of the green cloaks working there. "I need a sample of his blood. Small, no more than a half thimble. And the same of everyone here." He'd lost too much blood, she knew. Faith looked at Galena and nodded. "I'm going to have to infuse him, I think. But we need to stop this bleeding first or it'll be like filling a bag full of holes with water. Good boy, Squid."

That, was to the young lad who brought the Fist Nut and Faith got it started in terms of getting it down him. Some under his tongue while she mixed the liquid and she spoke to the patient as she did. "Hello, there. My name's Faith and I'm a doctor here. Your blood doesn't clot, does it? This will help. Just try and swallow for me and then we'll get you feeling better, alright? That's good. You're going to be just fine."

The woman in question had pale eyes, so pale they seemed almost silver. Her skin was palest white and her hair jet black. She was short, even compared to the others, but she was calm and reassuring and her hand on his forehead gently stroked his hair, just providing comfort. "It must be terrifying, you just keep on breathing, and I'll make you better, alright?"

Dear Vri, blessed Famula and holy Moseke, she prayed, let those words be true. Let his life be strong enough that he would not greet Vri this dark night. Let his soul stay where it was until it was his time.

[Ronan]

Ronan, supported by two healers was brought into a side room. He barely picked up any of the details around him, focusing purely on putting one foot in front of the other and be as little of a burden as possible. The pain was near constant now. Every step flared up more pain, before the previous flare could properly die down, in his leg, hip or shoulder or any of the other, smaller wounds on his arms, legs and back. Bren stepped in with what little strength he had left when they began to lower him onto one of the beds in the room. As far as he could tell, there was nobody else occupying any of the beds here. Ronan, stubborn as he was, tried to get himself down first but his attempt only knocked over some beakers and bowls from a small table next to the bed.

The gold cloaked woman gave some orders to the green cloaks supporting her, including Bren and they started rummaging around or leaving the room. She turned to face Ronan and sat herself down next to him. "You're in good hands here. What's your name?" Her voice was soothing, gently pushing through the pain and reaching him. Ronan gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath through his teeth, relaxing as the pain subsided for a moment. "Ronan." She turned and motioned for Bren to rejoin them. He brought some clean cloths with him and placed them on the table next to the bed. "Do you know where you are, Ronan?" Ronan nodded quickly and sucked in another breath. "Outpost for the Order in Scalv-nnnn... Scalvoris." The gold robed woman nodded and reached for a pair of scissors from the table.

"We're just going to remove some of your clothing so we can help heal you, alright?" Despite making it sound like a question, the golden robed woman didn't wait for him to give her permission and was already cutting through the fabric of his clothes, removing what was left of his shirt first, quickly followed by the frayed and sliced remains of his pants. Lying in nothing but his underwear, Ronan's physique was all the more impressive. The combination of the blue Eídisi like skin and the blonde-black, badly dyed hair seemed to get lost in the urgency of the situation and the blood pooling from the various wounds in the blue skin. Muscles befitting the Gladiator of the Rynmere arena covered most of his body and on top of those he carried more than enough proof of the hundreds of fights he'd gone through to reach said pinnacle of the arena. Scars of varying age covered his body, front and back, all stopping just below the neck, easily covered by the clothes he'd previously been wearing. Some where short or jagged, indicating weapon wounds while others were longer and in multiples together in places, most likely marks of whippings in the past.

Besides his physique and coloring, there were three more things, all situated near or on his left shoulder and breast that drew the attention now that Ronan was near-naked. The mark indicating him as a former, but legally freed, slave was clearly visible on the left side of his chest as well as what seemed to be a tattoo of a red ribbon or thick string running from his shoulder down over his chest and side as well as down the back of his left arm, twisting around his lower left arm. Another mark ran down from behind his ear down his neck and shoulder and running over the front and back of his chest. It interacted with both other marks, cutting through them as if they weren't there. A more religious or studious person than Ronan would most likely recognize this mark as the cursed mark of Vhalar, the immortal of Fall and the Guardian of Oaths.

