Private Stillwater

[Walter Thornley]

It started with some commonfolk who went out to the swamps. Days before anyone noticed the dark patches. Days more until some of the Shieldbearers and a few Bremen men noticed the green-brown marks on their own skin, specks of mud at first then bruises, then spaces that felt too soft to the touch.
Same street. Same clean water barrels. Different rations and routes.

The investigation was quick.
"Quarantine the street. No one in spitting distance of infected or they join. Supplies to be routed separately."

Even though he was no healer at all past the levels of stitching wounds, no plague specialist, no chirurgeon - he still had two hands to work with, and a head on his shoulders that bore the face of authority. And once Walter Thornley committed, he would see things through, in any and every aspect of his life save for one, and many people found it a frightful thing.

As he stood at the threshold of the house nearest to quarantine exit, looking at the man with rusty-brown hair squirming in sheer agony, one among two dozen that have shown symptoms of a fungus burrowing into their bodies and hollowing them out, sawing hollow spaces under the skin with oozing lesions... it was spreading so fast...

Walter thought of Richard. The north. The death he'd sent his hapless brother to, or worse. Because there were worse things than death. The enemy that has led the bloodline of warrior-mages to almost-extinction, that made Meinrad the Riftcleaver flee, that was the reason for those wards that tied to heirdom. It watched from the shadows, no doubt, the ghost of that ancient enemy, jaws sunk deep into Walter's own guilt.
It took an effort to stop thinking about it.

The makings of a proper laboratory and lazaret were a week away.
Alonso, the Huntsman designated bookkeeper, was losing his mind trying to scrounge what they had for this new malady yet leave essentials for the expeditions outward.

He would stay here with the sick until it was resolved. The sickness was certainly part Shroud-born, but Walter would not risk an assumption that were he immune it would not spread to others from him. And if he wasn't immune... well then. So, here he was, armor taken away under cleansing, only a dagger at the small of his back under the cloak remaining of armaments. He stepped onto the street proper - fresh paving unfinished on one end, descending into mud for the rest, close-stuck wooden houses with the palisade wall visible beyond.

The pale silver sky split with golden linings, and the baron's eyes turned to the shock of bright hair and glimmering gold, a welcome contrast to the dreary, and an even better distraction given the figure brief sunlight framed.
"Aelius." Walter greeted with a faint smile. "I've sent for you as soon as the backbone was ready, you will be indispensable. Come, see what we are dealing with."

He gestured through the doorframe, to the room where shadows fell deeper from the brighter light outside, and soft grunts of discomfort turned into an exclamation of pain.
"My lords, please... please help me or kill me, I can't- breathe..."

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

The moment Aelius was called for, he rushed straight over. His steps were brisk, the lack of his armor helping lend to his speed. Hands busy pulling back his hair and winding the coils into one massive braid before tying it off and tossing it back over his shoulder. Talismans still dangled and jingled from his hair, now all wound tightly together, but the light did not catch them quite as easily. In fact, as his eyes were cast down to roll up his sleeves, hiding their celestial glow, Aelius could almost pass for a normal man without all of his gold sun insignias at the forefront and the light reflecting off them to make his glow even more apparent. Now, the faint glow from him could easily be misconstrued as glare from the faint patch of sunlight before the clouds swallowed it back up again.

But as he lifted his eyes up to meet Walter's, slowing his steps as he finally approached the man, the unnatural, fiery glow made itself quite apparent once more. The fire behind his gaze was piercing. Jaw set, brows knit together, and that usual sunshiny demeanor all but gone. He was no longer the warmth of the hearthfire; he was the glow of a white-hot cautery iron, the burning of ambition, and the blaze of a funeral pyre all in one.

"Walter," he nodded in turn, couldn't help but return the small smile. He set a hand upon the Baron's shoulder for a moment - hand large, rough and calloused, and so warm - before ducking into the room. Upon hearing the pleas and groans, he wasted no time, rushed right to the sickly man's side and knelt by him.

"Shh, don't speak... Save your energy. You'll be alright." Whether it was fearlessness, stupidity, or far too much empathy, Aelius cared not about staying away from the afflicted. In fact, he already had his bare hands on the man, one gently trying to hold him to keep him from squirming, the other palm flush against his chest and a gentle glow emanating from it. "I'm here to help. Please, try not to move while I look it over..."

