[h3]Dead in the Water[/h3]

[@Dervish] [@Leidenschaft] [@Hank] 
[i]& a special appearance by[/i] [@Greenie]

[i]Early Morning, 15th of Sun’s Height, 4E208
Trailing the Southern Druadach Mountains, West of Falkreath Hold[/i]

[hr]


“I told you to stay back,” came a breathy pant from Raelynn’s lips in Sevari’s direction. Her ears ringing from the blast. The gratitude in her sparkling eyes betrayed her choice of stern words. Mazrah was as stable as she was going to be, for now. But it wouldn’t last, and Raelynn’s own energy was tapering out. Her hands unclipped the satchel at her side, revealing several glass bottles - only one had broken in the scuffle by the looks of things. “I need you here,” she said, lifting a golden vial and placing it on the ground beside the unconscious Orc beneath her. Then she took into her hands two vials - cobalt and gleaming under the sunlight.

“And let you deal with the Orc?” Sevari muttered low, still staring dagger-eyed into the distance where the beast had left.

Her fingers worked to uncork one, and she brought it to her lips, drinking it as quickly as she could and immediately she felt it’s effects take hold. Her body began to shimmer, almost pearlescent in quality and she groaned. It was a bitter tonic that she felt go all the way down and then some. The empty vial rolled to the side as she took in the second one.

There was something wrong with Finnen, terribly, terribly wrong. He needed her, and having done enough for Maz, her head turned to the direction of her fellow Breton. His body lay mangled and twisted in a crater that Maul had punched him into. “No,” she whispered as she tried to bring it into focus - the potion coursing through her veins had tripled her vision, and she brought her open palm to her forehead to block out the blinding sun. “Sevari!” She barked out at the Ohmes-Raht, “stay with her and give her the potion.” Raelynn’s voice was shaking, but it was not fear or emotion that caused that tremble, but the sudden reinvigoration of magicka into her body. 

“Alright, then,” Sevari took a knee next to the big woman, uncorking the vial he had. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it, but he figured there weren’t many ways. “You’re going to have to open up.”

He cradled her head, putting the vial to her lips and watched it go down, a small part of it dribbling down her strong jaw.

Her left hand shot up and grabbed Sevari by the collar of his clothes with blind, unwieldy strength. Mazrah’s eyes were bloodshot and out of focus, but they were open, and they stared up at him as he forced the potion into her mouth. She almost choked on it as she swallowed it down in her urgency to speak. “Maul,” she stammered, her voice hoarse and weak. “He did this, papa. He hurt me.” Tears formed in her eyes and ran down the sides of her head. Her face scrunched up and she cried, hurt and confused, like a child. “Why, papa?” 

[hr]

Raelynn slipped to her knees at his side. His three faces trembling in her eyes until they came together as one, a singular mangled mess. She found him in his bloodshot eyes. "Finnen," she said. It was all she said as the space between her fingertips and elbows erupted in white. 

Her eyes closed, her hands working against the sands of time as they drew closer to being empty. It was as though she could hear each grain filtering through. "Hold on, just hold on," she breathed - emotion missing from her tone. The Breton's head tilted as she connected to the magicka that had filled every gaping wound he had, bathing him in yellow like he was lying amongst a bed of sunflowers. He was so broken inside, every contusion and gash told a story and she relived it in her own body, she felt every echoed blow as she worked to stitch him back together. 

"Just hold on," she whispered, her voice cracked as emotion began to bleed through. 

“Grrgh...” The small Reachman’s lithe fingers brushed against Raelynn’s arm before dropping limp.

“Finnen? Where the hell are you…” Daro’Vasora’s voice called through the brush. In the aftermath of the fight with the Centurions, she realized that Finnen and several others were nowhere to be seen, and a deep-seated fear gripped her. The Khajiit hurried towards the back of where the party was and when she found Raelynn kneeling, she almost smiled in relief.

Then she saw Finnen.

“Oh gods…” she breathed, running over to Finnen’s side. The harm inflicted to him was grievous; he shouldn’t have still been breathing. Her hand reflexively shot to her mouth, dampness in her eyes. “Finnen!” she exclaimed, brushing the hair back from his forehead, she looked up to Raelynn wide-eyed. “Tell me how I can help. Please. What the fuck happened?!”

“You can’t,” Raelynn replied dryly, her gaze fixed on the wounds. She meant no ill-will by it, but fraught emotions could not be brought to the table. She was working hard enough to hold her own in - she couldn’t be responsible for Sora’s too. “Take his hand,” she offered, softly, after a moment. “Let him know you’re here, that’s what you can do.”

“O-okay.” Daro’Vasora replied, trying to collect herself the best she could. Raelynn’s cool tone help ground her a bit, but it at least implied that Finnen wasn’t…

No, it was best not to think about that.

