The aftermath of battle was ugly. The corpses, the scent of blood growing old mixed with excrement and charred flesh, the mutilated survivors, and the pain of her own injuries was too much for Ignis. Somewhere along the line, she had decided it was all just a scene from a graphic war novel, even though the enlil told herself this, she couldn't fully believe it. She sat in a mess of twigs left over from the magical platform-turned-stretcher her companion had generated. Her clothing was burnt and torn, carelessly hanging off her thin form. Dirt and ashes smudged the enlil's face, disguising her features for the time being. At least, no one seemed to notice there was a woman suspected of terrorism in their midst. Ignis hugged Amicus tightly, eyes drifting around the field hospital that had been hastily set up. Healers walked between groups of injured fighters with determination and focus from years of experience. They had managed to start organizing people based on the severity of their wounds with the help of any nearby able bodied folks, whom they ordered about in sharp yet professional tones. A few troops were occupied a few kilometers away, picking off the last of the demonic forces. The robes of healers swished by as they sought out those with the worst injuries and the most value in future battles for healing. Soldiers and volunteers guided people towards various sections of the field hospital or carried those who were too injured to stand. Slowly, they had managed to loosely establish triage and organize people into a sprawling field hospital and makeshift base of operations. Pathways between crowds of people laid out on the ground stretched and twisted in a grid-like pattern to allow healers to stalk back and forth, briskly questioning the injured or waving them off towards patrolling soldiers for direction. The avian engineers had managed to catch a bit of attention from their battle with the dragon and the crazed janu archmagi. When their party had arrived, a half velen half laicar woman had demanded a report. Dianette had straightened up, ignoring her wounds and fatigue, to give a brief summary of their status and role in the battle. This earned the small group priority for treatment; they were escorted towards the back of the makeshift camp and given a relatively clean patch of ground to rest on. A healer and his apprentice approached them shortly after to look them over. Dianette’s arm was set and the soldier was sent off to help organize the masses of wounded people pouring into the field hospital. Amicus helped the healers tend to Laurel, who had yet to wake up. The apprentice set Ignis’ leg and pronounced it fractured. Aelflead and Aeria were quickly bandaged. The healer and apprentice said a few prayers to speed their healing. The healer strode off afterwards, robes billowing in his wake. The apprentice stayed behind to instruct Ignis about how to care for Laurel if she awoke before anyone else saw to them. Then, she too abandoned the group. Useful or not, there were too many others in need of help for anyone to focus on the women for too long. Ignis let her eyes close and sagged, her body folding in on itself. Amicus pressed closer and gripped his overseer's torn cloak. 555
Note
This thread is for Minja and Moon mainly. It's a follow up to Ferocitas. My intent is for this thread to last for two weeks max, so please write in a timely manner or let us know if you are delayed so that we can write around your character until you return.
The pain in her legs was still throbbing, but the healers had done enough to make it tolerable. Her shoulder ached dully where it had been torn by the archmagi’s mace and every other part of her body ached just from the sheer effort she’d put into the fight. The remains of her halberd lay next to her. She decided that, after this, she owed herself a new weapon. The basic one had served well, but she felt as if some small reward was deserved for what she’d been through.
Battlefields were not places to spend any time. The scavengers had started to descend and the general muck and mire around them smelled like the bowels of the underworld had decided to explode all over them. In a way, Aeria mused, they actually had. It wasn’t a comforting thought.
The other problem that the spurii was having was the nagging feeling that they were about to be attacked again. It had started after the battle and it wasn’t going away. She knew that it was likely an overhang from the intensity, stress and fear from the fighting but that didn’t make it any less stomach-churningly real to her.
Glancing over at Ignis and seeing her sag made Aeria drag herself closer to the enlil. “How’re you holding up there, Ignis? I hope I don’t look half as bad as I feel. We did it though! We made it!”
In her usual fashion, the spurii was trying to help. Sometimes it wasn’t enough, but she still had to try. [258]
"We did what? Not die?" Aelflead's sour mood cut between gentle spear woman's words like bile on meat. "Woop de do, we get to kill ourselves tomorrow instead. Hooray." The jaded spurii's words were only emphasized by her infamous scowl reflected by the sheen on the dirty bigatium broadsword in the woman's lap followed by sarcastic one-handed jazz hands.
