The Healer's Dilemma (Caelum/Open)

[Kavala]

Timestamp: 40th of Spring, 510 AV Location: Just outside Riverfall Purpose: Medicine XP, Social Status: Open - Tag Caelum Windsong was acting nervous. The stallion snorted and stamped as they rode carefully, following hoofprints from the Zavian mare that had slipped her fence yet again. The horse was high spirited, but above that she was adventuresome. This was only the second time Kavala had to chase her down and bring her home after bringing her home from Endrykas during the spring horse purchase. The mare had foaled out just fine, but hadn't really seemed inclined to stay home with her offpsring. A rich chocolate color and on the larger size, the mare would be a great mount for a traveler who had need of a horse that wasn't simply afraid to go new places, especially places where there were no roads or trails. And so the pair - a Konti and her buckskin stallion - walked sedately and carefully following what looked like an obvious set of hoofprints. There were kicked over rocks here, broken down grass there, and obvious oval impressions most of the rest of the way due to the fresh rains. Kavala wasn't used to Riverfalls rainy season yet, and for all that the populace celebrated, she herself wasn't a fan of rainwater. Seawater was a whole different story to the Konti, but the fact that a half a season of spring mud followed the rains wasn't her idea of ideal. Last time she'd chased Vinka, she'd found her gorging on spring grasses and hadn't had trouble throwing a loop over her head and bringing her home. This time, though, Kavala was worried. That worry shone through when she heard a nervous nicker that her stallion Windsong answered immediately. The little buckskin danced nervously and carried Kavala into view of a sight she hoped never to see. Vinka was hock deep in mud, her forelegs trapped, and trying to rear her way out. It was obvious what happened too. The mare was running, probably for the sheer oy of it, and not paying attention to where she was going and charged straight into a bog that was freshly recharged. Had it been a ten or fifteen days earlier it would have been solid ground. Ten days beyond and it would probably been a fully recharged little lake. But just after the rains it was deep treacherous mud. Kavala swore softly in Pavi, dismounted Windsong, and gathered rope off his yvas. She walked forward, studying the trapped mare, with no clear idea of how to either get to her or get her out. The mare also had scrapes, cuts, and a gash on the muscle of her rump where she must have fallen going into the mudhole. "Vinka... lady... why do you do these things to me? I know you're young, but you're seriously lacking in common sense girl. What in the world are we going to do with you?" She said, walking carefully around the edge of the mudhole, looking for boundaries and trying to get ideas to get the mare out.

[Caelum]

"Problem," an unfamiliar voice threaded through the musical dissonance of drizzling rain fall. It was not a question, the singularly uttered word, but a statement laden with a sort of amused resignation. Problem, he said, giving the situation a name and, thus, granting it power. The quivering canopy of trees splattered rainbows against the worn slick of his raised hood. The dapple gray Windrunner upon which he sat, clearly at ease and in long practice, twitched her ears and was turned to glistening mist in the magnificence of what some would consider to be a dreary afternoon. A duck of his head and of narrow, rangy shoulders brought him out from the shadowed edges of the copse, Vega plucking her hooves delicate as the rain drops against the barriers of the mud hole even while whinnying at the caught colleague. From within the shadow of his hood, a pair of burnished eyes peered, caught in a face that was sharp featured and too thin, perhaps. A hand clad in a fingerless glove rose, crumping his hood back a bit in order to gain a better vantage and, in the action was a revelation of the beginning, fluid curve of copper and gold horn, liberally speckled and splattered with dreams of celadon and flecks of emerald gemstones. Trapped, these colors, between seasons and squished into a distillery of their potential glory. "Need help then?" Already, however, he was dismounting in a swing of long legs clad in weathered and worn leather and the silent shattering of rain drops dismissed with a shake into the lessening drizzle.

