( closed; quest ) the long and winding road

[sorser]

WHO: Stephen, Thancred, & Yennefer
WHAT: Three individuals go on a quest to help perpetuate better magical monitoring of the Singularity!
WHERE: ALL OVER THORNE
WHEN: End of March into mid-April.
WARNINGS: Some eventual monster-related violence and injury! But nothing else for now; will add as needed.



(( quest info here ))

Comments

[sorser]

[Adrenaline's acted like a bulwark so far, shielding him from the pain of a wolf's bite puncturing his middle. But the next few seconds are chaos, with Yennefer rushing in with red-hot daggers, and Thancred prying the creature's jaws open and away from him -- and though his freedom should be a relief, that is when the pain registers with his nerves, and he can only wonder, uselessly, how badly the scars will be. If he should have scarring like the kind that runs down his fingers, how many stitches he'd need without the aid of magic, if a vine-wolf's jaws are a source of infection more than a common one-

Thancred's declaration for magic severs the thought process of his doctor's brain, pulling him back into the harried moment with searing clarity. Stephen tries to push himself up with his elbows, only to be met with the feeling of knives digging into his middle. He can feel that his garments are damp, and warm. How badly is it bleeding? He can't see it, and in a spike of frustration he tries to summon forth magic, sparking at his fingertips.

Another rush of pain around his middle. The magic dies, dissipates into nothing.]

Just-

[Watch your own backs, but he clenches his teeth, biting back the words. If he can just sit up, maybe he can cast, maybe he can do more than lie here and bleed out and be useless, and his palms find the ground, nails digging into dirt, trying still to sit up.]

[vixening]

[ if yennefer was being honest - and really, this provided for the best case scenario. she didn't have time to be anything but honest, and therefore probably could accept the fact that she didn't really think a whole lot of this through. so much of her life had been that, had been her diving in and having enough control of her magic, her skills, and her self to trust she'd make it through and out. and even if it's been weeks, even if she's has had to come to terms with her lack, it still manages to escape her now. because all she can think is that she has to get that creature off of stephen, and then once it's off, she has to make sure he's not simply going to fall apart. wounds, blood, and biology are hardly new things for her, and while she may not be a healer, she knows enough. enough to know how dangerous this is. enough to know that her daggers go through the back of the wolf's hind.

it doesn't work. she grits her teeth, frustration and panic seeping through, and that's when thancred arrives, and yennefer doesn't even have the time to feel relieved at it before his hands are prying the wolf's jaw open, and yennefer leaves her blades still in the creature to reach around, slipping her own hands inbetween the wolf's jaws to help pry. between thancred's kick and their combined hands, the wolf yelps and releases, and yennefer's attention is on stephen as he tries to sit up, as the blood continues to pool at his middle. ]

You idiot, stop- stop moving you'll- [ because while stephen tries to sit up, yennefer's hands are moving, pulling off her coat to press against the wound to try and stop some of the bleeding, one hand going to stephen's shoulder to hold him down. she looks up just in time to catch thancred's eyes, blown wide from the adrenaline, and for her to catch movement around them. there are more wolves, but maybe not many. hopefully? she's not sure. she catches the silver of his eyes, can feel the anxiety through all of them.

some magick might be helpful about now!

yennefer stills, almost instantly, her breath coming fast in spite of it. her eyes glance down to where stephen's blood has started to seep through the fabric of her coat, where he digs his hands into the dirt and tries to sit up. what remains of the pack is still around them, they are still in immediate danger, and if she could just-

yennefer focuses, her entire body tensing as she presses down onto the wound - trying to heal, trying to do anything. magic would be more than helpful right now. if she had her magic they would all be through with this. they would be safe. stephen would be whole. she focuses, chasing after the words she knows by heart, reaches for the feeling of it. of this. of anything. calling for what should answer, what should be there. but as nothing comes in the following moment, or the next, that focusing turns into a frustrated scream, a scream that eventually comes to- ] I can't! [ when her eyes open and she looks back to thancred, she looks lost. terrified. but also...not relieved, necessarily, but like a weight that she had been shouldering simply slips off. like the armor, the walls, all of it has simply crumbled. ] I can't- my magic, it's-

[ there's another snarling, and yennefer's attention is ripped back away from them again. ]

[funbreaker]

[ There isn't time for Thancred to clarify that he'd been addressing Yennefer, not Stephen. Yennefer is right, the last thing that Stephen should be doing right now is attempting to move. He needs to stay still until they chase off or eliminate the threat, and then they need to take a proper look at his wounds and assess their severity.

