[ SNEAK ] - though the instructions were clear, your suspicions can't help but lead you away from camp — unannounced, of course, for if the silvermane guards knew they would surely bring you back. but they can't stop you from trying to find out the secret behind this sudden blizzard. (or the aftermath...)
it has only been a few days, but you've grown — at the risk of sounding particularly callous — almost bored of the frenetic energy that has taken hold of belobog ever since the return of the eternal freeze. still, though it wasn't so much a decision as it was an inevitability, your choice to stay on the planet of jarilo vi and volunteer at one of the many makeshift infirmaries for the sick and injured — is not one you regret. so it's no surprise when, one early morning, just as the sun is about to rise, shy yet revealing itself through a single stroke of painted gold across the rapidly-lightening sky, a silvermane guard urgently requests for you to follow them. they mutter something quickly about someone getting injured quite substantially, so you excuse yourself from the companionship of a woman with a lingering cough and accompany the guard to your next patient.
you are — surprised, though, when you see this patient. less so by his identity, a man you recognize from an earlier encounter on the herta space station — as you have seen far more surprising individuals here than him — but more so by the nature of his injuries. it's immediately obvious that this man had gotten in a fight and, by your estimate, did not exactly win — though when you discover that it was the silvermane guards who had been his opponents for reasons still unclear to you, you have to wonder why. the guard who brought you here has, rather skittishly, disappeared from view. a revelatory detail surfaces mildly in your memory: there had been a curious bruise forming on that guard's left cheek.
gingerly, you rifle through the first aid kit that silvermane guards have to spare. something to sanitize with is the most important thing. without looking at the man, you address him as you pick out supplies one by one, “may i take a closer look at your hands, mr. apocalypse?” now that you think of it, the silvermane guards didn't even tell you what the injuries are. at least from here, you can make out the angry red on his knuckles, the backs of his hands. setting the measly bit of gauze aside, you extend your hand expectantly for his. “one at a time, please. and let me know if you are hurt elsewhere. the silvermane guards haven't been the most transparent about the circumstances surrounding your injury … what happened?”
The aptly reply to one's request for help is usually a strange side glance and a wonder of intention with a situation like his. Out within the snow and perhaps wandering where he shouldn't, evidenced by his roughed up visage and the tangy smell of copper, so why would you extend yourself for a troublemaker at his beckoning? You would be much safer as an average citizen to take yourself back indoors and phone yourself up the authorities of your local station or parliament.
But he does not surround himself with the innocent upper crust of civilians in his issues unless they are adamantly in the way of the greater good. This ? Being injured by the Silvermane Guards in his escape after they had spotted him through a book store and into the alley around the edges of this town, that was just something he'd have to deal with on his own. And on his own he managed to track a familiar face in a bit of a stupor as he pitched quite a tough sell to even someone of meager stature within the ethical medical field. A slight bend of the ear as it burns, you see.
Good on him for being able to pick the needle through the hay with the individual's previous behavior on display, an attachment for his previously useful actions evidently enough to warrant being memorized. Charmed. It's when he offers his hands that he notices the particular bruising he has formed all across his knuckles and wrist. It was still so new to be reminded he had blood within his system so frequently as this—his first tussle within the Lantern Rite had left him in quite a shock, but bleeding more than twice in one festival was quite new. He wishes to run his hands over his tender fists and hidden bruises near the center of his mass. A broken rib, not even a year after returning in idealized flesh, how quaint in its hilarity!
"You can, my dear. I've overdone it with this body a couple of times, so a lesson in hubris is sometimes warranted." He allows some personal information slip, this universe had far more pressing things going on. If this turned against him one day, what is some more lying to an Apocalypse?
He watches his first hand be prepared for wrappings, but not before they are cleaned with instruments she had fetched. If the inquiry into his recent activity was anything to go by, it'll probably be best to indulge. Stories for services—or maybe just passing the time before payment is due. Whatever it may be he obliged her request.
"You could say I set about a string of misfortune upon their dear Captain. A fellow with golden hair not unlike my own, but he's quite broad and speaks intensely when not an absolute sweetheart for his citizens. I had taken to becoming a patron for a local theatre and let's say, an actor took my words most personally." He does not go further than that while he keeps his tone most positive. The lack of detail surely and purposefully aids an overworked mind to dwell and ponder, if they should. "A bit of property damage to the stage and being reported seen amongst the ruins of their offline power source, once, has gotten me quite in trouble. I can assure you no trouble like that is my direct fault, and I arrived properly after the power had gone out across the city. They'll need more than words to prove I've done anything."
It was then, when his hands were being finished, he did extend an olive branch of the full truth. "I do seem to have broken a rib as well. I don't realize how the stock of their weapons could hurt so with enough force from their older soldiers, but tis the folly of flesh."
