This was the last, lonely place that Lucas had to explore within the belly of the Temple. And really, what else was there to do when the world was going to writhing shit outside? Besides, he had heard that the resident medic was missing (and they made his nose tickle anyway) so what better time to go for a meaningless walk through the ward of an infirmary?
It was emptier than he had imagined, given their recent influx of torn-to-bits people, and the Ascended's footsteps echoed softly in the darkened hallways. He brushed long fingers over the curtains used to separate the beds, green eyes flashing in the dark as he glanced around. This was not productive in his search for the alchemist's mask, but even a people person like himself needed a break every now and then.
Rory was resting, in his restless, uneasy way. Jigano knew how he felt, but had no doctor's orders to confine himself to a bed, nor desire to sleep until exhaustion forced his body into dreamless unconsciousness. Isuma was keeping watch over the hunter in his stead, the gryphon more somber than she had been before Long Night and all its attendant horrors. He hoped that it would pass and the spring would return her natural cheerful buoyancy, but for now his own grief and guilt weighed them both down.
He was not as fragile as he'd been when he'd first dragged his friend into the Temple, thanks to Rexanna. Rory, Amalia, and Edy had all survived, after all. But everyone was still tense and on edge, waiting for the next emergency, the next death knell to sound. The next assault on their protections. He should have been downstairs, encouraging his other friends, coaxing joy back into fearful hearts, but... not yet. He needed more time. Time to heal wounds no medic could reach. Those who had been outside with him... those who had felt the madness... knew something of what it was. Those who hadn't, well... he hoped they would never find out. But he couldn't find it in himself to reassemble his performer's mask just yet, from the broken pieces that still lay scattered at his feet.
For now the Infirmary was quiet, though, the remaining patients resting with their guardians and Isla's assistants taking what breaks they could to grab food or sleep. Jigano busied himself with cutting and rolling fresh, clean bandages in the dim light, fox's eyes better for seeing so he didn't need to bother anyone else with brighter lights. He glanced up briefly at the noise of soft feet whispering over stone, expecting one of the nurses to be returning, but instead he saw a stranger, green eyed and strikingly handsome wandering by, seemingly unhurt...
"Are you here to see one of the patients?" The tall, white-haired man asked softly. He was dressed in his usual clothes of pale colors, fitted close to this body and flowing into loose sleeves and trousers. His long hair was pulled only loosely back instead of in its usual braid, and his bruised eyes held shadows deeper than the dim infirmary lighting could account for as he watched Lucas approach.
The quiet snip of bandages was regular enough for Lucas to determine that it couldn't just be the infirmary making its own noises, and his keen ears took him automatically in the direction of the sound. What he found was not the sort of medic his mind would have conjured, but then this whole place made little sense, so for all he knew this might be ordinary.
The man looked familiar, though, in a way that Lucas could not immediately place. He was sifting through centuries of memories, still, when the stranger spoke and his thoughts scattered to dust in the wind.
"No," he murmured with a shake of his head. "I was simply curious about this place, is all. With any luck I will never have a reason to visit, but it is always good to know where to find a healer, no?" He glanced around once more, frowning. "Is it always so... dead in here? Forgive the term."
Where to find a healer? Oh, Isla...
"Of course," Jigano said, not as smoothly as he once would have, but with a quiet nod. "Things have... changed around here, recently. But we can take care of most minor injuries. Even moderate ones. And for anything more serious, the Rathskeller's mistress can use magic to stabilize a patient." Lucky indeed, that the bar and the infirmary were so close together now, and not just for the medicinal effects of alcohol as cleansing and pacifying agent.
Once he would have smiled at the play on words. Now he just tilted his head in acknowledgement of the phrasing, still too much a professional to let it go without notice. "Usually? No. But then, nothing is 'usual' about this cursed Long Night, now is it?" He hesitated then raised a hand to forestall answer, shaking his head in apology. "Forgive me. I am a bit... stressed. I do not mean to snap. Most people are either safe at home in hiding, or already gathered downstairs and hypothetically safe. Only a few are foolish enough to go outside right now, and most of those who have are here, resting and recovering... or are outside still." And the grimness with which he said the last made it clear that he did not expect them to need the services of a healer ever again.
He tilted his head again, though this time with a flicker of curiosity lighting dimly in his eyes. "I am Jigano. I don't believe we've met...?"
"Changed? Do you mean with the LongNight? I imagine it disrupts the routine of even the most prepared," Lucas agreed, of course not aware of anything else that might be amiss. He nodded at the mention of the woman down in the tavern, having seen her skills himself on more than one occasion. It spoke to parts of his nature that were very old and very well buried indeed, but it would be a lie to say that Lucas couldn't appreciate the talent of healing magic.