It's a matter of moments, but Thancred squares off against the two remaining wolves as Yennefer makes some desperate attempt to dredge up healing magick. Finally, Thancred's suspicions are confirmed. She can't, she's lost the ability just as he has, and that way she'd tripped up during their first talk had not been all in his head.

They're the same. That doesn't mean they're useless, that they can do nothing in this moment, that Stephen is good as dead.

Thancred doesn't react to what Yennefer says, at least not immediately. The wolves are ready to pounce on what they see as weakened prey, but he will not let them get near Stephen. If there's any time to use his cartridges, it's now, and so he leaps forward to unload another one into the chest of one of the wolves, the blast tearing through leaves and flesh and leaving the creature crippled as it crumbles to the ground.

Not granting the second wolf a moment to react, Thancred pivots around and cleaves his burning blade across the beast's throat, almost beheading it in the process as it also collapses.

He hears, then, a set or two of retreating footsteps vanishing through the woods. Finally, he's made it clear to the remaining predators that he is not one to be underestimated.

With that, he spins back toward the pair, to Yennefer crouched over Stephen, frowning at the darkness spreading out over Stephen's robes. ]

How bad is it? [ He sheathes his gunblade against his back, then approaches and crouches down at Stephen's side. ]

[sorser]

[At some point, he gives up in his attempt to sit up, what with Yennefer pressing down into his eking wound, her reprimand, and the pain radiating from where the wolf had sunk its jaw into his middle. All he can see, then, is her face an angle, the curve of her jawline and how it tenses with every word spoken. Thancred had demanded the aid of magic, and he can see every minute change in her expression, the desperate attempt at focus as she presses down against his wound, the lost look in her eyes as she tells him, definitively, that she can't.

Stephen realizes, almost blearily, that this comes as no surprise to him. During their journey, he had felt no inkling of magic from her, not even in passing. It had been reasonable to think that she was keeping it tamped down for a reason he couldn't understand, but he knows now that was a grand assumption on his part. For someone as powerful as Yennefer, to not have felt even a whiff of magical energy from her was odd -- how obvious it should've been, but so readily overlooked with his mind at the task before them.

Before he knows it, the fury of a fight comes to an end, met with only the quietly retreating footfalls of the remaining wolves disappearing into the woods. He hisses in a breath, seeing the silhouette of Thancred now standing over him instead.]

It's all right... It'll be fine. We don't need magic-- not for this.

[A vague and piteous reassurance, but a part of it is for Yennefer's sake. He'll be fine; the pain is damnable, and this bleeding is staining his clothing and Yennefer's coat, but he's familiar enough with the human body to know when he's really in danger, and when a wound needs to be cleaned and tended to before real danger sets in.]

Just keep pressure on it. We have some- some basic medical supplies in our saddlebags. Someone's going to have to clean me up and suture me together. Infection is what worries me for now.

[Not blood loss. No vital organs have been torn into. When his body is not fighting off a state of dazed shock, then he may be able to use his own healing magic to speed up the process; but for now, he needs an old-fashioned first-aid kit to get him through this, and a steady pair of hands.]

[vixening]

[ yennefer isn’t sure if she’s thankful that thancred doesn’t react to her confession, or if she should be more worried about how well she’d kept it a secret as well. thankfully, the closing in of the remainders of the pack close in on them. she watches as his gun blade (she thinks he called it that some time ago, back during their conversation around the fire) explodes out into one of the creatures, as his attention immediately turns to the next. it’s a small comfort (a comfort she’s not sure she’s felt in a long time) knowing she can turn her eyes away from the creatures, return her focus to stephen, and the blood on her hands.

yennefer breathes, forces the panic and the swell of everything else to settle back inside again. stephen has, thankfully, stopped fighting her to sit up which allows her a chance to really look at the wound, at the open flesh, the bite marks left behind. it’s not lethal, at least not on its own, from what she can tell. when thancred approaches a few moments later, the chaos around them finally settled and his question asked, yennefer shoots a look to stephen’s answer. curious, in a way - he knows of healing, too, then? of course he would. (even if that reassurance does calm a bit of her fluttered nerves.)

she shifts her hands slightly, reapplying the pressure to keep the blood loss as bay. to still her hands. when she looks to thancred, a moment to make sure he hadn’t also been harmed in any way, she nods once. ]

I have potions - some that will keep the infection from setting in and something for the pain. Thancred- can you grab my bag?

