“I’ll neither confirm nor deny.” Stephen Strange had been the bane of many an archivist’s existence, even before he went about breaking into books with literal padlocks on them and stealing them right out from under the nose of Kamar-Taj’s head librarian. He likely still had black marks in some Nebraskan public libraries, too, where he’d taken reference material and simply never returned them, only paying off the fees years later.
But as he settles in at the table, he notices the change. The gloves had been easy to overlook — maybe Mobius has bad circulation — but the altered cutlery isn’t, and Strange’s attention-to-detail lingers on it.
(Familiar— a flash of recollection, his irritated physical therapist, his own assistive implements in those excruciating weeks after surgery after surgery—)
He swallows those memories. Tries to shake it off, considers whether or not he should just ask what happened, and how blunt he can be. And— wait, what had Mobius just asked?
“I’m getting there,” he finally says. “Still doing tricks,” har har, “but it’s still nowhere near as powerful as I used to be, which is the main frustration.”
He’s bad at accepting his changed limits. He wonders if they have that in common.
Thankfully his mind and his observation skills are as sharp as ever. There's a flash of something on Strange's face, there and gone again. Doesn't know what it means, but it isn't brought up, so. He'll react in kind, by not bringing it up.
"I can't promise you'll ever have the same set of powers, but here's hoping you end up comparable at least. With time and patience and practice, unfortunately. At least it's not completely square one."
Children coming into their powers, that's a good time for it, because kids have brains like sponges. Absorb everything, are creative, learn the rules but also question them, experiment, all that wonderful stuff. But it's also terrifying, all that change. At least with adults, they can do what Strange does. Voraciously read, find every avenue possible for improvement. Having never had magic himself, Mobius could never say anything for certain about the differences between native magic and the magic of Rifters, save that apparently there is a difference, trying to transcribe and translate through the Fade.
Mobius takes his mug of water in both hands, careful in taking a sip. "So what's your specialty? If you have one in particular."
“Hm. Good question.” Portals were Doctor Strange’s bread-and-butter, but then again, they were every sorcerer’s bread and butter, and were powered by the sling rings besides. He’d once manipulated time like no one else, but the Time Stone has been gone for a long time.
So he considers how to summarise those qualifications, picking absentmindedly at his food with a spoon. (Noticing, too, the way Mobius carries the mug with both hands. Had that always been the case? Had Stephen really missed such an important detail?)
“Conjuration,” is what he finally settles on. “Shields, weapons, ropes, all of which I can still do here. But I used to be able to do things like conjure drinks out of nothing — handy party trick, that — and create small objects and even entire outfits for myself. I’ve been reading a lot into the various schools of magic here, though, and I think there’s some similarities with— are they called Knight-Enchanters? Their spirit blades seem to be like the swords that I can summon.”
Mobius chuckles. "If people could just magic up whole new outfits, I think there'd be less hate against mages. I can only imagine how much the Orlesian nobility would pay to have a mage dedicated to wardrobe creation." Wild shit, Rifter.
"But you're not wrong. Knight-Enchanters summon up their blades from the Fade itself. A rare breed, though there's probably someone or two around that's able to help you along in that regard."
Wonders, then, if that specialty has proliferated or stagnated. Used to be that the Chantry would take specific interest and train a select few, but without Circles, has it died out or only spread? Loki could conjure things up, little things, or at least seemingly pull them from the air itself. Maybe conjuration is more common outside the realm of Thedas. "Thinking of getting into the thick of the fighting?"
“Not as such. I certainly could contribute to Forces — I used to be in the thick of it, combat-wise — but I suspect my particular skillset would be of better use in Research. I might be able to accomplish more there, as opposed to one more live body in a fight. And besides— if Forces need the extra hands, I can still be mobilised in joint division operations and such. I’d still fight even if I have a scroll pin on my Riftwatch uniform.”
Speaking of hands.
Strange rips a piece off his lump of bread, dips it in the stew; it’s easier for him to use the bread to sop it up rather than using the spoon, to avoid slopping the broth all over himself. He flexes his crooked fingers and then shoots the other man another look. The truly tactful thing would be to not mention it, to let this moment pass on by, but he’s already used up all his tact in waiting this long, so…
“Sorry, I just have to ask. Am I really so unobservant that I missed…” He gestures with the bread at Mobius’ hands, the straps around his palm. “Has that always been the case? With your hands?”
"Hey, welcome to the party. Can be a fighter if I have to, but probably better researching."
Well. Can he be much of a fighter anymore? If he can't always even hold his sword with any consistency. Which maybe is appropriate, given the awkward pause and the realization that the change in him has been noticed.
