Crom's Notes

Day 2: In which Artmey and Daniil drink to excess at the Apple Basket and Artmey tries and fails to teach Daniil a few steppe words. They dream of how to cure the plague together.

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"No, no!" Artmey was laughing. "How can you be so bad at this?"

Daniil took the bottle from his hand. They had abandoned cups almost immediately. "Your weird country dialect is more difficult than latin!" Daniil protested before taking a swig from the bottle.

Artemy had never dreamed he would see Daniil do anything so pedestrian as swig twyrine. But he was fixated on the way Daniil's throat rolled with each swallow. He wanted to take that red neckerchief off. "Try again," he prodded. "Call me Bagshaah."

"This is some prank, you want me to call you something dirty or silly so the steppe people will think I'm disrespectful."

Artemy smiled. "It means teacher, oynon."

"No, it means 'Sexy' or 'bullman' or something and you want me to compliment or insult you."

Artemy leaned close. He wanted contact, but he had learned Daniil did not like physical touch. "If I wanted you to compliment me," He let his eyes drag up and down Daniil's fully clothed body. "I would do something worth complimenting."

Daniil blushed as deep a red as the twyrine they were drinking. It was deeply satisfying. "I will learn your word if you learn to speak Latin." He shot back defensively.

Artemy threw his hands in the air and let himself fall back into the brown September grass with a soft crunch. "Ah, then you will never learn as two languages are too much for me!"

Daniil sputtered. "Your steppe language is not Russian!"

Artemy just laughed and pulled the bottle from Daniil's hand to drink.

"Burakh," Daniil sounded… Hesitant. "What if there is no cure for the plague?"

"Then we are not wasting time out here, drunk as the twins and empty handed." Burakh answered easily before he took a drink.

"I mean it. What if all we are doing is making lives harder while the plague burns through the entire town? What if we really can't stop it?"

Artmey, with some effort, pushed himself back up. "Then we cannot stop it." He said simply. "We will save who we can with what measures we can. Those who survive will mourn the dead, those who died will not know any different and will be returned to Mother Boddho." He curled in on himself a bit, holding the bottle between his knees. "You will return to the capital, and I will remain here."

"Will you?"

Artemy looked over at Daniil. "What?"

"Will you remain here?" He looked up at the sky, somewhat murky with the heady scent of the herbs growing around them.

"Of course, the town needs me."

"Hm," Daniil picked up one of the last bottles they hadn't yet opened and struggled to get the cork out.

"Give it here," Artemy held out one hand and took the bottle when Daniil handed it over. He held his own by the open top with his teeth as he pulled the cork out, careful to keep it from breaking and falling in before handing it back to Daniil.

"How do you do that so easily?"

Artemy lifted a brow at him. "Open wine bottles?"

"But you never damage the cork," Daniil looked out into the distance and swaying grass. "You don't hurt as many people. You're easily twice my size, you're hand can close almost completely over my own and yet…" He gestured to the bottle in his hand. "Gentle."

Artemy watched with increasing interest as Daniil drank. "It is long years of practice." He looked down at his own hands, enormous and calloused. "I was not always so gentle, not always so careful, but I have always been big. My friends called me "Cub" because I was like a little bear. And then my father sent me to study surgery," he took a sip of his own drink. "I did, in a way. No education more efficient than necessity." Artemy had gotten off easily in the war. Never in any real danger, and frequently given patients who were not badly injured but that others just did not want to deal with. His experience with the Kin had taught him the way to sooth a man after he was a beast again.

Daniil curled in on himself, around the twyrine bottle. "I didn't go to the war. I was in the Capital, I never even got a draft letter."

"Better that you did not," And Artemy meant it. "No one should have been there."

Daniil took a long drink that emptied the bottle nearly to half and turned, swaying slightly, to face Artemy. "Burakh, why did you stop touching me? Do I smell that bad?"

Artemy was so taken aback by the abrupt change in topic that he let out a bark of startled laughter. "Erdem, you hate to be touched!"

