In the dead of the night, for the second (http://eileadora.com/index.php?topic=1649.msg10934#msg10934) time over the past year, Dralt would arrive with a corpse in his arms.
The body of Joan Kingsley was delivered for funerary preparations.
Dralt departed with strict instructions that it not be delivered to the local graveyard, but once the procedure had concluded, the bill was to be sent to his home. What remained of Joan would be retrieved for burial elsewhere.
"Credit where it was due, the medical crew had patched Joan up where able. The knife wound closed, shrapnel removed, body set in - if not quite a facsimile of life, than an honest effort." -Evren
Joan was thrown a great distance, breaking multiple ribs which punctured a lung in the process. Shortly after her throat was stabbed, severing carotid arteries. A viewing will be arranged for farewells, then the body will be taken back to Joan and Dralt's shared homeland.
A scarcely seen human (https://www.rprepository.com/site.php?char=97206&page=222522) was deposited in the infirmary in the early hours of the morning. The young man came carried by Lord Dralt, dressed strangely in neat trousers and an oversized grey bathrobe, abdomen bound tight in numerous layers of gauze. What wreckage lie beneath was terrible to behold: a stomach sliced open and lined with the sludge of rot. Dralt would depart as quickly as he had arrived, leaving verbal instructions to send a courier for his home once treatment concluded, assuring he would cover mail and medical expenses himself... regardless of whether or not the patient- unconscious with shallow breaths and weak pulse- survived.
"The stench that rushed from the opening was putrid and cloying. Within the ruin that was Xim's stomach was the rest of the feathers and bones of the bird arranged like a nest. Within was a growing crow chick that was tearing off rotting flesh from Xim's insides. That he was alive even now should have been impossible. There barely even came a flow of blood."
Stomach was sliced open with a sharp blade. Bird carcass and hatchling removed, torso bound tight with gauze but not stitched closed. A small amount of vampiric blood has been consumed. Whether this was an attempted enthrallment, or the utilization of the blood's properties as a powerful life-preserving stimulant, is open to speculation.