#(hmmmmmmmmmmm)

GUYS GUYS GUYS ITS FINISHEDDDD IM SO HAPPY OMG pls this took SO long but I actually finished it :D

frames and tag list and yapping under the cut

Please... no more sad

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

But this one was different. Unsettling.

A tall, pale silhouette that didn't blend into the crowd, but parted it. You couldn't afford to forget his face, for it seemed to always be present. Nor could you forget his name, for with it you returned his greeting every time he bowed to you.

"Mr. Flins," you acknowledged, crossing your arms without smiling back. You had stopped doing so over time.

The 'friendly' smiles given to those you had no wish to see were a gesture of cordiality you no longer found necessary to entertain—a lack which didn't seem to bother him, for he always returned. Sometimes, in company. On such occasions, no one greeted or smiled, for the companions he brought with him, despite leaning on him, limped as they approached. They grunted in pain when they moved. And when you examined them on the stretcher, the blood from their wounds grimly stained any attempt at trivial conversation Flins might make, since the scene itself was the only argument he needed to justify his presence.

A raw reminder that, whether you wanted it or not, your world and his were soaked in the same scarlet liquid.

His solemn silence was a courtesy presented to the wounded waiting to be mended by your hands, as well as a small mercy for your own lack of predisposition to speak with him. The latter was a truism in essence, although Flins never quite came to understand it completely.

It was... disconcerting. It tickled his curiosity, even.

He could accept it.

Your behavior was an unusual puzzle, and the Lightkeeper had eternities to sit and contemplate its pieces.

He learned, on those nights he stayed to illuminate your nursing tent while you worked, that your compassion wasn't based purely on benevolence. The help you offered to strangers was warm, but, at the same time, it was cold. Were all doctors like that? He wasn't sure. Flins had never needed one, and he could count the few he had met in the past.

"Why do you linger?" you asked once, rubbing a tired shoulder when no one else remained in the tent, save for the two of you. There was no aversion in your features, but he had nonetheless noticed the slight irritation in the shadow of your words. "I understand you feel responsible for your colleagues. That you want to hear the prognosis with your own ears. But, at least today, you didn't bring me anyone. In fact, hardly anyone has come today."

The bluish flame of the lamp Flins held flickered, as if your doubts had stolen its breath. Still, his usual smile remained unfazed.

"It's a simple matter, really. The tea you always brew gives off a pleasant scent." With a pause, his gaze slid toward the teapot. "Although you never offer me any."

It was a half-answer, a sidestep. His cheek was annoying, and equally annoying was his skill at evading the truth with a small, almost childish, complaint. You fixed your tired eyes on him, unblinking, while your fingers tightened a little more firmly on the edge of the worktable.

"The tea," you repeated, with a deliberate flatness in your voice that stripped the word of any familiarity. "Did you really expect that, after bringing a man with his side split open like a fish for gutting, I would sit down to share a cup with you as if we were old friends?"

Your attention also shifted from his face to the porcelain teapot resting in a corner of the table, still warm. The scent of Qingxin floated in the air, a small, foolish luxury you allowed yourself amidst the smell of disinfectant and dried blood.

"The tea is for those who wait inside the tent," you continued, your voice laden with a fatigue that was more mental than physical. "Not for those who plant themselves in the entrance like a cursed pole." Despite the freezing air of the night, you brusquely rolled up the stained cloth of your uniform and grabbed the teapot. Not for him, but for yourself. You poured the liquid into your cup, and the steam rose like an ephemeral spirit between you two. "If you want a cup, you'll have to earn it. How about you start by answering the question truthfully?"

Flins observed the ritual: how your fingers closed around the porcelain, clinging to the warmth that the outskirts of Nasha Town could never provide; how you blew softly on the surface before taking a sip. His smile, for the first time, seemed to crack, acquiring a nuance of genuine curiosity, as if he were studying the coin of an empire whose history had never been recorded.

