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Hey! Uh, can-- you help me?

Lee's been stabbed before. It's just not ever been so personal - or so far away from a team healer. She'd stubbornly stayed at the library, making as sure as she could that no other thieves made it through that night. Once dawn's grey fingers started clawing up the sky, she'd even felt brave enough to go back in that particular tunnel and scrub off her own blood from the tiles.

She hadn't realized there'd be so much.

The curator had been understandably upset. He was also apparently a bit sensitive about blood, because he didn't give Lee the reaming she'd been expecting over the break-in, even if their thief had returned most (all?) of what he'd taken (they were still looking, because the curator was nothing if not thorough). She'd finally allowed herself a shaky breath outside the library, palm tight against her mouth as if to keep back the sound.

Her other hand touched her side instinctively, brushing over a soppy bandage instead of the uneven, pliable two sides of the incision. She'd been a little horrified at the way her parted skin moved before she wrapped up the bandages that the thief himself had left behind.

What the hell had Cynric been thinking? What the hell had she been thinking?

She doesn't notice Alastair for a few moments. She's on her way home, because even if she needs a healer - a fact she is still roughly in denial about - first she needs to be in the privacy of her own little room at the nearby inn. She needs to shuck off the bloody clothing for a bit and have a nice session of feeling horrified all on her own, without the guilty burden of still looking over an ancient library-museum single-handedly.

She needs, maybe, to just cry it out for a bit. Nevermind the liquid she's already lost. She has no idea what a dangerous amount looks like, just that seeing her right pantleg splotched with patterns of darker blue and maroon looks wrong.

But then a head of wavy hair that's in her way gets her attention. The hip she's about to check with her own healthy side gets in her way enough that she looks up, up, until she sees braids she recognizes and baubles she's patted out of her way before and is that really him.

She looks down even as she yells "Alastair!" and sees that yes, the necklace he'd given her is glowing an aggressive purple against her throat. She hadn't even thought to check it this morning, she'd been so distracted.

She grits her teeth and doesn't sway through sheer force of will. "Alastair-- hey." Forget shoving him out of her way - she grabs his arm. Maybe a bit harder than is necessary.

Perhaps? (There is a slight pause as the slight, green robed person briefly struggles with grammar, then gives up. There is an accent there, faint and untraceable)

What do you need help with?

[Good, she's gotten his attention. And an offer. She's not so fond of asking strangers for help, but in a foreign town, it's often a necessity.] Nothing hard! Just-- do you know the nearest place I can buy oil for my lamp? I don't know this town that well.

Well that is quite odd; the bard's head jerks a few angles to the right, focusing his ear on where the call came from. It's a voice, extremely familiar in fact, excepting the uncharacteristic tinge of a choked up throat and strained breathlessness that disguises it all too well. Perplexing, is what it is.

Alastair gets as far as deciding to actually look around when an arm grasps him urgently, and he turns without an inkling of effort, or much forethought.

"--Lee!" Yeah, sorry for not anticipating your arrival there. He still wears the matching crystal about his neck dedicatedly, but given the chilly and dewy spring morning, it hides out of sight underneath an overcoat. Not a ray or glowing aura penetrates through, not in this early daylight. He is truly surprised, but he doesn't realize that his eagerness isn't from just unexpectedly stumbling across the shorter woman for the first time in almost two months. It's a sudden swelling in his chest that he has to chuckle around to be able to breathe. Did she punch him or something?

No time to question it, because the monk looks physically distressed, and that is something Alastair has never seen before. Like fragile glass reaching the earth, Alastair's demeanor falls and shatters in a flash at actually seeing Lee. "What-- Lee, are you all right?" Steady hands hover and hesitate over her shoulders, unsure of contact.

Oh, surely he's seen her distressed before, physically. They've fought side by side and back to back and him on the ground and her from rooftops. Neither had a completely clean record as far as injuries - but all had been healed quickly. None were left to linger so many hours until the point of potentially-dangerous blood loss. Lee doesn't even recognize the vague light-headedness as being from anything but exhaustion and frustration and a steady churn of betrayal.

But Alastair's certainly never seen her emotionally distressed, not away from anger and towards guilty burning aches. And she might never have been happier to see him. Her grin is a little broken, too wide and oddly patchy with eyes that gloss, but she's conscious. Still standing of her own volition.