The man's cries slowly faded to soft whimpers as Aelius poured his energy into him; the healing glow soothed the immediate pain, but nothing yet for the infected site itself. As the man began to still, Aelius sighed softly and turned his attention to the man's arm, where one of these sunken, oozing lesions were. Hand still on the other's chest to keep providing a little bit of comfort, to try and help ease his breaths even a little, Aelius' other hand hovered over the lesion and glowed with heat. The man squirmed, but Aelius murmured words of comfort as he focused.

Some of the fungus started to sizzle and blacken, a horrid scent of a mix of burnt flesh and mold. Sweat started to bead on the paladin's face as he focused, trying to feel this affliction out, trying to feel if he could just burn it away, and being sure he didn't hurt the poor man.

Aelius was a healer, yes. But that was not necessarily by nature. He was from a culture of war. And while yes, everyone needed medics and healers... the son of Ko was expected to be a great warrior, not a healer.

Aelius went out of his way to learn how to heal regardless. And he could sear his own wounds shut with little issue; the pain meant nothing to him. Healing others took a lot more from him, as he had to be so much more careful. And this case in particular... well, he certainly hadn't seen anything like it before. This was entirely new to him, whatever it was.

The man seemed to have passed out, likely exhausted from writhing in pain nonstop, and the reprieve from the paladin's healing finally allowing him time to rest. Even if all it did was alleviate the pain. Aelius heaved a sigh and dropped his hand away from the man's arm, leaving a thin scab of burnt flesh-fungus. He gazed down at the man for a few more moments before finally turning his head to peer sidelong at Walter, brows furrowed. "It's deep," his words were quiet. "..What do we know about it?" Something he should have asked before rushing in, probably, but... well, he couldn't help who he was.

 

[Walter Thornley]

Walter couldn't help but let a little relief seep into the monumental self-inflicted neutral stance that was not supposed to show emotion outside socially expected. His shoulders fell a little with a breath escaping parted mouth. He knew that gait very well. People walking that walk tended to know exactly where they were going, and their purpose once they arrived. People like that got things done, and there was no deeper string to pluck in the lord's jaded soul when it came to respect.

Besides, the son of Ko looked more collected today, despite the armor. Almost less embodiment of foreign faith ready to open hearts and spread truths - and more human, grounded and about his business. But then, the sun receded behind the shroud again, and the glare dimmed and the low radiance of Aelius' hair remained, and the paladin's garnet-red eyes pierced into his own, and they were back to being an ongoing diplomatic mission with two representatives exchanging pleasantries.

Well, almost.

There was an involuntary quirk of the eyebrow at the greeting. Walter didn't balk at the familiarity but huffed, and pretended very well to be just fine, as the warmth felt like it seeped through the cloak, the doublet and the shirt. He lingered, not to interfere, and gave himself several heartbeats of pause to enjoy the feeling of it.

Then, he turned. Strode inside, swinging the door closed without a slam, silent and precisely to the point. Lit another wick floating in a bowl of fat, saw the orange tongue lap greedily upward, sending soot-tinted smoke to the ceiling. It colored the workspace for where Aelius' burning eyes could spot the pathway for healing hands. It cast darkness behind Walter like a trembling gateway.

The pinpricks of light returned to his eyes, scoured every thread of weave, the amber-gold flowing into the patient's body and quenching itself against the restraint, only allowed to consume that one single target and not the whole body; the shriveling and wriggling back out, squirming maggot-like snippets of whatever half-magical infestation still lived. Walter could feel his face growing numb and his breath slow down. Far from the worst thing he's ever seen, but it reminded him of... Things.

The sickness burrowed in like roots, and while it could probably be burned at the beginning stage, after the initial festering it was... something else in the making. A source of buried seeds ready to sprout and who knows what was going to happen then.

He was quiet, still like a lamenting monument, until the other man was done.
It smelled like burned flesh and rot and... a faint notion of petrichor that was not quite a scent. Walter felt his own eyelids tremble in a momentary urge to avert the gaze, an inhale pulled through his nose quietly audible. Swallowed the panic, steadied himself, let the promise of things going much worse dissolve on his tongue with a faint taste of blood.

Before answering, Walter glanced about a room, and pulled a bench closer, turning one end towards Aelius so that the man could sit if he wanted to. Small mercies for the knees and all.
"It is magical, but telling you it looks like maggots would hardly make it easier for you to treat," he responded. "Spread from the locals who went outside foraging. We warned them, but... So far twenty-two confirmed carrying the marks of the original four. A bit like pox, starts with green-brown spots on the skin that look like mud until they turn into bruises, and then..." He gestured with his gloved hand. "I think it's in his lungs. I think, if we can prevent it from spreading in him or across to others, and have them wait for curatives..."

