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rodentus_callidusThe patient was a child. Alright. He did not like it, but he could manage. The patient was a child. He could deal with that.
The problem was, the patient had siblings. And said siblings were not constrained by broken paws to sit quietly. And the mother of said siblings was too frantic over the patient to control them. And in about two seconds, Sebastien was going to give them broken paws, just to keep them bloody still!
"Fraulein, either your children leave my premises, or my fee is going to go surface-ward very, very rapidly," he snarled at last, annoyed past endurance, and unable to do his work besides. He needed his ears as much as his paws for this, and most importantly he needed to be able to go for salves and bandages without constantly tripping over hyperactive, frightened and clumsy menaces. If they broke even a single one of his vials ...
Thankfully, the threat of extra cost had the mother herding them away, though it took him a long few minutes of reassuring her before she agreed to leave her injured child in his paws while she looked after them. She had heard the rumours, after all, and even a few of the truths, though she wasn't to know which was which. But the child was safe in his paws, and he said so, and eventually she accepted it. So, in the sudden rush of piece and quiet, he finally got down to business.
"I am going to examine your paw," he murmured gently, approaching the little one, orientated by the harsh, frightened breathing. The child had heard rumours too, and if the rumours the children spread were far from the horrors the adults laid at his door, they were more than enough to frighten an injured ratling left alone by his mother. Sebastien didn't like it, but there wasn't much he could do about it.
He moved in close to the boy on his table, ignoring the gasp of terror, and began to run light, clever fingers over the injured limb. Paws lighter than light, practice making the pressure little more than a butterfly's landing, he traced the break, mapping the edges of bone, guided too by the little pants of pain as he passed over injured points. Pain, the healer's friend, letting him know where to work his art. But oh, the price for this poor child.
"Tchu!" he clucked, moving back to little to fetch a vial, and the makings of a cast. The examination was always the hard part. He couldn't dull the pain for them until he knew, until it showed him where to work. But now that it was done, he could help a little bit. "What have you done to yourself, little one? I have not seen so impressive a break since Sorka the demoness came to me after her fight with Von Orlin!" He heard the child's little squeak, half terror and half morbid curiosity, as he'd hoped. Bloodthirsty things, children. The story of Sorka and the monstrous, bearlike, Polizei goon would keep the young one still and distracted enough for the painkiller to take some effect.
It wasn't enough to mask the sudden shock of pain as he set the bone, of course, but then he'd hardly expected it to. Still, the little brittle scream shook something inside him, knocked him back a bit into the dark places in his head, the way it always did. No amount of knowing could stop it, and as he briskly immobilised and cast the boy's paw, listening to the whimpers, feeling the tremors of pain, he remembered. He always remembered. How many others had screamed under his paws, once upon a time, and how very much not a doctor he had been, back then. There was a reason for all those rumours. There was a truth, too.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, gently tucking the child's paw into a sling, patting gently as shock and the painkiller took over, dulling the world for the little one. "It will be better soon, I promise, but I am sorry. Sometimes, it has to hurt first, so it can get better." He sighed, stroking blindly at the fur of the young one's head, feeling dampness under his fingers from little tears as the small one cried. Oh, little one, you don't know how lucky you are, he thought. How lucky that you, at least, will have the chance to get better.
"Did it hurt for you?" A little voice, like a sigh. He pulled back a bit, surprised that the child was present enough to speak, between the drug and the pain.
"Did what hurt, little one?" he asked, bewildered, and felt small paws patting upward towards his face. With a sudden ache, he realised their destination, and gently caught and lowered them before they reached his eyes. "Ah. No, little one. That hurt was born to me, and never changes. It will not get better, so it does not need to hurt, ja?"
"It ... doesn't hurt?" Confused, tired. Obviously a little over the young one's head, then. He smiled, and tucked the little one into his arms to carry him out to his mother, shaking his head gently.
"No, little one. It doesn't hurt."
After all, some lies are as good as the truth, for the right ears. And the child was too tired to care.
