[h1][center]Shaft and Stormy Collab Deluxe[/center][/h1] 

Gilane, Hammerfell
3rd of Midyear, 4e208
Three Crowns Hotel, Infirmary

Shortly after a run-in with a Khajiit…

[hr]

The goings on of the infirmary had quieted down since the arrival of Raelynn, her only healing needed now was that of consoling her. So far, the staff of the infirmary was busy elsewhere, leaving a skeleton crew behind to manage things. One such attendant sat on his lonesome by the entrance to the infirmary, reading a book and utterly bored with how slow the day was. At least it wasn’t filled with the groans of the dying, he consoled himself. 

Of course, all good things must come to an end at some point…

Latro slumped against the wall, being accompanied by a squawking handmaiden that was very much in over her head at the Breton who’d stumbled across her worse for wear. Opposite her panicking, Latro’s sole purpose was getting to a healer. He had begun spitting up blood on his slow trudge back to the hotel and it hurt to breathe, sure signs of something deadly if left unchecked.

The handmaiden finally opened the door for him and he pushed past her, dropping to one knee and erupting into a coughing fit that left specks of blood on the floor. It was a few moments before he regained himself, “Healer, please.”

Bloody spittle was hanging from his chin as the attendant jumped to attention and helped Latro up and into a bed somewhere down the hall. It was quiet, and he couldn’t see anyone else here. How was he to explain his wounds to the others? The attendant said something in broken Cyrodiilic that must have been along the lines of ‘I will find a healer for you.’

He nodded his thanks and lay back, flinching slightly in his shifting to a laying position before finally settling down, a ragged breath rattling from him. Every breath was a shock of pain through his chest and his head still swam. He felt weak, his hands shaking before his eyes and it took him everything to keep them open. He didn’t know if he would wake again. Finally, footsteps were heard beyond the cloth privacy curtain around his bed.

In walked Raelynn, immediately pulling shut the curtain but not before casting a long glance to make sure they were alone. She had heard him staggering through the infirmary while she had been taking cloth bandages, and upon seeing him she instantly knew what had happened to him. “Latro…” she began in a more hoarse voice than usual. Her demeanor that of a timid creature - her gloved hands displaying tremors, particularly the left. “It was him wasn't it?” she drew her face closer to his, her eyes bloodshot and puffy as she began examining his face, turning his head from left to right quite intrusively. A shrill and anxious giggle escaped her round lips.

She took a cloth from the bedside table and began mopping away at the blood around his mouth as a wry smile danced over her mouth, and she gently caressed the break on his nose with her finger. “Mmmmm…” came the broken melody of the bard's song in a hum. “He did tell me he was going to do it… Looks to me like you were the mouse.” Her head tilted to the side in an unsettling manner before she clasped her fellow Breton’s nose quickly and expertly snapped it back into place - a sharp jolt of pain that would be followed by instant relief and a release of pressure. “Sorry, there’s no nicer way to do that I'm afraid.” 

Latro yelped as Raelynn set his nose back in place. The fact that they’d gotten Rae and not one of the hotel’s dedicated chirurgeons was surprising, and it would have been a sight more pleasant of a surprise if he didn’t notice how shaken she was. Bags under her eyes and a gauntness to her visage unsettled Latro and hung his mouth open. She was a pitiful sight. When she mentioned something about someone getting him too, he dropped any notice of the throbbing pain in his nose, “Who?” Latro asked, before he went to put a consoling hand on Raelynn’s own but she flinched away with a fear that made him all the more sad and confused for her, “Raelynn… who did this to you?” 

She yanked her hands from him with a subtle hiss of pain and then she shuffled back meekly, moving them behind her - out of his sight for now. “It was the cat, came to ask me about our dearly deceased Dwemer friend…” All of a sudden she grew paranoid, and once again peaked her head out of the curtains, “did he ask you too? Did you tell him?” The questions came quickly as she slid back to his side, her face inches from his - eyes welling with tears. “Did you see him? I didn't see him…” 

She stopped for a while, before noticing the bruising on Latro’s chest from where his shirt billowed open. She had to help him, she felt strangely close to him in that moment - an unspoken bond now existed between them. She wanted to remove her gloves. What she couldn’t find the words to say or explain, she would show. Slowly she took one from her right hand, revealing the wounds from Zaveed’s embedded claws - the punctures were closed now, but looked raw to the touch still. Refusing eye contact with her patient, she placed the newly freed hand on his chest and let her magicka flow in. She concentrated her energy into assessing the injury, closing her eyes and taking slow, meditative breaths “It feels bad in there, you fought back didn't you?” 

