[u][b]Of Life, Death, and The End of the World[/b][/u]
[i]
A collab with [@Stormflyx], [@Mortarion], and [@Father Hank][/i]



The battle had been mostly a blur to her, she had remained at the back in the treeline, out of the action. There was no way she was putting herself closer to any of those creatures than she needed to. It’s not to say that the Breton wasn’t pulling her weight in the chaos - in fact she was rushed with injured bodies, wounds of the flesh, contusions of limbs, fractures of bones - rolling in one by one. She barely had time to treat before another ranger flocked to her. 

Some of them she had to send back; “that’s naught but a bruise, get back out there and return to me with a puncture!” she would say, to the younger rangers. The volunteers, the youngest of the fighters. This wasn’t a place for them to be. She was in the middle of pulling a thread loose from her cloak when another explosion of ice and storm happened, debris from the field sprayed to the back, a streak of mud hit her cheek but now wasn’t the time to worry about it. She had a ranger losing a lot of blood, slumped against a tree. He was holding his arm and Raelynn could make out tears in his eyes, a white look on his face and his mouth was agape while he struggled to breath through the shock. 

There was only one way to snap him out of it. She pulled back her right hand and flung it with force to collide with his cheek - an almighty crack that almost sounded like it could have been lightning too gave those in their vicinity a fright. “Pull yourself together soldier! I’m going to fix you up and have you back out there with two shakes of a dogs tail do you hear me?” he didn’t respond as he reacted to the slap, she barely gave him time to process it before she put her face just inches from his “DO YOU HEAR ME?!” she repeated, louder - and in his face. A far cry from the compassion she showed the orphan girl. 

But this was compassion, in a way. She knew the signs of shock and she knew how to shake him out of it. She could tell that the other Mages and healers around her found her to be callous and abrupt - but lives were on the line here. She had already watched one young mage deplete her energies by not pacing herself. If any of these fighters fell, they would be the next ones to fall. She wasn’t going to die here. Not in a forest, not in such an undignified manner. 

She pulled from her hair a sharp looking clip, curls of her ash blonde hair cascaded around her face as she did so. “This isn’t a needle, but in the face of emergency we have to make do. This is going to hurt boy but it will save your arm, I promise you that one.” With ease she wound the thread collected from her cloak through the hair clip. This wouldn’t be the first time she would have performed this. Perhaps a sign that she should carry a real medicinal needle around…  

Jaraleet slowly but surely made his way towards where he knew that the mages had gathered in the aftermath of the battle to treat the wounded. The Saxhleel’s movements were slow and limping, the result of the wounds he had received during the course of the battle; after he had left Daro’Vasora in the hands of Gregor, the assassin had returned to the battlefield like he had said to the Imperial. The few remaining enemies hadn’t been much of a threat but, even so, they still had put up quite a fight before finally dying, it’d have been easier to handle them if the soldiers with the strange staves had been eliminated beforehand but that hadn’t been the case unfortunately. 

His first wound, aside those he had accumulated at the start of the battle, had come from a stray shot from one of the strange staves which had, mercifully, hit only the left side of his abdomen and not the middle of it. This had started a cascade event as the wound slowed him down, allowing what few close range combatants that remained to score in a few hits with their weapons before they were dispatched. In spite of his accumulating wounds, Jaraleet continued to fight on, ignoring the pain, until all the Dwemeri soldiers were finally dead, albeit he was hit one last time by the Dwemeri rifles, the shot connecting fully with his left arm and leaving a gaping hole in it. 

And so, with the battle now ended, Jaraleet had headed towards the mages in search of someone with knowledge in restoration magic. Unfortunately all the mages that he had come across with seemed either occupied with men and women much more gravelly wounded than him or out of magicka after their exertions in the battle and its aftermath. The Haj-Eix shook his head at the sight of the wounded men and women, a brief look of sadness and nostalgia passing through his eyes for a brief second before he steeled himself. “[i]This is our role and the price that we must pay for it. To be wounded, to die, this is to be expected for those of us who dedicate ourselves to protect others.[/i]” The assassin thought as he continued to wander through the mages. 

The sound of a loud crack reverberating throughout the, now quiet, clearing caught the attention of the assassin, who began making her way towards its source. To his surprise he found a small woman, of Breton origin if his guess was correct, with long ash blond hair that hung loosely around her face treating an injured Ranger with what seemed to be a clip used for holding hair. Intrigued, and hoping that the woman was a skilled healer, Jaraleet stood there, waiting for the blonde woman to finish treating the other Ranger while ignoring the pain and increasing feeling of dizziness that spread through his body.

