milliways_bar | (no subject)

Asar-Suti is around; he's hiding behind a huge Ihlini grimoire in his usual chair, near the fire, and staring vaguely at the trilobite tank.

Guppy can't see Asar-Suti from where he is. He also can't really move right now. Luckily Mitzi, who has been wandering around looking for him can see where he is.

'Good morning penguin. Those wiggly things look rather tasty. Am I allowed to eat them?'

'Hello Mitzi,' Asar-Suti tells the small pink fluffy creature. 'Not yet; they are still very small, at least if you mean the baby trilobites in the water - oh ye meta-entities gods swear by, there must be dozens, if not hundreds!'

Asar-Suti then puts down his book and gets up, looking around for Guppy - he can't be that far, seeing that itzi is about.

He no longer can sense where Guppy is, merely judging by where the slightly panicked thoughts come fom.

'I'll take you to him in a second. He can't move and I need to ask you a favour. I did something a little... stupid yesterday. I saw the Hellfly had been killed so I knew he was going to change back, so I got him to hop onto the beam whilst he still wasn't frightened, so that when he changed back I could persuade him that heights weren't scary. Unfortunately when he changed back he went all dizzy again and fell off, so it sort of backfired. Can you mend broken ankles?'

Mitzi takes it from the first line that she will be allowed to eat some of the hundreds of little trilobites. Judging by the breeding rate, that might be a good thing...

Flamingos do eat tiny mini-shrimp that live in the brine lakes they prefer, after all. That's why their beak looks like that. If the trilobites are truly starting their breeding season, she'll be too stuffed to walk gracefully, soon.

'I can,' he tells Mitzi. 'If you show me where he is.'

It is strange to not simply know, after almost a week of naturally doing so. But Asar-Suti would gladly do without magic at all, provided Gil has come back to his senses. As he has.

Mitzi leads him to where Guppy is, in a booth, in the corner, hiding from one or two people himself. Asar-Suti however isn't one of them, embarrassed as Guppy is by his behaviour over the previous week. He smiles shyly, one hand instinctively starting to fiddle with his hair.

"Hello Asar-Suti. Are you okay? How's Gil?"

[ooc: n.b. mun is around all afternoon but is babysitting this evening so won't be able to slowtime this unless to Sunday afternoon/evening. Just to let you know]

"Himself again," Asar-Suti answers. "He knows me again, and remembers, and, erm, all the rest, you know."

Guppy most probably doesn't know, and has passed on the opportunity to learn that had offered itself to him due to the Hellfly, but never mind.

"So, you broke that ankle and would like me to mend it?"

He nods, a little awkwardly.

"Yes please. I fell off the beam."

He continues to fiddle with his hair, twisting the dark curls around his finger.

"I'm sorry I've been so much trouble, and still am being. I've been dreadfully behaved the last week." he blurts out.

Looks like he's back to normal. He stops fiddling with his hair so that he can unwrap the bandage to reveal one very bruised and swollen ankle.

"I know it's broken, I've done it before. Fell out of a tree when I was seven, running away from my father because he was angry with me."

Asar-Suti lifts the ankle, and puts his hands around it, despite Guppy's wince.

He no longer has the gifts of a Discian witch, but he remembers them; and he remembers being that god behind the Gate, touching the innermost essence of his followers.

He combines both memories, on awkward purpose instead of instinct, and winces.

"I first need to take out the swelling, and then I can mend the ankle. It will hurt a bit - all right?"

"Aarh!" he cries, wincing with the pain as Asar-Suti lifts it up. He takes a deep breath.

"Yes, okay. Do what you have to."

It's at this point that he really wishes the bar hadn't refused to give him morphine...

Violet magic flows from Asar-Suti's hands into Guppy's ankle, dissolving the swelling, sending the blood on its way, mending vessels.

This does hurt.

Then, he holds the ankle straight with one of his hands, and draws a rune with the other, fizzing with purple fire on Guppy's skin.

This does hurt as well.

The magic sinks in, telling the bones to mend and grow whole at once, instead of taking several weeks for it.

Normally, Asar-Suti would have used a magic that literally repaired the damage, instead of merely emulating the natural repair processes in an extremely fast way. Asar-Suti has learned a few things, last week, that he can now remember.

This doesn't hurt; it itches cruelly, as all the itch of healing tissue happens at once.

Then, it is over, and Asar-Suti lets go of Guppy's healed ankle.

After several cries of "Aargh!" in places and sharp intakes of breath the pain subsides. He resists the itching, knowing better than to scratch it.

