The Night the Fire Fell (aka "I F***** The Mage Out Of Him") (Alkereth & Emery) [M]

[Avelithe]

The Night the Fire Fell
aka "I F***** The Mage Out Of Him"

The night sky had a curious star that did not belong. It trespassed and warped the constellation it danced in. The star was faint, at first. And it moved, increasing in size as the planet ensnared it. Perhaps an eager astronomer would hastily reach for their instruments to gaze upon the curious speck of light sailing through the inky night. Mages might even take this opportunity as a sign for strengthened spellcraft. Lovers in the sleepy fields might even wish upon it. Dogs howled. Children gaped. Others could only look at the phenomenon with wonder: was this a sign from the gods?

Uncertainty gripped the spectators as they watched the star come hurling towards them at alarming speed. The colors it emitted were not natural. It effused a burst of blue and white, too peculiar to be a genuine meteor, but for the more simple-minded, that is all it was. They gasped as it ignited their sky with blinding light, the world momentarily resembling midday. It barely struck the mountain like a flash of lightning, then disappeared over the horizon, and was gone. Night returned to its tranquil state.

Early morning had come when some of the denizens of the local town excitedly made preparations to brave the valleys in an attempt to search for the meteorite. Merchants bragged of how much of the mysterious rock they would mine for themselves to sell. One fellow wondered how he would let the local blacksmith fashion a falchion from the stone. Some even dreamed of jewels. The suspicious wondered if it was a meteorite at all, and not something... else. The astute, though rare, did not have to wonder. They knew.

Of that which was found thus far were deep troughs that gouged the earth, smoldering still from where the rock had struck. The intelligent ones deduced that it fell at an angle, and bounced like a river stone far into the densely wooded trees. Several trees looked bent and cracked. Too curious. Is this how meteors behave? Many decided they weren't brave enough to trek the wilderness, even as the sun peeked over the valley. Too dangerous, they would say. Yet still, for all the rest, the hunt for the meteorite had begun.

Only to the first person to find the meteorite, would not see bits of space rock flung about to pieces. In the center of a cleared wood, surrounded by broken, smoldering trees, was a still-smoking crater, and in its center, was an unconscious man.

[Rhindeer]

Emery Ramaker was supposed to be taking a break.

For the first time in a long time, she wasn't on a hunt. She had no bounty, no goals, no trail to follow. She had simply returned to Bellkrath to do the most normal thing she had done in a year: visit her family, give them some of the money she had earned, get information, and leave.

She had at least two days' worth of travel before she reached the small backwater village she'd grown up in, and it had been a day since her last night in a bed--well, kind of a bed, more like pokey hay in a kind farmer's barn. There wasn't another village now until she reached home, so she had to rough it until then, but she'd done that plenty before.

It was good weather for it: clear skies and not too windy for a change, chilly but not unbearable. Just before sunset, she settled down for the evening, watering her horse at a stream before tying her reins off on a branch near the small campfire she had made. It was a quiet night with lots of visibility all around the small copse she'd settled near, and this area wasn't really known for its predators, but it was still difficult for Emery to shift from a constant state of alert to relaxation. She shrugged off her baldric and set her sword beside her, chewed on some of the rations she'd packed, and rested with her back against a tree as day faded to night. She tried and failed to shut up her brain; going home was always rough. It hadn't been her home in years.

The sky darkened and hours passed, and eventually the exhaustion of the day caught up to Emery until not even her racing thoughts were strong enough to fight it. She began to drift, curled up beneath the blankets she'd packed, the campfire long reduced to smoldering embers.

And then the sky exploded.

Light and color flashed beneath her eyelids and her horse, Hilda, let out a whinnying scream that had her scrambling out from under her blankets in panic. The sky was ablaze, bright as day, and then it was night again but loud, a sound ripping through the valley like cannon fire. Hands shaking, Emery grabbed up her baldric and slung it over her shoulder, for one moment worried the war had finally made it this far--but then it was quiet again.

There was no smell of gunpowder, the sound was different, and the color had been all wrong. They hadn't been like any colors she'd ever seen in the sky, at least not at night. No, this was something else.

Heart hammering in her chest, Emery went to calm Hilda as the horse danced nervously and made unhappy sounds, the whites of her eyes flashing. She stroked her and whispered to her until she had settled, and then she packed her things back up and swung up into the saddle. No, no...this was nothing natural. This was something different. Something wrong. She had seen unnatural lightshows before, very rarely, but enough to suspect.

