[i]collab with Luminosity[/i]

Gaela stood, unable to do anything more for the dead family. She looked over her shoulder at the taller woman and nodded, “I appreciate it. I’m afraid that the raiders were pretty thorough.”

Walking forward, she passed several more people sprawled on the cold earth. If the stranger’s men were anything, they were cruelly efficient. She watched as several of the prisoners left for the road but continued her search, shadowed by the young warrior. 

“I agree,” she replied, turning over one woman to check for life but the front of her skull had been caved in with a mace, “All of this to blackmail us into fetching his brother. Bloody politics. My name is Gaela, by the way. In case you need to holler it, I tend to...well, focus on one thing and forget to keep watch.”

[color=salmon]“Gaela. Got it,”[/color] the young Imperial woman said, sparing a slightly disturbed glance for the murdered woman Gaela was inspecting. [color=salmon]“I’m Fiona.”[/color]

It was not until she was near the edge of the village did she find a man who still drew breath. He lay with a spear in his gut, still pinned to the ground. Gaela heard his moans and rushed to him, already studying how she would remove the weapon from his body.  

“My boy...my boy,” the man groaned, struggling raise his head, “Help him...”

“Where?” Gaela looked around, then spotted a small figure sprawled on the ground. 

Even from where she was she had little hope he was alive and she turned to the red head, gesturing to the man, “Stay with him.” 

Gaela went to the child and crouched, gently turning him over. He had been speared through, the torn guts spilling like limp snakes from his belly. Swallowing the bile that rose, she lay him back down, stroking his back gently in a futile comforting gesture. The healer could not bring him back, he was gone but she could save his father. A brief search lead her to a dropped cloak and she bundled the small form, covering the grotesque wounds.

Beckoning the tall warrior over, she said quietly, “The boy is dead, I dare not tell the father lest he lose his will to live. I need your help though. That spear must be broken and you seem to have more strength than I.” 

Leaving the Imperial to what she would, she would need to break the shaft above the spearhead so she could pull it free. Gaela rolled the man over onto his side, while applying a low pulse of healing magic to keep him from dying as they worked to save him. 

Fiona watched the interaction between Gaela and the boy’s father, likely checking to make sure he couldn’t see what she was about to do. She gently set her sword aside and crouched down beside them. [color=salmon]“This is going to hurt,”[/color] she warned gently. Tentatively reaching out, she took hold of the spear’s shaft a few feet out from the man’s body, stood slightly, and then stomped down on it with her boot, snapping it fairly cleanly. She cast the broken part of the shaft aside.

The man cried out as the spear broke and Gaela looked up, “Now, Fiona, gentle and steady,  pull it out.”

Gaela concentrated on the spells, healing hands and close wound to begin to knit together his torn insides after Fiona had withdrawn the shaft from his guts. Beads of sweat formed on Gaela’s brow, organ wounds were the most difficult to deal with and though she had skill, there was still a level of discomfort. She could not let herself be distracted by the suffering, that would be for later in the dark hours of the night when she would lay awake and remember Meir Thorvale.

Once the blood ceased, the man began to breathe easier and he gazed up at the women, giving them a shaky nod, “Th-thank you...”

Leaving him with one of her health potions, she gestured to the tall woman, “We should go. There is little else we can do here and that bastard on the horse has us by the short hairs. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be damned if I will live as a fugitive the rest of my life.” 

Her robes swayed with her steps, the bundles and pack on her back jostling. She did not look back, the smoke now billowing from cottages and the crows gathering to feast on the dead. It weighed on her, that for all her skill she could not save more than one. There was no bringing the dead back to life, even necromancers could not, they only made puppets and that was dark magic that she dared not touch.  

“Fiona, keep your sword handy,” she said, eyeing the gathering group in the road. The oversized Orc, the Vigilant in the ancient armor,  two hillfolk bandits and a pair of slinking skeevers. The other was a mage who conjured a flame atronach and she felt a knot of foreboding. “I hope we can at least get to the city before throats are ripped out.” 

Her fingertips felt warm, her body readying a fiery defense in case the tension that was clearly visible in the knot of people ended up breaking. As they approached, she spoke up, “We’ll need a plan to get this guy out. Anyone got a plan?”

Gaela looked at all of them, her round freckled face serious. Then she saw it, a flash of sapphire fluttered above them and she gasped, “Oh a Blue Lady!”

She stopped herself from reaching out for the butterfly and her face reddened as she cleared her throat, “I mean, a plan...we have to be swift and unnoticed...and all that. Um, well I'm Gaela for starters, healer and alchemist, occasional torch.”