A scalpel's kiss is sweeter than you think

"A humming sort of sound?" Now Isla glanced at Remi, a frown on her face before she turned her gaze back to the body. "...Heat, friction... it could even be magic, for all we know." She shook her head. "If someone with disintegration magic or life-draining magic were strong enough, would this sort of thing be possible?" With every second they got more and more questions with no definitive answers. Well, apart from one. Isla tilted her head and approached the body again, examining it as best she could without disturbing anything within the ribcage lest the girl simply melt everywhere. "Yes..." she said slowly, "but only at an advanced stage of decomposition, and I'm not sure they would carry the scent you described or be quite this... black. It's like ink. But regardless, by that point I would expect the body's exterior to have begun to break down as well. If we had not made those incisions, this girl was practically still warm. It has barely been a few hours since she passed." Isla the flesh is weak

As she mentioned magic, Remi was forced to concede with a shrug of his shoulders. "Magic really does complicate the world." He said with a chuckle. It broke the laws of nature and defied almost everything he thought he knew about how the world was supposed to work. Here he was trying to parse out a realistic solution, when, as Isla said, magic could all just be responsible. "I do not know. I always thought that life-draining magic just pulled the life out. I would have expected it to be dry and barren if that were the case. Or gone with disintegration." He was no expert of course and perhaps Isla would correct him. But from what he could see, if it was magic, it wasn't the type he was familiar with. "Hours?" Remi exclaimed clearly surprised. Given the state of the woman's insides he too would have thought it would have been longer than that. She looked like a swamp filtered through some sort of blender; not someone who had been breathing and moving the day before. REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love

"That it does, Remi," Isla agreed with a sigh, shaking her head and deciding that she really didn't need to see any more, at least not yet. Carefully she folded the skin back in place, retrieving a hooked needle and the sutures that she would use to close the incisions once more. Having no working knowledge of magic, especially magic outside of healing, she couldn't really comment on his assumptions. He could very well be right, and she said as much with her nod as she worked. "Would that we could see a body that has been disintegrated, or one that has had all life drained from it," she commented ruefully. "For now, though, this one girl has opened up a thousand mysteries with but three cuts to her abdomen." Falling quiet for a few moments to concentrate, Isla responded to Remi's surprise with an equally as uncertain 'mmhm', before finally taking a break to speak up. "Yes - she was only found earlier today. Those who brought her in were even hopeful I might be able to do something to save her, but she was already dead by then. I didn't think to ask if she was breathing when they found her." Isla the flesh is weak

"What is the point in sewing her back up now?" Remi asked curiousily, his voice tinged with interest. After all, if they were just going to bury her (or...what would Isla do with her?), what did it matter? Unable to help the grin that splashed across his face at Isla's word play, the alchemist nodded. "I do not mean for this to sound ... well. How it is going to sound ... but do you think we could use her to lure the monster out? If I were to create a spyglass for us to see with?" Kindly as Remi was and respectful as he tried to be, there were mysteries out there that he wanted answers to. If this dissection hadn't yielded many answers, perhaps this young woman could help in other ways. "And those who brought her in were not injured?" From what Rory had said and what Remi had experience himself, you could spend a short amount of time near the barrier and come out unscathed. Or perhaps he'd merely been protected in some how he wasn't aware of. REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love

Isla's eyes creased at the corners in response to Remi's question - she finished sewing the longest incision before carefully removing the cloth around her face so she could answer him. "There are a number of reasons, the primary one being that her organs are practically liquefied. Leaving it open could cause things to... er, spill, if you catch what I mean. Not only that, but she was a person and she may have a family. If they come to identify her I imagine they would prefer her looking as much like she was as possible." Which made his second question more than a little macabre, not that Isla didn't understand it. She too had an incredibly thirsty mind, but she was also someone who cared, for the most part, about people while they were alive. While she didn't allow it to affect her work, she would certainly not ignore it outright. "Perhaps we ought to wait until someone claims her. If nobody does, we can consider it certainly." She nodded to him. As for the others... "They didn't look injured and didn't mention anything. I believe they were just foraging when they came upon her." Isla the flesh is weak