This had to be magic.

And it was big.

And close.

---

It was a surprisingly short ride. She turned Hilda in the direction she heard the crash and rode, figuring that with the scale of that light and that sound, surely she would see some evidence of it eventually. She smelled it first, the smell of smoke and burnt wood--and then through the dark she saw it, dying sparks of flame illuminating gouges in the earth, like something had slid along it for a while, ending in a large broken pit.

Emery drew Hilda up to the edge and dismounted, her hands sticky in their gloves. Was this an attack of some sort? She had never seen anything like it. This wasn't created by cannons or anything she had ever seen the likes of--

She froze, her eyes widening and fixing on a single point at the center.

What the fuck.

There was a person in the center of the crater, pale and strange, and Emery drew her sword in alarm before she realized he wasn't moving. Not that it mattered; that could change in the space of a breath, because who knew what she was dealing with here? Something unnatural, that was certain. Was he what had caused the light show, or had he burst from the thing that had? It didn't matter. What did matter was that unnatural things like that couldn't just roam free, and she had a duty now to ensure he didn't. With the amount of damage he had already caused, all those smoldering trees and broken earth...

God. If this had been a town and not an empty valley...

She shuddered and swallowed hard, wetting her dry throat. This felt beyond her, bigger than her. She had never seen a display of power that had caused damage of this scale.

There was no time to waste.

She had a duty here.

Working fast, she retrieved the tools of her trade from a saddlebag--a pair of iron manacles she had used on many a mage. Carefully sliding down the crater's slope, she took a deep breath to steel herself before she bent and rolled him onto his belly, grunting with the effort. Dead weight was always a bitch to move, but she managed, and then she yanked his arms behind him and clasped the a shackle around both wrists. There. If he was Serenian or some manner of fae, he might find them extra uncomfortable, and that was the point; the iron was meant to burn fae types.

That done, Emery felt a little better already. His magic would be off limits with her around him, but now he would have to work if he wanted to fight her. Tugging them to ensure they were properly locked, she clicked her tongue in satisfaction and rose, dusting off her hands.

Now to get him out of the damned crater. If he was conscious, he wouldn't like this part.

"This'll hurt like a bitch," she said, talking out loud just to hear another voice. She climbed back up the crater and drew a rope from her packs, and tied one end to the saddle's pommel. Then she slid back down into the crater and began to tie that end around the chain linking his manacles together.

So many questions.

And she planned on extracting the answers from him.

[Avelithe]

The man looked dead. Upon closer inspection, there was only shallow breathing. He looked rough and filthy, with scratches and a gash on his arm that tore the leather of his black armor. A longsword was strapped to his belt, whole and untouched by the fall. But miraculously—somehow—this man beat the odds and survived.

Alkereth woke with a soft flutter of eyes, aching from the light of the rising sun. He could barely lift his hands to shield his face; in fact, he could hardly move. Pain shot up his spine, which gave him a horrendous headache. Too weak, unfocused, and brain-hazed to understand what was happening, he simply lay sprawled on the rubble he created.

It wasn't until a female's voice jostled his mind. It was something to focus on, something to tether him on the side of the living. He almost smiled. The voice! It was her's, was it not? Oh, how he longed to reach up, and perhaps he did, shakily lifting his shackled hands towards Emery's horse, unable to register that he had been captured for nefarious purposes. The horse was only a blur, but he was able to make out the contours which suggested the type of animal it was to him.

"Lun...rath..." He murmured through a mouthful of blood and soil. "You... made it..."

The accent was not comparable to that of anyone in Emery's world. But he spoke her language. Curious.

Alkereth grunted painfully from being hoisted and manhandled, and fell unconscious several times. His fate was in Emery's hands.

[Rhindeer]

Emery about jumped out of her skin when the creature spoke.

She whirled, snapping a look at his face. It was a strange voice, an accent she didn't recognize--though that could have been because his face was pressed into the dirt and he clearly wasn't all there yet. Good. Letting out the breath she'd sucked in in her surprise, she gave the rope a sharp jerk to make sure it was secure.

