[ the steel glints off his armor like it's nothing. might as well be a mesquite twig. she grits her teeth. shouts, as if that could put more power behind it, could mute the pain in her shoulder.
it doesn't.
all it does is give her something useless to hold between them when he flips them over. she slides the knife up towards his neck, searching for soft tissue under his chin at the seam of his helmet in a panic, but she can't see properly, not with her vision black with pain as her shoulder hits the ground. ]
( hands wrap around her throat, thumbs pressing against her windpipe.
he could kill her like this. it would be easy even if it wasn't quick or particularly clean. but it would be a waste, too. a waste of all that power he can feel pulsing beneath her skin. )
[ she can't breathe. she can't breathe, but she tries to push her knife against his chin. there's a hard plating there. she can't drive through it. with each thrust, her arm grows weaker.
then she goes slack. limp her useless gulping at an end. ]
( he counts down the seconds. watches as the fight drains from her, the knife slipping from her fingers to land in the sand. considers taking it but decides against it.
easing off his grip, he slips fingers against the pulse point in her neck. double-checking. senses more than feels the flutter of her heart, birdlike, at the contact. good. that's good.
gathering her into his arms and then getting to his feet is agonizing. the shoulder's almost certainly going to need to be checked over by an actual medic, but his thoughts are already shifting away from that and toward finding them somewhere to hole up until a shuttle can find them. )
[ the cat has slunk off somewhere, in the way cats do. invisible despite its size, and without leaving a trace.
mavis doesn't stir for hours. apparently, the journey to the village in the first place had tired her out, if the pain had not done it. but when she does wake, the first thing she notices behind the dark of her eyelids is that the pain is gone. it hadn't stirred her.
the second thing she notices is the heat, and the daylight burning orange beyond her eyelids. she moves to raise a hand so she can shield her eyes as she groggily comes to. ]
( a low, steady voice breaks the silence. human rather than the distorted crackle of the helmet.
it draws closer. then there's fingers ㅡ fabric rather than flesh ㅡ wrapping around her wrist, pulling her hand away from her eyes so he can properly access her. )
Colour's looking better. Still too pale, but less like a corpse.
[ he comes into view. for a moment, she's disoriented. he looks like a child, face mostly clean, hair soft and short and slicked out of his face. his nose is too big and his brows too small. ]
Who —
[ her voice cracks. her lungs hurt. no, that's not right. the expanding of her chest with breaths big enough for speech make her shoulder ache. the lynx had bitten her.
but then the rest of him comes into view. the armor. she reaches up in a prompt effort to attack — fingers going for his face — but she can't reach and her limbs are weak and it leaves her dizzy. she groans. ]
Your cat tried to kill you — us. ( a quick correction. he looks to the side, briefly, almost as if expecting to see it looming large and ready for a second attempt but as far as he can tell it's been driven back.
still.
still.
he doesn't even seem particularly concerned by the fingers swiping at his face, batting them aside with the indifference of someone swatting at a fly. )
It very nearly succeeded in your case. I know gratitude is a stretch, but you should save your strength. Killing me won't be easy if you drop dead first.
[ her voice is a dry rasp. her throat feels terrible. her back feels worse. ]
What did you do to it?
[ hopefully it escaped. one of them deserves to. her hands fall back to her sides. they can't even blot out the sun overhead. did he neglect to find them a shelter? ]
( this can, and will, change should it return. the worst of his anger has been banked but there's still embers, poised to be kindled. the cat had best not show itself if it knows what's good for it. )
Aside from reminding it who was the bigger predator. ( he vanishes from sight for a moment. when he returns, it's with something in his hand — a flask. he settles down beside her, pulling her up. the cap is then set against his teeth, twisting. )
[ she has no choice but to lean into him, weak as she is. the world spins with the movement. he smells like dust and oil. the kind used to grease machine parts. he doesn't look like a machine. not anymore. but that armor — ]
( setting the flask to her mouth — the water is crisp, mineral tasting with only a ghost of metal to it. )
But I like my odds.