Mobius smirks, a little sardonic. "You haven't missed anything." He himself hasn't missed Strange's fingers, but he hasn't asked. Yet. But now that the subject is broached... "I went on a mission, after we met, and came back changed."
That's a good way of putting it, he thinks. Changed. He sets his drink down and tugs a glove off with his teeth, holds it out. It's still a change he's getting used to, and he does hate it. But if it gets them closer to the end goal, then...it can't be so bad, can it? "I can't feel my hands now. At all. Ends right at my wrist. I can still move them from muscle memory, it's all still there, the working parts, but I can't feel the pressure, how hard I'm holding anything. Can't feel temperature either, which is why it's been insisted I wear gloves before I burn myself more." And there are, little spots of healing skin from various cuts and burns.
"Don't think anyone's going to find out a way to reverse the magic of the ancient elves, so I'm probably stuck like this."
Ah, he thinks, with a kind of bleak understanding. Thinks, then, of Gwenaëlle’s collection of finely-made eyepatches.
“I have heard it said, from a reliable source, that ancient elvhen spirits aren’t much fun to bargain with.” And he’s still seeing the impact of it in so many different people, like the wounds left behind after a battle. “May I? Nerve death is of particular interest to me—”
Once Mobius assents, then he’ll reach out and take the other man’s hand. With a careful, clinical touch, he checks the fingers for sensation. Remembers ultrasounds and MRIs and surgery after surgery.
But this one is magic, Stephen, and not something you can reason yourself out of. He lets go, leans back in his seat again. Hesitates for a moment. Then: “I have some physical therapy exercises I can recommend. Alleviates the stiffness in the joints, helps you keep range of motion, even if you can’t feel the difference. Does it ever hurt, or is it always numb?”
One can hear it in his voice: he’s speaking from personal experience.
No one's ever just asked to look at his hands, and certainly have never expressed an interest in nerve death. He certainly will hand his hand over for inspection, but Mobius doesn't actually watch what Strange does. There's only so much that can be done, and frankly, it's really really weird to see someone play with a body part that he simply cannot feel, disconnected from it while still being aware that it's his.
Instead, with a tilted head, he watched Strange himself, his face. The focus, the intensity. Strange has done this before, knows in fact what he's doing, old hat. Obviously something has happened to his own hands, but this is something else. A healer mage? Nerve death interests him, and that's a very specific kind of interest to have.
Mobius flexes his hand a few times. It doesn't ever hurt anymore. There's just nothing, disconnected. A stubborn part of him thinks there's no point to exercises; his hands are just fine except he can't feel anything. No amount of exercise will change that. But it comes from a familiar place and a place of care.
Perhaps he should answer, but frankly, that can happen later. The more important thing on his mind is a question in turn: "What happened?"
For all that it’s intimate, the touch is also professional, like subjecting oneself to an annual physical. And then instead of answering, Mobius asks a question of his own. Looking up from their meal, Strange meets his eye. Lips pursed into a thin line which then twitches into an attempt at a rueful smile. People here have already asked as it came up — Clarisse, most bluntly — but he’s still not accustomed to talking about it.
But. Pot, kettle, et cetera—
So Strange holds one of his hands aloft between them. Almost like an echo of when he showcased some magic, except this time it’s those scarred fingers on display. The scarring is regular, straight lines. He knows, though he cannot feel them any longer, that there are pins and rods bracing the bones together. The fingers are crooked, and when he tries to hold them still, they tremble.
“A car accident,” he says, his voice carefully neutral. Which is as much detail as he’d given out before, but he supposes Mobius deserves a little more, since he’d pored over the other man’s own hand with impunity. “Which is like a very, very fast carriage. It went off a cliff-side and flipped.” A beat, then amending: “I drove it off a cliff-side, actually, it was my own damned fault. No gods or spirits or bargains or heroic sacrifices, and for no reason besides being careless.”
There’s an anger bubbling beneath that voice, all directed inward.
“The nerves are damaged. I can still feel, but the sensation’s dulled and I lack fine motor control. There’s neuropathic pain, sometimes. So our situations are… similar, but obviously different.”
Crisp, clean, and angry. The mage has been sitting with this for a long time (long enough anyway for the neat scars to heal, and rest assured that he'll be asking about that as well), but the pain, the emotional pain, lingers.
"Barrow showed me this trick," Mobius eventually says, indicating the little straps on his utensils. "Obviously even if I can still use the muscles from memory, I can't ever tell how loose or hard I'm holding something. Helps keep everything from falling everywhere. When I'm holding a sword, I can make sure I'm holding it firm no problem. With something more delicate..."
He tries not to handle glass at this point. He's snapped several feather quills and tries to use much sturdier wooden ones instead now. Writing is...much more difficult than it used to be. And holding on firm and tight to things for a while is exhausting.
