XIII: Something Positive Never Lasts

Our first sighting of land was in fact of ice, but I was glad to see it nevertheless. Feeling fat in heavy enough winter gear to have orphaned several fox cubs, I stood with shoulders hunched at the prow of the ship and watched the huge iron hull smash through sheet ice. A quarter of the way down the intricate swirls of metalwork, part of my lunch congealed. Art.

“A day, no more,” the captain said from behind me, addressing Wrathwrought, “And you're not. To get in the way while we're unloading. I'm making that clear. Now. So I don't have to later.”

He kept sucking at a pipe even in the midst of speaking, lending his speech an infuriating stop-start quality. I wanted to hit him. Then again, I wanted to hit everything, including Wrathwrought, who leaned back against the railing beside me.

“We'll just nip off first, then,” he said, grinning sideways at me, “I think the medic would appreciate that.”

A mumbled “fuck off” was my only contribution. I stared off out in front as they exchanged a few more words, watched hills of ice I presumed were icebergs amongst the thinner shit pass us by on either side as the captain excused himself, frowned at the bizarre expanse of white our ship was carving noisily through as Wrathwrought did his best to make conversation.

A frozen sea was impressive, I had to give it that. Some part of me found it hard to accept that, at first glance, we were ploughing through solid ground on a fifty foot fucking warship. Another part wondered if I could get off and walk. And if I could, shouldn't this count as land? Because as far as we humans, the map-writers, are really concerned, land is something you walk on. Damn the necessity of actual dirt.

It was all good because it kept my mind off the fact that we were a day at most from a bloody war zone. It also kept my mind off my stomach. Exhausted from sickness, I relented long enough to be grateful for something positive.

“Now that you're not throwing up,” Wrathwrought said, “I think we need to discuss how we're going to handle things once we're out there with the Hakurians.”

Fucking Wrathwrought.

Notes on 'Strength of Stomach'

Although it's a defining characteristic of Calysia's thought patterns, I sometimes wonder if I let her rant a bit too much. Like the stereotypical old man, it's fine for him to curse the modern world with frequent mention of how much better it was in the old days, but if he keeps it up for too long he simply becomes comical. I'm worried this will happen to Calysia. Thankfully, she'll be in the warzone soon so must of her commentary will be on what's actually happening, but I think I may have to go into some of the earliest chapters and hack them up a bit to reduce repetition.

My main aim with this chapter, anyway, was to convey just how self-centred Calysia is. So caught up in her own pride, she's damning Gethan for looking after her, really. I hope that's clear in the text; I did manage to create a line free of her bias with "He brought me water, a damp cloth, a blanket and a fresh bucket." Even though she states all her suspicions as fact ("He was bloody well enjoying this" instead of "I could see he was bloody well enjoying this.") I feel a depiction of an action without any mention of sentiment will draw suitable notice.

Although I'm fairly proud of how I'm managing my dishonest narrator, there is always the worry that her war memories sound contrived. People rolling about and screaming in pain are pretty bog standard for depictions of warzone medical tents but I've found it difficult to move away from that without actually focusing on a particular patient (and thus exploring the intricacies of the doctor/patient relationship or anything like that). As Calysia is not prepared to think of any particular case just yet, this is an impossible fix. It's just something I'm going to have to brood over for a while, I think.

XII: Strength of Stomach

Gangrene, open sores, split intestine, watery yellow pus running from a ragged wound dug deep between two ribs; the low, animal growl of a man in pain, the piercing, high-pitch scream of a man in agony; the stench of shit running from a newly made tear, of piss going stale in the weave of a cot's only sheets: I'd witnessed all that and more, all worse than I could easily describe, and never lost control over my stomach.

Even during my first few days as an active field medic, sent straight to a tent in which a man whose side was full of splintered wood hawked up red and yellow phlegm and smeared his own excrement up his back with each squirm of agony and involuntary squeeze of his bowel, I had not thrown up. My superior had looked at me and given the hollow, half-unseeing grin of an experienced war physician. Pale, shaking, gagging on the stench, I heard him say I had a damned strong stomach. When the fuck did I lose that?

Hell, not that when really mattered. I needed to know how. So I could reverse it. So I could reverse it before I died of dehydration and broken pride.

That Wrathwrought was taking so much pleasure in this made it all infinitely worse. As I gagged on my own foul spit and hunkered down in the corner of my cupboard of a room, the one the crew had thrust me into when I first turned green, he made excuses to come and go. He brought me water, a damp cloth, a blanket and a fresh bucket. Though he kept his face carefully blank with each infuriating visit I could see the fucking gloating glint in his eye. He was bloody well enjoying this. Every time he opened that door a crack, craned his head around and peered about before easing himself through on the grounds of checking up on me I could see his overwhelming glee for all he tried to hide it.

If I hadn't been so incapacitated by the sickness, I would have made him hurt for that blatant disrespect. Instead I raised my head from my knees, glared blearily at him and his carefully restrained grin, and hawked phlegm at his polished boots. It was the best I could do. And when he failed to even flinch and merely stared at me impassively, brows drawn together, even that did nothing to make me feel better.

At that point, I doubted even the best medicine could.