A Very Boring Bravo

by imperialvirtue

Prompt: What I wanted to be when I grew up

Quotations adapted from the writings of Galen and Hippocrates.

***

“I had the cloth imported from an Urizen silk-farm,” he was saying, proudly, cornering her again for probably the ninth time, one hand stretched out towards her so she could test the feel of it for herself, and it was beginning to feel physically tiring to smile at him, at his hopeful, awful smile, and say, “How lovely.”

Nora wasn’t listening to this man, and there was only a small amount of comfort to be drawn from the knowledge that he was incapable of comprehending for even a second how little she was attending to his conversation.

She had ended up pretending to take notes as he talked. At first there’d been genuine notes: taffeta, urizen, dual-toned. It wasn’t a bad doublet, but he wasn’t worth featuring – his attitude was overbearing and he was both rude and probably drunk. But she didn’t like to say so, so here she was. Stuck.

After ten minutes he was still talking – definitely  drunk – blocking her way to the wine, repeating himself, and being bloody rude about Holberg. So her pencil switched topics, almost of its own volition, and began scattering quotes from The Fundamentals of Surgery all over the page in a faintly panicked script.

“…and I said, none of that cheap crap from downtown Holberg, only the finest silk-”

The vessels in bleeding must be sustained by ligatures, for in some cases, they readily move under the skin

He couldn’t see what she was writing, so it made no difference. He wasn’t interested in really seeing her, not really; what he is excited by, she realised, is having a Looking Glass lady see his outfit, and being seen to be seen by said lady. She was a status symbol in a dress. And the dress wasn’t even hers, either; Sarvos was too hot for most of her things. She might speak entirely in Commonwealth and in all probability this man would not notice.

If only slightly penetrated, the parts swell, the discharge of blood is impeded, and suppuration may ensue.

This party had neither point nor purpose, Magdelena was probably surrounded by admirers somewhere, and this man wouldn’t shut up. She hadn’t the heart to shut him up herself, and thus a period of scholarly revision on the sly seemed fair game.

Two evils hence follow, pain for the patient, and disgrace for the operator. And this remark holds good in all similar cases.

She stole a glance at the bravo’s masked face as he waffled on. Considered what would happen if she were to feign a sudden bout of illness. No, he might try to help her, wait with her for help, maybe even escort her back to her rooms. All of which would be intolerable.

As to wounds and ulcers, four kinds are observed.

“I have to-” she found herself saying, as though pacifying her cat, trying to find a graceful exit and was stung to find he cut her off.

“And as I said,” he slurred, “to the ambassador, anyone who pays less than thirty thrones for their silk, is, well, let’s just say…”

Nora frowned, and realised dimly that this bit, and the probable assumption it was what anybody really worth swooning over ought to think, was really hitting a nerve, for foggy gut-feeling reasons she was entirely too hot and tired to unpick.

Dizzy fragments of surgical essays continued to float through her head unbidden, like a muffling shield against the noise and blur of the party. Maybe she was getting ill again. It wasn’t that she wasn’t proud of the Looking Glass. It was… it was… with no war anymore, it was…

When accurate dissection is necessary, it must be slowly accomplished, since, if too hastily effected, the pain is continual and severe

“Excuse me,” she piped up, at last, quite suddenly, before she could stop herself.

He actually stopped.

“What is my name?”

“Ed…uardo.”

“Not your name, sir. Mine.”

An awkward beat, and he said, swaying slightly, “You’re with the Looking Glass. You write the fashion… things.”

“Yes, but who am I?”

“….”

but when a single incision is required, do it quickly; for, as cutting is attended with great pain, we must make it as short as possible

“My name,” she murmured, with weary slowness, “is Leonora. I was the national representative on the Anvil Hospital Board of Surgeons until this month. I am writing a chapter for a book. It’s about suturing.”

“That’s…” He was clearly confused as to why this mattered. Nora was only half certain it mattered herself; all that was clear was how much, in this moment at least, she’d had enough of Sarvos.

The vomiting of bile and phlegm, if not too excessive, is very beneficial.

“In a past life I kept Giselle off the throne for eleven years. I also like baking and the tragedies of Van Heerden.”

“…”

Ardent fever does not originate as tetanus. It at once shows its nature to resemble that of a great fire.

“And I,” said Nora, “am going to the powder room.”