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When the world was illuminated in color, it was acceptable to overlook the tawdry foolishness of youth. When the weather brightened, it was pleasing to see two lovers unite and embrace in the grasses. Regrettably, Maitland saw the world in a greyscale almost all year. There was only one painter who could color the scene in a way which was pleasing to his eye, and she was so clumsy with a paintbrush one could make no promises. Thus he walked without noting much pleasing to the eye. No strokes could be made to repair the world for a doctor. Every day was exhausting. The disease took nearly all the lives it touched. It was such a sickening, disastrous thing. Each death was different than the first: more painful, less painful; more blood, less blood; screaming, silence; seizing, stillness. The variety was a taunt, manifested in every action among the gaiety of a street. While Or’lin danced in their respectable weather, Maitland saw the actions of the dead and distantly heard the sounds of them too.
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That day had been one of incomparable tedium and unfortunate loss. There had been a remarkably long meeting in the morning of topics which Maitland found uninteresting, such as proper cleaning before and after touching patients; it was all enough to make a good man mad. Around ten, when he had an opportunity to check up on some of his patients, he found that one was foaming at the mouth, spittle dripping down from the sides of his cheeks and taking flight as his head jerked sporadically. The rapid action of his body bounced him on the bedsprings. With an almighty curse to begin his path, Maitland had been at his side, hand sliding over his chest as he reached towards the man’s shoulder, determined to flip him on his side. He could feel the patient’s heart beating so fast it was all but unholy. The sheets twisted at the man’s feet, torn away by the nurse who entered the room. As the fabric parted, a smell spread which nearly made Maitland recoil: gangrene. The stagnant blood had extended the reach of the bandage – overnight? Or was this his fault? When the patient’s convulsions stopped and his heartbeat along with them within minutes, he frowned at the wound, swore, and moved on. He had to put it behind him, or progress would never be made. He didn’t know the man’s name. Someone else would weep for him.
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Yet somehow it happened that, for the second time that day, with an hour or so to spare in his shift, the doctor was surprised. His balance, never a thing worth outstanding praise, failed him, his disoriented feet on the melting ice of the park walkway. He caught himself, crying predictably: “Damn!” Speaking that single word was a drawn out affair, as things tended to be when he spoke. Although his inability to hear had not rendered him incapable of determining proper word structure, he certainly spoke without the confidence this small truth had left him with. He did not doubt his pronunciation, nor did he think it necessary to compare it with other people, but without the urgency of fluidity in his sentence, Maitland spoke with his slow and reliable stumble, exactly where he was comfortable without the pressure of peers, patients, and coworkers.
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A warm breeze kissed his face as he sat in the park with the intention of watching the riders. It was four o’clock, and there were plenty taking their animals out in the snowy field fragments of the park, where there was no ice, only powder. Maitland had learned recently that they were a newfound obsession of Gabriella’s and, as he was prone to doing, was interested in researching anything that she considered to be beautiful. Horses were not difficult creatures to draw in theory, but as he began to sketch the shape while watching a stationary mare by a post, he found himself critical of his artistry. Maitland was not one to give praise where none was due, nor was he the type to lower anything from its rightful pedestal, but this creature on paper had none of the elegance that the breathing one in the snow had. His looked less sturdy on her feet. The fetlock bent too awkwardly, and the ankle was far too thin. The withers, he thought harshly, were more of a mountain than the slow incline of a hill. Dissatisfied, he slid the page to the bottom of the pile and stared at the blank one which was now on top.
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Maitland would have loved to have a beast such as a horse in his home. The small area was not much to begin with, and the number of residents had increased considerably. Living on the top floor of a small house, their matronly landlady was not pleased when he came home with a dead animal – and oddly enough, he still took time to wonder. The widow “had it up to here” with Maitland’s collection of “flea-bitten health hazards!” But he and Gabriella were quite attached, in their ways: Maitland had dissected them and studied them so terribly carefully, and Gabby had named all of them. They had a particularly fine specimen she had dubbed Chester affectionately, and now he couldn’t help but think of the small, speckled brown rabbit as anything but. If she had a horse, Gabby had claimed cheerfully, she would’ve liked to call it Gaston. But obtaining one of those would be challenging … and it would be difficult to bring up the stairs, Maitland supposed, so he let it go.