With most of his chest covered in the hardened sealing jelly, both Bren and the golden robed woman set to work removing the unnecessary parts of it, in between the cuts. They had just set to work when a second golden robed woman caught Ronan's attention as she walked in, followed closely behind by another person he couldn't really see. Bren gave up his seat next to Ronan for the second golden robed woman and only now that she was right up next to him did he notice how big her belly was. She seemed to take over almost immediately as orders were given around and Bren stepped forward to collect around half a thimble of his blood. It was easy enough to catch some of it off the dripping wounds all over his body. Another flash of pain from his shoulder had Ronan tense up, trying to fight or hold back the pain. The sudden tightness of his muscles all over his body only pushed more blood out of the larger wounds. What white the sheets had had before Ronan had been placed on the bed was gone now, soaked with red.

The pregnant golden robed woman leaned over him. While she was gentle with her hands and fingers, it was quite clear to Ronan that his mouth was going to get opened, whether he helped her or not. He opened his mouth, trying to be as helpful as possible, and her gentle fingers placed something under his tongue. His mouth felt very dry but when the bitter sting of the herbs pricked his tongue a little wetness returned to his mouth. He was so thirsty. The woman leaned a little his way while working with something just out of sight of him and spoke to him. Much like her fingers, her words were kind but there was no doubt in Ronan's mind that she was as much in charge here as the other golden robed woman. Ronan did his best to smile at the woman. "It doesn't... I am... cursed?" Ronan didn't sound too sure as he said it. That his stomach didn't roil and protest against his words only showed him how true they were. Still, it didn't make him feel less of an ignorant, uneducated person. Curses were for fishermen's wives and travelling storytellers. Faith... Nice name..." He let her put the liquid to his lips and swallowed greedily. He regretted it almost immediately as the bitter taste that had only been under his tongue, spread itself down his throat and further down towards his stomach.

He'd been to many healer houses and had seen a lot of them in his time. There had been strict and tough, unforgiving ones who were there only as long as he needed them and there had been kind and friendly, matriarchal types who remained behind to look after him long after his care had been done. But there had never been any of them who placed their hand on his forehead in anything more than a measure of temperature during his care. Not used to the comforting touch of the woman, Ronan made a vain attempt to shake her hand off, turning his head away from her as best he could. It mattered very little as the set up allowed both golden robed women on each side of his bed to reach every part of his body from where they were sitting. Her words pulled him back however. Terrified? Absolutely not. He'd stare death in the face and win. "...Had worse... I'm not afraid..." His stomach protested and a wave of nausea washed over him. Faldrun could burn this damn fear. He wasn't afraid. He turned his head a little towards the other golden robed woman next to his bed and forced a smile to his lips, or at least thought he did. "Besides, I'm in good hands here."

[Faith Augustin]

He was covered in scars and some of them told stories. But then, Faith considered, scars always did. They always told a story and it was unique to each individual, every person; there was no more point to judging him by his scars than there was on judging her by hers. Of course, for him his scars were on show and they were recogniseable for what they were. Whippings, slicing of flesh, cuts and other marks - they told a story of a man whose body had undergone torment, torture and both for a prolonged period of time.

All of this meant that the scars which marked him as a former slave did not surprise her at all. The kind of scars she had seen on his body before her silver eyes caught sight of that told of a life into which slavery fitted. But legally free, she thought. It was hard to tell, sometimes, because she knew that different places showed their free slaves in different ways. In Rynmere, she knew, a free slave got branded on their cheek.

She saw it all, within trill and she took it all in. As she moved to help him take the Scarf Rot, he told her that he was cursed and Faith smiled a slight, gentle smile. "Well, I am blessed and so we will do our best, yes?" It looked like an Immortal Mark, Faith thought, but she hadn't seen many curses before. She didn't recognise this one and it wouldn't matter to her if she did. He was here, he was injured and she was a medic. Her job was to save lives, it was as simple and as complicated as that.

Concentrating, Faith used the healing ability of her Moseke mark. That mark was not visible to him, but the tattoo of an intricate black lace on both her wrists and round her neck was; though he was probably a long way from noticing; the same with her long black fingernails, marking her as favoured of Vri. Faith continued to work, without question or concern and her hands on him were as gentle as her voice. "We're not going to give up on you, that's the important thing." Then, once she had the blood, she took it with thanks and spent a few moments whilst the others were looking after the patient. She examined it, compared it to the other samples and then looked at him. "Alright, we've got a match. I need to get this set up."

