Page 188: Stitching Kit
Stitching Kit
Summary: After the Siege of Seagard, Ser Kittridge, Squire Brynner, and Dominick return to camp where Septa Day puts Kit back together again.
Date: 21/01/2012
Related Logs: The Siege of Seagard
Players:
Kittridge Brynner Day Dominick 
Frey Army Grounds, House Groves Encampment
Army camp things, Groves banners
21st Firstmonth, 289 AL

The Groves levies (along with those of Houses Terrick and Flint) take up camp in the Low District, and it is there that the rest of House Groves' forces make camp as well, and there Brynner and Kittridge wander with the rest of the troops, walking in circles a bit, surveying damage, but really just lost attempting to find a healer. Finally they are pointed in the right direction by someone who has spotted the house's septa, and then Kit, being tired and bleeding and annoyed at being lost, heads in that direction, shouting in hopes of drawing her out to point the way more directly, "Day! DAAAAAYYYY!"

While Bryn follows along behind obediently, clutching his bruised stomach and Kittridge's horse's reins, and wincing with every step.

As the wounded and spent come struggling into camp, Day shoves her way upstream — relatively careful not to jostle anyone who's hurting, but she has bigger concerns. Her eyes scan the men, and then she hears her name called. "Kit!" she calls out, gathering up her skirts and running in that direction. "Kit! Oh, sweet Mother — " she grimaces at the sight of the young lord. "Bad. That looks bad." She glances at Bryn, who doesn't appear to be bleeding, then back up at the knight.

"Bryn, are you badly hurt?" She takes the reins from him. She can see that Kit is. Triage in progress.

"There you are," Kit says of Day as she runs up, "Careful, careful," he chides, "Crowded street, and all." He's gotten somewhat pale, and glances down at his chest and shrugs with his eyebrows, "Does look a bit serious, doesn't it? Bryn's alright. Aren't you, Bryn?"

Dirty and loaded down with…some kind of rolled-up papers jammed into a large rucksack beside his crossbow, Dominick trudges through the Groves end of the camp on the heels of a contingent of archers. As they peel off their separate ways, the engineer is eventually wandering on his own, hunting for a place to set things down — and the calling of Kittridge and Day are a welcome distraction. Sort of. Would be moreso if they weren't COVERED IN BLOOD. Turning on his heel he starts at a quick half-jog in that direction.

"Uh -" Bryn isn't quite sure how to respond, adrenaline still surging through him. He shifts a look to Kittridge, and is more than happy to surrender the reins to the horse, and ultimately decides: "Nah. Just a bruise, Septa. She be right." Just in case, he peels back his forearm from his stomach gingerly to take a look. It really is just a bruise, albeit a mighty one.

Day nods and ruffles Bryn's hair, approving. "Good lad," she says to him. "I know Lady Rosanna will be glad of how bravely you bore your hurts, so her brother could be seen to first. Go take some water and some food, if you can?" Then, to Kit, carefully sliding an arm about him, "Come on, then — let's get you patched up, Prince Charming." She looks up, smiling with relief to see Dom, as well. "And you? Still got all your fingers? One-and-a-half eyebrows?"

"Well done, lad," Kit says to Brynner, starting to lift his arm to ruffle hair as well but aborting the gesture with a wince. As adrenaline wears off, pain sets in, and he jerks his chin in greeting to Dominick, asking, "What's with the papers?" before nodding to Day. "Patched up sounds good."

"Yes and fuck it, I would give both eyebrows to be done with this mess in a way that ends in all these bastards with pikes up an orifice of my choosing." Dominick stops to cough, some nearby smoke irritating both his lungs and one bloodshot eye. "M'Lord Kittridge. Maps." He shifts the bag strap on his shoulder. "Seagard and all her crannies that I could fit to take. This city's her own combatant, and if we can get her on our side…" His eyes roam as he talks, landing on Brynner. And this derails him. "…what the hell?"

Septa Day, you lovely creature! That response earns a wide, bright grin from Bryn, and he bobs his head enthusiastically under that ruffling. Better than a poultice, is the promise of Lady Rosanna's favour! "Aye, septa. I'll bring some for m'ser, and the rest?" He dips his head in more of a bowing gesture to his injured knight, and can't help but to grin at Dominick as he turns to go. "I copped one in the head," he boasts.

"Asking Dom what's up with the papers is a bit like asking a knight what's up with the sword, isn't it?" asks Day, cheerfully, making sure they all make steady progress to the tents. She chuckles at Bryn, though she keeps them all moving. Schnell, boys. Schnell. "Did you? Well done. I'm sure there'll be far more — copping. Done by you." She nods. She's down with the lingo and the kids today.

