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ficletober 2022 day 10 (but late) - philippa pov of dijkstra/isengrim ft. merihart

When someone important to him ends up in hot water, Dijkstra desperately calls in a favor from Philippa.

Takes place ambiguously post-canon, at least 5 years after Philippa unsuccessfully attempts to have Dijkstra assassinated. Contains vague descriptions of burns, near death experiences, and medical treatment. Also Canon typical Philippa eilhart.

Philippa's emergency alert trilled, the one very few people on the Continent had the ability to trigger. She sighed, pausing in the midst of applying her eyeshadow to rummage through her belongings for the damn xenovox.

"I could still kill you, you know," she said as the little box crackled with sound. "I may no longer have leagues of assassins at my immediate disposal, but I could kill you personally."

"Phil," spoke a familiar voice over the xenovox. There was a strange quality to it that had little do with the tinny sound of the device. "I'm not all that in the mood for jokes right now."

"I don't ever joke. I'm very serious."

Philippa finished dabbing gold shadow along her lids and switched to a silver liner. She had been expected at Sabrina Glevissig's Enchanted Chef party an hour ago and hoped to swan in forty minutes before the end of the event simply to place a very large order of discounted Chaos Cutlery and then leave.

"You know I wouldn't contact you unless it wasn't absolutely necessary. Phil, I need your help. I'd like to call in that favor. You said you owed me one."

She had said no such thing in so many words, but she had contacted the man who now publicly went by Sigi Reuven when she had learned of his return to Redania to tell to him that she regretted the way they had parted. He was more useful to her alive than dead these days, as her true allies dwindled to almost nothing.

"Dijkstra," said Philippa. "I had hoped you wouldn't be brave or stupid enough to take me at my word. I don't owe anybody a single thing. Besides, I have an appointment."

"Damn it, Phil."

The desperation in the man's voice alarmed her. Ordinarily, he knew better than to take any sort of tone with her. She did not tolerate men who dared to raise their voice in her presence.

But she had never heard that sharpness in his voice. It was curious. Whatever weakness could inspire that tremble of fear in the voice of a man like Dijkstra could prove to be very curious indeed.

"Say please," said Philippa, rubbing her lips together to smooth her freshly-applied blood-red lipstick. "And know that if you've wasted my time, I will not hesitate to finish the job I started years ago."

Not ten minutes later, Philippa sailed on silent wings through a dark forest, unsure what she would find when she reached the Temerian army encampment up ahead.

Dijkstra had all but begged for her assistance and yet been tight-lipped about the details. It was all very complicated and politically dull as usual. An accomplice of his had failed to appear at a rendezvous. News of a covert impending execution of said accomplice spread. Dijkstra could not intervene himself without compromising fragile alliances, and ordinary foot soldiers would be unlikely to succeed anyhow. Not without significant casualties, and not before the execution could be completed.

The most interesting detail she had managed to uncover was that the doomed man was no man at all but a Scoia'tael fighter. An elf. One who, by the regard with which Dijkstra spoke of him, sounded like quite the interesting character, one the spy did not just respect but considered a trusted friend, perhaps more.

It would be a pity if the elf was killed before Philippa could figure out just how interesting.

The rescue itself proved to be incredibly anticlimactic.

The soldiers in the encampment were prepared for bowman or calvary, not a lone bird of prey and a swiftly-opened portal.

The pyre had already been lit when she soared into the clearing. That the elf was not screaming as the fire lapped up the legs of his trousers, she took to mean he was an idiotically brave and stubborn creature or that he had already perished of smoke inhalation.

Her talons dug into his stiff shoulders.

As she shaped the portal around them and tugged him away from death, she saw that he was somehow conscious, his green eyes wild with pain in a horrifically scared face.

The portal snuffed the flames, a billow of smoke following them as Philippa dropped the body of the elf to the stone floor and rose with a flap of her great wings to stand as a woman before Dijkstra in his study.

But Dijkstra had already fallen to his knees beside the prone body of the elf, tugging at his smoldering cloak to hold him crooked up in his arms. His hands trembled as he touched the frayed edges of charred fabric, hovering above the angry red of burned flesh.

"Get a healer," demanded Dijkstra, as though Philippa had not already paid her debt.

"I'm fine," croaked the elf, in a voice choked with smoke, but his teeth chattered in the throes of shock and agony.

Dijkstra swept away his sweat-damp hair, and the elf turned his furrowed brow against his big palm. A breath later, he finally slumped into unconsciousness, and Dijkstra's bulk bowed over his body, gripping him in despair.

"Isengrim," he mumbled against the elf's hair. "Don't you croak on me, you old bastard. Not like this."

Philippa grimaced and triggered her xenovox. She was not, after all, as cold and heartless as she would prefer to be.

"Triss," she spoke into the face of the device. "I'm afraid I won't be making it to the party after all. Would you make sure Sabrina places my cutlery order? And then, I would like you to hurry to the location of this device. Bring medical supplies. A burn kit. It's urgent."

Triss Merigold arrived as swiftly as she always did when Philippa called.

After an hour spent tending to the wounds of the prone figure laid out on a futon in Dijkstra's office, Triss sat back and declared that he would live.

"Though he will–" She paused and swallowed, looking at the elf's sleeping face, perhaps realizing that what she had been about to say was rather foolish. "He'll scar."

Dijkstra laughed, his thumb tracing the groove of rippled scar tissue along Isengrim's cheekbone. He had knelt on the floor by the elf's head through the whole procedure, though now when he stood, it was achingly slow, favoring his knees.

From her perch on his disorderly desk, Philippa had watched him carefully as Triss worked. There was something about his distress that felt almost embarrassing to watch. Too earnest and raw. He had to know that this was a vulnerability easily exploited, and that someone like Philippa would not shy away from exploiting it if the need arose. And yet, Dijkstra did nothing to withhold his fretting, as though he could not.

From time to time, he had leaned to brush his lips against the elf's clammy forehead, to rub soothingly at his arms when he whimpered in pain, to mumble soft words against his hair.

Philippa wondered what would happen if the elf were to succumb to his wounds, if Isengrim Faoiltiarna breathed his last here and Dijsktra had to rise and go on without him.

It would be unpleasant to witness, she decided. Some part of him would remain kneeling on the floor beside the dusty futon for the rest of his days. She had not thought a man like him capable of such lasting sentiment, but she saw its ugly truth now.

When she had tired of watching Dijkstra, she watched Triss. The girl's soft hands worked deftly, flickering with warm light. Those gentle hands passed with the same care over Philippa's body most nights, as they had for far too many years now, as they likely would until one of them inevitably snuffed out of the world.

Philippa hoped it would be her who perished first, only so that she would not have to know what stranger she became when she left Triss Merigold's body behind.

"Come on, Triss," she said. "You said he'll live, well, that's that then. Debt paid. A life for an attempt on your life."

"Thank you," grunted Dijkstra, the spent adrenaline of the night leaving him pale and wrong-footed. His attention soon returned to the figure on the futon, lifting him swaddled in a woolen blanket to carry to bed. "Good night," he said, distracted, and disappeared through the dark doorway.

In the silence of the study, Philippa allowed her hand to rest for a long moment on the crown of Triss' head.

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