“Let me take a look that,” Gregor said as he approached Jaraleet from behind, with the same disarming smile on his face as before. If it weren’t for the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the loose strands of hair that had come untucked during combat, he looked like he could have merely been out on a stroll and come across the Rangers by happenstance. Combat had been far kinder to him than many others, which was by design: Gregor refrained from heroics and risky behavior in general. After the battle was won, he had remained with the mages and the influx of wounded and made himself useful where he could. The Imperial was reasonably competent with Restoration magic (though less experienced in healing others than himself) and could heal small injuries entirely, or if the wounds were more severe at least staunch the bleeding until a real healer could tend to it. 

He motioned for Jaraleet to make himself comfortable and sank down on his knees next to the Argonian. Prodding the wound with his fingers, Gregor hummed and hah’d, and his charming smile turned into a frown. “Such strange weaponry,” he mused, more to himself than to Jaraleet. He glanced up at his patient’s reptilian eyes. “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt,” Gregor said apologetically, now speaking directly to Jaraleet, and quickly dug his fingers into the wound before he could react or protest. He found purchase mercifully fast and he pulled out the bullet that had buried itself in Jaraleet’s flesh. “Aha!” he exclaimed and almost brought the small object up to his face to inspect it before remembering what he was doing; the familiar golden glow of Restoration magic lit up their faces and Gregor bit his lip in concentration. 

“Hm,” Gregor grumbled as he beheld his handiwork. “Well, the good news is that it’s not bleeding anymore, but you should really let an expert finish this. I don’t have the skills to properly knit your scales back together.” He looked up at Raelynn, trying to catch her gaze so he could gesture for her to attend to Jaraleet, but she wasn’t looking at him just yet. 

Jaraleet tensed instinctively as he heard Gregor speak behind him, but the Saxhleel relaxed slightly when he recognized Gregor’s voice as that of the Imperial he had left the Cathay woman with before returning to the fray. He nodded in agreement when Gregor motioned for him to make himself comfortable, sitting with his back against a nearby tree as Gregor knelt besides him. 

The Saxhleel stood motionless as his wound was prodded by the Imperial man, the only indication that he was still conscious being the nod that he gave upon Gregor’s comment about the weaponry of their enemy, “Xhu, they resemble mage staves but I feel that is a poor comparison.” The assassin said, falling silent when the Imperial glanced at his eyes. He didn’t react to his words, nor when he dug his fingers into the wound to pull free the projectile that had embedded itself in his flesh. The only sign that the Argonian gave that he had felt any pain was the slight twitch in his tail but he quickly stopped doing that the second after Gregor had began searching for the bullet inside his wound. 

The familiar sense of Restoration magic spread throughout his body once Gregor had retired the bullet from within his arm, but it seemed that the skills of the Imperial weren’t enough to heal him fully. “Hmmm, yes, that seems like a good idea.” The Saxhleel agreed with the Imperial man, turning to look towards Raelynn at about the same time Gregor did. “I should mention, there was no need to apologize to me, I barely felt it when you extracted that strange projectile from my arm.” Jaraleet said in an amiable tone before he shifted to get more comfortable. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of introducing each other properly, my name is Jaraleet.” The Argonian said when it became apparent that the blonde woman was still distracted with her other patient, deciding to pass the time with small talk while Raelynn continued to ply her trade.

Gregor was impressed that Jaraleet seemed so unfazed by the procedure. “You’re made of tough stuff, Jaraleet. Pleased to meet you. I’m Gregor.” He decided to take a minute’s reprieve and sat down properly, moving his cloak out of the way with the careful movements of someone who cares about his attire and tucking his loose strands of hair back where they belonged, confirming that his vanity wasn’t just restricted to his outfit. “The Khajiit you delivered to me will be fine, by the way. She regained consciousness almost immediately.” Before Jaraleet could reply, Gregor looked up to see Raelynn approaching, finally done with her last patient. 

Raelynn made her way to the wounded Argonian, and her eyebrow immediately raised. On her way, she dipped her hands into a bucket of water that had been left for washing hands. It wasn’t exactly clean now - but this was the battlefield. It did it’s job of rinsing off the blood from her fingers. She truly hoped that this scaled soldier wasn’t going to expect her to stitch him up too.