And being afraid to touch his friends. That's a downside, too. Can't hold a hand without worrying that it'll be too hard. Can't pet Jude's fluffy winter coat with his hand--well, he can, but he won't feel it.
"You had fine healers look after you. Those scars, that could only come from very clean cuts." So, either taking things out or going in to--what, try and set the bones from the inside? More precise than strapping everything down from the outside, probably. "How long ago was that?"
Then— unexpectedly, perhaps— Strange laughs. One sharp burst of amusement at the verdict of his care team having been fine healers. Doctor Nicodemus West had done a hack job, in his opinion. (“You ruined me.”)
That particular bitterness has lost its heat over time, though; he can’t keep blaming the other man for all his problems, and so that bitter pill had turned inward over time instead. There was no possible way Strange could’ve operated on himself, it was a sheer impossibility. He’d still ended up where he needed to be. He reminds himself of this constantly.
“I could have done a cleaner cut, in my time. But yes, I suppose they did the best they could. As for how long…” It’s a little complicated, he’s not even going to get into the Blip and how he blinked and five years went by, so let’s just talk about experiential time, “I guess it’s been about three years since the accident.”
Which is. Not all that long to have been a sorcerer, in the scheme of things, compared to his thirteen years of medical training. Enough time for the physical scars to heal, but not all of the emotional ones.
He’s fascinated by this whole thing with elvhen spirits seemingly neatly massacring Mobius’ median, ulnar, and radial nerves, though. “So it really doesn’t hurt at all? You’re just numb?” he asks.
Neuropathic pain sometimes was underplaying it. They hurt constantly. But he’d grown accustomed to it, could mostly manage to compartmentalise and shove his awareness of it aside. It hurt less when he did magic. It was a fine distraction.
Could have done a cleaner cut, when it's already so neat and tidy. So Strange was a healer. Is? He's going to have to dig deeper into that, and maybe that'll get them away from that bitter tinge underneath it all.
Mobius has not yet had much time in comparison to get used to the fact that sensation simply stops at the end of his wrists. Some mornings he wakes up forgetful of the fact, growing alarmed at the lack of sensation. (Those are not the mornings he is startled by nightmares, or the mornings when Jude is laying atop him.) He forgets himself and drops things or bends things or breaks things simply because he has forgotten, forgets that when he reaches for something sight unseen he cannot actually feel when he's made contact and must look every time, and he doesn't know if it's because he's not used to it or because the lyrium is finally getting to him. Or both.
That Strange repeats the question, so odd to him, gives Mobius the indication that either it's so out of the ordinary that it simply cannot be believed (and really, who could blame him), or--it's jealousy. That he feels no pain at all.
He lays his right hand flat, lefty that he is, on the table and picks up a spoon firm in hamfisted grip. With all the casualness of breathing, he brings said spoon down sharply on a knuckle. The librarian doesn't so much as flinch. Be glad he didn't grab a fork instead.
Strange had lurched slightly forward, a half-aborted attempt to reach out and forestall the other man, but then he sinks back in his chair once he realises what Mobius is actually doing. “Oh dear god, I thought you were going to do a knife trick, that would’ve been unhinged—” There’s a kind of strangled amusement in his voice, the kind of gallow’s laugh you can only share because you both understand how fucked the situation is.
But still. There had been the crisp smack of metal hitting flesh and bone, and no reaction from the other man. Strange makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat.
“I honestly can’t tell which is worse,” he says bluntly, “which is probably a sign that the grass really is always greener on the other side, or whatever. Pain with some sensation, or no sensation at all? They’re both shit. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
The words are a rapid-fire patter, like it’s easier to say if it’s ripping off the band-aid quickly. He’s bad at consolation.
But he’s also aware he’s behaved very oddly indeed throughout this interaction, so. An attempt at explaining: “Before I broke my hands. I was a neurosurgeon. I worked on nerves. They’re the things inside you which control sensory input and muscle control and a great number of other things. It was delicate work, and we had the capability to— to repair damaged nerves, to reconnect them. Fixing paralysis or numbness or seizures. I can’t shake the feeling that, in my heyday, I might’ve been able to do something about that,” he points to Mobius’ hands, “but, y’know, that’s probably hubris.”
He’s trying to be better about identifying hubris, these days.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about a knife for drama's sake." But he's not here to deliberately give anyone a heart attack. Yet. He knows that there's going to be a bruise around the knuckle soon, but it won't matter. Since it won't impact his mobility, since he can't feel it, won't flinch if he leans on it.
Blessings and curses. Strange is...trying. He's trying where Mobius gets the idea that he perhaps used to not try at all, so that's something. And the admittance of hubris. That brings a little smirk to his lips.
