The Arena Riots ( open, gamewide )

[civilobedience]

Who: The Militia, the city, and you.
What: The Arena Riots.
Where: The Arena, Griss Twist.
When: Newdi, Eliaderen 1. (Monday Oct 1st)
Notes: Companion post for questions and plotting is here.
Warnings: Violence, police brutality, disturbing content and imagery, graphic death.

It's apparent even before dawn that something out of the ordinary is happening. Canton sheriffs are roused from their sleep or pulled away from their work to be told that on no uncertain terms, today will be a day that they do not leave their neat lines on the map. That their individual offices will be responsible for all crime and unrest within their jurisdictions, with no help; the powers that be offer no details, but the creeping feeling in their presence suggests no questions would be tolerated anyway – the implication that they'll all be watched is a strong one. In Mog Hill, Sheriff Norrington proceeds as he always does under such orders. In Mafaton, leadership is stoic but one deputy laughs, sharp and bitter, while the Emissary of the Council merely checks his watch, unseen underground. Sir Hellsing is pulled away from her dinner in the Guild Hall, a Sobek Croix deputy anxiously relaying the news. The sound of shattered glass disturbs the pre-dawn silence in Flyside, a brick hurled by some faceless figure into the front window of Thames – and nothing else.

From the Spire, hooded Militiamen move quietly and uniformly south, to Griss Twist. They are followed by wagons, full of prisoners.

Comments

[amberdrake]

Ah, but that's the thing with kestra'chern. You don't have to come to them for therapy, to end up getting it. But right now that entire subset of his training and instinct is taking a back seat, so Severus is safe. Probably. For now.

Amberdrake glances up while he's bandaging up that freshly-stitched leg, the Healing Gift automatically giving the tall young man a once-over assessment. Nothing too detailed, of course. Not without touch. His blue eyes are slightly unfocused with the Gift -- most Healers from his world can't even speak while working, for fear of breaking their concentration.

Drake, of course, is not most Healers.

"It's not for keeping me awake," he turns back to his work, having felt the air of knows-what-he's-doing from the other man. It means Amberdrake can let him poke around in his tea, at least. "It's for keeping me from going into shock when the Gift eventually catches up to me tonight."

Because oh, it will. And there's no Gesten and Aubri here to pick him up out of the mud and pour the foul stuff down his throat when it does. So, he's keeping a steady amount of it already in his system, ready to go when the Gift comes looking for payment.

"It's the blue thermos in the bag over there," a jerk of his head indicates the bloodied backpack leaning against the wall over yonder. Said bag is full of all sorts of field-ready medical supplies.

The tea itself is made up of Velgarthian herbs, and smells like it would melt a spoon. He's not bothering to doctor it up like Gesten does.

[inkdamage]

Severus doesn't respond, and instead goes to investigate the indicated bag. It's only bloodied for another moment, as he mutters something at it - scourgifying it thoroughly, he's not shoving his hand into something covered in Merlin-knows-what's blood - and retrieves the thermos. He has no idea what the Gift is exactly (though he can guess), or what toll it will take on this man, but he can make an on-point hypothesis based on the tea. After a thorough inspection, he gives the thermos a shake, and it refills itself, proper potency and all. Stretching concoctions, duplicating atoms - all things he can do second-nature, though substances are not infinite, and only go so far. He sticks the canister back in the bag.

"Do you need anything specific?" His voice is low, but audible; this is someone who is not very talkative, but used to making himself heard anyway. Across the room, someone is bleeding all over Vanessza's floor. Severus eyes them, but without any urgency. It isn't that he's unconcerned, but he hasn't been invited to act as a medic, and he knows better than to go sticking his fingers in wounds when the other professionals around him have no idea whether or not he's capable, triggering unrest.

[amberdrake]

Drake has finished with the bandaging at some point during this, and is sitting back on his shins, wiping his hands clean. He watches Severus quite carefully as he does so, taking the moment in between patients to assess this odd stranger. He's probably the first person he's run across today that isn't a fellow medic -- that he knows of -- or grievously injured.

Or panicking, for that matter. Amberdrake's shields, battered and bruised as they are, aren't being beaten on by this particular man.

And that, in this situation? That is definitely noteworthy. And worth paying careful attention to while he has the chance. Backseat or not, the kestra'chern instinct is what it is, and the latest addition to the Kings of the Haighlei Empire is no fool.

He gets up to go to the next person -- the one bleeding everywhere, immediately slowing the blood-flow with a touch of his fingers. "You look like someone who knows his way around a wound," he says, and not to his patient, though he offers her some murmured words of reassurance as he begins, before continuing to Severus, "You're acting calm, but not shell-shocked, and you're not flinching at all the wounded in here."

Because while his Empathy is a useful tool, it isn't the only way he reads people. Kestra'chern are trained without it, too, and he's had some twenty-seven years of practice. Mercenaries, mages, psychologically traumatized veterans, abuse victims... just about anything a decade of war and a decade of recovery can throw at a kestra'chern, spanning five sentient races.