With him flipped over, she noticed the sword at his hip and made short work of it, unbuckling it and tossing it up the crater's slope. Then she pat him up and down his legs and arms and torso, roughly and without ceremony, checking for any extra weapons he might have stowed on him and cursing herself for not being more careful and thorough before. Had her break been so long that she had gotten this sloppy already?

...Because it definitely couldn't be the sleep deprivation that had come with travel. Certainly not.

The man had fallen quiet again, and Emery held her fingers under his nose briefly to check if he was still breathing. Not that it really mattered; this was a bizarre enough case that she would deliver him living or as a corpse to be studied. Hm. Passed out again, it seemed, which was good news for him. It meant he would only feel the aftereffects of this next part, unless he was unfortunate enough to wake up during it.

She climbed back up the crater, secured his sword with her belongings, and then took Hilda's reins in hand and lead her slowly away from the crater to drag the man out. There was no way she was carrying him out on her own, so this would have to suffice. It wouldn't matter if he was a little banged up. If he had survived whatever the hell had happened tonight, then this couldn't be much worse.

[Avelithe]

It seems Alkereth carried little else. Aside from the longsword, there was a small leather waist satchel containing an old holy book hand-written in foreign words. His apparel, though form fitting over wiry muscle, sported  adornments befitting perhaps a priest (if there was even a recognizable likeness), but nothing he could possibly be hiding beneath the leather and light armor.

A touch to the face, even just to check if life lingered in him still, revealed flesh alarmingly cold as though the man had been previously dunked in an icy lake.

Painstakingly dragged off, Alkereth had no choice but to suffer every scrape and bump. Not that he could discern anything at the moment. He could not even comprehend he situation he was in.

It wasn't until a little after his head hit a rock did he blink several times. It hurt, and he wasn't sure why he was on the ground... being dragged, no less. The stink of horse had him look up. He blinked some more.

The horse was not his.

Not that he made a habit to stare at equine rears or anything, but Lunrath carried a different scent than what this beast gave off.

Trepidation sank in. Seemingly alert enough to lift his head, Alkereth peered blearily around him. He saw a woman. He clumsily spat dirty blood from his mouth.

"My horse," he rasped weakly. Every movement was agony, made more so with every hoof fall. "Go back... my horse... need her..." He groaned, shifting, attempting to piece together his predicament. He was mostly rendered limp and tethered to the woman's horse, perhaps looking more or less like live hunted meat to any attention they might have garnered from strangers.

"Please," he added desperately. The effort to communicate forced a cough. Blood splattered on the ground. Was it too much hope that the woman spoke the same language?

[Rhindeer]

"What?"

Hilda had just pulled the man clear of the crater when Emery realized he was speaking. Again. She hadn't noticed at first, thinking he was just making noise in his "sleep" as he was jostled and dragged, but then she registered some of the rasping sounds as words and she snapped around to stare.

He was awake. Alert enough to at least lift his head, but perhaps not all home yet. He was saying some nonsense about going back for his horse and needing her, something like that. Emery raised an eyebrow, looked at him, and then swept her eyes over the crater and past it. If there was a horse other than hers anywhere, it would have been hard to miss. Would have been nice, too, netting a mage and a horse as a bonus. She would never say no to extra coin.

She drew Hilda to a stop several yards from the crater's edge; she didn't want to drag him too far and get him all damaged, not when she would need his health and cooperation to make this go as smoothly and easily as it could. He was already fucked up enough; she needed him somewhat functional.

"What horse? There's no horse around here save for mine," she said. She untied the rope from Hilda's pommel and looped the excess around her hand, to keep the rope taut as she walked to him and knelt down by his head.

"Maybe there was at some point, but I haven't seen one. Are you seeing things? Hit your head a little too roughly? How many fingers am I holding up?" She held three up in front of his face. The sooner she got him on his own two feet, the sooner she could get him on Hilda, and the sooner they could leave.

[Avelithe]

There was a modicum of relief and comfort to hear that the woman spoke the same tongue. It was always exhausting navigating foreign speak, and he was never particularly fond of learning new languages. This chance meeting gave Alkereth a surge of energy from whatever reserves he had—that did not mean he was at full strength, but only roused with the incentive that he was alive at all, and actually had someone he could talk to.

They had blessedly stopped just long enough for him to get his bearings, and lift himself up into an awkward sitting position. He tried to look up, but he realized that one of his eyes was swollen and nearly closed shut. He could, at least, see better than he had.