One hand raked through the dark hair as Walter paced. Just two paces total before he caught himself, pressed his lips together to not say things he shouldn't say even near the supposedly unconscious patient. He had to be present. Even if he wanted to go somewhere inside his head where this almost felt like one of the hunts. Just the goings on, filtered, perceived, passing through him. A waking dream.

A whole week of waiting was far from a trivial affair. That is - if the caravan arrived at all. His heart had already sunk by the time he ordered quarantine.

"I think they've found something out there," Walter said. "We couldn't talk to the family responsible, they live in the remains of a shanty town that was made up by the refugees back during the war, a close at the end of the street. Barricaded themselves inside."
A few steps to the table. Clinking inside the wrapped leather creaking.

"I can do field surgery. We can try removing affected parts. I brought my tools, but it's just for the field." He demonstrated a neat pouch and its contents. A file, suture tools, several different blades, two scalpels. Two vials - one for disinfecting, one for the pain. Ointment for burns. Several tightly wound bandages. Not enough for twenty people. Barely enough even for one.
There was a dark spatter on the lord's left hand, spots as if from having stood next to a puddle splash. Maybe all it was - he certainly didn't seem feverish or in pain.

A moment more passed, and lips shaped a reluctant offer,
"I can also consume its magic. I don't... know if that would make it a mundane sort of plague, then. Should not make it worse than it is, but I did not want to make that call without a weaver present."
Eyes fell on the patient, now scar-decorated. On the chest rising and falling.
"I could... I could probably detect it by the magic inherent, too. Unless I undo the magic, of course. Unless..."

Unless it is an affront to your god.
Unless it is of no help to you.

His eyes had their own faint glow in the dark, around the halo of the iris, pinpricks breaking through the shroud of the pupils, untouched by the orange hues of the lights.
"So long as everyone gets to live a little longer... what do you think? Ko considers ends justifying means?"

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

The paladin spent a moment more watching the sickly man, that hardened expression of focus softening to pity, to that longing look in the eyes of wishing he could just fix it all right now. He gently brushed some of the man's hair, wet and clinging with sweat, out of his face like a mother would their sick child. For a man of his stature, of his origin, those large calloused hands of a warrior moved so tenderly. His blazing eyes settled to a somber flicker of a candle. His chest heaved with a sigh and he finally pulled away.

Gratefully, Aelius sank down onto the bench (though he straddled it with one leg propped up on it; the man was apparently allergic to sitting normally). He lifted those flickering eyes up to meet Walter's, to study his face as he spoke. He nodded along as he listened, eyes still following the man even as he started to pace.

"I see... Prevent it from spreading... I can try to burn and heal it away, I'm just hesitant of going deeper... It's already burrowed deep, I'm afraid if I try to simply burn it away I might do more damage, even if I heal right after. But if nothing else, I should be able to take care of it in those early stages..." There was an unsaid hopefully at the end that he hoped went unnoticed. He had to be confident in his abilities. What kind of demigod couldn't take care of a mere plague, after all..? He could almost hear the High Clerics chiding him for showing doubt in his - and thus Ko's - powers. He'd done that enough as a child to get the doubt almost entirely beaten out of him. Almost.

Tuning back into the information being given, Aelius tilted his head. "Barricaded their home or the shanty town? If it's the town itself, I could fly in to talk to them, if anyone is still alive." He mentioned his flight so casually, as if it didn't even occur to him that it wasn't apparent that he could. "If it's their home... I won't catch this, whatever this is -" again, spoken with utter casual confidence as if this was known fact. "- so I'm willing to bust down the door if need be."

His eyes followed Walter's show of tools, salves, medicines, and -

Dark brown spots. Aelius' eyes were caught on them, latched onto the man's hand even as he continued speaking.

The poor man was fire and muscle and charisma, not smarts, so it was a struggle to gather his thoughts and focus on two entire things at once. He quickly tried to tune back into what Walter was saying as he wordlessly reached out to the man and took his ungloved hand. He held it between his own and turned it over to see if there were more spots, then started to rub at the dark speckles to see if they might smudge or fade, if they really were just mud. As he did, eyes lowered to their hands, he answered as best he could.