[Kavala]

She wasn't good with strangers. Certainly those with horns and a non-blue skintone especially put her on edge. Kavala caught her breath at the sound of the voice, caught unaware of the riders approach between the rain and her concentration on the mare's dilemma. Her blue eyes were doe-wide and her body froze, as if one false move would have set her into a bolt. Training kicked in and she immediately let go of the rope while she assessed the stranger and his mare. Noting his seat immediately, the condition of the horse, and the strange inflection of his voice - she paused. Pale fingers traced with iridescence crept up slowly towards her waist until they curved around a long slender tube danging from her belt. A second hand loosened a dart from her belt in the small of her back. Fear coursed through her, a strong and piercing sensation that would have at the end of winter completely crippled her. It was spring though, and she'd been training hard. Kavala's training was half self defense and half self empowerment - no one was going to take the konti unaware again if she could help it. Though she carefully schooled her face into a neutral expression, if the stranger was halfway intelligent, he'd feel the fear as a tangible thing almost building a wall between them. Another woman perhaps would have judged the mares life not worth her own and fled, but that was hard for the Konti to do when she felt the mares pain and fear like it was her own standing so close. Kavala's very presence had calmed the mare some, but like all animals, they fed off tension they sensed and when the second rider approached Kavala started radiating tension like crazy once more sending the mare into sheer fear. "I..." She started to speak but the man was already swinging off the frostmarch's back. "No, not me. Her..." It was the absolute dumbest thing ever to say, but it gave her a chance while the man was distracted swinging off his mare to load the dart into the slim dart gun hanging off her belt. Gods forgive her, but she had no idea what his true motive was and she wanted to be ready. What she wasn't ready for was the shaking that started and the involuntary step backwards she took. She wasn't ready for the cold sweat that was spreading across the small of her back and the instinct warring within her to run. Behind her, the mare called again and Windsong answered, both animals distraught. The stallion, running loose, paused to paw at the ground as his fierce eyes scanned the area looking for whatever threatened his mistress. There was nothing imposing about the buckskin strider though. He was, if anything, small for his breed and built as if made for a slight rider - a child or a konti.

[Caelum]

It was the eyes. They caught him up like butterfly wings, tangling him rather than themselves in the net. Their color stole his breath, recollecting to him the eyes of another lady, far-seeing and fate-struck. The fear in them was contagious, rising the same from his bones until it felt as though his ribs were contracting their cage against his lungs, squeezing the breath from him, liberating his life from this bitter and bedamned shell. He had stopped moving, stopped speaking, going almost unnaturally still even as leftover rain spilled Syna's tears down his cheeks. They were in need of a shave, smeared with a coppery haze. "Lady," he spoke at great length, automatically acquiring the voice he had learned through too many years spent both treating victims and, of late, being a victim himself. It was a voice instilled with patience, with assurance and composure despite all of it's awkwardly accented inclinations towards otherworldliness. "My name is Caelum. I'm returning to Riverfall, heard the mare here, came to investigate." He hesitated, watching that wariness of the Konti, thinking of it caught within the limbs of both the child who had dragged him out of the waters of the storming Suvan Sea and, always, always, of Lillis and starfish and gold-painted windowsilles. The corners of his eyes flinched unintentionally thinking of that home they had made invaded, destroyed. The thoughts washed away quickly, shoving down and back, fallacy to linger on them overlong; and with dramatic display, he spread both of his hands out to show they were empty of weapons. "Here," he said after a hesitation. With his left hand, he proceeded to strip the glove from his right hand, shoving up the sleeve of his worn jacket and the linen shirt beneath and holding out his hand. "Look. I swear on Rak'keli's grace I mean no harm." There, on the back of his hand, was the swirling, unmistakable gnosis mark of the patron goddess of healing. It was, queerly perhaps, possessed of a habit to glitter more gold than the other colors in it's opal hue. Not even a forsaken ethaefal -- perhaps most especially not a forsaken ethaefal -- would dare put to risk the blessing of any god, no matter how embittered. They would be, after all, far too educated on all the ways in which such things could go wrong. In, perhaps, evidence of this, there were thick, terrible scars encircling his wrist, marking him with what were now invisible manacles. They had, and not so long ago, been very, very real indeed.