"She is an extraordinary horse that shines like starlight," he explained with a labored breath. "And my... very important friend. It is imperative that I find her." He paused, feeling the weight of his hands behind his back. It occurred to him a little too late that he had been shackled. There could be several reasons why, but he decided to give the woman the benefit of a doubt before he jumped to conclusions.

"What is this?" It was a lazy inquiry, but he could hardly be blamed all things considering. He lifted his arms and showed her his shackles to emphasize his short question, just as she held up her own in an attempt to get him to focus.

"...three," the Harbinger prompted warily, impatiently. "I want to go back and see for myself. It is the only way I can know for sure... but I must ask why I am shackled."

Alkereth swallowed. He tried not to think of his beautiful horse lying, lifeless, somewhere in the trees. But he needed answers, and it was with a prayer that he hoped his companion was not going to be difficult about it.

[Rhindeer]

Emery waited for him to get everything out of his system with the patience of someone who had done this many times before. She had to give him credit, he was handling waking up shackled far better than most people would--though perhaps that was just because he was crazy.

Horse that shines like starlight? His important friend? Clearly his brains had been rattled a bit in his...fall? That had to be it, right? He was the star that had fallen? This whole thing was crazy, but she had seen her share of crazy mages. All the more reason something like him couldn't walk free, ever.

Crouched beside him, she rested her elbow on one knee and propped her chin in her hand, watching him with the same sort of fascination a child would watch some alien and disgusting insect with far too many legs. When he was done, she simply said, "You're shackled because you're my prisoner." Blunt, to the point. No sense in playing coy, she always liked cutting to the chase. The sooner he understood and accepted that fact and got any whining out of his system, the better.

"And you will not be going to look. Your horse is dead or run off or entirely imaginary, I haven't figured out which, but it doesn't matter. It's the least of your concerns now. My turn. What are you?"

[Avelithe]

Well, there goes that. Disappointment washed over him like the shock after a tsunami, but that was his own fault for putting too much stock in appealing to some stranger.

He fell into a seething silence, tempering his rebellion. It would do him no good to lash out now; he knew he was beaten before the war had even begun. He would have asked where his sword had gone, but he knew before it even fled his lips, so he turned his head away, and closed his eyes, as if falling into silent prayer.

"For what crime?" he asked calmly, his composure more or less the same: in pain, and weak. Even with a broken face, he never seemed to show any real emotion.

The woman asked him a question, but he declined to answer. Perhaps out of spite, or simply unwillingness to comply. He braced for the consequences. It was par for the course. After all, this was not his first song and dance.

[Rhindeer]

So this was how it was going to be. He was one of those types, the quiet and broody type that played tough and stubborn and hadn't quite understood how this was going to work. It seemed he still believed he had some control in this situation. She should have expected as much based solely off of how he dressed. The craftsmanship of his sword and armor was too fine for him to be some farmboy, but the style and his accent were both far too strange for her to place him. He was no Connlaothian. Didn't sound like any Serenian or Adelan she'd met, though she could have easily mistaken him for Serenian. That was all part of the puzzle she was trying to solve, but she thought it was safe to say she had one small piece, at least, and that he'd come from privilege.

The rich ones always thought they were above everything. And they wouldn't be wrong; they could probably buy themselves out of most situations.

Emery cocked her head, letting out an amused snort.

"Oh, my apologies. Was I unclear when I said it was my turn? I'm asking the questions now and you're going to answer. That's how this works." She reached out abruptly and tangled a gloved fist in that white hair, jerking his head around to face her. "What are you? Demon? Witch? Fae?"

[Avelithe]

"It is a pity." Alkereth spoke softly, despite the longing to hold his side, positive his rib cracked. Even the slightest movement made him wince. Too bad he could not move his hands. "It was not my wish to be your enemy."

The woman continued to subjugate her prey with verbal whiplash. Alkereth could only sit and attempt to ignore the hurt, all the while thinking: Oh, what have I gotten myself into?

He gasped when he felt his scalp smart, realizing he was being forced back. He looked at her with an unreadable scarlet stare.

The words she said had been heard, but it was not at all to his taste. "The audacity that you think I am willing to give an answer after the way I've been harshly handled. What makes you think you deserve my cooperation?" The effort strained his voice. He coughed, blood dripping down his lips.

