Hospitals never fail to have long wait times.
Unless you’re, like, a humanoid person who is in a state of imminently oncoming death. You have to basically be bleeding out, or unconscious and unresponsive, or missing at least twenty percent of your bodily mass to get in with no time spent in the waiting room. Even in a place like Arcadia, which is home to some of the greatest sorcerers and scientists this side of the ball of shadow formerly known as Govermorne, there’s still a hierarchy to these things. Sure, rolling someone in on a stretcher, having a healer suss out if the ‘Cure’ spell will work or if they’re going to need a more technological solution — like some fancy cybernetics — might seem like a wham-bam-thank you, ma’am kind of quick thing. Somehow, though, these places had learned how to stretch it out.
And the need for patience wasn’t just isolated to the waiting room, either; no! Once you got into your sandstone-colored, spackle-smelling suite, you had to sit and wait there, too. Oh, sure, a nurse might come in, hook you up to some things, check your vitals and make sure you’re not, once again, in a state of imminently oncoming death. If you weren’t though, you got shuffled onto a whole new list, full of all new methods of determining whether your case was as much of an emergency as your neighbor’s, or your neighbor’s neighbor’s.
Needless to say, a dying — or, let’s face it, dead — pigeon was pretty low on the ladder.
The great mystery, of course, was exactly who made these calls. The Arbiters were the closest thing to gods the majority of the peoples of the Crossroads had, but even they didn’t really deign to weigh in on the whole ‘who should live vs. who should die’ question. According to legend, they just sort of… made everything and fucked off, which, to be honest, was exactly how Christopher would’ve dealt with being an all-powerful, omnipresent being, too. The idea of so many lives depending on you sounded like something unimaginably stressful, and… well, shit, he could barely keep himself together holding this pigeon here in the hospital room.
Could the dead pigeon feel his knee bouncing nervously? Sure, he had the thing cupped in his hands, but his knees were right below that, and the left one was practically jiggling. He couldn’t exactly tell if it was from nerves or because the leather of the patient seat was very cold against his skin — his black shorts were pretty short, so at this point, between the leather’s natural sticky quality and the growing perspiration overtaking his body, the underside of his thighs was practically glued to where he sat. A bead of sweat emerged from underneath the strap of his goggles, escaped the last errant strands of his electric blue hair, and slid down his cheek, dripping off the bottom point of his chin. Christopher watched as it plopped onto the dead bird’s stomach.
“Can I get some fucking help here?!” he shouted without even thinking, ripping his thighs from the leather and popping up into the air. He landed squarely on the soles of his sneakers, and then, all at once, realized what he’d done. He felt his cheeks flush and his face turn red, but the words had already left his mouth, and one of the Nurse Joys was already rushing in.
“What’s wrong?!” she squeaked urgently, tiny hands flying up to her mouth in shock at, well, whatever she was going to inevitably be shocked at.
It took her only a moment to realize that there was really nothing shocking going on in this room at all — in fact, less than nothing, if that was such a thing. She lowered her hands, placing one on her hip and straightening out the wrinkles in her apron with the other. Her small, pinkish-red loops of hair bobbed a bit as she stared down the young boy in front of her.
“Who even let you in here with that thing?” she asked, features sharpening. “Was it Joy? I’ll bet it was Joy.”
“Uh — she’s hurt, ma’am,” Christopher pleaded, holding the small, greenish-grey bird out in front of him. “Can’t you help her? Please?”
“It’s not hurt at all,” Joy rolled her eyes. “It’s dead.”
Christopher blinked. Yes, duh, of course she was dead, but she was only dead because she had been hurt. Was this nurse new at her job, or had she somehow managed to make it this far in her career path without having a lick of knowledge about medical science? Or even basic cause-and-effect scenarios? For his part, Christopher could’ve thought up at least 786 different painful scenarios that led to the pigeon’s death within seconds — if he hadn’t unfortunately borne witness to the scenario that had gotten her into this predicament.
His face grew pale just thinking about it. It had been… utterly traumatizing, even for a boy like him, who trafficked in the type of scientific experimentation some might call ‘grotesque.’
“Get it out of here,” Nurse Joy ordered, “and go home, young man.”
Christopher blinked, again. He straightened his arms, holding the pigeon even further out in front of him. “Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaase?”
Nurse Joy didn’t even bother to respond. She sighed, spun around on her little kitten heel, and marched right out of the room.
Christopher stood, dejected, in the unreliable glow of the hospital room’s single flickering fluorescent light. It buzzed and vacillated between on and off for several seconds before finally fading into permanent darkness, a harbinger of the hopelessness of his situation. Or, well, of Peggy’s situation, but one he was now intricately linked to through the probably unhealthy parasocial bond he’d formed with this bird. That, yes, he had named Peggy while he waited around for a doctor. He knew what everyone said — don’t name it! You’ll get attached! — and that was fucking true, because now, as he stood in the darkness holding the dead bird’s slowly decomposing corpse, he felt his stomach twist.
It tied itself into a knot and flipped over. Weren’t they supposed to help here? Surely they had a Phoenix Down or a Revive spell or… or… something! Were they really just going to pass over this poor creature just because it didn’t look like them? Just because it was small and, yes, probably meaningless in the grand scheme of the Arbiters’ designs? Just because it probably would’ve had a short life anyway?!
Christopher Chaos refused to be so apathetic.
He stuffed Peggy’s body into the pocket of his yellow raincoat and zipped it up, hiding it — and his cute bright pink t-shirt — from view. He swept swiftly out of the hospital room and absconded from the building as fast as his skinny little chicken legs could manage, melting into the crowds on the streets of Arcadia and beginning the long trek back home.
