Sword and Snow

Avuri

The morning after Em's sisters had arrived had gone over surprisingly well. Cierra and Stena were both excited to see them again, especially after Rylie and Demi had essentially spent so much time playing and goofing off with them the previous time they were there.

But we hadn't been sure what to expect from Kord, Karn, Enrik, and Briar. All four of them had significantly improved moods and dispositions since they had come to live with us, but we had also been isolated with them, not even taking them into the city since we had left it with them originally. Introducing new people was a risk that could have gone either way. However, they seemed to accept the two new faces readily, whether it was because of their new life or their trust in us as their new parents, we couldn't say for sure.

That morning, Em and I had made an unusually impressive spread for breakfast. Emery had said she wanted to do something special for her sisters, and I had happily relented because - had the meeting with our newer children gone poorly - it was possible that the extravagant breakfast would be necessary to turn that around.

After that, things proceeded smoothly. The kids were happily ushered with us all to the training pavilion, where Emery helped each of them get started on some simple exercises. She kept things overly simple for them, but it was in an effort to be extra safe. She didn't want anyone doing anything with Qi for the day that might require sudden intervention if something went wrong which was fair.

Once the children were set up on their side of the pavilion, Emery came over to join the adults. Demi, who was going first because the poison was in her extremities, was already removing her outer layers of clothing so I could more fully access the parts of her body that had been wrapped with the poison. Given that she had been fully clothed until then, I had honestly been concerned that the bandages had covered more than just her arm, but they thankfully stopped at her shoulder.

When Demi finally removed her top, leaving just a wrapping covering her chest, she playfully covered herself in a suggestive way and whined pitifully. "Don't stare so much…"

Emery sputtered a laugh while I just rolled my eyes. "If you're acting like that, you can't be hurt that badly."

"I'm just lucky they didn't injure my pretty face." Demi said, as I approached her to look at the skin where the bandages ended. They were wrapped very tightly, and were probably cutting off circulation to the arm entirely. Before I could take her arm by the wrist to examine her further, Demi pulled back with a dramatic squeak.

"Any more than that and I'll have to charge you." She said, still playing the innocent courtesan.

"Keep playing that up with your doctor, Demi. Please." I said flatly.

"What? Can you blame me? You could clearly be interested…" she said, motioning to Emery, who had the gall to blush at the insinuation. I just sighed, trying to decide how to play it off.

"Em is special. Not just any girl could turn my eye." I said, deciding to play her game. I got really close to Demi, clearly invading her personal space. She even inched back a little to my satisfaction, and flinched in a strangely girlish way when I grabbed her left wrist. "Now play nice and let me see your arm."

Apparently, acting with just a hint of sadism had been the key, because Demi didn't fight after that. If anything, she turned a brighter shade of scarlet when both Emery and Rylie had started whistling and carrying on off to the side, teasing her while I tried to pry open the top of the bandage. It was slow, careful work because I didn't want to damage it. The seals and wrapping had clearly done its job, and removing particularly virulent poison wasn't a fast process. I'd want to be able to re-bandage her if I could.

As soon as I managed to loosen the upper end of the wrapping and began to unwind the cloth, the mood in our half of the room changed immediately, all of the teasing and good cheer running straight down a drain.

Demi's arm was in a horrific state. I had expected some atrophy from the cutoff circulation and the poison, but it was worse than I had been prepared for. Her skin was a sickly, pale color tinged with lines of multiple colors ranging from red to blue as her veins and arteries were too close to her skin. And then there were the black and gray splotches of dying flesh. Thankfully, they were still on the smaller side, and Demi's arm was clearly still fighting off the poison that was killing it.

"What the fuck, Demi? Why didn't you say it was this bad?" Emery said, the sudden flare of anger clear. I could feel it through our bond, too, hot and burning, with a trickle of betrayal and regret running under it.

Demi, at least, had the sense to look away. "Sorry." She muttered.

"Demi, you -"

I sent a quick "Hush." over our link, and Emery shut her mouth. I appreciated that she was listening to me, despite the situation, but I really did need to ask Demi questions about her arm, and I couldn't have her sisters constantly interrupting.

"Demi." I began, "First, can you feel your arm?"

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"I can." She said, turning her attention fully to me as I stepped into the full role of her doctor.

"The whole thing? How's the pain?"

"The whole thing." She said, and demonstrated by flexing her fingers. I quickly snatched her hand and stopped her movement.

"Don't. We don't know what will make things worse, now that the wrapping is open. Using your muscles might spread the poison."

I focused, drawing up my Qi. I rarely used the medicinal side of my Qi at that point, only really ever healing minor scrapes and things for the kids. But I still knew how to utilize it for poisons. Water Qi was effective for that use, and it was something that I had been taught even early on in my training. I placed two fingers on Demi's bicep and pushed into with my Qi, trying to get a feel for what was happening internally.

