A Thief in the Night (Ssanya, Belugnir, Lee)

[Shiress]

83rd Day
Summer 518

Shiress sat in the bottom of the ravosala, tucking her legs beneath her, fingers desperately trying to tug the foul, brown toga, something the Larks felt female slaves should be humiliated to wear for their own amusement, over her knees. To Shiress, the poor excuse for a garment was a waste of coin, she could have wrapped a bed sheet around her self and tied it at the shoulder, saving the slavers a copper or two.

On the opposite side of the ravosala, an array of multicolor shrubs and plants were being quickly piled up by a merchant and his helper to be delivered to the Lark floating garden before dark. Syna's rays had long dipped westward and the pair were rushing back and forth between the shop and the boat at a reckless pace.

Standing up on deck, Kylar, Shiress's entourage of one, as well as her guard, stood watch over the proceedings, hand casually resting on the hilt of his sword. Kylar was a wonder to the Lark Slave; Kylar hated the Larks and hated slavery. Shiress watched him and, not for the first time, wondered why he was in the employ of the largest slave trade family in Ravok. She had watched the young man desperately pull a man, a commoner no less, from beneath a collapsed roof and help Shiress save his life. She had watched him speak gently to the man's young son, hug him, and then carry him from the rubble.

Also not for the first time, Shiress wondered who he was spying for.

Kylar's sudden unsheathing of his short sword caused Shiress to sit up straight. The guard was looking back toward the city, obviously seeing or hearing something that the slave could not. Kylar took off at a run toward whatever had caught his attention and Shiress contented herself with staying put, crossing her arms over her chest. After what had seemed a bell, but truly was only several chimes, Kylar came jogging back up to the ravosala and the look on the young man's face already had Shiress climbing for the dock.

"You need to hurry, two have been injured," the guard visibly swallowed, "and I think its bad."

A

Beautiful Boxcode Credit to Firenze!

[Belugnir]

Ein and his newest... acquaintance would have been about their own business of carrying some goods around as the day was approaching its eve. Namely, he'd have spent the day acquiring some supplies about the city, on Samara's account and with the coin she'd had provided him with. Prior to setting out to complete Alentha's errands, however, he would have visited the first half decent tailor in sight, for one - to spend a couple silvers of his own so that he could get Anya a clean change of clothes, a plain pairing of shirt, trousers and walking slippers, and for another matter, to leave the hide of the black wolf that'd assaulted him on his way to the city so that the thing could be fashioned into a right and proper cloak.

Regardless, Ein and Ssanya would pass by the dock where some folk were loading a many-colored mess of flowers and other flora into one of them oh so sacred Ravokian long boats, and though Ein lingered a brief moment at the scene, it was hardly more than an odd passing sight.

He had a rather hefty bundle of tools, hammers, knives, long nails and otherwise, carrying it under his arm, while in his other, he carried his sturdy poleaxe, using it as a walking stick, sooner than carrying it with self defense in mind... for he was still rather weathered from the incident that befell him as he came to the city several days prior, though, in spite of this, as ever, he wore his full set of armor as he walked the narrow streets... it had become a thing of habit.

As for Anya, being reasonably reluctant to entrust her with anything that might give off the impression of a weaponized object, Einar would have tasked the girl with carrying a crate containing some preserved food, salted meat and whatnot, that was meant for Samara's boys up at the Northern Outpost.

Throughout most of their runs, Ein preferred to remain a couple steps ahead of Anya, so that he could both lead the way and keep her just barely in his field of view, and the same was true as they turned into an particularly narrow walkway, merely a couple of corners from where he'd seen those folk laboring with potted plantlife. It would be several dozen feet afterward that Einar would recall a pick-up he wasn't certain they'd filled in.

''Hey, shortstack, you wouldn't happen to recall...'', he'd turned his head fully toward the girl as he spoke, whether it was by grim instinct or by a lick of luck, it really didn't matter. There was a flutter of cloth and the dig of boots quickly changing direction, and from behind a wooden structure they'd just passed, emerged a figure, hands fast at drawing forth a dull glint of steel, and with a stern expression frozen upon the lips beneath their hood...

