Work Text:
It was a bizarre scene, like a poorly conceived children’s book. A stainless steel table draped in towels, a tray of freshly sharpened surgical instruments, and two big black birds. One was sedated, tied down, one wing splinted and splayed. The other perched beside it. It looked upon its kin with curious, yet concerned eyes. It gingerly inspected the other’s wing, gently prodding each broken feather. Taking inventory. After some time, the minding bird took its own wing into its beak and began plucking out each flight feather, pausing after every pull. Soon enough its plumage lay in an iridescent pile next to the wounded bird. It stretched, shaking out the remaining tenderness in its raw flesh. Bare, bloodied skin outlined its now lopsided wingspan. With one great wing flap, the bird’s shape returned to that of a man, his default form. He chewed absently on his left hand, phantom tingles of his torn out feathers lingering in the now-unmarred skin.
He was not a veterinarian. In a time long gone he might have been considered a physician, but certainly not by any modern standards. Yet he’s done this before. He’s done this dozens of times. Maybe hundreds. It’s been a long lifetime.
I-no draped herself over the back of a nearby chair, like a bored spectator.
“Why.” She said, rather than asked. She fished for a reaction. Something abrasive.
“Why what?” Asked Raven, focusing entirely on the bird on his table, sorting his feathers by size.
“Did you do that for an actual reason or because you’re a pervert?”
At first, Raven didn’t answer her. He measured the bird’s broken feathers from the skin to the break. With a pair of small, sharp shears, he subtracted that length from the shaft of his own feathers. They were to be transplants. He repeated this for every broken feather, about ten or so. For each feather, a pin needed to support them. An assortment of dowels were cut down to size to match with each feather.
“Not all pain may have pleasure derived from it,” he replied. “Sometimes it’s better to work with what you have at your own expense, especially if it happens to be more convenient than… conventional methods.” The pins were coated in glue and inserted into the shaft of the donor feathers.
“But, like, why?” I-no whined, “The ravens just sit around in the tower because you baby them. It’s not like they’ll fly away.”
Raven grafted the new feathers to the old, mending this bird’s shattered wing back into inky opalescence.
“Oh, but they do, ” said Raven. “Who am I to trap another living soul? Or condemn them to—“ he waved a hand dismissively “—whatever this is.”
I-no rested her chin on her palm.
“So are they wild animals or are the birds your pets?”
“Pets imply ownership. I don’t own the ravens.”
“So you’ll nurse every broken baby bird back to health? You’ll disrupt a space on the food chain because you based your entire aesthetic around your favorite animal? Who are you to meddle with nature, to play God again, birdbrain?”
Raven shot her a sharpened glare. The hint of a sneer tickled the corner of her mouth.
“That’s bait,” he said, sighing deeply. “You’re pushing my buttons.” He resented letting her get to him, if not for a split second. “You wanted to watch me imp a few broken feathers. There you have it.”
The musician scoffed. “I didn’t say I wanted to, I said I didn’t have anything better to do.”
Raven wrapped the bird on the table in a towel. It was still sedated. It would need some time for it to become re-acclimated to its wing. Raven would have to return it to the tower himself.
He finally answered her question.
“The reason is that not all of us can stand there and watch unneeded suffering. Especially when the panacea is simple.”
Ramlethal lay in the steel table before him, scorched and shredded. The state of her was one of deep distress; The remaining flicker of her life clinging desperately to a body nearly annihilated. She resembled a torn rag doll more than a girl.
A long time ago, in another life, Raven might have been a physician. Absolutely not anymore, but for certain back then. That’s not the language they used for it, either. Rather, he’d been known as a ‘healer’. Now, he was trying his damndest to live up to that title once more.
Ramlethal’s leg had been mended just enough for the flesh to recognize its formerly severed parts. Even before further intervention, the tissues began re-threading themselves back together. They would need support, that’s what the bandages were for. He unwound a length from the spool, a deep red thrumming with magic. It had been impregnated with an enchantment that, in the modern era, was taken as a pill or capsule instead. It could be considered an immune system suppressant, but more specifically it was an enchantment to prevent the body from rejecting a grafted piece. Raven wrapped her leg, tight enough for the spell to seep in through her skin but not too tight to restrict blood from flowing again. That was the leg she was made with, more than likely her body would happily reclaim it. A donor will take more time and energy to become viable. Even with the enchantment, it remained to be seen if her body would reject any outside graft.
The arm would be a different story. It had been severed completely–no, ‘severed’ implies a clean cut. What remained, below her left shoulder, was the most dire of her injuries. It was completely missing when he had recovered her body. Raven would later discover that the separated arm was all that the Illyrian government could find of Ramlethal Valentine’s remains, declaring her dead and burying the severed limb in her absence.
Ramlethal was going to live. It would be difficult, especially at first, but she will live.
Raven looked at the medical tray. There was the wrappings, yes, but also an assortment of scalpels, suture tools, and one surprisingly imposing bone saw. This is where his magic blurred into modern tools usage, something he was more used to using recreationally rather than with any skill or education. The bone saw comes later , he thought. A serrated blade makes light work of cutting through bone, but is a butcher of soft flesh. Even he was slightly nervous, mumbling to himself that it’s not any different from his other work.
Ramlethal stirred, murmuring in her induced sleep. Raven hoped that the pain relieving spell was working, more used to performing it on small animals rather than people. And never on himself. At most, she would feel a slight brushing when he was snipping away the ruined skin and muscle.
Raven measured from Ramlethal’s shoulder to her injury. He picked up a scalpel. It glinted in the workroom’s stark lighting. Somehow, an old friend such as this was reassuring in this stressful moment.
Raven brought the blade to his own left arm and cut.