Chasing the Chaste

[Anonymous]

The streets of Arca were still and quiet, and the sun peeking over the horizon gave a certain cast to the light that bathed everything in shades of grey. It wasn't a good light to work by, but it would be much brighter by the time Carys would open up her little shop. She liked to get an early start in. It gave her more time to work on her hats, and in her opinion that was well worth getting up when it was still dark.

Half-asleep, she made her way through the twisty network of streets that made a shortcut between her room and her shop. She wasn't worried about getting lost; she took this route every day and knew it well enough that she used the time to properly wake up. It did mean that she had some problems when things changed, like the stack of crates lurking just round the corner. She just about managed not to walk into them, but knocked her hand hard as she went past.

She yelped and clutched her palm. She'd managed to injure it the day before at the fabric cutting table. That reminded her, she should probably move that table so it wasn't facing the window... The distracting, distracting window. Why did elves have to be so damn pretty, anyway? She hadn't hurt herself badly enough to stop her working though, if she had her assistant do a little more than usual. But now...

She peered at her hand to see what the damage was. Sure enough, the knock had reopened the wound and a dark patch was starting to seep through the dressing. What a pain. She'd have to deal with it when she got to work. She squeezed it to try and help with the bleeding and started walking again. She whimpered. It kind of hurt.

[Anonymous]

Ah, yes. Acra at sunrise. There was something profoundly soothing about the wee hours of the morning, when the bulk of the city was still snoozing peacefully between their sheets. There were a few stragglers out and about -- mostly crafsmen and laborers preparing their businesses for opening-time, or a few drunks stumbling about confusedly, wondering where the night had gone. For the most part, though, the streets were peaceful and muted, like a painting in grayscale.

Which was why Theon nearly jumped out of his trousers when he heard a sudden crash to his left, on the other side of the pile of crates he'd been leaning against. The sudden noise reminded his skull of the fantastic quantities of mead he'd consumed last night, and all at once it started to throb mercilessly. Damnit, just when he thought he'd had his damn hangover under control! Wincing, he fished around in his shoulder pack for a cigarette, then groaned when he remembered that he had no means to light it.

Plan B it was, then. Theon lifted his last bottle of ale to his lips and downed the fiery liquid in one enormous draught. He dragged a sleeve across his mouth and coughed, his sinuses burning. Yeugh... that barmaid wasn't joking when she said this stuff would burn if you weren't careful. He grimaced, sucking air past his teeth.

He was in the process of staring at the pretty reflections in the bottle's glass when a pair of horns came into view, followed by a hat, and then a woman. Theon blinked, wondering whether the booze was causing him to see things. Eventually he decided that he wasn't drunk enough to be having full-on hallucinations. And after all, this was Arca; strange-looking people were all part of the colorful package that was the Serenian capital.

As a man who spent the majority of his life offering benedictions and healing minor scrapes and wounds, Theon had a sixth sense for pain in others. He didn't even have to hear the woman's whimper to know that she'd been injured -- the woman's expression said it all. A wave of guilt washed over him. He knew it wasn't his fault, but damn was he irresponsible! Loitering on the steets of Arca like some two-bit drunk when a lady was suffering! Embarassed, he stuffed the empty bottle between the crates and the wall, hoping the woman hadn't seen him drinking. "Excuse me, lady, but..." he said, stepping away from the crates, "are you feeling poorly?"

[Anonymous]

Carys hadn't seen the man on the other side of the crates, not until he moved just in the corner of her vision. She squawked and hopped a step back, startled by the intrusion into her her early-morning affairs. She stared at him for a second, not so much to look at him as to see what he was going to do, but the fact that he wasn't mugging her right now implied that he wasn't going to and his question confirmed it. "Sorry... About that..." she ventured, brushing a lock of pink hair out of her face. "You were lurkin' there, just a bit."

There was still his question to answer, in a way that got her out of there as quickly as possible. He wasn't immediately dangerous, no, but she definitely noticed now the tang of alcohol in the air. She was a respectable craftswoman with work to be doing, she didn't have time to stand around talking to some drunkard all day. "Poorly? Oh, d'you mean this?" She held up her injured hand. "That's nothing to bother yourself about, just needs a clean rag and not to smack it on things, it'll be all right."

She smiled politely and turned to go. "Thanks for your concern, though..."

[Anonymous]

Ah... she thinks you're a scoundrel, he thought despondently. That smarted a bit. Ah, well, he could nurse his pricked pride after he took care of the lady's hand. He couldn't help but feel a tad bit responsible, even though there was nothing he could have done to prevent the unfortunate mishap. Blame it on all that religious guilt he'd been spoon-fed since he was old enough to say "gah."

