"Interested in what? Taking these rejects back? You guys aren't with us for a reason, so make your intentions known or leave."

“Actually we--” Dirk began, but it must have been a rhetorical question or one where the answer didn’t matter. Either way, the reject comment stung.

“And you, you've got some fucking nerve showing up after setting us up in the grotto today, just what exactly where you trying to prove, Ulrich?" Damien is yelling now. Everyone else had fallen silent. When Helen stepped out of the palanquin, she braced herself, "So he's gonna try and kill me twice in one day? Your boyfriend sure has lost it, Helen." More Sea Tigers had made their way into the gateway. The dancers that had been shouldering the palanquin hissed in return.

A woman, a doctor by the looks of it, ran out, getting in between Damien and the palanquin, blocking him. "Damien, you've been through a lot today, now's not the time to be looking for a fight." 

Helen felt Damien’s gaze heavy on her, she stared back. Curious. The woman placed her hand on his cheek, turning his head to face him, in a move Helen had often used herself once upon a time. She couldn’t help feel a pang of sadness. It goes to show though, that whoever she was, she clearly didn’t know O’Shalna well enough to see that his threats were empty. 

He was annoyed. Severely raging, even. But there was no way he’d fight a bunch of seemingly unarmed girls. And Dirk.

"On the contrary, doc, a fight's just what we need." The orc, drawing his sword, followed by all of the Sea Tigers. "Now speak up, all of you, or we can end this right now."

“Maybell..?” said a small voice from the gathering crowd, “Maybell? Is that you?”

One of the belly dancers smiled. Their arms opened up and they sunk to their knees as a pixie child slipped past the legs of soldiers and beyond the narrow bars of the gate. 

“Winslow… darling… lovely boy, is that you? Look at you, you’ve grown so big!” 

Another voice, “Fatima—hey beautiful! How about a dance for old time sake?” This time a Sea Tiger in uniform comes rushing forward to pick up another dancer bridal style, “I wasn’t sure it was you at first, I’m sorry. About what I said at the wedding… about everything.. I’m sorry.”

One by one each of the dancers were called out to by people in his village as someone they loved recognized them. The tension in the air dissolved, the majority of the crowed was buzzing with excitement. 

Helen smiles weakly, “We brought them here as a peace offering... despite our differences… we’re still family, right?” she watches as the doctor excuses herself into the crowd where apparently her presence is needed, “I don’t know what you mean about the grotto—come on let’s talk about it. Alone?” she holds open the flap of her grounded palanquin and waits for him to enter.

Damien looks around, is about to say something. And then looks resigned, “Okay.”

Inside of the small tent, the air is filled with electricity. She motions for him to take the seat on the plush floor pillows across from her and then silence. They hear the dull camaraderie of the crowd as both Selene and the dancers entertain the crowd and loved ones do some much needed catching up. 

“So…” he begins wearily, he still feels the weight of his tired bones. His face was passively eyeing the lavish décor. Even Helen seemed to be avoiding his gaze directly. 

More silence.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“Livid” 

“That’s not going to change anytime soon is it?” Damien shook his head, honestly. Helen nodded, and then to his surprise began to unbutton her shirt “I’m going to give you a chance to say everything. And then I’m going to tell you about what’s been going on”

“What are you—where is Ulrich?”

“He’s waiting for you back at our base. Relax let’s just get this out of our systems now before things become more complicated.”

“Like fuck we will!”

“Like, fuck we will.” She agreed.

Like adults they quickly came to terms, however-- he wasn’t a gentleman about it. She couldn’t blame him though. His bandages complicated matters at first—he flinched each time she would accidentally graze one of his wounds, knocking her hand aside, grimacing. This wasn’t about affection. It was about the fact that he couldn’t hit her, and so he channeled his bitterness and frustrations into one small coordinate in space. The movements were devastating, almost painful; but extremely satisfying for both of them. It had been far too long, the buildup too great, and the thought of consequences along with their sense of autonomy had long since flown out the window.

When they were finished and dressed, she immediately scraped what was left of herself off of the overpriced pillows and headed to the laptop and began click-clacking away at it wordlessly. Damien was a little surprised, although he realized that the last thing he wanted was to bask in any sort of afterglow. 

“You should sleep. This is probably going to take a while.” She said, her eyes never wavered from the screen.

“You don’t have an off switch, do you?”

“I do. In fact you were just flipping it repeatedly a moment ago.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel guilty?”

Greenish glow and white strings of code flew across her face; she was only half paying attention to him. “I think I’ve got a signal.”

“Great. I’m going to get the others.” It was awkward, he leapt on the excuse to leave, but when he tried to stand he found himself unable to move, from the waist down “Could you…?”

“Yeah, hang on.” She spent a few more moments typing furiously at the screen before, pulling back the cloth door of the Palanquin “Selene?”

The bodyguard poked her head through the flap of the door, “Yes?”

“You know what to do.”

“What?” Damien’s expression was confused and felt angry but he didn’t know why. 

Selene’s features melted and stretched into Damien’s form. She smiled and then turned towards the camp, coughing, she started with “Men, I’m not feeling well… I’m going to let them take me back to Ulrich’s so that I might have at this alone… Don’t look at me like that Orc. That’s an order. All of you. You look terrible, heal up and I’ll be in contact soon!”

Damien finally having registered that he was being kidnapped, swore “Mother fu-”

“A mild tranquilizer. It’s no use trying to get up.”

He ran a mental checklist and sure enough. He felt a tic-tac sized bump on the inside of his thigh. Oh fuck. She wasn’t kidding. “….You didn’t have to do this, I’d have just cooperated if you told me what the hell was going on.”

“I lied. Ulrich is missing. I didn’t know if you’d agree to help us without wanting to do things your way; we don’t have a lot of time, time we really don’t have at this point.” She glanced over her screen, “Relax we have a long ride ahead of us, I’ll explain everything on the way there”

The palanquin rose unsteadily and they began the long journey to the city.