open » all secrets sleep in winter clothes

[buckkeep]

CHARACTERS: fitzchivalry farseer (buckkeep) & you.
LOCATION: station log; crawling on the floor, infirmary, etc.
DATE: first week of october
CONTENT: fitz back from a canon update
WARNINGS: mentions of an infectious flesh eating virus + brutal bodily injury. also spoilers for the end of the realm of the elderlings series. will cw any topics that come up in the headers!

FLOOR TIME

( death is slow. but death is not silent.

it's not as though the powers that be in the ximilia were unkind enough to not put fitz in the infirmary. it's that fitz has the ghost of a very stubborn wolf in his ear reminding him that he has something infectious festering inside himself, something contagious, something that goes by the name of traitor's death, which is precisely as pleasant as it sounds. sick people home in the infirmary. fitz, a sick person, cannot risk bringing harm to them.

which is how he ends up on the floor, somewhere between doors, using his upper body strength to pull him and his useless legs away from wherever the population is. it's slow going. it's punishing. ultimately it's somewhere between worthless and futile work, because the hallways never stay empty for long, and when someone goes to help him, fitz recoils, curling into himself. )

No, no! Don't! Don't touch me. You can't. ( it's not painless, even for someone as in tune with pain as fitz. he jerks away from their touch, fending it off. ) Get far away. As far as you can. Do this now, for me. Leave me, please.

THE INEVITABILITY OF CARE

( fitz has never learned how to be a patient patient, but he is eventually resigned to listening to the caretakers on deck, if only to make their jobs slightly easier. after a few days, he can sit up straight. after a few more, and he isn't even coughing up worms anymore.

the infirmary bed is becoming a semi-permanent home to him. in it, he flirts with rest, but mostly reflects on his life and the choices he's made, the people he's left and the people he will leave, when what has been foretold will come to pass. more often than not, fitz can be found wide awake in his bed with a red, leather bound journal in his lap, weather worn and water logged but still decorated with a child's colorful drawings, side by side with her flowery script. it hurts to look at, but fitz treasures the pain — he treasures the memory of long nights spent with the fool, reading from their daughter's book. fawning over their once lost, and recently found, child.

at another point in time, fitz would've hated sharing this little piece of bee he has in his hands, his alone, his burden, his gift. now? he knows seeing bee again is the farfetched dream of a father armed with an apology, as much as he knows with stunning clarity that he wants people to know — of his brilliant daughter, of the way she swoops her ys with little curls, and colors her pictures with meticulous intelligence far outnumbering her years. he wants everyone to know he taught her exactly none of it, she's just that clever. )

Would you like to see? ( he asks, to whoever's around. ) It belongs to my daughter.

A CURE ALL

( i didn't mean for that to happen is becoming a bit of a regular theme in life, for fitz.

when cleared for leave (or, when he's finally capable of ignoring doctors orders) fitz goes to the sunlight room, where he spends the majority of his time with his feet in the water, praying for something to hunt, but enjoying the serenity of a rushing river and the feigned image of foliage around him. nighteyes grumbles. no meat, little brother. for what purpose are these trees, then, if not the hunt? and fitz smiles, and smiles larger than he should, and retorts, ) Clean air. Almost.

( it's climbing out of the riverbank that's the problem. fitz may still look somewhere in his forties, but he's a man well into his sixties now, and his body sometimes decides its spritely youthful days of running around, assassinating, restoring dragons to life, killing forged, dancing through skill pillars, are well and truly done. which is to say, when fitz moves to get out, he lets out a grunting old man sound, before slipping on the rock, and reaching towards whoever is closest to him —

and he sees it, automatically. not with his eyes, but with the magic that courses through his veins, connecting him at once to all that lives and breathes in the world, and some of the things long dead in the other. an imperfection. one little blimp on your body — or maybe a big one, an open wound, a papercut, an ancient scar, a tattoo. he sees it, and using the stores of strength from your own body, he heals it. immediately. without even a thought. unsubtly. )

I'm — Eda and El, I'm sorry. Are you alright?

WILCARD

( anything else! if you like, you can read about fitz's canon update here, but also rote is a very complicated canon, and i'm happy to answer any questions or plot ideas you might have over pm or at trashmouth! please come at me, i'm so excited to play anything and everything ok. )