Fingers of pain crawled across Aidan’s body as if he were being swept down a river with jagged rock, every inclination of movement given a raw sense of appreciation by a host of unsettled nerves. It radiated from betwixt shoulder blades and the nethermost ribs of his torso, a cruel mistress who delighted in the cook’s suffering and made it difficult to breathe. But that was the least of his problems.
Something warm also trickled from the back of his scalp, but without a desire to assess his injuries midst a warring band of liquored sponges, Aidan’s gaze brushed the tavern’s floor with hazy eyes in search of his antagonist. Clutching the charms chained around his neck, he pressed them firmly to the fleshy wall above his heart and muttered a prayer even he himself could not be sure his lips had bothered to say.
A giant wall of sinuous blue muscle clouded his field of vision one moment, and then strangely dispensed itself to the side the next. Confusion toppled upon a foundation of miraculous faith instantly, eyes forgoing their pained expression to search for an answer in a most curious way. This took but a moment to find, a stranger’s hand reaching down and offering to pull him back up.
Not one to question the first sign of hospitality he’d seen since this brawl started, Aidan took the hand and tried to wipe the agony from his face of having to be moved at all. ”I almost had him, you know,” choosing a humorous tone to diffuse the severity of their situation, a toothy grimace accompanying it. ”Thank you,” he offered more solemnly, an unused arm clutched across his abdomen.
But just like that, the lull was torn from them, a mug shattering against the other’s shoulder, a bead of brilliant crimson quickly bubbling from its fleshy center. Ceramic shards fled in every direction like a flock of white birds taking flight from a predator that had suddenly appeared in their midst, prompting Aidan to shelter his eyes from a few pieces that bounced harmlessly across his paling cheek and forehead.
When he felt the danger had abated, his dreary gaze opened back up to find that his hero sent by Kelwyn was already facing the mob again, advancing on another patron whose lecherous eye was turned on a defenseless woman sprawled across a broken table. Aidan might have dramatically swooned if this were but an isolated event.
Instead, he too took a step forward, about to offer aid to whichever party seemed to need it the most, until he heard his name called above the din of the crowd. It stopped him short of another step, head turning to the familiar voice, and soon thereafter, familiar face of one Hadyn Skellig. To her credit she looked ever as beautiful as she did the first time they’d met, even with curls of hair spreading mutinously before her eyes, and features doggedly tired from having to deal with the rabble.
A soft smile caressed his lips and warmly narrowed his eyes, brushing away all fear and torment as if it were no more than a table needing wiped off with a wet rag. He might have hugged her if it weren’t for several obvious factors, one of which involved bruised ribs, while another centered vaguely around a thrall of drunkards brawling around them. Still, his manner was strange.
The cook approached her with all the confidence of a man not to be swayed by the violence surrounding him. Taking her by the hand, gently at first, then insistent the next, he tugged her along to where he’d noticed his savior taking a dive across the floor with the villain from before.
”Good to see you alive and well, Hadyn,” he spoke as casually as though they had the place to themselves, brushing with shoulders he gingerly laid his hand upon to ease them out of their way. It did not take long for them to loom over that where his benefactor had absconded.
”Can’t say much the same for my hero here,” he mused, letting go of the blacksmith’s hand and crouching down before the figure slumped along the floor. It seemed strange that the pain he should have felt had become no more than a numb tingling this soon, but that was little more than a gods given blessing he could be thankful for later.
”Yes, think I’ll need to carry him back,” he offered with a gentle sigh after having snapped his fingers a few times above the fellow’s lidded eyes.
Looking over his shoulder, Aidan noticed the woman his nameless defender had sought to help in the first place. She was a pretty thing by gentlemanly standards, which quickly left him feeling a pang of guilt for the one who wouldn’t be receiving any of her kisses of thanks in the near future. Something he no doubt deserved after such a selfless little show of bravery.
“Help the girl there, would you, love?” If there was any superiority in his voice, his face certainly did not show it, beckoning for Hadyn to lend him some assistance with a sweet and weary smile.
Grabbing Daniel’s right arm and hoisting him half up, Aidan’s thighs tensed as he nuzzled his shoulder into the man’s chest and lifted the limp body whole away from the floor with a deepening grunt. Like a sack of large grain, the unconscious hero fit neatly within the cradle between the chef’s neck and elbow, threads of pain inciting a clenched jaw that ground his teeth together. Faltering but never discouraged.
