Chapter Text
You were doing your best. You were doing your best. You were doing your best. And it wasn’t good enough.
He was losing so much blood. It was rapidly coating their cloak and hair, sinking in and staining it dark and wet. Isabeau’s clothes were faring no better, holding him as he was. You were in the back of a shaking wagon, which was most decidedly not the best practice for treating someone who had just suffered a grievous injury – to the face – but you didn’t have a lot of options. They needed medical help quickly, and it wasn’t help you could provide.
You’d known it was beyond your skill even before you’d assessed it. Swift Siffrin. Stalwart Siffrin. Sharp-eyed Siffrin. If you were half the team member that Siffrin was, this wouldn’t be a problem. He was the first one to spot the danger, the first to react, and the first the throw himself between Bonnie and the Sadness. The sharp crack of Craft, the wet smack of flesh, the jarring rip as it split, the chilling snap as their skull gave way, and the warm caress of their blood hitting you in the face.
The passing evacuee had been the closest thing to a blessing from the Change God you’d ever actually received. Even now – crammed in the back with the cargo, with Madame and Bonnie up front – you could scarcely believe it.
Back on that damp grass hunkered over his body, splayed out and limp from where he’d collapsed – but not before still managing to kill that Sadness – you hadn’t even known what you were looking at. Their face was completely covered in hot blood, and you couldn’t tell what was injury, what was just blood, and whether that flapping bit was skin or their eye.
Now in the covered wagon lit by small lanterns, you could actually see what you were working with, and it was not good. You were using water from your canteen to dampen a handkerchief, trying in vain to clean the wound and better assess the damage.
Well, good news: his eye was still in the right place, and the torn skin was holding on better after your healing. You couldn’t speak to the condition of their skull, nor would you like to guess. You had some medical training, but nowhere near enough for this – and even if you did, there was no way you’d be remembering it right now. It was all you could do to remember not to overuse Healing Craft. You’d already hit him with a big blast of it in a panic, and now you were slowly pumping it through his head, trying to staunch the bleeding and numb the pain – if he was even feeling any. They didn’t seem to be awake, lying completely limp and occasionally letting out a quiet moan.
Even with the driver pushing their horses at full tilt, it still took the better part of an hour to reach the closest town. There wasn’t a dedicated hospital, but it was a large enough town that the House of Change would have a decent set-up. Hopefully they’d be equipped for a middle-of-the-night eye surgery.
The driver rode right up to the front entrance of the House, skidding to a stop. Housemaidens came out to investigate the ruckus, looking annoyed. Their tune quickly changed when you and Isabeau climbed out the back, Siffrin limp in his arms. One of them spun and ran back inside, shouting words you couldn’t hear; the other herded you all inside, led you down the corridors. The first Housemaiden intercepted you, wheeling a stretcher down the corridor that Isabeau laid Siffrin on to. Once he was secure, the Housemaiden cast a Craft on him, and sprinted past you, writing something down on a clipboard you hadn’t even see them holding until that moment.
You were led to a room with big double doors. Siffrin was wheeled inside, but the rest of you were kept out. Other Housemaidens – medical professionals infinitely more competent than you were – rushed in from elsewhere in the House.
Exhausted, you sank back against the wall, sliding down until you were sat, legs finally giving up as the adrenaline lost its purpose. People were still talking above you, Isabeau and Madame you reckoned. It seemed like they were arguing, judging by the way Madame kept hissing as she tried to keep her voice down. Bonnie was in front of you, their hat stained with blood, and you could see some on their cheek from your angle. The argument above you concluded, and Isabeau stepped forwards, gently placed a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder and led them away. They were too shell-shocked to protest.
There was a soft thump as Madame Odile sat next to you. She didn’t speak. Or, she might have – you couldn’t really focus enough to hear anything. You just stared at the doors.
The sound of running footsteps drew some of your attention. A tall muscular lady, wearing what was clearly pyjamas, ran past you and into the room they took Siffrin into.
Then nothing. Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing. For who knew how long. Nothing. You just sat there. On the floor. Covered in your friend’s blood. Madame left, returned with a bucket and washcloth. She held the cloth in front of you, and when you failed to react, started dabbing at the blood – their blood – on your face. The cold water shocked some sense back into you, and you took the cloth, mumbling something that might have passed for thanks. While cleaning yourself off, your eyes never left the door.
Eventually, after an achingly long wait, the lady from earlier – who you now realised was the surgeon, woken in the middle of the night – exited the room, scribbling on a clipboard. She looked exhausted.
“The patient will live,” she muttered, and the words were like lightning bringing you back to life, “Sorry, normally I’d be more professional about this but I’m spent. This is the report, you can ask one of the Housemaidens any questions once they’ve got the patient settled in a room.”