"So you were a healer before. No, I don't think you could do anything about this until you could find a way to break the hold of the magic of, presumably, old elf gods. Or something with the power to simply...take." A memory. An eye. A skill. Strange is at least tangentially aware that Mobius isn't the only one who came back changed. "As far as I understand, physically everything works fine. But there's some very clean disconnect of sensation that probably has nothing to do with the physical nerves themselves."
He's also not sure he'd want anyone cutting into his hands in the manner Strange had his. "Did you use magic in your healing as well?"
Once upon a time, Stephen Strange’s mind would have flat-out rebelled at what Mobius was describing. He’d be grasping for the scientific explanation, insisting that you can’t disconnect that sensation without there being some explanation, something rooted in the nerves or the brain tissue—
But that was then, and this is now. It’s a wider universe than he ever thought. So he accepts the futility of it and the futility of muddling with old elf gods, and answers, “Mm. No. I was a doctor — a healer — for years long before I even knew about the existence of magic at all.”
This topic is verging closer to a tangled knot he doesn’t often explain; he’s always struggled with describing the deal he made and the trade-off he took without sounding like some kind of holier-than-thou saint. Because he’s not, is the thing. But maybe he can talk about Pangborn:
“Healing is what led me to discovering magic, though. I once met a man who was paralysed from the chest down.” (That diagnosis rang in the back of his head, still: C7-C8 spinal cord injury, complete, paralysed from the mid-chest down, partial paralysis of both hands, untreatable.)
“No one could have fixed him. I couldn’t. But then I find him running around on his feet, playing sports. He’d tapped into magic and was using it, day-in and day-out, to move his body again — it was a miracle — and that’s what eventually led me to, well, being a mage.”
"Do your hands still ache even with the magic?" And, given how magic translates...oddly into Thedas, the rest of the question becomes clear: "Or do they only ache because you're not able to use magic to alleviate the pain anymore?"
Magic to treat wounds is hardly unheard of. But magic in a longer term, subtly used at all times? That is. Doesn't mean it never happens, but he doesn't think it's truly possible, either. Not the way magic is understood in Thedas. The power runs out eventually, the effort too great to sustain.
But there's this topic of pain and magic, and Strange is a Rifter. Mobius has heard the stories as well as anyone else. Has argued, if mildly, with Wysteria. At the risk of getting too personal, he has to keep asking questions. It's the only way he's going to learn anything. "Does any of it keep the shard from aching?"
Ah, there it is. And so he’s forced to admit, “I never used magic to stop the ache.” Something-something, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes then you get what you need.
Strange doesn’t immediately explain why, though, instead honing in on the other question like a hunting hound scenting prey. The rest of the explanation comes crisp and precise, with all the verbiage and technicalities of a doctor, a healer, as he shakes his head:
“Hasn’t had an effect on the shard, either. The sensation of the shard is actually pretty similar to what I’m used to. Neuropathic pain is… It’s not like bruised flesh or broken bone or a pulled muscle, so it doesn’t respond to small-scale painkillers or anti-inflammatories. It runs deeper than that. Heavy-duty painkillers or anti-seizure medication might make a dent, but it’s still hard to treat. One of my best treatments is when I’m casting magic — not to directly heal, but it works as a distraction, as something to take up absolutely all of my focus, my concentration, my attention. Then, I don’t notice it as much any longer. It’s been the same with the shard.”
He’s been talking a lot. He almost always talks too much. His food’s probably getting cold, so he glances down and shovels down a few more bites (conscious, then, of the implements Mobius has to use; at least he’s been spared that).
“You got me started talking about medical care,” he adds, a little sheepish. “Sorry if I’ve been going on a bit.”
Strange might be sheepish about it, but it might bolster his ego to know that Mobius is sitting in rapt attention. Whatever's left of his meal is probably getting cold, and he doesn't mind in the slightest. Detailing out the type of pain and the type of treatment and the idea of magic as a balm if only for the sheer concentration is fascinating. And it isn't even necessarily just Rifter talk; concentrating on magic to distract from pain is well documented, and he's seen it in action himself. Makes the pain worse, after, for the sheer amount of energy the act of magic needs, but in the moment, he imagines it would make anyone feel powerful.
"You do kind of use magic to help the ache, then," he points out with a little smile. "I don't think magic here could ever make a man walk again, but I can make sure to pull some medical texts for you with regard to potions, poultices, and whatever I can scrounge up for magic. Healing tent's always a good place if you haven't already gotten yourself well acquainted with the staff. If you want to go back to healing. Instead of," with a pinch of his face, trying to remember some of the appropriate words, "fighting interdimensional threats."
“Why not both?” Strange asks without missing a beat, with a small flicker of a smile. “I can multi-task. I’m a very good multi-tasker.”
