[ It is a well-placed question. Godfrey's pale, sleeping complexion and still steel chest could just as easily be gone.
He might have been, were he allowed to doze much longer. Rushing feet and a drop at his side stir him, his head moving sluggishly against Gale's bundled bedroll. Sharp pain greets him and he grimaces, eyes cringing open, gauntleted hands opening and closing as the pain radiates toward them.
Gale is above him. Godfrey's throat works as Gale's hands do, peeling back layers to expose his wounds. Thick, throbbing blood glues the layers below his plate together - gambeson to leather, and to linen. The breath is stolen from his chest as an errant move jostles one of the shafts in his shoulders. Hot, numbing agony. Coldness in his fingers. Godfrey screws his wet eyes shut and waits out the pain. ]
The-- [ There is hardness in his voice - brittle and strained, his throat pulled tight around it. ] There is a knife. It is sheathed to one of my boots. Cut the padding away, if need be. Do not jostle the arrows.
[ His eyes open again, and he pins his gaze to the wretched sky - the lances of cold, diminished light struggling against the cloud-cover. ]
The arrows in my shoulders - they must be seen to. I fear the-- the one on the left. It is perilously near to an artery. [ One he'd been taught of, during his training; slide a blade behind the left collarbone, just above the heart, and a man could be exsanguinated in mere minutes. ] I've only so much healing left, but - enough, I think.
[ Enough to stem the tide of one wrong movement. Godfrey masters his throat long enough to swallow. ]
You must cut the shafts with a steady hand. As near to the skin as you can. Leave the rest in place. Pull the left arrowhead out only if you c-cut the artery. Pack and wrap them, and then-- [ His chest raises, shivering, with a long breath, ] my shoulders must be splinted, that I do not move the arrowheads within myself.
[ They could see to his leg once this is done. ]
Edited (dusting this off a lil (befuckered the html)) 2024-05-30 02:48 (UTC)
[The instructions are precise and numerous, but Gale has always been an attentive student, and in this critical moment, he does not allow a single word to escape him. He feels almost numb as he draws the knife from Godfrey's boot, tossing the leather sheath aside with abandon before he carefully takes hold of the padding beneath the paladin's armor and pulls it taut so that it can be cut free. They can only benefit from his having a better view of the injury, and to be able to work without the padding hindering his progress.
He exhales, steeling himself, and even he is surprised by how steady his hands are. They had proven to be so under very different circumstances— cooking, alchemy, various experiments— but never anything like this.
If he slipped even the slightest bit, it could cost Godfrey dearly. His heart is in his stomach as just for a moment, he thinks of the little girl waiting for Godfrey back home.
No— he must focus on the here and now.]
Cut the shafts with a steady hand.
[He repeats the instruction, carefully taking hold of the arrow on the left and holding it still, taking great pains not to jostle it.]
Hold still, my friend.
[He draws in a sharp breath, clenches his jaw, and begins to cut, the flat of the blade against the paladin's skin, the blood beneath it black in the dark of the Shadow-Cursed Lands.]
Edited (my formatting was not dramatique enough) 2024-07-24 00:04 (UTC)
[ Godfrey imparts his instructions - the very essence of too many months of dogged soldiery training and drills - as he feels ice settle beneath his skin. Gale takes each word in attentive, studious silence, commits them to an internal list of priorities. Sorts the words effortlessly.
At least, that is how it feels.
There's little else to be done about it now. He had never known how he might feel, to use what he'd been taught; he'd never liked to indulge the thought very much, and foolishly, he had always imagined that it would be he administering aid whenever it pushed across his thoughts anyway. He'd thought that it would be him in Gale's position - kneeling over a mass of rapidly cooling muscle and blood made suddenly impossibly fragile, trying to school his hands still and regulate the press of his lungs. He thought that he would know how he would feel - rocketing between forcibly imposed calm and numbness, and some panic just below the surface, like a river rushing beneath a thin sheet of ice.
How does he feel now? Hollow.
A cold emptiness spreads beneath his skin. He's done all that he can for now. All he can do is lie there, helpless, and try to stamp out the pain and the panic. It wouldn't do to take in a drowning gasp and thrust his chest into the arrow while Gale held it still.
He's chosen a point to stare at, in the swirling morass of thick shadow. He focuses his every sense to it. Godfrey seeks out his Lord beyond it, but feels too buried in cold darkness to reach Him. He doesn't need to look to know that the arrow is in Gale's hands.
The arrow stills in his grasp, and Godfrey feels the wound come alive as its raw and bloody edges rub against the still object. His throat strains with sound repressed, sweat beading bright on his dirty skin. A slow writhe works through him, heels driving into the blighted dirt, that Godfrey tries to repress as the knife begins to work agonizingly through the shaft. The pain rumbles between his ears. His voice sounds low in his throat, a choking grunt, as a deep breath rushes from him. ]
[Every twitch, every sound, every breath sets Gale on edge; the consequences of fumbling this task are unthinkable, something he does not want to entertain for even a moment. For all the subjects that he has studied over the years, for every book he had read on medicine while following his alchemical pursuits, he had never thought about what it would be like to actually be in such a situation. It was easy to remain disconnected when it was but words on a page, easy to be matter-of-fact and decide that one understood the procedure, but the reality of it was not so neatly resolved. Far from it.