Rae’s nervousness only made Latro the same, regarding the woman with sad and concerned eyes as her own flitted and shifted about as if whoever had brutalized her would materialize from the walls themselves. When she removed her glove Latro winced as if the wounds were his own. What had they done to her? Before he could say anything to her questions, he winced and grunted as she put her healing hand on his aching and broken ribs. He found himself white-knuckle gripping his sheets as he could feel the bones themselves grinding on each other to reform.

When she was done, he lifted his arm to wipe a bead of sweat away from his brow, taking solace in the heavy breaths he was no able to take. Healing hurt almost as much as getting the wounds. Even so, he was more concerned with Raelynn, “Fought or no, you look worse than me, Raelynn.” He said, plainly stating it, “What did…” he hesitated on the question, wondering if he should ask it.

But if his suspicion was true, he would not let Shiburi walk Nirn again. Already, he could feel anger start to snake into his blood, “What did he look like, my friend?” His voice soft, trying to lessen the blow of the question, “Was he more cat or man?”

With Latro now stabilised, Raelynn took to the seat beside him, remaining at the very edge of it, bouncing her leg nervously on her heel as she mulled over his question. She held the moment for a painfully long time, as one leg bounced animatedly, she tapped her other foot against the tiled floor, the heel of her boot echoing in the prolonged silence. She exhaled lengthily from her nose before finally breaking the silence she had commanded, “he didn't want me to see him. There was a bag over my head… A dark room. He had a dagger - more than one.” After several more deep breaths, she turned to the Breton in the bed, and gently ran her fingers through the long strands of his hair that framed his face. “Your hair is almost longer than mine…” she remarked while forcing a shaky smile, her voice wavering. She knew she must continue to tell him anything of interest. 

“Latro…” her tone was low now, with a terrified pain beneath it. “He was going to kill me in that room. He was going to kill me and he wouldn't think a thing of it. Man or Khajiit you ask? He was a [i]monster[/i].” She used her right hand to wipe at her eyes before hurriedly standing, reaching for the cloths again to continue cleaning him up. 

He tried to force a smile of his own when she admired his hair, the touch that was supposed to be soothing instead making him feel like his very skin would crawl away from her fingers. It was an odd thing for Raelynn to say, but she looked to be in the grips of mania. He knew what that was like. It was only a few years ago, less years than the fingers of his hands could count when he had taken nails and a hammer to the skulls of his rapists and abuser. No amount of time or sorrys could heal those wounds on him, and he remembered being as shaken and scared and alone as her. It was because of this he had to restrain his own emotions. Whoever had done that violence to her was mortal, and mortals bled. He finally sighed, “Mine had a voice like a sabercat’s growl. A face like a man, but a tail and claws still.”

“He fought like a beast. But if he wanted to kill me, well…” he let the silence tell it for him, “He…” he paused, wondering just how much he should tell her about his meeting with Shiburi, or whatever his real name was, if that wasn’t it. “He told me about another. Far more brutal than him, and if I and…” he had to look away and force the tears back for a few moments and his first few words came at more ragged than the rest, “If Sora was to survive, if all of you were, I would do what he asked of me. You must not tell the others, Raelynn. I’m to meet him in a few days’ time.”

He looked at Raelynn with heartfelt eyes, “They won’t corner us like lambs. I’m so sorry, Raelynn. I wish I could have been there with you.”

