location — Hillcrest, Algeroth.
date — August 2nd.
time — 12:30pm.

Hillcrest and Galaens both had their shares of problems recently-- and it all stemmed from the same source, the warlord known as Theleaus. He'd arrived from the east, presumably coming in from Xexoria, and set up camp near the middle of the road between Hillcrest and Galaens. It wasn't until people going to and from started to go missing that it was clear that something was wrong, and Theleaus's ragtag army was split down the middle: one half to Galaens, one half to Hillcrest.

Both sides, Hillcrest and Galaens, regrettably could not come into contact with eachother. It wasn't until close to the end of the conflict that there was a brief acknowledgment of each other's forces, but neither quite had the time to talk about it.

Indeed, Galaens put up a fight, just like Hillcrest did . . .



Hillcrest needed supplies. They'd all but run out by then, and it was a bit of an emergency-- not an immediate emergency, but it was coming close to one. Given another couple of days, it would be a bit of a problem. Galaens was the only place to get supplies from currently, and most everyone capable of going the route was injured, and the others? No one wanted them to go out yet. Emma Vaerbond and/or her older sister Sarah could've gone the route-- they wanted to, even, but they were forbidden from it.

So, a message was sent out. Thankfully, the smithy of Hillcrest kept a trained falcon for times like these. It was an invaluable part of their campaign against Theleaus. The smithy was truly a man of many talents, and a man of utter mystery-- very jovial mystery.

And not an hour after receiving the message, there was a personal return.

He was on horseback, and while a little awkward with the horse, he was able to push it and keep it under control to hasten the trip to Hillcrest. It left him undoubtedly tired, though.

The red haired man needed only to mention to the Vaerbond girl at the local ranch that he was here to deliver supplies to the clinic. Initially, she was a little enthralled with his existence, almost as if she saw some sort of appealing shine on him-- what, with his mid-neck length layered red hair, his twenty something handsome face, and baby blue eyes. The suit also helped. He always wore suits; casual suits, but suits nonetheless. Today, it was black slacks, a red undershirt, and a white blazer.

The man was completely oblivious to the girl's brief infatuation, which was definitely for the best. Wouldn't want things to get awkward! Nonetheless, she gladly kept the horse he'd taken from Galaens for him, to give her water and a bit of time to rest after the taxing journey.

The red haired man, a man who'd been staying in Galaens for awhile with several of his friends, all of otherworldly origin, went by Attis. He'd done his part against Theleaus, too.

He carried the load over both shoulders, and hunched forward to make it easier. They were all contained in two large packs which were actually a little much on the horse on the way here. Their combined weight might well have amounted to a full sized crate of goods.

When he arrived at the clinic (which was easy for him to find; this was not his first time being in Hillcrest), he realized all too late that he hadn't free hands to knock on the door. Both hands were, instead, occupied with holding onto the straps of the bags to make sure they didn't roll off his shoulders. With little other choice in the matter, Attis opted to use his head.

Hopefully, he'd only need to knock his forehead into the door a couple of times to alert the doctors within to his existence outside.

Unfortunately, Attis's knocking was not responded to in a timely order like he hoped. Though it wasn't hard to guess why; the door could not contain the amount of noise coming from inside, and little of the noise was pleasant: deathly moans, crying, and the occasional scream emanated from within. The rest of the village may have been at peace for the time being, but the end of the fighting only marked the beginning of the trials for the clinic.

Despite the noise, however, his knock had apparently not gone unnoticed. "The door's open!" a female voice shouted over the commotion.

...Which was, of course, entirely unhelpful; Attis didn't have the hands to knock, so he couldn't open the door either. It would be another few minutes before someone finally opened the door.

It was a middle-aged woman who answered the door. Her hair was long and brown with streaks of gray, drawn back into a tidy ponytail. She regarded Attis with tired, violet eyes. If her age didn't give it away, the labcoat she was wearing--which was currently liberally splotched with red at the moment--would be all he needed to see to conclude she was one of the people he was looking for.

"Yes?" she asked, her voice unsurprisingly rather strained.

At the door, Attis was struggling a little. Sure, he was strong-- well, relatively. He didn't look like he'd be all that powerful; he was tall and skinny, after all. Skinny people never really seemed like the type to be overbearingly strong. Attis wasn't some underestimated mass of raw power, but he could carry some weight, and as a few unfortunate bandits found out a little while back, he threw one heck of a mean right hook. Fit-- that was the way to describe it. He was healthy and fit, as well as possessing some odd amount of a supernatural boost to, well, most everything. Stamina, strength, speed-- all the like.

