not such a bad place after all [Rhi]

[Tally]

"Fire snakes!  My goodness.  Thank the gods you were able to get away and make it to the village.  You will be fine now.  Come, come, lay down on the bed here.  You shouldn't be on your feet."  Haven dropped his voice into a low, pleasant tone and guided her in the direction of the bed, finding the edge with his staff and offering a helping hand for her to hold onto as she lowered herself onto it.

The hesitancy in her pauses made him wonder, but she must have thought him more astute than he actually was, for whatever judgment she seemed to expect him to make escaped him.  "It sounds like you encountered some dangerous creatures out there," he said with a smile. And that was all it sounded like to him. He had no idea what she'd meant by that.

Taking each of her arms in turn, he drew runes down the length of each of them with his index finger, muttering Old Serenian words of power to direct his intent and anchor it into her flesh.  He ran a hand over her torso and legs, palm a few inches from her body.  "Hmm.  Wait here a moment." He patted her shoulder.  "I'm going across the hall for my supplies. I'll need to get to your legs...if you don't feel able to get out of them yourself, I'll help you when I get back."  And if she could do it herself, then his brief absence would give her the opportunity to do so without him in the room.  Funny as it was, some folk felt awkward undressing even in front of a blind man.

Haven closed her door behind him.  His pack lay where he'd dropped it the night before.  Feeling weary to the bone already, he dragged it over a shoulder and returned to Sunni's room, but made sure he had replaced his smile before he went back in.



Dis's eyes drifted to that meat cleaver. Ooh, yeah, subtle Glasses.  He put on his very best smug smile and looked the cook up and down and considered—as he did upon meeting just about everyone—whether this one was for the bed or the ditch.  Bed, he decided, leaning against the door frame and wondering what Glasses would look like without the glasses, but when he extended a spark of glamour and found it fizzling out like an ember submerged in water, his smile turned immediately into a frown.

So he was dealing with something inhuman here, against which his illusions had never worked.  Elves, fae, demons, animals...immune, all of them.  He couldn't guess what Glasses was—didn't care, really—but this meant he wouldn't be able to get the sugar the nice way.

Too bad for Glasses.

"Styx," Dis called. "I found some sugar, but this fellow says you can't have any.  He's got a lot in here too.  Says if you want it you're going to have to take it from him."

The sound of splintering wood as Styx hissed and force himself through the door frame, destroying it in the process, brought Dis's smile back.  The dragon loomed up behind him and extended a head full of needle-like teeth toward the cook.  "Ssssugar!!"

Gods above, it felt nice to have a dragon at his back again.  He wouldn't have been nearly so quick to challenge a man with a meat cleaver without Styx there.  "So," he said, affecting a pleasant tone.  "You can give the sugar to me, or he can take it from you.  But he's damn hungry so think fast."

[Rhindeer]

On the bed, Sunni could finally relax and let go, letting some of the tension drain out of her. Haven didn't think her mad. That in and of itself was a relief, and she let her eyes drift shut and closed her mouth so as not to interrupt him while he muttered strange words and traced designs she couldn't see over her skin. Sunni may not have known much about magic, but that was just the thing--she didn't know a thing about magic so she didn't want to risk distracting him at a bad time and having the spell backfire and, like...turn her into a fish or something.

Other than that disquieting thought, she felt perfectly safe.

When he suddenly stopped and spoke, Sunni nodded--then remembered he was blind. "Oh, okay. Thank you."

While Haven was out of the room, Sunni tried to get out of her breeches but it didn't go over well. Her every move burned like fire, taking her breath away, but she tried to push past the pain and be strong. She could do this. Haha, she was a pro at taking off her clothes, that was for certain. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and held her breath and managed to shove the pants down past her hips and partway down her legs, but then they got stuck. Taking another deep breath and biting down harder, she tried to work them down further--and wound up in tears, clamping a hand over her mouth and biting down on her finger before she could start screaming in pain.

The fire had melted her flesh, and her burnt clothes were sticking to it.

She heard Haven return before she saw him and she shifted awkwardly. "Ah...I think I'm gonna need help...sorry," she murmured, trying to keep the pain out of her voice. "My breeches, they're...they're stuck."



Hazel started. "What? I said no such--"

Crack! Hazel winced at the sound of splintering wood--Oooh, the boss isn't going happy about this!--and before he knew it that animal was filling his vision, its head dangerously close and all those sharp teeth gleaming in the light. For a second, Hazel stared at it coolly, mind not yet caught up on what was going on. Then it hissed, and with a surprised cry Hazel fell back against the pantry door, nearly losing his glasses in the process. They fell askew and, shakily, he reached up with his free hand to fix them so he could see again.