"Thanks." he says, leaning forward to check that it moves in all the right directions.

"I didn't accidentally put the foot on backwards?" Asar-Suti grins.

He smiles. "No, thank goodness. I wouldn't want to have to break it again so that you could put it back on again."

He grins and gives it a wiggle to prove it.

"I'm glad that Gil's okay again. Did he change back last night? Because he gave me some ice then went to find you and didn't come back for ages. In the end I went to bed because I was really dizzy and wanted to lie down, so sorry if you had a wasted trip after then."

"Oh, we looked for you briefly, and then concluded you must have turned in; never worry," Asar-Suti says, airily, but with a slightly schmoopy grin at the memory.

Which is not exactly Guppy's business.

~~Also, the thread is slowtimed, so the mun doesn't know yet what happened.~~

Yes, mun gathered that. So was the Guppy and Gil thread because the mun's father didn't fall asleep in front of the TV. Unfortunately. But Guppy seemed to have moved because he wasn't in the chair in the Suti/Gil schmoop thread, which was incidentely very sweet.

Guppy wouldn't dream about asking about the moment Gil turned back and the aftermath, whatever that might be. He smiles.

"And the others are all back to normal?"

Seems he didn't know the rest. Possibly because falling from a beam high above the floor was a bit of a distraction.

"I haven't talked to anybody else yet," Asar-Suti says, slowly. "But I will find them. They must be all right, though - also, angry at me and sorry for whatever they did while under the influence."

Guppy can relate to the second half of that, already feeling extremely guilty for a number of things, wondering in particular if he'll ever be able to look Tim or Claire in the eye again. Let alone what everyone must have thought seeing him in a cage yesterday. But the first half...

"Angry at you? Whatever for? It wasn't your fault, it was that fly's or the coffee machine or something. I can't imagine why anybody would blame you for that. It wasn't your fault that your coffee machine had a demon and presumably there was a perfectly good reason why you were keeping the fly."

"I was supposed to look after it; and we kept it for further study, which never happened. Putting the jar with the Fly in on top of the coffee machine which I knew to be demonic was not responsible behaviour of me," Asar-Suti says, curtly.

Guppy raises his eyebrows.

"And how many times had the machine exploded out of its cabinet before? None. It's far less stupid than the hundreds of people I see each year who just happened to smoke whilst sitting on the sofa when they were tired, or put flammable materials on top of radiators, or think that they can rewire their broken appliances themselves. Everyone makes mistakes. If being in here has taught me anything, it's that there are some things you can't change, and that includes past events. Besides which if Dimaggio managed to get into your machine, he could presumably get out again. Which means that wherever you put the jar he could have found and broken it. Don't beat yourself up about it. At the end of the day, no real harm done." he says, hoping to cheer Asar-Suti up a bit.

"Thank you, Guppy," Asar-Suti says, knowing he means well.

If Guppy knows that much, presumably from Ray, that must mean everybody knows.

Oh ye meta-entities...

Not necessarily. Guppy did talk to Ray a lot, and Mitzi filled him in on a few details that she might have got from somewhere she probably shouldn't have. He smiles at Asar-Suti, hoping that he has brought him at least some comfort.

"If anyone gives you a hard time, I'll come and defend you." he says with a grin. "I'll wrestle them to the floor to defend your honour."

[ooc: Mun has to go babysitting overnight. Talk to you tomorrow.]

"Thank you," Asar-Suti says. "But I deserve to be given some grief, you know. I'll apologise and hope nobody hates me permanently."

[[See you!]]

Guppy can see at this point that nothing he can say is going to convince Asar-Suti not to blame himself. Plus he can't really say how anybody else is going to react. But he can relate to how Asar-Suti is feeling right now because it would be a similar feeling to losing a patient and wondering what he could have done differently. Best thing he can try and do is take Asar-Suti's mind off it.
He glances down at Mitzi, who by a 'coincidence' has written a suitable distraction. 'Trilobites have babies'. He gets up, still a little stiff from the bruising down his side where he landed.

"Come on. I'll get you a coffee and then you can show me the baby trilobites."

[ooc: Mun won't be online during day today so probably best to wrap. Will be on tonight from 9pm-11.20ish]

Okay, so Guppy stopped insisting - very sensible. Atypically sensible, even.

Asar-Suti smiles at doctor and flamingo both, then says, "Yes, that's a good idea; they are very tiny and hard to see...", following Guppy to the bar for the coffee.

[[OOC: OK, wrappped. See you Monday night, latest!]]