And now she was running away from him! "I'm sorry, ma'am... you must think I'm terribly rude," he said, before she had a chance to effect her escape. "I should have introduced myself first. I'm Theodore -- Theon -- Merryweather, a priest of Illior." Most Serenians weren't familiar with the goddess he worshipped, but he figured he'd drop the name, just in case. He dipped into a courteous bow, and managed it with only a minimal amount of swerving and tottering. "You'll excuse me for saying so, ma'am, but if you've been in my line of work for as long as I have, you learn that there is no such thing as a clean rag."

He smiled, trying his best to look like the sort of decent fellow a woman like this one would stop to have a chat with. He had a knack for earning the trust of strangers -- he didn't know why. Perhaps it had something to do with his boyish looks, or his honest expression, or his general willingness to do anything to please a lady. Or maybe they sensed that he was about as far from a threat as a lizard from a fire-breathing dragon. "I could," he began, then stopped himself. He began again, with the following revision: "I could -- if you would let me -- heal that for you."

[Anonymous]

"You're a priest, huh?" said Carys, slightly sceptical. She wasn't all that religious, having neither the time, the upbringing nor the philosophical inclinations for such things. There was probably a god or several out there, but she doubted they cared all that much about the mundane details of her life. Still, in her limited experience, priests didn't generally spend their mornings skulking about in alleys stinking of booze.

But then again... He was standing a bit closer, and the light was improving, and she noticed now that he didn't really look all that bad. He was polite, too. Maybe it was worth giving him a chance. If it worked, she could get a whole lot more done today than she'd planned, and also she'd be getting to know a good-looking man. She couldn't really see a downside here. His being a priest bothered her a little, because she knew there were some that didn't really do the whole sex thing, but maybe he wasn't one of those.

"Well, all right, but..." She turned back and started unwrapping the bandages, hissing quietly when each layer of cloth peeled away from the wound. "How long's this gonna take? You don't need to go and get any... Candles, or anything, do you?"

Religion did seem to involve an awful lot of candles.

[Anonymous]

"Oh, goodness, no," he said, bemused. Why were people always asking him if he needed candles? Sure, they certainly didn't hurt, but... Nevermind. His mind was wandering again. Focus: the one attribute he had trouble hanging onto was also essential if he expected to heal anybody with any lasting effectiveness.

Theon tilted his head, trying to get a better look at the wound without invading the woman's personal space. Her skepticism hadn't escaped him, and he didn't want to give her any further cause for suspicion. "Tsk-tsk-tsk," he clucked his tongue sympathetically. The cut was a clean one, probably a mishap with a cooking knife or a letter opener. "Don't worry; it's nothing that wouldn't heal on its own. It probably hurts like the dickens, though. The hands are just about the worst place you can get cut, in terms of pain, that is."

The woman probably didn't want to hear that, so he forced himself to just shut up and smile. Having satisfied himself that the wound was nothing he couldn't handle, he drew back, clasping his hands innocuously in front of him. He would have liked something to sterilize the wound -- alcohol or hydrogen peroxide usually did the trick. He could seal the wound with magic, but he didn't want to risk trapping bacteria beneath the skin. But his bottle of disinfectant was back at the inn, and he was plum out of -- wait. "One moment," he said. He popped back to the pile of crates, stuck his arm in between a crate and the wall, and returned to the woman with a seemingly empty bottle of ale in his hands. There was still about a half-centimeter of liquid sloshing about the bottom, which was more than enough to sterilize the cut.

He was so proud of his cleverness that he didn't stop to consider how very odd it would appear to the woman that he knew the bottle was there, and that he wanted to sterilize a wound with a bottle that was plucked apparently randomly from a dirty alley crevice. He lifted the bottle in a little triumphant toast, grinning jubilantly. "If you'll hold your hand out, I'll sterilize the wound for you, and then it'll just be a second before your hand is as good as new."

[Anonymous]

"Well, that's nice to know," Carys replied, looking somewhat confused. Yes, it hurt and it would heal, she already knew that. What was his point, exactly? The man really did say some weird things, but goodness, he was pretty in a pale, non-threatening way. He wasn't her usual type, as she mostly found it to look washed-out or insipid, but it oddly seemed to suit him. She tilted her head slightly, the cold light glinting off her hat adornments as they moved. Yes, she might be able to appreciate the look now that she'd seen it done properly. Shame about the smell, though.

Wait, stera-what? Stare at what? Huh? What was he saying, and what was with that bottle? What was even in there? He seemed to know what he was doing, but... What was he doing? She had no idea what was even going on any more. He seemed to know where to look for the bottle, so it was probably what he was drinking from earlier. Yes, that made sense.