She reaches up for one of his hesitating hands and gives it a squeeze, half wanting to just reassure he won't pull away. "No, no, I'm-- I'm fine." She finds that she doesn't want to tell him, at least not here. Not details. "I've just got-- I've found a job guarding that library, a-and so sometimes there's break-ins, it's nothing bad." Although she wants his help with it, dearly, now that she's being presented with an ally who might not run and desert her.

She's gesturing at her leg during all this, as though the dark blood drying on her pants is no cause for concern. As though the particles of coagulation in her own hair that she missed cleaning up aren't a big deal. Don't make a fuss.

Edited 2014-02-06 15:51 (UTC)

Library. The archive of the Silverymoon arcane society, Alastair knows it well. Rather, he knows a few of it's gracious treasure-hunting donors who are noteworthy amongst the structured bardic circle. It is widely renown for its collection of artifacts recovered in ruins near and far; the glint in the eye of any ambitious thief.

This thief's eye follows the vague motion that Lee's hand is making low on her side, while he is hearing her attempt at a nonchalant explanation. Alastair is anything but relaxed, now.

"Lee, what--! What 'appened?" Alastair might ask her something thoughtlessly panicked such as 'what did you do,' if Lee hadn't just alluded to a break in. She was attacked. "How long've you been like this? You need help...you're bleeding a lot!" As if Lee didn't already know. His hand curls around the girl's without forethought.

Gods, what if Alastair had shown up later? Would Lee have been all right, wandering the open street, bleeding, with no aid? Oh, but what if Alastair hadn't slacked off back in Everlund? He would have arrived to Silverymoon a whole day early, and would have known with certainty that Lee was here. He might have done something to prevent this.

Edited 2014-02-06 23:49 (UTC)

"It's not-- it's not so bad, and I was gonna get it looked at, just as soon as--" Just as soon as she'd spent herself in the quiet safety of her borrowed room, not til she was sure she could sit through a healer poking and prodding at it and distract herself properly from both prying fingers and her horrified head.

But she doesn't really need an excuse, surely? Alastair, if he cares for her as much as his eyes suggest - and the hand squeezing hers urgently - remembers how stubborn she is. She's still not convinced this flesh wound is a terribly dangerous one. "And it's not-- bleeding now, really, it's kinda-- stopped." Sort of. She thinks. It's hard to tell with the way it pulses with her heartbeat regardless of blood. It's been there long enough to develop a deep ache alongside the sting, her shock worn fully away and its protective numbness gone.

But...help. She's still not let go of Alastair's hand, instead just dragging them both down to hang a bit raggedly at her side as she cranes up at him. "Well, can you-- could you-- where's a healer?" He has a point, after all. And she'd...rather go with someone than alone, she's just barely realizing. She registers the thought as nothing more than instinct, a want to keep Alastair close now that he's here.

"Oil...." He turns, looking down the street as if a shop might magically present itself. "There is a candle shop down that way. Perhaps they might have oil as well?"

Whatever the explanation is, Alastair doesn't need to hear it -- not out of lack of interest, but because healing Lee doesn't really depend on answers such as these. When her words tread wobbly on a tightrope of haggard thinking, Alastair doesn't even care to needle at her for clarity.

What he's focused on is how wide that blood stain is, how dry it looks, how soaked the bandage seems through the sliver of a cut in her pants, and how it drags against moist cloth. "I sure 'ope it's stopped bleeding for your sake, or else that means you're more stubborn than me, an' that's a terrifying notion."

See, he's trying to crack a joke, maybe make the air a little bit lighter around them. It's an attempt, but not a strong one -- perhaps more of a basic habit than a specific witticism.

"Haven't the foggiest, I only got in late overnight." Alastair was damn lucky to have gotten a room at an inn, and that was mainly because one patron had passed out in the bar without paying the small fortune's worth of drinks he had ingested. He wasn't going to be needing -- or getting -- that room he had paid for.

"We'll find a cleric or something, but I'm patching you up proper first 'fore that gets infected, or worse." It must only have been a dagger; Lee is strong, but a deeper stab than that and she wouldn't be able to walk at all. "C'mon, to my place. I 'ave my components there." You're not getting out of this, Lee.