She took the Reachman’s hand in her own, running her hand through his hair. She began to sing quietly, to help comfort him and distract herself from the visceral horrors wrought upon Finnen’s body.

“This one weaves a song, she'll sing it to you all day long... will you love her? Will you love her? She'll steal a thousand jewels, she'll even play the fool... say you love her, say you love her. Well, your father will never give his blessing, true, but let's be honest dear, that's what you want to hear…”  her voice sang sweetly, and slightly off key, a bawdy song she’d known so well from her youth.

[hr]

“Quiet, now.” Sevari said, glancing over at Raelynn and Sora with Finnen. He swallowed some of his nervousness, taking one of Mazrah’s large hands in his own. “It’s alright… It’s alright. You’re okay.”

His hands felt useless now that the serum was gone. He tossed the empty vial out of sight and settled for folding his other hand over Mazrah’s own, “He’s gone now.” Sevari tried at cooing, and for a moment he wondered at being someone’s Papa. The thought was pushed aside, not a time for wistfulness, he chided. His voice was as comforting a whisper he could manage, “He can’t hurt you.”

The delirium that drowned Mazrah’s mind in the fragmented memories of her youth was pierced by a moment of clarity. She stopped crying in an instant and gasped, for with lucidity came agony, and she worked her jaw through the pain until her eyes found Sevari’s face. “He has to die,” she breathed. A groan escaped her throat, raw from the rage-screams of her fight against the [i]thing[/i] that was once her brother. “The Dwemer… they did something to him.” Mazrah’s hand threatened to crush Sevari’s. “He’ll never be right again. I know it. He has to die.”

Sevari only nodded. “Yeah, I caught onto that pretty quick.”

He was a little relieved that Mazrah was no longer acting like a child. This big Orc was the last thing he wanted to play father to. “You think you can walk?”

She was silent for a little while. Tears welled in her eyes again and she averted her gaze. “No,” she whispered. Every part of her body ached and she was so weak that the hand she’d used to seize Sevari had already fallen back by her side, fingers trembling. She was alive, but that was about the extent of the good news. “You’ll have to…” she added and stopped, unable to finish the sentence. 

[hr]

Raelynn’s own cuts and gashes began to hurt the more that she tended to her wounded subjects on the battlefield. She briefly turned her eyes to the torn fabric, and torn flesh underneath from the grazing bullet of earlier, and there was a bitter bite to the breeze as it touched her hot cheek. As she pursed her lips in concentration, she could feel that blood had dried there, painted red cracks against her flawless porcelain skin. 

With her hands on Finnen’s chest, she searched for a heartbeat as wisps of magic caressed him. Thoughts of their conversation came to her - of the promises that they’d made each other under moonlight. Of payback and togetherness. They were together here in this moment, and she would payback the Orc in kind by undoing his violence. 

The Three Crowns infirmary came to mind too - of the last time she’d mended him, how she’d turned his rib cage back to how it should have been. His rib cage was in pieces now. Raelynn growled uncharacteristically under her breath, unwilling to bend to the desire of the God’s who had their clutches around the battered half-corpse beneath her. Raelynn had claws too, she wasn’t about to let merciless God’s win today.

She caught Sora out of the corner of her eye. The Khajiit looked so gentle and frightened while she painted harrowing images behind her eyes. A mournful melody became the only piece of ribbon holding her upright. “Listen to Sora’s voice,” Raelynn commanded - a contradictory fury in her voice that was folded in comforting silk - drowning in honey. “Let her guide you to us.”

A dead god come to life appeared behind Sora and Raelynn and cast his gaze down on Finnen’s broken form. Gregor, his armor torn by bullet and blade, face once again hidden behind his scratched and blast-blackened helmet that he had retrieved from the battlefield, had stumbled over to see if he could help his lover in any way. For the first time since his ascension to lichdom he felt a sense of exhaustion, and he moved in discomfort as the grave wounds the Centurions had inflicted on him healed slowly and imperfectly. There was a limit to the power of the magic that animated him, apparently. 

“Great gods of nowhere,” he whispered, his voice having half-returned to him. Finnen was on death’s door, that much was obvious. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Mazrah had been too, and it was only Raelynn’s intervention that had kept her alive. Gregor knew a thing or two about Restoration magic as well -- enough to know that Raelynn must have been exhausted. “I can help,” he said, his voice a little stronger now, as he stepped into her line of sight. 

Raelynn’s mind was too deep in her work, and her focus entirely on the man beneath her. The voice of the lich could have been as quiet as the coo of a dove or loud as the roar of a lion and it would have had just as little of an effect at tearing her eyes away. 

