Ace ☀ 003 [night] [teneka]

[daienkai]

[Night, down at the beach in Promenade, waves against the shore, the odd whistle of wind, crickets chirping but also the crackling of a fire, maybe out of place. Teneka will then pick up Ace or part of Ace; sprawled out along the sand, it shows Ace's right side as he lies flat on his back. The crackling fire is from him. Bright orange flames

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[saeptuose]

[ and here she had thought everything was going smoothly. Honestly, she had thought Ace had just gone back home since she hadn't seen him and if he was going to come back...well she didn't expect to see him like that ]

A-Ace?!

Hold on-- I'm coming to find you, okay? [ don't question it. She'll be down there in a few minutes. watch out for the glowy elf. ]

[daienkai]

[Wait...that 'voice', he recognises it. Lioriley! He really is back in Promenade after all.]

Lior... [Damn, even thinking is too much effort for him right now because there is a damn hole in the middle of his chest.]

[saeptuose]

[ and soon enough there she is, having ran clear across the damn city just to get to him. Oh, man, Veles is going to have her head on a platter if he finds out she's out doing something this stupid again-- and all her knights sans the one she's already planning on healing for that matter.

Of course, for a few seconds all she can do is stand over him and stare. This...this looks too familiar and so help her it is impossible to hold back tears. ] Ace...

[daienkai]

[What Lioriley will see isn't a pretty sight but the flames do a good job at obscuring it. Ace has plenty of other marks - cuts and scrapes and bruises, larger marks around his wrists and ankles from the seastone cuffs he was made to wear until very recently - and there's blood and grime all over him.

Eyes shut, breathing so shallow it'd be easy to mistake him for dead as it is, he finally cracks one eye open enough to look up at her.]

You shouldn't...it's too much

[He manages to raise a hand to wave at his wound to explain it.]

[saeptuose]

[ Okay, there's no time for crying like a sissy girl like she did the first time she saw one of her knights bleeding to death. No. She came down here to heal him and that's what she was going to do. ]

I said I was going to help you, [ Yup. Veles was going to kill her. She knew it as soon as she knelt down beside the man, setting a hand where she could on his chest and concentrating so she could use her magic to patch the wounds up faster--but she was aiming for that large one first. It was going to take a lot, but that never really stopped her from doing it before. ]

[daienkai]

Lior--

[Holy fucking shit this is intense. And not in the good way. Teach was right when he said that Ace wasn't used to being hit and that means he's not used to wounds that take so long to heal. This? This hurts. This is agony and he grits his teeth, glad it's not day when people would be able to hear him screaming and yelling. As it is, there's just a white hot blur in his mind, just the same as the moment the Admiral's magma fist punched through him, front to back.]

[saeptuose]

I'm sorry... [ she's not sure why she's sorry, but dammit she is. Probably because she's doing everything she can right now not to have a repeat of Alairr. He had been soaked in his own blood, telling her not to bother. But she was young then, she didn't have the magic that she had now, she couldn't have tried without dying herself.

She gave everything she could though, sending the magic flowing from her fingertips and through to literally start sewing up the wounds. The lines on her skin flickered, then slowly started to dim. She wouldn't stop until he was healed though. ] I'm so sorry.

[daienkai]

Not...not your fault...

[Because this is Ace's fault. He knows that. He knows that he should have listened to the commanders, to the crew, to Pops but he didn't because he's headstrong and Thatch was his friend and Teach was in his division and Pops had been insulted and dishonoured. But he went off after him and ended up in Impel Down and then Luffy had happened. Luffy who doesn't listen, who makes his big brother worry all the fucking time had come down like a force of nature and maybe, for a little while once the cuffs had been off, it had been okay.

But this is Ace, the child no one wanted to live. At least he only regrets not getting to see Luffy become King because he knows that the crew, all of them, they all love him dammit and he's crying now.

The barrage of images is probably hitting Lior too because he doesn't have a filter just now but a bloody hand goes to find one of her arms and squeezes, faintly but he's starting to feel it, the fire going elsewhere to heal other little wounds and his eyes open again.] Th-

[saeptuose]

[ The barrage of images is confusing and momentarily breaks her concentration, but not for very long. She only has a little magic to work with at this point and right about now she's extremely thankful that Veles and Kanji and all of them MADE her rest. Otherwise she wouldn't have been able to do jack shit right now.

She isn't entirely sure what happened because there's so much going on in both her mind and his right now, but she keeps going. Until there's nothing else she can do and those bright blue etchings are almost as black as her skin, slowly filling with magic and blood pumping through them.

But, she smiles, ] You're welcome-- [ And then promptly slumps over in the sand beside him, breathing shallow. She's not dead, but she'll take a while to recover after that. ]

[daienkai]

[He can feel everything reknitting, blood pumping slowly through the wound and the skin is still red-raw, it's going to ache for days but he's breathing. His heart is beating. He's alive. Well sort of. Promenade brings the dead back but he knows that back home, he died.

He wants to sit up to check on her because dammit, he shouldn't have let her do that even if he couldn't exactly argue, weaker than a kitten and bleeding all over the place but he manages to roll onto his side instead, hesitantly resting a hand on her shoulder because yeah, there's a lot of blood still on him.]

Oi, Lior! Lior c'mon, don't do this!

[saeptuose]

[ She won't be getting up for a few minutes at least, but if he can even see it, the bright blue, magic-infused blood is already seeping back into her veins and making them glow again. It is after those few moments when she finally has enough strength to do so that she opens her eyes, reaching a shaky hand up to grasp his. ]

I-It's okay. Just rest.

[daienkai]

[Lior he is all bloody and covered in gore and general grossness :C He tries sitting up but flops back onto the sand with a huff, rubbing his other hand on his shorts until it's about as clean as he can manage so that he can rub his eyes because they're burning from tears by now.]

Thank you. Are you okay?

[This is Ace. Forever concerned about the safety of others even when he's looking and feeling like shit too.]

[saeptuose]

[ She doesn't care. |: She nods, giving his hand a squeeze and caring not for the fact that it might be covered in blood and the like. She's just glad her knight is okay and for once she actually did something right. ]

Yes. I'm ...I'll be okay. [ she gives him another smile, moving to sit up a little and look him over. ] Y-You need to rest somewhere properly...

[daienkai]

[Lying in a nice comfortable bed, preferably after a show sounds heavenly but sadly, he'd be better off staggering off to his skiff and sleeping in that for the night.]

Don't scare me like that okay? Yeah, sleep sounds good but I don't think I can walk much right now.

[saeptuose]

[ and her tiny self can't even dream of dragging him across the city and into his room. She could always call Veles or Kanji or someone else to help, but it's late and they're probably sleeping and don't need to know she went out at all. ] Sorry...

I can stay with you until you can if you want me to.

[daienkai]

No, no. Kanji'd come after me and other people would worry. I'll be okay Lior.

[Look, he can even muster a smile for you Lior and he owes you many, many hugs when he's feeling better. And has showered.]

Thank you. I owe you for this so badly.