A Trail of Blood

[Jirai]

The Whelp knew better than to touch Niall. Nonetheless, touch she did, fingers tangling in a hand that still wept blood from its own slashes, and there was no consequence for that, just as there had been none for Gloria. Niall had no strength left for those defenses, not right now.

"He is..." She started to reply to Gloria, with some effort, even as Whelp pulled away. As Whelp vanished, replaced so clearly by the other, and those words, that cold voice. Gloria will have her hands full, for at that Niall was struggling, trying to push herself up from the tree that supported her, face pale even as dark eyes flared. "You... will not!" It wasn't shouting, but it was as close as Niall could come in her current condition.

[Guppy]

It glowered at the seamstress, fetching the lantern with a roll of her eyes. She settled on her haunches beside the scarred one and held the light aloft again. The girl was lucky that she had a task that the creature thought of utmost importance, or she would be tempted to fracture her nose again. Niall settled, eyes flashing, and snapped at the creature in fury. It pushed her face closer to Niall and peered into her eyes. A fierce grin dawned upon her lips, teeth revealed and vaguely-threatening. "Oh? And what do you presume you can do to stop me, little sister? Bleed on me?" It demanded, features still set in cold wrath at the boy's actions.

In a moment, Noura was back and sobbing. The lantern shook with the action, but it did not lower. Instead, she reached to clutch at Niall's blood-smeared hand again so tightly that the other might fear for her bones. "But - But why would he? He is Elliot. He could not have. Why?," the girl stumbled over her words and stared at the wound like her brains were threatening to leak from her ears. Gloria might very well regret making the creature leave. It would be more helpful than this girl falling to pieces before them.

[Rance]

A moment later and she would have done what she did weeks before--

A hard strike, a cock of the forearm, a want to ignore the needle for a chance to pummel the teeth through which It so boldly spoke. She would have felt guilt for Noura; she would beg for apology, but it would have been a reasonable response to silence the chattering voice.

But she never needed to; she continued her task on penalty of losing Niall's very life. Instead, she freed her gloved hand and hammered Niall's shoulder back against the tree, hissing, "Stay up," before the final stitch was drawn, thread-edges broken, and tied roughly against the skin. What damage was done beneath that puncture could be remedied by no seamworker's hand, but the constant bleeding had been momentarily stifled.

"It is because Elliot is -- is not Elliot," she snapped at Noura, before shaking hands discarded thread-edges. The barrel-thick girl got to her feet, gritting her teeth against the dizziness, the clouds in her head. Blood on her fingers, seeping into the cracks of her palms, slicking up her wrists, spattered on her skirt, spilling to her wooden shoes. "Because Elliot is not Elliot," Gloria repeated. A softer explanation. One that wanted for patience in the wake of the whelp's fear.

"She's meant for the Rememdium, Noura. I -- I need your help. You take her under one arm, and I the other. We lift her, support her with shoulders and hips--" the way you would lift a satchel of holy sand, "--because if she stands straight, the stitches will tear, the wound will open."

And there will be more blood.

Fueled only by feeble instinct, the girl bent her knees, entwined her arm along with Niall's, and told her to stand.

[Jirai]

Despite her condition, despite tattoos quiescent in the face of It, the scarred girl glared daggers at the other. "If you... hurt him I... will destroy you." She breathed as Gloria thrust her back against the tree, one hand in Noura's own.

That outburst seemed to have burned the last of the young woman's energy, though, and following it she was but weakly obedient to Gloria's orders, struggling to stand with the other's aid, letting the seamstress guide her.

[Guppy]

Niall threatened the creature and it gave a soft laugh, apparently unconcerned. A hand moved to brush the hair back from her forehead, amusement within It's eyes. "Hush, little sister. You have to live to destroy me." The creature murmured, more affection in her voice for the scarred young woman that It ever showed for whelp. Startling revelation, that.

Regardless, the creature soon lay dormant and their friend regained control. Gloria insisted that Elliot was changed. "I thought that he would still be there, though. I never thought that he would be able to harm her. He loves her!," she blurted, with that same rising panic.

Gloria tried to snap her out of the desire to flee by gently, carefully explaining what she needed the other to do. Niall was not fixed and she needed more tending to. Whelp could not fall apart. Niall needed her. She swallowed the bile threatening her again. Carefully did she seek to take the scarred woman's arm and support her weight. The smell of blood was thick within the air, but she gritted her teeth. As they walked, she prayed to whomever would listen that her desire to see a being pass through death would not be Niall's undoing.

[Rance]

"Then let this be further fuel to your fire, Noura," the sweat-lathered girl said as she hoisted Niall, angling the more significant breadth of the spearwielder's weight against her shoulder. "Know what those colors you wear represent. Know what the woman who asks you to wear them can -- can do to a mind."