Daniil flushed, he didn't turn away but he did cast his gaze to one side. "So?"

Artemy smiled and lifted his gloved hand to Daniil's chin, tilting until the dark eyes landed back on him. "Do you want me to touch you?"

Daniil's flush grew deeper and he struggled to keep looking at Artemy. "I.. I mean…"

Artemy's smile softened and he released Daniil's chin before spreading his arms wide. "Come, I have been told I make for a good pillow." Daniil pressed into Artemy and he was immediately reminded of a skittish cat. He did not grasp at Daniil or even wrap his arms around him like he might have with Laura. He leaned back until they were laid back in the grass.

Daniil shifted until he was tucked comfortably against Artemy, his head pillowed between Artemy's great shoulder and bicep. "You do make a good pillow." He conceded. "But.. You don't want more?"

Artemy closed his eyes. "No, kheerkhen. Because you do not want more. I am content with whatever you will give."

He felt Daniil relax, however little, against him. "Is that enough?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Daniil was silent for a long time. "It hasn't been in the past."

"It always has been for me." He carefully wrapped his arm over Daniil's shoulders. "And it always will be." Daniil made a sound that might have been a scoff and might have been a sob. Artemy did not press further and within a few minutes, felt Daniil's breath even with sleep. He left his own eyes closed. The world spun lazily around him, but it didn't matter.

She was dancing. It was not an herb bride he knew, but she danced and instead of herbs the ground bubbled with blood.

"That's it." He heard himself say it but did not feel himself speak.

"That's it." The echo of his own words but very much not in his voice.

He looked down and to his side. There stood Daniil, their hands clasped. "You see her?"

"Her?" Daniil looked up at him, confused.

Daniil woke with the absolute worst headache of his life, and the smell hit him first. The room was heavy with herbs, rust, soil, and unwashed bodies. The light in the room he was in was dim, a low burning candle. There was a clock ticking somewhere close by and he was absolutely freezing, it was not at all helped by the raggedy excuse for a sheet thrown over him. He groaned and dug in his pocket for a vial of morphine.

"He's awake!" The sharp, youthful voice was familiar, but Daniil could not place it and focus on where he kept his drugs.

"Do not bother," Artemy's thick voice came from somewhere in the direction of his feet. "I took everything out of your pockets so they would not break."

"Well bring it back." Daniil tried not to sound as pitiful as he felt.

"It will not help with the twyrine. Drink this."

Daniil wrenched one eye open, the room was pleasantly dark, no bright lights to worsen his headache. Above him stood Artemy, looking a bit like a mountain, and holding a thick glass bottle. With no other ready options, he took what was offered and drank it. He hated admitting it… But he did feel better. "What was that?"

Artemy smirked. "Water, Erdem. Have you really drunk so little in your life that you do not recognize it?"

Daniil flushed. "It… I thought you were giving me one of your folk remedies."

"The headache is caused by dehydration. Water is the fastest cure." Artemy took the bottle back when Daniil held it out.

Daniil rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He did not feel better than when he'd gone to sleep on the steppe…. With… Artemy.. "How long did we sleep?"

"Not long enough."

He glared at a blurry Artemy. "Hours, Burakh."

"I slept three, you slept five."

"Five?!" Daniil sat up and immediately regretted it as his world swam.

"You should have slept six."

"Why aren't you this bad?"

"You drank as much as I did even though I outweigh you by at least fifty kilograms and I have been drinking twyrine since I was old enough to help Bad Grief steal it." An enormous hand landed on his chest and pushed him back onto the thin mattress. "Rest Erdem, when you wake again, I may even have good news."

Daniil laid back down. All he could really remember was Artemy not pushing his boundaries, accepting Daniil as he was and then…

His eyes snapped open, his headache was gone but he was starving and there was Artemy, standing in the doorway, holding a dark amber bottle. "Quid est illud?"