Without saying a thing, she knelt down and examined the wound; “well, you’re not going to die.” She pressed two fingers to either side of the wound, feeling the heat flushing to the surface. “I can’t stitch this one up, not without a specific needle. I’m afraid that your skin is, well, it’s leather. It’s much too tough for my clip I’m afraid.” She stood back up, and looked into the Argonian’s yellow eyes. “Even if I had the needle, I don’t have the thread...”

She hadn’t noticed just yet that he wasn’t alone - she hadn’t noticed the Imperial male stood beside him, but all of a sudden she [i]felt[/i] his presence. She let her eyes look at him from head to foot - taking in every detail of his custom armour, the pristine and untarnished condition of his cloak - the way he obviously groomed his hair and beard. He was refined - unlike the peasants throwing themselves around the battlefield. 

It was like love at first sight - if it were possible to fall in love based on a purely intuitive feeling that this gentleman was a Noble or at least had some kind of ambiguous status. That said, she was good at this. She could sniff out someone who was worth her time from a mile away, and right now there was a person of interest right in front of her. 

She turned her attention back to the Argonian, taking a warmer approach than she had just seconds ago - “I can fix this, it depends on whether you’re happy with a scar - or if you’d like your skin to be perfect again…” she offered him a warm smile while she tucked the strands of hair back behind her ears. “That scar would be in a nice place too… It would tell a story. It’s up to you though…”

The Saxhleel looked up at Raelynn as she made her way towards him, remaining silent as she explained to him that she didn’t have the appropriate tools to stitch up his wound after examining it with her fingers. He would have spoken then and there if it hadn’t been for the brief lapse in which the Breton healer turned her attention towards Gregor for a brief moment before once more focusing on Jaraleet. 

The sudden change in demeanor to a more warmer one didn’t went unnoticed by the assassin, and it didn’t took him long to connect the dots. “[i]She’s trying to impress Gregor, make a good first impression to try and get in his good graces.[/i]” He thought as he looked at the warm smile that Raelynn was offering him. “[i]Clever girl, I’ll need to watch out for this one.[/i]” He concluded before speaking again. “I’m more than fine with a scar, there’s no need for you to waste extra magicka to try and make my skin perfect again.” Jaraleet said in response to what Raelynn had said. 

“It’s a bit late for that anyway….” The Argonian added as he grabbed the hem of his leather armor and pulled it up slightly. While this would allow Raelynn a better look at the wound that the Dwemer rifle had inflicted on the side of his abdomen, it’d also allow her, and Gregor as well if he was paying attention, a look at some of the numerous scars that dotted the Argonian’s body. Slash scars crisscrossed across his abdomen and it was evident that, in some areas, Jaraleet had been burned with what seemed to have been a piece of hot iron, along with these, if one had seen such a thing before, scars left from magical attacks could also be seen snaking upwards. “As you can see, I’ve already have more than a few mementos engraved in my body and the stories to accompany them.” Jaraleet said, letting out a dark chuckle, his free hand touching the wound on the left side of his abdomen left by the stray shot. “With that said…” The Argonian continued, turning to look at the wound and then back towards Raelynn. “One more scar wouldn’t hurt, would it?” The Argonian said with an amiable smile, the gesture taking on an eerie quality on account of the discussion at hand. “It’d be merely another memento, the mark of yet another battle survived. It’d tell a story, as you said before.” He said, his free hand drifting from the bullet wound towards the other visible scars before Jaraleet brought it to rest on the ground as he waited for Raelynn to treat his wounds.

“Tough stuff indeed,” Gregor said and whistled appreciatively at the manifold scars Jaraleet put on display when he pulled up his armor. His gaze didn't linger on the Argonian, however, as it hasn't escaped his notice either that Raelynn seemed taken in by him. Gregor had been quite the ladies’ man in his younger years and it still happened often enough that a woman saw more than just a roaming knight in Gregor. He'd indulged a few of them in Skyrim, when the nights were particularly cold and lonely, and he'd felt guilty every time the next morning as he thought of the amazing woman he'd left behind in Cyrodiil; his wife, Briar. Still, he couldn't help but notice that Raelynn was beautiful, well-dressed and capable. Her authoritarian demeanour and calculating eyes betrayed a stronger will than her dainty appearance would suggest, not to mention that she'd kept her cool as the wounded came pouring in. Gregor returned her blue gaze with a polite smile but said nothing of it. 

