Mari and Rhys - Breakable

[constantasastar]

Who: Mari and Rhys
When: Just post-Citasplosion
Where: Golden Hour
Ratings & Warnings: 12 for violence and unsanitary medical practises. Also swearing.

ITP: Rhys is a bamf. Mari, less so.

An hour and a half. At first it felt like an eternity, then suddenly, not enough time at all. Rhys rushed toward the Hour, skipping the main roads and choosing the alleys and occasionally roof tops of Tyrol instead. He had brought a sword. It wasn't the finest make, and may not have even had the right balance for him, but it was what he could afford, and he had to trust Gawain's lessons enough to take a trial by fire with it. He would rather use his fists, but he wouldn't be granted the same in return.

He swam through the crowd the best he could, climbing onto the side of a building to try and spot Mari amongst the chaos in the streets. The shouts were overwhelming his senses.

There seemed to be hardly any time left before her meeting with Rhys after she left Rowan, making sure he was safe and well enough. For the third time since she'd set out from the Hour, she sent up a silent prayer to St. Jude. He'd kept them safe on their journey, now hopefully he'd help keep everyone alive and well- she wouldn't consider the possibility that they weren't. Hopping back on the horse, they'd galloped to the front entrance, managing to push their way through the crowds that way.

She couldn't be glad she'd missed the initial assault. At least then, she'd know where they all were. All she could make out from the ledgers was that Lucia had been looking for her sister, Marijke had been helping people evacuate - but then so had Rowan, and he'd been hurt, his mentor killed. Getting down from Copper and tying him to the gate, she forced herself to take deep breaths, still wanting to throw up. Locating her knife in her bag, she wrapped her hand around its hilt but did not yet take it out. Instead she stood nervously to attention, scanning the area in front for Rhys.

Thank-- well not Cita, Cita wasn't to thank for anything right now. Thank horses, then, since that was what allowed Rhys to spot Mari so easily. He was down from the wall in an instant, dashing toward her and giving a sharp whistle to try and get her attention as he approached. (Thank Snap, too, for motivating him to practice that at all.)

There wouldn't be much communicating. It wasn't like he could stop and write in the middle of a siege. But Rhys figured they wouldn't need it. Best case scenario, he was really only here to help Mari forcibly drag people out of the Hour, following her lead. Worst case, he was there to help protect them from whatever the Citadel decided to send their way. Neither required words.

She breathed a sigh of relief she hadn't realised she'd been holding when she saw him, her shoulders relaxing. "Prynhawn da," good afternoon. The horse looked up at him too and she rubbed its side absentmindedly, trying to keep it as calm as possible, despite everything going on. Cita had-- exploded, Rowan had said. But Rowan wasn't well, not at all. Even if he had been killed, there might still be his men lurking about the place, still the odd running battle between the Citadel and the guard.

Mari tried not to shudder as she looked up at the building rising behind her. There might still be a Cancellarius inside. The right thing to do would be to ask Rhys if he was certain he wanted to come in with her, if he was sure he wouldn't prefer a higher probability of living. Truly though, as the Cancellari had taught her, she was a sniveling coward when she had nobody to hide behind. Rhys didn't have the influence of the Occia, but he was stronger than she was and she felt better about walking into danger with him walking with her.

"We should," English would be best. They didn't need messed up instructions, even if Welsh was definitely more comforting. "Get in there. Apparently there are..." Bodies. Violence. Death. "It might be a difficult thing to stomach. They're low on medical staff," because the medical staff had an unfortunate habit of dying when stabbed. They'd had the same problem when faced by the werewolves, God. She felt lightheaded. "And a lot of people are injured."

Rhys managed a smile, drawing his sword and putting his other hand firmly on Mari's shoulder in a gesture he hoped said, I'm with you. I've got your back.