In the heat of it she stopped everything and leaned back from his body - watching, watching, watching. Her smudged eyes narrowed, an intensity radiated from her, and she held out her hand so as to stop anyone who dared disagree with her suddenly having stopped treatment. With bated breath she continued watching - nothing was happening, to Finnen at least. In the lengthy silence, the moment that seemed to take forever to pass, the blue of her irises was burnt out by white light, a shimmer that flickered over her face and spilled over her lips - from the crown of her head and out towards Finnen. Raelynn lowered her head, and then it happened.

The place where the man was most broken ruptured again and the empty cavity that was his chest filled once more. “There you are,” Raelynn muttered, and with a flash the energy that she had summoned left her, finding that very spot she had tested. Liquid gold flowed into Finnen’s chest, and Raelynn’s hand turned as if she was holding something in it. Her thumb twitched rhymically at the nothing in her hand. A gentle, beating rhythm. “You don’t get to die today,” she said with conviction - her jaw so incredibly tense, her own brow sweating from it all, the heat of the sun, the burning of the magicka, and the ache of the spent energy that was starting to riddle her. 

The hands of the Breton turned this way and that as each of Finnen’s bones moved and pulled back into place. She was the macabre artist sculpting a broken man from clay. The munificent auteur whose hands reformed his body as best they could from memory. The beautiful, graceful Latro of her memories becoming one with the warrior Finnen. His body would not be the same. His hair was limp on the ground behind him, stained with blood. Shredded in places from movement.

His body contorted under her will, ribs visibly popped and snapped as the cage locked once more. Ripples of movement crawled under his skin, bruises grew darked until they began to fade – leaving behind only redness. Finnen’s skin was left patterned with residual impact, but it was closed. It was just skin again, not a hole through him, not a rip nor a slash. What had been severed was whole, but there was no more that Raelynn could do. Her expression was blank, eyes vacant as water broke back through the blinding light to refill her eyes with colour again. But that was all, just colour. No life.

She swayed from side to side in her spot, her vision once again tripled and she couldn’t make sense of which of the three bodies was Latro. No, Finnen… Who? Had she put his pieces back in the right place? She blinked, her eyes were dry and yet they watered. The last drop of her magicka found its way to the teardrop that rolled down her cheek. “Was it enough?” she whispered out at the space between them. “Did I do enough for you?”
[hr]
The sky above was grim and foreboding, and a murder of crows that Raelynn vaguely remembered hearing earlier was now perched upon the broken and splintered branches that had surrounded Maul’s battlefield - waiting for scraps to pick at. Cawing out aggressively at the barren dirt. The woman had stepped away from her patients. It was Sevari who had lifted her from her knees as she had frozen there, so spent of energy that she hadn’t even enough to lift herself. The Ohmes-Raht had taken the help of Fjolte in moving Finnen to a safer place as she had suggested. The rest of the party had worked hard, against their own exhaustion, to erect a series of tents. Raelynn hoped she had done enough for Finnen, enough so that Gregor could maintain his condition until she was rested enough to try again the next day. And the next. And the next. Would he know what she’d done? Would Finnen know it was her? If anything was not the same with him - would he blame her for it? Would Sora?

Mazrah too had been moved. Left behind were two crimson outlines in the dirt, blood soaked through each. The evidence of what had been. Everything seemed slow around her and she couldn’t ascertain as to why that was. She brought her hands up to her face and peered at them, the kohl that had so delicately lined her eyes was now rubbed to smoke - blackening out her features like war paint, mixed with the deep red of blood, she looked in some way as if from a distance she could be mistaken for a Forsworn warrior. Painted to terrify, ripped furs adorning her. 

Raelynn’s blood. Sevari’s blood. Mazrah’s blood. Finnen’s blood. It was now just a series of odious stains. From fingertip to elbow, across her chest. She stood, trembling like one of the branches of the trees amidst the breath of the forest, a tired sigh of disgust at the bloodshed. The crows swooped down and into the pools, pecking for flesh. 

"I think it might be time for you to take some rest as well." Quiet yet clear, Sirine's voice broke through the sounds of the squabbling corvids. Though she had been one of the lucky few not to suffer any injuries during the sudden and violent attack, by the end she had found herself exhausted and in need of recuperating her wits. The former pirate had taken to catching her breath after escorting Calen to safety and helping what she could with the tents, which wasn't much. From her vantage point it had been clear that there were too many injured and not enough people to help heal them all.

It was one of those moments where she wished she had even the smallest drop of magicka within her. Alas, all she could do was watch, until now.

She knew the Breton mage still felt uncomfortable around her, and with good reason, but somehow Sirine felt that this was the moment when deeds of the past were pushed to the side to focus on matters at hand. 

"Come on," she continued, taking a gentle but firm hold of Raelynn's arm. "Let's get you to a tent."

