Work Text:
It was a rough day, as far as Piper was concerned.
True, most of the general populous would see his work as 'rough', to say the least. (Or, more accurately, 'Gruesome'. Or 'Ghoulish'. Don't forget 'Disturbing' - All words used to describe his work. To his face.) By most people's view on it, 'rough' would describe every day of his work.
But when one was used to the dead, familiar with cutting open a chest cavity as one would be with shaving and washing off human blood with the same nonchalance of washing a tea mug, assigning the word 'rough' to a day takes on a bit of a different meaning.
Of course, it can still mean many things. Some days were overloaded with the dead, from either a single deadly event or just plain bad luck. Some days it was children. Some days they were younger. Despite the fact that his feelings had no affect on the dead, those days were always some of the hardest.
Today it was a mix of things - A woman who joined the long, unfortunate line of wives killed by their husbands. (Doesn't help that the man had been screaming and raving about an 'intruder' who broke into their house - Not uncommon in these cases, but still an annoyance after all this time. The lies were made all the starker by the final moments of terror and disbelief of the victims.)
A young adult who overdosed. (And a mother in the office upstairs, still in the thoroughs of grief, begging for it to be anything but. Piper did not look forward to giving the news, even if he didn't need to share the details of her child's confused stupor as their body stopped breathing and their organs slowly shut down.)
An accident at the shipyard. (The third of this kind in as many months, claiming two victims at once this time. The Rat was working hard to fix it, change some legal work standard he was told, but people - particularly, the ones in charge - were set in their ways. And in their profits.)
And then there was the paladin.
Of course, even down in his ancient basement workrooms, Piper had heard the news. Whispered from ear to ear across the city, to disbelief and hysteric fear alike.
A god was dead, truly dead, and all His holy driven mad a month ago at the height of summer.
He's heard of the deaths - paladin, priest, and otherwise. Heard of the screams, the wails, of holy men and women turned for a day (or weeks, depending on who told the story) to unreasoning monsters, murdering and destroying until their bodies gave out. Heard even that some of those unfortunate souls have been sent to the Rat, kept hidden away from the public eye in the recesses of His temple.
Piper had thought for a time about inquiring on it to a solicitor sacrosanct he had worked with just a week ago in court. It didn't quite seem diplomatic, though, given the tired distraction in their eyes and what they were both there to do. So, he let it lie, and remained only vaguely aware of the goings on through whisper and rumor.
If an order is to have their last death throes, he supposed, there could be worse places than under the Rat's care. And he hadn't heard of attacks on His people - none that ended up in front of him, at least, either in whisper or in body. No one being hacked to pieces or decapitated or however berserkers brought an end to their victims, so that seemed to have been going well.
Well. At least until now.
Piper finished cleaning this last of his tools and He started with examining the lower body up. Across his legs, torso and arms there were multiple scars, old cuts of varying age and newer ones he'd date back a month. His mind helpfully supplied that that was roughly the time the rumors of the Saint's death started. Hard to know if the paladin got these from fighting exactly then or just before, but either way, they were not significantly important to this specific case.
What was a little more important - and on some level interesting - were the few fresh wounds. A scattering of slashes across the torso and arms, consistent with a (to be candid, inexperienced) attack. . . and deep bands across his wrists and ankles.
He knew by the report that there had likely been an altercation before the body, well, became simply a 'body', so most of the wounds weren't surprising.
But the bands - burns and tears from constant friction - were fresh and had clear signs that they had been present for some time. Considering Piper hadn't been told the paladin had been held elsewhere aside from the Temple recently. . .
Well, considering these paladins were also beserkers, he supposed it was a practical way to ensure a mad, two-hundred-plus pound killing machine robbed of reason didn't run around the Temple throwing petitioners into walls and breaking the bones of clerks and cleaners. (Not that this measure fully prevented the death of a cleaner. . . though, that 'cleaner' was likely a fake, if the shouldn't-have-been-there knife, the attack and defensive wounds, and the suspicions of the report were any clues to go by, so that particular record may still stand. (. . Didn't quite save the paladin in the end, though. . .))
Piper glanced at the main wound, the one that almost certainly did him in. . .
Grim business, the lot of it.
The blow that most likely killed him was a deep gash with clean edges, diagonal across his neck with the left point being the highest. Cut clean through both the left internal and external jugular veins, deeply nicked the left carteroid and right juglars, and cut deep across his trachea - between all that and the amount of bloodloss, he must have been dead within seconds.
Piper had limited experience with wounds as deep as this (most tended to go by hanging, or by mistakenly thinking a gut wound would be quick and therefore less painful - It typically wasn't, unless you knew exactly where to drive the knife), but they follow a similar course - a feeling like a blow, followed by dull pain, followed by excruciating pain, followed by disorientation, then. . .
Piper consciously relaxed his jaw and sighed deeply. His thoughts couldn't help but stray to wonder if he was picked in particular to examine this unfortunate paladin - Beartongue wanting to check for absolute certain if this was a suicide or not.
Most often a knife wound this deep would signal that it was inflicted by someone else who knew what they were doing, but with the angle of the cut, and. . Piper glanced at the man's hands, and the strength they had carried clear even in death. It wouldn't be the first time he'd seen exceptions to what would be assumed impossible.