“Funny… Mine said he would harvest us all one by one.” The way in which she spoke was almost melodic in tone, lackadaisical in fact. She could hear Zaveed's vicious words ringing in her head over and over. She looked at Latro lying there in the bed, held her gaze for a while on him. An intense thing to do to the boy, she broke off her stare with a fervent chuckle that rasped from the back of her throat; “maybe I'm still there. Maybe this isn't real… I did dream down there. I thought that… I had a dream that Gregor saved me. He undid the work of my captor and whisked me away in his arms and I was safe.” She traced a clean, damp cloth across Latro’s neck gently, removing all the traces of the violence. “But then I woke up in darkness. I don't wish you were here -- [i]there[/i].” 

She placed the blood stained cloth back on the table. He almost looked as good as new, and now she sat down on the bed placing a hand on his leg, above the sheets. “You wouldn't wish you were there either Latro.” A grim emptiness fell over her eyes, her expression plain - hollow features enhanced in the lighting of the room. She cleared her throat abruptly, a faint warmth returning to her face once more “I won’t tell if you won't. I don't… I don't like my stories being shared around, and I don't want our friends to know what happened to me.” 

“I won’t tell another soul. I promise that.” He nodded. “I don’t think any of us should wander alone for the days ahead.”

“How did you get free?” He asked, looking at her hand on his leg, looking at the rawness of it.

“He left me for a while, he made sure I couldn't leave, I passed out for a moment and then when I woke I fought my way out of there. Blood, sweat, tears. He left me no choice.” The memory of finding her strength to escape brought some steadiness to her, as if reliving it by telling Latro was a kind of therapy. She began to feel relief hit her. 

Raelynn removed her hand from his leg and finally took off her other glove. The lesions on her skin were purple, her knuckles almost black - and the entry point where the nail had been was a clear puncture through the centre of her palm. Closed now, but frightful to look at. “It's quite something…” she furrowed her brow as she looked at her trembling hand outstretched like that. She almost smiled, finding solace in Latro's company. She brought both hands to her lap. “Enough about it. We must protect the others, how do you know it's not a trap - what if something happens to you? What then?”

“Then why not take me right then? He almost [i]fucking killed me[/i], Raelynn.” He said with a bit more anger and panic than he ought to, “He’d have had no problem subduing me and bringing me wherever he wanted and doing whatever he wanted to me. He spared me for a reason, he said he was pressgang’d into Dwemer service too, and even [i]warned me[/i] about his brother.” He said, shaking his head, “He even started out the entire thing saying he wanted to give me a choice between meeting him or doing what his overlords commanded of him.”

“And anybody who could fight like he did ought to be listened to when they spare you your life, as much as it pains me to say. I either go and meet him, see what he has to say, or I spring his trap and they kill me or capture me. If I don’t go either way, we will all be dead.” Latro shrugged, his eyes becoming distant as he remembered the fight, if he could call it that. Imagining Shiburi visiting the same brutality on Raelynn, or Meg, or even Calen. “Either way, I’m here now.” He said, a forced smile twitching at the corners of his mouth before it became a bit more sincere, “Maybe I was beat to shit, but I’m alive yet. Thanks to you.” He said, his usual soft smile upon his lips once more. 

His eyes went to her hands, gnarled and bruised, “What are you going to tell Gregor?”

“We could just gather everyone and run. What [i]really[/i] keeps us here?” What had just seconds ago rinsed away, was apparent once more on her face - anguish. “They're not normal. They will say anything, do anything to us. For nothing more than their own amusement,” she felt an echo of Zaveed’s hand brushing her cheek, causing her to shudder. “The only way we get out of this is to kill them before they kill us, he told me that this is nothing but a game, Latro.” 

An innocent clatter of a tray and equipment in the distance made Raelynn jump up from sitting, her head turned in the direction of the sound until she laughed dryly at it. 

At the mention of Gregor, she tilted her head to the side again and began to pull the gloves back onto her hands. “I will tell him nothing, I just don't want him to look at me like that… Like I was the girl who got kidnapped.” a sigh followed. 

Latro only nodded. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to speak of it. He had his fair share of that sentiment, whether it worked was lost on him, and he’d gotten so accustomed to just being someone else for long enough that it had seeped into the core of his being like the roots of a tree. “Only we will know, then.” He said quiet and somber, almost a whisper. “We can gather the others, try to plant the seed in their heads about leaving this place. As much as I hate the Dwemer, I hate what’s happened to you more, Raelynn. My friend.”

