He wiped the blood from his eyes. Taelian coughed a storm. Beside him was the mutilated, charred corpse of a Dranoch Cardinal, one that he had fought entirely by his lonesome -- and it had been the battle of his life.
"Shit..." he cursed, glancing down at the wound running across his upper abdomen. It wasn't deep. If this had been Silfanore he certainly would've died, as it would've become infected by arcane grime. But this was Kalzasi, clean and brisk, and with only the mundaneness of a forest around him. He nearly cried in response to the pain, though, and the fear. Had he been a second later on his swing, that Dranoch's claws had already begun to swipe straight for his throat.
It was humbling. Even after everything had changed for him, and as much as he now wanted to live, death was as near as it had ever been.
His eyesight faltered, mostly because they failed to stay completely open. Black consumed the corners of his vision, north and south, while the center desperately struggled to hold on to the waking world. He wasn't going to die... but he was going to go unconscious. And perhaps, during that state, he would die after all; from being preyed upon by animals, or from the rupturing of an organ he hadn't yet noticed, or the loss of blood. He remembered this had happened before, but it was when he had Vendrael always at his side. That old man.
Taelian fell to his rest. His eyes shut and he began to feel incredibly calm, relaxed, despite the gash that ran across his chest. He didn't feel any pain.
. . .
His eyes opened. Around him was a wooden home, with wooden walls and a simple layout of decor. It wasn't anything like the rest of Kalzasi, probably because he had gone far out enough to no longer be considered adjacent to the city. There was a fireplace, roaring, as the living room's centerpiece... and all around him there were paintings, of nature and other places. He recognized some of the art; Daravin, the Outlands near Amoren. The river outside of Alsos, which he had sailed through en route to his next and final train. Then... there was one that truly surprised him. A picture of Silfanore at dusk, with a light tinge of red vapor shrouding the city. It was beautiful, if only because it really looked like home. The person who painted that... had really lived there. They captured every detail intricately; from the ruined buildings to the impressive Palisade of Dusk.
He looked to his chest. There was a bandage running over it, with blood partly soaked through. It stung some, but Taelian had always been resistant to pain. He barely acknowledged it.
"Hello," a voice called to him from the living room, lit only by the dim lighting of candles, one on the table and one on each corner of the room. It was a man - of similar height to him - with greyish blue skin, small teeth coming from the corners of his lips and black hair with the slightest tint of midnight blue. He had a young and attractive complexion, with smooth skin, well managed brows and carefully styled hair. He wore furs all across his body, thick clothing tied with bands of wool across the connecting areas. He looked to Taelian with a faint smile.
"Hello," the Siltori curiously called back. He wondered why he was here -- why this man would bring him into his home. Why he was seated upon a leather sofa, of all things, with such proximity to the fire. He wondered if perhaps he should burn his wound shut. It would cause scarring, much worse than what would already come, but it would at least reduce his chances of death. Particularly with his resistance to flame.
Re: Only Angels
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2019 7:47 pm
by Taelian
But he didn't. Instead, he continued to stare at the small-tusked man as he stared back at him. He must've been an Orkhan... but not quite. The shade of his skin was different than the ones he had seen; one of the Elainian Dratori, he thought, must have been in his ancestry. Judging by the sharpness of his ears and the smoothness of his complexion, Taelian was almost certain that he at least had a quarter of their blood. Of course, he reminded him of someone he once knew, but he was hesitant to think about him. There was no reason to project that far-gone image onto the man before him now.
"Why did you save me?" he asked.
"You reminded me of home," the man responded. There were the beginnings of tears in his eyes; Taelian could not understand why. His voice tremored, slightly, but not enough to disrupt his words. "A Siltori man with brilliant silver hair... fallen over the corpse of a Dranoch, charred to ash, with blood oozing at that Ebon Knight's chest. I could see the Black Sigil upon your neck. I felt like the past had come to visit me, and I suppose it did."
Taelian bit his lower lip. He felt a tightness in his throat, one that made it difficult to speak. Somehow... he knew.
"My name is Lethiril," the man told him.
That was enough. Knowing that was enough; there was no easy way to describe the complex emotions that flowed through him, only that they did, and many of them. All at once.
Taelian shut his eyes tightly, and covered them with an open palm. He brushed his hair away from his forehead and pressed his swelling eyes into the blanketing surface of his skin.
"What's wrong?" the Dratori-Orkhan asked, his brows both raising, confused. He stepped closer to Taelian if to provide him some form of comfort. He still did not know who he was dealing with; to who he had just confessed his name.
"I'm Taelian," the Siltori said. "Taelian Ela'Rannoch. From the Pyred Bedlam."
Lethiril's swelling eyes, first borne of nostalgia, quickly became equally as drenched in tears. It was not any Ebon Knight he had saved, but the only one that mattered. He could not believe it... that Taelian was still alive.
"You made it," Taelian whispered, between his tears. "How did you make it? I thought... it was certain that you would die in the Badlands. If you even made it at all." They didn't even have the train operational back then; their journey through the Darklands had been on foot. How was that even feasible?
"We paid those smugglers," he responded, with a nod. Lethiril shook himself clear of any overt emotions; the rush of nostalgic sorrow came and still remained, but he had enough control to abate it. Taelian deserved him at his best. "They took us all the way to Arlain. That was what my father paid for; the Badlands were too rough for us to survive alone, and we did not want to live beneath the domain of the Pontifex. My dad was still an ardent follower of the Elven Gods," he said. "But, in Arlain... we were enslaved. Made to work every moment of every day. It was bad, Taelian; my parents didn't made it. They died in the fields, scorched by the sun, their muscles totally collapsed. It's unbelievable that I survived."
"It is," Taelian replied. "It's truly unbelievable, Leth. And I didn't believe it -- not until now. I can't believe you're here. Lethiril... I missed you so much," he whispered. "I always did."
"I missed you too, my old friend," the mixed blood replied. "But I knew I'd see you again. Bounty hunters as good as us never get lost to the Valley," he joked. A reference to their old play-adventures. Taelian laughed.
"Shut up, I've never even been to Larissa," he grinned.
"Me neither."
"I don't know what to say," Taelian whispered.
"You don't have to say anythi--"
"I'm glad you're alive."
"I'm glad that I'm alive, too," Lethiril teased. "And that you are. I thought, for the faintest of moments as I saw you lying upon the soil, that it could've been you. That your face resembled what I knew. I'm so glad that I was right. But before anything else, we need to better treat your wound. We can't have you dying in my living room like this; there's still a lot left we need to do. A whole life ahead."
Re: Only Angels
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2019 5:37 pm
by Nyx
Taelian
Points: 5/5
Magic?: N/A
Lores:
Medicine: Bandaging a wound
Medicine: Reducing blood loss
Medicine: Burning a wound shut
Survival: Pushing through pain
Investigation: Noting the environment
Investigation: Catching small details
Loot: N/A
Injury and Overstepping: N/A
Comments: With all the Taelian solos I read, this one felt like a punch in the gut. It's so emotional a reunion that it just hits really hard to read this thread. They shouldn't be alive, neither one should be alive, but by some mystery and miracle here they both are. Alive and for the most part well. It feels fitting and heart breaking at the same time. Now it's really just a question of what's going to happen moving forward. Since the injury was a one off and really meant for The Drama, I went ahead and didn't allocate you any injuries, though I would recommend treating it like a minor injury with it still being painful/sore in the days following this thread.