( mildly put, like he can't envision a world where she could be a significant threat. this both is and isn't the truth — even banked, her power simmers with the kind of radiance that suggests she could be a real problem should she ever take it into her mind to become one. but she's also young, untrained and as likely to burn herself away as she is to take him with her. )
[ it's unbalanced, him tipping the canteen to her lips. she sputters at first. some water spills down her front. but then she drinks greedily, leaning as far forward as she can when she's as weak as she is, trying to get more than he'll give.
it's humiliating. infantile, when she's never really been a child.
when he draws the canteen away, she is gasping, and still wishes that he hadn't done it. but the world is starting to level out. the black corners of her vision receding. ]
To keep you alive. ( everything else is tangential to that fact, and so far he'd been doing a moderately decent job.
when she leans forward, he allows her to drink further. )
Careful. You're incredibly dehydrated and hyponatremia is well beyond my ability to treat. ( as it stands, her wound is going to scar but the risk of nerve damage is minimal. )
[ her body feels cold. maybe she is dying. she's fought for twenty years to keep herself alive in the face of certain death, yet surrendering that record now feels worth it just to spite him.
spite might be the only emotion she can hold onto as her head empties out but for memories of a vision, of the jarl spurning her, closing his ears to her vision. ]
You came for me.
[ the death in the village. mangled bodies. fire. everything she'd known, everything she'd hoped to someday return to, gone in an instant. because of her.
(because of him.) ]
No. [ she turns away from him. failingly tries to extract herself. repeats the word over and over as if she were not just trying to pull away from him, but to pull out of herself, to regress to some earlier point in time where this knowledge didn't exist. ]
( a slow exhale of breath, something like resignation settling over his expression. he'd anticipated this. between the shock and the circumstances of their meeting, there was a low to non-existent chance of her responding favorably to anything he said.
even so he'd hoped to be proven wrong.)
Where will you go? ( screwing the cap back onto the flask as she tries to put distance between them. she hasn't made it very far, dragging herself through the sand like an injured beast. )
If not with me? Who will have you after they hear what became of your people? Of the danger you bring with you?
[ it is nothing she had not already considered. still, hearing the words aloud makes them real. they sink deeper into the meat of her thoughts. her fingers curl around sand. the grains stick under her nails.
she tries to make words — i don't need anyone. i won't go anywhere. and an older mantra, one the jarl had been right to disbelieve: i'm not dangerous i'm not — but the world is spinning. the pain in her shoulder is too much. she retches, but only water and bile comes up. it sticks between her lips and the dark patch of sand she's made wet with her upheaval. she retches again, dry.
and then, perhaps anticlimactically, she collapses right there on top of her own vomit. she's too wounded to get further. too tired. ]
eventually she works her way through whatever episode she's experiencing, exhaustion collapsing her like a house of cards. then he waits a few seconds longer, counting out heartbeats, before moving toward her. gathers her in his arms like a child, head tucked against his neck.
finding shelter's going to be a challenge, but there's bound to be somewhere adequate to hole up for a few hours. at least until the transport arrives. vague memories prick at him — caves, there were caves not far from here. with a soft curse beneath his breath, he begins moving in the rough direction of them. )
[ the best shelter in the wilds are the kuruko clan's tents. but that's not where she wakes up when she comes to again. it's a cave — judging by the smell, it probably belonged to a wild lynx at some point, but the lack of fresh carcasses suggests it must have moved on.
this time, she's ready. it's dark out as she surveys the cave for signs of him. her captor. she hasn't plucked a name out of his head yet, but that's never the first to come. memories. instincts. urges. never anything that would be useful. ]
( it's been several hours, long enough to ensure that she's been stabilized — more or less, muscle work is not nerve work, after all, so while she won't bleed to death any time soon it'll be a while before that shoulder sees full use — and to attend to his own injuries, finally. predictably a ridge of angry scar tissue had already begun to form, set stubbornly enough that he has to debate the merits of removing it.
later, perhaps. once he's able to rest and replenish. a half-eaten ration bar isn't going to do much more than keep him going long enough to make it to morning. )
Asking works just as well as prying. ( his voice is perfectly level, calm in the face of her confusion. he wonders if she realizes she's reaching for him in the dark, like a child seeking the comforting touch of a parent. something grounding.
she'll find nothing but bristling static. his walls high and thick enough that she won't be penetrating them any time soon. that much, at least, he can muster. )
Though you should eat first. ( the other half of his ration bar is tossed in her direction. despite the darkness, his aim is sound. )
[ mavis catches the bar against her chest. turns it over in her hand. it doesn't look like food, but he'd claimed it was.
nothing if not practical, she bites into it like a starving animal. he wouldn't go to all this work to tend her wounds just to poison her, and judging by the sun's position, it's been almost two days since she last ate. that's assuming she'd only been out for hours, not over a day.