It wasn't that he wasn't afraid himself-- Rhys was reckless, not insane-- but whatever he might be afraid of Mari, had it worse. Her friends were in there. Rhys had seen his share of horror on the streets, but he took a deep breath to steel his nerves, turning to enter at the same time. Time wasn't a luxury.

He stayed fairly close, alert to Mari pointing the way, but preferring to stay in the lead as much as he was able. The more he stayed between Mari and whatever fanatics were roaming the halls, the better.

With relief, Mari fell into step behind him, occasionally pointing over his shoulder to correct their path, but happy enough to allow him to lead the way.

The halls were, just as they had been when the werewolves had attacked, deathly silent. Occasionally she thought she heard footsteps echoing and jumped, but if someone was walking along the corridor ahead of them, they hadn't yet come into view.

Blood though, that was visible. The walls seemed to be painted with it in some places, and even when they seemed to be clear there was the occasional spatter of red. Her stomach twisted and she was torn between being glad they hadn't yet come across the bodies Rowan had described and filled with nervous tension about what they would look like when they did. This place had been close enough to her home for a year, and now it was filled with bodies and her friends had been injured, gone missing.

The Neophyte corridor was just as quiet as the rest. Lucia's room was empty, she could tell from the open door as they passed it, taking comfort in the fact that whatever happened, whether it was werewolves or the Citadel, Lucia's room would always be a barely livable mess. "Once we get up the stairs at the end of this hall, we can see if anyone in the offices is still around." Almost as soon as she spoke she thought she heard the footsteps again, a rustle of clothing and the click of boots. Mari tapped Rhys's shoulder to get him to stop, hesitating. "Am I going insane, or can you hear footsteps too?"

Neither option was good, really.

Rhys wasn't used to this. Normally, when there would be danger, he was hidden. The blood was enough to beg him to take to the shadows, but he refused. Rather than showing fear, he frowned, just... sad. Why? There was never going to be a satisfying answer to that question. Mari had even tried to explain it once. But. Why?

Didn't matter, in the end. He nodded to Mari in understanding when she spoke, but froze, alert to the sounds. He responded by reaching for her wrist, thinking to duck into one of the rooms until the potential danger passed.

At least, that might have been a good idea if they hadn't been seen first. Rhys hissed through his teeth and dropped Mari's hand in favor of turning to face them. There was that awkward half of a second, and desperate hope, that he would be staring down Neophytes or Adepts just as ready to attack him, then everyone would relax. Maybe even laugh about it.

Nope. And there were two of them. He shoved Mari behind him. It wouldn't be the first time fighting for his life, and after the first swing came at him, his body took over. Rhys may have been clumsy with a sword, but he tried to make up for it in tenacity, unrelenting in his counter attack. His cloak was a weapon now, he decided, temporarily blinding one while he exchanged blows with another.

Two of them, she processed, and backed away behind Rhys, trying to stay out of reach. Guards from the Citadel - where were the Hour's guards? They couldn't have all been killed, could they? A knife would do little against a sword, but it seemed to jump into her off-hand even as she stumbled back, its weight a comfort.

She'd been lucky, with Justin, to have someone who kept her out of combat situations where he could. Outside of the occasional fistfight with her brothers and scuffles with Moirine she had little in the way of any fighting experience - something that seemed to keep coming up as a disadvantage. At some point she and the world were going to have to sit down and have a talk re: the fact that people seemed to be continually trying to kill her. Keeping calm, mostly because her brain hadn't caught up enough with the situation to begin panicking, she evaluated the field. It was a trick she'd been taught by Justin, but he'd meant it to be something she could use to escape battles, not participate. Unfortunately, running was not an option. Rhys seemed capable enough, but the men in front of them had the advantage of height, weight, reach and better weapons. One was fighting blind, but that wouldn't last long. The other, Rhys was currently occupying, and she'd probably end up distracting the redhead if she got too close. Bad idea.