She snorts. More stubborn than him? Maybe about physical injuries. They might be even-minded on sticking in one place too long. But for avoiding serious subjects, he's certainly more stubborn.

Which is why it's so alarming to see the cracks in his stare, the bleeding concern that she doesn't recognize for a few seconds. It's-- it should feel suffocating. And it does, in fact, make her cringe away a bit self-consciously. She's weak. It's clearly not just a simple matter of 'I was stabbed so then I bled and now I need help'. Why can't she just walk this off like a pulled hamstring or a torn pec, why's this got to be something fawned over?

She pouts but she stares up at him still, from the corner of her eye as she faces away in a little huff of embarrassment because life is ridiculous. But she was...scared earlier. She can admit that now.

And seeing Alastair - seeing him willing to help with nothing clear in return except her safe company - warms something in her chest that she'd felt grow a little colder earlier. "You-- you can help me?"

She'll follow him, clearly. She's taken a step forward and the hand-holding is released only because she's shy about the fact that it would...actually make it a great deal easier to walk, if she could lean on someone.

She's not weak.

"Lee, o'course I can." It's gentle but insistent; why is she resisting like this? She's been injured before, and while flippancy is her typical response, she is never this guarded. He squeezes the monk's hand once again, but slowly -- reassuringly. "You know I can, 'n you know I'm goin' to."

But still, just as gentle; a year ago Alastair might have quit this conversation halfway through out of distress at Lee's stubbornness, telling her to come to him once she felt like telling him about whatever had happened. A lot has happened in a year, and Alastair has learned more than he might have realized: patience, but perhaps most importantly, knowing when something's wrong with Lee. Something happened, more than just some scuffle. She has suffered through worse before to hardly break a sweat, yet Alastair swears that she looked on the verge of tears when she found him.

"Can you walk? The Inn's a bit of a trek." His key concern is the state of her injury, and if walking will only worsen it.

It's getting hard to tell where she sits with others, as compared to where she'd like to be with them. Alastair's returning hand on hers prompts a small rippling away - an instinctive protest against needing reassurance like a child - but she stays put. The hand on hers doesn't feel patronizing or calculated, it's-- instinctive. Soothing.

Lee knows the burn of reaching out to help someone who scorns the aid. She's not strong enough to turn Alastair away when he's offering something so heartfelt. "Course I can walk, I wasn't even-- I was headed home just now." Why go straight to a healer when she feels so out of sorts? She'd rather have time alone with her thoughts.

But now she has an even better option, even if it comes with its own reluctance. She's searching out eye contact, gazing up at Alastair's face, absorbing all the earnestness she sees there. "Show me the way."

Finally, Lee accepts the inevitable and unarguable fate that Alastair is going to help her -- took her long enough. She doesn't seem nearly as begrudged as he was expecting, though...which is kind of nice, actually.

Follow Alastair, especially since he has wrapped his hand gently around your bicep to guide you in the right direction. His signature escort style. His other is reserved for female companions and Lee might not be interested in that kind of contact right now.

"Can...you actually walk? I can carry you. It would be quicker." It isn't meant to ridicule; he genuinely thinks it is the better option, saving them time and Lee from some unnecessary pain to trudge through. Last thing either of them needs is Lee aggravating that wound any further.

Okay, now it's getting grating. "Yes, I can walk on my own, Alastair. You just asked. Don't make me kick you." As if she would - could, potentially, if her life depended on it in that moment, but she's passed the threshold of joking.

But that hand at her upper arm? Isn't protested in the least. She leans into him even further, and wraps her own arm around his waist (how is he so tall?) for support. After hundreds of yards of nothing to lean on, even just limping - letting herself look so silly and vulnerable - in front of him is a breath of relief. She sighs, tight but with abandon, as she moves along with him. "It can't be that far, right? You wouldn't leave anything of yours too far away to watch over it."

When he is met with an irate snipe, Alastair sighs with a wide grin that strains at the edges with a laugh. "Okay, okay." Message received.

Lee weaves unevenly with every step, so when she draws closer to his side, Alastair thinks nothing of it at first. Obviously a temporary loss of balance on the small woman's part -- until an arm comes to cling around his waist. Alarmed, his hand reaches for the one suddenly at his side, unsure if it's her or someone else's prying hand. Nope, definitely Lee.

