ofelia zhou deals in secrets. (consultancy) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-12-21 19:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, !plot: as i lay dying, cormac hier, ofelia zhou |
the world's a sinking oyster and my bed's become unfathomably white.
Who: Ofelia Zhou & Cormac Hier
What: Only the best clinical care for some of the plague-ridden.
Where: His clinic.
When: Late November.
Rating: Tame.
Status: Complete.
Her offices on Mandragora Avenue were shut up and locked, an impromptu handwritten sign propped in the glass window (a helpful addendum by one of her street urchins), the plants were starting to wilt with neither Ofelia nor Audrey around to attend to them, the dust accumulating in the corners. Cormac Hier’s clinic, to contrast, was a bustling hub of noise and activity, brightly-lit and spotlessly-cleaned. A small blonde mage bustled about in the background. Ofelia watched the rest of the scene as it unfolded, trying to assemble the hustle and bustle into something coherent, but the threads kept loosening and unraveling in her mind even as she tried to hang onto them. She’d vomited far more than she would’ve liked, her usual composure and elegance shucked right out of the window as she bent herself over a bucket, diaphragm convulsing, ribs aching, her forehead burning up. When the doctor finally came around to check on her again, later in the evening, the busyness had thankfully died down a bit. All of today’s patients were checked in and settled down for overnight observation, ready to be shunted to one of the others in the morning. “Must be making a killing with this,” she said thoughtfully, watching Cormac. They were comrades-in-arms at the high stakes games. She knew a bit too much about his debts to the Wilde syndicate; it was a position she could empathise with. (She’d been in that position herself, after all, over a decade ago.) Many others had remarked on how much money Cormac would be making on the check-ups, but he didn't really have it in him to tell them that it was Mage Guild mandated, and while he was going to be compensated for his efforts, most of it was free. If anything, he had so many patients coming in, he had temporarily lowered the fee. It wasn't to undermine the mages guild, but rather to help compensate for the immediate depletion of supplies and pay for food, clothes, and any other things he might need that he felt he could acquire himself without bothering Toku. The council had been on top of him, with the exception of Merri. He didn't want to think about Merri actually dying. He was just… he was never going to hear the end of this if the man survived. While he wasn't a fan of people constantly leaning over his shoulder, he understood. He understood what was going to happen if he didn't work swiftly. It was a lot of pressure, but he wasn't going to kick himself over it. There was only so much he could do and crying or stressing over it was going to do him no good. He probably needed a break, but there simply wasn't any time. Turning to look at the woman who addressed him, he was clearly quite tired. He only prepared for these types of rushes on holidays or festivals, when people got drunk and extra stupid. This disease had drained him before it'd even hit, if he were honest. "Ofelia," he said in acknowledgement. "Not you too." “Sadly, me too.” She tried to sit up in the cot, hands pressed against the cold metal railing, but the woman’s brief burst of strength leeched out of her at the last second. Ofelia sank back onto the white sheets and pile of pillows, face pale and slicked with a sheen of sweat. Everything ached, every last inch of her, down into pieces of her that she didn’t even know could feel pain. Her hand shook when she reached for a glass of water. It was a particularly stinging failure; her gambler’s hands had always been steady, holding cards and betting thousands without a single falter. “Any leads on what this is?” Ofelia’s voice was a bare whisper. (Another failing, all of her capabilities slipping away from her: an orator’s voice was their weapon.) It had just become habit at this point, even as the gambler spoke, he was already pulling out a bottle with one hand and pulling the plastic off a needle with his other. He inserted it into the top, before sucking out the needed dosage . A moment later he pushed a little of it out to make sure there was no air in the tube. “Unfortunately, no,” he said with a dark expression. “I’m going to roll you onto your side and inject this into your hip, alright?” In a different situation, he might have enjoyed the view of the top curve of her butt, but she was a victim of this disease. There was no rhyme, reason, or pattern that he could see in the list they’d collected. Unless they all had things to protect to the point of taking it to the grave. “It’ll spread faster that way. Can you undo your pants for me?” “Alright.” Ofelia’s voice was clinical, detached—the whole scene felt as if it were happening to someone other than her, floating