”Eeeeasy does it,” he whispered to none than himself, balancing the body to a comfortable degree and feeling a few droplets of warmth he assumed were his own against the ridge of his spine. ”Off we go then. Follow on, if you would.” The last was reserved for the two women behind him.
Wending their way through the crowd, Aidan chose a path where many a patron lay misshapen across the floor, some muttering in words of pain, others asleep as though they were naught but suckling babes. His footing was a practiced sort of careful that came from years of navigating the Stallion on her busiest nights, bumped every once in awhile by a fight that still pressed on as he was careful to avoid any hints of danger this time. Not many people bothered a man carrying the unconscious form of another, he found out.
The warmth at the back of his head was steadily growing, overtaking that which had tortured him in the beginning. It was as if a blanket of sleep were slowly consuming him, lids growing heavier with lead by the tick as his breathing became deep. But at last he’d made it past the opening in the bar, and that was all that seemed to matter.
Chancing a glance back to see if Hadyn and company had made it along with him, Aidan continued on to the back room where the kitchen lay, a fleeting sigh whispering from slackening lips. There the elusive Kevith had quickly been found, crouched over the delirious, but still conscious body of a young boy the cook knew to be the proprietor’s son. It did not take a sage to figure out what was more important to the one armed ex-knight, which only coaxed a thin, unbidden film of tears to momentarily cloud a the other’s vision.
Elbowing his free arm across the thick wooden table that was stationed at the center of the room, Aidan brushed off a clearing to lay his own burden down. With a dull grunt he eased the man comfortably across the work station, pushing more out of the way as he laid the man’s head to rest on a small, unopened canvas sack of salt. It was no four poster bed found in The White Swan Inn, but it would suffice for now.
Sleep felt almost a certainty after the exertion, eyes fluttering as though he might succumb to Nysel’s domain at any chime. For a moment he actually had to lean his body against the edge of the table where the unnamed hero lay resting, hand catching the sturdy wood not a moment too soon. But there was a pressing need to go back out, to save that which he could, to lend assistance where it was needed. No longer was this a brawl for him…not that he’d done much brawling at all. But with Kevith doting over his son like a sickly mother, Aidan felt an air of responsibility drape heavily across his shoulders.
He began to stumble towards the door leading back out.
xSomething warm also trickled from the back of his scalp, but without a desire to assess his injuries midst a warring band of liquored sponges, Aidan’s gaze brushed the tavern’s floor with hazy eyes in search of his antagonist. Clutching the charms chained around his neck, he pressed them firmly to the fleshy wall above his heart and muttered a prayer even he himself could not be sure his lips had bothered to say.
A giant wall of sinuous blue muscle clouded his field of vision one moment, and then strangely dispensed itself to the side the next. Confusion toppled upon a foundation of miraculous faith instantly, eyes forgoing their pained expression to search for an answer in a most curious way. This took but a moment to find, a stranger’s hand reaching down and offering to pull him back up.
Not one to question the first sign of hospitality he’d seen since this brawl started, Aidan took the hand and tried to wipe the agony from his face of having to be moved at all. ”I almost had him, you know,” choosing a humorous tone to diffuse the severity of their situation, a toothy grimace accompanying it. ”Thank you,” he offered more solemnly, an unused arm clutched across his abdomen.
But just like that, the lull was torn from them, a mug shattering against the other’s shoulder, a bead of brilliant crimson quickly bubbling from its fleshy center. Ceramic shards fled in every direction like a flock of white birds taking flight from a predator that had suddenly appeared in their midst, prompting Aidan to shelter his eyes from a few pieces that bounced harmlessly across his paling cheek and forehead.
When he felt the danger had abated, his dreary gaze opened back up to find that his hero sent by Kelwyn was already facing the mob again, advancing on another patron whose lecherous eye was turned on a defenseless woman sprawled across a broken table. Aidan might have dramatically swooned if this were but an isolated event.
Instead, he too took a step forward, about to offer aid to whichever party seemed to need it the most, until he heard his name called above the din of the crowd. It stopped him short of another step, head turning to the familiar voice, and soon thereafter, familiar face of one Hadyn Skellig. To her credit she looked ever as beautiful as she did the first time they’d met, even with curls of hair spreading mutinously before her eyes, and features doggedly tired from having to deal with the rabble.