Einar was mildly groggy and sluggish from his overgiving half a week ago, sure, but he didn't bloody well survive twenty and somethin' years snooping around Sunberth just to have some cockin' northman gut him in a fancy alley o'er a handful of silvers... him or his 'slave', for that matter... and thankfully their assailant had a decent few paces to cover, allowing the mercenary some minimal opportunity to react. Without even considering, he'd let go of the bundled cloth, and as he turned his body around, Einar swung his weapon over the canal beside them, using its handle, gripped near the head as though it were a bat in reverse grip, and at the end of this motion, his other hand would have followed up to shove Anya out of both his and the attacker's way, hardly gently at all, and would practically slam the lass into the construction of the building beside them unless she'd been quicker than Einar in taking note of the cloaked bastard and moved on her own.

As for the prick who drew a dagger at them, he had the reflex and the luck in Einar's current weakness, to stop his own momentum before the steel coating at the bottom of Ein's poleaxe got to crack the side of his skull... and thus, the poorly balanced hit would have left a pause, one in which both the assailant and Einar would leave themselves open for an instant... the cloaked bastard out of plain surprise at his victim's rather speedy reaction, and Einar due to his shoddily placed footing.

[Allassanachassanya]

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83rd Summer 518
"Speech"

Ssanya lugged the heavy package with little grace, for it was bulky and cumbersome. At the start of their little foray around the city, the crate hadn't seemed so bad, but now its weight and awkward shaping meant she was shifting the position of it frequently enough for it to be annoying her and presumably Einar too. Ssanya looked around as she carried Einar's crate, studying the layout of the city. It was, after consideration, a beautiful looking city. Not a patch on Alvadas' façade from a few seasons ago. No, Ravok was nothing similar to that after all. There were plentiful canals, some footpaths, but most people seemed to get around on the slim boats that were pushed around by long poles.

If Ssanya wanted to escape, she would have to work hard. It was clearly going to be a difficult task. At the current moment, she thought it an impossible task, truly. In the meantime, she would keep an eye out on the city as they did whatever business Einar had, and..-

Her immediate thought as the hooded, cloaked figure rounded on the pair of them was that she had been found out already. Her heart jumped into her mouth, and she had no time to react properly as everything happened before she could make a proper reaction. Einar's shove knocked the crate from her grip and the heavy wooden container tumbled with a loud clatter to the floor. The contents sprung from within, dense rolls of salted and preserved meats, sausages, shrivelled and dried fish, all now wasted on the street. Ssanya was sent flying backwards from Einar's push, and she stumbled over her feet and the obstacle of the crate and clanged her head against the wall.

Dazed, she immediately dropped to the floor, her head spinning and pounding in pain. Through slit eyes, she watched the would-be attacker, or thief. Though she had no love to Einar, they were united against a common foe, and so she lunged as well she could towards the cloaked stranger, making an attempt to grab his leg to distract him. Her hand made contact with his leg, she grabbed hold. It didn't last. The stranger kicked her away, and Ssanya let out a hiss of pain as she pulled herself out of the way, sure she could help no more.

She was propped up against the wall where she'd fallen and to her dismay her neck began to grow warm and sticky- blood. She raised her hand and dabbed at the blood as it flowed from a cut at the back of her head. It hurt as she softly touched it, but she simply held the back of her head and watched Einar, biting her tongue to deal with the throbbing pain emanating from the back of her head.

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[Belugnir]

Ein was the one to find his wits, a moment sooner than the attacker, though that barely helped him, as he had to get back into a reasonable stance before launching an attack, as otherwise the only thing he could accomplish was to trip o'er his own feet for a poorly aligned strike at his enemy... So he retaliated, and set himself firm upon the ground within a breath, before seeking to thrust the pike of his poleaxe into the cloaked alley rat. An attempt that the nimbler, lighter equipped and better rested fellow avoided with only slight difficulty, just before Anya got to grab at the bugger's leg, and caused him to leave an opening as he kicked her away.

Now if street fights had any prevalent rule, it was that all other things take a back seat 'till whoever happens to be on the opposing side is either dead or beaten. Einar had no mind to spare for the girl, likely bruised by both himself and the assailant, instead, he exploited the chance Anya's clumsy attempt gave him, and managed to catch the assassin's forearm under the hook of his axeblade, pulling the bastard off balance, and seeking to present his face nose-first to the steely knuckles of the gauntlet upon his left arm, yet as he came to accomplish this, his opponent was able to reach for a spare dagger within their belt, and as they were dragged toward the armored mercenary, they would have dug the short blade into Ein's ribs, under his risen arm... something that Einar was rather incapable of reacting to in time.