Alastair's arm falls around her shoulders with ease, and he believes it's because of their height difference. It's nice to feel Lee's weight against his chest, across his back, leaning on him for help. It kicks a breath unexpectedly from his lungs, but lucky for him, it sounds like a laugh.

"Is that a fact?" Alastair truly is laughing now, fueled by genuine surprise. It's normal for people to not know his habits, mannerisms, or quirks, and he is never prepared for Lee having learned and retained so much about him. It's been six years since someone knew him well enough.

...Yeah, wait. Alastair nearly falters at the thought, because he has never looked at his friendship with Lee from a great distance -- and once he thinks about it, he decides that he rather doesn't feel like starting now either.

"Well you're not wrong, it's just up ahead 'ere," Alastair supplements, waving a bejeweled hand lazily up before them. "I was only just out to find some breakfast. I'm sure y'aven't eaten either. We'll get something after I patch you up, aye?" Good ol' subject change, and one that gives him the perfect excuse to pretend that the feeling in the pit of his stomach is him being hungry for a meal and certainly nothing else.

They haven't done much clinging, have they? Sure, there'd been some close brushes in fights, and Lee's guided Alastair back home and through woods to a bathing spot while he was temporarily spell-blinded, and...well, they'd slept sharing a bit of space last time they'd been around each other significantly. Lee still feels more than sees the luminescent glow of her necklace, the intelligently friendly crystal that Alastair had gifted the pair of them with.

Leaning on him so that she can walk easier is both natural and new, and she finds herself aching with the realization of it. Just a few hours prior, after all, she'd had a friend just--

She doesn't want to concentrate on the fact that she considered Cynric a friend. It's making Alastair being here feel oddly like rocks in her stomach, heavy and rough-edged and cold. She swallows down dread and nods to his laughter, because don't think for a moment she hasn't paid attention to your silly little ticks, Alastair. You don't leave your things hanging about far from you unless they're buried in a field or cave or tree and safe - otherwise you carry your belongings with you at all times like a turtle with its house. "I might not-- be hungry." Which is unfortunately true - there's not even normal hunger pangs for it being breakfast time. Shock or guilt or just plain upset has taken it from her, at least for now. "But-- I won't say no to having some tea while I watch you stuff your face."

Alastair's inn isn't a terribly rundown sort, though if anything close to fire safety laws existed in this town it would have no chance of passing. The door to enter is wide but as soon as they enter the ceiling is low, and the staircase that surely leads up to rooms looks narrow and twists away sharply, leaving only a wall in sight. Looks like a winding journey.

For the first time, Lee has the hope that Alastair's on only the second floor. She doesn't remark on it but she pales a bit under the dried sweat on her face, and squeezes up closer to him in the dim interior.

Alastair can feel the grip around his middle tighten, and he isn't surprised to see that look on Lee's face when he glances over to her. There's a woman at the bar cleaning up around some not-yet-roused patrons from last night, giving a suspicious eye to them here at the stairs by the entrance, and Alastair fires her a smile that is perhaps a little too enthusiastic for his predicament of guiding an injured girl into her Inn. Her mouth scrunches up in one corner and she turns away, deciding she will play ignorant.

"C'mon then, it's just a flight," Alastair encourages, squeezing her shoulder gently to help her take the first step. It's a somewhat arduous process, slow and extremely delicate, but our bard at least knows how to keep morale up. "If that hurts as much as I think it does, then you're definitely tougher than I am," he offers on a breathy chuckle." "I'd be pathetic and wailin'. Lucky for you, I can't heal it but after I'm done, you won't feel much of it."

Unless it's enchanted or poisoned. Alastair thinks it must not be, but he knows never to assume the best.

Lee spots the disapproving eye of the tavern lady as well, and gives her a quick, no-nonsense flash of teeth that's meant as a reassuring smile. As if the beanpole musician currently holding her up could have injured her to bring back to his room. Honestly.

"I don't doubt it," she huffs through a surprised chuckle. The stairs aren't so hard on her healthy side, though balancing on her injured hip hurts, but pressing up with her stricken muscles makes her right flank writhe with pain. She hisses in a breath and, for the sake of getting up these stairs today and not tomorrow, she leans more heavily against Alastair. At this point, she's practically using him as a one-sided crutch, tip-toeing on her bad side upstairs.