The redhead didn't look up from cleaning her blade, content to let her reflection convey her monotonously sour expressions. "Besides, if she's gonna shut down after every skirmish like this she may as well go home." The redhead squinted at a dried splotch of a demon's remains on her blade while she continued. "No place for kids in a war zone."
Aelflead's words hung in the air for a moment until she sheathed her broadsword and set to work on cleaning the large one-edged blade propped up beside her. The burned and bandaged warrior's words were unnecessarily harsh for someone currently contemplating the futility of their campaign, but seeing the beginnings of the enlilian engineer's implosion followed by kind words from a friend irked the woman somehow.
Ignis scooted closer to her friend so she could lean on Aeria's shoulder. She used what was left of her sleeve to stifle a wide-mouthed yawn. “I'm fine,” she lied through her teeth, “just a bit tired.”
The enlil chose to not to respond to Aelflead immediately in favor of closing her eyes, a vague smile on her face. Aeria's words had helped her focus on the fact that her best friend was very much alive. A sudden urge to laugh made the engineer's face twitch. They were still breathing. The mere fact that Aeria was well enough to speak and show concern for her made the enlil snort at Aelflead's attitude then giggle.
Mild delirium faded enough for Ignis to realize she had stopped talking. “Didn't your mother teach you unkind words are like poison on the tongue, Toast? Or perhaps your brain is too crispy to appreciate the joy of being alive.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turned her head to look at Aeria. “How are you holding up?” A look of concern crossed the odd enlil's face.
Amicus hissed at Aelflead before turning his attention to the woman his partner was cuddled up to. The mons infans began to heal the nicer spurii's nasty shoulder wound. The other one could stay fried as far as he was concerned.
The redhead snorted but sat silently for a moment while she finished cleaning her sword. When finished she turned to face the enlil and her concerned friend to drop parting words.
"No, she taught me to kill whores if they missed payday instead, but if that's true-" Aelflead twisted her face into an ugly caricature of itself, releasing a brief guttural sound from her throat and launched a translucent and wet projectile of blood, mucus, and saliva. "Better it be on you than me."
The loogie and the jaded woman's words landed with a wet, audible SMACK on the enlil's foot. "Thanks for the advice, Drumstick."
Without waiting to see it land, the redhead made a show of cracking her knuckles in feigned relief and indifference, then left to join the parties combing the area for survivors and enemy scouts at a leisurely gait.
The woman was crude and undeniably disgusting, but she would not "had", even in such a petty matter.
Since her friends took priority, the spurii addressed Ignis first of all before turning her attention to Aelflead. “Well my legs hurt, my back hurts, my arms….everything damn well hurts, let’s face it, but I’ll heal. It’s gonna take me a while to unsee everything I saw during this fight. I’m tough. I’ll get there.”
She gave Ignis a gentle squeeze around the shoulders before turning her attention to their less than desirable companion.Aeria glared at Aelflead and wished she had the full length of her halberd right now. She’d teach the cold bitch to speak to her friends properly if she did. As it was, she was in no condition to seize the redhead by the collar, but she still contemplated trying it. She settled for injecting as much ice into her words as she could. “She wasn’t as bloody stupid as you were. You charged in there like a moron and you could have gotten us all killed, so don’t presume to lecture us on anything, Toast.”
She turned back to Ignis. “Ignore her. She’s just sour, twisted and bitter. The world does that to some people.”
Ignis wrinkled her nose and wiped her foot off in the dirt as best she could. “Gross,” she muttered. The avian briefly wondered why Aelflead had to be so crude. Amicus growled, but calmed when his partner stroked his leaves soothingly.
Her friend's response made her feel a little better.
“It can't be helped, I suppose.” The enlil offered Aeria a wry smile. “I think Deni was considering recruiting her but I don’t know how. She hates us. To be fair, we did short her after a mission, but you’d think helping keep her alive would make her a little less hostile.”