He exhales and remains steady, even as Godfrey's efforts to repress any show of pain beneath him make his stomach turn in on itself, twisted, and though it seems to take near an eternity, at last his blade makes it through to the other side and the shaft comes free.
Mystra's tits. He doesn't allow himself to feel even a moment of relief. Pull the arrowhead out only if you cut an artery. Blessedly, they had not, though he hates the idea of leaving them in place— he knows in practice, that may well save Godfrey's life.]
Splinting next.
[He works quickly, unable to ignore how pale the man beneath him appears, the wax-like pallor he has taken on as he bleeds.
No. No you don't, not tonight.
Gritting his teeth, he presses some of the cut padding to the open wound to stem the bleeding before he sets to immobilizing Godfrey's shoulders. Would that he had even a single healing spell at his disposal. After this, when the man was stable, he could take the time to brew something— but right now, they have minutes, at best. Perhaps even less than that.]
Speak to let me know that you remain with me.
mouthwashing got me in the mood to put the big pretty blond man in pain
[ His chest screams as its stifled, drowning gasps pushed down to a shiver. He can't breathe - not as deeply as his failing body demands. Not while Gale holds the arrow in his shoulder, not while he saws the shaft. Not while one errant movement could empty him.
Godfrey holds his own hand so tightly, he nearly feels their bones grinding against one another. From there the tension spreads, up his thick arms, in the still eternity he is forced to occupy as the sharp edge is held steady in his firm and moving body. Every nudge a fresh laceration, each twitch a sparking fire under his cooling skin. He stares at the shadows congregating above them until they blur into hot, shapeless blue and black. Everything in him screams the same thing back in his ears - get him off.
He can't. It's only the first two. His good leg's heel digs into the dry and cold earth beneath him, an escape he can only temper so much.
The arrow finally snaps. He hears it as though the knife had gone through in his ear canal; too clearly. Godfrey doesn't hear Gale speak. He can't hear much of anything. If he could, he certainly wouldn't have understood the request through the painful overwhelm that bent his every thought.
But he gets his confirmation all the same; Godfrey takes a breath that seems to douse the wound in acid, a horrible gasping noise. His vision clears. He's breathing hard, but not hard enough - they break into sobs. ]
[The sobbing cuts right through him; it sounds so out of place, coming from the man who so often served as their very shield, and Gale's gaze flicks towards his face once more. If he's sobbing, he's breathing. He's alive. He will take that for waht it is.]
I'm sorry— I'm so sorry.
[To be the cause of any further pain or anguish— it's the last thing he wants, but these measures are necessary.
Godfrey's shoulders, at last, are properly immobilized. Gale finds his hands shake even as he carefully splints the arm in place, the process made easier by the removal of padding. It would have to be replaced, but they could worry about that later, presuming Godfrey was well enough to do so. He narrows his focus, blocking out what he can of his friend's groans and cries, refusing to let his pain tug at his own heartstrings for but a few moments so that he might properly do the job before him.
The arrow at his shoulder had been the worst of it all, the most threatening injury, and once the process of splinting is complete, he reaches for his waterskin, holding it to the paladin's lips.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He might have been, were he allowed to doze much longer. Rushing feet and a drop at his side stir him, his head moving sluggishly against Gale's bundled bedroll. Sharp pain greets him and he grimaces, eyes cringing open, gauntleted hands opening and closing as the pain radiates toward them.
Gale is above him. Godfrey's throat works as Gale's hands do, peeling back layers to expose his wounds. Thick, throbbing blood glues the layers below his plate together - gambeson to leather, and to linen. The breath is stolen from his chest as an errant move jostles one of the shafts in his shoulders. Hot, numbing agony. Coldness in his fingers. Godfrey screws his wet eyes shut and waits out the pain. ]
The-- [ There is hardness in his voice - brittle and strained, his throat pulled tight around it. ] There is a knife. It is sheathed to one of my boots. Cut the padding away, if need be. Do not jostle the arrows.
[ His eyes open again, and he pins his gaze to the wretched sky - the lances of cold, diminished light struggling against the cloud-cover. ]
The arrows in my shoulders - they must be seen to. I fear the-- the one on the left. It is perilously near to an artery. [ One he'd been taught of, during his training; slide a blade behind the left collarbone, just above the heart, and a man could be exsanguinated in mere minutes. ] I've only so much healing left, but - enough, I think.
[ Enough to stem the tide of one wrong movement. Godfrey masters his throat long enough to swallow. ]
You must cut the shafts with a steady hand. As near to the skin as you can. Leave the rest in place. Pull the left arrowhead out only if you c-cut the artery. Pack and wrap them, and then-- [ His chest raises, shivering, with a long breath, ] my shoulders must be splinted, that I do not move the arrowheads within myself.