The blinded one, then. Slipping out from behind her friend, she used the straight punch Ask had shown her, aiming for his nose, skipping out of reach when it connected. Her knuckles stung from the attack, but with satisfaction she noted blood dripping past his hands as he raised them to his face with an angry sound. Hopefully this wouldn't end with her and Rhys turned into two red stains on the walls.

Rhys was alerted by the cry and took the opportunity Mari gave him, ignoring his own attacker for a moment to follow up on the other while the guard was steel reeling. Rhys grabbed his shirt and slammed his had back against the wall with enough force for the guard to slump into a heap under Rhys' cloak.

He didn't wait for the satisfaction of seeing that, sword arm ready to engage the other who undoubtedly pursued him. All he saw was an opening, and he took it, striking the guard through the shoulder and kicking him off his sword, into the next wall.

What he hadn't noticed was the reason for the opening-- the guard's sword had already been occupied piercing Rhys. Dislodging the guard from his own sword made the guard's remove in turn, and this time adrenaline wasn't able to save Rhys from the pain. The world spun with a kind of sinking dread, briefly darkened.

His body slumped forward, but he caught himself, reversing the grip on his blade and bashing the guard against the skull with the pommel. Head injuries could be fatal, but somewhere Rhys still hoped they might live through the ordeal. Another part of him asked why he cared. He didn't have an answer.

Rhys staggered backward, reaching for his cloak. He missed a few times, too afraid to actually look down, but finally yanked it from the other guard's bloodied face. Using his teeth, he tore off a strip and dropped his sword to cinch the wound. He couldn't stop now. He couldn't slow Mari down. They had to keep going.

She felt suddenly glad for ducking back out of the way, flinching at the sound of each injury. Ten minutes, that was probably the maximum amount of time they'd be out for if they'd been knocked unconscious - that would be enough to get out. Crouching by the guard he'd kicked into the wall, she went to smile at him and realised what he was doing. "Oh God."

He'd been stabbed. This couldn't be good.

Her hands felt weak as she pressed them to her head. "Er." Ah. Right. Stabbing. Treatment: bandaging, pressure, pain relief, suturing a distinct possibility. What did she have in her bag? Gut and a needle, if needed. Turpentine and rose water, but no eggs. Bandages. Wine, white willow, water. The last time the Hour had come under attack, it'd been Rowan pushing her out of the way, and he'd been the one to be injured. At least swords didn't carry the same possible side-effect as werewolf claws.

Focus.

They were in the neophyte corridors. Her room would be- down here. "Come on," she held out her arm so he could lean on it. "I'm a surgeon in training," not entirely true, yet, given that she was yet to be assigned someone to Shadow, but thanks to Silence she did have experience. "Let me take care of that."

Rhys held up his palm to stop Mari and motioned to the hallway, toward the stairs, where she had wanted to go before. He took his sword up again and threw his cloak over his shoulders. It hid the wound pretty well, actually, and his body might have had a bit of a slump, but he could walk. And fight. Especially if he used the wall to lean his arm on.

Without waiting for her, her even started in that direction, just to prove it. Adrenaline was waning and the wound was stinging with pain, but so what if it did? He had a while yet before blood loss made itself a problem, right?

Mari paused a moment, staring after him with her jaw dropped. He'd been stabbed and he was trying to walk on. Was he not considering what would happen if they met more guards? Catching up to him, she put her hand firmly on his elbow, trying to steer him in the direction of one of the rooms. 'Are you trying to make your wounds worse? Do you want to pass out again?' Both these questions were on the tip of her tongue. She decided to try a different tack first. "Come on, alright? You've already done so much for me, coming out here. Let me do this for you. Repayment."

After. She could repay him and fix him up after. It would be pointless, now, to stop and slow her down from what she needed to do. He would be fine. He was fine. He promised Siegmund he was going to be fine and he was fine.

Rhys lifted himself from the support of the wall and gestured with his head again, expression softening. He pulled away from Mari, heading stubbornly toward the stairs.

"Fuck's sake."