The humour is easy and instinctive, but a moment later he reaches for the far more important part of what Mobius had mentioned: “And those medical texts would be fantastic, thank you. I’ve met a couple Riftwatch healers — Derrica, Sidony — but I still have quite a bit of catching up to do. Reading up on how Theodosian magic specifically entwines with healing, but also which herbs and plants do what in this world.”
And then the followup occurs to him, and he snorts a dry laugh. “God help me, it’s like I’m a student again.”
"It feels like a tricky thing, blending magic and healing, but also like that should be half the point. There's a lot of good magic can do in trained hands." Which isn't the most popular opinion out there amongst the people. Plenty still who see magic as a sign of being cursed, that nothing good could ever come from hands like that. Some of the Riftwatch lot at the conclave had dismissed the dangers and the signs that dramatic shifts in paradigm are not going to be welcome.
"Maker knows I only know the barebones of stitching out of necessity and watching it done. Anything more complicated than that, pass it on to someone who knows what they're doing. We're all students," he continues, building off Strange's self-amusement. "Nobody knows everything. There's always something to adapt to." Like when your hands suddenly don't work the way they used to. "There's always something more to understand about a field, even if you're an expert in it. Lifelong student's not a bad thing to be. I'd be wary of the people who think they have nothing left to learn."
This is a frustrating thing to say and to hear, for someone who has made it his singular life’s goal to know everything, actually —
but if there’s one thing Strange has had drummed into him over and over by now, is the fact that he truly does know nothing and the universe contains endless unfathomable mysteries, new horizons, new planes of existence, uncountable multiverses. One feels miniscule in the shadow of it all. So Mobius’ comments hammer on familiar territory, like another persistent little echo of the Ancient One. (“Why are you doing this to me?” “To show you just how much you don’t know—”)
“Mobius, you are on the verge of sounding irritatingly wise,” Strange says, but it has the jovial sound of… almost a compliment? Sort of a compliment.
“Most likely I’ll keep studying for the rest of my life, yes. And y'know, I’ll stay tuned for anything I can learn about ancient elven artifacts; that seems very much up Project Felandaris’ alley.”
It’s probably impossible — he can no more easily give Gwenaëlle back her eye as give Mobius back his hands — but. He’s a fixer. He wants to fix things. Carve them up and reassemble them better. So he can’t help that nagging urge to at least think about it.
He delves back into the rest of his dinner, and they pass the remainder of the meal in surprisingly amiable conversation; although Strange’s gaze still, occasionally, drops to those hands.
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But as he settles in at the table, he notices the change. The gloves had been easy to overlook — maybe Mobius has bad circulation — but the altered cutlery isn’t, and Strange’s attention-to-detail lingers on it.
(Familiar— a flash of recollection, his irritated physical therapist, his own assistive implements in those excruciating weeks after surgery after surgery—)
He swallows those memories. Tries to shake it off, considers whether or not he should just ask what happened, and how blunt he can be. And— wait, what had Mobius just asked?
“I’m getting there,” he finally says. “Still doing tricks,” har har, “but it’s still nowhere near as powerful as I used to be, which is the main frustration.”
He’s bad at accepting his changed limits. He wonders if they have that in common.
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"I can't promise you'll ever have the same set of powers, but here's hoping you end up comparable at least. With time and patience and practice, unfortunately. At least it's not completely square one."
Children coming into their powers, that's a good time for it, because kids have brains like sponges. Absorb everything, are creative, learn the rules but also question them, experiment, all that wonderful stuff. But it's also terrifying, all that change. At least with adults, they can do what Strange does. Voraciously read, find every avenue possible for improvement. Having never had magic himself, Mobius could never say anything for certain about the differences between native magic and the magic of Rifters, save that apparently there is a difference, trying to transcribe and translate through the Fade.
Mobius takes his mug of water in both hands, careful in taking a sip. "So what's your specialty? If you have one in particular."
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So he considers how to summarise those qualifications, picking absentmindedly at his food with a spoon. (Noticing, too, the way Mobius carries the mug with both hands. Had that always been the case? Had Stephen really missed such an important detail?)
“Conjuration,” is what he finally settles on. “Shields, weapons, ropes, all of which I can still do here. But I used to be able to do things like conjure drinks out of nothing — handy party trick, that — and create small objects and even entire outfits for myself. I’ve been reading a lot into the various schools of magic here, though, and I think there’s some similarities with— are they called Knight-Enchanters? Their spirit blades seem to be like the swords that I can summon.”
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"But you're not wrong. Knight-Enchanters summon up their blades from the Fade itself. A rare breed, though there's probably someone or two around that's able to help you along in that regard."