[ They could see to his leg once this is done. ]
dusts this off, dusts Gale off, dusts myself off
He exhales, steeling himself, and even he is surprised by how steady his hands are. They had proven to be so under very different circumstances— cooking, alchemy, various experiments— but never anything like this.
If he slipped even the slightest bit, it could cost Godfrey dearly. His heart is in his stomach as just for a moment, he thinks of the little girl waiting for Godfrey back home.
No— he must focus on the here and now.]
Cut the shafts with a steady hand.
[He repeats the instruction, carefully taking hold of the arrow on the left and holding it still, taking great pains not to jostle it.]
Hold still, my friend.
[He draws in a sharp breath, clenches his jaw, and begins to cut, the flat of the blade against the paladin's skin, the blood beneath it black in the dark of the Shadow-Cursed Lands.]
is it finally my turn to do the same for real
At least, that is how it feels.
There's little else to be done about it now. He had never known how he might feel, to use what he'd been taught; he'd never liked to indulge the thought very much, and foolishly, he had always imagined that it would be he administering aid whenever it pushed across his thoughts anyway. He'd thought that it would be him in Gale's position - kneeling over a mass of rapidly cooling muscle and blood made suddenly impossibly fragile, trying to school his hands still and regulate the press of his lungs. He thought that he would know how he would feel - rocketing between forcibly imposed calm and numbness, and some panic just below the surface, like a river rushing beneath a thin sheet of ice.
How does he feel now? Hollow.
A cold emptiness spreads beneath his skin. He's done all that he can for now. All he can do is lie there, helpless, and try to stamp out the pain and the panic. It wouldn't do to take in a drowning gasp and thrust his chest into the arrow while Gale held it still.
He's chosen a point to stare at, in the swirling morass of thick shadow. He focuses his every sense to it. Godfrey seeks out his Lord beyond it, but feels too buried in cold darkness to reach Him. He doesn't need to look to know that the arrow is in Gale's hands.
The arrow stills in his grasp, and Godfrey feels the wound come alive as its raw and bloody edges rub against the still object. His throat strains with sound repressed, sweat beading bright on his dirty skin. A slow writhe works through him, heels driving into the blighted dirt, that Godfrey tries to repress as the knife begins to work agonizingly through the shaft. The pain rumbles between his ears. His voice sounds low in his throat, a choking grunt, as a deep breath rushes from him. ]
no subject
He exhales and remains steady, even as Godfrey's efforts to repress any show of pain beneath him make his stomach turn in on itself, twisted, and though it seems to take near an eternity, at last his blade makes it through to the other side and the shaft comes free.
Mystra's tits. He doesn't allow himself to feel even a moment of relief. Pull the arrowhead out only if you cut an artery. Blessedly, they had not, though he hates the idea of leaving them in place— he knows in practice, that may well save Godfrey's life.]
Splinting next.
[He works quickly, unable to ignore how pale the man beneath him appears, the wax-like pallor he has taken on as he bleeds.
No. No you don't, not tonight.
Gritting his teeth, he presses some of the cut padding to the open wound to stem the bleeding before he sets to immobilizing Godfrey's shoulders. Would that he had even a single healing spell at his disposal. After this, when the man was stable, he could take the time to brew something— but right now, they have minutes, at best. Perhaps even less than that.]
Speak to let me know that you remain with me.
mouthwashing got me in the mood to put the big pretty blond man in pain
Godfrey holds his own hand so tightly, he nearly feels their bones grinding against one another. From there the tension spreads, up his thick arms, in the still eternity he is forced to occupy as the sharp edge is held steady in his firm and moving body. Every nudge a fresh laceration, each twitch a sparking fire under his cooling skin. He stares at the shadows congregating above them until they blur into hot, shapeless blue and black. Everything in him screams the same thing back in his ears - get him off.
He can't. It's only the first two. His good leg's heel digs into the dry and cold earth beneath him, an escape he can only temper so much.
The arrow finally snaps. He hears it as though the knife had gone through in his ear canal; too clearly. Godfrey doesn't hear Gale speak. He can't hear much of anything. If he could, he certainly wouldn't have understood the request through the painful overwhelm that bent his every thought.
But he gets his confirmation all the same; Godfrey takes a breath that seems to douse the wound in acid, a horrible gasping noise. His vision clears. He's breathing hard, but not hard enough - they break into sobs. ]
let's ruin him (again)
I'm sorry— I'm so sorry.
[To be the cause of any further pain or anguish— it's the last thing he wants, but these measures are necessary.
Godfrey's shoulders, at last, are properly immobilized. Gale finds his hands shake even as he carefully splints the arm in place, the process made easier by the removal of padding. It would have to be replaced, but they could worry about that later, presuming Godfrey was well enough to do so. He narrows his focus, blocking out what he can of his friend's groans and cries, refusing to let his pain tug at his own heartstrings for but a few moments so that he might properly do the job before him.
The arrow at his shoulder had been the worst of it all, the most threatening injury, and once the process of splinting is complete, he reaches for his waterskin, holding it to the paladin's lips.]
Here. Drink what you can, I'll help.