☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות
"O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
"O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
There is a quirk of his brow. And then: I find it difficult to believe Prince Adonai has much opportunity to invite guests at his leisure, not due to a lack of means but rather of opportunity. Of course, he isn’t wrong. Adonai has been kept isolated; far more isolated than I would have ever allowed him to be, given his symptoms.
(But, then, I am not in charge of his symptoms, although I am likely the most qualified doctor in Solterra. I do not say that, either.)
“Perhaps, then,” I say, simply, “you should come and visit him in the manor sometime.” It doesn’t mean anything, but I am a doctor. I cannot say that I care for Adonai in the way that a sister should (and, besides – he has never been a particularly kind brother to me, much as I’m sure that he would rather be perceived as one), but it would be better for his health to have more visitors. “I am sure that more company would be good for his health.”
That might be the most genuine remark that I have given him. It is certainly the only one that indicates I might have the barest implication of a heart buried somewhere beneath my stone-mottled skin.
I do not allude to what I know of my brother’s health, of course. I do not allude to the poison; I do not allude either to what it has done to his mind. I do not allude to the way that paranoia and ill-temperedness fester in isolation, and neither do I allude to the way that he has slowly been abandoned by most everyone else in his life. Let him draw his own conclusions. His comment has told me enough that I know he will make them – and perhaps they will even be true, or something like it.
(I do not allude, either, to my interest in finding my brother after the party – once I know that no one will be looking, or listening too hard.)
He asks me why become a doctor, Ruth? It is not the first time I have heard that question; I doubt it will be the last. I certainly don't need to be one. My family is too wealthy for me to ever have any need to work, and my work is messy and difficult and all-consuming besides.
He is standing on the edge of the balcony, now, his eyes turned away from mine; and I remain near the door, without approaching the railing.
“Because,” I say, “the same quality of mine that makes for a rather poor socialite makes me a very good doctor.” That is not a matter of pride; it is a matter of fact. Solterra does not have many doctors, and, among them, I am almost certainly the best – and I spend my days sweating and bloodsoaked in the emergency ward, in the hospice ward, left to deal with the most difficult and dangerous cases. Solterra is dangerous. It is no exaggeration to say that I save lives daily-
-I can still smell the scent of blood and rotting, venom-eroded flesh from a beggar they dragged in this morning, when I close my eyes; I spent hours cleaning off his dead flesh, dousing him in antiseptic, staunching his wounds. Once, he nearly slipped away from me, but I did not let him go. They do not call me much of an angel, save for when they are in a delirious haze, from blood loss or from one drug or another, like I have heard them call one of the doctors from Terrastella, but I-
I know at the core of me that the reason why I can say them is something evil. I know that I can only save lives because I do not care if my patients live or die; I know that the only reason why I am so good at my job is because I do not panic under pressure, that I do not break if something goes wrong.
I tell myself that it is fine, because I know that I am doing right.
(Is it?)
Regardless: what else could I tell him? Because – there is something wrong with me? Because, no matter how much I have spent my life begging to anyone or anything or any god that will listen to fix me, there is some part of me that will never be quite right.
I could say the third daughter of House Ieshan is a sociopath, in the purest sense of the word, or even I am a sociopath, but – those are not words for polite company or strangers.
(They are probably not even words for family.)
@Vercingtorix || <3 || atwood, "fox/fire song"
(But, then, I am not in charge of his symptoms, although I am likely the most qualified doctor in Solterra. I do not say that, either.)
“Perhaps, then,” I say, simply, “you should come and visit him in the manor sometime.” It doesn’t mean anything, but I am a doctor. I cannot say that I care for Adonai in the way that a sister should (and, besides – he has never been a particularly kind brother to me, much as I’m sure that he would rather be perceived as one), but it would be better for his health to have more visitors. “I am sure that more company would be good for his health.”
That might be the most genuine remark that I have given him. It is certainly the only one that indicates I might have the barest implication of a heart buried somewhere beneath my stone-mottled skin.
I do not allude to what I know of my brother’s health, of course. I do not allude to the poison; I do not allude either to what it has done to his mind. I do not allude to the way that paranoia and ill-temperedness fester in isolation, and neither do I allude to the way that he has slowly been abandoned by most everyone else in his life. Let him draw his own conclusions. His comment has told me enough that I know he will make them – and perhaps they will even be true, or something like it.
(I do not allude, either, to my interest in finding my brother after the party – once I know that no one will be looking, or listening too hard.)
He asks me why become a doctor, Ruth? It is not the first time I have heard that question; I doubt it will be the last. I certainly don't need to be one. My family is too wealthy for me to ever have any need to work, and my work is messy and difficult and all-consuming besides.
He is standing on the edge of the balcony, now, his eyes turned away from mine; and I remain near the door, without approaching the railing.
“Because,” I say, “the same quality of mine that makes for a rather poor socialite makes me a very good doctor.” That is not a matter of pride; it is a matter of fact. Solterra does not have many doctors, and, among them, I am almost certainly the best – and I spend my days sweating and bloodsoaked in the emergency ward, in the hospice ward, left to deal with the most difficult and dangerous cases. Solterra is dangerous. It is no exaggeration to say that I save lives daily-
-I can still smell the scent of blood and rotting, venom-eroded flesh from a beggar they dragged in this morning, when I close my eyes; I spent hours cleaning off his dead flesh, dousing him in antiseptic, staunching his wounds. Once, he nearly slipped away from me, but I did not let him go. They do not call me much of an angel, save for when they are in a delirious haze, from blood loss or from one drug or another, like I have heard them call one of the doctors from Terrastella, but I-
I know at the core of me that the reason why I can say them is something evil. I know that I can only save lives because I do not care if my patients live or die; I know that the only reason why I am so good at my job is because I do not panic under pressure, that I do not break if something goes wrong.
I tell myself that it is fine, because I know that I am doing right.
(Is it?)
Regardless: what else could I tell him? Because – there is something wrong with me? Because, no matter how much I have spent my life begging to anyone or anything or any god that will listen to fix me, there is some part of me that will never be quite right.
I could say the third daughter of House Ieshan is a sociopath, in the purest sense of the word, or even I am a sociopath, but – those are not words for polite company or strangers.
(They are probably not even words for family.)
@
HE FEEDS ME RED MEAT / HE WATCHES THE BLOOD POOL IN MY MOUTHlaughs at my red teeth❂please tag Ruth! contact is encouraged, short of violence