Wonders, then, if that specialty has proliferated or stagnated. Used to be that the Chantry would take specific interest and train a select few, but without Circles, has it died out or only spread? Loki could conjure things up, little things, or at least seemingly pull them from the air itself. Maybe conjuration is more common outside the realm of Thedas. "Thinking of getting into the thick of the fighting?"
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Speaking of hands.
Strange rips a piece off his lump of bread, dips it in the stew; it’s easier for him to use the bread to sop it up rather than using the spoon, to avoid slopping the broth all over himself. He flexes his crooked fingers and then shoots the other man another look. The truly tactful thing would be to not mention it, to let this moment pass on by, but he’s already used up all his tact in waiting this long, so…
“Sorry, I just have to ask. Am I really so unobservant that I missed…” He gestures with the bread at Mobius’ hands, the straps around his palm. “Has that always been the case? With your hands?”
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Well. Can he be much of a fighter anymore? If he can't always even hold his sword with any consistency. Which maybe is appropriate, given the awkward pause and the realization that the change in him has been noticed.
Mobius smirks, a little sardonic. "You haven't missed anything." He himself hasn't missed Strange's fingers, but he hasn't asked. Yet. But now that the subject is broached... "I went on a mission, after we met, and came back changed."
That's a good way of putting it, he thinks. Changed. He sets his drink down and tugs a glove off with his teeth, holds it out. It's still a change he's getting used to, and he does hate it. But if it gets them closer to the end goal, then...it can't be so bad, can it? "I can't feel my hands now. At all. Ends right at my wrist. I can still move them from muscle memory, it's all still there, the working parts, but I can't feel the pressure, how hard I'm holding anything. Can't feel temperature either, which is why it's been insisted I wear gloves before I burn myself more." And there are, little spots of healing skin from various cuts and burns.
"Don't think anyone's going to find out a way to reverse the magic of the ancient elves, so I'm probably stuck like this."
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“I have heard it said, from a reliable source, that ancient elvhen spirits aren’t much fun to bargain with.” And he’s still seeing the impact of it in so many different people, like the wounds left behind after a battle. “May I? Nerve death is of particular interest to me—”
Once Mobius assents, then he’ll reach out and take the other man’s hand. With a careful, clinical touch, he checks the fingers for sensation. Remembers ultrasounds and MRIs and surgery after surgery.
But this one is magic, Stephen, and not something you can reason yourself out of. He lets go, leans back in his seat again. Hesitates for a moment. Then: “I have some physical therapy exercises I can recommend. Alleviates the stiffness in the joints, helps you keep range of motion, even if you can’t feel the difference. Does it ever hurt, or is it always numb?”
One can hear it in his voice: he’s speaking from personal experience.
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Instead, with a tilted head, he watched Strange himself, his face. The focus, the intensity. Strange has done this before, knows in fact what he's doing, old hat. Obviously something has happened to his own hands, but this is something else. A healer mage? Nerve death interests him, and that's a very specific kind of interest to have.
Mobius flexes his hand a few times. It doesn't ever hurt anymore. There's just nothing, disconnected. A stubborn part of him thinks there's no point to exercises; his hands are just fine except he can't feel anything. No amount of exercise will change that. But it comes from a familiar place and a place of care.
Perhaps he should answer, but frankly, that can happen later. The more important thing on his mind is a question in turn: "What happened?"
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But. Pot, kettle, et cetera—
So Strange holds one of his hands aloft between them. Almost like an echo of when he showcased some magic, except this time it’s those scarred fingers on display. The scarring is regular, straight lines. He knows, though he cannot feel them any longer, that there are pins and rods bracing the bones together. The fingers are crooked, and when he tries to hold them still, they tremble.
“A car accident,” he says, his voice carefully neutral. Which is as much detail as he’d given out before, but he supposes Mobius deserves a little more, since he’d pored over the other man’s own hand with impunity. “Which is like a very, very fast carriage. It went off a cliff-side and flipped.” A beat, then amending: “I drove it off a cliff-side, actually, it was my own damned fault. No gods or spirits or bargains or heroic sacrifices, and for no reason besides being careless.”
There’s an anger bubbling beneath that voice, all directed inward.
“The nerves are damaged. I can still feel, but the sensation’s dulled and I lack fine motor control. There’s neuropathic pain, sometimes. So our situations are… similar, but obviously different.”
Crisp, clean, diagnosis.
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"Barrow showed me this trick," Mobius eventually says, indicating the little straps on his utensils. "Obviously even if I can still use the muscles from memory, I can't ever tell how loose or hard I'm holding something. Helps keep everything from falling everywhere. When I'm holding a sword, I can make sure I'm holding it firm no problem. With something more delicate..."