Arching an eyebrow at the obviously clipped replies from the stranger, Lucas prepared to excuse himself from the responsibility of trying to untangle a conversation when the man seemed to catch himself. "That is understandable, with everything that is going on," he said with a warm smile, offering a shallow and polite bow in response to Jigano's name. "Lucas," he introduced himself. "And no, I don't believe we have. I haven't been here long - I believe preparations for the end of the season were already well underway when I arrived."
"Yes," Jigano agreed quietly. "Long Night... has changed many things." Isla. Rory. Amalia. Himself. Who knew what he would find had happened to his other friends, when dawn released them from the temporary tomb the Temple had become?
Lucas's expression said as much as words about Jigano's lack of courtesy, and the bard brought himself back to the moment by falling back on old habits. Politeness required only the smallest of efforts and could sometimes pay the largest dividends, if only he could focus. At the very least there was no call to be rude to an innocent wanderer. The lorekeeper nodded grave thanks for the man accepting his apology. He couldn't quite find the energy to return the bow, but he noted Lucas's grace with a practiced eye.
"I wish we could have met under better circumstances, Lucas," he murmured, giving a little shake of his head as he looked around the darkened infirmary. But... he wasn't only a lorekeeper anymore, was he? He was Provost of the Loreseekers, and even wallowing in his own trauma did not excuse him from the responsibilities of the post he had so eagerly chosen in better days. "I am an Outlander as well, but I've learned no few things about this place. If you wish, we might find some chairs and I can try to answer any questions you might have?"
There was more to the stranger's words than simply what he said, though Lucas detected a reluctance to speak that he had neither the energy nor the inclination to push. Luckily, however, it seemed Jigano was more than just a brooding man in a dark infirmary. He arched an eyebrow at the offer to answer his questions, giving a grateful nod in return.
"As long as I am not disturbing you, or calling you away from anything important. As you said, better circumstances would be ideal at present. I never thought I would miss being able to do something as simple as step outside the door." He glanced around, as if to find somwhere better for them to sit. "What are you doing there? Perhaps it would be easier for me to pull up a chair and help, while we speak."
"Well. There's nothing stopping you from stepping outside," Jigano murmured, his grim attempt at humor black as the grave. "It all depends on your priorities." He shook his head, grimacing slightly. "I know how you feel, though. Or I did. I wasn't sure how I would stand being cooped up in one place for so long... but then I went outside. And that has quite thoroughly cured me of the desire to do so again for something as simple as curiosity or restless feet."
He had a better idea of where the chairs were, finding one in the corner for Lucas and settling himself gingerly onto a cot as he nodded to the lengths of clean, boiled cloth he had been cutting into strips and rolling neatly into balls for later use - likely on Rory's burns, until the unicorn was able to soothe them away. "Thank you," he accepted, with a nod that held a shadow of his old grace. "If you'd be so good as to wash your hands with the soap over there, and the hot water on the hearth, I would appreciate the help. I'll cut the lengths, if you would be kind enough to roll them up."
"My priorities largely involve me living to see the next LongNight. So in that way I suppose there is a great deal stopping me from setting foot outside." Quite the dark and bristly one, this man with hair like snow. Lucas had to stop himself from smirking, somehow feeling himself cheered a little, by this brooding stranger with such a grudge against chaos. Luckily, he did stop himself, instead nodding his gratitude at the offered seat.
Doing as Jigano instructed and making sure to thoroughly wash and dry his hands, Lucas settled languidly in the chair, though he didn't miss the limited way in which the other man moved. "Are you hurt?" he asked, already setting to his task of neatly rolling the bandages.
Jigano nodded acknowledgment of Lucas's priorities, considering with a distant ruefulness that if he had met the man before Long Night he would have enjoyed bantering with him. The man was clever and had an indefinable charm that the bard would normally have been curious to explore. The timing, alas, was not in the green-eyed man's favor, though Jigano tried to bring his sharp tongue back under control by taking him up on his offer of help.
He kept a surreptitious eye on the man as he washed up, but Lucas did so with a brisk efficiency that even Isla would have accepted, and Jigano relaxed a little as he cut a strip and set it aside for the other man to roll. The question as the blond settled had a pale brow arching, but the lorekeeper gave a light shrug. "No... I was one of the lucky ones. I am simply..." weary, exhausted, heartsore, aching "... tired," he admitted, giving his companion a tilt of his head in gratitude for his concern. "It has been a long week, and we're not through it yet. I don't suppose you had anything similar on your world?"