Of course, it's possible Beartongue did not intend him to use his abilities, but he had stopped worrying about that distinction too much a long while back. He was used to it, had used it hundreds if not thousands of times already. And just because he occasionally felt reluctance didn't mean he couldn't help obtain some pitiful justice for the dead, however little it would matter. Sometimes for the living, too, if knowing would settle them.
Sometimes it didn't feel like it did, especially not in these cases, but. . he hoped against hope that it might help over time.
His gaze drifted to the late paladin's face. Long, red - dark red, not the typical orange most redheads have - fanned out around his head almost like a religious figure in an illuminated text. Maybe one of blood, of vengeance - maybe just one of suffering.
He was beautiful, Piper could say. More so when alive, most likely. Death was not a pretty thing, it became no one (foolish thoughts), and for a moment Piper let himself imagine this face before him alive - Perhaps smiling, perhaps stoic - Arms moving with ease, footing sure and true. How did he carry himself, how high did he lift his head? How did his eyes react to the world, when they lacked the glaze of death. . . ?
He looked away with a grimace.
Piper has dealt with many feelings of his - many that got in the way of his work and personal life, that helped no one, that were pointless - and he was dealing with some now. It had been a long day already, and people always died - always killed each other, were always driven to the edge and weren't caught in time to save.
But something about this man in front of him, a berserker seen as unfit for life among people - a devout man with his anchor, the basis for his life, gone in a way no one in the world has had to deal with before. . . Maybe it had all been just a job to him, maybe the man was actually horrible, a paladin in name only who kicked puppies and beat orphans for laughs. But maybe he was just a man, no matter what he was like in life; maybe he was doing his best as most everyone did. And now he was dead.
Piper wiped his eyes on his shoulder, far from any stains or blood, and blamed the tears on the long work day and the lack of food since early this morning. His feelings and tears were useless. The only thing he could do now was his job, and maybe give some peace to the living.
He reached out and, with a hand still gloved, touched the side of the man's face. . A moment of silly, pointless sympathy.
Then he tugged off the glove, and touched his face again.
Dissorientarion, Rush, rush - There was pain in his periphery, but there was blood and it was all around him - The black-tide-pull-blood-kill was still pulling at him, begging to take him down down cause everything was wrong wrong wrong- (Where was the Saint? What did they do to him?) - There was a man on the floor - Arm practically severed from his shoulder, covered in blood, neck broken, not a threat anymore - The man was wearing the robes of the Rat - No. - No no no no no- - He couldn't breathe - He had done it - He had turned the blade against innocents, again - He knew he knew he knew - He couldn't live, he couldn't be allowed - He couldn't be allowed to do this again - He was a danger to everyone and to his brothers and to his sisters and- - He took the blade in his hands (They would forgive him, they would understand-) - (. . Where had the blade come from? He hadn't held a blade since- It did not matter. He had used it, a purpose twisted to become the monsters he had spent everything championed against) - He held it to neck (breathed, breathed, he was so out of breath, he would have one shot of this, he had to adjust his grip because his hand was slipping in blood blood blood so much blood the blood never stopped and there was nothing (NOTHING) to make it holy-) - . . . - He would keep everyone safe.
He dug in as far as he could, and pulled-
He felt nothing, he felt a distant agony, saw distant red flashing and flying, tried uselessly breathe as he drowned and drowned and drowned-
Relief - He wouldn't hurt anyone, anymore - No more. . . of the nightmare. . .
Piper inhaled, gulping down air as he came to on his knees. He just barely twisted his hand in time to touch only the back of his fingers to his neck, found no injuries, found his airway clear. . .
Tears poured down his face without permission, freely as if he'd become the Elkinslough within an instant. He ripped off his other glove and buried his face in his hands, trying to stop the flow and get his rapid heartbeat under control. He tried to think of what someone would say if they came in and saw him like this, tried to think of what other colleagues would think of his outburst. . . He couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop at his frivolous thoughts confirmed, at the suffering and fear of a man devout, who had tried to be right and just among men, swept up and turned by a tide that turned him into something he feared above all else.
Gods.
Shit. Gods. . . .
. . Piper's knees creaked as he stood up, having to prop a hand up on the edge of the table. He tried to focus on the fact that he'd need to pay the washerwoman more than usual to ensure his pants would be cleaned right - the floor was as clean as it could be but it was still the floor of a morgue. Tried to think of how much he'd need to wash up himself, of how much scrubbing it would take.
Tried not to think of people lost to violence, to carelessness, to things that no one in a fair world should ever have had to contend against.
Holes in the world even gods cannot fill.
An inhale. An exhale. Repeat. Repeat. He adjusted his spectacles, somehow not lost to the floor, and stepped back from the table. He turned and walked to the basin in the corner of the room and washed his hands, followed by his gloves, as he always did.
He would need to write the report. Male, estimated 20's to 30's, expired from blood loss, self-inflicted. Internal examination not needed.
Piper spared one last glance to the paladin that lay on his slab, someone who needed more help than the world had to give.
There was no helping the dead. . . But he wished him peace, anyway.