Still, even with that bonus, this mess was heavy. No wonder the horse was weighed down by it all! Attis felt happy that he wouldn't have to make her carry it again. They could go the ride back in a lazy and relaxing way.

He'd also have to make sure that he stayed here in Hillcrest for a little longer than planned, too. The poor lady horse needed her rest.

He was patient in waiting, even after he was told that the door was open. Then, he could do nothing more than let out a very small, barely audible nervous laugh.

When the woman opened the door at last, though, she'd be greeted by a friendly face with a hint of strain. There was sweat on his brow, of course. This was a hot summer day, after all! But still, he smiled as soon as he saw her.

"Special delivery from Galaens," Attis declared as he hulked his shoulders up a bit, just to shake the bags slightly, to suggest that he was talking about them in particular.

"Oh! Thank god. I was worried, because the only person..." A sad look crossed her face as she trailed off, before correcting herself. "I mean, we didn't have anyone to send to pick them up."

Throwing the door open wide, she turned around. "Come in, come in, this way, watch your step..."

To say it was crowded in the clinic would be an understatement. The hallway was lined with people, most of them patients with minor injuries waiting to be treated--almost all male, and most of them bandits. Broken limbs, fractured ribs, concussions--painful but not life-threatening injuries, mostly all done by a single man.

There was also family, almost universally in states of distress, but not many. At the moment, family simply couldn't be allowed to see their loved ones because of a lack of space; the fact that the only ones allowed inside were those whose loved ones had passed on or would inevitably soon.

But there was movement as well as stillness, as a many figures darted from room to room, usually in a hurry, only slowing if they were carrying something (or someone) delicate. Only one other was a doctor, a middle-aged Cizokian man with dark hair and a lab coat. The others were all volunteers, and mostly female--though some were men who'd been lucky enough to come out unscathed.

"Here, put them here for now," she instructed, leading him to a small room that served as a combination supply closet and filing room. Though even it had a couple of people in it, sitting in the corners.

Attis followed the woman closely. The clinic was a mess, and he didn't want to get lost. That'd just set everyone back! This nice doctor would be a few more minutes without a restock of supplies, and Attis would be left completely confused for a little while.

Which is to say that he noticed full well how chaotic the clinic was. He recognized some of these people, though. Sure, he noticed the villagers, and could only guess who they were and why they were here. They were no doubt family members of people injured in the village. The others, though-- the ones sort of littering the hall . . . they were almost all Xexorian.

The average person might have come to a sudden ethical quandary. The bandits-- help the wounded ones or let them help themselves? They must've caused horrible troubles here for this clinic to be low on supplies, after all. Attis, though . . . he could only smile at this. The people that owned this clinic, the Tsukimonos . . . they were good people. Attis needed only to see this to understand the endless well of kindness these doctors had in their hearts. They could treat the bandits with a little roughness even, but they were still helping them-- help for even the most minor of wounds, too . . .

Attis followed the woman to the store room and relinquished the two bags. They were practically military sacks; both about four and a half feet long and cylindrical, boasting a total three foot diameter each. When Attis gently dropped them off for the woman to investigate (if she so desired), he felt like an immense weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

The first thing the woman might notice was that there were twice as many supplies here than she asked for. Literally, it was a double-up. One sack had all the supplies that she asked for. The other was an exact duplicate, both packed perhaps simultaneously, according to her requests. That could only be good, right?

Yes and no. Supplies didn't come for free. Galaens and Hillcrest might have gone through the same dilemma, but Galaens had reconstructions, too. They couldn't necessarily afford to give away valuable supplies for free.

"Alright, then, I need to--" She turned as though to head back into the chaos, but stopped short when she noticed something. She took another look at the sacks Attis carried in.

"This...it's too much," she said, mostly to herself, before addressing the young man. "I'm...afraid there's been a mistake. We only purchased half this."

She hesitated to speak of it; they certainly needed all the supplies they could get. But at the same time they had their good name at stake, and if they took advantage of a mistake (especially one that earned them twice as much as they'd bought), it could affect dealings in the future.

At the woman's confusion and concern, Attis tilted his head to the side. Perhaps there was a mistake? Perhaps too much was sent accidentally?

No. No mistake at all . . .

"Oh! Right," Attis declared as he remembered it, "This is double the order, yes, but I figured you would need all you can get."

Attis paused to slide his right hand into the confines of his blazer. There was an inner pocket in there, which coincidentally held a lot more than the outside pockets did. Those were just for show, anyways.