Perhaps it was condescension. A stern warning, less Myrkener, far more Jernoan. Blood was in the grove, not from a slaughtered jah'zoon or a merciless voorbear, but from a person. Niall's. They wore the foul and despicable evidence of what this mind-meddling could do as stains on their dresses. A Storyteller's patchwork skirts would fade brown with the memories, a permanent reminder to the seamstress of what damage could be wrought--

And Elliot? He loves her! Noura protested.

"What of -- of our other friends," the seamstress said, as with her lead, they carefully lofted Niall between them, leaving lines of blood and gouges from Niall's boots creasing through the path's summer-burnt soil. "What of those that -- that Elliot Brown and the other Rhaena-swain like less than Niall? I hate this, Noura," she said. "You hate this, but if you and It are going to find a solution for what that o'oolesh has done in him, then do it with speed.

"If he puts his sword in -- in someone less forgiving" (Later, when trying to wash away the red in a creek or holding back her hair to vomit, she might wonder at the irony of calling Niall such a thing) "then he may not stay alive long enough to be sewn back together."

The Rememdium was far. But she had tarsweat aplenty for the trek. An old Jernoan proverb, that: Have you enough sweat for the task? Like it was a measure of gall. Of constitution.

"I have -- have got your back, Noura, however I may. And should Rhaena Olwak make an Elliot of you, I have got my little knife as well."

[Guppy]

The wildling who helped shoulder Niall's weight was silent as she considered what had happened. As she considered what Gloria had to say about the situation. She could not see how either of them could forgive such an atrocity. Elliot had tried to kill Niall. He had only just failed. If Gloria had not been present to stem the flow of blood, she would be dead even now.

Those eyes cast over to the seamstress across Niall's shoulder shoulders and bowed head as she asked after those who Elliot and Rhaena were less fond of. Like herself. Like Gloria. What would happen to them, should Rhaena decide that she no longer wished them to meddle? They would be ended just as cleanly, efficiently, as the tattooed woman slung between them. A storm cloud gathered over her brow and she brooded over the dark possibilities that awaited them all.

"I will - I will speak to him. I will tell him that this is wrong," she insisted, lump still in her throat. "I may need your skills, should he not take that well," she murmured, softly.

[Rance]

"I don't want you to speak to him alone about this. Niall is a fr--"

How foolish one could be with blood on their hands and a dying woman against her shoulder.

"Niall is a fellow Myrkener," the seamstress said. "If you question him about this -- this misdirection of his sword, then--" I would wish to be there; I wish to know what is the matter with him, "--you should approach him warily. And with It tucked just underneath the hem of your sleeve if -- if you must."

For she could not be there; it would shatter the ruse, it would put Noura at a greater risk. No, the girl deferred to the devil in Noura's veins, trusting it implicitly with the task: "If Noura bleeds," she began, as if there was an invisible specter hanging over their shoulders, listening with zeal. It would hear, wouldn't it? It, the devil, the demon, the wisp in the marrow of her bones. The seamstress repeated between breaths, "If Noura bleeds, you bring her to me. And I will take care of her. Whether it is Elliot who hurts her, or -- or anyone else."

[Guppy]

The young woman was clearly upset, clearly beside herself. Elliot, her beloved, pain in the rear rogueling had done something she never thought possible. He harmed the woman who Whelp most aspired to be. The one who accepted her immediately. If he could do something like that to Niall, he could do the same to all of them. Each and everyone. Their blood could be spilled just as effortlessly. Brows furrowed, stubborn, as Gloria told her not to go alone.

"I will. I am not certain that It will not harm him," she warned, sparing a quick glance to Niall. The scarred woman would kill them both if It touched one hair on the boy's head. Whelp was not entirely certain she could protect him from the creature.

When Gloria uttered her request to the creature, there was a flash of black across her eyes. An acceptance. She would bring the girl, if she suffered at the boy's hands. Only the unseen gods above could protect the boy if he did hurt the wildling. It would not tolerate such. "I will talk to him soon. Ready your stitches," Noura offered, disheartened.

[Rance]

Ready your stitches.

It had been there. It had acquiesced; she felt remotely ill when she saw the girl's eyes flicker as though she'd the inner-lids of a lizard, wiping away the human traits for a fleeting second. A little glimpse of It and the seamstress decided she would much rather speak to the devil than simply be acknowledged by it--

Never make a deal with someone you truly think might hurt you, Clayton Thayer had demanded.

Yet here, in stitches and black eyes, she brokered that very kind of deal.

Together, she and Noura managed to drag Niall to the Rememdium. There, a flurry of white-gowned attendants -- wellsmiths, the girl always called them -- swept up the tattooed spearwielder, brought her to a curtained bed, and worked with diligence upon her wound. The seamstress sat near for the night, silently listening for each and every stitch to be broken, snapped free, that the wound might be more carefully managed by more educated hands.

And if Noura stayed too, Gloria would hold her hand.