she eyes him warily. he's barely more than a shadow against the blanket of the night. ]
You're loud. ( simply put. he leaves his meaning open, allowing her to fill in the blanks because it serves him to do so. she's already decided he's a monster, omnipotence isn't that much of a stretch. )
How did you know of the attack? ( as he angles his head, watching her tear into the ration bar like it's the first real nourishment she's ever known.
it had slipped his mind in the beginning, brushed aside in favour of the immediate threat. now, though, he's curious. just what does she know? and how had she come by the knowledge. )
( that is an entirely reasonable answer. much too neat for his liking. it would take an extraordinary amount of bad luck. there's something about this girl, something that makes him want to press his fingers against her skin and peel and peel until he can find that beating heart of truth she's hiding. )
And you came running. ( a bite of amusement. what exactly did she think would come of that?
he withdraws from the thickest shadows, finally. he looks washed out and drawn, with bruises gathering beneath his eyes like rainclouds. he settles across from her, spine curled so that they can be close to eye level.
despite the lightness of his tone he's clearly been in better shape. )
And I came running. [ she sits up more. properly. her wounds are bad, but not worse than she's had in the past, and she's feeling clear-headed again now that she's had time to rest. somehow, he's the one who looks worse for wear now. she surveys him, gaze darting quickly. ] Unlucky for you.
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it doesn't.
all it does is give her something useless to hold between them when he flips them over. she slides the knife up towards his neck, searching for soft tissue under his chin at the seam of his helmet in a panic, but she can't see properly, not with her vision black with pain as her shoulder hits the ground. ]
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he could kill her like this. it would be easy even if it wasn't quick or particularly clean. but it would be a waste, too. a waste of all that power he can feel pulsing beneath her skin. )
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then she goes slack. limp her useless gulping at an end. ]
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easing off his grip, he slips fingers against the pulse point in her neck. double-checking. senses more than feels the flutter of her heart, birdlike, at the contact. good. that's good.
gathering her into his arms and then getting to his feet is agonizing. the shoulder's almost certainly going to need to be checked over by an actual medic, but his thoughts are already shifting away from that and toward finding them somewhere to hole up until a shuttle can find them. )
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mavis doesn't stir for hours. apparently, the journey to the village in the first place had tired her out, if the pain had not done it. but when she does wake, the first thing she notices behind the dark of her eyelids is that the pain is gone. it hadn't stirred her.
the second thing she notices is the heat, and the daylight burning orange beyond her eyelids. she moves to raise a hand so she can shield her eyes as she groggily comes to. ]
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( a low, steady voice breaks the silence. human rather than the distorted crackle of the helmet.
it draws closer. then there's fingers ㅡ fabric rather than flesh ㅡ wrapping around her wrist, pulling her hand away from her eyes so he can properly access her. )
Colour's looking better. Still too pale, but less like a corpse.
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Who —
[ her voice cracks. her lungs hurt. no, that's not right. the expanding of her chest with breaths big enough for speech make her shoulder ache. the lynx had bitten her.
but then the rest of him comes into view. the armor. she reaches up in a prompt effort to attack — fingers going for his face — but she can't reach and her limbs are weak and it leaves her dizzy. she groans. ]
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still.
still.
he doesn't even seem particularly concerned by the fingers swiping at his face, batting them aside with the indifference of someone swatting at a fly. )
It very nearly succeeded in your case. I know gratitude is a stretch, but you should save your strength. Killing me won't be easy if you drop dead first.
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[ her voice is a dry rasp. her throat feels terrible. her back feels worse. ]
What did you do to it?
[ hopefully it escaped. one of them deserves to. her hands fall back to her sides. they can't even blot out the sun overhead. did he neglect to find them a shelter? ]
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( this can, and will, change should it return. the worst of his anger has been banked but there's still embers, poised to be kindled. the cat had best not show itself if it knows what's good for it. )
Aside from reminding it who was the bigger predator. ( he vanishes from sight for a moment. when he returns, it's with something in his hand — a flask. he settles down beside her, pulling her up. the cap is then set against his teeth, twisting. )
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[ she has no choice but to lean into him, weak as she is. the world spins with the movement. he smells like dust and oil. the kind used to grease machine parts. he doesn't look like a machine. not anymore. but that armor — ]
I'll kill you, when I get the chance.
