[P] Cloud, come shove the sun aside

[Raymond]

Raymond had only ventured into Tinea Swamp once before, perhaps out of some subconscious desire to disobey Florentine (or, more likely, because he was just Busy with other things), but it was an easy enough walk to manage even for a pair of wounded scrappers such as they. Where elsewhere in Novus had begun to go red and yellow with the onset of Autumn, the swamp resisted, wrapped as it was in its cocoon of dreary, humid heat. There were many things that the swamp resisted, as all swamps do.

A marsh is a magical place, the clan elder would say, primitive and insistent. It bows to no master.

Horses like them could understand a place like this. Pavetta's worthiness of such inclusion was writ within the swath of blood drying on her left side; the red stallion needed to know nothing more than what she showed on the Steppes, though he knew he would ask eventually.

The ache in his shoulder had worked its way through and around the muscle, and with time the abrasions had filled and scabbed over with a thin upwelling of blood. It was a good sort of pain, and he neither tried to conceal his limp nor complained about it. He'd had far worse, and so had his companion. The red stallion inspected a clean, babbling spring, declaring it suitable to their purpose before turning to address the striped mare directly. It was the first thing of substance he had said since leaving the battlefield, though even that seemed somehow proper.

Raymond cultivated silence as lovingly as he did stories.

"Okay, professor," he said without the slightest hint of pejorativeness, indicating the gash in her side with a flick of his muzzle, "tell me what I can do to help take care of that." Then we can talk, his tone seemed to finish for him. As far as he was concerned, however shallow her injury and however well-kept his blade, the concern for her wellbeing took precedence over any other preoccupations on his part. Even a clean cut can get infected.

Raymond.
"he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."

@Pavetta

[Pavetta]

p a v e t t a - - - The swamp was full of ghosts, of memories. The air was hot, muggy—misquotes and gnats peppered her skin. Pearls of sweat rolled down her side, sickened her neck. She was running, faster, faster—her breathing ragged and labored, heart pounding, hooves drumming, adrenaline arcing like lightning through her veins. The putrid breath of the thing pursuing her enveloped everything; she could see, smell, hear—nothing. Only death; the death that the creature carried in its talons and jaws. And then she blinked, and there was no lingering stench of death, no red talons drenched in blood. There was only Raymond by her side, and the swamp was more pleasant than she could ever remember a place of rot and decay being. He was steady by her side; unwavering, a sure arrow shot from the bow. He knew who he was, what he was, and what he wanted. There was nothing about him that suggested indecision or idle reaction. An arrow, she thought vaguely, somewhat numbed by the throb of her gaping wound and the weariness that had settled into her bones. He limped but did not seem bothered. Straight as an arrow. An arrow could falter; hindered by tree and shrub and a poor fetching job, but still it would go onward, onward, onward.   Pavetta smelled the bubbling spring before they arrived. The purity of the air, the cool breath of the breeze on the water. She sighed in relief, following Raymond’s lead as he settled in by the quaint little spring. Professor. She snorted dryly, a hint of laughter in her eyes. “Should’t be too much trouble, really. I’m going to take a quick dip and rinse off.” The water seemed clearer than it ought to be, greener, bluer than possible. It was not the putrid pools of decay and mold she was accustomed to—the water rippled smooth and beautiful. Petals floated on the surface; a mother swan and her half grown children swam effortlessly behind her. “You might soak that as well,” she said, glancing back and motioning toward his shoulder. “Should take some of the heat out of it.” Dipping her head towards the ground, she shook of her satchel—something she had slipped on after the battle on the Steppes. She carried it anytime she went on journeys that took her away from the safety and recluse of Dawn Court. Mortar and pestle; a small leather satchel with fringe tassels filled with small vials of antidotes and dries leaves and herbs. Pavetta wandered slowly into the pool, sinking slowly, her eyes closing in respite. She could float like this forever; limbo, anti-gravity, the feeling that the weight of her no longer mattered. But he was waiting; obviously more concerned than he need to be, more concer than she deserved. She rose slowly, water falling from her sides in a sheer, rainbow veil. She paced back to shore and then stood dripping on the sandy ground. Pavetta would much rather rest off her hooves, but it would be easier and a far tidier job for him to stitch her if she was standing upright. “Alright, doctor.” She grinned. “You seem more of a caveman butcherer to me, but you’ll have to do.” She nosed the flap off her satchel, then a small bone needle and beeswaxed sinew floated gracefully before him. “Whipstitch might be easiest—less aesthetic result, but it should heal fine.” She started the needle for him so he might follow her example, wincing and a soft hiss escaping her pursed lips as the sharp needle pierced her skin together, pulled tight. She sorely wished there was wine about; but alas, there was not. “Your turn.” The needle and sinew floated towards him once more. “You could have cut me in half, if you’d wanted,” she mused aloud, wondering why he might bother with helping her after such a brazen, foolish display on her part. a pearl in pigshit, a diamond on the finger of a rotting corpse, creature in whom nothing, but nothing, remains of an elven woman ---

art by the lovely sid

@Raymond

[Raymond]

Raymond.
and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around

"I can wait," the red stallion replied, watching Pavetta wade into the waters with his head tilted. Blood washed from the ugly gash and the ugly dried mats in her coat in whorls of deep maroon, piquing the interest of a host of timid minnows as it diffused into the surrounding water. She needed medical attention far more than he, and word around town was that the swamp was not always hospitable. A few more moments of discomfort were a small price to pay for their safety under his watch.

You seem more of a caveman butcherer to me, she said as she exited the pool, and Raymond's hearty laughter rang through the treetops. Perhaps he should have been offended at her presumptiveness, but frankly by the looks of her side and his relative inexperience with sutures he imagined she would probably look something like a butcher's product by the end of all this.

"I'm not familiar with a whipstitch," Raymond said thoughtfully, his memory of first aid lessons playing like degraded film in his mind as he took the needle delicately under his telepathic control, "but I think I know something that might work."

A surgeon would have stapled a wound like this, in another place, time, and universe. It was long and ugly, no matter how much shallower it was than it could have been. He hummed along to an old soldiering tune as he set to work on a running locking suture that theoretically wouldn't fail the moment she bumped into something. He'd never seen it used on a wound quite this large and his handiwork was far less artful than his swordplay, but it got the job done.

When she spoke again, he fell silent to listen, chuckling softly in his throat. "I try not to murder people when I can help it." The words came with a jocular tone, but darkened just a little at the edges. Somewhere along the timeline of his life he'd paid a price to make that quip possible.

Raymond took up the meticulous process where he left off, though this time the humming did not continue. Slowly, painstakingly, the gash was disappearing behind a scaffold of dark stitches. "I've met soldiers three times your age with half your spirit. What are you doing running around with a medicine pouch?"

@Pavetta