As the dancing flames mesmerized and distracted Elayna, allowing her numbing mind a small reprieve, it hardly registered that the fierce Nord woman had sat down besider her and thrusted a drink towards her. The Breton looked at Thyra, jade eyes dazed for a moment, before shaking the haze from her head, only to take a drink of the stinging liquid to fill it with more. She held the bottle out to Thyra, who took another mouthful as soon as it was received. "It seems quite a few of us deal with stress similarly." Elayna said with a sad, short laugh. Poultices stained her new clothes, showing a night of experimentation, most ending in failure and waste. The drink was definitely called for.

A sharp chuckle echoed from within the bottle, passing through the Nord's exposed teeth and rolling over her fingers like syrup. “Any snow-back can drink when they're distressed", she sniffed . The woman's assumption bore truth, there were many people rating the recent events on the same scale as the Oblivion Crisis, and rightfully so. But to suggest that they were alike in severity - as the drinks were in potency - was laughable.

"Those of us who can handle rough and tough, we have real reasons for wanting to forget." As she planted the bottle between them, she gave her drinking companion a quick once over. They weren't as noticeable before, but up close, and in the dark of night, her green eyes took on a radiant glow. Blink by careful blink, Thyra removed the haze that had suddenly fogged up her vision. She concentrated on pulling the proper words out from beneath the whimsical ones, talking slow to avoid uttering a slur. "You ain't from the group I fought with. If you were, you'd know real stress," she stated matter-of-factly. 

Her eyes appeared static and unfixed, but behind them, images flew by, of hoardes moving across the hills, and countless more in the caverns, where the golden one now lay. A short grunt leapt from the ache in her chest. "The undead? Puppies with no teeth compared to Draugr."

Elayna threw a sharp glance the Nord's way, before turning and speaking to the fire. "My 'stress' isn't from that rat in the Mausoleum. It was wretched, those poor souls fused with Dwemer metal. But that pales in comparison to my other worries." She ran a hand over her eyes, as if she could wipe the fire, and all the things she'd seen, away like blood on a dress. Just like that, however, she may get the surface grime off, but the stains would always be there. Thyra was curious now, it started to make sense why no one ever spoke of what happened on that forbidden isle, but what could be worse than that? "I still have an entire family to account for. A big one, too. If they weren't in danger, I'd be long gone. But it's starting to look like I could accomplish something here. Maybe." The Breton crossed her arms, just to emulate the embrace of those she held dear.

"I saw the body of a man who was my second father, and the Imperial City reduced to corpses and ash. I'm surprised I haven't taken a fatal dose of one of my own creations yet." She paused, looking for words that were trying to slip away into the alcohol. "One difference between you and I, Thyra, is that I wasn't meant for the path of the warrior. Death is not one I know well." Elayna sighed, ...but we're getting increasingly familiar with one another. My point is, there's no longer a use in claiming one ordeal is worse than another. It's all just part of the travesty that is the world at the moment. Each of us will get our share, some earlier than others."

"Aye, earlier," the Nord repeated slowly, her voice made brittle by the opened pool of memories, and the fresh pull of rum. She pushed back the blue scarf that swaddled her thoughts, combing calloused fingers through the soft, straw meadow, as if it helped ease them. It never did. "Maybe after all this is finished, you'll understand."

Glasses shattered in the background, one by one, to the uproarious encouragement of drunken laughter. Shortly after, a man stumbled outside to purge his meal in the bushes behind them. Thyra swore at him loudly. "Look at the way they romp around, no better than beasts! And 'e ain't got a damn burden to drink to." She shook her axe at him until he fled. A second longer, and she'd have thrown it. "They might've thanked their devil gods, made you feel like a hero, but for most of them, that's all they'll do. Showing gratitude is all they'll do."

She had to take a therapeutic nip to calm her spirits, and pointed to Elayna with the bottle in hand. "You, an alchemist, took up arms for your family," she laughed. "Of all the sorts! I wasn't at the Imperial's city when the elves struck," her throat cleared itself to make room for another gulp. "And when I see how lime that orc in your company is, a part of me doesn't wanna know what happened on the isle. You were, not them, but they get to carry on as such." Her hand gestured from the ruckus inside, to the Breton girl, and then the fire before them. "There are people we left on that island who should be here."

The young Breton couldn't help but laugh as the intoxicated woman chased one of the more inebriated patrons with her ax, and with good reason. Thyra was right, the populace seemed more focused on praising those that take action rather than taking action themselves. In honesty, Elayna was in that very boat not too long ago. What had happened to her plans to live out her days as some old medicine woman in the swamp lands of Leyawiin, making sure to give praises to the Nine and the Heroes? Those thoughts seemed like distant figments now, and the gratitude from the people just felt empty.

"It's sad, really. If we all just pushed, charged, did something, the Dwemer would have a force to reckon with on their hands. But here we all are, placing the few we deem 'capable' on a pedastal and waiting for them to make all of the problems disappear." Elayna shook her head, propping up her chin with her right hand. "I was taught to kill animals for reagents, not some long-dead elves with outrageous weapons. My fighting was more of a 'last hoorah' effort. Only after our recent excursion am I really beginning to find that, maybe there is something worth saving. Maybe there are a few Ferrises left."

She nodded at Thyra's closing remark. "How could they expect such things of us? We lost people, yet we're just going to be pushed off to the slaughter again. It's not like we can go forever." Elayna gazed into the fire along with the Nord warrioress. Just how long were they going to survive?