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Beginning once again with the new page from his stack of loose-leaf, Maitland started where he was most comfortable, although not perhaps the most artistically sensible place. His pen traced a fine line along where he imagined the horse’s girth should begin, and another to estimate the distance between it and the dip of the horse’s lower back. With the outline of the belly, he proceeded. In a moment of distraction, he raised his hand to scratch his hair, sticking up in all directions thanks to absence of a comb and the wind; the papers rested on his lap without his touch, and in one ingenious second of neglect, the top pages made their escape on the wind. The doctor leapt to his feet unproductively, scattering the sheets which had been on his lap to the ice, while his hand uselessly swiped to the drawings, “Mine!” he shouted, raising a finger as they scattered in every direction, as if nobody had anything better to do with their time.
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WRITTEN FOR NOBODY PARTICULAR'S CHARACTER
<br> AT A PARK IN OR'LIN IN 1108 WORDS.
<br>OOC: FIRST POST AS MAITLAND?!
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THE WISE MAN IN THE STORMS PRAYS TO GOD, NOT FOR SAFETY FROM DANGER, BUT DELIVERANCE FROM FEAR.

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A crimson rag fell to the pearly floor of the operation room, the hands it had fallen from gripping the handle of the door which would free him from the vomitous stench of the bloodied room.
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“Doctor... should I announce–?” asked one of his assistants, and to whom Ephraim turned not an inch with his response.
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”Three thirty-nine post meridiem.”
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The door closed behind him.
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Ephraim stumbled toward the sinks in the sanitation room, complying with his body's urge to release his insides from churning agitation, hands leaving gray smudges along the perfectly clean porcelain basin as he gripped the sink for support. He looked up at himself in the overlooking mirror and observed his particularly white face which grew whiter with his recollection of the gruesome operation he had attempted to perform successfully, but with little hope for the woman to begin with. He, despite his better judgment, looked back into the room to observe the dead woman's hair and scalp being thrown into a waste bin as her exposed brain, its ruined flesh dripping into a small pudding onto the floor, was customarily covered with the rest of her body. A canine whimper escaped him.
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The demon dog was wrought with guilt and would walk with his tail between his legs all day. This job, this perfectionist's ideal profession, was what he lived and breathed, but he couldn't shake the thought that he had just killed both a young lady and her child.
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No. It was not him who murdered her. If anything, he had released her from the agony the Variation was bestowing upon her excess of blood. But the child...
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It was the worst thing a doctor could do to see a reflection of themselves in their patients. Similarities were coincidences and often of no consequence in the world of medicine, for each life was unique, and each infection even more so. And yet, all he could think of, as he washed the sticky gray substance from his shaking fingers, was trying to restrain his panicking wife who screamed and shrieked in horror at the blood trickling down between her legs to taint her silken bedgown. Her whiskers were pricked, her tail curled in fierce emotional agony. All the treatment befitting royalty in the world could not hold back sickness and depression. Her skin cold, her heart too quiet for even his hound's ears to hear was his worst nightmare, despite all the other terrors that plagued his sleep.
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And he'd so been hoping for a little girl...
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Mrs. Taive was getting worse, so much to the point that Ephraim feared walking into her room for a breakdown he saw was eminent, and he didn't want her to seem him that way. Since her pregnancy he had become stronger, more of a stereo-typed 'man,' and as far as he could tell his wife was liking that about him. He couldn't appear weak for her, nor for himself, nor for his reputation – which, after this morning, would likely take a small blow.
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Ephraim's mind hadn't been quite right. He was so desperate to see progress, to find the cure himself, to be recognized by his wife and potential future child as a true hero, the savior of Invoria... But he was taking things too much into his own hands, logically going about Medicae Manus' collective research wrong. Collaboration was the best way to work out kinks in their practices, and the lone wolf – lone mutt – was too eager to heal to wait and listen before he sliced. The irony was beautiful. His black-and-white world kept him even more solitary as he waited for his next victim to obtain a tumor in their head. This one wouldn't be pregnant. He wouldn't do that again to himself.