"They're big papers," Kittridge protests to Day, before nodding a little at Dominick's explanation as he listens silently. He keeps moving, jaw clenching at the pain of doing so, teeth staying clamped shut even as he offers, "He did good," of Brynner's performance, "Got to keep his eyes open for pits better next time, but… did good on the whole."

"Take a little more force than that to ring that bell," Dominick smirks at Brynner, his tone fond under the words. "Don't you dare go back with a fake bandage, or I'm telling." He winks at the squire and then exhales in a rush, eyeing the work on Kitt's wounds as he pulls the bag strap down onto one arm. it jostles his crossbow on the way down. "Pits? Trapped the field, did they?"

Bryn ducks his head sheepishly as Kit mentions pits. Oops. "Ay, ser," he agrees, and he spares a grin for Day, but it's Dom who holds the squire's attention best. "Psh," he scoffs, puffing up his chest and bravely uncurling his hand from his stomach. Oh, look, there's a wince. "Ain't need no bandage on a bruise. Some'a that mucky stuff slapped on it, and I'll be off to play butcher with the ironers again in no time! Here - lemme go find some wine, ay?"

Day eases Kit down to sit once they've reached camp, not far away. "Help me with his armor?" she asks Dom, working at the straps of Kit's breastplate. Another nod and a distracted smile for Bryn. "And anything you can find that's stronger? The stronger the better," she requests of the squire.

Kittridge lowers himself slowly down to sit on the cot Day leads him to, the last part of the trip a bit of a thump as knees give. He leans back a little, and tugs off gloves to help with the fastenings of his brigadine, and then stops moving as Day enlists Dominick, grumbling, "Fine, you do it. But Day you'd better do most of it. No offense, Dom, but you're not my type." He smiles slightly, crookedly, and winks at the engineer before belatedly circling back around to say, "They dug pits on either side of the road. Not too easy to see til you came up on them. Lost a lot of horses in them, ended up fighting on foot when Bryn went down."

Dominick was already consulting the edge of one of his maps, all the talking barely scraping the surface of his focus. "What?" His green eyes flicker up to Day, then to Kittridge. "Oh, yeah. Here, hold this." The bird's eye grand map of Seagard gets plunked open on top of Kitt's knees, where the firestarter can read it while attending to Day's task. "None taken, m'lord. Rest assured I'm looking at the district's south tower, not your south tower." He smirks, starting in on the heavy straps he's been assigned to on Kitt's armor. "Did they, now. Fairly primitive of them. Hope they haven't had the chance to cook up much inside the walls."

Ahhhh, and the conversation steers to how Kitt's injuries are Bryn's fault. The squire, guilty as a lemon is yellow, nods frantically at Day and scurries off to find the aforementioned hard liquor. And by scurries, I mean hobbles while he pretends not to be hobbling. And by off, I mean in some random direction that there's probably not likely to be any spare liquor. Don't expect him back anytime soon.

"Trust me, Kittridge, my love," Day says, dryly, "you're not going to like what I'm going to be doing to you one bit — even if I were doing it lower." Armor is carefully peeled back, lifted off; the shirt and tunic beneath are cut away. Day rummages in her kit, producing a precious vial of milk of the poppy. "Here," she says to Kit, opening it and lifting it to his lips. "You're going to want this. Drink."

Kittridge chuckles at Dominick, or starts to and regrets it. It tugs on his chest wound, you see. He lies back, telling the engineer, "I'll keep that in mind. And they didn't have the city for long. Fighting all the time. I bet there's not much. It's not that bad, Day," he frowns as she offers drugs, "Is it? They might come back at us, I should be awake."

Dominick lets Day handle the tunic once they've got down that far. He whisks the map off Kitt's legs and spreads it on the floor, looking down at it from standing. "Best not," he echoes. "The traps, not the drink. Ought to do just what she says, and I don't say that often." He folds his arms, pacing in a half-circle around the map. "I'll be interested to see what scouts bring back about where they're dug in the deepest."

"You're not going back out there today. Not for a few days," says Day, quite seriously. "Any time you're lain open like this, there's a risk of infection — and this… it's far from superficial. You'll live, as it is. If you try to return to the line too soon? Keep it open, make it worse?" She shakes her head. "You're playing dice with your life, then. Now drink. You'll thank me once I start poking around in there." She flicks a quick, tight smile at Dominick, grateful for the backup.