"Don't worry, when it's-- your turn for this, I'll be sure to-- remember to bring a cloth to stuff your mouth with." Yeah, feeling less of this like Alastair is promising? Sounds fantastic. Let's get up all these stupid stairs.

Laughter rings through the hall before them when they reach the landing, the acoustics of the wooden walls complimenting Alastair's voice nicely. "That or your fist." At that point, just knock him out entirely.

Five doors in and Alastair stops to take a key that has suddenly materialized in his hand, and slip it into the keyhole before them. He kicks the door open and brings Lee inside, directing her right to the bed.

"Make yourself comfortable-- and careful not to lay there." He points a glimmering finger at a small lump near the pillow. If Lee looks carefully, she can see it swelling and depressing slowly.

With his friend seated, he flutters around the room: shutting the door, shedding his coat, crouching to the floor at the foot of the bed pulling one of his packs apart for components. You would almost think he has an eagerness for the service he is about to perform. Being with at least one cleric at most times, Alastair never needs to play doctor for anyone these days.

Lee is overjoyed to reach his room, equipped with a surface she can sit on without guilt - so she starts at the notion of being careful where she drops. She's already halfway to the bed and can barely balance on one fully-functioning leg, so luckily she plops down far from the breathing patch of bed sheets. "Oh?" She leans over, distracted from Alastair's shimmering around for a moment.

Her hand at the twitching blanket pile causes a commotion of a snort, then sneeze, followed by a general wriggling towards the top of the bed. A raccoon's small fuzzy head pokes its way out and Lee gives a delighted giggle into her hand. "I knew you were fond of wildlife, but I didn't know you ever took them inside!" She reaches a hand out for him to sniff, unafraid of being bitten. He twitches towards her and chitters over her hand, turning it over in his own small paws.

Watching Alastair flick through his belongings with rapid precision, she feels a warmth finally breaking through the dull haze of her pained betrayal. "You must get lonely, on the road so much." It's not meant to be as serious as it may sound, but perhaps she's hit the nail on the head with it.

And she's missed him too. She belatedly realizes her own words, and clears her throat loudly. "Is-- is that all you need, what you've got in there?"

Alastair can hear the soft purring chatter up on the bed -- Lee has roused the raccoon pup. Glancing up just enough to peer over the bed's surface, he watches the two meeting-- rather, the babe acquainting himself with Lee's fingers.

He chuckles, thorough and rhythmic. "I don't usually! He's a special case though." From here, Alastair expects audience participation typical for his carefully placed story-telling lure, "oh is that so? What happened?" Anything will do.

--But certainly not that, not Lee pitying him for being -- dear gods it nauseates him to recall the word -- lonely. You better believe that Alastair looks absolutely affronted as he jerks his head up to confront the monk.

"Pardon? Since when do I travel in anyone's company 'cause I'm lonely?" Alastair unfolds from his spot of crouching on the floor, fists balled up and perched on his hips. "Being alone is'n exclusive t' bein' lonely. I quite like what instances I get t' be alone." Now Alastair is starting to feel a little more self-aware, feeling the warmth of a spotlight whose shine he's not feeling too fond of. He stalls for a pair of heartbeats before anxiously gathering his components up and bringing them to the table.

Subject change, please. "Fritz 'ere -- oh yeah, his name's Fritz -- was found by yours truly, wandering the forest an' scavenging all alone. He hadn't seen his mum in what sounded like days, which is not good news." Alastair could make it easy enough and say the pup had been orphaned, but the word tastes sour on the back of his tongue.

Nimble and steady hands expertly organize his ingredients, a pestle (with no obvious mortar -- he keeps forgetting to replace that), some vials, and a long piece of cloth along the bedside table. With no mortar, Alastair is content to just dump his dried components onto the table and crush them as desired against the table's surface while they talk.

Edited 2014-03-20 11:16 (UTC)

She'd only intended it in the most casual of senses - that Alastair had had a lot of time traveling the road alone, that Lee understands even slightly the appeal of animal companions and their quiet company and warm fur, that she connected the dots from him in a room alone but with a small fuzzy friend. But it's hardly a light comment for Alastair, apparently, and even Lee feels an echo of squirmy denial in her belly while she listens to him spew defiance, and she thinks on that word herself.