[ the device has been all but forgotten, at this point, and will most likely remain that way until they get stephen patched up. ]

[funbreaker]

[ Stephen is confident in his assurance that he will not be bleeding out any time soon, at least not with their help. The fact that he's alert and speaking so clearly means that it must not be so bad, at least not yet. Thancred would rather not see what happens if the wound goes untended, however, well aware of how it might fester if left alone.

When Yennefer addresses him, he's quick to nod and jump back to his feet. As he turns to the horses he can see they've been well and truly spooked by everything that just took place, but thankfully they'd tied them up prior to being ambushed by the wolves, so they haven't scattered.

Thancred approaches, hands lifted in front of him to assure them that no harm is meant, and he takes care to make sure that Yennefer's horse has calmed down and isn't going to reflexively kick out at him before he ventures too close. He steps near enough to access Yennfer's pack where it's saddled on the horse and slide it free, before returning to the pair.

For all that Stephen is keeping his head during this (he's been badly injured before, hasn't he? Something to do with his hands...), there is a paleness in his face, the blood having all rushed out. His clothes are stained and while it is likely not as bad as it looks, they need to stabilize him quickly before some other denizen of the forest decides to take advantage of the situation.

Thancred kneels next to Yennefer, nodding to her as he sets the pack on the ground between them. ] Do what you must. I'll apply the pressure to his wounds. [ He leans forward to do just that, placing his gloved hands to where Yennefer's had just been to ensure that the blood flow is stemmed. He sends Stephen a weary smile in the process. ] Hang in there. We can't count you out just yet.

[sorser]

[Stephen huffs out air, though it’s difficult to say whether or not it’s from Thancred’s applied pressure to his middle or his comment. He mutters something half-heartedly, but does little more than that. He doesn’t want to waste the effort — and oddly, knowing that the two of them are here, to take care of his wound to the best of their abilities, gives him just enough leeway to let the the exhaustion set in, the adrenaline dissipated and making him feel wrung dry.

He remains that way through the initial cleaning process; that part is easy. But the bleeding won’t stop eking on its own, and when the cauterization happens—courtesy of one of Yennefer’s potions that feels like acid fire—it’s all he can do to not scream. Maybe he does, at some point, the pain nearly as bad as the wolf’s jaws. He bites down on something hard. Feels hands against his body, holding down wayward movement, and for a moment curses the fact that they hadn’t brought some miracle, magical anesthetic with them during their journey.

It’s over, at least, blessedly quick. Between the process and the pain inherent in it, it doesn’t take long for him to drift off before either can even wrap bandages across his middle. The world fades at the edges, then blacks out.

He wakes up with a start sometime later, lain down across makeshift outdoor bedding, staring up at the swaying branches of an overhead tree. Disorientation flickers across his face before he remembers where he is — what had just happened, and he tries to sit up. He’s awarded with his efforts with a dull throb across his middle, and he curses.]

Agh. Shit…

[He presses a hand to his newly-tended wound, which feels taut from a clean set of bandages. His clothing is still stained from his own blood, but at least he’s not actively bleeding any longer. Small mercies.]