Not twenty feet away, Bad Grief grinned like the cat who caught the canary and held out his hand. Rubin sighed and dropped ten into it.

Daniil blushed.

Folk medicine/ Tinctures | Autopsy | Following the Lines | Surgery | Blood & Organs | Wound Care | Addiction | Experiments

Day 1: In which Burakh shows Dankovsky how to cut someone without killing them, while extracting infected organs from a corpse. Dankovsky is too reliant on his medicines and Burakh encourages him towards natural rememdies (including fucking sleep).

Daniil always knew when Burakh arrived at the theater. Any steppe folk, even those lying in agony on hospital beds, turned towards him like flowers facing the sun, meanwhile any ordinary townsfolk would notice him and then immediately pretend they couldn't see him.

It was such a strange town.

"You haven't slept." Burakh had such abrupt greetings.

"Have you eaten?" Daniil shot back before indicating the bodies behind him. "We're studying the infected today, can you harvest organs? I need at least six to study."

Burakh's hand landed on Daniil's shoulder and he looked up from his work at the enormous man. His brows were heavy but seemed carefully arranged to make less of a glower, his lips were still turned in a hard frown Daniil suspected they all wore these days. He lifted a curious eyebrow at the sudden contact.

"Come, observe me oynon. I can show you how to cut so you do less harm. You've been taking samples from people? If you need to cut, you should do so in a way that minimizes harm."

Daniil might have been insulted, if literally any of his studies and training had focused on surgery. As it stood, Artemy was right, he was careful and fast, but unskilled. "Alright, show me your lines." He smirked.

Burakh laughed at him. "I cannot show you the lines oynon, but I can show you how I cut."

Daniil followed Burakh to one of the bodies, a townsperson lost to the plague. He wondered, briefly, if Burakh knew their name.

Burakh murmured something in his strange Steppe language as he pulled the sheet back to expose the full torso, discolored with death and the plague. He pulled out a knife so slender and long it almost looked like a needle probe.

"Where did you find a knife like that?" Daniil couldn't help his interest as he stood on the other side of the corpse. He wore a cloth medical mask but Burakh just had a bandana wrapped around the lower half of his face.

"It is the knife of a Menkhu, one of the Odongh gave it to me." His hands were steady and almost gentle. He did not cut a 'Y' shape into the torso as Daniil would have done, instead he followed a curved line along the body's abdomen.

"Isn't that less efficient? The patient would lose more blood?"

"It avoids major veins and does not do damage to the bones." Burakh peeled back the skin and muscle to show Daniil.

It would never stop amazing Daniil, how much a body changed in death. Nearly bloodless with rigor mortis, discolored from disease as well as cold and deoxygenation. "But it's such a long cut."

"A long cut is better if it runs with the lines," he showed Daniil the directionality of the muscles beneath. "Even a short cut through them will take longer to heal and will always heal badly. It will be stiff, they will lose mobility and strength."

Daniil nodded and watched Burakh plunge his giant hands into the cut. He winced internally, imagining those hands in his own flesh, cutting and pulling out his infected organs. His infected heart…

"You do not pull."

Daniil briefly thought he had spoken his thoughts aloud, but Burakh's hands were steady in their work.

"You cut, the organ, damaged or diseased tissue, or foreign object falls into your hand, then you remove. Just the way you came."

Daniil watched in amazement as the corpse didn't so much as shift, despite Burakh's size, despite the full size of…. An infected heart. There, in one of Burakh's massive hands.

"Now you."

Daniil's eyes snapped to Burakh. An immovable object of a man. "What?"

"Remove an organ emshen. As I have shown you."

Daniil raised an incredulous brow. "I thought you were going to demonstrate how to keep from injuring patients?"

"And I have. Now show you were paying attention."

Daniil sighed and pulled out his scalpel. In comparison to Burakh's knife, it looked clunky and dull. But he put a gloved hand to the body, he found the same spot on the opposite side and inserted. His hands shook, his cut was nowhere near as clean.

"What are you taking?"