How had she ended up with such a bunch of self-sacrificing friends? Lucia ran through the Hour to save her sister, Rowan and Marijke struggled to get people out, even after the trauma both had sustained in the last attack. Mr. Helder had stopped to check up on her, despite what a mess guarding must be out there. Now Rhys was determined to help her search the Hour despite a stab wound.

Marijke's office was up the stairs. If they found her, she'd be better at taking care of a stab wound. Even if they didn't, her herbs and equipment would be a better aid than her ragged medical kit. "Up the stairs then," she agreed, voice tired, then followed him, hovering close by in case he fell or needed support.

Rhys smiled with Mari's agreement and forced himself onward. Just moving felt a little better. It gave him confidence, and he moved more easily the more he got used to the right way to limp. It wasn't a big limp-- he figured the more he could hide the wound and act like it wasn't much, the less she'd worry. And the less he'd worry. He hadn't really looked at it, and he wasn't going to. Not that bad. It wasn't that bad.

He would just keep repeating that to himself, only occasionally resting an arm on the wall for balance as they made their way further in.

Mari followed him with her hands on her head, considering the pros and cons of trying to knock out and drag someone so much bigger than she was.

Pros: she could get him to safety far quicker.

Cons: lifting him would be hard, if he didn't fall after the first hit things would be awkward, the possibility of permanent damage, and the list went on in the general direction of pain and unending frustration.

Thankfully, Marijke's door rose up to greet them soon enough. Mari clenched her jaw and balled her hands into fists to keep herself from growing overexcited - what if she wasn't in there? What if she'd been killed? Still, despite her smarter side trying to calm her down, she broke into a run when they got close, flinging the door open.

The room was empty. Of course it was. Still, she stared into it a little longer, trying to hide her disappointment. Hanging her head, she made a motion with her hand to try and get Rhys to follow her in, stepping inside herself.

Marijke's office was just as she remembered it to be, clean and orderly, jars and plants lined up. It was usually calming to be here, but right now she felt nothing but anxiety.

Rhys flinched when Mari rushed ahead, hurrying to keep up with her and finding himself frustratingly not able to act as fast as he wanted. It only took him a moment to see there was no danger inside, so he took to guarding the doorway and listening for any additional footsteps.

From the corner of his eye he caught Mari's gesture, slipping inside and silently closing the door behind him, locking it. Even if they were only here a minute, it was better to have the meager barrier than nothing at all. With it in place, he let himself lean on it, taking weight off himself and closing his eyes. Just a thirty second rest. Yeah.

He frowned when he caught Mari's disappointment, and seeing the room really was open. Rhys gave Mari a questioning look. Did they need to go further?

What she really wanted to do was curl up under Marijke's desk and lay there for a while until the older woman came to find her. That would be useless though, unnecessarily childish. Instead, she pointed to a chair. "Sit there. Alright? You're going to made the wound worse."

She couldn't see any blood, nor signs of a struggle. Would they have hurt her very much? There honestly wasn't a single good man amongst the Citadel.

"We can stay here for a while, probably." Or long enough to keep his wound from growing worse. "If she's not here, she'll come back soon." Loading her voice with a hollow optimism, Mari fumbled around in her bag until she found the tincture of white willow. "Take this for the pain."

Rhys hesitated, but frowned and nodded when Mari went on to explain. Waiting to solve problems was one of his least favorite things. Thinking happened when a person waited. He pushed off the wall and stumbled into the seat as directed, sword still in his grip. He noticed the blood on it for the first time, a little sick when he remembered the sensation of actually pushing it through another human being. See? There he was. Thinking.

Briefly, he considered the tincture might be some kind of sleeping agent. Would Mari be that devious? It's not as if he were even in that much pain. Mistrust right now wasn't going to get them far, though, so he took it as directed and used his hand to help keep his head up. It couldn't have been that bad. It didn't even feel like he had been stabbed. More of a dull pain, really. Shouldn't it have been a... stabbing pain? Maybe he had panicked. Maybe he had seen it wrong, and the blood he thought he saw was from the guard.

