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Date Posted: 00:52:54 12/04/01 Tue
Author: Rowan and Tristan
Subject: The fun part's over
In reply to: Isobel and Barry 's message, "Patchwork" on 21:15:25 12/03/01 Mon

Rowan moved quickly, almost instinctively, when he saw Jeremy pitch sideways from the roc. He grabbed the boy’s shirt and yanked him backwards, dropping one of his own swords in the process. He cursed as he watched the blade land far below in the sand, but then concentrated on hauling Jeremy back up. Once the kid was clawing his way back up, Rowan turned to the screeching vulture swinging in for another dive and ended the thing’s life with his remaining sword.

Soon afterward, the rest of the giant raptors flew off to feed on the carcasses of their brethren, so Rowan commanded the roc to angle down toward the ground. He hopped down after Jeremy, and, after scooping up his fallen sword and sheathing it, turned to actually give the kid his old grin.

“Nice work, kiddo,” he said, slapping him affectionately on the shoulder. Jeremy looked a little surprised, since Rowan’s attitude toward him had been kind of cold of late. “It’s okay to be a daredevil,” he explained laughing, “When you got somebody to watch your back while you do it.”

That said, he trotted off in Tia’s direction, since he was curious to see what she was doing with that skull…oh, what’s his name…Barry! Yeah, Barry. The thing was crying like a baby, and it made him chuckle as he made his way across the hot sand.

He saw Laurel plucking an arrow out of a dead vulture’s body and approached her from behind. “Have fun riding with Ravin?” he teased, pulling on a strand of her hair. She threw him a mock glare. “What’s the matter, sis? Big bad vultures interrupt your little love fest?”

“Not at all,” she replied with a cool smile. “Yours?”

“Oh, come off it!” he grumbled, turning away from her and trying to ignore her laugh.

He winked at Isobel as he passed her while Valhorek was tending her. But then he remembered that she was a little hard on men who winked and ogled her, so he made a show of looking remorseful. “Sorry,” he apologized, “I’ll take it back.” He winked at her again and went on, still chuckling.

Valhorek soon followed, and he watched as the healer mixed some herbal concoction against Barry’s infected eyeball, causing the skull to bemoan his pain even more. Rowan laughed outright when Barry pushed himself strategically against Tia’s chest.

“Looks like you’ve got a new pesky male to fend off,” he said to her, nodding at Barry. Too bad that don’t work for me, he thought cheekily. ‘Tia…I have a pain…’ He laughed again at his own joke and shook his head. Lucky skull.




Tristan was by nature a healer’s worst nightmare. Of course, when that healer took the form of no-nonsense Valhorek, his nature was quite simply ignored. Besides, all the glares he leveled at the man as he approached him were halfhearted at best, and there wasn’t much to be said for a halfhearted glare. He was just finding it difficult to put any spunk into them. He was finding it difficult to put any spunk into anything, right now.

He scowled and nodded when he was told they were going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Valhorek didn’t have any dragonic-friendly herbs (well, some of them were very friendly, actually, but he didn’t think this was either the time or the place to try them out), so he accepted the rag grudgingly and obediently bit down on it.

Tristan wasn’t some sissy-faced wimp (pretty-faced and sissy-faced were not the same thing, by the way), but he was no iron-skinned stoic like Marz, either. Although the numbing salve worked to some extent, it still hurt like twelve hells to have a needle threaded through his aching, raw flesh. He growled softly the whole time, rather like a dog being picked on while trying to eat its dinner, and did everything he could not to haul off and bite the damned healer. The instinct was strong, especially after recently fighting in dragon form, but he held back admirably. He’s a healer, he soothed his restless feelings, It’s what they do.

Once Valhorek left to tend Marz, he could finally relax, removing the rag from his mouth with a distasteful grimace. He realized his teeth ached from clamping down on it so hard. That was kind of humiliating, and he vowed to be tougher the next time, maybe to even smile while he was being sewn up. Tristan was determined to reach the point where he could tell a joke while having his frigging leg sewn back on, though it was one hell of a goal. He couldn’t even tell a joke when he wasn’t in pain.

But now that the wound was closed and covered with salve and a bandage, the pain had dulled a lot anyway. Mostly he was just fighting off exhaustion, though the blackness was no longer creeping in every time he blinked too hard. He watched Valhorek finally walk away from Marz, remembering what the healer had instructed.

“Stay here,” he muttered, now watching carefully as Val worked on Isobel’s shoulder. The woman turned and caught his eye as she surveyed the scene around here. Tristan forgot to glare at her, in fact, he actually smiled! Quickly, he averted his eyes and stared at Marz, who once again was dressed to look like a mummy. I did that, he reminded himself again, his face falling.

“Rake it, as they like to say,” he huffed, getting to his feet with a wince, “I’m not staying anywhere.” He shuffled towards Marz and sat down, or rather, collapsed gracefully beside him, to be frank. A sudden series of screams and curses flooded the air, and he glanced up at Barry, who was complaining as Valhorek tried to tend his eye. “You’re welcome,” he muttered sarcastically. “See if I ever risk my neck for a stupid flying skull again.”

He returned his attention to Marz, a rather pained expression coming to his face as he stared at the multitude of bandages. “Gods, I’m sorry,” he said, biting his lip a little, “I knew I shouldn’t have taken you into battle. Helping the others isn’t worth it if you end up getting…seriously injured in the process.” He’d almost said, “killed,” but couldn’t quite bring himself to utter the word. He'd probably end up going crazy if something like that ever happened. His conscience would torment him endlessly, at the very least.

“Anyway,” he added, “I’m glad I caught you, even if I did poke you a bit.” He sighed and traced the path of one of the bandages curling around Marz’s shoulder across his chest and under his arm. The relief that Marz was okay was evident on his face. “I’d hug you if I could,” he laughed lightly, “But I wouldn’t want to hurt you even more than I already did!”

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