The question made him lose concentration and he sliced viciously through the abdomen. The stomach would be ruined. "What?"

"Your hands shake like a drunk, but I know you do not drink twyrine. Not to excess anyway. What are you taking?"

Daniil turned his attention back to the body, he slid his hands and the scalpel inside. How had Burakh moved the knife without seeing where it was going? "Morphine, mostly."

"And?"

Daniil sighed. "And Strychnine."

Burakh made some sort of sound in his throat that Daniil thought was positive was bovine. "You should not. They are bad for your health and we need them for patients."

"You just said they were bad for my health." Daniil answered petulantly.

"Yes, in doses that make you shake. When you are dying already it hardly matters." His tone was flat and dry. "Take these."

Daniil looked up to find Burakh had produced several, rather large, bottles. "What are those?"

"Herbal medicine. Better for your health."

Danil carefully cut, what he desperately hoped was, the lungs free. "You need those for your own patients."

"You are one of my patients oynon. As much as I am one of yours." There was a beat. "When did you last sleep?"

Daniil pulled the organ out and was relieved to find a pair of lungs and annoyed to find them in perfect condition. "Tomorrow." He answered without thinking.

"Tomorrow is a future decision. When was your last one?" Burakh pressed.

Daniil sighed with frustration, even as Burakh took the lungs from him and placed them in an oilcloth bag. "I don't recall. Yesterday? Perhaps? I am having difficulty keeping track."

A large, gloveless hand, came to rest on his cheek, turning Daniil's face up to look into those dark brown eyes. The brows heavy but the expression soft. "You must rest oynon. You will be no good to anyone mad with exhaustion."

Daniil blushed but did not pull away from Artemy's hand. "Tell the plague to let me rest then."

"You have Stakh, myself, and your assistant. The town will not collapse if you take an hours rest while we work." Artemy pressed one of the large bottles into Daniil's hands. "Drink this and sleep. There are beds here, I will wake you before I leave."

"In the theater?" It was Daniil's turn to be incredulous.

Artemy shrugged. "The plague does not care if you are awake or asleep. Your time spent here is equally dangerous but you would have to cross two infected districts to return to Stillwater. Sleep here. I will work and I will wake you before I leave."

“You shouldn't waste your supplies on me. I have plenty.”

“I'm not,” Burakh’s thick Steppe accent was growing on Daniil. “These are from your supplies. I just put them on a plate.”

Daniil leaned back from his microscope. There was nothing there, the patient's blood was clean. He would need to take a different sample to know what was wrong… if anything. Maybe the man was just afraid, God knew he had reason to be. “Since when do you care about plates?”

Burakh gave a gravelly chuckle. It made Daniil’s skin tingle. “I do not. But you do. When did you last sleep onyon?”

That steppe word. Burakh never called him by name or the title he'd given anymore. Always the Steppe word he'd been assured was not an insult. “Three days ago, and again tomorrow.” Daniil answered almost jokingly. The look on Burakh's face told him it had not landed. “And you?”

“Last night, for an hour or two.”

Daniil noted he did not look the last bit sheepish to admit he'd slept so little just after berating Daniil for not sleeping at all. Though, he doubted a man built like a bull had the ability to look sheepish. He took the coffee Burakh had brought him. It smelled over cooked, but he couldn't care. “And when did you eat? You run around town and all over the countryside collecting herbs.”

Burakh's mouth quirked, almost a smile. “Are you worried about me, emshen?”

Daniil blushed and drank his coffee.

“I took a few eggs from your supplies, and your measures to ensure doctors get rations have been enough.”

So, Burakh wasn't eating. Feeding those children he kept in near quarantine first, Daniil was certain. “Take some coffee too.”

Burakh waved a hand. “I have no time to brew and they taste awful when eaten.”

Daniil sputtered. “Eat them?! Burakh, even here that cannot be a custom!”

Burakh gave one of those tight, enigmatic grins. “Try it sometime. It may suit you.”