"Are you so desperate to fill your heart with hatred despite knowing nothing about me?" He swallowed, aware his pale neck was exposed, like a hare to a wolf. "I did nothing to you."

[Rhindeer]

Hmm. Perhaps a different approach was in order.

"Oh, this isn't about me or what you've done. This is about you and what you are," Emery said, still holding him firmly in place so she could meet those strange eyes of his. "It's not your fault, I know. It really isn't. We can't help how we're born, and believe me when I say I'm truly sorry that you drew the short straw. But blame or no blame, I still can't have you walking around freely when you can do that."

She released him then so she could motion back to the crater and all the destruction around it, the trees still smoldering and smoking. Casually, she reached out and wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth, shaking her head. "Can you imagine if that had been a village?"

[Avelithe]

"You don't know who or what I am," Alkereth scoffed, trembling after forced to sit upright for so long. It was with some grace that the woman held him, even if it was painful in the way she grasped his hair.

Then woman released him, trying to show him the damage he caused. The sunlight was too harsh, so his eyes watered, but he still looked. He swallowed again, weighing his words carefully.

"And I will answer to that," he said softly. "It is regrettable that I am the reason for the wreckage." At least he meant it, casting his gaze downward. He had to admit, the woman had a strong point that he could not ignore. Any other realm would surely hold him responsible, even if the forest was a casualty. "You must understand that I did not mean for this to happen. It was not all my doing."

Alkereth turned to the woman again, ever unreadable in his face, and stared right up at her. She did not need to force his head back to do so. He only flinched from her attempt to clean his lip, but he was not ungrateful. Untrusting and in immense pain, but never one to disregard obvious assistance, even if it was small and hardly worthy of praise. But he had been alone for a long, long time. The sigh that came from him was one of a man starved for contact of any kind, and just now, he was content to take it from a potential enemy. Pitiful.

Even so, he was no fool; perhaps the woman had done it to appeal to him in her own way. Get him to talk. She showed a sliver of compassion, but it did not change the fact that he was still shackled with the threat of something dire, and perhaps political, in his near future.

While lost in thought, he could not help but to prolong his look upon her. Despite the busted face, it did not take a genius to realize that he was scrutinizing her.

"This... isn't about what I've done... like you said... right?" He croaked. "Is the world so intolerant of people like me? Are you?"

[Rhindeer]

"Would you call it intolerance to isolate a leper?" Emery asked, wiping the blood from her glove onto the grass. "Or do you let them remain in society and spread disease? Oh, sure, maybe the leper will try very hard to conceal themselves, maybe they'll be very very careful, but when accidents happen it'll be the innocent who suffer--and so the disease spreads. Not that the leper isn't innocent as well; maybe they were a victim themselves, and I am so sympathetic to their suffering. But you see where I'm going with this, don't you?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "You didn't mean this. I know. But it still happened. What if it happens again? What if something worse happens? You understand, right? I have a moral obligation here. You're my leper, but I can only guess at your disease."

With a soft grunt, as she'd been crouching for a bit then, she rose to her feet and took him by one elbow. "Get up, now. You seem awake enough, we can chat on the road."

[Avelithe]

"That is possibly the worst example I've ever heard of. You should hear how ridiculous you sound." He would have given her a scathing response, but he had no energy, so his inflection fell flat. He expended them faster than he could muster.

The woman looked ready to move on, but Alkereth worried that his knees would give her a hard disagree. "Is this how you really feel?" Alkereth asked tiredly. "Or are you following instructions?"

The Harbinger would have gone on and on about how the woman's 'moral obligation' was skewed and corrupted. Priesthood and honed piety did that to a person.

"It is not like I aimed myself like a ballista. Something was behind me... I was hurled... I only..." Alkereth fell silent, realizing he had gone dangerously close to revealing more than he desired. Grimly, he ascertained that he may have no choice if it meant clearing any misunderstandings. "It was a poor first impression."

With some difficulty, he attempted to stand, but only because he was given little choice in the matter. This had become far more problematic than he realized, for it was not just his knees that wanted to buckle: it was his whole body. He wanted to reach out to grasp something, but because his hands were indisposed, there was nothing he could do to help himself but rely reluctantly on the woman's strength... if she was willing to hold up a whole six-foot-two male that perhaps weighed almost as twice as her.

