Placeholder Gimme Shelter... And Drugs (Matthew)

[Razkar]

27th Day of Spring, 514AV
Outside The Doctor's Clinic
15th Bell

"Alright... shyke's gotta stop."

That was the second time the Myrian spat out that disgusted little phrase, and it was no less true, despite the change in context.

The first had been around midday, when sleep simply wasn't coming to him. The constant twinges and lashes of pain were preventing his mind from switching off, drifting away, every chime inventing some fresh torment. Two nights in the Blood Pits... one would think sleep would come easily to a man after that ordeal, but there are always provisos.

Such as not being hacked and slashed to ribbons in the process. The gash on Razkar's chest, well, he'd had worse. But the dagger that bastard Eypharian had stabbed into his side was twinging and stinging regularly now, like a new, malevolent heart beat that throbbed from his guts through his spine and into his limbs.

Water torture by any other name: constant little disruptions that added up into big problems. No sleep, no rest, red eyes and no way to stave off the spasms that were keeping his mind occupied.

For bells he'd stared out the windows, body tensing and undulating under his sheets and bandages. He'd changed them, trained, meditated, drank... no good. He needed a healer's herbs and tonics; they always had something available for the right price, and in Sunberth he seriously doubted there were any worries about how dangerous the cure was vis-a-vis the disease.

There was only one problem: he only knew the one, and he had no desire to venture into that dark place again. So he'd put it off and put it off and finally, when he could barely squat to empty his bowels, he'd spat the words to himself and limped out the door.

Only to stand down the street from the Doctor's Clinic, morosely sucking his pipe, like some youth afraid to scamper past the haunted house on the street. Images, memories, nightmares of the past season swam into his eyes. A whore tied to a table. Him seated next to her, coaxing the information he needed from her frightened lips, and then... releasing her.

Razkar knew it would be a tender mercy compared to what the unseen master of the Clinic would do. He'd left there with the harlot Matthew and vowed never to return. Whatever ailed him, better to suffer than-

"Shyke!"

-the remnants of that poker in his side reminded him this wasn't an optional arrangement. His face crumpled but he managed to ball his hand into a fist and keep it from his side. He couldn't afford the street life to see him weak or injured; word would travel fast, and there were plenty who'd pay to see his head nailed to a post.

Just get in there, get the tonic you need and then go. Never need to come back.

So he said his words again, and walked into the Clinic.

[Matthew]

Three heads turned to regard the new patient. One was familiar, Matthew's artistic masterpiece of a face with the trademark steady blue stare and slow blinking. The other two were familiar, but in a different way. They looked like every other common street thug in Sunberth, and there were quite a few common street thugs in Sunberth. They sized Razkar up for a moment, giving him that look that he likely knew well. That defiant look, as if they felt he was challenging them just by standing there and looking tougher than they were. They knew him, though. Everyone around the Clinic remembered him from last season, and had been reminded of him this season. Hadn't he been wounded? He didn't look like he had been wounded. They couldn't tell if he was hiding it or actually perfectly fine. They stared at him for a few moments longer before turning back to Matthew, voices low and dark. "We'll be back to talk. If you really can help us kill the girl, then you might prove more useful than just stitching up our wounds." Matthew stared at Razkar for a few more moments and then slowly turned his head to the two thugs, nodding politely. They left, giving Razkar his space. The harlot was dressed in simple white clothes, his face untouched but his figure stained with black ink and ruby blood. There weren't any patients today, nor did the Doctor appear to be nearby. The thing that was out of place on this particular day was the naked dead body hanging from the rafter's by its neck, barely an inch off the floor. It was pale white and marked with charcoal, a piece of which was held in Matthew's hand. He studied Razkar for a moment, slightly surprised. Hadn't the Myrian left? He stared at him some more, sorting through the rumors that he had heard running through the Clinic recently. No, wait, he thought he might have heard something about a Myrian. He really hadn't considered that it might be Razkar. For wanting to polish his skills at information gathering, he sure wasn't doing a very good job at putting the information to good use. How to proceed, then? The silence between them certainly wasn't progressing things. Razkar had come to the Clinic. Unlike the two brutes of before, Matthew realized Razkar's intent almost immediately. Why else would a warrior come to the Clinic? "Hello, Raz-kar. It is nice to see you. You are hurt, I assume? Unless you for some reason wanted to buy my wares and knew I was here?"A much more unlikely explanation, he thought. The harlot turned, charcoal in hand, moving briefly over to the dangling body. Circling the jugular vein of the corpse, Matthew took a quick moment to scrawl a quick note in sloppy handwriting. Bite, 2 inches, hard tear. Setting the charcoal down on a nearby tray, he reached over to a silver-colored operating table that was oddly clean and yanked it over to Razkar, motioning at it. The Myrian would likely remember such a table and the memories that surrounded it. Matthew would not remember it. "What seems to be the problem? How is Edreina?" His tone was professional and polite, the conversation just the normal method of making small talk. The harlot had no idea how much things had changed since merely a season ago.

