"The Ambushed Aegian" Log Date: 1/31/01 Log Cast: Faanshi, Tyler, Gabriel Log Intro: In all the time she's carried out her missions of mercy into the streets of Haven, Faanshi hasn't often healed those of pure blood unless they have stumbled across her by accident -- and very seldom has she healed those of Empyrean blood in particular. Tense as relations tend to be between the Children of Air and the Children of Fire, it is an unusual Empyrean indeed who will not shy away from a healer wearing Varati garb. But it's also an unusual Empyrean indeed who'll venture into Bordertown, especially at night. The Aegian Gabriel Hesperos Augustin however has done exactly that, and he and his Mongrel companion Tyler have learned the folly of their little adventure courtesy of an ambush of graisha that's left Gabriel with a badly broken wing. A desperate Tyler has pelted off into the darkness in search of the first healer that's come to mind... ... but fortunately for Tyler and for Gabriel, Faanshi is not in fact very far away, for she has already been called out into Bordertown tonight.... *===========================< In Character Time >===========================* Time of day: Night (Dawnside) Date on Aether: Saturday, October 15, 3907. Year on Earth: 1507 A.D. Phase of the Moon: Waxing Gibbous Season: Fall Weather: Clear Skies Temperature: Warm *==========================================================================* Desolation Row - Bordertown - Haven A bleak wind cuts a path down this long stretch of ruined buildings. At times, this hollow breath is literal. Yet even when the angry air is still, the knifecut wind tears its way deep into the soul. The once proud structures that stretched their stony fingers into the sky lie broken and ashamed--a vast landscape of walls and columns which lean haphazardly against one another. Time's violent fists have beaten the work of human hands nearly to the ground, and on occasion the ground has fought back. Yet through it all, Life has survived. Makeshift shelters top the more stable slabs of rock. Rough wooden structures have sprung up in the rare open spaces, often incorporating elements of the shattered buildings into their design. Coarse bridges--improvised from former doors and benches--reach from pile to pile, connecting the disparate members of this thriving community. A community which--judging by the mute eyes nearly hidden in the ruins and rubbled crawlspaces--is very suspicious of anyone visiting this forgotten land. Contents: Tyler Gabriel Obvious exits: North She might be in mourning -- not only for a lost Mongrel love but also for a friend recently brutally slain. And it is beginning to seem to Faanshi as though the battering her emotions undergo is an endless facet of her existence. But there is something else that is seemingly endless as well, and that is the need that calls her, day after day and night after night, out into Bordertown. Someone in Haven is always in trouble... and after years of quiet hard work on her part, she has enough of a reputation by now that no few of the denizens of the poorest part of the city know to seek her if they need healing. Faanshi is out tonight, answering just such a need. A roof had given way in a family's hovel, and after hastening to the aid of the distraught Mongrel father who'd screwed up his courage to come to Atesh-Gah and ask for her, the maiden has managed to save two small children. Clad almost entirely in black, obscuring the colors of Clan Khalida, she blends for once into the surrounding night... But then again, it's pretty impossible to miss the mighty hound who trots vigilantly at her side. Especially when he growls at a passing cur of smaller size whose path, he judges, comes too close to that of his beloved mistress. And black sari or no, Faanshi is not exactly difficult to miss either as she wearily, stridently tries to scold the dogs as they burst into snarling and snapping at one another. It might be a bark from Kosha or the strident scold from Faanshi, but one or the other urges Tyler to rush desperately through a decaying alleyway that links two of the chief lanes. He bursts recklessly from the shadowed mouth of the corridor, his anxious gaze swinging from the right to the left and--"Faanshi!" he unleashes, his voice carrying with elements of trouble and relief. All at once, he bolts upon her position, holding back a tide of blood with the hand that's fastened to his cheek but seeming more concerned with what he next speaks of through his winded pants. "Faanshi ... my ... friend--he's hurt--you gotta come!" Before even giving her the chance to comply, he attempts to seize a wrist with his free hand and tug her in the direction that Gabriel lies wounded in. Two things happen at once, and Faanshi has time to react to neither. Just as suddenly as Kosha gets in his lucky strike on the mangy canine with whom his fight has erupted, Tyler is _there_. The big gladiator's cry, the frantic calll of a voice she hasn't heard in many weeks but which still resonates periodically through her recollections, and the grab of his hand upon her own free one all serve to quite effectively commandeer her attention. Tyler? _Here_? What friend -- hurt? Where? She almost stumbles, for she