A soft smile caressed his lips and warmly narrowed his eyes, brushing away all fear and torment as if it were no more than a table needing wiped off with a wet rag. He might have hugged her if it weren’t for several obvious factors, one of which involved bruised ribs, while another centered vaguely around a thrall of drunkards brawling around them. Still, his manner was strange.
The cook approached her with all the confidence of a man not to be swayed by the violence surrounding him. Taking her by the hand, gently at first, then insistent the next, he tugged her along to where he’d noticed his savior taking a dive across the floor with the villain from before.
”Good to see you alive and well, Hadyn,” he spoke as casually as though they had the place to themselves, brushing with shoulders he gingerly laid his hand upon to ease them out of their way. It did not take long for them to loom over that where his benefactor had absconded.
”Can’t say much the same for my hero here,” he mused, letting go of the blacksmith’s hand and crouching down before the figure slumped along the floor. It seemed strange that the pain he should have felt had become no more than a numb tingling this soon, but that was little more than a gods given blessing he could be thankful for later.
”Yes, think I’ll need to carry him back,” he offered with a gentle sigh after having snapped his fingers a few times above the fellow’s lidded eyes.
Looking over his shoulder, Aidan noticed the woman his nameless defender had sought to help in the first place. She was a pretty thing by gentlemanly standards, which quickly left him feeling a pang of guilt for the one who wouldn’t be receiving any of her kisses of thanks in the near future. Something he no doubt deserved after such a selfless little show of bravery.
“Help the girl there, would you, love?” If there was any superiority in his voice, his face certainly did not show it, beckoning for Hadyn to lend him some assistance with a sweet and weary smile.
Grabbing Daniel’s right arm and hoisting him half up, Aidan’s thighs tensed as he nuzzled his shoulder into the man’s chest and lifted the limp body whole away from the floor with a deepening grunt. Like a sack of large grain, the unconscious hero fit neatly within the cradle between the chef’s neck and elbow, threads of pain inciting a clenched jaw that ground his teeth together. Faltering but never discouraged.
”Eeeeasy does it,” he whispered to none than himself, balancing the body to a comfortable degree and feeling a few droplets of warmth he assumed were his own against the ridge of his spine. ”Off we go then. Follow on, if you would.” The last was reserved for the two women behind him.
Wending their way through the crowd, Aidan chose a path where many a patron lay misshapen across the floor, some muttering in words of pain, others asleep as though they were naught but suckling babes. His footing was a practiced sort of careful that came from years of navigating the Stallion on her busiest nights, bumped every once in awhile by a fight that still pressed on as he was careful to avoid any hints of danger this time. Not many people bothered a man carrying the unconscious form of another, he found out.
The warmth at the back of his head was steadily growing, overtaking that which had tortured him in the beginning. It was as if a blanket of sleep were slowly consuming him, lids growing heavier with lead by the tick as his breathing became deep. But at last he’d made it past the opening in the bar, and that was all that seemed to matter.
Chancing a glance back to see if Hadyn and company had made it along with him, Aidan continued on to the back room where the kitchen lay, a fleeting sigh whispering from slackening lips. There the elusive Kevith had quickly been found, crouched over the delirious, but still conscious body of a young boy the cook knew to be the proprietor’s son. It did not take a sage to figure out what was more important to the one armed ex-knight, which only coaxed a thin, unbidden film of tears to momentarily cloud a the other’s vision.
Elbowing his free arm across the thick wooden table that was stationed at the center of the room, Aidan brushed off a clearing to lay his own burden down. With a dull grunt he eased the man comfortably across the work station, pushing more out of the way as he laid the man’s head to rest on a small, unopened canvas sack of salt. It was no four poster bed found in The White Swan Inn, but it would suffice for now.
Sleep felt almost a certainty after the exertion, eyes fluttering as though he might succumb to Nysel’s domain at any chime. For a moment he actually had to lean his body against the edge of the table where the unnamed hero lay resting, hand catching the sturdy wood not a moment too soon. But there was a pressing need to go back out, to save that which he could, to lend assistance where it was needed. No longer was this a brawl for him…not that he’d done much brawling at all. But with Kevith doting over his son like a sickly mother, Aidan felt an air of responsibility drape heavily across his shoulders.
He began to stumble towards the door leading back out.
Shiress, perhaps PM-ing Acco to put a close seemed to be a good idea.