[vixening]

[ with thancred off to grab her bag, yennefer also manages to reach over and pull one of her still enchanted daggers out of the hind of the now-dead creature, keeping on hand on the bleeding as best she can. what comes over her is a kind of clinical calm, after everything - moving through steps she has seen, biology she'd been taught. she won't admit it, but it is a help that stephen is still conscious and apparently has some extensive knowledge of bodies, with how he can help direct her even while lying flat, even while slowly bleeding through, though she can see the way the exhaustion creeps up on him. or, perhaps more accurately, how it overtakes him.

thancred returns not too long after with her bag, and that seems to set her off in another direction - the steps to cleaning, to working back together, to fixing this. thancred takes over applying pressure and yennefer - though not exactly chatty, she does seem to be talking to herself a bit through the process. which potions she made, which will be most useful, what her process had been. she takes out one for cleaning, washing her hands and the dagger place and then she turns to the wound itself. at some point stephen winces, his body trying to pull away from the pain of it, and yennefer quickly turns to thancred - catching his eyes from across stephen's body. ]

Can you...? [ with a nod, yennefer assumes thancred understands what she means - hold him down, keep him steady, as it's about to get worse.

first, it is one of her potions - a concoction of her own making. stephen, as expected, tenses. she glances to thancred again, sets one of her own hands against one of stephen's shoulders, and then applies the red hot dagger that stephen had enchanted himself, the smell of burning flesh and blood and the ingredients of her own potion filling the air. then - as soon as it had started - it's over, and she pulls away from him and tosses the dagger aside just in time to watch his eyes roll back into his head and his body go limp.

yennefer sits back on her knees, then, lets out a breath as her own amount of adrenline rushes out of her. it's over, he's going to be fine, now, and there is almost a small smile gracing her lips when she thinks about it. as she rips her forehead with the back of her wrist. ]

Well- that's one way to keep things interesting. [ there is no small amount of sarcasm wrapped up in the words as she looks over to thancred, then back out to the clearing around them, at the dead bodies of these plant-like wolves. ] He'll be out for a bit longer, I suspect. Should we...?

[ make him comfortable? set up the thaumometer? either way, yennefer gets to her feet and back to work - wrapping the wound with clean bandages, moving stephen away from the device, setting him up back near the horses and a makeshift bed, and then turning their attention back to the device. both she and thancred are moving a bit more slowly than before, their own levels of exhaustion and various smaller level cuts and bruises making themselves known. yennefer isn't exactly chatty as they work (clearing a small space for stephen, getting rid of some of the corpses of the creatures, calming their horses, and then of course the device itself), but she does notice what feels like a strange lack of...worry. or concern. they know about her magic now, in more definite terms. know that she's been without it this entire time.

and yet - it doesn't feel nearly as exposed as she might have thought. if thancred wants to speak about it, she won't cut him off entirely, but she is also okay to work in relative silence as they set up the device and calibrate it.

stephen was just as she and thancred have finished with the device and started back over to where they left him. ]

Don't mess with that. [ she says, watching his hand go to the bandages. ] We're low on bandages, I'll have to get more once we make it back to Nott, so we'll need to make those last. { and then she's at her bag, pulling out another potion and handing it off to stephen. ] For the pain, if you want it.

[funbreaker]

[ As soon as Thancred catches sight of that searing dagger-blade along with the resolute expression on Yennefer's face, he understands what she plans to do. Her verbal request is hardly necessary as Thancred pulls one hand back from Stephen's middle to pull his own belt free. He shoves the leather between Stephen's teeth before Yennefer does what she has to do, cauterizing the wound and then following it up with her potions and remedies.

It's a mercy that Stephen loses consciousness after all that, and Thancred nods to Yennefer, in agreement that they need to secure the area and finish what they came here to do in the process. ] All in a day's work, I suppose. [ He murmurs the words as he helps Yennefer, giving her what she needs to further stabilize Stephen, calming the horses further, and even dragging some of the wolves' corpses away so that they don't attract any scavengers too close to their makeshift camp.

He takes point with the device as well, finishing up Stephen's work with calibrating it. As soon as the thaumametor (not so different from an aetherometer, he thinks for not the first time) is rotating the way it should be and the watch is set, he returns to where Yennefer's seated and Stephen is laid out. ]

That was close. We'll need to be more careful while in this area. [ He draws a hand across his face, the exhaustion finally beginning to set in after that fight. There's a moment of silence then, a moment where he could broach the subject of Yennefer's magick, but it's around then that Stephen comes to. Yennefer is quick to scold him and hand him something for the pain. ]

The wolves are all dead or gone, the device has been set up. [ And again, Thancred sends Stephen a crooked smile. ] You're lucky you have us.