Lonely. What she'd felt after being left bleeding in the dark, her hand stuffed ceremoniously but hastily with bandages.

She's frowning but doesn't argue, watching him latch to the subject change. She scratches at Fritz's nape and is sharply glad for something soft and non-judging. "Yeah. Poor thing. Being lonely." Sorry, there's some bitterness in her tone.

Alastair wants to hide away from it. Lee wants to hide away from it too, but she'd also rather it not be treated so shamefully.

It makes her ears flush a light pink in self-consciousness, at the idea that it's so awful that she might have felt those pangs earlier. Or that she might have assumed Alastair was happy to see her.

"What's that." Her attempt at curiosity falls flat even as she nods at Alastair's skilled hands at his makeshift alchemical table.

Edited 2014-03-20 14:46 (UTC)

It's that word again, and Alastair pauses at it, as if about to flinch. His body is loyal to his stubborn personality however, and resists such a physical reaction -- because it's not something that can harm him, affect him, ever. He has himself fooled, down to his very muscles.

Except for a small part of him, buried at his core that makes him snap around, ready to fling something small and pointed at Lee's flat taunting. As always, the monk manages to beat him to the punch first, and he finds himself cut quiet by her remark. She's smart to not have vocalized that skepticism over Alastair's happiness to have found her today; she's not wrong about him, but there is no prize-like glow to be found for proving such a sensitive fact about the bard.

But it's a sudden splash of cold water onto an aggressive flame, not quite extinguishing, but fills the air with hot, invisible steam. "This n' that: willow bark, valerian, eucommia, star moss--" Alastair nearly forgot, and a cool breeze sweeps through as the man turns his attention fully back to Lee. "I meant t' ask: whatever it was you were stabbed with, was it enchanted or poisonous, that you could tell?" With the look of her, if she was poisoned, the both of them would know without question. Still, it doesn't account for being hexed, but he has a few ways for telling.

"Either way, you're gonna--" Just before the words slip out, Alastair falters on a tightrope he didn't realize he was treading. "Ah...you'll need t' take your pants off."

Lee's lower lip threatens to puff out in a pout at his spin towards her, a fight clearly brewing... But it's not sparked to life just yet. She listens to a quick list and then feels the air punched from her lungs, merciless and without warning.

"My-- my pants? That's fine." She couldn't care less over the cacophony from his question. She levers herself upright, Fritz falling back from the sudden specific weight of her hand pressing on the thin mattress. "That makes sense. And no, I don't think he--" Dammit, Lee! "--uhh I don't. Think it was poisoned. Or-- hexed. Is that common?" She wouldn't know how to check. But she'd also like to think she can trust that he wouldn't get so devious about attacking her. Surely it was just a quick thing to escape, right?

Balancing up near the mattress, she unceremoniously goes for the tie on her pants - luckily she's been traveling in clothes more like what she would have worn back in her first home, instead of her monastic robes. Much easier to remove just part of the outfit this way.

...Wow, okay, Lee agreed to that quicker than Alastair anticipated. It's a good thing, of course, but it brings him to a pause to glance over and make sure an open palm isn't flying up at his face.

I don't think he-- he who? Alastair blinks at her, mind finishing in what he supposes the sentence could have been: I don't think he enhanced the blade"? Objectively, it means very little; Lee of course would have seen her attacker, and supposing that said thief wasn't completely covered from head to toe, she would easily been able to tell their gender, if not race as well.

But something in Lee's face isn't right. Her halting, the slight stammering, all so very different from how she had been acting and interacting with Alastair. She fumbles at...what, letting slip the thief's gender? Identity?

The monk launched a question at Alastair some time ago, and it's finally struck his thought processes through many swirling layers of fiercely pensive bramble. Blinking awake, the bard seems to return back to life.

"Common?" He echoes, drawing his gaze back down to his components. "Common enough to wonder every time I see my accompaniment getting stabbed. You'd pro'lly know if you were, but I'll check for myself."

Which he intends to do now as he turns to face Lee finally, a small cloth in one hand, and a palm-sized dark blue bottle in the other. Fritz has grown curious and crawls stiffly to Lee's side, paws coming up to rest on a bare leg. Alastair kneels to the floor opposite the raccoon pup, where bloodied bandage sits trying to hide the injury. Carefully, Alastair peels it back, eyes flicking from eagerly peering to see the stab mark, and the woman's face.