A wide yawn pushed its way past Ignis’ lips. “I don’t know what Deni was thinking, but I trust him to make it work. Even if she’s like that, she probably won’t leave us alone until Deni gives her what she wants.”
Amicus set a glowing hand on Aeria to continue soothing the worst of her injuries. His twig-like fingers clasped part of her shirt in a somewhat affectionate gesture.
Another sleepy laugh echoed in Ignis’ raw throat. “We’re sort of stuck with her. I hope we can get along.” The enlil snuggled closer to Aeria and mumbled something else into the other engineer’s uninjured shoulder, but it wasn’t intelligible.
Aeria raised her eyes to the heavens and adopted a prayerful pose. "Deni, it would seem, moves in mysterious ways. I guess he knows what he's doing, but I'll be Vis-damned if I can see it. As far as I can tell, Toast is one big ball of rage and hatred. Maybe he's got some way of controlling her, but even he'd be hard pressed to settle her down."
The thought of Aelflead hanging around made the energetic spurii sigh. It would be tough to stop herself from decking the scrappy woman at some point. She could confidently predict that her temper would eventually flare up in the redhead's presence. She only hoped that it wouldn't result in a more serious scuffle. It was unclear who would win in that situation.
As Amicus healed her, she felt warmth flowing through her and she gently stroke the little mons infans' leafy top and leaned back. She glanced over at Ignis. "Well I guess we'll probably have more adventures if Toast is hanging around. Right now, though, I could sleep for a month! What about you?"
“Can it be two?” Ignis asked, yawning again. “We'll need plenty of rest to deal with Toast and other demons to come.”
Amicus rustled contentedly as Aeria stroked him and crawled into her lap.
“Traitor,” the enlil mumbled half-heartedly. She curled herself around Aeria. “We should nap,” the senior engineer mumbled into her friend's shoulder.
After a pause she spoke again, “I want to be sure you're really here and I'm not dreaming.”
Ignis felt unsure whether she and Aeria would ever wake up if they slept, all of a sudden.
A soft laughed followed her silence, somehow sounding sad and relieved at once.
“I thought I'd lost you.” The rust-feathered woman tightened her grip on the spurii. “Promise you'll be here when I wake up?” The avian woman tilted her head to look up into Aeria's face. Her eyelids drooped, but she forced them open. Ignis’ body felt like lead in water. The sinking sensation of slipping from consciousness made her cling to Aeria like a drowning woman.
Her chest tightened and her breathing got shallow and quick. She tried to speak again but her lips were rubbery weights that refused to move properly. The enlil's grip was vice-like, still. Brown eyes shone, perhaps with exhausted, desperate tears.
The transition was quick, but Ignis’ mind was as scattered as the corpses on the battlefield up ahead. It was littered with images of her best friend on the ground, helpless with a mace poised above her head. The blood from Laurel’s punctured hand ran freely, demons shrieked, and soldiers screamed. Somewhere in the distance, rubble and bodies burned. The smell... oh Aquila the smell....
The avian could hardly feel her best friend right next to her, eyes wide and glazing over. Her gaze was focused on something the spurii couldn't see.
Amicus whined and pawed at his partner with branchy hands to no avail.
“Yeah...that’s true. I think Toast might actually be more tiring than the demons.” She replied to Ignis while idly stroking Amicus’ leaves, thinking about how calming this little creature could be. It made her eyes almost tear up thinking about what would have happened if they’d lost the mons infans in the fight. She forced herself to lift her chin. They didn’t and it was over now.
In response to Ignis musings, she squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “Of course I’m really here. I’m not going anywhere. You most certainly haven’t lost me.”
After a pause she spoke again, “I want to be sure you're really here and I'm not dreaming.” It was at that point that Ignis began squeezing onto her arm with increasing force and then sagged against her, her eyes going glassy. Aeria’s eyebrows shot up in concern as she felt her enlil companion slip away into unconsciousness. The young woman was still breathing but it was shallow and fast. Amicus was clearly alarmed and that alarmed Aeria. She gently shook Ignis and then shook her a little harder, but the woman next to her refused to make any kind of response. With a great deal of effort, the spurii heaved herself to her feet, after setting the mons infans down. Ignoring the pain it sent through her body, she began shouting at the top of her voice for a healer. [867]
The spurii's shouts went unnoticed at first, not quite breaking through the din. Then, an assistant healer approached them quickly.