discombobulated outside of her own body. She obligingly shifted on the cot, unlacing her trousers and rolling over (with a helpful push from his hand, professional and impersonal) to expose the bony arch of her hip. The woman buried her face in the pillow, hands knotting in the fabric as the needle sank in. Cormac held her steady. “Not a side of me I wanted you to see,” she remarked dryly, slightly muffled. “At least not in these circumstances.” A joke, or a feeble attempt at one. Cormac hadn’t particularly been imagining Ofelia’s bare bottom, but now the floodgate of not possible situations flooded his mind. That didn’t stop him from sanitizing the site and sticking the needle in without warning. A small prick then a slow burning sensation. She’d be able to feel the warmth of it flooding her almost instantly dulling the effects. Such was magic, in liquid form. “Not how I pictured it either, but that’s just how life is,” Cormac said with a shrug. He gave a little tug up on her pants to let her know she could put them back on before tossing the needle into the trash bin. “Just lay there for a bit and I’ll see if I can get you a week’s worth of potion.” A week’s worth, not a month, not a year. He hoped he wouldn’t have to prolong it that long in anyone. They hadn’t won in Cammon, just slowed it down. It eventually overtook them. “I’d give you something stronger if I had it. I’d hate to lose one of my better opponents.” While losing could be the worst experience. Having a challenge was what made gambling fun. Beating the challenge made the victory much sweeter. The woman wanted to deliver some witty rejoinder about competition, but the words tangled and clotted in her head. A hopeless mess, addled and not herself. The poker game itself was a battle of wits and endurance; God, but how she missed it even now, her hands itching for a deck of cards and the calculated risk it represented. “While I’m doing this, tell me about how it started and how bad it got before you decided to come in,” he said, flipping open a notepad with one hand and opening a cupboard with the other. The more information he got, the better he could document the progress of the disease. “Started… maybe a week ago?” The dates were hard to capture, like grains of sand slipping between her fingers. “Felt absolutely fine beforehand. Thought it was just a cold – cough, sniffles – then flu. I traveled, right before. South down the coast to Lorraine. Started before then, though.” Ofelia’s words were disjointed, trying to knit the sentences together into something useful even as Cormac’s pen scribbled its way across the paper, jotting down her fragments. “No passing out or vomiting? Just felt bad enough to come in and see me?” He asked as he placed a bottle on the desk. He switched pads, jotting down instructions for consumption on the one with the adhesive backing before putting it on the bottle. He took his time with it to make it legible. Usually this was Cy’s job and Ridley was busy attending to the waiting room. “Not at first. Then Sunday night, maybe Monday: like a fucking truck hit me.” Fee rarely swore; it slipped out, coasting on those waves of frustration. “Then vomiting, fever, could barely move. Aches. And this.” A tug at her sleeve, rolling it up enough to expose the raw rash which was starting to grow. Cormac continued to jot down the notes, but stopped when she decided to show him something. The edges of his lips turned down sharply at the sight of the rash. He turned to pull something else out of the cabinet and put it in the table. He then wrote another set of instructions and pressed the paper to the bottle before setting it with the other one. “You will drink this three times a day. More frequently if things get worse. Come see me. You can put this,” he said picking up the other bottle, “On your rash with a clean cloth.” It would’ve been easier for all this to get cleared up by a white mage who could use white magic, but it’d reappear eventually anyway. It was best to just get her into the habit of self-care. “It’ll clear it up, but you’ll have to apply it to any new patch that pops up.” “Noted.” Ofelia tried to remember the details of the dosages and their timing, but the details slipped away like water between her hands—the written instructions would evidently be necessary. She stared at the two bottles perched on her nightstand, struggling to focus on their labels and failing. The glass seemed to shimmer slightly, as if in a heat haze. She exhaled, frustrated, but the effort only seemed to make her dizziness worse. Ofelia shook her head. “Thank you, mister Hier,” she finally said, voice a bare whisper—giving up and consigning herself to a long night of tossing and turning in the clinic. "Good night, Miss Zhou," he said, turning the light down in the room. While she could have easily left, it was already late. He felt it would be better if she stayed. "I'll have Ridley provide you with a warmer blanket." With that said, he left the room, closing the door behind him. |