"'Scuse me, could I just...?" she asked, stepping forward to take a dainty sniff at the bottle's opening. "Ugh," she grimaced. It was the same sharp, chemical smell that she'd picked up on him, and not at all pleasant. Still, it meant that whatever the liquid was, it was indeed what he'd been drinking and not something else, which was probably a good thing.

It wasn't like she didn't trust him. She just wanted to check.

She rolled her sleeve up to her elbow to keep it clean and held out her hand, palm up. She sighed, then winked at him. "Oh, go on then."

[Anonymous]

Theon smiled apologetically. Then, before the lady could wonder why he was being apologetic, he upturned the bottle over her outstretched hand. The alcohol would hurt like hell, so he had to run through the next few steps very quickly. He laid his hand on top of hers, visualizing the wound beneath his palm. He imagined it closing, the flesh stitching itself back together, like two patches from a quilt. When he lifted his hand away, the cut had vanished, with not even the slightest scar to suggest that it had ever existed.

"There. Done," he said quickly, hoping to speak before she could get any words in herself. Whenever he had to sterilize open wounds, his patients would inevitably be furious that he hadn't warned them just how much the alcohol would hurt. Eventually, he realized that no amount of warning could prepare them -- they were always surprised by the pain. The best method, he soon realized, was to sterilize the wound, then heal it quickly before the subject had any opportunity to complain.

"Not so bad, right?" he said hopefully. He really did hope the woman wasn't irked with him. She looked like she could pack a pretty mean punch.

[Anonymous]

((Sorry the posts are getting shorter, got IRL stuff on my brain right now and it's kinda hard to focus. >.<))

Before Carys could ready herself, the man had upended the bottle onto her hand. The liquid flowed over her hand and wrist, stinging like mad where it ran into the cut. She certainly wasn't prepared for that. "Aaaagh, what's the...? Ah?" Within moments the pain had gone, and he was finished. "Oh."

She peered at her hand, but there was no mark, no sign that she'd even been wounded. She'd be fit to work as hard as she ever had. "You're... Quite good at this. Though you could've mentioned the burnin'."

So now not only was he good-looking and nice, he'd fixed her up perfectly. She had to find some way to keep him around a bit longer, and also to maybe get him to have a bath... But first things first. "I should thank you... Huh." She smiled thoughtfully. "You know what you need? You need a hat."

[Anonymous]

((lol, no prob. Silly RL, always getting in the way of RPing XP))

Theon had been expecting the thank-you, and the mild reprimand for not warning her about the stinging, but that bit about a hat? Now that wasn't just out of left-field, that was miles away from the whole damn ballpark. He looked pleasantly befuddled for a moment, then understanding dawned on him. Why, the woman was a hatmaker -- obviously! Who else could get away with wearing such elaborate confection on her head?

He lifted a hand to pat himself on the head, looking as if he'd only just realized that he was hatless. "Ah," he said, biding his time while he thought of a way to refuse her offer gently. He didn't want to insult the woman, but a hat was just about the last thing he needed. "I admire your craftsmanship, but I don't think I could get away with wearing something so... florid." He hoped she wasn't familiar with the word, and the fact that it was simply a kinder way of saying that her hat looked like something a peacock would wear to a ball.

Somehow, though, the woman managed to pull it off. Everything about her was big and showy and designed to catch the attention of every man within a ten-yard radius. She was undeniably attractive, and this only deepened his self-consciousness. Goddess, he must smell like an alehouse at sundown! How embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

Being turned down like that was a sad but not infrequent situation for Carys, although it wasn't normally about a hat. Somehow, that made it worse than usual. When it was about her being the wrong gender, or not someone's type, or them planning to leave the city the next day, it wasn't anything she could help. This... Well, this was something she worked hard at, and was proud of. It stung more than the damn beer! She looked down, biting her lip and blushing slightly in embarrassment.

His explanation, however, helped. He'd obviously seen her rather pink, feathery hat and deduced that all of them were like that, and he didn't seem to be the kind of man who went for pink and feathery. If that was the case, then the conversation could be salvaged, and she rallied magnificently. "Oh, don't you worry! I've got a whole range of 'em, there's gotta be one that's just perfect for you. Fella like you, I'll bet there's days when you just wished you had somethin' to keep the sun off your face!"

She looked uncertain for a second. She'd meant to comment on his general paleness rather than his (probably frequent) hangovers, but it worked either way. She grinned widely and tilted her head, preparing to make one last desperate shot in the dark. "Ay, c'mon! If you don't see one you like, it's gotta be better than hangin' about in an alley all day!"