And the quiet, perhaps fussy ones (yes, he noticed the cleaning of his backpack) isn't unfamiliar. Even coming in a tall and skinny and other-worlder package isn't something Amberdrake hasn't dealt with before, but he keeps any thoughts of golden blond hair and eerie violet eyes firmly out of his way. He can't afford to be distracted with sadness and nostalgia right now.

[inkdamage]

On a list of 'mercenaries, mages, psychologically traumatized veterans, and abuse victims', Severus hits an alarming number of points, but any wandering tendrils of empathy will find themselves hitting a curiously distant target. Occlumency is not merely psychic shielding, and keeps a great number of sins covered. ... Like human emotions, yes. Though not completely, to be fair; Severus is Just Sort Of Like That.

"My magic does not always mix well with injuries inflicted by other means," he says evenly, offering a reason why he isn't up to his elbows in gore already in place of any explanation about himself. It's true enough, anyway, he doesn't want to attempt to heal someone and have it react badly. He's more useful when he has a wider scope, and the ability to pick and choose where to apply himself for maximum efficiency.

And besides, he isn't interested in a heart-to-heart.

[amberdrake]

The distance isn't all that peculiar, Drake just figures the guy has some shields, like he himself does. And he has never relied on that Gift, having not even been trained with it initially.

Whatever he does get off him with it, well... Drake is quite used to the emotionally shut-down. It's not going to make him so much as bat an eye.

Amberdrake is silent for a moment as he knits vein and muscle and tendon, piece by piece. He can't spare the energy to numb the nerves in the area he's working on, so the woman has gone quite pale with the sensation.

He only Heals it to a safe depth for stitches to take over, as he did with Wolfgang. Then he goes about doing exactly that with his neat little chirurgeon's stitches.

That he's working bare-handed with other people's blood doesn't seem to be an issue for him. There's zero scent or sign of infection, here. "I would ask if you were willing to assist, but none of this is quite so bad as to warrant it." And he's certainly not going to ask the guy if he wants to come along out there where it's apparently protocol to try to gun down Healers.

He'll save that sort of thing for if and-or when he knows him for longer than two minutes. If ever.

"Beyond that, I wouldn't know what specifics you might be offering. Are you the alchemist I was told about?" Because the guy had made a bee-line for the subject of what he was drinking...

[inkdamage]

"Presumably."

Something in his tone says that he's not actually close enough to Vanessza to know for sure, but that even if he wasn't, that Amberdrake has now lucked out by getting him and not some other alchemist. (And he has, let's face it.)

It's an interesting thing, watching someone mix magic and modern medicine. Severus isn't a mediwizard, but functions as one close enough when he has to, and he's done enough research about non-magical healing to get by there, too. It's helped, in being a teacher. The number of sucker-punched noses he's had to fix...

"I can refill anything you're working with, or give you substitutes for now." He does not volunteer to assist with the hands-on healing; Severus won't be staying for long enough to get fully involved, though if someone truly a heartbeat from death stumbles through the door, he'll throw his hat in on grounds of not being completely soulless.

[amberdrake]

"It seems fortunate we've met, then, as I will undoubtedly need such things in the future," but not tonight. He was prepared for the ever hungry, ever unpredictable beast that is the War to come slinking out of the shadows and feed.

He's always ready for that. Nearly sixty year old Amberdrake will, in that future, still be waiting for it. When his daughter heads off on her first mission for the Silvers, armed and armored and trained, accompanied by her gryphon partner Tadrith, Amberdrake will be expecting the War to lunge after them.

And he'll be right.

It's always out there, waiting. Always. Urtho's people have learned this lesson well.

"My name is Amberdrake," he offers once he's done applying expert bandages over his stitches. He hasn't ignored his patient, speaking to her in quiet tones during the procedure. But it's obvious when he's talking to Severus, because his tone has been trained to carry as well. He's no teacher, but kestra'chern are performers in many ways, and now that he's a King... well. It comes in handy.

He doesn't quite prompt the younger man for his name, curious to see if he'll simply give it or not. You can learn a lot about someone by how they respond to you giving them your name.

[inkdamage]

He does give it, but perhaps not in the most polite of ways. Behind him still, Severus conjures a small card - his name and CiD number written on it in slanted handwriting - and sticks it in the bag he cleaned a moment ago. Then he leaves the room, walking with one hand out as he passes, and any gore and grime left from blood or sickness vanishes.

In his wake, there's a number of useful odds and ends left with Vanessza, ranging from hyper-effective bandages to topical painkillers to ever-smoking potions in glass jars meant to revive anyone who drinks it. But as he's not participating in the triage itself, that's about as much help as he's going to be, and lingering any longer will just put him underfoot. Outside the apartment, he turns on his heel and disappears, off to investigate the situation from some other angle - or perhaps, merely return home.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake would make a poor kestra'chern indeed if he was easily offended or ruffled, so he just continues on with his work until this latest wave of incoming injured are dealt with.

When he goes to leave shortly after, he's pleased to find the card when he goes to dose himself from the thermos again... and he's intrigued to find the state said tea is in. Yes, he'll definitely be contacting this 'Severus Snape' once things have calmed down.

For a variety of reasons, perhaps. Drake is, under all his present exhaustion, curious.