Speaking quietly to Ronan, she explained. "You've lost a lot of blood. But the combination of the holy healing, the herbs and the treatment seems to be helping. I have a technique that will allow you to have some blood from one of us, to help you heal. I promise you it's safe, I've done it a number of times now. Are you alright with that?" If he was, she'd call in the green cloaked woman in question and start setting up, but if not, she'd discuss it with him.

[Ronan]

She didn't believe him. Behind the kind smile and the gentle hands, the healer didn't believe in him. He blinked. Why would she? He was just a simple fighter bleeding out on her operating bed. It wasn't like she knew he was a former Gladiator title holding arena fighter from Rynmere. But her belief mattered very little to him as long as she healed him. He blinked again. He turned away from the younger woman and turned to the golden robed one who had been here when he'd arrived with Bren. Where was Bren anyway? Ronan just watched the woman, who was working on him, focused on her task. He tried to think of something but he found it increasingly difficult to do so. He blinked once more.

The other healer spoke again and Ronan turned back to face her. It felt like he was doing a lot of moving around but all he did was shift his head left and right a bit as he changed focus. He nodded at her, trying to let her know he understood and was, in fact, quite grateful for her help but all he managed was little more than a shake of his head. He blinked again. He watched the woman work with something and then turn back to him. She seemed to smile, or happier for some reason. He blinked slowly and tried to focus on her as she spoke. Blood from someone else? No... It wasn't safe. He tried to shake his head but didn't move. His eyes were suddenly drawn to the end of the bed. Blurry, at the edge of his vision, a person was standing by his bed, looking over him.

He couldn't tell anything about the person, except that they were big and tall, much like him. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, trying to focus his eyes on the man. When he opened them again he still saw the blurry person standing there, looking at him. "So? End of the road, brother? Time to give up. Just close your eyes and you and I will be together again." What was he talking about? He barely registered the healer next to him talking about something. His focus remained on the blurred person. In response to their taunting, Ronan shook his head and this time his body followed suit. "You were always so... so stubborn. You haven't changed, brother. Still an Oathbreaker, I see." The person was suddenly leaning over him, fingers touching the mark on his shoulder. His whole body shivered from the sudden cold. Then he was at the end of the bed once more. "You should just give up."

Brother? Quan? The healer finished talking and looked at him, expecting some sort of answer. He wouldn't give up. "No" He wouldn't give up. He blinked again, slowly, multiple times, but the blurry person was gone and Ronan found himself staring out into nothing. "No... It's dangerous..." For them. His blood didn't... didn't... what if they got what he had because they were trying to help him? He blinked again, fighting to keep his eyes open. Despite his heart being in the right place and trying to keep others from the curse, his mind knew fully well just how bad things were. His protest ended quickly after the few words he managed to utter. His mouth was so dry, he tried to swallow but it felt like sand in his throat. Even the bitterness of the leaves had left his mouth. He wasn't paying attention to the healer as she tried to get him to take the blood. He suddenly started nodding in the middle of her words. "Yes... okay."

"You'll curse her. She'll suffer like you do." Ronan had to fight to open his eyes once again. So tired. He could just close his eyes for a bit and then he'd be better. "Now you're giving up?" His eyes shot open and the person was back at the end of his bed. Leave me alone! Go away! Ronan tried to rise from the bed but fell back right away. He had to pull his eyelids back open, fighting the sleep. The figure turned and light reflected off of a silver shimmer around their neck and shoulder. "Now there's the brother I know." Before Ronan could answer, his attention was pulled back to the healer as she started on getting him some more blood. The silver shimmer pulled his attention away once more.

There was only one person he knew with such a shimmering silver in that place. His brother was right there. Ronan, much paler than he'd been before the fight had started, his skin clammy to the touch, tried to raise his hand to reach for the shimmer. Quan! Brother! Wait... I've been looking all over for you. Quan! "Quan" It was barely more than a whisper, something only the two healers working on him might pick up on. The shimmer was gone and Ronan's hand dropped back on the bed. He was so sleepy. He blinked again, slowly. Just a short nap. That was all he'd need to get over this. Just a few bits, close his eyes and recover. Ronan closed his eyes.