Kittridge frowns, trying to lift his head to peer at the wound and then setting it back down again. "Alright, alright," he mumbles, taking a little swig of the medicine offered. He sets his head back down again, saying to Dominick, "Yeah, should make sure they're looking out for traps. And tunnels for you to sneak us through." He smiles a bit, and then asks Day, "Is it going to be a handsome scar, at least?"

"If there turn out to be tunnels I will be the happiest person alive," Dominick says, using his index finger to animate his speech. "Do you know what we could do with that?" He scratches his nose, shifting his weight to the other foot and now watching Day get to her work. "Just like Seagard. She came open and now she's got one raging infection."

"Yes, well," Day sighs, cleaning the wound — careful and gentle, leaving off the more invasive work until the poppy's had a few minutes to take hold. "Only cure for Seagard is to bleed and burn her. I'm hoping we can avoid that, here." She smiles faintly, fondly at Kit. "All your scars are bound to be handsome ones, my lord. They can hardly help it."

"Done enough bleeding. Never been too fond of burning. Not myself, anyway. Other things, sure," Kit babbles as Day cleans, words growing gradually more drowsy. "Tunnels would be fun," he adds, "Could sneak under them. Or blow them up. That'd be fun, too. Rather blow them up than fight them. So much easier. Faster. Cleaner. For us, anyway. Guess not for what they get blown up on. Ow. Fuck, Day. This had better be very handsome."

Dominick folds his arms, looking over at Day. "Is he where he's not going to remember anything else now?"

Day smirks, shaking her head. "It's different for everyone, Dom. There's really no telling what he'll remember." She peers at Kit's eyes, examining his pupils, then nods. "Not much, I hope." She returns her attention to the wound and gets to the nasty part — deep cleaning and picking out debris.

"I can hear you," Kit says, "I have an excellent memory. And sight," he says as Day examines his eyes, widening them to peer at her. As she gets to the nasty part, though, he shuts up, and if he doesn't doze off, at least he shuts his eyes and stops talking.

Dominick seems quite fascinated with what Day's doing, or else he just looks it while doing something else in his head, which does tend to happen with him. The latter might be more true, as the next thing out of his mouth is on the surface a non-sequitur. "Day, do you remember years and years ago when you taught me about coagulants?" His eyes stay on Kitt's wounds, one dark blond brow creeping up. "Is there such a thing as an anti-coagualant?"

"Blood thinners," Day affirms, carefully tweezing bits of fiber and metal from the red, meaty gash. "Certainly. Where there's concerns about circulation, or clots — red clover, chamomile, a certain kind if Dornish pepper… could you bring the lamp over, closer, please?" She rises and soaks up blood that's beginning to obscure her work. "Licorice. Curry. Honey. Fish oil. The pepper, though, especially."

"Can you put it on crossbow bolts? What about sword blades?" Dominick grabs the lamp, abandoning his map on the floor for a precious few minutes. Light floods and flickers over Kittridge's wounds and the engineer's nose wrinkles slightly at the coppery smell. "I mean, wouldn't that be a bitch? You shoot someone in the finger and they bleed to death."

"Maybe?" theorizes Day, brows drawing down as she scrutinizes both the wound and the idea. "I don't think any of those things would be… suitable in a raw form. They'd have to be… well, concentrated, certainly. Probably combined with other things. To make them fast-acting. I'm not sure I've ever read of their use in such a fashion, but… of course, there's no real medicinal benefit to someone bleeding out from a paper cut." Poke, poke. Pick, pick. Ow.

"Well that's what I mean. Go beyond medicinal." Dominick settles the lantern where it's convenient and kneels down to scoop up his map. "It's a thought. If we're going to have to play dirty I'll sling mud in whatever form I can get it. Even if it smells like curry." He taps the rolled up paper against his shoulder. "I'm going to check on something. Tell Lord Kittridge I'll be back shortly, hm?" And out he goes.

Kittridge is picked at and poked at and eventually sewn up. "Should get Rosanna in for this part," he mumbles, slightly more conscious than during the worst of the wound-cleaning, "Neat little stitches."

"Hmm. Yes, well, there's stichting and then there's stitching," Day murmurs, threading her needle. "I'm not sure your lady sister would do well, seeing this side of you." And she begins to sew. "That side being the INside."

"Probably wouldn't like that," Kit agrees, "She was mad I came. Be extra mad if she had to see insides bits. Almost done?"

Day nods. "Almost done," she tells him, taking a moment to give his hand a squeeze. "The worst is over."

~Fin