[i]Friend?[/i] A strange thing to say, she thought. They had barely spent time together on the journey so far. All of these people in their group just so willing to toss the word around. That said, after today - after this? She would say the same. Her spiteful nature betrayed her emotions. “You’re still going to seek him out though, aren’t you?” she asked, sounding half-interested and as if her attention was pulled in two different directions. “I tried to get them off our scent, but they know it was us. All they need is one of us to say something, you know?”

“I do. I am.” He nodded to the questions, “My curiosity at his proposal is setting me on edge. I need to know if this is his game or if he is being true. He didn’t kill me, he didn’t take me in, he didn’t ask a single question about our antics in this city.”

He shook his head, “It’s all just… [i]curious.[/i] I’m not ignorant of the danger, no, but there has to be something more to him. I need to find out what this is.” He said, chewing his lip before he turned to Raelynn, “I’ll at least tell you when I go to meet him. Perhaps I’ll convince one of us to come along. I won’t meet him alone after knowing what they’re willing to do.”

“You must be careful Latro. Especially of mine - of the second one. He cares for nothing.” She moved to his bedside once more, placing a hand on the crown of his head. “You must tell me when you go - please. So I know. Nothing I can say to you will convince you to take any other action, I know that.” Gently she brushed her fingers through his hair again with a hesitant smile. “You really do have nice hair, and eyes too. I never noticed before.”

Latro had to hide his face away lest the red in his cheeks show. “Thank you.” He managed, “I’m sure bards write songs of yours.”

He sat with his hands over each other on his lap, easy smile on his lips. It wasn’t often he was given compliments, even the crude and disgusting ones he used to get when he was in the brothel, earning instead of spending. Despite the excitement of the past weeks, he let himself sink back into the bed. Rae’s touch was motherly, tender. So unlike the rough, callused and wandering hands he’d had to endure being a whore in Wayrest. Under Raelynn’s touch now, though, he couldn’t help but to resign himself to the very much needed calm it brought. “I wouldn’t blame you for not noticing me,” he said, almost dreamily, “We haven’t talked until now, and it’s regrettable that we didn’t meet in better days. You could’ve seen me play in the inns, I miss doing that.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to see you properly for looking down my nose at you if we’d met in better days, as you call them.” Raelynn hadn’t ever admitted to being so judgemental and snobbish out loud before. It would almost make her laugh if it didn’t sting so much to confront herself with it.

“I didn’t know you played music,” her tone surprised, and her eyes lit back up at the thought of Latro singing. “I love music - maybe when this blows over I’ll join you for a song.” Once again, she hummed under her breath, swaying from side to side invitingly before she changed again, as if a switch was flicked internally; “if we all make it out alive, that is.” she muttered it in a saturnine manner and she fell still in her seat again.

Latro’s calm had seeped away from him as he saw Raelynn once again slip into her gray mood. It was so erratic, her changes in emotion. It hit him too close for his liking, almost wanting to throw the blankets from himself and scurry away. But he vowed he would never do that, not after what he had been put through in Wayrest for too many days to count, nor did he ever want to. He vowed to stand and bear witness. He forced himself to sit facing her, bare feet finding the tile. 

“We will.” He uttered to his friend, looking her in the face, though her eyes did not meet his. He chanced inching closer to her hand with his own, finally making a hesitant touch on her fingers with his. Progress, he thought, just maybe. “We will.” His smile on his lips.

“I hope so,” she spoke softly with a slight smile as his gentle touch met her fingers and brought her attention back onto him. She allowed her other hand to fall on top of his, giving him a light squeeze in acknowledgment, “I'm starting to like everyone in some way now. Getting soft I think...” Raelynn got herself out of the chair and stretched with a long yawn. She was exhausted still and knew that rest would do both her body and mind some good “It seems that the day is escaping us, maybe you should rest here for the last of it.” Finally she looked him in his eyes again, finding comfort in their rich copper hues - “Thank you, Latro.“