Jigano snipped a length of cloth and Lucas took it up with deft hands, rolling it into a neat ball and tying it off loosely so that it wouldn't unravel. He set it aside and waited for his companion to give him the next strip, before shrugging his shoulders and offering a smirk that just about bared his fangs. "I would find it strange if you were not tired, at a time like this. Do you work here, at the infirmary?"
He assumed so, given what Jigano was doing, but then from what he had seen of the Temple people tended to drift wherever they liked, picking up and putting down tasks as they pleased. Lucas frowned and shook his head at the question, recalling the busy city and the light pollution of his world. "Nothing even remotely close," he murmured. "What about you?"
Jigano managed a short hum of agreement, bemused at how almost chipper Lucas seemed after all the blood and death and terror of the week. He truly must be more newly arrived than most, to have missed the frantic last-minute preparations and stress... or perhaps he simply handled it better than most. The bard included. And while once that thought might have prickled his pride to put on a better show, for the moment it was all he could do to manage - admittedly, poorly - his half of a simple conversation.
"Not officially, no," he admitted, echoing Lucas's thoughts. "I was... training here, though. With the doctor... with Isla. But... she is missing. And my friends are here. And so I... I am trying to help, at least a little bit." Not one of his finer explanations, but speaking of Isla when her fate and whereabouts were still unknown to him did nothing to steady his fractured poise. He took a breath, even as he passed the man another strip of clean cloth. "My work mostly occurs at the Atheneum, where I undertake research. Though I also ply my trade as a bard at the Rathskeller a few nights a week. It pays better... at least for terms of barter and trade."
The return question had him shaking his head, a faint frown furrowing his brow. "No, nothing even close. I would say the seasons on my world were 'normal' but I've had to reevaluate that since coming here. But the northlands had long winters that shifted slowly into kind springs, short summers, and wet autumns. There was overlap between them, though, while the only transition I've seen here was very much abrupt and overnight." He hesitated, then raised a brow at his companion, old habits coaxing his tongue down familiar roads. "And what was your world like? Not just the seasons... I'm curious about the sorts of places different outlanders have come from."
If Jigano thought this was chipper, he hadn't really seen Lucas in action yet. If the world decided to really lay waste to the land and its people, the bard might even see him cheerful. Accepting the cloth and beginning to roll it neatly alongside his other efforts, his brow furrowed at hearing that the resident medic had gone missing.
"Hardly ideal at a time like this," he murmured. "Perhaps there was an emergency and she was called away." Quite where she would be called when the night was full of death and horror was beyond Lucas, but healers were martyrs like that.
"A bard?" Now Lucas's eyes lit up, the Ascended pausing in his task to arch an eyebrow at Jigano. "What do you play?" Music - that was something he had sorely been lacking since arriving here.
Humming in almost agreement about Jigano's homeworld - the seasons had been somewhat similar where he was from, if not bleeding all into one because of pollution - Lucas frowned at the other man's request for more detail. Talking about it depressed him, but it would pass the time. "Heaven, compared to here," he said simply. "Electricity, running water, buildings with hundreds of storeys, cars and aeroplanes, coffee and martinis and strip clubs. It was bliss."
"Perhaps," Jigano agreed, though not very convincingly. Knowing that her skills could be needed in the Infirmary at any moment with someone falling ill or making it through the monsters to stumble, wounded, into the supposed safety of the Temple, she should have been here. She was curious and strong-willed, true, but she was also a consummate professional. Where could she have been called away to, outside of the Temple, that was more important than her patients?
But there was nothing that he could do about it at the moment. And Lucas's other question provided a welcome distraction to more mundane things, and memories that weren't soaked in blood and loss. "I have some skill at flute, lapharp, and mandolin," he said, glancing over at the rapt interest in the blond's expression. It was oddly soothing to speak of his secondary profession, and he relaxed a little as he passed two more strips of cloth to his companion. "And song, of course, in a number of languages not spoken here." The last admission held a hint of wry acknowledgment of what he had left behind him. "Are you a musician yourself, then?"
Some worlds were worse, but many seemed better - at least in not being bounded by a barrier that shrunk them to a tragic fragment of their proper size and glory. Some of the words Lucas said were known to the lorekeeper - electricity, running water, coffee - but most of the others were alien or simply hard to imagine. Buildings that were hundreds of stories tall? How did they not collapse under their own weight? "I am sorry you were taken from it," he spoke with weary sincerity. "It sounds like a fascinating place. What did you do there, if I may ask?"
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