So as the robber stumbled back with a broken nose, dislocated jaw, and at least a quarter-dozen missing teeth, Ein gasped in sudden pain, as the long knife managed to slip its way into his worn down chainmail, through the thin padding underneath, and to dig into the flesh of his left breast... Thankfully, in the midst of their momentum, even though the force behind the dagger's thrust was amplified, its alignment was shoddy at best. Thanks to his armor and a considerable strike of luck, what should have been a lethal, heart-piercing stab ended up a moderately deep cut across where Einar's chest met his left shoulder, and though the wound was not lethal, it would be a horrible hinder in a prolonged fight. Ein had dropped his primary weapon in the midst of shock at the sudden pain... and rather than attempt to move with a bladed weapon embedded in his tit, he held his left arm upward, grabbing hold of the handle that stuck out from under his armpit, before dragging the dagger out, taking as much care as he could manage not to end up cutting deeper into himself... He would take considerable bleeding over having a hunk of metal dangling around next to his innards.

Thankfully, having one's face smashed in by a metal gauntlet was a rather good means of incapacitating a bastard, and so it was with their attacker, who ended up laid across the ground, clawing at his ruined mug as Ein walked up to the whoreson and firstly stomped heartily upon their belly, kicking out any air the man might have held within him, but before he could lower himself and stick the prick with his own dagger, he'd heard a voice from where Anya ought to have been knocked to the ground.

''Hold it, you petching animal!'', a voice as coarse as Einar's it was. And as he'd turned with bloodshot eyes and teeth grit in pain, Ein would come to see an accomplice of the bastard he was just about to gut.

Unless Anya could muster the reflex and strength to break away from a combat-able man nearly twice her size, this second whoreson would end up taking her into a choke, so that they'd both end up facing Einar, and the man would only call out to the mercenary as he'd stuck a long blade under the girl's throat...

Normally, Ein would have flung the dagger in his hand straight at this cocksucker's face sooner than giving it a blink... yet he froze, giving a perfect opening for the most hesitant of his attackers, a third man, far slimmer, younger, and more indecisive, to leap over the canal, straight onto the mercenary's back, lathing on in a shoddy attempt at shoving yet another dagger into the space between Ein's neck and left shoulder. With the weight of another nearly grown man resting on his back now, Einar fell, thankfully without hitting his head upon the pavement of the docks, and once again he couldn't afford the luxury of thinking about the slave girl's well-being, as his world was reduced to a blur of wild flailing, flashing steel and horrible grunts and growls the likes of which men should never be reduced to uttering... finally, as the two tumbled upon the ground, Einar, with his left arm practically useless at the time, managed to headbutt his weaker opponent straight across the nose, which opened the bastard up to having his buddy's dagger shoved straight into the side of their throat... meanwhile, Einar, thanks to his armor, only suffered several more lacerations, namely upon his left shoulder, where his coat of plates ended up unbuckling and exposing the paddling underneath... however any wounds dealt through the chainmail and cloth were eligible for ignoring, a real issue would have been one nasty gnash upon the left side of his neck... One that he pressed his good right hand to in order to prevent the bleeding, just as soon as he'd pushed this dead whoreson off of himself...

Weakly, he rose up to see a fourth man, donned in black, as he was tying the arms of the first attacker behind his back... and at another glance to the side, Ein would come to see Anya, freed from the second assailant, traumatized or otherwise as she might have been herself, the bulky, likely the strongest of the three attackers was laid cold upon the ground, with an ample hole in the back of his head... likely caused by the bloodied shortsword that the fourth bugger was holding as he'd restrained the bastard with a broken jaw...

Before Ein could find the strength to speak up, to ask or to properly check on Anya... he would need to keep himself from bleeding to cockin' death on the spot from the slashes he'd suffered, and he could only do so by pressing his bare hands to the wounds... at the very least until this fourth man came back with any sort of aid. The bugger sorted out one of the murderer wannabes, hopefully he wouldn't leave the two of them to up and fuckin' die in the street.