is already tired, and Tyler well nigh drags her right off her feet with the force of his urgency. Somehow, though, she manages to keep her balance and even break into a bit of a run. And somehow -- perhaps because of the obvious desperation pouring off the man -- she speaks up more loudly and firmly than usual as she requests only, "Show me...!" Kosha is left to whip his attention around belatedly, but Faanshi must trust that her loyal dog will follow where she's been hauled. Down the cobblestone lane, through the shattered remains of a building, and across a tiny, abandoned marketplace the gladiator leads the healer, racing toward his goal as swiftly as he may with Faanshi fast in tow. And, curiously enough, Tyler seems surprised when they happen upon the spot where the two were ambushed in the span of a few harrowing minutes, as if the mongrel hadn't known for sure if he was even carrying her the right way. The journey to this particular spot is a confusing and maze-like interlude, though thankfully without any wrong turns or backtrackings along the way. The locale is finally reached -- a dark, bleak, depressing area of Bordertown that looks like any other dark, bleak, depressing area of Bordertown. Passersby are few, and that's probably for the best -- this is hardly a friendly neighborhood, and anyone who ventures in would do well to hope they don't run into any local 'natives.' The dilapidated buildings loom in on either side, and in the doorway of one of them, a shape sits huddled. Gabriel had managed to drag himself to the dubious protection of the doorframe, but it had been a harrowing journey -- a mere three or four yards never seemed so vast. The pain of his broken wing -- more like mangled and crushed and snapped -- clouds his mind until he can see and feel and taste nothing else. He's still gripping the knife he yanked from Tyler's sheath, but it's doubtful he could defend himself from more of Bordertown's denizens were he faced with the prospect. Tyche must be smiling on him tonight. And even before she _sees_ the Empyrean crumpled there in the darkness, his pain slams headlong into Faanshi's senses as soon as she is close enough. "Holy Ushas Mother of God--" It is not nearly so explosive in force as Tyler's bellow to her had been, but nevertheless, for the shudra, it is an oath. An upswelling of horrified compassion has her bolting forward to drop to her knees before the wounded winged man, and only when she is before him does a clearer part of her mind ask wildly whether she can in fact _do_ this. She is tired, and she has never healed an Empyrean's wings before-- But she has no options in the matter. Faanshi does not know if she can call Tyler friend -- and given how she loses her friends she isn't entirely certain she _wants_ to -- but he has called upon her for help. Even if he hadn't, this man's pain is enough to make her act. As Kosha comes skittering up behind Tyler, whining his anxiety and dismay, the maiden reaches sungolden hands for Gabriel, breathing out, "Ave, dominus, namaste', I will help you--!" _Ushas, guide me, I beg of you...!_ From a little plot of dusty cobblestones that bears the crimson stains of Sylvan blood, Tyler looks on with wide, brilliantly blue eyes, standing on his tiptoes with one hand still clamped to his numbed, bitten cheek. The Empyrean is fighting to remain alert -- or at least conscious, for he knows the danger he's in, left alone in this part of town. And when Faanshi first darts toward him and reaches out, he grips the knife and brandishes it warningly. Such a move is useless -- he's far too lost in the pain-haze to be dangerous. Glazed, turquoise eyes fix on Faanshi's leaf-green ones and register confusion. Lips part to expel a few disjointed words. "Remember... you... dog..." But that's all Gabriel manages before he grits his teeth to bite back a cry of pain. His right wing is broken -- it looks as if someone wrenched it bodily from its joint and bent it in ways it was never meant to bend. The other is folded up, cramped within the doorframe, but the broken one won't fold, and lies spread like a fallen sail upon the cobblestones. There's a dog there alright, and Kosha comes snuffling forward with lowered ears and tail to try to figure out exactly what manner of creature his Faanshi is trying to help _now_. Perhaps later the shudra girl will remember to marvel -- _this_ Empyrean. The one that landed in the courtyard and liked her dog. _He_ is Tyler's friend? -- but for now it is immaterial. Murmuring something nonsensical and soothing behind her ebon veil, the maiden drops her hands onto Gabriel's shoulders... and jolts abruptly as secondhand sensation of exactly what has happened to him floods her. Dislocation. She knows this. And she calls, almost sharply for such a gentle creature: "Tyler -- his wing feels wrong. It does not..." She struggles for words, but quickly. "It is not joined with the body as it should be. Can you help me put it back in?" "I can /try/," says the blond-haired mongrel with uncertainty and curiosity battling to reinforce his words. He lowers the hand from his face to find his wound caked and clotted with blood that no longer begs to escape but instead tries to seal itself back in where it