You took the offered clipboard, tried to thank her, started crying. Odile thanked her instead, while you tried and failed to make your body do what you wanted it to. Siffrin was wheeled out, and you followed as he was taken to a new room and transferred to a bed. The Housemaidens fussed over them, and you took the opportunity to read the report you’d been handed. Madame Odile peered over your shoulder as you read, skimming it for just the important details.
Diagnosis: Craft-based laceration to left eye and surrounding face. Multiple fractures to the skull.
Treatment: Eye was removed, wound was cleaned, skull fractures sealed. Patient will recover.
Notes: Patient was in critical condition, having suffered heavy trauma to the head, and having lost a significant amount of blood. Initial investigation revealed rushed application of Healing Craft, stemming most of the bleeding early, and preventing further skull damage. Severity of wounds indicates that the healing Craft, while rushed, was vital to survival. Further investigation revealed parts of the eye and optic nerve had been fused to the surrounding tissue and bone, resulting in the need to remove the eye entirely. Surgery was completed without further complications. Patient should be monitored and fitted for a prosthetic.
His eye… was gone… because of your rushed healing.
As if reading your mind, Madame set her hand on your shoulder. “They’re alive because of you,” she said.
“And missing an eye,” you replied, voice haunted and quivering.
“But alive.”
“They could have saved his eye if I hadn’t have messed it up.”
“You did the best you could, and it saved. Their. Life.”
“But I didn’t. I used too much unfocused Healing Craft because I was panicking. I could have done better and then maybe it would have been fine.”
A Housemaiden – the only one still in the room – cleared his throat. “It, uh, actually probably wouldn’t have been fine. Eye injuries are extraordinarily difficult to recover from at the best of times. Getting damaged in an attack meant to kill turns those odds basically nonexistent. I mean, he was in as critical a condition as someone can realistically be. Without intervention, they would have assuredly not survived long enough to receive surgery. The only way that eye was surviving is if it had been healed near-perfectly on the spot.”
Madame Odile looked at you meaningfully. You said nothing.
“He won’t wake up any time today,” the Housemaiden continued, “you should go get some rest. Come back tomorrow and we’ll have an update for you.”
You nodded numbly and let yourself be led from the room.
A week after Siffrin’s surgery, and you still hadn’t apologised for failing to save their eye. You were trying, but you kept crying whenever you saw him, which was making it somewhat difficult. They were handling the whole thing remarkably well, at least – if the number of eye related puns was anything to go off of.
No matter how many times he laughed and acted like it wasn’t a big deal, the knot in your chest wouldn’t go away. It pulled tight every time you saw the bandages covering their face, threatening to buckle everything that held you up, and tears began to spill out whenever you stared for too long.
You’d been avoiding him because of it, only really interacting with him when you were helping with the necessary aftercare from the surgery, and it was eating you alive.
But now it was time to go. The curse would sweep over this place soon enough, and so the rest of their recovery would have to happen on the road. You knew that if you didn’t tell him now, then you never would. You’d find distraction after distraction on the road, an endless number of reasons to justify it ‘not being the right time’ to tell them.
So you went to him after dinner on the night before your departure, and didn’t tell him. You helped clean the area around the healing scar, and didn’t tell them. You helped him get the conformer out, clean it, and put it back, and didn’t tell him. You helped them wrap fresh bandages and secure them in place, and didn’t tell them.
It was only when you stood to leave, and walked halfway across the room, that you finally managed to wrench your body to a standstill, and force your mouth to say the words.
“Siffrin, we need to talk about your eye.”
“I’m not staying behind,” he said immediately, voice firm and broking no argument.
“No, no, it’s not that. I know you still want to come with us, and I’m not going to try and talk you out of it. If it didn’t work for Bonnie then why would it work for you?” Something flickered across their expression at the mention of Bonnie, and you silently cursed yourself. Bonnie still wasn’t talking to him, and you reminding him of that wasn’t helping. “W-what I wanted to talk to you about,” you hurriedly continued, “was, um, the actual injury itself. I wanted to apologise.”
He raised an eyebrow at you. You assumed it was just the one, anyway – the other was hidden under the bandages, so it was just as likely a shocked raising of both.
“For?” he asked slowly.
“For not saving your eye!” you blurted.
They narrowed their eye at you. Confused? Angry? Oh he was definitely angry. Who wouldn’t be angry?
“Whuh?” he asked, “You saved my life, though?”
“But- but I—”
“Mira, they showed me the report. They even explained loads more technical stuff about the whole thing that kind of went over my head, but the gist is that you saved my life, right? If you hadn’t have done something, I’d have died. An eye seems like a fair trade for my life.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“It’s fine,”— they waved a hand flippantly, smiling wide, —“now go on, get some rest before we set off tomorrow.”
And that was that. He ushered you from the room, smiling the whole time. You returned to your own room, settled down with Bonnie. That was that. Right? But you couldn’t shake the knot, the feeling that it just hadn’t really sunk in for them, that they were brushing it off too easily.
But then you had the rest of your journey to complete, and a King to overthrow, so it fell to the wayside.