[Shiress]

The slave followed her guard back into the city, the merchant and his helper were no where in sight, and the rest of the milling Ravokian's were suddenly interested in anything other than the scuffle that had apparently just happened. No doubt thanks to the current upheavel by the city guard and Ebonstryfe with their deplorable searches.

Shiress scanned the awkwardly distracted bystanders absently, then abruptly did a double take at one in particular fellow. The blonde man looked like any other in the masses, perhaps a bit more stylish and handsome than the average, but it was what the young man held in his hand that had caught Shiress's keen eye. A doctor's bag. The girl sidetracked from Kylar's path and approached the man, hand reaching out to gently grab at his wrist.

"Sir, are you a doctor?" she asked, her voice urgent. Once the stranger confirmed her suspicion, Shiress tugged at his arm, not giving him much of an option not to come along, with a muttered, "come, there are injured," hopefully prompting the doctor's own motivation.

Shiress fell back in behind Kylar just as the guard's pace slowed, and as he sidestepped to stand beside a man that was sitting with his hands behind his back and mouth agape as if he was completely astonished by something, Shiress took in the scene before her with a sweep of her emerald gaze. Three men were down, two unmoving and one other pressing hands against wounds. There was a woman sitting against a wall, blood flowing freely down and around the back of her neck. The apprehended man's eyes darted around, his mouth still hanging open as if his jaw had become unhinged. With that thought, the slave suddenly realized the man's jaw must be broken. She shivered.

Shiress's eyes and attention instantly jerked back to the three more severely injured and with a gentle prod, she directed the doctor to the worst of the trio; the pair of bodies lying prone and still, as she made her way to the other. The man was tall, from what the slave could tell, and his dark, unruly hair stuck to his sweat dampened, sharp-featured face. A handsome face, Shiress thought. Kneeling down beside the stranger, she caught his copper eyed gaze and gave him a reassuring smile, "My name is Shiress," she said, hand gently pulling back the man's protective fingers from the wound above his heart, "I'm going to help you, but I need to see."

To the slave's immense relief, the blood flowing from beneath the man's protective grip flowed evenly, lacking the telltale rhythm of a beating heart that would indicate an inevitable death blow to the heart itself. Shiress replaced the stranger's hand, encouraging hard pressure, then moved to his neck, again pulling back the man's insulating grip, then promptly replacing it again.

Within two chimes, Shiress knew that this injury was, indeed, a potential death sentence. The wound bled freely, though not deadly, but it was the subtle, tiny jolts of crimson that forced its way up from the steady flow that placed a rock in the slaves gut; the strike to the man's neck had nicked the large vein running down its side.

"Kylar," she called, getting her guards attention, then glanced down at the injured man, "Hold firm pressure here, okay?" she whispered, before returning her attention to Kylar, "I need his armor removed, please." The Lark slave guard didn't hesitate at the order, something Shiress would invest her thoughts in at a later time.

Standing, the slave hurried to the side of the young doctor, fingers gripping his shoulder in an alarmed attempt for his attention, but, while aiming a smile at the woman, Shiress went rigid, her face draining of its color. The female had moved and hissed in pain the movement caused her, quite literally.

Dhani..

After a moment of shocked hesitation, Shiress ripped a long piece of cloth from the hem of her toga and hastily wrapped it around the Dhani's head. As she knelt close to the woman, fingers working a knot into the bandage behind her head, Shiress whispered, "Your friend is hurt badly. we need to see to him first, but keep your head down and mouth shut at all cost, your kind is in great danger in the city, I'll explain later if I can."

Straightening to her feet, Shiress licked her lips, refocusing on the young blonde "I think he's got a nicked artery." she said, voice quivering, as her hand indicated the man she had just left, "we have to do something...now!"

A

Beautiful Boxcode Credit to Firenze!

[Lee William]

Lee was glad when other people started to show up. He had seen the beginnings of the fight and been terrified of it expanding to encompass him as well. He was a scholar, not a fighter. So when others Ravokians arrived, he carefully inserted himself into the crowd - insulated by their protective aura of mass. The battle, the savage nature of it, reminded him of Sunberth and their incessant street battles for control over dirt and rundown houses. He had hoped Ravok was above such degenerate shyke. A city of high culture and cloak and daggers, not messy street brawls between two groups of dirty people.