[Faith Augustin]

He was muttering, looking at a fixed point and whilst that often meant something specific to Faith, in this instance she knew that it did not. He wasn't seeing a ghost, because if he had been then she would be seeing it too. With thanks to Famula for her many and varied blessings, Faith kept working because, she knew, time was of the essence for him.

He was concerned about the infusion of blood, but then he relented and Faith nodded her head. Setting up the equipment was relatively quick and she fussed around quickly, always just explaining to him what was going to happen. Her voice was gentle, but somehow also brisk as she spoke to him in what those who knew her would recognise as her 'doctor' voice. "Righteo, we're going to get this set up now. There's going to be just a gentle scratch on your arm here, where I'm touching. You can feel that? It will sting just for a trill. Here we go, and we're done." Faith was a very skilled doctor and her ability to give injections, even ones using the equipment she had here which was odd looking, to say the least, was very good.

When Ronan closed his eyes, she just gently stroked his forehead again, "That's alright, sleep now. Things will feel better soon, I promise you." The green cloak who was a match sat on a chair next to him, her arm on the arm of the chair and Faith spoke to her gently and quietly, too. It was an unusual process, there was no doubting it and the idea in and of itself was very much on the cutting edge of medicine.

Yet it worked and it saved lives. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Faith carried on working as Ronan fell into a state of half asleep, half losing consciousness. Her level of Endurance meant that Faith worked, as always, apparently tirelessly. Those who knew her knew better of course and when she came out to speak to Cyrus, he looked at her with concern in his eyes, she thought. It was hard to tell, he was a tricky fellow to read. However, she couldn't do that, she told him. This was her technique and if anything went wrong then she needed to be here. So, when Ronan woke up, Faith was sitting next to his bed in a comfortable chair with her feet raised. She smiled at him as his eyes opened. "Hello again. I'm Faith, one of the doctors here. Do you remember being brought in?" Her voice was quiet and calm, more suited to a library than a hospital, but her pale eyes, so light they seemed to be silver, were watching him carefully. Counting the breaths, checking his eyes and respiration, looking at the colour of his cheeks and all sorts of things.

"How are you feeling?"

[Ronan]

The world went dark quickly once he gave himself up to the sleep. But the darkness wasn't restful. Ronan felt oppressed by the black around him and tried to fight his way back out. But who can fight darkness? He just kept sinking no matter where he ran or if he tried to swim or fight. Deeper and deeper. Exhaustion finally overcame him and he simply fell into a state of unconsciousness. It would do very little for his stamina recuperation or mental rest but it kept the pain at bay and that was something that Ronan could agree with.

Light returned to his eyes sometime later as he blinked and tried to open his eyes. This wasn't his roof, his house. Where was he? Oh right, the fight, the bleeding. Bren had taken him to the Order to do something about the bleeding. His body felt exhausted, even more so than it had before they had arrived at the healer's Order. He didn't feel like he was leaking blood anymore, though, so that was a good thing. Everything hurt so there was a downside to waking up as well. The stitches pulled as he tried to shift even the slightest bit and Ronan decided against pulling them open again. A movement from the side had him turn his head and look at the gold robed healer sitting next to his bed, the one who'd arrived later. She smiled at him, which made him feel just that little bit better.

He watched her watch him, she seemed to be inspecting him to make sure everything was alright. It most definitely didn't feel like that but Ronan was indeed beginning to recuperate. He was still pale and weak and there were stitches and bandages everywhere and his skin had various darker spots near the many wounds where blood had pooled just under the skin into bruises and other marks but he wasn't leaking any blood anymore after the care of the healers. How long had he been out? He tried to take a deep breath but the stitches on his side started to pull and he settled for shorter breaths to prevent anymore damage.

The silver eyes inspecting him brought memories of a dream that he didn't remember to the top, shimmering silver on a man's face and chest and a faceless, large human, beating the living daylights out of him, again and again. No matter where he ran or how hard he fought, he lost over and over again. Ronan closed his eyes for a moment and willed the memories to stop by focusing on other things. Quan was here? Or had been here? Ronan was sure he had seen him at the end of his bed.