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He left the room, hands and arms freshly cleaned, but oblivious to the would-be red stains upon his waistcoat and shirt. So overwhelmed with the smell of blood, he could no longer identify it. Stepping into the gleaming halls of the establishment, the smell of antiseptics hit his sensitive nostrils and he rejoiced for a palette-cleanser. Habitually, his legs lead him down the corridor to which his wife's cubicle was attached. The curtains were drawn around her bed, and so he could not see her quite well, but through a gap between two of the wax-lined sheets he observed her sleeping. Black curls clung to her sweating face, a bottle of blood half-drained at her side, and he thought to himself that she should have finished the entire thing by now. The to-be father's eyes fell on her bulging stomach, watching it rise and fall slowly with her gentle breathing. He longed to take her hand, curl into bed beside her, but he knew a part of him couldn't handle it and that he would turn into a sobbing, trembling wreck wrought with fear and despair over his likely loss, which loomed ever closer. Ephraim's self-restraint was unparalleled, however, and with it at his side he pulled away from any thought of situating himself at her bed. One day, hope though he may for it to never happen, at any cost, he knew her life depended on a simple opinion, a decision of yes or no. He only wished that it could be his.
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He stood outside, on the steps of Medicae Manus, still oblivious to the blood that was splattered against his neat and plain attire, and beheld the monochrome glory that was Or'lin. He inhaled the air that smelled so radically different from Salvage, clean and earthen, which, compared to the smell of blood that was coming from somewhere, was like a sweet perfume. His nose took him down the steps of the great building and in the direction of one of the many parks situated around it, hating the healthy couples he saw strolling through its lovely greenery. Horses pranced along marked paths, their clopping shoes warranting a jerk of his head in their direction (if he had larger ears at the moment, they would be alert) – and that was when he saw a semi-familiar face. Ephraim cared little for the company of Dr. Elmvein, but he knew so few people other than him and Wicker (who would, no doubt, be getting an idea of his bad mood via 'deceased at three thirty-nine p. m.' later that day). He ambled toward Maitland, his head tucked low, his posture weak, much like a scorned dog, and would have taken a seat beside him, but a flurry of papers leaped at his face. In immediate effort to help, as his instinct lead him to act, he started grabbing at them, crumbling several in his fists as he tried to take hold on as many as he could at once.
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ASHLEY, ELSE KNOWN AS MAITLAND ELMVEIN, IS TAGGED IN THIS 1132 -WORD POST. INSPIRED BY RALPH WALDO EMMERSON QUOTE. JUST SO YOU KNOW: FINALLY SOME EPHRAIM / HOLY FUCK LONG POST.. TEMPLATE CREATED BY ROVER.

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On a regular basis, Maitland took note of interesting things. Often, because these were the things which would one day promote him to take books out of the library, and then become undeniably enticed with in the future. There were several oddities that he had taken in over the course of the past week. First, he observed one morning as he had never before, though the ritual was undoubtedly timeless, the man who took care of executing chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) along an industrial street made a noose and hung the bird, tightening the circle till wire sliced through muscle. There was a raw violence in the efficiency of the animal’s slaughter, something which was altogether bloody, clean, cruel, and humane. When he had, as one would expect him to, inquired about the procedure, Maitland was enlightened and found that was used also in goats (Capra hircus).
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Later that same day, when he and Gabriella had been moving some of their unique pieces of “furniture” around, a cockroach (Supella longipalpa) had scuttled from beneath a model porcupine (Hystríx unknown). Given their relatively elementary knowledge of the infamously long-living insect, and slightly inspired by the chickens, they took the liberty of testing what they did know. Although it did not come without several childish screams form Gabby, they managed to trap the thing beneath a glass. In a process his daughter found delightful and he found to be necessary of great care, they took the thing in their hands. Gabriella put him upon a table and Maitland carefully took the liberty of removing its head. Clotting had occurred at the neck, and, three days later, it was still alive!
