Chapter Text
Sylvester wakes up early in the morning from a dream about the beach. He dreams frequently, but most of them are dreams simply of being underwater. A deviation from the baseline means significance. So, he gets up, gets dressed, and heads to the beach.
His home sits on the flat top of a low cliff, with the ocean to one side and some distance walk to town on the other. Isolation behooves him, and the meadows surrounding all other sides are more useful to him than city streets, which are Leonora’s domain. He brings with him all the usual accoutrements that going on a gathering mission requires, as if he’s going to show up at the beach at all he may as well see if he can forage anything useful while there.
Dreams are vague. They deign to tell him if the reason he has to go to the shoreline is something pressing, or something that will happen much later. Sometimes it’s a summons from the seafarers, sometimes it’s just the universe telling him something interesting will wash up at low tide. He descends the curving stairway carved into the cliffside down to the small rocky beach with the practiced ease of a mountain goat.
The beach is the product of a curved inlet, a good few meters long but not very deep, just enough to dock and launch a small fishing boat should the desire exist despite the waves past the inlet being decidedly unfriendly. Sylvester keeps his eyes on the stairs until the ground evens out before him into pebbles and sand.
Then, he looks around and immediately regrets both checking and not having more specific warning. A mass of something bloody and organic lies in the surf, water staining red around it and seaweed trailing in a tangle off it. Parts definitely seem human, and it's still moving a little bit.
Sylvester swears quietly and sprints over. The mass is in fact humanoid, though either underneath or attached to a number of large bloody tentacles, all of which are writhing in an apparent attempt to help the prone body stand. “Don't- stop moving. I'm a doctor, hang on.”
His voice alerts this whatever to his presence, and Sylvester is rewarded by a head turning and fixing Sylvester with a red-rimmed glare. There's enough sheer vitriol in the expression to freeze him in place, halfway to kneeling. The person(?) bares teeth at him and snarls, sound inhuman and teeth sharp and pointed.
This isn't a seafarer, the face and most of the body shape are far too human, but the tentacles massed onto him aren't anything else Sylvester knows. A parasite? Something eating him? Before Sylvester can try and argue his intent to help further, a hissing voice comes from the ocean behind him.
“Step aside,” something gurgles, sibilants harsh and dragged out.
Sylvester looks, then internally swears again. A true seafarer is wading out of the ocean, dressed in scuffed coral armour and wielding a harpoon. He knows most of the congregations of seafarers that gather around here and while this one isn't someone he's met, Sylvester recognizes the ornamentation of the reef-dwellers. “Why?” he asks, switching to the language of the seafarers themselves. May as well make it easy while reminding them he is an ally enough that he's been taught their tongue.
The seafarer stops, close enough to converse while still being in the water to his waist. “I'm protecting my city.”
“This is my beach, not your city, and I've made it quite clear for my entire residency that no death is to occur in my territory.” As much as he'd prefer not to pick sides in what seems to be deeply someone else's problem, the problem is now on his shore. The seafarer scowls and hisses in clear displeasure, his tail lashing in the waves behind him, but he also doesn't step closer.
Sylvester stays standing, gaze and expression even. That rule was largely to protect the seafarers themselves from superstitious humans wandering in from town where they aren't welcome. It's allowed them to trade with Sylvester for years. Breaking it opens an entire host of problems. “You know not who you protect.”
“Rules are rules. Tell me, then.” He's worked out worse deals.
Instead of the seafarer, the quasi-corpse at Sylvester's feet just laughs drily. “Let him. I lost a fight.”
The seafarer startles at the voice, raising his harpoon towards the body. “That Awakener attempted to storm and plunder our city. He lost. Took good men with him. I won't have him coming back.”
That does manage to surprise Sylvester. An Awakener? Those aren't common. But it does present an opportunity to keep the sanctity of his beach intact. “If he's an Awakener, I'll link with him and prevent him from returning to your reef. Consider him dead.” It could be not entirely bad for him. Depending on the severity of the Awakener's madness, he could prove perfectly reasonable once linked. And if not, Sylvester can soak the animating force from the silver core until he can be dealt with.
