Luck was not a constant gift - it was fickle and ever changing. Sometimes small changes, sometimes big, but things could not always be in your favor. Today was a reminder of that fact, and it was a lesson he would well remember...if he survived it.
The sun had sagged low in the sky, casting purplish orange fingers across the darkening sky. It was likely the elongated shadows that had helped them elude capture, for it was not their fleet of foot - there was a fair amount of staggering to their fleeing this day.
For the first time Sorin felt he was the reason for their level of danger, rather than the one helping them to escape it. He'd not been sharp enough - his ears and eyes and nose had not been keen enough. Perhaps he'd simply not been 'enough' of anything. The arrow had not grazed, but pierced cleanly into him, at his back, above his hip. He knew it had hit something important, and he knew his body was straining to keep him upright even now.
Lavi had little Lumi on her slender back, marching along with determination despite the sweat on her brow and the worry pulling her puffy lips into a frown. Sorin stumbled along behind her, trying to keep unnaturally vivid, bright green eyes on the girls so as not to get lost. The edges of his vision were fuzzy with tendrils of unconsciousness, and he could feel life leaking out of the hole in him, the sticky trail traveling all the way down his leg to meet the Earth. Luckily it seemed She had not abandoned him this day, for where he left a bloody trail, She sent up shoots and knobby things to grow into the crimson and cover it, hide it, so that he could not be so easily followed by his pursuers.
Lavi had never before been in charge of getting them somewhere safe. She did not know where to take them, where to go. The forest was thin here, and she did not feel safe. All she knew was she needed to get brother somewhere he could rest - if he died, she did not know if she had the ability to keep herself and Lumi alive. They relied so much on him...the least she could do was try and find a safe place.
Instead, she ran into a town.
Freezing on the other side of the hedge ,she just stared at the lights springing up as night engulfed the land. There were houses here, people. While most might see this as a welcome thing, it sent nothing but a pit of fear and hopelessness into the depths of her stomach. This was not where they should be. This was the worst place for them! But could they turn back? She did not know where the hunters were...and brother...could he bring himself to backtrack?
Coming to a lurching stop behind her, Sorin blinked unfocused eyes at the view before them. Their feet had led them to a pit of snakes...yet perhaps it was what the Gods wanted for them. To hide in the place you are least expected...
Wheezing and rasping with exertion, Sorin did not bother trying to speak. He simple nudged Lavi, and motioned weakly to a house on the outskirts, near enough for him to make it there.
Without question, the silent girl led the way to the cottage, and then charmed the bolt on the hind door to allow them entry. Somehow they slipped in with silence, the door closed and locked behind them.
Sorin had enough lucidity to notice they were in a storeroom of sorts, likely a corner of the house near the back, before his shoulder brushed a wall and the sense of solidarity forced him to crumple to the wooden floorboards.
Lavi breathed in sharply through her nose, and set Lumi's bundled form onto the ground so she could tend to him. The little blond child watched with no real understanding, save that it was best to be quiet - a lesson she had learned in her time with them.
Sorin still bled from the wound in his back, a slow leak of life. He'd broken the shaft of the arrow but left the head inside of him, and Lavi had been told not to remove it until they could be still for a time and staunch the bleeding.
Unfortunately her brother was all but dead to the world, and she could barely pull him forward enough to see the wound, let alone tend to it. Besides, for this, she would likely have to fill it with ointment or stop the bleeding with a hot knife...she had neither the ingredients for healing nor a fire to use.
An abrupt sense of helplessness overwhelmed her, and silent as the dead, hot fat tears rolled down her cheeks.