"I'd prefer to not catch it." The alchemist swiftly replied, playing off her own words with a cheeky grin despite the fact that there was an open and liquefying body before them. The mention of the woman having a family sobered Remi up considerably, and he nodded his head with a solemn sigh. Just because no one had collected her yet certainly did mean that no one would, and he felt a bit impulsive for his suggestion. Besides, there were likely other ways that the pair could test out their theories that didn't require the use of someone's loved one being used as bait. Watching as Isla finished suturing up the woman, he gave the healer an impressed nod. "You make it look so much easier when your patients are not moving around." He chuckled, mostly referencing himself both as a lion and as a man. Twitching his lips, the alchemist looked around. "Will she simply remain here until she is identified?" He asked curiously with a tilt of his head. Perhaps some sort of cold-storage facility would be next on his to-do list for the medic. REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love

"Yes, they do tend to be a lot more well-behaved when they don't have a pulse," Isla said with a wry smile, though she didn't glance back at Remi until she was finished with her stitches. When she was done, she moved to thoroughly wash her hands and make sure all of her tools were in place so that she could sterilise them. "The conversation is terrible, though. I'm glad you were here." Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she glanced over the body again at Remi's comment. "There isn't anywhere else for her to go," she said. "I am not usually in the business of dead people. And this is... well. This is the first body that has ever been brought to the infirmary since I took it over..." Isla the flesh is weak

Grinning, the alchemist watched the medic complete her work, marveling at just how steady her hands were. That was a skill he could definitely appreciate since a steady hand was important in his line of work as well. Unlike him however, Isla seemed much more neat and ordered when it came to completing her tasks. No doubt his shop of half-made horrors and random implements had bothered her. The idea of her sneaking in to straighten and arrange popped up in his mind and made him chuckle as he watched her finished rinsing off. "Fair enough." He said with a gentle nod. "Perhaps you need a pet to talk to while you work." Immediately Remi shook his head retracted the statement, realizing how inappropriate and improper it would be for the medic to keep a pet around where it could potentially introduce hair and bacteria into what was supposed to be a sterile working environment. "So you were a third-waver?" He asked, leaning against one of the walls and folding his arms gently. "Did you come over with anyone?" If Remi remembered correctly, that was the wave that Martha had come in, and while he wasn't trying to pry into the medics life (love or otherwise), he was interested to know if he was perhaps keeping her from returning home to anyone. REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love

"I could, I suppose, but your company would be more pleasant," Isla said with no uncertain amount of honesty, the medic grinning across at Remi. There didn't seem to be much left to do with the poor girl for now, so Isla counted up her tools and began to wheel the table out with her, motioning for the alchemist to follow. "If you'd like me to talk you through any more procedures, I'd be happy to," she said. "The patient doesn't even always have to be dead. A quiet laugh escaped her lips; dark humour was her fallback, what could she say? Glancing to Remi again as he spoke about Northaven, Isla shrugged her shoulders lightly. "I came over with two shapechangers - one of them was the veterinarian - but I don't recall if there was anyone else." She smiled, wheeling the table to an area where she could sterilise everything. "Before Northaven I was on the battlefield because of the war. It was a good opportunity to bring my skills where they might be needed." Isla the flesh is weak

"Well I suppose I shall have to come up with some sort of sleep supplement if we are going to keep these hours." Remi chuckled in response. Then again, it wasn't as though he was spending his nights doing anything of interest anyways. He'd gladly lose some sleep to spend time with Isla and try to learn all she had to teach. Following her, Remi grinned slyly at her back. "Oh is that so? Well given my track record perhaps it will be me you work on next anyways." Listening, Remi nodded his head. It made sense that she'd been on the forefronts given her skill set. "So strange to think back on those times .. I did little to assist the war in any meaningful way. Even the wares my father sold were of no value to those that bought them, much less the state of the nation." Offering Isla a casual shrug, Remi put his hands in his pockets. "Though I do not take the loss of lives lightly, I cannot say I was an advocate for the war. Not that it was my place to have such thoughts on way or another." REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love