She wanted to know if he remembered how he got here. Bren had taken him here, after the fight. Ronan seemed to remember falling at some point but he wasn't sure if that had really happened or if his dizzyness from bloodloss had done that to him. He nodded, lightly and slowly. "Yes, Bren..." His voice cracked and croaked as he spoke the two words and he stopped. It wasn't very pleasant to have a desert in your throat. As she asked him how he was feeling, he tried once more to speak. "Thirsty." He remembered other fighters, from long ago, bleeding out after a fight and asking for water or other drinks. Apparently, bleeding made you thirsty.

Once he'd gotten his drink, from Faith herself or from any of the green robed healers that were looking after all the other patients, Ronan just lay still for several bits, looking from the ceiling to Faith and back. There was little else he could see without moving so those were his options. He croaked a little less when he spoke next. "Silver tattoo... Was there a man with a silver tattoo here?" His voice started of strong but by the second word he was mostly whispering at Faith, thinking she could hear him clearly. "I saw him...at my bed." He looked at the empty spot at the end of his bed where he'd been so fixated on before falling unconscious before. That he might sound crazy didn't even occur to him.

[Faith Augustin]

She helped him with a drink with the sort of well-practiced competence which spoke of having done this a number of times before. Her movements were calm and carefully controlled; there was no excess movement, everything was just as much as it needed to be and no more than that. As Ronan examined his wounds, he might notice that these were different. It was almost like they weren't there, the pain was far, far less than he might have expected.

Once he was comfortable and had been able to have a drink, Faith sat back down and she listened to his question. "No," she said, her voice quiet. "There was no one here, but you were fixated on that point there," she pointed to the spot he had been staring at. "I thought that maybe you were seeing a ghost, but there wasn't one there." She said that as calmly as she said anything else, she was quite sure that there wasn't one so that was good, important to be clear she was sure.

"Hallucinations like that are common in patients with such blood loss. We've put someone else's blood in to you," Which was, of course, a ludicrous thing to say to anyone and simply not possible as far as most of the world was concerned, but it didn't make it any the less true and was a major part of why he felt so much better than he might expect to. "So you should start to feel significantly better fairly quickly. It's still a shock to your body, though, so we'll keep you here a little while." Faith looked at him with serious silver eyes as she asked her next question.

"You've been cursed by one of the Immortals?" Faith wondered just how and what, but she did not ask because that wasn't her business. However, the nature of it meant that the man was a time bomb of death, as far as she could tell. "So, your bleeding is hard to stem in the extreme. I could give you some medicine to take every trial which will help your blood clot. But maybe it would be worth dealing with the source of the issue?"

Off Topic

Faith has a capstone in surgery called "Perfect Cut". As follows:
"Faith is able to perform surgery to such a level that she can stitch in such a way as to leave no scars at all. The wound itself, once tended to by her, is closed and her stitches do not open, do not pull or get infected and leave no scar. This means that pain is reduced enormously for the patient and healing time is cut down to a very short space of time. "
Sorry- meant to mention it last post!

[Ronan]

Considering his wounds and the fact that he'd just gone through intensive care, Ronan was surprised to feel only so little pain. That said, he was well aware of the wounds he had obtained during the fight and figured they had given him something strong against the pain, which also numbed most of his tactile sense, which was why he felt little to no pain or pull from the stitches. The woman moved carefully to help him drink, her pregnancy barely getting in the way of her work. If he'd been less dried out he might have been impressed by her grace, considering the situation she was dealing with. She remained next to him, watching and just listening as he asked his question.

Ronan felt a pit in his stomach as she spoke to him. So Quan hadn't been here. Then why? The pit seemed to lighten a bit as the woman said that she hadn't seen any ghost either but it dipped quickly again. This woman who had been cutting him open and tying his flesh together with string thought she could see ghosts? What sort of crazy had he been put in the care of? His initial panic lessened as his eyes fell on her golden robes again. She wouldn't have made it that far as a healer if she was truly crazy. Or she was highly charismatic and able to hide her crazy. She then explained that his blood loss could cause hallucinations. Ronan understood that she meant he was simply seeing things due to his condition. His eyebrows raised in surprise, albeit weakly. "You put blood in me?" His voice was still harsh and dry but better than before.