So. This was how it was gonna be, huh...?

He glanced down at his cleaver, then at the dragon, then barked a nervous laugh and set it down on a nearby counter. "Well, heh, when you put it that way...I mean, your feathered friend there makes a pretty convincing argument," he said with a forced grin, holding up his hands in surrender. "You should've just said so earlier. Alright, alright. Don't be so antsy. I'll get you your sugar. I suppose we can spare a bit."

He reached behind him and opened the pantry, then chanced taking his eyes off the duo so he could turn and root around. Soon he popped back up with a package of sugar and, watching the dragon the whole time, he stepped forward and held it out to Dis.

"This was expensive..." he sighed, none too thrilled. But they'd already lost a door and a doorway over sugar and he certainly didn't want to lose more.

[Tally]

Haven returned with his rucksack, and before he even had the door closed Sunni spoke up. Pain wracked the timbre of her voice, and he joined her at the bed immediately.

"Here, lay back down."  He had precious little energy left, so he felt along his staff until he found the hummingbird etched into its wood near the top.  It was there that he'd stored a day's worth of his own life energy, and he released it by tracing a spiral over the carving and speaking the Old Serenian release words.  The trigger words could be anything he chose, and he tended to favor Old Serenian for the unlikelihood that anyone—including himself—would stumble upon the phrase in speech.  He could not speak the old language, as he had never learned the grammar of it, but he did have an extensive vocabulary of words to choose from.  

As soon as he had made the spiral and spoken the phrase, renewing energy flooded him and he felt electrified. It also made the pain in his back more acute and he winced.  He'd pay for this later in other ways.  Stored energy could not replace sleep, and he would likely be thoroughly unconscious for a few hours tonight.

With power filling his body, he repeated the same spell upon Sunni's legs that he had used on her arms.  "That should make our task easier. You may wish to look away."

He hadn't been blind all his life.  He could still imagine how horrible a burn must look, especially with no pain to distract the mind.  He grasped the top her her breeches and slowly began stripping them down.  She may not like the sight of it, but at least he'd be able to remove them without hurting her.

[center:1myvczf0]_________________________[/center:1myvczf0]

"Don't he just?" Dis had no more patience for this twit.  He was more than happy to let Styx resolve the situation.  It wasn't just a show, either.  Those fangs could pierce through flesh easily enough, even if Styx had no taste for human flesh nor any particular aggressiveness toward them.  He just wanted his sugar was all.

Dis grinned in satisfaction at the reaction Styx was getting.  The sugar was so heavy he had to take it from the cook with both hands. "Thanks, Glasses.  I'm sure he appreciates it."

When Styx was hungry, little else could hold his attention.  Having received the one thing he needed, the feathered dragon backed out of the kitchen doorway.  "Sugar!" he demanded of Dis, and slithered out the inn's broken doorway.

"I'll be back."  Dis winked at the cook and followed Styx outside.

[Rhindeer]

Sunni took Haven up on that advice and turned her head away and shut her eyes. She had already seen what her arms looked like and had no desire to get a good look at her legs, once all that charred cloth was removed from the melted skin. It was uncomfortable, feeling him strip off her breeches; it didn't hurt, but being able to feel the tug and pull of the cloth without being able to feel the pain was...weird. A disconnected sort of feeling.

Not that she was complaining.

"Thank you," she said again, eyes still closed. Then she added, "Will there be scars?"

[hr:2b6iccbr][/hr:2b6iccbr]

Hazel met the wink with another nervous laugh and smile. "Oh, okay, wonderful. I was really worried about that. Nice bird-dragon-thing you got there, by the way! Really...has a sweet tooth, huh?"

As soon as the man's back was turned, the smile vanished. Hazel rolled his eyes--Glasses. Really!--and flipped a rude gesture at the guy's back before turning back to the kitchen and heaving a sigh. Just like that, and the humble inn was depleted of one third of its sugar supply.

He really, really, really hoped that guy didn't plan on staying here. How often did that thing have to eat? No, they'd just have to kick him out--unless his dragon raised a fuss. That complicated matters.

Oh well! Wasn't his problem, really! He was just the cook.

Now, back to his stew!

[Tally]

The truth was hard to say.  Sometimes he wondered if it were better to hear difficult news or to give it.  Having been on both sides in his life, he still didn't know which he preferred.  To hear bad news was wrenching enough, but to have to give it, to have to do that to someone else...

"There might be.  We will have to see how deeply you have burned.  I will do everything in my power to ensure that does not happen.  If there are, I don't think they will be bad."