Unless you’re, like, a humanoid person who is in a state of imminently oncoming death. You have to basically be bleeding out, or unconscious and unresponsive, or missing at least twenty percent of your bodily mass to get in with no time spent in the waiting room. Even in a place like Arcadia, which is home to some of the greatest sorcerers and scientists this side of the ball of shadow formerly known as Govermorne, there’s still a hierarchy to these things. Sure, rolling someone in on a stretcher, having a healer suss out if the ‘Cure’ spell will work or if they’re going to need a more technological solution — like some fancy cybernetics — might seem like a wham-bam-thank you, ma’am kind of quick thing. Somehow, though, these places had learned how to stretch it out.
And the need for patience wasn’t just isolated to the waiting room, either; no! Once you got into your sandstone-colored, spackle-smelling suite, you had to sit and wait there, too. Oh, sure, a nurse might come in, hook you up to some things, check your vitals and make sure you’re not, once again, in a state of imminently oncoming death. If you weren’t though, you got shuffled onto a whole new list, full of all new methods of determining whether your case was as much of an emergency as your neighbor’s, or your neighbor’s neighbor’s.
Needless to say, a dying — or, let’s face it, dead — pigeon was pretty low on the ladder.
The great mystery, of course, was exactly who made these calls. The Arbiters were the closest thing to gods the majority of the peoples of the Crossroads had, but even they didn’t really deign to weigh in on the whole ‘who should live vs. who should die’ question. According to legend, they just sort of… made everything and fucked off, which, to be honest, was exactly how Christopher would’ve dealt with being an all-powerful, omnipresent being, too. The idea of so many lives depending on you sounded like something unimaginably stressful, and… well, shit, he could barely keep himself together holding this pigeon here in the hospital room.
Could the dead pigeon feel his knee bouncing nervously? Sure, he had the thing cupped in his hands, but his knees were right below that, and the left one was practically jiggling. He couldn’t exactly tell if it was from nerves or because the leather of the patient seat was very cold against his skin — his black shorts were pretty short, so at this point, between the leather’s natural sticky quality and the growing perspiration overtaking his body, the underside of his thighs was practically glued to where he sat. A bead of sweat emerged from underneath the strap of his goggles, escaped the last errant strands of his electric blue hair, and slid down his cheek, dripping off the bottom point of his chin. Christopher watched as it plopped onto the dead bird’s stomach.
“Can I get some fucking help here?!” he shouted without even thinking, ripping his thighs from the leather and popping up into the air. He landed squarely on the soles of his sneakers, and then, all at once, realized what he’d done. He felt his cheeks flush and his face turn red, but the words had already left his mouth, and one of the Nurse Joys was already rushing in.
“What’s wrong?!” she squeaked urgently, tiny hands flying up to her mouth in shock at, well, whatever she was going to inevitably be shocked at.
It took her only a moment to realize that there was really nothing shocking going on in this room at all — in fact, less than nothing, if that was such a thing. She lowered her hands, placing one on her hip and straightening out the wrinkles in her apron with the other. Her small, pinkish-red loops of hair bobbed a bit as she stared down the young boy in front of her.
“Who even let you in here with that thing?” she asked, features sharpening. “Was it Joy? I’ll bet it was Joy.”
“Uh — she’s hurt, ma’am,” Christopher pleaded, holding the small, greenish-grey bird out in front of him. “Can’t you help her? Please?”
“It’s not hurt at all,” Joy rolled her eyes. “It’s dead.”
Christopher blinked. Yes, duh, of course she was dead, but she was only dead because she had been hurt. Was this nurse new at her job, or had she somehow managed to make it this far in her career path without having a lick of knowledge about medical science? Or even basic cause-and-effect scenarios? For his part, Christopher could’ve thought up at least 786 different painful scenarios that led to the pigeon’s death within seconds — if he hadn’t unfortunately borne witness to the scenario that had gotten her into this predicament.
His face grew pale just thinking about it. It had been… utterly traumatizing, even for a boy like him, who trafficked in the type of scientific experimentation some might call ‘grotesque.’
“Get it out of here,” Nurse Joy ordered, “and go home, young man.”
Christopher blinked, again. He straightened his arms, holding the pigeon even further out in front of him. “Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaase?”
Nurse Joy didn’t even bother to respond. She sighed, spun around on her little kitten heel, and marched right out of the room.
Christopher stood, dejected, in the unreliable glow of the hospital room’s single flickering fluorescent light. It buzzed and vacillated between on and off for several seconds before finally fading into permanent darkness, a harbinger of the hopelessness of his situation. Or, well, of Peggy’s situation, but one he was now intricately linked to through the probably unhealthy parasocial bond he’d formed with this bird. That, yes, he had named Peggy while he waited around for a doctor. He knew what everyone said — don’t name it! You’ll get attached! — and that was fucking true, because now, as he stood in the darkness holding the dead bird’s slowly decomposing corpse, he felt his stomach twist.
It tied itself into a knot and flipped over. Weren’t they supposed to help here? Surely they had a Phoenix Down or a Revive spell or… or… something! Were they really just going to pass over this poor creature just because it didn’t look like them? Just because it was small and, yes, probably meaningless in the grand scheme of the Arbiters’ designs? Just because it probably would’ve had a short life anyway?!
Christopher Chaos refused to be so apathetic.
He stuffed Peggy’s body into the pocket of his yellow raincoat and zipped it up, hiding it — and his cute bright pink t-shirt — from view. He swept swiftly out of the hospital room and absconded from the building as fast as his skinny little chicken legs could manage, melting into the crowds on the streets of Arcadia and beginning the long trek back home.