I realized pretty quickly that while I wasn't out of my depth, I was dangerously close to that wall with this. Whatever poison was used on her, it wasn't anything I could recognize. It seemed like a twisted, perhaps mixed, toxin that was designed to attack both the physical and spiritual parts of a person's body. I could sense Qi mixed in with it, too, which probably meant the brothers they fought had crafted this poison themselves.

What turned my stomach even more was the damage that was done. While the outside of her arm looked dreadful, I had been holding onto some hope that the internal injuries wouldn't be as bad as it looked. Some toxins often had more visual threat than physical, but that was not the case here. I could sense where Demi's muscles and meridians were being eaten away and digested by the poison, replaced with dying flesh instead.

I had to fight to keep myself together. For all her nonchalance, Demi must've been in absolute agony. From what I could gather, the pain would've likely been crippling for most people - even Cultivators. And yet she just bore it with a smile, at least pretending to ignore it.

I honestly wasn't sure what was worse. Demi pretending to ignore the pain and just acting normal and happy through it all, or actually being able to bear that level of pain and simply genuinely ignore it. I knew Emery was able to take immense amounts of physical pain and agony before it really even phased her, because of the torture she bore as a child. I didn't really have any gauge to know how badly she or any of her siblings had had it at the time, but it stood to reason that the two battle maniacs of their family could endure similar levels of pain for similar reasons.

I swallowed and continued my questions. Very carefully I poked and prodded Demi's arm with both my fingers and my Qi, testing the dead bits of her arm for notable pain, or tracking her veins and where I could feel the poison's presence. Eventually I unwrapped enough of her arm to finally reach the wound itself. There was a huge gash on the topside of her forearm that was basically putrid.

Looking at it, I was genuinely unsure how much my techniques would be able to actually heal her. I was confident I could remove the poison - eventually - and perhaps even push her arm to heal naturally over time with some significant treatment. But the wound itself was on another level. I could tell it had originally been quickly dressed originally, before those same dressings were removed in favor of the sealed bandages.

The wound hadn't resealed or even begun healing. If anything, it looked to me like the poison had lingered on the edges of the wound, eating away at the skin and flesh there, stopping it from healing together and closing the wound. On one hand, the open wound would probably make my job somewhat easier, as it would be an easy way to remove the poison without having to create another wound, so long as I could find a way to reroute the poison along a vein or meridian back toward her hand.

On the other hand, I had no idea if any of the flesh around the wound would heal, even with extensive treatment. We would have to eventually see how it reacted once the poison was fully removed, but I wasn't confident. "Either way, this is going to leave a nasty scar…" I muttered aloud, by accident.

"Oh, yeah?" Demi asked, far too chipper given the state of her body. "It's rare to see a Cultivator with some nasty scars, so I'm not really against that."

"You…are far too happy, looking at this, Demi." I said with a sigh.

"And what should I be then, doctor?" She asked, suddenly sounding remarkably innocent and almost child-like. "It's not like whining about it or crying, or even getting upset is going to make a difference."

"You're not wrong." I allowed, "But if there was one thing I absolutely hate about your entire damn family, it's that you are all too accepting of this sort of pain."

I could feel Emery about to respond, and cut her off. "And I don't want to hear your 'Well, you get used to it.' nonsense. You should all get un-used to it."

Demi snorted, while I felt a quick surge of endearment from Emery.

"We appreciate the sentiment, I'm sure." Rylie said, sounding uncharacteristically genuine and serious for her. "But the fact remains that being inured to this sorta thing is going to make your job a lot easier, no?"

I glanced over to Rylie while still mentally exploring Demi's arm with my Qi. "Hopefully. But I do need you both to be as clear as possible when I ask about pain. I don't care how well you can hide or deal with how bad it hurts. I need to know - on a normal person scale - what things feel like so I can accurately assess the damage."

"That's…going to make this whole thing a little difficult, Ri." Emery said.

I swung my head over to her, narrowing my eyes. "And why, exactly, are you the one telling me that, Em?"

Emery just peered a little past me to the injury. "Even I can tell from here that that," she pointed at the arm, "is an easy ten or more on the normal scale."

Demi chuckled awkwardly. "I have some idea of what a normal Cultivator would say, Avuri." She said patiently, "And I think Emery's right. If it wasn't for me being…me, I'd probably be telling you my arm is at a constant ten. And basically anywhere you poke goes up to, like, a fourteen. The dead spots? Maybe a sixteen."

I took that in, my eyes sweeping over the blackened, bubbling skin that surrounded the jagged wound and took a deep breath. It didn't help settle me because I was pretty sure I could smell the putrefaction of Demi's arm. "This is going to be awful. For all of us."

Demi snorted again. "Well, you can thank our Dad for that."

"I'll be sure to tear him to pieces whenever he gets back." I vowed, "But I'll do my best to make sure the both of you are truly on the mend by then."

"Thanks, Sis." Demi said.

If she weren't horribly, horribly injured, I would have given her a disastrously tight hug right then.