Once revealed, Alastair's lips purse in a circular shape before a whistle chimes out. "I hurt just lookin' at it." It is a very aggravated cut, split flesh swollen and open. When he looks in, he is thankful to see an absence of bone. "But it doesn't look terrible."

He presses the clean cloth against Lee's hip, underneath the wound, with one hand -- while the other brings the uncorked bottle to hover above the cut. With a cautious tilt, a soft blue liquid streams out over her skin and down the laceration. It takes the blood with it, leaving a pleasantly cool sensation. Alastair watches as if looking for something, and he is: any reaction to residue of poison or enchantment.

Edited 2014-03-27 20:52 (UTC)

Pantsless, with just a shirt with three-quarter belled sleeves and thin underwear on, Lee honestly doesn't feel any more uncomfortable around him than she would be completely clothed. His attention towards her cut is clear, she's seen him naked already, and-- to be honest, the slice in her hip is taking over enough mental power than not wearing much below the waist is the least of her concerns towards that part of her body.

She can't help but watch what he is - the cut looks angry and seeing the inside of her leg feels wrong. She swallows and frowns and watches Alastair's face instead, trying to guess what he's doing.

"--Oh!" Half alarm and half relief, Lee tenses before she sags lower on the straw mattress. "That-- what is that?" She can barely make words with her sudden half-chuckling, nearly hysterical at the abrupt pause in her pain.

Meanwhile the cut, independent of Lee, surely gives off no signs of hexing or poisons - the blade was clean and cheap, just a shot in the dark from a normal weapon.

Lee swallows as the cool soothing stream evens out to let her realize that it's not painless, but the splash of relief is more than enough.

"Mmm, this?" Alastair chuckles, not only sensing Lee's sudden surprise. "Just a minor solvent t' clean the wound, an' help it 'urt a little less. M' cleansing the cut b'fore I start." The contents are very mild and soothing, in a base of purified meadow water. Nothing too special and perfect in a pinch when you've already used your cure wounds potions.

The stream of cool blue liquid stops, but Alastair now uses the moist cloth to gently wipe down the area, clearing the crusted blood away. Fritz crawls across Lee's lap to investigate Alastair and his injury-cleaning process.

And in this process, Alastair is quiet for the sake of thinking. He wonders at the scenario, the attack that occurred, feeling compelled for more details. "So what'd he steal, then?" Sudden and abrupt, blurting out his query with little context outside of his route of thoughts. If it's a relic of any significance, Alastair may know how to track the bastard down, retrieve the item(s?) and return them for a handsome reward.

But...nothing more rewarding than getting him back for having attacked Lee.

"I didn't know you were such a healer," she breathes, almost a chuckle. There'd not been too much cause for healing whatsoever in their adventures, and nothing that someone didn't have the spell ready for. This old-fashioned, home-remedy healing isn't what Lee had known Alastair was capable of. It kinda reminds her of being with her famil--

She flinches at the question about earlier that day. She understands the curiosity, of course - hell if Lee had found Alastair injured she'd probably have already asked for details about what happened - but she can't help the reflexive twitch of dread. That she might give something away and he'll guess too much - or even just to have to think too hard on it herself. "Some-- hammer, an enchanted one. There's lots of relics down there. But he, uh-- he didn't actually get anything."

It was her only win for that entire awful evening, and sending Cynric along empty-handed to his employer to get punished in...whatever way they punish unsuccessful thieves, hadn't felt like a huge victory. "I-- I got the stuff back from him. He ran off." Hence the stabbing. Believable enough, right, that she scared him in the dark, the ensuing tussle ending in him stabbing her but panicking and dropping his goods to run away a free man?

She chews at her bottom lip, the twinge in her hip while he wipes away blood not the only thing crinkling her brow.

A healer? Alastair chortles softly in equal parts flattery and bashfulness. "Healer, nah...just a keen survivor."

It's true. Alastair learned the hard way to keep himself prepared for any situation, and given the kinds of hijinks he can get himself into on a normal day, well...

Lee's explanation begins, strangely cautious, like feet on the icy skin of a frozen pond. Alastair moves to send the cloth and bottle away to the floor here at his side while he listens, freeing his hands a moment to shuffle medicinal plants around in the wet cloth, assembling a compress. Despite how perfectly expected her short tale unfolds, it's not her words that seem out tune, not quite.

