Andaris Academy Δ 77th Day of Zi'Da 715 Δ 11th Break
Steady, steady, steady. A constant barrage of that single word assaulted his ears, his head. The garnishing changed, verbs and nouns and prepositions, but the one word remained. The sheer impatience with which this sense of steadiness was supposed to be imparted in him would have been enough to drive a man grown to violence, and the young man bent over the prone body laid upon the table was not even that. Moreover, he was armed. With a scalpel, granted, but it was still a wickedly sharp blade and Cassian Gawyne possessed a general idea of where the pulse of life ran along a man's neck. Yet unlike his supposed tutor's seemingly limited faculties for excitement, the student's patience reigned supreme.
Or maybe it was his pride. As the razor blade forged a thin line across the cold flesh in front of him, the young man wouldn't have stood for a mistake. None. While this was not his ultimate escape from theoretical lessons on anatomy (muscles, blood vessels, bones and all those little things inside the body that apparently did little to nothing at all) it was a giant step away from it and into the practicalities of surgery. Even if all they let him test his mette on was this wreck which had once been a man, laid here in front of him, washed and possibly perfumed but still less than even a frail, fallible man. As marred by his own mistakes as by those of the students who had come before Cassian on this Trial.
Bennen had been tasked with revealing the anterior deltoid on the corpse's right arm. Eager and overzealous, his first cut had nearly become a postmortem amputation if not for the bones. Another had sought the latissimus dorsi in the pelvic region to much chagrin. Then there were the near misses and the artless cuts of butchers and feldshers thinking themselves better.
But Cassian would fall into none of these traps. Bastard though he was, he was still noble born and had his pedigree to live up to. Proving his general superiority was of course even more relevant but felt less justifiable. His intellectual and moral superiority was, after all, fact and thus required no proof of its existence. Not that he would deliver that proof anyway if the old man behind him was not constantly reminding him to remain steady. Worse was that the old fool kept varying his sentences. Had he droned on in a monotone it might have proved soothing through the dull repetition alone. But switching up the sentence structure ever so slightly kept Cassian's ears engaged as was their nature.
Because he was still noble born they had also thrown him an easy one. The pectoralis was the chest muscle, impossible to miss even on the sunken and shrivelled features of the man-shaped piece of meat on the table. And easy to uncover sind it lay flush on the ribcage with little but skin and fat in the way. Pridefully, he had asked to be allowed to uncover a blood vessel instead, the arteria femoralis to be precise. A major artery running along the inside of the thigh it was of particular interest to the young noble. It was a major thoroughfare of rich blood, it was near the surface and a deep cut on a living being would prove fatal, given time. And. according to the Raskalarnapathra tis was a region of the body which was hard to defend without a shield.
In short, it was something he wanted to see, to experience, to uncover with his own cuts. Because it might ultimately also prove helpful in other areas. Because it was a confluence of expediences... and because, he understood, it satisfied his pride.
Cassian's ability to reflect upon himself was almost painful.
The youg man took a deep breath and sought to center himself, drown out the admonitions of his tutor and finally merge into the scalpel between his fingers and then flow into the cut. A touch of pressure, a miniscules shift of those delicate muscles that moved his fingers like strings moved puppets. Were the thing before him alive he would draw blood now, but this was cleaner. Even that thought had to be discarded though.
There was only the hand, the blade and the cut.
Three would become two, and two one as his finger pressed down on the scalpel's spine.
Or maybe it was his pride. As the razor blade forged a thin line across the cold flesh in front of him, the young man wouldn't have stood for a mistake. None. While this was not his ultimate escape from theoretical lessons on anatomy (muscles, blood vessels, bones and all those little things inside the body that apparently did little to nothing at all) it was a giant step away from it and into the practicalities of surgery. Even if all they let him test his mette on was this wreck which had once been a man, laid here in front of him, washed and possibly perfumed but still less than even a frail, fallible man. As marred by his own mistakes as by those of the students who had come before Cassian on this Trial.
Bennen had been tasked with revealing the anterior deltoid on the corpse's right arm. Eager and overzealous, his first cut had nearly become a postmortem amputation if not for the bones. Another had sought the latissimus dorsi in the pelvic region to much chagrin. Then there were the near misses and the artless cuts of butchers and feldshers thinking themselves better.
But Cassian would fall into none of these traps. Bastard though he was, he was still noble born and had his pedigree to live up to. Proving his general superiority was of course even more relevant but felt less justifiable. His intellectual and moral superiority was, after all, fact and thus required no proof of its existence. Not that he would deliver that proof anyway if the old man behind him was not constantly reminding him to remain steady. Worse was that the old fool kept varying his sentences. Had he droned on in a monotone it might have proved soothing through the dull repetition alone. But switching up the sentence structure ever so slightly kept Cassian's ears engaged as was their nature.
Because he was still noble born they had also thrown him an easy one. The pectoralis was the chest muscle, impossible to miss even on the sunken and shrivelled features of the man-shaped piece of meat on the table. And easy to uncover sind it lay flush on the ribcage with little but skin and fat in the way. Pridefully, he had asked to be allowed to uncover a blood vessel instead, the arteria femoralis to be precise. A major artery running along the inside of the thigh it was of particular interest to the young noble. It was a major thoroughfare of rich blood, it was near the surface and a deep cut on a living being would prove fatal, given time. And. according to the Raskalarnapathra tis was a region of the body which was hard to defend without a shield.
In short, it was something he wanted to see, to experience, to uncover with his own cuts. Because it might ultimately also prove helpful in other areas. Because it was a confluence of expediences... and because, he understood, it satisfied his pride.
Cassian's ability to reflect upon himself was almost painful.
The youg man took a deep breath and sought to center himself, drown out the admonitions of his tutor and finally merge into the scalpel between his fingers and then flow into the cut. A touch of pressure, a miniscules shift of those delicate muscles that moved his fingers like strings moved puppets. Were the thing before him alive he would draw blood now, but this was cleaner. Even that thought had to be discarded though.
There was only the hand, the blade and the cut.
Three would become two, and two one as his finger pressed down on the scalpel's spine.