"‘Earn it’... A fascinating, mundane concept," the Ratnik mused. His head tilted slightly and, consequently, his long, bluish hair spilled from his shoulders like water running between the islands of this land. "You 'earn' your pay by healing the sick, curing the wounded. The wounded 'earn' their relief by enduring the pain, then following your advice. I... what exactly must I earn? Tea, or a moment of your attention free of conditions?"

Your hand stopped with the cup halfway to your lips. Was he being condescending? Or was his way of thinking simply that strange? His words were no longer a complaint, but an observation. An elegant delusion, if you squinted. But a delusion nonetheless.

You lowered the cup slightly, murmuring while avoiding his gaze, "You don't stay for... the tea."

"Don't I?" The flame of his lamp grew, illuminating for a second the void that always surrounded him and, also, the high walls you had built around yourself. He barely noticed the distrust hidden in your eyes before he shook his head briefly. "It is one of the reasons. But no, it is not the main one."

"Why do you do it, then? Why do you even come back?" you inquired again, with a hint of bitterness you couldn't disguise. "Do you come to observe the suffering? It's a macabre pastime..."

"Oh. Please, do not misinterpret the nature of my company. I return here to observe clemency." Flins straightened up, his shadow lengthened until it engulfed you. His smile had vanished, replaced by a seriousness that was, somehow, much more disturbing. "You do not heal out of love for your own, I know that. You do it out of an obstinacy against death. It is a more selfish battle, but no less honorable, Doctor."

Your skin prickled.

He wasn't here for the wounded—or not only for them. He was here for you. He fed on the interaction, even on your rejection. Your refusal to normalize his presence was, ironically, what gave his visits their deepest meaning. To offer him a cup would be like offering him a chair in your own mind. It would be to acknowledge him as something more than a persistent acquaintance. It would be to admit him as a guest.

Flins made a soft sound, not a laugh, but something like the creaking of old wood when one steps on it. "Your reluctance is... singular? Refreshing, perhaps? Most simply grow accustomed to my presence. They accept it. They overlook it, like another piece of furniture, when I'm not playing storyteller. But you do not." He took a step forward, so silent that the whisper of his clothes was more audible than his feet on the bloodied canvas. "You brew your tea, you deny me the cup, and you turn my visit into a reminder of my own... condition. You are the first person, in a long time, who makes me feel so visible."

Your stomach churned, a dull nausea that made you press your lips together. Something seemed to warn you that the conversation was twisting, slipping from your control. Flins was not a colleague, nor a friend, not even a patient. He was a presence, a constant. And constants, in your experience, always hid a variable that sooner or later would show its true face.

"Is there anything I can do to make my company more agreeable?" he continued, and the cool-toned light played with the contours of his face, accentuating the expression that had become amused again. "I would be delighted to know. Anything you wish, it's a trivial price."

"Your words are strange, Mr. Flins," you replied, leaning your hip against the table to disguise how your knees were trembling slightly. "The two of us are nothing more than acquaintances."

"Do not feel obligated to call me a friend." He made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. "Friendship is just a name for a chain of favors and debts. We do not need names, for they are like layers of frost on a window. In the end, they only cloud the view. That can be fixed with time."

"I don't— ugh." You sighed, exhausted. "I don't intend to establish any bond with you."

"I insist, for I could be of service to you in the future. One never knows when the world might turn hostile." His voice was silky, persuasive. "I have already started, you know? To serve you. Those monsters that were prowling around the eastern camp... they will no longer be a problem for your patients. A small gesture of good faith. To smooth the path."

You set the cup down on the table with a sharp clack, making the clear tea splash onto the wood. The heat of the porcelain, once comforting, suddenly felt like a burn. "Mr. Flins."

You hadn't heard anything about that. The certainty in his voice was absolute, calm. It wasn't even an offer, but a demonstration. It was his way of saying my influence already touches you, even if you don't see it. His way of beginning to weave that chain of favors and debts from which he so cynically claimed to be free.

- Catelyn Stark to Brienne of Tarth (A Clash of Kings, Catelyn VII).

'She is such an innocent.'

- Jaime Lannister about Brienne of Tarth (A Storm of Swords, Jaime V).

'And what is it you like in a woman, m’lord?'

'Innocence.'