Glancing back over his shoulder, a small, whiskered nose greets his own: Fritz sits perched on the young woman's knees, sniffing at whatever it is he must be doing with his funny-looking human hands with the shiny things on the soft-claws that he just loves to gnaw on.

"No way! That's great, Lee! You showed 'im, I'll bet you had 'im running scared."

Alastair presses the compress to Lee's hip, moist cloth staining a muddy green with the blend of dried herbs. The water present activates the dehydrated plants not unlike steeping tea, the result soaking into the open slice in the monk's flesh. What she may feel in a few moments should be buds of slight tickling in the cut, shortly before relief blooms where aggravated inflammation lies.

"And 'ere I figured he'd gotten away with somethin' valuable, since you seemed so...well." Still holding the pack to Lee's wound, Alastair lets a beat pass to lay a firm emphasis on the look he gives her as he glances up. "Defeated."

Lee may not be apt to gloat in the same way Alastair is known to, but there would be a glow of righteousness in her face. Alastair knows it, and looking for it, he sees only shadows. Had something else happened? Was it that the burglar got away?

Survivor. That's probably the best word for what Alastair is, isn't it? And it's so appropriate that he chooses that word, when there's other more abusive epithets volleyed at him on a regular basis, sometimes by Lee herself. 'Thief', 'coward', any accusations of being slippery and not opening up enough - it's all about surviving at the least cost to himself, isn't it?

Cynric probably considers himself a survivor as well. Lee winces. She'd rather think of her Alastair as a healer than anything so ruthless as what 'survivor' can entail. Lee's fingers, loose and half-hearted, stroke at the little raccoon's nape where he's sat on her knees. It's a primal, silly comfort to pet something soft.

She can't help but grimace away from him at the ill-advised congratulations. She feels the opposite of great or triumphant. The only thing keeping her going is the knowledge that she did the right thing, and even there she failed - he got away. He didn't steal, but he'll just go somewhere else to rob. She was full of half-measures caused by confusion and fright. She didn't fully commit to letting them both escape unscathed, but neither did she punish him for the attempted crime. She hesitated and hurt and now she's bleeding and sore for it.

Her hand on Fritz's neck has tightened enough that he squeaks and jerks away, and she mouths 'sorry' to him and tries again, a light touch down his back. And then she hisses pain through her teeth - the compress Alastair has brought out hurts, with the pressure on the recent stab wound. It aches deeply, irritates, and then graduates to a prickling sensation. As she watches the dirty green water seep out the sides, down her leg and collect on the bed in a tiny puddle, she feels even that tickling slowly fade. The lack of pain starts at the center and moves out, the exact opposite of how Lee would have imagined a wound to heal. She sighs in relief, not realizing how the pain had been keeping her rigidly upright.

And then the comment. Her face snaps back to look down at Alastair's, crouching next to the bed. She feels her brow re-furrow and her mouth purse, closed against any possible shouting at him in return for the sudden pain he's caused in her chest. She stares, stubborn and frightened, for several seconds before turning away in a huff. Despite the pretense at anger, it's fear and loss that has her so upset. She's just not sure what to do about it, because she feels it has to stay a secret. She's too ashamed. "I'm just...upset that I couldn't act quick enough." It's a weak lie, made only the slightest bit believable because it's not an untruth. It's just not all of the truth, not by a long shot.

Her hands wring together in her lap, Fritz agitatedly shuffling around across her legs, clearly not finding a comfortable spot on his newly-tense pillow.

Edited 2014-09-17 16:45 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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thread for wildnobility GET YOUR PRECIOUS BOOTY OVER HERE

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funnily enough, that's exactly how you can call for Alastair's presence

I imagine his bat signal is a tankard...

Lee can be his Robin ; w;

Pfft he can be HER Robin ;D

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Hey only one of them is an acrobat of supernatural proportions, and I'm not imagining it's Alastair

You raise a fair point.

That's bc I'm your wife ergo I'm always right~~ /rimshot

Y-yes dear. :<

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guess who I just decided is traveling along with Alastair ehuehuehue

FRITZ MY LOVE

Re: FRITZ MY LOVE

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