A sound somewhere between a snarl and a guttural cough comes from the Awakener at his feet. Sylvester ignores him for the time being. He's picked his side, may as well commit to it. The seafarer doesn't lower his spear, though. “You humans, all the same. And when he leaves? I kill him now and never fear for my gates again.” He takes strides toward the beach, which Sylvester very much does not like.
Alright, fine. Second bargaining chip before this guy gets close enough to stab him. Sylvester draws a pistol from within the folds of his cloak, leveling it at the seafarer. He's quite glad he's very good at a poker face.
The seafarer laughs at him. “You would kill a man to save a ghost?”
“No. But I would shoot you in the shoulder to ensure that no one is killed on my land.” It makes the seafarer stop, at least, and the harpoon lowers a smidge. “I have no stake in your affairs, but I do know I cannot stand by while one person attempts to kill another in front of me.”
The seafarer makes a noise of displeasure, then looks between Sylvester's gun and the still-prone Awakener oozing blood into the rocks. He is aware that Sylvester has done a fair bit for the reef and that makes him both trusted and owed a debt. The blade is lowered. “Fine, then. But if he reappears, I'll take not only his head, but yours as well.”
“Fair deal. Agreed. You'll have my blood without a fight if that happens.” He's really not sure that's a good idea, but he is at least fairly confident in his ability to restrain a badly injured Awakener until it's clear what he has to do. Morality unfortunately requires that he can't just let someone die without trying to help, no matter who they are.
The seafarer eyes him warily, but is satisfied enough when Sylvester returns the gun to its pocket in his cloak. The harpoon is shouldered as well, and Sylvester gets one final scoff thrown his way as the seafarer turns and sloshes back into the waves. “Do not forget,” he says, before disappearing beneath the sea.
Sylvester exhales slowly, then turns immediately businesslike to address the Awakener. He had assumed the other was passed out from blood loss by now, but is pleasantly surprised to find he's still conscious and breathing. “Alright. You heard him. You're going to have to link with me.”
He's still being stared at, though now with less open animosity. “You should have let him kill me. Or you can shoot me.”
“Can't,” Sylvester says as he tosses his cape back and rolls up his sleeves. “It doesn’t have real bullets.” It is, in fact, mostly a noisemaker that scares off the simpler predators and works for a bluff the few times a wanderer has tried to rob him. The ethos against killing anything he isn't going to use remains firm. He sticks his hand out toward the Awakener, offering a link and waiting.
Instead, there's a pause, then a loud bark of laughter that dissolves quickly into coughing and a pained grunt. “You're an idiot. Fine.” He turns his head away again and Sylvester feels the other end of the link form.
It hits roughly. An unlinked Awakener has their mentality slowly degrade without the stabilizing effects of a living Keeper, the drives and traits of the Awakener's original consciousness turning into obsession and amplified lust for violence. They do also degrade in physical power, at least, which is why Sylvester presumes this Awakener was routed by seafarers he tried to attack, but a weakened Awakener is still a problem for a score of humans to handle. All of the mental pollution hits Sylvester like a wave when the link is accepted.
Violence and obsession, a desperation to sink one's teeth into power. Sea dyed red with blood. Hate and anger, an alien sense of betrayal. Fury compounded. Sylvester breathes in deeply and lets it pass over him.
He's lucky he's both a practiced witch and a pacifist, or he would like as not have drowned in the link. He shakes his head to recalibrate. There's already a notable draw on him as his life attempts to patch up the worst of the holes in the Awakener's body. It's not going to work for everything, but Sylvester will let the link take enough so they can both get back to his house marginally alive. “Don’t move. I need to see how injured you are.” As well as what his body plan looks like.
Sylvester tries to brush off the tendrils of seaweed that are clinging to tentacles and get hair out of the way. He’s interrupted by those same tentacles shuddering and trying to press against the ground as the Awakener grunts and attempts to get himself up. “What did I just say?”
A grunt. “My legs still work. It’s not–” something is said in a harsh tone that implies a vehement curse in a language Sylvester doesn’t speak, “Not gonna bleed out yet.”