"A sleep supplement?" Isla laughed to Remi. "You won't catch me complaining about that. Sleep is the enemy for any healer." And that was putting it mildly. "But if you'd prefer you can always drop by in the afternoon rather than the dead of night," she reminded him with a gentle nudge of her elbow, transferring her tools to a metal container that she would add spirits to in order to make sure they were as sterile as possible. It was hardly Northaven, but it was all she had right now. That done, she cleaned off her hands again and turned back to Remi, scoffing to him. "You might be right about that. We'll have you stitching your own wounds in no time, Remi," she said, leading him out of the infirmary proper and back into the waiting area where they could sit and chat without having to worry about waking any of the patients. She smiled a sad smile as their conversation turned to Northwind and its war, Isla nodding in agreement. "Any loss of life is a heavy burden, especially for someone like me. Were it up to me there would have been no war. But since I wasn't in charge of that, at least I could help minimise the death toll as best I could. Do not feel sad that you didn't assist the efforts." She shook her head. "What of you though, Remi? When did you come to Northaven?" Isla the flesh is weak

Remi grinned. Sleep was certainly the enemy of his creative mind as well, but it was also a balm when the world spun a little too quickly. Then again, perhaps he'd need to try and work out a way that dreams could somehow be dampened. He couldn't take seeing his mother's weeping face over and over as it was pulled into the muck and mire. Hers, or Loren's. Isla's gentle nudge snapped his mind back to the present and he smiled wryly at her. "Ahh you mean meeting up like normal people?" He chuckled back with a wink. "And have everyone thinking you're shirking your duties by making your patients stitch themselves up? Never." Following her out, Remi took a breath of air that was wonderfully full of things that did not smell dead. He hadn't realized just how stagnant and stale the air in the operating room at been until his senses were reminded of what it was like to breathe normally. Remi found himself nodding in agreement with Isla's take on the war and her part in it. As she asked about him, he squinted as he tried to recall. "The second wave. There were so many of us I found myself meeting those I'd apparently come through months later with no recollection of who they were. I had thought by coming here I might be able to help build a better way.." Realizing how absurdly naive that sounded, Remi shot the healer a foolish grin as he leaned back into one of the chairs. "I had thought because the population would be so much smaller in Northaven that perhaps my inventions could be of more use. And now here we are with an even smaller population, and—" Eyes widening slightly, he glanced up at Isla. "You do not think we will have to worry about increasing the population .. as we were meant to in Northaven?" REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love

"Yes, that." Isla laughed to Remi. "Though I'm not usually an advocate of anything normal, unless it's to hand someone a clean bill of health." The world was full of curiosities and she was keen to find the root of them all. And if that meant sleep supplements and meeting with a fellow academic in the dead of night, so be it. Her smile was broad as he continued, and she waved him off. "Ah, but under the guise of teaching a young medic-in-training, perhaps my patients would be more forgiving," she said - not that she saw Remi as a future medic, not unless he wanted to be. Hearing the alchemist out, Isla leant against the edge of the reception desk and nodded in understanding. "I can't imagine coming through with so many people. And there's nothing wrong with trying to find a better way, Remi. Ever." She grinned to him, folding her arms across her chest and raising her eyebrow at his sudden change in topic. Unable to help herself, Isla let out a peal of laughter. "I certainly hope not!" she said. "It is remarkably difficult to keep people alive with a child in tow. I'm not planning on increasing the population, at least. I feel like you may have similar feelings, based on your reaction." Isla the flesh is weak

Remi grinned at the healer and nodded. "Only one way to find out I suppose. I must say though .. I like the idea of actually learning rather than just waving my hands and making things better." Even when it came to his new-found creation magic already Remi felt as though there was something insincere about it. Of course it expedited his work in ways he couldn't have imagined, but still there was something empty at about just popping things into existence without putting in the work. He assumed that something similiar might be said about healing. Remi nodded emphatically. Issues of his sexual inclinations aside, Remi saw no need for such a mandate. He hadn't even really seen the need back in Northaven either. "Perhaps if it truly does come down to a matter of survival but ... We are not alone here after all. And the people who have dwelt here for hundreds of years seem to have managed." Tipping the healer a wink, Remi tried to look aloof for a moment (failing spectacularly) before settling for a grin. "Though if it does come to that I suppose you can say that you tried your best in Northaven and found out you were barren. Or that you ingested a healing-balm gone wrong. I am sure with your expertise you could come up with something. " REMI So come on, get higher, loosen my lips, faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard and drown me in love