He tries not to handle glass at this point. He's snapped several feather quills and tries to use much sturdier wooden ones instead now. Writing is...much more difficult than it used to be. And holding on firm and tight to things for a while is exhausting.
And being afraid to touch his friends. That's a downside, too. Can't hold a hand without worrying that it'll be too hard. Can't pet Jude's fluffy winter coat with his hand--well, he can, but he won't feel it.
"You had fine healers look after you. Those scars, that could only come from very clean cuts." So, either taking things out or going in to--what, try and set the bones from the inside? More precise than strapping everything down from the outside, probably. "How long ago was that?"
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That particular bitterness has lost its heat over time, though; he can’t keep blaming the other man for all his problems, and so that bitter pill had turned inward over time instead. There was no possible way Strange could’ve operated on himself, it was a sheer impossibility. He’d still ended up where he needed to be. He reminds himself of this constantly.
“I could have done a cleaner cut, in my time. But yes, I suppose they did the best they could. As for how long…” It’s a little complicated, he’s not even going to get into the Blip and how he blinked and five years went by, so let’s just talk about experiential time, “I guess it’s been about three years since the accident.”
Which is. Not all that long to have been a sorcerer, in the scheme of things, compared to his thirteen years of medical training. Enough time for the physical scars to heal, but not all of the emotional ones.
He’s fascinated by this whole thing with elvhen spirits seemingly neatly massacring Mobius’ median, ulnar, and radial nerves, though. “So it really doesn’t hurt at all? You’re just numb?” he asks.
Neuropathic pain sometimes was underplaying it. They hurt constantly. But he’d grown accustomed to it, could mostly manage to compartmentalise and shove his awareness of it aside. It hurt less when he did magic. It was a fine distraction.
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Mobius has not yet had much time in comparison to get used to the fact that sensation simply stops at the end of his wrists. Some mornings he wakes up forgetful of the fact, growing alarmed at the lack of sensation. (Those are not the mornings he is startled by nightmares, or the mornings when Jude is laying atop him.) He forgets himself and drops things or bends things or breaks things simply because he has forgotten, forgets that when he reaches for something sight unseen he cannot actually feel when he's made contact and must look every time, and he doesn't know if it's because he's not used to it or because the lyrium is finally getting to him. Or both.
That Strange repeats the question, so odd to him, gives Mobius the indication that either it's so out of the ordinary that it simply cannot be believed (and really, who could blame him), or--it's jealousy. That he feels no pain at all.
He lays his right hand flat, lefty that he is, on the table and picks up a spoon firm in hamfisted grip. With all the casualness of breathing, he brings said spoon down sharply on a knuckle. The librarian doesn't so much as flinch. Be glad he didn't grab a fork instead.
"It's a great party trick," he says dryly.
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But still. There had been the crisp smack of metal hitting flesh and bone, and no reaction from the other man. Strange makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat.
“I honestly can’t tell which is worse,” he says bluntly, “which is probably a sign that the grass really is always greener on the other side, or whatever. Pain with some sensation, or no sensation at all? They’re both shit. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
The words are a rapid-fire patter, like it’s easier to say if it’s ripping off the band-aid quickly. He’s bad at consolation.
But he’s also aware he’s behaved very oddly indeed throughout this interaction, so. An attempt at explaining: “Before I broke my hands. I was a neurosurgeon. I worked on nerves. They’re the things inside you which control sensory input and muscle control and a great number of other things. It was delicate work, and we had the capability to— to repair damaged nerves, to reconnect them. Fixing paralysis or numbness or seizures. I can’t shake the feeling that, in my heyday, I might’ve been able to do something about that,” he points to Mobius’ hands, “but, y’know, that’s probably hubris.”
He’s trying to be better about identifying hubris, these days.
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Blessings and curses. Strange is...trying. He's trying where Mobius gets the idea that he perhaps used to not try at all, so that's something. And the admittance of hubris. That brings a little smirk to his lips.
"So you were a healer before. No, I don't think you could do anything about this until you could find a way to break the hold of the magic of, presumably, old elf gods. Or something with the power to simply...take." A memory. An eye. A skill. Strange is at least tangentially aware that Mobius isn't the only one who came back changed. "As far as I understand, physically everything works fine. But there's some very clean disconnect of sensation that probably has nothing to do with the physical nerves themselves."
He's also not sure he'd want anyone cutting into his hands in the manner Strange had his. "Did you use magic in your healing as well?"
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But that was then, and this is now. It’s a wider universe than he ever thought. So he accepts the futility of it and the futility of muddling with old elf gods, and answers, “Mm. No. I was a doctor — a healer — for years long before I even knew about the existence of magic at all.”