“Why are you here Burakh?” His tone was waspish and he hoped it didn't drive Burakh away as it sometimes did.

He held up a bottle of thick red blood. “You can test this against the plague?”

Daniil took the blood. “Yes,” he looked cautiously at Burakh. “To whom did this belong and were they willing donors?”

“Mother Boddho, and yes. She gave me the blood when I proved my skill.”

I thought it was bright when I woke up, blinding white everywhere. It took several minutes for me to figure out that it wasn’t white. It was nothing. A nothing so profound that there was not even darkness. Somehow the opposite of a void, similar and yet completely different.

In my disorientation, a man appeared. Well, I think it was a man anyway, and honestly, he did not so much appear as I became aware of him. As though he had been standing there the entire time waiting to be noticed. Now I can recall nothing of him, as though he had been engineered to be so utterly boring and forgettable that no trace of him except the fact that he was there could leave itself in my memory.

“You did quite well,” His voice held no inflection. “Quite near the exact middle of the bell-curve. It’s almost as difficult as ending up at either extreme.” He looked directly at me then, but I cannot recall what his eyes looked like. “Of course we have protocols for just such an occasion,” He lifted one hand and a small white board appeared in it, as he spoke, writing appeared in neat, nearly typeset handwriting. “For every vice, you complimented it with a virtue, and for every virtue you experienced an adjacent vice. Neatly enough that both Heaven and Hell have equal claim to you, but as a human you have free will.”

I blinked, a little too stunned to absorb what he was saying. “Thank you…?”

“You’re welcome.” His answer was automatic. Rather like an automated voice system. “Because you have free will, you are allowed to ask me one question about Heaven and one question about Hell. I will answer truthfully, to the fullest of my capabilities and to both the spirit and the letter. Based on my answer, you will choose.” He lowered his hand and the clipboard vanished.

It was nearly on the tip of my tongue to ask who chose hell, but I caught it before wasting one of my questions. Instead, I nodded briefly and thought about what singular question could possibly engulf all I might care about in each place? Was hell hot? Heaven cool? Were both places so bright and full of nothing? If heaven was paradise, what did that even mean?

“Who waits for me in Heaven?” The question slipped out before I had even fully processed it.

If I thought the man could smile, he might have. “Your mother, your maternal grandmother, your maternal grandfather, every pet you have ever owned, and everyone in the line of your people who chose Heaven, whether in life or death.”

I nodded. “And who waits for me in Hell?”

“You father, your paternal grandmother, your sister, and everyone in the line of your people who chose Hell, whether in life or death and those condemned to hell based on the laws below reflected above.”

I nodded again. I had half expected some terrifying description of demons and devils. “So… My sister is there?”

If his voice could have been remorseful, I thought that it might have been. “Some of the laws remain unchanged.”

I took a deep breath, realized I didn’t actually need to breathe anymore and shook my head. “Very well. I’ve made my choice, but can I make a request?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot take requests.”

I looked around, there really wasn’t anything. It was suffocating and exposing all at once. “I suppose it’s not hard, since you haven’t even the free will to think of it that way, but you’re life seems even more difficult from an outside perspective.”

The man shook his head, the first genuine response I’d seen. “Oh, I still have limited will. Less than you but more than some things in creation. And the job is only ever difficult with people like you. People who must choose and who always choose for the right reasons.”

I smiled. “Maybe the next one will be able to make the choice you like better.” A staircase appeared at my side. It was dark, like the stairs to an unlit basement. It disappeared into a darkness as full of nothing as the bright I was surrounded by.

“I won’t know until then, and I won’t remember after you leave. Take care on the steps. It’s a long way down.”

“You care too much about someone going to hell. Anyone down there you know? I could tell them hello for you.” I put my hand on the rail. It had no temperature at all.

The man stopped. Totally still, like a printed image. “If you see a fallen named Lucy. Tell her I still remember her.” He flickered then, like a bit of malfunctioning hardware.