[Kavala]

The Konti dragged a breath into her slight frame, held it as if it was her last, then expelled it violently - the sound of it seemingly startling her. He knew it did because her eyes were still caught in his. It was only the sudden expulsion of breath that freed her from the moment and allowed her to glance down, take in the mark on his hand, and take in the scars. Her lips relaxed and reshaped into an 'o' that seemed flavored with the strangest emotion - rage. They were both strangers, but in that almost timeless moment, Kavala saw connections. Rak'keli linked them - as did some nameless faceless violence in the past. It wasn't an easy bridge to cross, even if she could see it clearly from where she stood on one side. Just the sight of those connections was enough to stop her shaking. She relaxed slightly, her hand slipped from the blowgun and she stepped forward. "My name is Kavala..." She said softly. "And I'm sorry... I just am not good with strangers and you startled me." But it wasn't about her, Kavala reminded herself sternly. In the first breath of meeting him and the tenth breath of taking in his words, she suddenly had clarity. "You're Ethaefal... a fallen. I've only heard of your God-touched form, not seen them. I... and Rak'keli marked." She remembered pain, the acute sensation of the Ethaefal she'd met - his confusion and sense of paradise lost. Taith was a gentle soul. She wondered if Caelum was forged from the same steel. "I'm Rak'keli marked too... but my gifts don't lie with people. Her distress... is distracting. I can feel her fear and exhaustion. It muddles me a little." Kavala hoped he understood. She thought he might. The marks around his wrist reminded her of dark places in her memory, and spoke of the unspeakable so she trusted when no one was worthy of such a thing. The Konti dragged in a deep breath, released it, and seemed to settle and relax in front of him. She glanced over her shoulder at the mare, her steady gaze meeting the creature's warm brown eyes. Steady. Easy. All will be well. Kavala thought at the mare, knowing the animal would easily pick up on her physical signals. Vinka seemed to calm slightly until she altogether halted her struggles to free herself from the mud. Vinka would be fine for a moment. Kavala turned back to Caelum. Her hand reached out, her eyes sweeping downward, as she stretched her arm out while stepping forward. Her blowgun swung at her waist forgotten as her longest scaled finger gently touched his outstretched wrist, tracing the evidence that he was once violently restrained in a feather-light touch. There was a sadness in her look, though pity was completely absent. Soft eyes, so doe-like mere moments ago, slowly transformed into something fierce and dangerous. She glanced up, met his gaze once more and held it. There was kinship in her eyes, a sense of understanding that was mixed with her own small rage. "The world is not always kind." She whispered softly, then stepped back almost as if willing the two of them to start over. When she spoke again, her eyes were on the mare. "She's a foolish thing, and a terrible broodmare. But shes fast and fearless and will make someone a tremendous traveling companion. I had hoped o move her onward to someone who would appreciate her finer qualities. But this.... I didn't count on. I've a rope, but I'm not sure its going to be enough." She added. "I'm... a healer of animals... I run the boarding stable and horse farm on the outskirts of town. It's called Sanctuary. This mare belongs to the facility. Do you... have any ideas as to how to get her out?" She asked, taking another deep breath. Kavala reached down, dipped her hand in the mud, and lifted her digits to stare at them. "It's sloppy and deep. No wonder shes stuck." She said thoughtfully, her back to Caelum - studying the situation.

[Caelum]

Caelum did understand how it was that the distress of the horse could muddle the sylphan Konti. He had, after all, a great deal of familiarity with the plagues and promises of that race. The tension eased from his muscles as she appeared to realize it was unnecessary to defend herself against him, his tall, too lanky frame sinking a bit indolently into a slouch. Behind him, Vega snuffled soft distress against his shoulder, displeased with the overall situation. Caelum, however, was momentarily frozen by Kavala's touch. The scars were ugly, ugly as the rest of him, truth told, to his mind. His fingers flickered, but he allowed her touch, holding himself eerily still. It was something learned, that stillness, that patience, and not a thing he had known almost two years ago. "People are not always kind," he corrected her in smoke addled voice, a hint of exhausted amusement quirking the curve of his mouth. The gods are not always kind, he failed, for once, to add. It was difficult, perhaps, in the wake of being marked. Yet, hadn't he always been so? His attention shifted, focus narrowing upon the mud-stuck Zavian. What smile had suggested itself to his mouth, charmed and even sunlit warm, faded into a thoughtful scowl. At length, he turned back to his Windrunner, digging rope out from the well battered depletion of his saddle bags. "If we can loop her," he made his suggestion slowly, "In a manner not unlike the yvas, so she won't be choked, and then with the help of both Vega and your own buckskin there.." He trailed off, remaining words unnecessary. He had never been for much of them. He meant, of course, to essentially use the other two horses to help haul the first free of the mud. The trick to it would come in first getting the Zavian properly tied in and then keeping the lot of them calm.