Lee reached down to find the comfortable handle of his dagger - already imagining the glory of drawing it and tossing it at the nearest assailant and running away - but he felt safe in the crowd for now. Lee looked to the dead and dying - no one of import would miss those people and it seemed the action was mostly over by now - perhaps it was time to head home - he could head for the morgue later to do a little autopsy and learn more about the human body.

That was when he saw a woman briefly lock eyes with him and then look to the kit hanging over his shoulder. 'oh shyke.' The crowd gave him some space and eyes were upon him. Too many eyes. Too late to run away. For a brief moment he hesitated, then the woman spoke again. Urging him into action and Lee sighed and stepped out of the protective anonymity of a crowd. He felt laid bare as the eyes followed him. Lee took in the scene, the victors had been the beast of a warrior and a woman. Made sense to try to aid them - as aiding their enemies would only gain him a blade between the ribs. Lee began to build up confidence in himself - 'you can do this, you can do this.' he took a deep breath.

The woman moved to the beast of a warrior - Lee supposed he would go and see if he could aid the injured woman. Lee knelt beside the woman by the wall. Giving her a cursory glance - it seemed her body was unscathed. He placed a hand on her shoulder. Partly to get her attention, partly to check if she was in shock.

"Don't worry, I am here to help you." Lee spoke softly, his voice a little more soothing as he interwove the voice with his djed and added a suggestion to his speech. The djed moved freely with his tongue - he was not as skilled in bedside manners - which was why he had painstakingly begun to research hypnotism to aid him. "Let me see." He said as he moved her hand to see the wound at the back of her head. A cut, blood flowing free, some hair caked and sticky with blood, but it didn't seem serious. Lee gave the woman a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine." He said, with a voice infused with his djed, as he gave another suggestion to calm the woman. "You will need some gaze, or bandage to -." A hand on his shoulder. He looked to the troublemaker who had gotten him into this mess. Her face drained of colour when she looked upon the patient Lee had been working on. Had he missed something? He looked to the man undressing the still living man. A little early to begin looting people - could at least wait for him to die. Lee turned to the woman as she finished whispering something to his patient. Explain something later - what had he missed now?

"Nicked artery, what do we do about that?" He whispered hurridly. That was way beyond what he was able to do. He could clean a wound and reset a bone - but actual injures beyond that was beyond him. His confidence began to falter a little.

"Sew it shut? Bandage and lots and lots of pressure?" Lee suggested.

Wc: 678.

[Belugnir]

Ein was already feeling his grip upon the steadily bleeding gnash at the root’s side of his neck weaken when the blur of a fair face came looming over it… though whatever the woman said was heard as if through a layer of water, slowly thinning as Einar placed renewed effort into keeping his senses about him… So the black one did bring help…

He had only grumbles and grunts to give as the woman went removing either of his swiftly weakening hands to check the injuries underneath, for a moment he’d have struggled against her pull on the simple, instinctive notion that she’d wished to quicken his bleeding… a rather reasonable fright to have, especially for a child of Sunberth’s streets… and even more so considering the fact that three buggers whom he had nothing to do with on his mind just tried to openly gut him in the street… Frankly, Ein was far from used to a stranger’s kindness.

As the woman gave up pressuring his injuries to the fellow in black, Ein had regained enough reason and sense to spare half a mind for Sanya, casting a gaze over to where she’d be, even though there was frankly nothing he could do to help her… The cock do I care?

‘’I’ll be petched…’’, Ein snorted, trembling a laugh in his weakened voice, as he’d overheard the uncertainty in the speech of the folk who’d apparently showed up to help. Instinctively, he’d gone and tumbled over to lay on his right side, unknowingly slowing the flow of blood up through both the gnashes the slightest bit, as Kylar came to hold a firm pressure upon the wound with one hand, and begin unbuckling his armor with the other to expose the slash on the left side of his chest.

So this bugger likes to prod a needle at a man’s slit neck, mighty good that'll do...

‘’Save your sewing… for the patches on ye trousers’ arse… Either press and bind me bloody neck or… hand me a clean cloth… and sod right off... so I can do it meself…’’, Ein spoke, pigheaded as ever, yet with a shiver of his teeth, a sickly tremble in his jaw, and with cold sweat starting to roll across the whole of his body… meanwhile the hectic imagery about him was constantly fading into a horribly annoying blur.

‘’It’s as if none of ye gawkers… ever seen a bleedin’ man, petch sake.’’