"I can't," he gasped, feeling wretched in his inability to walk pragmatically. He fell to his knees. "Let me heal myself." He said this suddenly, gritting his teeth. "I cannot do it with my hands like this. Allow me this one compassion, and I swear to you that I will follow you, to whatever end this journey brings me."

[Rhindeer]

Emery couldn't help it. She burst into laughter. "Let you heal yourself? Free your hands and you'll be a good boy, pinkie promise? Let you use magic? Hah, that's a good one!" Then she paused, realizing he wasn't laughing along, and let out a soft snort. "Oh. You're serious."

With a sigh and a shake of her head, she bent down with her hands on her knees, bringing herself more onto his level. "That's a bold strategy, calling your captor stupid without calling them stupid. Has that worked out for you before?"

This was going to be a problem, though, and there was no getting around that. She certainly didn't have the strength to lift a tall guy like him on her own, especially if he made himself a dead weight. If he couldn't even stand, then they were at a bit of a stalemate.

Another impatient sigh. "Listen, you wouldn't be able to heal even if I wanted you to. Hands free, hands tied, it doesn't matter. Nothing I can do about it." She paused, head cocked. "You know what a Mordecai is, right?"

[Avelithe]

Alkereth was serious. His scarlet stare never wavered, even in this pitiful position of never ending pain.

"I swear to you," he said firmly. "I am many things, but a liar I am not." He spat this, emphasizing his convictions with a lift of his chin.

"I do not think you are stupid, but I do ask you to have faith. It's all I have, even if now it wavers. My horse could be dead... my dearest friend, my entire world is gone," His voice nearly broke as he said this, his normally calm tone steadily gaining volume. "I am in a place I did not mean to be! You took possession of my sword! Even if I heal myself, I would still be little less than broken! I have NOTHING else to live for, or to keep for myself, except my dignity! If I am to walk into a prison where I believe you are taking me, then LET ME DO IT WITH MY HEAD HELD HIGH!"

He shouted, and then bent over, breathing labored. The woman's words made him grit his teeth. "Cannot heal?" He grumbled darkly, his tone calm, and evermore tired. What kind of world was he in if he could not practice magic? The idea sickened him. He felt as though a piece of his identity was forcefully stripped from him. "Then take me to a doctor, any healer, whatever this wretched place of yours has that can patch me up. I beg of you. I cannot hold myself up for much longer. My body hurts."

Indeed—he was a pale man by nature, but he had grown paler still, close to looking Death in the face at this rate.

"I don't know who that is," he muttered in quiet exasperation, referring to a 'mordecai'. "Another silly label..."

[Rhindeer]

Blah, blah, blah. Emery was used to this song and dance. The bargaining, the begging, the insisting that they were different than the others, no really, they were! More honest, more kind, more whatever. But that alone made them all the same. It got boring, really, having to patiently wait out the cycle of excuses. She had learned to let them have that moment, let it burn out of their system, because once she let them list all the reasons she should be merciful and she could let them know she did not care, there was a chance they would be demoralized enough to shut up about it. At least for a few minutes.

So she let him have the stage, and he put on a rather stellar performance, especially in his broken state. She straightened up and examined her gloves as he spoke, plucking at some of the cracks (they were well worn and could bear replacing soon) and shook her head wryly, because it seemed he hadn't heard her at all, or at least hadn't grasped the entire meaning of what she had said.

Finally, when he had worked himself up into a gasping lather and seemed to be quite spent of his shouting, she looked down at him and arched a brow. "You done?" 

She didn't wait for his response. "Look, boy, as I said before, there is no way for you to heal. Not in my presence. That label you scoff at is what I am. A Mordecai. A person blessed by Ansgar or whatever. I could take off your manacles and the only thing you'd be able to do is strangle me with them. We can test it later if you like, but I assure you, even if I was dying and desperately wanted to be healed—which I wouldn't, I would rather die than be touched by that shit—your magic is unreachable right now, and I can't turn it on or off. It just is."

She shrugged, making a face. "But I will concede your condition is inconvenient, and I'm not getting paid hauling in a corpse. Get up. Come on. Use those legs." She hooked her arms under his armpits. "We're not going anywhere unless you get on that horse. You like horses, right?"