Haven ran his thumb over a small emerald embedded into the wood of his staff and spoke a word of release.  A sprite—brown and iridescent, with wings like leaves—spiraled up out of the gem and flew to Sunni's legs.  She went to work, flitting here and there upon the wounded flesh, while Haven pulled an envelope from his rucksack.

"This is Ispiraald.  She is cleaning your wounds."  The sprite worked on his behalf, doing for people what he could not do himself without sight, and in return she fed upon his power.

[Rhindeer]

Sunni took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes, accepting the news as resolutely as she could, because there was no point in panicking over things that were out of her power. Minor scarring at the most. Okay, she could handle that, and she could count herself fortunate for it, too, that she would be coming out of this alive and free of infection when those...snake...could have easily killed her. Right, look at the bright side, don't dwell on on things you can't control. Besides, it would only matter if she was getting married, right? And like she had any desire nor chance of that.

She repeated that to herself like a mantra.

Her eyes flicked open again when he spoke--and then landed on the sprite, widening with wonder. She'd never seen anything like it, and so distracted was she that she hardly noticed her own red, shriveled flesh. "Oh, she's gorgeous," she murmured, and tried to sit up a little to get a better look--and was swiftly reminded of her burned arms when she put pressure on them.

With a small gasp of pain, she laid back down--and then gave a small start when she remembered he was blind. He probably had no idea what the sprite even looked like. "Oh...sorry. Um, can she speak?"

[Tally]

The sprite finished with Sunni's legs and moved on to her arms.  She stopped to play with Sunni's hair until Haven tsked at her.  She got distracted quite easily by ordinary things.  Ordinary for them, but fascinating for her.  If it weren't for the drain on his power, he would have no way to tell when she was working or playing.

"She can," he said, "though not any mortal tongue.  You can speak to her if you like.  She'll understand you."  He couldn't guarantee he could translate all that the sprite said.  Her language was mostly foreign to him as well.

He traced runes in the air.  To Sunni's eyes they would appear to glow as their power bled off into the visible spectrum.  He spoke in Old Serenian as he wrote the binding symbols, and each one made a distinct and different soft chime as it lit to life.  This was a full enchantment, not the simple spell he had used before.  It was one of his more powerful tools, and would remain with her until he removed it.  Its function was singular, to block her pain.  For most injuries a spell or potion would do.  For a burn of this severity she needed something far more powerful, lest she succumb to the physical agony.

[Rhindeer]

Sunni couldn't help but smile when the sprite played with her hair, and watching her work was a nice distraction from her current situation. Nodding at Haven's words without looking at him, she asked the sprite, "Er, do you like blue?" Maybe it was a dumb question, but now that she knew the sprite could understand her, she had no idea what to say to her.

Besides, she didn't want to accidentally disrupt Haven.

The glowing runes were equally fascinating, and it wasn't long before Sunni had forgotten her pain entirely, caught up in watching the spectacle. She'd never seen anything like this--or even really had magic cast upon her until Styx had used his dust. At least, she thought that was magic and--wait.

Shifting her arm a little, she realized then that it wasn't that she wasn't noticing the pain--it was that she really couldn't feel it. Thank gods.

[Tally]

The sprite's voice dipped in and out of human hearing.  Haven only discerned it all through the vein of life force holding them connected.  What they could actually hear was high pitched and faint.

"She's very happy you think she's pretty," he said, smiling as the sprite jabbered on.  She finished her work and still kept talking, fluttering over to a warped little mirror on the wall to look at herself.  "And she says you have the sky in your hair."

What she'd actually said had been far more convoluted, more so than Haven could follow in the alien tongue and he couldn't begin to translate the poetics and imagery in any sort of parallel.  But that had been the gist of it.

"How is the pain now?"  He hovered his hands over her legs, moving slowly over their length.  This was the essence of the craft, the mending of flesh and transference of life energy.  His face became passive, trance-like.  The air about his hands wavered as with heat though it remained cool, and the faintest curls of green and white light licked about his fingers—not many, for those were the visual sign of energy bleed, of which he generated little.  A healer new to the craft would lose much energy in the transfer, but his channel was dense, efficient.

[Rhindeer]

Sunni cracked a tired smile at that. "Maybe just a small slice of it," she said, turning her head so she could watch the sprite primp in the mirror. Her attention soon turned back to Haven, though, as he started to work his magic, and she pressed her lips together. He looked focused and while she didn't have a lick of magical talent herself, she imagined this wasn't easy. She didn't want to distract him.

So she was content to watch in silence until he spoke.

"Oh, I don't feel it anymore," she said, quietly as though a louder noise would disturb his focus. "It's okay now, it doesn't hurt."

