Work Text:
[Begin Audio Transcript]
"I should take notes? I should take notes."
[A deep, shaking breath.]
"Um, the date, is. It's Smith's Day. It's been a day since Thjazi... um."
"Let me start over."
"Subject: Occtis Tachonis, that's me. Age: was twenty. I don't... I don't know if I should, like, continue counting up, or if I'm just stuck here. Height: five-eleven, weight.... one-thirty, minus a heart, so we'll say one-twenty-nine."
"There was... some kind of surgery. A ritual. It's hard to remember, even though it was today. Today? Yesterday? It's night, but I'm not tired, so I can't exactly tell how long it's been."
"Surgery. Ethrand's technique was... sloppy, at best, it's clear he gets by on sorcery alone. He opened the -- my -- thoracic cavity, sawing partially through the diaphragm to break the seal of the chest."
"No fucking wonder I can't breathe, I--"
"Right. He placed his hand in the incision, and considering I wasn't dead yet, it was rather rude to break sterility. I... should probably go back through and treat for sepsis. Not that I can get infections-- can I get infections?"
[The sound of a pen scribbling.]
"Anyway. I'm not sure what feat of strength it was. The connection to the aorta alone should have been strong enough to keep me intact, but I felt it tear. It was the pulmonary arteries and veins first. They snapped quickly, at least, and I remember feeling my lungs fill with blood. The vena cava stretched, like rubber bands, and I could feel the cartilage of the aorta crush. It reminded me of putting Pin together, the way the tendons at the scapula had to be rejoined… I should really fix him up a bit, huh buddy?”
[The sound of scritches being given.]
“Heart and associated capillaries removed from chest cavity, small intestine spills from lumbar cavity… blood pools freely, lung activity ceases. I think that might also be the point at which brain activity ceased, because it stands to reason that I wasn’t necessarily conscious without a heartbeat. I am now, which is. Strange.”
“There are other notes I should include, here, um.
[Pages are turned.]
“I remember walking through the forest, at least, from Thaisha’s notes. Something pulling me off the path. I saw the incision, and I remember it very clearly because it matches the scar. It’s a little jagged, at the bottom… I don’t think druidic magic agrees with me much, anymore.”
“There were wings, black and brown. I don’t know birds. Some kind of pigeon? It was… in me, in the hollow of the chest cavity. And there was something else, h-heavy, and deep, and like a black hole sinking into the space that my heart really should have been.”
“…There was also Pin, who needs a bath soon, I think.”
[Clearing throat.]
“I put my hand up, under the floating ribs, through the gash in the diaphragm, and I should… really throw away my gloves at this point. The intestine was slimy with mucus, and blood, still trying to digest, and slowly losing turgidity. Every part of viscera was warm, which also seems inappropriate given that I was dead at the time. The lungs, liver, and stomach received superficial wounding, though the gallbladder was happily untouched.”
“Did, uh. Did you know that the heart is very protected by the lungs? In horses, and sometimes in young centaurs, inhalations are under vacuum pressure from the gait of a run. If you stop running, you stop breathing.”
“I took it out. I don’t know what it was, I know it was explained, but I’ll have to make my notes on the artifact when I have more time to examine it. Vaelus has it, as she’s sleeping… meditating? I don’t want to wake anyone.”
“…I took it out, and I woke up. Still mostly and inexpertly eviscerated. Missing a heart and several associated blood vessels. Not breathing. But awake!”
“Observations so far, uh. I don’t breathe, or don’t have to. I don’t blink, but I’m trying to remind myself to do so, in the hopes my sclera don’t start to shrivel… I’ve retained my color well, at least, if that can be said. I’m cold, all the time. Hunger… well, we had dinner, and I feel the same as before I ate, which is to say both starving and sick at the thought of food.”
“…But I’m sure I still have to eat. I will... probably die a second death a virgin. Uh. What else?”
“I… Don’t sleep. Don’t feel tired, but… I also don’t feel terribly excited, either. I told Murray I’d take notes— like hell I’m finishing my thesis, but this might be important. For future wizards, and all.”
“…Some guinea pig I am, huh, Pin. Conscious enough to record a statement, the first? Undead? Person??? ever, and it’s… far away.”
“Not literally, we’re only a day’s travel from the Penteveral, but.”
“I should be excited, right? That we’re learning something? That’s the correct emotion to experience.”
“Or maybe I should be upset? About my family? I’m not too torn up about the thesis, really. You’re great and all, Pin, but I’m still fiddling… I’ll be older than some of my professors by the time I figure you out.”
“I mean, I still want to figure it out.”
“…I mean, I should?”
"I guess I won't grow a beard like the metamagic prof has."
“This. Should be exciting news. I'm at the Forefront Of Magic! Like I always wanted to be!"
"...past tense. Emotions aren't stored in the heart, and I doubt I bled them out of my viscera--"
[He sounds bitter.]
"--so why don't I CARE?!"
[A sigh. He sounds upset.]
"I can't even be upset. Ha. Haha. I don't even feel, angry, or... or feel. Hm."
[You should comfort him.]
"It's not my fault I got murdered, I guess."
[You should have been there for him.]
"Final note: dulled... muted pathos. Logos is... intact, and ethos is. Well. Intact for now. I should be... a lot more nervous about that than I am."
"I think I've woken Vaelus."
[End Audio Transcript.]
Thimble looks up from the last page, letters written in Occtis' looping handwriting as long as her arm.
"Kat? Kat, we have to move faster."
"Not all of us can fly, alright--"
"No, we have to move now!" She darts straight up, clipping his shoulder. "Now, I--" her voice shrinks, and she lights on his shoulder, holding fast to the fabric. "--I'm not losing anyone else."
"...You heard the pixie," Teor's voice cuts across the air as whatever it is Tyranny's trying to steal is slipped into Wick's pocket. "Move."