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But by far, the most unexpected, unexplained, burning vision before his eyes had been this: Ephraim Taive, soaked in blood, catching well-labelled drawings of horses.
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Several days after that, he had been at his desk, cutting into a squirrel (Sciuridae). While there was some amount of fat beneath the fur line, and the yellow-brown ooze made a visible layer, the cause of death for the poor thing was most apparent: the thing’s heart was caked in hard clumps of white. It was heavy along the ventricles, but thinned the closer it came to the vena cava. The fat formation over the muscle suggested apparent enough reason of death, and Maitland stared at the thing before decided that it had to be kept, the miniscule, traitorous heart. What, he wondered, was this squirrel eating to obtain such fatal build-up? Moreover, he cursed himself for not having the sorts of tools at his disposal which would make finding this information possible. What dastardly human had killed this with their food? Nothing in nature could so mercilessly stop a heart.
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Then the next evening, when walking through the frozen playground that was the garden of their house, Maitland had been closely examining the trees. It was something that he generally did, simply because without trees he knew there would be people without lives. While it seemed unlikely that these were fellow Dryads living in their backyard, he treated them with thrice the respect he treated a human. His hands smoothed over the bark of the tree, feeling the rough dryness flaking beneath his palm. His body was close to it, his warmth against the parched, cold, cracking wood. He touched his lips to the surface lightly, the way he might kiss Gabriella, or the way he supposed a human being might kiss another’s lips for the first time: with slow, deliberate tenderness. Ran his fingers over the side, in lieu of where a man might stroke a woman’s hair. And as his eyes parted, they widened and he drew back, intrigued. Crystallised sap was suspended frozen from a gaping hole in the side, where the bark was stripped the barest. While the bark was mostly grey, in that one patch, there was rusty orange. Like exposed muscle beneath a hard exterior. He was still unable to determine what organism lived in its bark today, but the sick bastard was killing the tree.
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But Ephraim … was the most intriguing, still.
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“Thank you,” Maitland said in an excellent monotone, snatching the papers without much grace from the other doctor’s hands. He saw what few were not at his feet fall to the snow, ink spreading as the wetness from the ground was absorbed into the sheet. He reached for the sopping pages at his feet and determined that they were a cause completely lost, balling them up as small as he could manage and shoving the unclean pieces into his coat. While he suspected that Ephraim knew more about his personal life than he let on, Maitland was relieved that this was all he had on him. He could always claim his own personal interests at times like these – now, explaining doll shopping was rarely so easy. Maitland hadn’t enough friends to use that excuse often.
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While he was surely capable of sympathy, given the circumstances, Maitland found nothing to say to Ephraim’s state, “Well-d-dressed, Doctor,” For undoubtedly the first time in his life, he looked upon a man who was commonly spotless, and saw nothing but the disarray of his state. He wasn’t sure what to think about it. Within his own mind, it was a traumatizing culture shock! What chaotic thing could have happened that left a man like Taive stained so terribly and looking so uncultured, while he was wandering with only dried spittle on his shirtsleeves? “Who died and gave you those clothes?” He was momentarily pleased with his pun. Died. Dyed. Doctor humour. Ha. Ha. The callousness of the thought struck him instantly, for each death – no, he had just been there himself. Each death had no affect on them. They were to be doing their jobs, not weeping for people they had no sentiment for. But then this seemed to be controversial between doctors, and he wondered if it might be appropriate to here apologize, “So –” no, not sorry. That wouldn’t do. He simply wasn’t. Maitland dropped back onto the bench without apparent coordination, one leg lifting from the ground to cross the other before he had the assured balance that he would need to land gracefully, “S-shouldn’t you be off sanitizing yourself? If I were a bull, I’d charge at you.” While he referenced the animal (Bos Taurus), he couldn’t help pleasure in the knowledge that they were, in fact, colorblind. Ha. Ha. Two jokes in less than a minute.


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WRITTEN FOR ROVER’S <br>CHARACTER EPHRAIM TAIVE
<br> AT A PARK IN OR’LIN
IN 1087 WORDS.
<br>OOC: GOOD ROOMIE, RIGHT! (:
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