[Kavala]

The Konti nodded, turning back to him for a moment. "Yes, that is a more accurate description, isn't it? But I would like to think, sometimes perhaps because I am more of a fool than that mare, that people are like they are because the world is damaged. Even the Gods are to some extent, Caelum. I like to think sometimes we only reflect the damage we live within. Of course, that might just be an easy excuse for doing the easy thing rather than always the right thing." She said firmly, then turned back to the muddy scene. Kavala spoke briefly in Pavi, her accent perfect as if it were her first language, as she called the buckskin stallion to her position at the edge of the mud and fastened her own rope to his yvas. The other end she left on the ground for the moment. She sighed and looked resigned for a moment, stepped out of her boots, and stripped down to the foundations of her clothing. Then she looped Windsongs rope around her small frame and took Caelum's rope as well. Then she did something astonishingly stupid. She waded out into the mud, depending upon her light size and her slight frame to press herself forward. Caelum could see the windmarks etched across the small of her back and up branching along the crease of her spine. He could also see the etchings on her skin that contrasted against the swirling of the scale patterns that ran across her shoulders and spiraled down her back. Someone had taken a knife expertly to the girl - with a thin sharp blade - and left their designs on every inch of her skin in what he could only judge as an incredibly painful fashion. Kavala had bled before - many times - and was no stranger to suffering at the hand of another. "Don't ... let go." She requested softly. It wasn't an easy trip out into the mud. Every step the girl took slowly became a sort of swim as the thick mud coated her body and forced her to push forward, pause, push forward again, until she got to the mare's side. Her only lifelines were Caelum's rope and Windsongs tether. At the mare's side finally, she rested a moment, then dived completely under the mud to try and encircle the mare with rope and fasten a makeshift yvas around the beast. Caelum could tell it was exhausting work. Kavala moved slowly, purposely, trying to do things the correct way first and taking the time she needed to do so. The Konti wasted no motion as she worked, but the Ethaefal could tell each movement in the muck cost her. Even the Zavian, now that she wasn't feeding off all the tension in Kavala, seemed to settle down nicely as well, her mud covered head hanging forward - already tired. When she was done, the Konti started back for the shore. Both ropes formed a sort of harness around the mares barrel and chest. Kav used them as a sort of guide rope to move slowly forward, extracting herself from the mud until she finally crawled up onto the shore. No longer white, the Konti was the same color as the mare half buried in the mud.

[Caelum]

"The weak use the excuse," he agreed, having canted his chin in curiosity as she spoke. "The strong, well," a flicker at the corners of a mouth that could be mistaken for cruel, "They try to make the right choices no matter the damage. Don't you think?" Only then Kavala was stripping down, leaving Caelum's eyebrows rising before he thought to look away. It was an ethereal sight, the swirling patterns of both windmarks -- windmarks he could not but recognize -- and scars over that expanse of creamy skin and well toned limbs. It was the scars, however, the darkened his expression and he shrugged out of his cloak and then his jacket, shoving them into Vega's saddlebags to spare them from ruin. Within minutes, his shirt was plastered to a hard, too thin frame by the drizzle and then by sweat. "I won't," he muttered the reassurance when she asked him not to let go, catching one end of the rope and sinking down into a corbie's crouch on the edge of the mud hole. The embers in his hair dared to glow a bit in the weak sunlight and silence descended as he watched and waited, not wanting to interrupt her work. The strong, he thought, watching her haul herself back through the muck and mire, truly rise above all excuses. He wondered about her gnosis mark from Rak'keli. He had failed to comment upon it when she had mentioned it earlier, but then that was unremarkable. He was not exactly a talkative, outgoing individual. "Here," he shifted once she collapsed on the bank, digging a scrap of clean if crumpled cloth, a handkerchief worn, from a pocket to with gentle moves deftly wipe her face clean. "You did a fine there, Kavala," he added. "Rest for a minute, eh?" A rider's grace rose him back to his feet, the ends of the ropes in hand. He whistled lightly to his Windrunner who pranced warily over in response, quite as if she had a fine idea of what he wanted. A calloused hand rubbed lightly at her muzzle, calming her with words uttered so quietly that their meaning became lost in the pervasive lullaby of the rain on the trees surrounding them. Within a few minutes, he had Vega looped into the other half of the ropes in the same manner that the Konti's buckskin was. They made friends over the oddity of the situation, it seemed, shouldering up against each other.