"A~nd this," he withdrew his hand from within his jacket. The sight would be familiar; of course it would be familiar! The woman had packed all this gold, silver, and bronze up herself, put it in this very pouch, and sent it off with the request. Attis handed it back to her.

"No payment necessary," he reported with a smile.

"What?" she asked, clearly surprised, but she recovered quickly. "Look, I appreciate the gesture, but we can't accept--"

"Rebbecca!" a somewhat gruff voice called from down the hall.

She grimaced. "I can't argue right now, but just know that we can afford it, okay?" She left the money he handed back on the counter and rushed off to her husband, who sounded like he needed help with something.

While Attis could no doubt leave, as he well knew many of the wounded were bandits--there was little doubt that if it were left there, the pouch of coins would be gone in minutes.

Attis looked at the pouch of money, then down the hall, then back to the money again. Before the woman, Rebbecca, left, he had it in mind to tell her that even if her clinic could afford it, she still had a lot of patients here, and therefore clearly needed money much more than he did. But alas, she was called out before he could get the chance to explain this.

But that didn't mean he was going to keep this. This money didn't belong to him, after all. If he took it and left, he'd have felt as if he'd stolen from the Tsukimono clinic. Likewise, he couldn't let anyone else do the same, and while he wished he could trust everyone else that was skittering around the clinic, he knew that he couldn't. It was disappointing, but sadly not everyone was as kind as the owners of this clinic. With a sigh, Attis took the sack of coins back and placed them within his blazer again.

He'd just have to stick around and wait until the doctors were free again. Or . . . maybe . . .

There were truly a lot of people buzzing around, some carrying things from room to room, some carrying people from room to room-- and those that were buzzing around like worker bees didn't seem at all injured. Attis listened for the voices of the doctors, figuring the room they'd both disappeared into, and politely squeezed his way down the hall. He whispered a lot of apologies and polite "excuse mes" along the way, and upon reaching the room where he last heard the doctors' voices, poked his head in curiously.

"Do you need any help with anything?" he asked as soon as he did. He hoped the problem they were dealing with wasn't an urgent one, though; if so, he'd be rudely interrupting something, but Attis figured that it was just a matter of the doctors simply not having time to spare for idle chatter.

Fortunately, the matter wasn't an urgent one. Rebbecca turned to look at him as though she was about to decline the offer, but before she could the male spoke up. "We need help with everything," he replied dryly.

Never in the history of the clinic had it been this busy; if Attis were to look at the door on the opposite end of the hall from where he entered, he'd find that it was wide open and let into a living room, which was also overflowing with people; though notably everyone in the house part of the building was a villager.

Rebbecca sighed but did not argue, instead keeping her attention on the patient before her: a young, dark-haired man. Asleep or unconscious and hooked up to an IV, he was possibly the only person in the building who looked at peace, despite his emaciated form. He wasn't in urgent need of care, but earlier his IV had gotten knocked loose and now they were both a bit paranoid about it happening again.

Rushing past him through the door, the male doctor said, "Come with me," and hurried into another room. "We need to move this one onto that bed," instructed, going to grab the injured man's arms.

"So, you're not from Hillcrest, and you're not a bandit; what brings you here?" he asked conversationally as he lifted. In contrast to Rebbecca, he seemed perfectly at ease amidst the chaos.

"All right," Attis nodded and followed the male doctor's lead.

He was glad to help. The horse he came in on needed rest, anyways-- this was as good of an opportunity as any to let her get some rest and relaxation! It wasn't like Attis needed to be back in Galaens anytime in the near future, anyways. Milos might get worried about him if he were gone too late, but Attis didn't anticipate that he'd be out this way beyond midnight.

Incidentally, though he looked the part of either a professor, model, or politician (or some obscure mixture of all three of them), Attis displayed what might look like experienced tenderness with the patient. He took the patients legs while the doctor took his arms; they both lifted the patient simultaneously, and set him in the bed. Attis didn't even need instructed in how to do it, either. His timing was perfect, and his strength was both gingerly and firm, enough to lift the patient, but not hurt him.

Attis didn't appear at all confused by it; in fact, he rolled with it as if he knew exactly what the doctor meant, procedure and all, when he mentioned moving the patient to a bed. It was almost like he'd done this before-- or, at least something similar.

"I've been staying with some friends in Galaens. I came here to deliver the supplies you asked Alphonse for," Attis replied openly. He was always open for conversation.