belongs. Tyler tries to take the knife from Gabriel before wedging himself into the equation, gazing at the dusty, bloody wing. "How ... I mean ... what do I /do/, Faanshi?" Gabriel makes no protest when Tyler reclaims his knife. He's still struggling just to remain lucid, and he pants shallowly from between clenched teeth in an effort to refrain from giving in to any more womanish outcries. Is that actual surety in her voice, as the maiden gestures Tyler urgently forward with one hand, the other kept on the injured Son of Air? Her eyes squeeze shut for a moment as she forces herself to try to sort through what her magic is telling her. But only after she makes herself think, makes herself remember the last time she'd healed wings -- and then thinks to use the other wing as a comparison, feeling what is _right_ about it so that she may know what to do with its mate -- is Faanshi able to proclaim, "You are stronger than I and you will have to take his wing and push it back into where it must join with his body--!" Then to Gabriel, softer, gentler, she appends, "Dominus, we must turn you so he can reach -- let me assist you--!" And her hands are there, moving slackened arms and tugging the man as best she can into a better position, so that Tyler may do what needs to be done. The mongrel drops the bloodied knife with a metallic clatter as he squirms his sizeable body around in the doorframe to a more favorable position. He grasps at the ruined wing gently at first, acquainting himself with the feel of it, determining the two best handholds for relocating a wing with its corresponding joint--he's going to be relocating a /wing/ with its corresponding joint, he thinks with a bolt of alarm that twists and writhes its way up the length of his spine. "I can't do this!" he declares with an abrupt, gasping release of the breath he didn't realize he was holding. "What if I make it worse?" The tones that lace the mongrel's voice are, for once, timid. And Faanshi can see more timidity in the eyes that search for her. Gabriel is moved, with Faanshi's help, to a more accommodating position so that Tyler can have easier access to his wing. He sits curled over, his head bowed while he keeps his eyes tightly shut -- it does nothing to block out the pain, but it's a little easier to pretend this is all some surreal nightmare, and he'll wake up any moment and all that throbbing, red-hot *hurt* that radiates through his nerves in waves will be gone. Harshly, hoarsely, he gasps out, "Can't... make it worse... Just... do it... gods." Although the plea is not voiced in something as plain as words, it still lurks in his voice -- a raw, naked, beseeching appeal for succor. Maybe it's those timid blue eyes looking for her own. Maybe it's because for all that there's enough Varati in Faanshi to make her stoically accept a life that continually scours her emotions, there's enough Sylvan in her to crave release. Or maybe it's just that for once, she is in her element, strength she would never think to show at any other time blossoming out to express itself -- and giving her the courage to determine that for once, something will go as _she_ wills it. And maybe it's just that _need_ in Gabriel's voice. Regardless, the maiden looks straight into Tyler's frightened eyes, saying in a voice that might almost be mistaken for a kshatri's if one didn't know better, "Ushas has guided you to me tonight, for your friend. In Her holy mercy She will help us not to fail him. You can do it--!" A sungolden hand comes around, to mark the place where Tyler's hands must go. "Here. And when I bid you, push, towards me--!" Bronzed hands grasp tightly at the wing where Faanshi demonstrates. "You and Ushas better be right about this," growls Tyler through clenched teeth, eyes dropping from Faanshi to what is in special need of his undivided attention. He braces himself and waits for the shudra to bid him push, concentrating his dense, stubborn mental faculties and attempting to employ them all at once. "Now," comes the signal, ever gentle, still uncharacteristically firm. And even as Tyler leans his prodigious strength into the task at hand, the halfbreed taps into the wellspring of her power and sends it rolling forth into the Empyrean man. Her hands brace him from the front, and her brow leans in close to his; her head bows, almost as if in prayer. All the while Kosha watches, whining in his throat almost as if he could sense the flow of the aether the girl unleashes. By now, the dog has lain down upon the ground just behind her. The magic is like cool, clear water upon a stinging burn -- like ice upon fire; a gentle rain upon scorched earth. It flows into him and Gabriel jerks -- he'd braced himself for Tyler's push and finds this unexpected blessing instead. Blindly, he reaches for Faanshi, one hand gripping her shoulder, the other clasping her upper arm, and he clings to her as to a lifeline, awash with the balm of her magic and drawn to it as a thirst-starved man is drawn to the sweetest of ambrosias. And with the push that Tyler throws his considerable force into, Gabriel's wing slides its way back into the joint like the piece of a puzzle--perhaps unsure at first but then undeniably certain of where it belongs. _This_ is one of the times where Faanshi knows without a doubt that what she does each time she sets foot into Bordertown is _right_. She does not cry out, but for a moment she wants to, between the way the Empyrean reacts to her magic and the almost glorious sense of release _she_ can feel when his wing is back where it belongs. The rest, the abuse of sinew and tissue bent in ways they were not made to do, is almost inconsequential now that the great pinion is where it belongs. In grateful silent prayer to the Dawn-Mother -- her own version of a consecration of her power though none could claim her a priestess -- she bathes Gabriel in her magic some moments longer. Tortured muscles where wing joins shoulderblade can relax as they are made whole again. And she begins to breathe out further instructions to Tyler, without looking up, adjuring him to make smaller straightenings of the mending wing, so that she may coax it to heal as it _should_ be... and not heal wrong. Her last breathed request, however, might startle. "Here," she entreats him, one hand still on the Empyrean, but now one reaching for him. "You... you're hurt, too..." And by now, her voice is fainter. How much power has she put forth? The pain was brittle and sharp -- like needles, like glass, and it was easier to fight. The magic flowing through him now is insidiously soothing, and something for which he has no defense. He'd been hurt before, but never healed like this. It invades him, and Gabriel is left raw and shaken and weak as a newborn when it's all over. He's still holding onto Faanshi, and it takes effort to concentrate, to realize what she's saying -- to realize where he is, and what's going on. Blinking, he gazes past her toward Tyler, seeing the man's bloody face, and he forces himself to relinquish his hold on the healer so that she can tend to the man who very well may have saved his life. It's doubtful he would have survived in Bordertown for long on his own with his wing broken. Tyler's face lights up at the simplicity of the relocation and he follows the maiden's instructions with a swelling sense of revived confidence now that what seems to be the difficult part has been surmounted. He helps, with his hands, to arrange the wing like its counterpart while Faanshi's magic works within to make the feathery appendage once more a magnificent instrument of flight and pride. His eyes radiate an almost innocent glow as he beholds the wing in the same sort of boyish wonder that he might have looked upon the first sandcastle he ever engineered. "As long as you still have the strength," says he with a much softer version of his lopsided smile, placing one hand atop Faanshi's. Three healings in one night -- no, _four_. But Faanshi can no more keep herself from offering up the last of her power to ease the hurts from the Mongrel fighter's flesh than she could convince the Children of Fire to abolish their castes. She too is half-blind by now, a portion of her consciousness still claimed by residual echoes of what she's sensed out of the Empyrean -- but now that the brighter blaze of his injuries has been doused, Tyler's aches and pains spring into her awareness. Nor does she debate the gladiator's protest, either. The touch of his hand is all she needs -- and then her aether wells up and over _him_, almost anticlimatically. And after a few moments, Tyler gets an answer anyway -- for the shudra girl begins to bend, her head bowing farther and farther forward. Not until the Mongrel is whole again does her hand drop away as well... but even before it disengages, it's obvious that Faanshi has quietly fainted away. Obvious to Kosha, too, who leaps up with a whine. During the healing of Tyler, Gabriel had shifted position, propping himself up against the doorframe with his newly-healed wing half-spread upon the cobblestones. He doesn't want to risk folding it just yet. He'd watched, gradually regaining his senses, recovering from the shock of broken bones and the less dramatic but no less powerful intensity of Faanshi's magic to his system. As he sees her start to crumble forward, he jerks himself into a kneeling position, reaching out to save her from dropping to the cobblestones. "No..." he murmurs thickly, "we've got to... get out of here. Palladium." It's an effort to think while his body's still adjusting from its rapid repair. He closes his eyes for a second, concentrates, and then opens them to look at Tyler. "Can you carry her?" Anticlimatic in comparsion, perhaps, but to Tyler it is a pillowy quilt of solace as that graisha bite on his cheek melts away and the more cursory scratches on his shoulders follow suit. Electric blue eyes lazily open to once more receive the world when he's addressed by Gabriel, only then becoming aware that the healer has passed out. "I shouldn't have let her do that," Tyler scolds himself guiltily, reaching for the doorframe and pulling himself to his feet. Then he nods. "Piece of cake," he tells the Empyrean, bending to lift Faanshi damsel-in-distress style into his arms, fitful explosions of energy igniting throughout his refreshed body. [And off the Aegian and his Mongrel friend go, their savior carried in the latter's sturdy arms, to the shelter of the Palladium. End log.]