Of course she could have laid her healing hands and been done with it, but this wasn't life threatening - not to an Argonian. Perhaps to a man, but not to Jaraleet’s anatomy. She held back from magic at times like this. Her magicka was her own lifeblood after all. When she used her spells, she shared a piece of her own energy with her recipient. It was almost spiritual. Such a sense of pride was lost to many, who threw their healing hands around for any scratch or knick. But not Raelynn.

She had been keeping a long rod of iron in hot coals, and she could see it’s tip glowing orange. Ready to be put to use. Now wasn't the time to listen to his stories and smalltalk - she had a job to do and that was to close his wound, and to do that she would have to hurt him some more. 

As she pressed the metal against the first opening, she would imagine her patient felt the skin tighten and harden, and of course get very hot. She performed it in such a way that wouldn't be overly painful to him though. She was quick, precise, and careful. In the zone. She placed the hot tip into the same water bucket she had rinsed her hands in, steam formed up around it and it hissed loudly. 

“Well, I suppose if you can take the heat like that I can spare a spell or two to soothe it now…” she then placed her hands against the wounds, feeling her magicka flow through her body as she focussed it to her palms, placing the energy against the tough, leather-like skin. This time, she knew that her patient would feel an immense sense of calm that didn't just sit on his wounds, but would travel through his whole body. A gentle wave of warmth and serenity. 

“All better then…” 

Jaraleet looked on as Raelynn retrieved a heated rod of iron, his eyes following the orange tip as the Breton healer moved the rod towards the wound on his left side. The sensation of flesh being cauterized was one to which the Saxhleel had become accustomed a long time ago and, as such, when the heated metal made contact with his flesh, Jaraleet showed no signs of discomfort or pain as the wound was cauterized and remained perfectly still.

What came next he hadn’t expected, as he felt Raelynn press her hand against the recently closed wound followed shortly by a sensation of calm and warmth that spread throughout his body. The Saxhleel let out a soft sigh as he relaxed, smiling towards Raelynn after she had been done casting her magicka. “My thanks, miss….” Jaraleet began, only to pause when he realized that he hadn’t had the forethought of asking her name. “My apologies, it seems that it slipped my mind to ask you for your name.” The Argonian began, bowing his head slightly towards Raelynn. “My name is Jaraleet, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And, once again, let me thank you for your help.” The assassin said, letting his hand touch the freshly closed wound. “It’s certainly a boon that we have healers as skilled as you, the weapons employed by the Dwemer are unlike anything seen before in Tamriel.” He said, frowning slightly as he began thinking. “Why, I don’t think we’ve faced an enemy such as this one since the Oblivion Crisis. I’m afraid that your services will be in high demand during the coming days.”   

“I think you're right about that. This situation seems only to be escalating - we will see troubles for some time yet. But now there seems to be a moment of peace for which we can all take a breath and, dare I say it, relax.” She let her icy blue eyes travel across the scene, she saw people coming together to defeat the threat of the Dwemer, many of them just normal citizens who had been forced into it. She had found though that there wasn't much a mortal man couldn't do when it came to life, death, and the end of the world. 

“Ah, but of course, my name is Raelynn Hawkford. It is a pleasure to meet you as well. I wish it were in better circumstances though. When we make it back to camp, I will brew you a tonic which will help you in the coming days as you heal, and before you tell me that you are okay, believe me I insist on you taking it. I will even brew some for your friend here, a bottle of courage and vigour would not go amiss in these hard times…” She motioned to Gregor, who had been relatively quiet while she had worked on Jaraleet. 

“Hmmm, yes, the situation is quite dire.” Jaraleet said in response to Raelynn’s comment that she wished they had been able to meet under better circumstances. “And I’m afraid that the situation will grow more dire as time goes on.” The Argonian said grimly, his eyes briefly darting to the battlefield. “Unless we find a way to stop the seemingly unstoppable forces of the Dwemer that is.” He continued on, letting out a sigh before he shook his head. “But that’s enough grim talk for today, we’ve survived todays battle and that’s good enough for the moment.” The Saxhleel said.

He smiled at Raelynn’s offer, bowing his head once again towards the Breton. “I offer my thanks once again Raelynn, I’m not that stubborn to not acknowledge the severity of my wound and any aid that will expedite my recovery is appreciated.” He said, smiling slightly. “After all, we all will need to be at our best for the days to come.”  

“We will indeed…” she uttered softly, knowing that the trip back to the refugee camp was in order.