Aliya’s muscles ached by the time she got the first glimpse of the village—though it was more a clearing on the village’s edge rather than any buildings to speak of. Despite many trees being neatly manicured and pollarded, they were still a bit too thick for her to see through properly. She ignored that and redoubled her efforts. She stood straighter, and she hoisted Madeline up further. Had her companion been anyone else, she probably would have just let them stumble along behind her. Aliya thought that it would have been kinder to herself if she had just done that with Madeline as well. It may have been her mind playing tricks on her, but she felt as if Madeline was growing colder. Her breathing had certainly gotten more ragged, and Aliya could see the struggle she went through to keep her eyes focused. Every now and again they would glass over, and heat would rise in Aliya’s chest. Whenever she saw it, she’d push herself harder and carry Madeline more. At first she had been supporting Madeline. Now, Madeline’s feet nearly left the ground. “Madeline? You still with me?” Aliya grunted. When Madeline didn’t immediately reply, Aliya rubbed their cheeks together. It was faster than having to move her hand. Madeline perked up at that, but then she swooned and relaxed. “I’m still with you, Captain… Good to see that you’re still with me...” Aliya didn’t reply; in fear that if she did, Madeline would keep wasting what precious energy she had left on replying. Instead, she sped them up as they broke into the outskirts proper, where the pollarded trees formed neat rows and slowly transitioned into coppiced ones. That lasted for a short while until Aliya stepped out into a long open field separating the village from the trees. She hoped that someone would notice her and Madeline. As the two of them started their walk, Madeline seemed to slowly come back to her senses. Her head tilted upwards slightly, and Aliya felt her tense. “Something the matt-“ “Archer… looks like an elf…” Madeline breathed. Aliya tried to follow Madeline’s gaze, and looked at the top of what looked like a watch tower. True enough, a lightly-armoured tree of a man hung over its side, and he seemed to be calling down to someone. Aliya didn’t like that he was holding his weapon. She turned to Madeline. “What do you think?” “Look… down… there’s a bunch of soldiers,” Madeline replied weakly. It was a wonder Aliya had missed them. A large group of them seemed to be working at moving the merchants’ stalls to barricade the village, and Aliya paled. She noted that not a single villager was present among them, and she began to draw conclusions. “Wait… That gear... They look like the bloody Glamhoth, don’t they?” she breathed lowly. Madeline nodded against her shoulder. “Most of them look like regulars, but there are a bunch of others with them. That must mean…” “Raiders,” Madeline said firmly. Aliya’s legs nearly gave out. Aliya watched as the archer that was in the tower disappeared; probably running down to report that he had seen someone. “Of all the bloody times for those damned savages to go and raid a village, now was when they chose to do it?” she said despairingly. “We need to turn around. How’s your bleeding?” “Not too… too bad. It’s slowed down for the most part; thanks to you.” “You think you’ll last if we head back into the forest and just get a place for you to rest?” Aliya suggested, and she shifted Madeline’s weight on her shoulder in case she needed to start running. “Once we’ve got you somewhere safe, I can loop around and eavesdrop around the village to figure out where the river is.” Madeline pondered for a second. “With a spot of luck, I should last for a while longer if I don’t bleed out. Infection’s likely given we haven’t even cleaned it, and if we leave the arrow in there for much longer while we’re moving around it’ll probably permanently disable my arm even if we get to safety. If we manage to get everything in order… I probably have two, three days left in me before I’m incapacitated.” “We’re turning around then; hold on…” Aliya trailed off as she idly turned around. “Oh… no…” “What is it…?” Madeline asked. Aliya’s fear was palpable, and Madeline was easily affected by it. Her voice wavered. “Is there something wrong?” Aliya shook her head slowly; not to disagree with Madeline, but at the despair that crept into her. In front of her she saw a crew of raiders that seemed to be moving past attacking a village, and on to its rape and pillage. Behind her, a small horde of the pale soldiers that had attacked them earlier were only a short distance away. Their front line was messy-but-definite, and made up of a group of ghastly spearmen with their weapons up and at the ready. The surprise of seeing they were right behind them before even hearing their approach made Aliya scream in surprise. “When did they get so close…!?” Aliya croaked, and she gripped Madeline’s arm tightly. She began to nearly drag Madeline forward with how fast she was walking. “I thought we had gotten away from these things!” Madeline quaked on Aliya’s shoulders. Aliya slowed down and turned to face her, and saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “Damn it all…” Madeline whispered. “Damn all of this.” “Madeline?” Madeline put her head to Aliya’s chest and let out a short, pained sigh. She took a deep breath, and then looked Aliya in the eyes. “Leave me here and run,” she said. Aliya thought she was trying to be confident, but she heard the shaking in Madeline’s voice. “Leave the shaft of your voulge with me. A-at the very least, I can trip one of the damn things up. If those raiders start shooting at them, even better—I can buy you more time.” “To hell with saving her energy—if she wants to say that to me, I’ll set her straight,” Aliya thought. She looked at her with both confusion and pain on her face. “What are you saying?” “I’m dead already, Cap—no, [i]Aliya[/i]—you can see that,” Madeline explained while