“What--” she didn't even finish her question as the blue robed woman caught sight of the woman on the ground. “Oh Castus, that's her!” The laicar woman's face paled as she recognized the sooty enlil. She turned on her heel and ran to get help.
By some stroke of good fortune, the first person willing to set aside their duties to talk to the assistant was Dianette. The velen ordered the woman to take her to the supposed criminal that had infiltrated their camp. When she saw that it was the same woman she had fought with not long before she frowned, lips pressing together firmly.
“It's shock. You should have been able to deal with this,” the soldier told the assistant healer.
She knelt by Ignis’ side and smacked her cheek.
The avian gasped and flinched violently, blinking rapidly.
The velen grasped her shoulders firmly. “Look at me,” she commanded.
The avian's brown eyes focused hazily on the person in front of her. “Mmm,” she moaned softly.
“That's it, get ahold of yourself.” Dianette kept her voice firm steady, and unnaturally persuasive. “I need you to answer a couple questions for me. It's very important that you tell me the truth. Focus.” Her fingers curled tighter around the smaller woman's shoulders.
“Wha... what's it?” Ignis mumbled, scrunching her face in confusion.
“Why are you here?”
“Had to get help...” the enlil murmured, squinting up at Dianette's face. “Hey I know you... you were hurt too. So much... so much blood and burns.”
“Very good, but that's not what I meant. Why did you come to the battle?”
“The monsters... there's monsters. They need to go away.”
“The monsters are gone now.”
Ignis’ head lolled to the side in an imitation of a nod.
“Now I need you to count backwards from a thousand for me, okay? It doesn't have to be out loud, but it's very important that you do it.” Her voice had an almost hypnotic quality to it, making the enlil relax.
The avian mumbled something that sounded a bit like 999, brows scrunched up.
The soldier sighed and released the enlil. She stood. “See that they're healed up. I don't want you to say anything about this. I'll take care of it,” she addressed the nurse. It wouldn't do for rumors to fly before they got a chance to confirm things. Division within ranks was the last thing they needed; regardless of who this woman might be, she was useful.
Dianette glanced over at Aeria. “You two are to stay here.” Then, she fixed Aelflead with a stern look. “I'd advise you not to cause any trouble either.”
The junior healer knelt nearby and began to pray, intimidated by the look Dianette sent her way.
Satisfied that the situation could be handled without causing an unnecessary stir, the soldier turned on her heel and strode away.
Ignis kept counting, her lips moving soundlessly as she focused on her task.
Meanwhile, Dianette sought out a superior to consult about the accused terrorists in their ranks.
[528/1835]
Techs
Dianette used voice of serenity to calm Ignis down
There was something about all of this that Aeria didn't like. The reaction of the healer to Ignis wasn't exactly encouraging. It was almost as if there was...oh Vis! The spurii's eyes flew open as she realized that for the entire length of the battle, neither she nor Ignis had remembered that they were still wanted by the authorities. They had blithely been wandering around with absolutely nothing to hide their identities. She doubted that many people had noticed in the excitement, but clearly the healer had. Whatever the case was, Dianette had seemed to react well. Perhaps she realized what was happening and would help smooth it over. It didn't seem likely that she'd turn them in, not after what they'd experienced together.
She nodded her agreement to Dianette's statement and fixed Aelflead with a steady gaze. She was impressed that the rude woman had reacted in such a prompt way to try and help instead of being the usual pain in the ass. However she still didn't trust the redhead, given that her past experiences had been so negative. The best she could do was stand over her friend and keep watch. She just hoped that the outcome of this didn't involve a cell again. Aeria had seen quite enough of the inside of cells to wish to avoid them permanently.
Whatever was going on, she hoped that Ignis would make it out of this situation with her sanity intact. She wanted her friend to be alright, but she wasn't sure if it would be possible.