[Razkar]

"You...?"

Shock was the first thing to hit him, of course. No just surprise, which is a sharp but painless thing: no, this was shock, that hit you hard and paralyzed you with disbelief. The Myrian's jaw went sack and he barely managed to compose himself before the two thugs with no necks and stares they practiced in mirrors swaggered past him.

Razkar rested his hand meaningfully on one of his two gladii... and didn't let his stoic expression change until the bell above the door tinkled merrily (Goddess, what a blasphemy for this place) and they were gone. Then his attention turned back to the sculpted, near-flawless male behind the counter.

"Hello, Raz-kar. It is nice to see you. You are hurt, I assume? Unless you for some reason wanted to buy my wares and knew I was here?"

His mouth worked mutely for a few ticks, until his brain caught up with reality and decided that, yes, it was reality. This place... they'd seen awful things here, or just one massive atrocity. Razkar had left feeling sullied and drained, but Matthew? He didn't even know if the horror had registered with the automaton whore, and reckoned it didn't.

Realization followed fast on the heels of his shock, once he took a left from Matthew's book and let logic do his thinking for him (which, to be honest, not many people do, at least no consistently).

This place is a wealth of knowledge. It is gathered and gained through horror and agony that would have this "Doctor" flayed and burned in Taloba, but here? There are no such rules... and if you can ignore the means, you can have as much of the ends as you wish.

"Why else would I be here?" Razkar growled lowly, coughing at the back of his throat and walking unsteadily over to the table the harlot gestured at. "I would ask you if you remembered, but I know you-"

He paused, just for a moment, as he realized exactly what he was going to be sitting on. The eel of unease he'd felt at the sight of it when entering had grown to a gnashing leviathan by the time he reached it.

Razkar remembered it far from clean and antiseptic. He remembered it with a young, terrified, mutilated female tied to it; the words he spoke to her to gain information... the hand he placed over her mouth until she had passed, eyes still wide and pleading...

It's just a table. Her spirit would... probably, not linger here. Why would it want to?

Oddly enough, the corpse didn't seem to bother the Myrian that much. Back in the Taloba Army, he'd seen the healers and instructors there rip barbarian bodies apart with surgical precision, discovering the best ways to have their upright counterparts join them. Matthew seemed to be doing the same thing, writing down notes, scoring some sort of mark on the gently-swinging body before turning to his pulse-possessing patient.

"What seems to be the problem? How is Edreina?"

Razkar's eyes flickered to him for a moment, and he studiously ignored the latter question. Did the human really not see the change in his personality? Probably not, actually. Matthew needed data, signs, clay from which to build the bricks of his knowledge and Razkar's sullen, sulking stoicism gave away little... and not just to hide his physical pain.

Would he understand, anyway? Would he mourn or grieve? Feel the loss that you do?

No. He would not and maybe shrug his shoulders, and hard as you beat him, he would not understand.

"Let's stick to the task at-" he winced and pressed a hand to his side, feeling the burned, puckered skin around his healing stab wound undulate and stretch under his bandage "-hand, shall we? Stab wound, in my side. Bastard got me with a knife in the Blood Pits. Didn't hit anything important, I think, and I had a slave scorch, sew and bandage it, but... I need something for the pain."

The last words came out almost as a blurt and Razkar could not meet the human's eyes without effort. For a Myrian to beg beguiling and numbing drugs from a barbarian... Matthew could not know what a shame that was.

Let's hope he doesn't ask, he thought wryly, I'm of no mind to educate him today.

"Thought this wasn't your business, anyway? What bout the whoring life?"