gesturing to the arrow in her arm with her head. “That damned thing isn’t fatal—it's far from if I took a hit to my chest or thigh—but there’s no way—“ “Stop. Stop, stop, stop. Just stop,” Aliya growled. Madeline’s mouth closed in a terse line. “I already said that you’d be my first mate for the rest of your life.” “Aliya, please…” Madeline said sadly. “We don’t have time for this. Look,” Madeline jutted her chin towards the village, “They’re already running out here with their weapons drawn. Once arrows start flying…” Aliya dropped Madeline, but made sure she wouldn’t land on her wound. Aliya dropped her voulge onto Madeline’s chest, and gave her a grave look. “Are you agreeing with me now?” Madeline asked. Though there was some smugness in her voice, she sounded as if she had been betrayed at the same time. She leveled a steely gaze at Aliya. Aliya’s stern silence was all she got back. Madeline seemed to resign herself to her fate. “I see…” she said slowly. “I’ll gladly lay down my life here for you, Aliya. I always—“ “Mutineers have to get punished,” Aliya interrupted. With a slow, measured movement, Aliya lifted Madeline bridal-style. She groaned under the exertion on her already-tired muscles, and began panting immediately when she started slowly walking. “W-what are you doing?” Madeline asked as she barely recovered from fumbling Aliya’s voulge. Aliya smirked. “This is your punishment for not listening to me when I told you to shut it.” “Punishment?” Madeline said incredulously. “Oh yes,” Aliya nodded. “We’ll discuss the details later, but for now I need you alive so I can properly make an example of you to our crew.” Madeline struggled against Aliya. “This isn’t the time for stupid charades and bravado! I already know you and what you can do! I know what you have done!” she shouted. Her words came out between large breaths, and she quickly tired herself as she spoke. “This is beyond stupid; we’re stopped between raiders with bows and whatever in blazes that group of monsters is! We’re here chatting—and I’d say you’re going past that and filling the shoes of some fictional "dashing" captain and flirting!” Aliya started, but Madeline shushed her. “You don’t need to take on some sort of character. You’re already one to your crew, and that character is good! We’ve known each other since we were young, and I’ve been your first mate for almost a decade now! I’ve seen you experiment with all those different characters—some worse than others! Now that the odds are that I’m going to bite it, please—for all that’s good in this world—please be as you are with me. I don’t want my last moments to be bitter.” Again, Aliya was interrupted when several arrows began to fall around them. They fell wide, though a few of them landed a respectably short distance away. “Maybe the one that shot you is in there,” Aliya suggested, and Madeline’s surprise at the sudden change in subject was evident on her face. “You think if I get you to safety I can repay the favor?” “You what?” Madeline sputtered before Aliya began a labored jog towards the village. “What are you doing!?” “I reckon they’d be happier if they had one more body to bash those things with!” “They’re raiders!” Madeline argued. “They’ll take coin just like anyone else if that’s the case,” Aliya smiled. Madeline guffawed. “You’d trust leaving me to them?” Aliya's face was less than happy. “Oh, I’ll make sure if they really want to kill us they’ll have to take me out first. If they pretend to accept, and while I’m gone they do anything to you—kill you, rape you, use you as live bait for whatever these things are, whatever—I will find them, and spend a fortune on making sure I end them rightly.” She got no reply for a while, and the arrows continued to fall just short of them. Aliya tried to maintain her composure, but knew that she was beginning to panic. She focused on the village. “How do you make sure they know that?” “I’m sure one of them has to have heard of us before, or at least the [i]Leone [/i]and her fleet,” Aliya’s smile twisted slightly. “I’m sure that if they know of the fleet, they’ll know how I got if after Father butchered that mercenary guild.” “And if not…?” “Well, we’ll take care of it when we get there,” Aliya said half-heartedly. The other half of her silently panicked at the thought of being killed or enslaved by a group of Glamhoth. “As it stands, we can at least trust that there’s a chance that they’ll be more welcoming than expected.” “You think that those monsters out there can be any less welcoming to the Lavas than the Glamhoth are?” “I can trust the Glamhoth are human, at the very least,” Aliya said, and she stepped out of the way of an arrow unwittingly. “That was too close…” She looked back and saw that the group of spearmen were still slowly walking towards them. There was a faint…cackling in the air. Aliya wondered if it was just her thoughts getting ahead of her. “Your breathing is getting incredibly heavy,” Madeline commented, “You can’t keep this up.” “Like hell I can’t keep this up,” Aliya spat. “I’ll collapse before I put you down.” Aliya looked up at the gathering group of soldiers. She took a deep breath, and shouted as loudly as she could, “If you bloody lot could hurry up and get yourselves out here, it would be greatly appreciated!” Madeline’s eyes widened. “You can’t just go swinging bravado around like that—what did I just tell—“ Her complaining was cut off by a string of dry coughs. “I’m waking the damn fools up is what I’m doing,” Aliya said lowly. “I’d bet seeing a group of… whatever these things are… is enough to paralyze most regulars—what more a bunch of brigands?” Her legs screamed for the sweet release of stillness. “Not until we’re dead,” Aliya thought. She grit her teeth and pushed herself harder. She needed to hit her stride. She needed to get Madeline to safety. She needed to survive. She kept her eyes locked firmly on the soldiers. As much as she hated it, it was their move.