WC: 410

[Allassanachassanya]

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"Speech"

Everything in Ssanya's body tensed as she heard the woman's whispered words of safety. She did as the woman said, having not caught what her name was when she'd spoken to Einar, over the grinding sound of her own blood in her ears and the other noises of the city. She sat still and peered through half-closed eyes at the ensuing event unfolding before her eyes, grateful for the basic first aid given to her but wary of her own tenuous position as a Dhani in the city.

She watched, her eyes tracking the movements of the two doctors, trying to ascertain anything about them that could be of use. But, of course, Ssanya was not exactly well-versed in spying and understanding. From what she could see, the woman who'd helped her was dark-haired and the man was blonde and square-jawed. Such helpful information...

She sighed and gently pressed her fingers to the wound on her head, but she suspected it wasn't as bad as she'd thought. Einar, however, seemed worse. If not from his speech, which was as stubborn and grumpy as it had been since she'd come to know him, but from the way the two strangers hovered over him with worry shining clear in their eyes.

There was little she could do to help the man, but she wondered why she even felt like helping him to begin with. He was her captor after all... But was he, really? Wasn't it more like the city itself was her prison guard, her slave master? Einar seemed as oddly reluctant to own her as she herself was to being owned.

A tiny, green shoot of guilt began to unfurl in her stomach over her dismissal of the man's injuries, and she studied the fallen man a little closer. He really didn't look good. Ssanya's lips drooped into a frown and she shuffled into a better position. So, she couldn't help in a medical way, but what else could she do?

She cast a sideways glance at the female doctor and quietly rolled onto her knees whilst trying not to draw undue attention to herself. She began to crawl over to their attackers, at least, one of the ones that had been felled. He was dressed in dark clothes, and his face was a caricature of twisted anger. She barely spared a glance at his face, instead going straight to rummage underneath the weathered black cloak to search for a pocket or coin purse. Anything to tell her who the man was, if he was one of the Guard of the city... That thought chilled her, terrified that she had been found out, somehow. It seemed the female doctor had easily discovered who she was, so perhaps she wasn't as protected as she thought.

Growing steadily more paranoid as her headache grew in magnitude, Ssanya finally found a leather carry case and fumbled to undo it from his belt. Once she had, although her fingers were beginning to shake, she undid the simple clasp and looked inside. To her dismay, there was absolutely nothing except a crumpled piece of parchment that had been flattened out, baring a small sketch of a symbol. It looked like a diamond, with six facets, with two sides coloured in black. It could mean anything, and it was of no use after all. Not knowing what else to do, she slipped the note into her palm and lay back against the wall, her head really starting to throb.

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[Shiress]

Shiress gave the blonde doctor a hard look, something of annoyance in her squinted, green eyes. "Sow it shut?" The girl very nearly rolled her eyes at the man. "Go take care of her," she said, pointing to the young female with a more minor head injury. Shiress turned to the nearest bystander, a tall, muscular, bald man, who, judging by the blood smears on his white apron was a local butcher, "Can you go for the nearest healer, please." The man bobbed his head by way of a reply, then disappeared around a corner. The slave then turned to the next bystander, dismissed him, and went straight for a heavy set man lifting a water skin to his lips. With two swift steps, Shiress snatched the water skin from the man's fingers and another in passing from an open bag. Lifting a hand, she pointed to a woman, standing nearby with two children at each leg. A mother, perfect, she wont be squeamish. "Help me here, please." wordlessly, the woman fell into step behind Shiress.

Slave or not, when someone's life was hanging in the balance, Shiress became another person altogether.

Assessing eyes took in the man's condition as the Slave knelt back down beside the prone figure. The man's face, from what she could see beyond the five day old stubble, had grown steadily more pale, his eyes less focused, but when they alighted on her own, she offered him a reassuring smile. "Good news" she said, placing her small hand on his chest "I couldn't find any thread."

Below the palm of her hand, the Slave could feel the man's heart fluttering and pounding against his ribs like a caged bird desperate for flight. She frowned. Too much blood loss. Renewing the smile, she spoke to the injured man again, not sure if he could even hear her at this point. "I know you are an ornery bastard" thin lips broke over her teeth in a widening smile "but I have got to stop the bleeding and I'm going to need you to be very, very still, okay?"