[Kavala]

Kavala still didn't know what to think of him. Caelum showed insight and strength, but there was a hardness too him as well that made Kavala more than a little wary. It didn't seem directed at her, but she knew people and understood that they could become one thing in an instant and another thing as the moment passed. The Konti climbed the bank, dropped to her knees, and rested a moment. She suffered the man wiping her face with his handkerchief knowing he was meaning well even though she truthfully didn't like to be touched. "Thank you." She said again, for the third time as she caught her breath then climbed to her feet. Her gills were coated with mud, and even though she didn't use them above water and hadn't in the mire, she needed them clean so she could stop feeling like she was choking. Windsong had a waterskin hanging from his yvas and she made free use of it, pulling it off and upending it first over one side of her neck and then over the other. Mud ran in streams off her shoulders but she paid it no mind, washing the thick organic paste from her skin until the flaps protecting her delicate underwater breathing ability could flex open and shut again. Kavala was done by the time Caelum had Vega harnessed up. She hurried - knowing ever moment they waited the mare would weaken - to take the opposite side by Windsong's shoulder. Speaking in Pavi again, the Konti walked the stallion forward until the ropes were tight between him and the mare - then waited until Caelum did the same. Then both animals, acting as a team, slowly began moving forward while the Konti kept her eyes on the mare in the mud. She screamed, tried to rear, then surged forward a few steps - the horses on the bank giving her enough strength to free her hocks from the slowly cementing muck. To Kavala's mind, it was a painfully slow process. Both mare and stallion heaved forward slowly, one step at a time, their ropes straining. While buried in the mud, the mare moved forward slowly as if freeing each hoof from the knee high mud took incredible effort especially since each step meant another trap. Kavala called boldly to the mare in Pavi, pitching her voice full of confident encouragement that even she herself did not feel. "Come on Vinka... another step... just another..." The Konti urged, letting the buckskin stallion pull with Caelums mare while she watched back to the mudline and lingered, trying to coax the mare further out of the mud. It took half way to forever it seemed to Kavala. Time moved with the slowness of tree sap in the cold of winter. It oozed forward setting time with each of the mares steps until finally hooves struck firm soil and she scrambled the rest of the way up onto the bank where she stood in taught ropes, flanks heaving, head hanging. Her whole body trembled even as Kavala stepped behind her and urged her even further forward. She didn't' want to the two animals pulling to release their grip yet because the mare could easily stagger backwards in her exhaustion and land back into the mudhole.

[Caelum]

Caelum put his own back into hauling the Zavian free of the deadly mire, though his primary focus was forced to be the handling of Vega and then Windsong as well once the worst of the trial was complete. The moment the Zavian was on solid ground and a safe distance from the barrier of the mud hole, he quickly ducked beneath Vega's neck in order to free the horses from the intricate coils of rope which bound the three of them together. "Shh," he murmured, "You're heroes now, aren't you? Well done. I promise I'll find you some hot mash for dinner tonight. Somewhere." The rest of his words faded into a vague murmur, head bowed as he worked. Horses freed, their leads looped loosely in a well marred hand, he approached Kavala, a warrioress vision in the mud and rain of the dying day, and the liberated horse. A critical, visual inspection was given the Zavian and, at length, he said, "I wager she'll recover well enough. Might want to use an echinacea and kelp wash on all those cuts."