“Are you hurt?” Raelynn stammered out in response automatically, falling in the woman’s grip to whichever way that Sirine was going to take her. There was not an ounce of resistance in the usually imperious Breton now. The fingers of each hand were crooked and splayed, rigid in what looked like an uncomfortable grip. Her eyelids fell heavy and she focussed on Sirine’s face after blinking past the initial blurring of her features. “A tent… That’s right.” At the realisation that she needed assistance, Raelynn looked at the Imperial with adjuring eyes, leaning into her for support. There was no time or energy to be uncomfortable with vulnerability.  

"No, I'm not," Sirine quickly replied, shaking her head in the negative as well. Even a blind person would be able to tell Raelynn was beyond exhaustion at the moment- she sounded depleted of energy and as if she would topple over if Sirine let her go for even a second. "I'm fine, I wasn't hurt, thankfully." A look of concern passed over her before she looked forward, spotting the closest unoccupied tent. Carefully placing a strong arm around the smaller woman, Sirine took the lead, making sure the Breton would have to make as little effort as possible to follow along.

It wasn't long before she finally pushed open a tent flap and ushered Raelynn within. It seemed someone had seen fit to furnish it with a bedroll at least, which was more than Sirine could as for, given the circumstances.

As Raelynn stepped into the tent, she breathed in relief - the privacy of it allowed her to reflect on the events. “Thank you,” she offered graciously. She brought her trembling hands to the buttons of her robe, unable to put a grip around the buttons. “Are you… alright?” she asked quietly, there may have been no physical injuries on Sirine, but perhaps she wanted to talk about it.

"I'm fine," Sirine replied, shaking her head slightly. It was hard to think of her own fatigue when the woman before her couldn't even unbutton her own robes. "Here... let me help you with that." Her eyes focused on the task before her, though her mind felt heavy, reminding her of even not too long ago. "Perhaps fine was wrong to say. This was a much too familiar reminded of what happened to my crew... an attack out of nowhere by th dwemer, violence, blood... you would think a pirate like me is used to such, but even the most seasoned fighters wavers when it is the blood of their companions."

Her lips tightened as she continued with her task. "They had gone out to scout, Meg... Zaveed." Even a glance had been enough for her to see that there was only one Cathay Khajiit amongst them, Daro'Vasora. It didn't make sense- those two would have warned the group of an incoming attack... but they clearly hadn't and they weren't here. "I'm worried about them."
It took a moment for Raelynn to register what Sirine had said, and she felt guilty for not having noticed earlier that Meg and Zaveed hadn’t returned. Not that she could be faulted for it, she’d been busy elsewhere. “I’m sure… they’re safe,” she offered, her voice hoarse enough to mask the comfort she tried to convey in her words. As she continued her thoughts on it, however, it did cross her mind that perhaps there was some foul play. Would Zaveed have betrayed them? She glanced at her hand, the scar was hidden beneath red paint. No, she didn’t think that he would.

The Breton blinked quickly, watching as Sirine undressed her. It was a strange favour indeed, but one she appreciated regardless. The robe then slipped from her shoulders, revealing a cream undershirt that had not been saved from the staining, but it wasn’t quite as drastic, or sticky, as the robe. “They’ll be back, Meg is good,” Raelynn said, taking her stiff arm and placing a hand against Sirine’s shoulder. “Zaveed can survive anything.”

It wasn't wrong, what she said. The little she knew of him, she knew he was a survivor, having got through probably worse shit than she had. As for Meg... the young Nord had travelled from Skyrim to Gilane and back and seemed all the stronger. [i]Still...[/i] How could two people survive those centurions and that monstrous being that was supposed to be an Orsimer?

She sighed softly before stepping a little back, looking at Raelynn. "You're right... we have to think positively." She didn't think either of them were weak, and she knew both of them were fighters. "If anything, they would be the ones to escape... perhaps try to find some help." She hoped...

[i]Focus on who is here[/i]. "You should lay down, recuperate. You've saved plenty today, but unless you yourself rest..." She paused before continuing, forcing herself to smile. "Anything I can bring you... food? Water?"

“If someone has captured them, I feel like they’d let them go quite shortly after. The two of them are… annoyingly verbose and loud,” Raelynn confessed, unsure momentarily if it was a joke to ease Sirine, or a genuine criticism she had of their companions. She was too exhausted to decide. “I… water, would be good. You should drink too… Everyone should drink, just not from the river… You should go upstream. There’s-” Raelynn cut herself off, she didn’t need to remind Sirine of what had been mixed through the water today.

That caused her to smirk, a small unforced twitch of her lips. She could agree with that completely- Meg and Zaveed knew how to talk. Surely they would be able to lift each others' spirits. 

Sirine nodded, tentatively reaching over to pat the smaller woman's shoulder. "I will, don't worry. Just... rest." Something told her that this wouldn't be the last time they would be needing Raelynn's expertise. "I will be back soon."

She didn’t need to be told twice. No sooner had Sirine left the tent, Raelynn had gotten down to the bedroll and placed her head on the pillow. The world became dark, but there was to be no peace that evening.