There’s really nothing Sylvester can do but bite back his exasperation at difficult patients as he helps the other stand on shaky legs. He can, in fact, still walk. Though it’s more classed as limping, with the tentacles providing extra points of balances, and Sylvester doesn’t look forward to navigating the stairs.
He somehow ends up co-opted as a balancing device, one oversized and heavy hand on his shoulder as he attempts to provide what little help he can dragging the other to and up the cliffside. Standing rather than lying in a heap makes it apparent that not only is this guy seemingly half-seafarer, he’s also somewhere in the vicinity of seven feet and bulky as all hell. The amount of weight he’s putting on Sylvester’s shoulder is very obviously only a fraction of what he could put, and only that little through sheer effort. He can feel the hand there shaking a little.
He doesn’t mention that this is entirely unnecessary and probably riskier than just letting him come back with stitches and whatever he can wrangle into a crutch that wouldn’t snap under what’s probably well over a hundred kilos of weight. Sylvester has met difficult patients before. While this might be the most difficult, the principle is the same. Do what he can until this guy collapses, and then treat him the way Sylvester wants while he’s too unconscious to argue. Consequences can be had when no one is bleeding to death.
It’s out of sheer luck that none of the wounds on his new Awakener’s torso split open and leave entrails dragging over the stairway. He grumbles something about how if he hadn’t lost his sword this would be easier, and there being too many damn stairs, and Sylvester is too busy trying not to fall over in the process of helping to drag a heavy body to comment back.
They do, at least, get to what Sylvester points as his home (rather obviously, since it’s the only visible building) without anything more than a trail of blood left behind. As soon as the door is shut behind them, the giant mutters something utterly incoherent and promptly collapses between the entryway and the living room.
A firm prodding reveals him unconscious again. Sylvester sighs. As if this guy wasn’t already trouble. Whatever. Probably better to be unconscious for stitches, and if he has to do wound care in the living room then so be it. Blood can be washed out of flooring. Probably.
He dispenses with outerwear and hops over the body. His office has a majority of the supplies he needs, and anything else is in the kitchen. He grabs bottles of salve and rolls of bandages alike and sets about. There’s an entire drawer he raids that is reserved generally for trade with the seafarers, wound washes that don’t irritate amphibious skin. A bucket of water that he realizes with some annoyance won’t be near enough and he’ll be going to and from the well quite a lot today.
Ah well. Such is his chosen lot in life. He throws down towels and sets about for a long job. Now that everything is still, he can take a much better look for triage. A human base body, largely, so human medication for the center of mass. Arms are scaly and less injured due to that, like as not. The tentacles growing from his back on the other hand are quite bruised and scraped up, which will be hell to take care of, but also less of a priority. His hair is snarled and bloodstained, and a length that Sylvester finds quite impressive for this day and age, but will have to be tied back. There’s a nasty scar on his neck that seems not completely recent, but somehow a bit inflamed. Not great. Multiple torso wounds, stabs and cuts that Sylvester is pretty confident he can identify which of the seafarers’ preferred weapons did which injury.
He’s relieved to find that none are on their own individually life-threatening or seeming to puncture organs, just a few quite risky ones around the abdomen and one oozing cut on the forehead that doesn’t want to close. He won’t have to call Leonora for any surgery, and this is all something he can manage.
Belatedly, Sylvester realizes he never had the time to ask this guy his name. Not like there was a good chance for it, but he’d like to at least know who is bleeding on his floor and why he tried to kill a bunch of seafarers. (Though, given the violent impulse Sylvester got in their link, he has a guess it was at least in part due to being unlinked and having nothing else to direct him. But still.) He doesn’t really have the time to include doing a divinatory reading in triage.
Guess he has no choice but to figure it out when they guy wakes up. Sylvester resigns himself to live in an air of mystery for a while. As it is, he has enough on his plate. Clean, stitch, tie, salve, bandage. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, until he feels like his vision has narrowed down to nothing but the mechanical process and thoughts outside of that fail to occur.