As long as he didn't look down to see the blood soaking through his make-shift tourniquet, he could keep believing that.

"Alright," she said as he took it, then crouched down to begin unraveling the bandage. "We'll have to clean the wound," she told him, talking through the procedure. It was half for his benefit, half for her own. "I have wine for that, it'll sting though. That should remove any dirt that got in. We'll put in honey and rosewater to make it heal easier." A better pain reliever would be laudanum, but she knew very little about it. "If the wound is deep, I'll suture it closed."

And then he might wish she'd been devious enough to add a sleeping agent to the tincture.

"Bandages," she added, almost as an aside. "How does it sound so far?"

Rhys nodded to Mari, but his eyes were averted. He didn't have the courage to look. It was a realization that almost made him laugh. If there was to be stitching and stinging, there wouldn't even be a whimper to alert the Citadel of where they were. It was a small relief, but sometimes Rhys appreciated being mute.

It was deep. Most of the damage was past the surface, where his nerves would be scarcely aware of it. It didn't appear he had damaged any vital organs, at least, but the brutal removal of the blade had made certain there was more than enough blood to lose.

Mari was not accustomed to feeling discomfort at the sight of wounds, but here it rose in her throat. It wasn't so much the wound, but the fact that it'd been inflicted on her friend, that it wouldn't have been had she not insisted on going back into the Hour. Guilt weighed heavily on her, adding itself to the whirl of negative emotions that'd come as soon as she'd heard about the attack. Wine first, to wash out the wound. It would hurt. Alcohol in wounds always seemed to.

She found honey easily enough, rose water too. She itched to examine the pots Marijke had, to see if there were better poultices available, but experimenting during such a dire situation seemed like a bad idea. Instead, she mixed the two, locating some bandages and soaking them in it. More rose water and some turpentine for the paste that would go in the wound; she mixed and added it carefully, trying not to worry when it didn't have the same consistency as before. No eggs. It would have to do.

"I'm going to," she pulled her needle and thread out, her mouth a line. "Suture you. It's going to hurt. A lot. Tell me when you're ready."

Rhys didn't watch Mari work. Normally he would have, curious, but now the temptations to rest his eyes again was taking over. He felt cold, and pulled his cloak as tightly as he could on one side, trying not to cover his wound from Mari. (Though there was that urge, too.)

As long as he didn't have to drink the-- Okay yeah no this was worse. Rhys grit his teeth, fingers clawing into the chair. He sucked in air sharply, only on exhaling realizing how swallow his breathing had become. Steady. Slow breaths.

Rhys actually grinned at Mari's honesty. He tried to smile at her, hoping it would temper that grim look in her eyes, but it was a weak thing. Frustrating, how his body wasn't responding quite the same as before. Ready? Probably not, but he gave her a nod anyway.

"Alright." Still, she hesitated before she plunged the needle in. Getting pricked by a needle was painful, she knew that from experience. Even her mother, with her farm calloused hands, had needed a thimble to protect her. How then must it feel to have it linger inside you, close to an already painful area, to move around? She tied off the first stitch, trying not to think about it.

The wound closed, slowly, surely. The urge was to sew quickly, dash off stitches and be done quicker. She kept a close eye on each stitch though, trying to make it perfect, to keep the stitching strong so it wouldn't rip open if he moved, so it wouldn't close the wound too tightly or too loosely. Finishing the last one, she cut it free and looked up at him, anxious. Hopefully that hadn't been unbearable. He seemed weak enough already.

In a way, pain was good. It reminded him he was still awake and alive. It would keep him awake. If danger burst through the door, Rhys had to be alert, awake, and aware. One out of three was workable, right?