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( setting the flask to her mouth — the water is crisp, mineral tasting with only a ghost of metal to it. )
But I like my odds.
( mildly put, like he can't envision a world where she could be a significant threat. this both is and isn't the truth — even banked, her power simmers with the kind of radiance that suggests she could be a real problem should she ever take it into her mind to become one. but she's also young, untrained and as likely to burn herself away as she is to take him with her. )
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it's humiliating. infantile, when she's never really been a child.
when he draws the canteen away, she is gasping, and still wishes that he hadn't done it. but the world is starting to level out. the black corners of her vision receding. ]
What do you want with me?
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when she leans forward, he allows her to drink further. )
Careful. You're incredibly dehydrated and hyponatremia is well beyond my ability to treat. ( as it stands, her wound is going to scar but the risk of nerve damage is minimal. )
You know what I am. Why else would I be here?
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spite might be the only emotion she can hold onto as her head empties out but for memories of a vision, of the jarl spurning her, closing his ears to her vision. ]
You came for me.
[ the death in the village. mangled bodies. fire. everything she'd known, everything she'd hoped to someday return to, gone in an instant. because of her.
(because of him.) ]
No. [ she turns away from him. failingly tries to extract herself. repeats the word over and over as if she were not just trying to pull away from him, but to pull out of herself, to regress to some earlier point in time where this knowledge didn't exist. ]
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even so he'd hoped to be proven wrong.)
Where will you go? ( screwing the cap back onto the flask as she tries to put distance between them. she hasn't made it very far, dragging herself through the sand like an injured beast. )
If not with me? Who will have you after they hear what became of your people? Of the danger you bring with you?
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she tries to make words — i don't need anyone. i won't go anywhere. and an older mantra, one the jarl had been right to disbelieve: i'm not dangerous i'm not — but the world is spinning. the pain in her shoulder is too much. she retches, but only water and bile comes up. it sticks between her lips and the dark patch of sand she's made wet with her upheaval. she retches again, dry.
and then, perhaps anticlimactically, she collapses right there on top of her own vomit. she's too wounded to get further. too tired. ]
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eventually she works her way through whatever episode she's experiencing, exhaustion collapsing her like a house of cards. then he waits a few seconds longer, counting out heartbeats, before moving toward her. gathers her in his arms like a child, head tucked against his neck.
finding shelter's going to be a challenge, but there's bound to be somewhere adequate to hole up for a few hours. at least until the transport arrives. vague memories prick at him — caves, there were caves not far from here. with a soft curse beneath his breath, he begins moving in the rough direction of them. )
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this time, she's ready. it's dark out as she surveys the cave for signs of him. her captor. she hasn't plucked a name out of his head yet, but that's never the first to come. memories. instincts. urges. never anything that would be useful. ]
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later, perhaps. once he's able to rest and replenish. a half-eaten ration bar isn't going to do much more than keep him going long enough to make it to morning. )
Asking works just as well as prying. ( his voice is perfectly level, calm in the face of her confusion. he wonders if she realizes she's reaching for him in the dark, like a child seeking the comforting touch of a parent. something grounding.
she'll find nothing but bristling static. his walls high and thick enough that she won't be penetrating them any time soon. that much, at least, he can muster. )
Though you should eat first. ( the other half of his ration bar is tossed in her direction. despite the darkness, his aim is sound. )
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nothing if not practical, she bites into it like a starving animal. he wouldn't go to all this work to tend her wounds just to poison her, and judging by the sun's position, it's been almost two days since she last ate. that's assuming she'd only been out for hours, not over a day.
she eyes him warily. he's barely more than a shadow against the blanket of the night. ]
How are you doing that?
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How did you know of the attack? ( as he angles his head, watching her tear into the ration bar like it's the first real nourishment she's ever known.
it had slipped his mind in the beginning, brushed aside in favour of the immediate threat. now, though, he's curious. just what does she know? and how had she come by the knowledge. )
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[ the bar is already mostly gone. she stuffs the rest of it into her mouth at once, catches the crumbs in her palm. ]
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And you came running. ( a bite of amusement. what exactly did she think would come of that?
he withdraws from the thickest shadows, finally. he looks washed out and drawn, with bruises gathering beneath his eyes like rainclouds. he settles across from her, spine curled so that they can be close to eye level.
despite the lightness of his tone he's clearly been in better shape. )
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