This topic is verging closer to a tangled knot he doesn’t often explain; he’s always struggled with describing the deal he made and the trade-off he took without sounding like some kind of holier-than-thou saint. Because he’s not, is the thing. But maybe he can talk about Pangborn:
“Healing is what led me to discovering magic, though. I once met a man who was paralysed from the chest down.” (That diagnosis rang in the back of his head, still: C7-C8 spinal cord injury, complete, paralysed from the mid-chest down, partial paralysis of both hands, untreatable.)
“No one could have fixed him. I couldn’t. But then I find him running around on his feet, playing sports. He’d tapped into magic and was using it, day-in and day-out, to move his body again — it was a miracle — and that’s what eventually led me to, well, being a mage.”
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Magic to treat wounds is hardly unheard of. But magic in a longer term, subtly used at all times? That is. Doesn't mean it never happens, but he doesn't think it's truly possible, either. Not the way magic is understood in Thedas. The power runs out eventually, the effort too great to sustain.
But there's this topic of pain and magic, and Strange is a Rifter. Mobius has heard the stories as well as anyone else. Has argued, if mildly, with Wysteria. At the risk of getting too personal, he has to keep asking questions. It's the only way he's going to learn anything. "Does any of it keep the shard from aching?"
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Strange doesn’t immediately explain why, though, instead honing in on the other question like a hunting hound scenting prey. The rest of the explanation comes crisp and precise, with all the verbiage and technicalities of a doctor, a healer, as he shakes his head:
“Hasn’t had an effect on the shard, either. The sensation of the shard is actually pretty similar to what I’m used to. Neuropathic pain is… It’s not like bruised flesh or broken bone or a pulled muscle, so it doesn’t respond to small-scale painkillers or anti-inflammatories. It runs deeper than that. Heavy-duty painkillers or anti-seizure medication might make a dent, but it’s still hard to treat. One of my best treatments is when I’m casting magic — not to directly heal, but it works as a distraction, as something to take up absolutely all of my focus, my concentration, my attention. Then, I don’t notice it as much any longer. It’s been the same with the shard.”
He’s been talking a lot. He almost always talks too much. His food’s probably getting cold, so he glances down and shovels down a few more bites (conscious, then, of the implements Mobius has to use; at least he’s been spared that).
“You got me started talking about medical care,” he adds, a little sheepish. “Sorry if I’ve been going on a bit.”
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"You do kind of use magic to help the ache, then," he points out with a little smile. "I don't think magic here could ever make a man walk again, but I can make sure to pull some medical texts for you with regard to potions, poultices, and whatever I can scrounge up for magic. Healing tent's always a good place if you haven't already gotten yourself well acquainted with the staff. If you want to go back to healing. Instead of," with a pinch of his face, trying to remember some of the appropriate words, "fighting interdimensional threats."
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The humour is easy and instinctive, but a moment later he reaches for the far more important part of what Mobius had mentioned: “And those medical texts would be fantastic, thank you. I’ve met a couple Riftwatch healers — Derrica, Sidony — but I still have quite a bit of catching up to do. Reading up on how Theodosian magic specifically entwines with healing, but also which herbs and plants do what in this world.”
And then the followup occurs to him, and he snorts a dry laugh. “God help me, it’s like I’m a student again.”
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"Maker knows I only know the barebones of stitching out of necessity and watching it done. Anything more complicated than that, pass it on to someone who knows what they're doing. We're all students," he continues, building off Strange's self-amusement. "Nobody knows everything. There's always something to adapt to." Like when your hands suddenly don't work the way they used to. "There's always something more to understand about a field, even if you're an expert in it. Lifelong student's not a bad thing to be. I'd be wary of the people who think they have nothing left to learn."
possible wrap or yrs to wrap!
but if there’s one thing Strange has had drummed into him over and over by now, is the fact that he truly does know nothing and the universe contains endless unfathomable mysteries, new horizons, new planes of existence, uncountable multiverses. One feels miniscule in the shadow of it all. So Mobius’ comments hammer on familiar territory, like another persistent little echo of the Ancient One. (“Why are you doing this to me?” “To show you just how much you don’t know—”)
“Mobius, you are on the verge of sounding irritatingly wise,” Strange says, but it has the jovial sound of… almost a compliment? Sort of a compliment.
“Most likely I’ll keep studying for the rest of my life, yes. And y'know, I’ll stay tuned for anything I can learn about ancient elven artifacts; that seems very much up Project Felandaris’ alley.”
It’s probably impossible — he can no more easily give Gwenaëlle back her eye as give Mobius back his hands — but. He’s a fixer. He wants to fix things. Carve them up and reassemble them better. So he can’t help that nagging urge to at least think about it.
He delves back into the rest of his dinner, and they pass the remainder of the meal in surprisingly amiable conversation; although Strange’s gaze still, occasionally, drops to those hands.