[Tally]

A smile tugged at the corners of Haven's mouth as the sprite let out a volley of high pitched chimes and chatters.  His channel never slipped nor faltered.  "She's jealous you could touch the sky.  I think that's enough for now."  Enough of the sprite, he meant.  She was getting feisty and a fey with a spark of negativity in her boded ill for the mortals around her.  He spoke a command, and after stomping her foot on the air and grumbling at him in her tiny, half-inaudible voice she disappeared back into the wooden staff to sleep and gorge herself on his power.

"We're almost done, now," he said.  "Then you will need to sleep awhile."

A knock at the door.  It was the hot water Haven had requested when he left earlier.  The girl placed the tray down upon the room's small table and left.

[Rhindeer]

Sunni was a little sad to see the sprite go, though odd as it was the encounter cheered her up a little. She'd never met one before, and never really thought of her hair that way. Touched the sky, huh?

If only.

She gave a tired laugh, followed by a yawn. "She looked upset. What happened?"

But even though Haven had told her she'd have to sleep once this was done, well, she was already ahead of him. It was getting tougher to keep her eyes open, the stress of the day finally catching up to her now that she had time to relax and no pain to keep her awake or sprite to focus on. The knock actually made her jump and it was only then that she realized how quickly she was starting to fade.

[Tally]

Haven shrugged and waved a hand.  "Oh, you know.  Sprites.  We can't pretend to know them."

Haven found the envelope he'd pulled out earlier and emptied it into the mug of steaming water.  "We're nearly done."  He swirled the herbal powder lightly and held it out to her.

"Drink this and then you can sleep."  They were both of them weary, and he'd done all he could for now.  The healing needed time to work.

[Rhindeer]

Sunni readily accepted the mug and drank it as quickly as she could without burning her tongue--which she failed in at least once. It wasn't good but it wasn't bad, either, and when it came to stuff that would potentially make her feel better, she saw no point in fighting it. It was only when she'd drank over half of it down that another thought worked its way through her exhausted brain.

Her injuries.

She had been so distracted with keeping distracted and not looking that she hadn't even thought to look when Haven was done.

Relief washed over her at what she saw. The skin was a little pink in that tender new flesh sort of way, but it was healed. Sunni let out a slow breath, staring.

"Thank you." It didn't seem like enough.

[Tally]

The concoction he'd given her was, among other things, an herbal mix to bring her swiftly and easily into sleep.  Given her injuries and the force of healing done today, he expected her to rest most of the day, but he'd check in every couple of hours.  When she awoke later, they'd have more work to do.

"Of course," he said.  He dredged up a weary smile from somewhere.  It was genuine, just tired.  "Do you feel as though you can sleep?"

[Rhindeer]

"Mhmm," Sunni answered as soon as she had finished the concoction and set it aside. It was already starting to take effect, making her feel drowsy fast, and she settled back against the bed and fought to keep her eyes open. It would be rude to nod off while he was still talking to her.

Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice. She had meant to say more, but it never left her mouth as sleep plowed her over.

[Tally]

She drifted off about as quickly as he thought she would.  He would have been shocked if she hadn't been exhausted from her ordeal, and the healing itself would have drained her nearly as much as it did him.

He laid out another packet of the herbal mixture for later then shouldered his pack and left her.After dropping it into his room, he ventured back down stairs.  A curious breeze struck him down there, and overheard bits of conversation surprised him.

"Someone destroyed the door?" he wondered aloud.

[Rhindeer]

Hazel looked up from the counter he was cleaning and smiled cheerfully, even though the man couldn't see it. But, at the very least, he could probably hear it in his voice.

"A dragon broke the door," he confirmed, like it was something that happened everyday. The door wasn't his problem, though! He'd let the innkeeper deal, and deal he was, running about and shouting orders at his staff. But not him! He had a kitchen to run, and so he was perfectly content and perfectly happy to stay put.

If still pissed about the sugar.

He leaned an elbow on the counter and straightened his glasses with his index and middle finger. "You just miss all the excitement, don't you?"

[Tally]

"A dragon..."  Hazel was surely having a joke at his expense, but he let it go.  Something had happened here.  Whatever it was, it was over and he was too weary to care.  He made his way toward Hazel's voice and found the bar.

"I do, thank the gods.  Is it...safe?  Is it over?"  Maybe it was a dragon.  Stranger things had happened.  He must have truly been exhausted if he hadn't heard the ruckus from upstairs.

[Rhindeer]

"Oh, maybe. Who knows? As long as we provide it a steady supply of sugar, I don't anticipate anymore random acts of violence," Hazel said with a shrug and a bitter sigh, leaning his arms on the bar.

"We're running low on sugar, though, so I certainly hope there's a few virgins here should all else fail."