[Avelithe]

Alkereth was done. He gave it all in an attempt to appeal to the woman, but she was not budging for him. She gave her reasons, of course, but trying to rationalize it all only served to make Alkereth angry. Not that there was anything he could do about it. It was not like he had much left in him to try and argue his captor's questionable and infuriating rationale.

In one last ditch effort, he weakly rose his gloved hand and attempted to grasp at Emery's clothing, nudging, wanting to look her in the eye. There was hurt there, and despite not knowing her for long—betrayal. He wanted her to see this, to see if she was brave enough to peer her prey in the eye, and if he must die, he hoped his gaze would haunt her until the end of her days.

The light-headed feeling returned with full force. Whatever words Emery spared for him was like trying to listen to her while under water. Even the single most important word to him—'horse'—did not do so much as turn his head.

He full out fainted again. It was not that he did it to be a dick. Although it might appear that way while Emery was talking to him; he was, at least, telling the truth about his condition. Not that he needed help to prove anything—he was, in every sense of the word, beaten, and mere steps away from death.

At least Emery got her wish, and her captive was in for the long quiet. It was all up to her if she decided to make it permanent.

[Rhindeer]

To say this was inconvenient was an understatement.

If he wasn't so fucked up already, Emery would have guessed he'd gone unconscious out of sheer spite. The look he'd given her was...well...kind of chilling. Hurt, almost. Nothing she hadn't seen before, and nothing she hadn't expected. After all, if she were in his position, she would have wanted to punch her in the face, too.

But she wasn't in his position, so instead she was just annoyed. Goddammit. She had been hoping he could wait to do that after they'd rode themselves into town—as if he had any control of that. Seemed he was truly going to make her work for this.

"Don't die on me, yet," she muttered as she pressed fingers to his neck, "I haven't been paid." Damn. His pulse was weak. How was he even still alive, come to think of it, creating a bloody crater like that? That vile magic of his, clearly; his body should have been shattered. Maybe it was shattered on the inside...coughing up blood like that usually spoke to something internal, and those bruises...

It seemed she had underestimated how badly he was hurt. She had assumed he was roughed up but that his...whatever magic he had...had kept him in one piece. But as she examined him more closely, really took the time to look him over and check the extent of his damage, she saw that about the only thing it did was keep him whole. But as for holes, there were a lot of deep gashes leaking blood, smearing red onto her gloves--and she had missed it all this time because of course he had to be wearing black.

Shit. Think. Think. The nearest town. She had passed at least one tiny village a few miles back.

Hopefully they had a doctor.

But none of that would matter if she couldn't get him conscious and onto Hilda. And getting him onto Hilda wouldn't matter if he couldn't stay conscious enough to keep on her. She felt if Hilda knelt and she worked at it, she could get him slung onto his belly over the saddle--but it was hard to breathe like that when you were healthy, much less struggling for air and spitting up blood. No, he wouldn't make it to town if she did that; he'd likely just suffocate.

"You're gonna be a pain in my ass, aren't you?" she sighed, chewing her lip in thought.

Emery was many things, but she was definitely no doctor. She had some basic knowledge of how to treat minor wounds, and she'd helped wrap a friend's arm until he could see a proper doctor, but that was about it. Guess it was time to wing it.

The first thing she did was the thing she said she wouldn't: she knelt beside him and, after a moment's hesitation, she unlocked his manacles. Whatever. If he had the strength to wrestle her into submission in this state then fuck it, he'd earned it. The next thing she did was dig around in her saddle bags for her spare clothes and a blanket.

The least she could do was stop him from bleeding out quite so fast.

She worked surgically, unbuttoning his clothes and cutting them with a knife when she struggled. She only removed as much as was necessary to get at his wounds, and then she set to cutting up her spare clothes and using them as a wrap to bind the gashes. When she had done about as much as her medical knowledge allowed, she covered him with the blanket, rolled another blanket under his head, and then set about digging a fire pit and sparking a fire.

With the blood loss, he would be cold, so that was another risk. Keep him warm, keep him from bleeding to death, get some water in him. Maybe he would come to again, and they could go from there.

Once she got a fire crackling nearby, she fetched her waterskin and took a swig, feeling sweaty and tired herself, and then settled down beside him. Sliding a hand under his head--a bare hand now, as she'd ditched the gloves after they got too hot--she lifted his head and tilted some water into his mouth.