He'd only ever known how to get blood out of people, not back into them. Apparently to this gold robed healer it was a basic truth in the world, with the way she spoke about it. Combining that with the ghost mentioned earlier gave Ronan something of an idea just how small his knowledge of the world was. "My body will be fine, I won't need to stay here as long." Where she'd been confident and sincere about her ghost and blood, Ronan seemed to hold the same belief when it came to his own physique. A human body could endure quite a lot of things and come out stronger, changed on the other end. A lifetime of taking hits and wounds had helped his body to adapt and speed up the recovery process. It wasn't some magical cure-all ability like what he'd heard about the highest ranking members of the Order, not by a long a shot. But he would be out here quicker than the average guy.

"That's what I've been told." He didn't want to mention anything else about it. The whole curse idea was silly but hedge healers in small villages where he'd been after leaving Rynmere had thought so, had been quite insistent about it even. But Ronan didn't know who or why or what cursed him. "You can see ghosts." It was odd for him to mention it at random here, after she'd explained how she could help him with his blood problem. He waited for a trill, as if waiting for something specific, but then continued. "And you put someone else's blood in me." Again, a statement and then the pause. He wasn't looking at the doctor as if waiting for an answer, he simply stared up at the ceiling and waited a trill or two. Again, nothing.

"I am cursed by an immortal." He fully expected his stomach to protest here and his face betrayed his surprise when, again, nothing happened after a trill or two, three. "Apparently so." Ronan turned to face Faith for the first time since he'd started stating all the things Faith had mentioned. He gave her a small smile. He didn't seem particularly happy. "And you can help me with the curse with your medicine?" His reaction was quick and intense. The words had barely left his lips or he started to gag, as if he was about to throw up. Ronan put his hand in front of his mouth to cover it. He swallowed to keep it down as he felt sick to his stomach. It took him several trills to recover from it, swallowing constantly to keep what little food was still in his system down. The sudden flare of nausea came and went. "So it's all true... except the medicine." Ronan seemed to be quite nonchalant about the gagging. "You're a very special woman, doctor." He gave her another smile, a polite, friendly one this time.

She wasn't wrong, however. He had to do something about it. Until recently he'd thought he'd gotten sick and caught a disease in some underground fighting ring. When the curse had come up he hadn't really believed it but the facts were all there. His blood didn't clot anymore, not without outside help at least. And the stomach issues when he said certain things were also still there, ever since he'd lost Quan. It was connected, all of it, but he had no idea why or by who. Quan would never have done something like that to him. "Why would an immortal curse me, doctor?" It felt weird just to ask the question.

[Faith Augustin]

Yes, Faith nodded her agreement when he asked if she'd put blood into him. The pregnant woman was used to a surprised reaction, it wasn't something that people usually found commonplace. Then, he asked a series of questions, except they seemed not to be questions at all and Faith watched with interest. She was a scientist, in both her jobs and she knew an experiment when she saw one, or she believed she did. Looking at him, she watched, trying to work out what he was testing and then, he spoke an untruth and his reaction was a physical one. But it wasn't an untruth in the way that they might normally be considered. He wasn't lying or telling the truth, no. He was testing the truth of a statement in a much broader sense. Faith raised an eyebrow.

"I have never considered myself such," she said, in response to his compliment. "You are able to judge the accuracy of a statement by your physical reaction to it? That is very interesting." She smiled at him and considered that it must be a very useful one, too. Although possibly something that might make him a bit too useful to a few too many people, now she thought of it. Not something that she'd want to wish on him. But then, he asked her another question and she looked at him with a calm expression in her silver eyes.

"Well, firstly, my name is Faith. Please, call me that. But as to your question?" Faith had read of such, and so she did what she would always do and she answered him the best she could. "The Immortals mark us mortals when we draw their attention. When our actions specifically align, or not, with theirs or we show them great devotion." Faith looked at Ronan and gave a slight smile, a gentle expression meant to show that there was no judgement here, not from her.

"Do you know when it happened and how, exactly, it manifests?" Knowing that might help, she thought, in determining what it was. "And also. When I was marked, well it is a physical mark. Has a mark or tattoo or scar appeared without reason?" It was odd, Faith thought, that an Immortal would curse someone without telling them, so it must be an unusual circumstance.