True to his nature, Rhys didn't voice a complaint. At worst, he sucked the air in through his teeth and dug his fingers into the chair. He thought his hand might get stuck that way. He had to think of something. Occupy his mind. Rhys closed his eyes, trying to breathe without wincing. Welsh. Rhys tried to think of every Welsh word he had learned so far, repeating his known vocabulary in his mind and having nonsensical foreign conversations with himself. His lips moved, barely, as he tried to voicelessly sound each word out.

It took Rhys a few moments before he realized Mari had stopped. The pain had blurred together, skin still hot and throbbing from the invasion of the needle. What would this feel like without the tincture? Rhys took a long, shuddering breath and gave Mari a nod to show he was still okay, if several shades paler.

"Alright," Mari said again, patting his arm before standing. It was supposed to reassure, but she found herself wondering just how reassuring a pat on the arm truly was. It didn't ease pain. Never mind. The bandages would be ready by now.

She covered the wound until it was invisible under the mess of sticky, honey soaked bandage, then washed her hands and rewrapped it with fresh, clean and dry dressings. "That should do it," her eyebrows were knitted together in thought. "You'll need to reapply them every day."

Truth be told, she felt a little pathetic. Rowan was hurt, she hadn't found Lucia or Marijke and she'd managed to get Rhys hurt, all in one day. "I'm really sorry." She pushed the dust around with her foot, wishing none of this had happened. She bet it was Moirine's fault, for running away and making Cita crazy. Fucking brotherfucker. "I can sew up your shirt, if you need it."

Rhys nodded absently. Reapply. He'd try to remember that. He let out another slow breath. Idly, he felt a hand over the scars on his neck, reminding himself this was hardly the worst he had ever been through. Pain was difficult to feel while comatose, but that was a minor detail.

Rhys blinked when Mari apologized, staring. She had just saved his life (though he was still reluctant to acknowledge the possibility of death), he hadn't even helped find her friends, had wasted her time with an injury, and yet she was the one saying 'sorry'? Rhys reached out with a shaken hand to grip her shoulder again, giving a squeeze. It surprised him how weak it was, but Rhys hoped it was reassurance enough.

Without thinking about it, Mari hugged him. Bleddyn, one of her brothers, would be about his age now. Given that most of what she remembered of him was a whirl of energy rolling around with the dogs and starting fights with other boys, it seemed almost rude to compare the two. Still, her shoulders shaking slightly, she found herself hoping that when she pulled back she'd spot her brother's shaggy blond hair.

She was, of course, disappointed when she stepped back. "Sorry," she mumbled, feeling sick. What if Marijke had gone the same way as her siblings, as Llewelyn? What would she do without her mother? "You should rest up." And she should just go look some more.

Rhys was taken aback by the hug, trying to hide his wince. Once he realized what was going on, he frowned, wrapping his arms gently around Mari in turn and letting her hold it for as long as she needed to. It was the very least he could do. Sorry Mari. He's just a mangy redhead.

When she pulled back, he nodded to her, sighing. Useless. Part of him wanted to stubbornly push on. The other part was asking if he wanted to be even more useless and reopen what Mari had graciously stitched together. It was a tough call.

"There's a pallet bed over there," she pointed, listless, then collapsed into the chair behind Marijke's desk. She'd make sure he got some rest and didn't try to follow her, and then she'd go find Marijke. She'd have to apologise for coming back to the city, of course. Honestly though, she'd gladly take any anger, any threats of having Gawain lock her up again, any reaction, to Marijke being missing, possibly dead.

Rhys waved his hand in dismissal. The truth was, he didn't feel much like getting up. Or moving. He was fine where he was, letting his head lull into his hand as he closed his eyes. Just a little. His sword was nearby, which was at once comforting and disconcerting. He didn't want to need it again, and if he did, he didn't want to fail with it again.

He refused to sleep. He would fake it, if it would satisfy his body, but unconsciousness would jeopardize them. Besides, if Mari tried to leave on her own, he would need to sneak out after her.

But for now, at least, she wasn't, and he could close his eyes and try to regather himself. Just breathe. For now, that was good enough.