Not waiting for the man to respond, Shiress gently pushed his hand aside, getting a good first look at the wound. It was the length of her longest finger and half as deep. Shiress let out a hiss as the movement pulled the gash open and blood spurted out in time with his heartbeat. Grabbing the water skin, she worked quickly to wash away the blood, but the crimson tide was just as fast replaced by the river of fluid coming forth from the wound. Placing her hand over the wound, Shiress looked to her female helper, handing her the water. "Slowly pour this over the top of the gash, keep it steady, letting it flow over the wound and I'm going to see if I can see whats bleeding." The woman nodded and tipped the skin over the opening in the strangers skin.

As the water flowed, Shiress's deft fingers gently spread open the wound, careful eyes watching closely as the water washed away the small spray of blood, once, twice, thrice "I see it!" A small geyser pulsed deep within the wound, hidden beneath bloodclots and other, more unrecognizable things.

With learned precision, the slave slid a finger deep within the wound, pressing it's tip gently -very- very gently against the bleed, careful to not completely cut off the blood flow. Fearful of movement, Shiress dared not even breath. Glancing sidelong to the woman, sweat slid down beside wide, worried eyes.

"Where is that petching healer?! I may have just gave this man a stroke.."

OOCNo need to reply unless ya just want to, I'm just petching around for Med skill

A

Beautiful Boxcode Credit to Firenze!

[Belugnir]

Ein merely rose a brow at the mention of good news, and snorted a painfully weak breath of laughter when the apparent absence of needles and thread was announced. And though he could not muster a reply when the woman spoke to him he did come to hear every utterance. Ornery, huh? You wish you knew..., his attempt at parading a smirk only yielded trembles from his lip. At the point where the girl went to move the hand Ein held to the gnash on his neck, he hardly had much say in the matter, for the man barely felt the limb in question, an ominous puddle of blood having already pooled under where his shoulder rested. Yet he could almost feel his skin turning white as he'd gulped on shallow breaths. Shyke its cold...

And then she began poking about the slice through which Ein's life was fleeing... and the mercenary grit his teeth with a horrid creak and did his best not to toss his head back and let loose the worst river of howled profanities that this city had ever bore witness to. Ultimately, his unfeeling hand ended up clutching with hysterically locked fingers at the edge of the woman's garb, his breath turned heavy and wide-eyed glare becoming ever more of a blur. He felt all the warmth left in him begin to cramp together in his chest, pounding as if it would burst. Shallow breaths turned into a long, unorderly wheeze.

It was not long after Shiress yelled out at the crowd, not a chime, in fact, before the fellow she sent out came back with an elderly woman in tow, and one that bore her own set of encased tools meant to fight injury and disease. Old gran hardly spared a word for the two women who were stood over the bleeding fellow, instead rushing over to take a knee between them, over where Ein's head rested. It took her a glance to acknowledge Shiress' rather successful short term effort to stop the bleeding. Rummaging through the case of supplies she'd carried along, the elderly woman soon tucked a blunt knife of grey steel, a clean cloth and a bottle of spirit at Shiress' previous helper with the simple imperative instruction "Soak and clean it up."

As the broad blade was coated in alcohol and wiped clean several times over, the old healer kept hurriedly rummaging through her supplies, with an occasional glance at the lad and the woman who kept her hand pressed to his wound. Finally, she produced a small, circular wooden container, and, placing it upon the ground, took the sanitized dagger back, holding it in one hand and bringing the other over the blade. A scarred glyph, the telling sign of a reimancer, seared fiery red upon the woman's palm, and as her djed oozed out, the blade of her dagger swiftly heated to a dull red... then, with a shaky hand, she would offer the handle up fir Shiress to take.

"Press the broad side over his skin, first where he's bleedin the heaviest. The wound needs to blister up and stop bleeding this instant or he's as food as gone.", she pointed to the little wooden salve case she'd unveiled previously. "Spread that ointment over the wound after you sear it shut... And remember, we need mild blistering, don't char the sod's neck to coal black.", the old woman was a seasoned healer and an arcanist, yet her prime years were well behind her, and she would rather not carry this fellow on her soul should her hand slip. Thus she entrusted the man's life to the one who set out to preserve it ahead of her. Yet even so, gran's tone was commanding and firm as she gave out her instructions.

WC:634