Carlisle stares at his phone, apprehension welling in his gut. It's someone asking for help, for healing -- it's Pratt asking him for help. Pratt knows what he is, so Carlisle doubts the deputy would have contacted him unless it was a true emergency.
But Carlisle can't heal anyone. Not anymore.
Correction: he can, but he shouldn't. Despite everything, he's somehow still capable of channeling restorative energies, a feat that should be impossible for the undead -- and yet, he wielded them in the Whole Foods when dispatching the undead there to protect Qubit. If he has the capacity for that, he can certainly heal. However, his channeling of that particular energy had taken a toll on him: it sent a shock through his body so sharp that he felt it cut through his dulled senses, white hot and agonizing unlike anything he'd felt since his death. His arm had been useless for several seconds, seizing violently as the energy coursing through him struggled to normalize.
He's done a few experiments since then, minor channels in the privacy of his room just to see if it was possible. It is, but there is an undeniable risk to him now. In life, his healing aggravated his condition, forcing the expulsion of the black bile through his mouth, his fingernails, and eventually his eyes -- yet there was no lasting damage to himself, no consequence so severe that he'd ever hesitate to heal someone when called upon. He cannot say the same now.
However dead he may be, Carlisle cannot forget his duty is to the living, to his goddess; he has nothing left but what existence he is eking out for himself in Anchor, including the friends he's made here and those he met in another world entirely. Poison and Pratt -- they believe him to be more than he has become. Qubit has offered to help him mitigate what harm he can cause to others -- Genji, too, in teaching him proper meditation. He isn't alone with his sins, and he can be more than the sum of them.
But he cannot help but think of that dog in his dream, its words echoing in his ears, still clinging to his conscience: Know yourself, Blight Heir.
He can heal, but he shouldn't... and yet, he finds himself replying to Pratt's message regardless. He refuses to be the Blight Heir; he is Carlisle Longinmouth, and he is a healer in the name of the Clarity, first and foremost.
I will be there shortly. Stanch whatever bleeding there may be until I arrive, and try not to panic.
Decisive words for a man who is usually panicking himself, but he knows he has to keep his nerves in check. There will be plenty of time to worry about what he's getting into after he's seen to the wounded.
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But Carlisle can't heal anyone. Not anymore.
Correction: he can, but he shouldn't. Despite everything, he's somehow still capable of channeling restorative energies, a feat that should be impossible for the undead -- and yet, he wielded them in the Whole Foods when dispatching the undead there to protect Qubit. If he has the capacity for that, he can certainly heal. However, his channeling of that particular energy had taken a toll on him: it sent a shock through his body so sharp that he felt it cut through his dulled senses, white hot and agonizing unlike anything he'd felt since his death. His arm had been useless for several seconds, seizing violently as the energy coursing through him struggled to normalize.
He's done a few experiments since then, minor channels in the privacy of his room just to see if it was possible. It is, but there is an undeniable risk to him now. In life, his healing aggravated his condition, forcing the expulsion of the black bile through his mouth, his fingernails, and eventually his eyes -- yet there was no lasting damage to himself, no consequence so severe that he'd ever hesitate to heal someone when called upon. He cannot say the same now.
However dead he may be, Carlisle cannot forget his duty is to the living, to his goddess; he has nothing left but what existence he is eking out for himself in Anchor, including the friends he's made here and those he met in another world entirely. Poison and Pratt -- they believe him to be more than he has become. Qubit has offered to help him mitigate what harm he can cause to others -- Genji, too, in teaching him proper meditation. He isn't alone with his sins, and he can be more than the sum of them.
But he cannot help but think of that dog in his dream, its words echoing in his ears, still clinging to his conscience: Know yourself, Blight Heir.
He can heal, but he shouldn't... and yet, he finds himself replying to Pratt's message regardless. He refuses to be the Blight Heir; he is Carlisle Longinmouth, and he is a healer in the name of the Clarity, first and foremost.
I will be there shortly. Stanch whatever bleeding there may be until I arrive, and try not to panic.
Decisive words for a man who is usually panicking himself, but he knows he has to keep his nerves in check. There will be plenty of time to worry about what he's getting into after he's seen to the wounded.