"Consume its magic... hm... What does that entail? You named several things, the other day, that I wasn't quite following... it all sounds very technical. I don't understand all that technical talk - I never attended the Academy, all of my magic comes naturally so..." Rather, he had to learn it by force and trial and error, than with proper tutelage. He was expected to be a prodigy. He had to be a prodigy.

"...but, yes. Results." he continued. "So long as there are results, the cost doesn't matter." His words quieted some, his tone flattening. Another moment of unspoken doubt in the clearly recited words. Perhaps he didn't understand the depth of what was being asked, with how little thought he put into his answer. Perhaps it was just a phrase ingrained in him so deeply that he didn't need to think to answer. Conditioning, one might argue.

Eyes still down on their hands, he murmured, "This better just be a stubborn stain..."

 

[Walter Thornley]

His eyes lingered on the hands touching the face of the patient, gently guiding their convalescence with gestures that had nothing to do with weaving.
Oh the weaving. Heavy eyelashes fell with a slow tired blink, and Walter struggled within himself.

He was so... so full of awe, and envy.

He could see the flow so easy at the fingertips, though hard to direct, as natural as breath, even when the use of that life force burning turned unorthodox. So many lives could be saved by this, so many obstacles brought to ruin without too much effort. Aelius just had to open the door, and his power spilled through. It was beautiful in a way the warmth of summer was. It could be good in a way that...
...that he could not be.

It was unfair. It was so, so unfair, on the most profound level that seemed possible. To have this power as part of oneself, to be revered for it, to carry it so openly without fear.

He remembered the cane on his back, for keeping the love he kept. Later, blows that snapped his ribs and made his heart stutter, for thinking he could outsmart a monster who made violence into religious art. Later, losing pieces of himself, having them wrung out of him by a forceful, cruel hand of a different sort, becoming against his will or want, a last resort and ill intent both gone wrong until the surge of power put him on the threshold of the Shroud. He was a fucking doorstop to a precipise so vast that minds imploded when exposed to it, clawing at his humanity. Aelius was a will'o'wisp, free, powerful, bold. Free. Only pushed by his own fears and desires. Walter's heart ached.

And yet, he could not turn on Aelius. Gods know what sophisticated methods of control have been pieced into the man. What shadows and malignant thorns Aelius had to contend with. Nobody this powerful was happy. A good face was just another thing to admire, at least until it cracked under pressure.
And so... envy was tinged with compassion. Because that part, he could understand.

He realized the paladin was studying him, and the pain expression faded into the poised neutrality, even though he could feel the invisible claws clenching his throat in a vice grip. Walter offered a slow nod, processing the words through the fog in his mind.

"If I..." he spoke slowly, words careful in his mouth, mind racing too fast through all possible iterations of the ways he could say it, right and wrong, sorting through them,
"...acted, it would turn the afflicted flesh mundane. The natural flow of the Shroud in the body would resume... probably leaving the drained portion as necrosis. It's a shock either way. My reach is long, but what use, if the dead tissues are going to be brittle somewhere in the lungs? The heart?"

No panic. Not anymore. No grief. Not over this. He was thinking out loud over the problem that did not seem unsolvable, but certainly was not a simple one.

Then he felt a slight sort of tug and a touch that jolted him out of thought.
Don't touch me. Please don't.
The pyromancer's hands had warmth that sunk through the skin. Panic set in and froze him in place, not apprehension or anger, not lordly humor. A brief glimpse of an animal that was taught that when it hurt, or was hurt - that it would hurt alone. He hid the expression quickly. It was not a lie, exactly. It was a truth that did not matter compared to other truths, and more pertinent was not giving ground. To anything.

The amost-demigod's hands were delightfully like his own once were, and Walter watched them move over the spots of the dead disease. There were more, covered by fabric. He did not have the necessary counterbalance to restore himself just yet, and he could not risk visibly losing weight in using his own life force.

His eyes followed Aelius' attention.
You know that healing uses the same links and weave patterns as necromancy, right?
Wrong thing to start off with a man of dogma.
Consume. Like things of the threshold do, like the wind that tunnels through the heart of the leylines meeting and carries the scent of fallen apples with it into hollow spaces that have never known a single blade of grass but yearns all the same.
Another wrong thing to even mention, not to mention how it was worded.
He'd been told before that he sounded older than he was, or madder than he was.

But he could not lie, and therein was the problem.
"I've been schooled in theoria arcana, and enchantment, and more, hence my given post as an advisor," Walter offered, and that was the truth. "By consuming I mean that..." his mouth stopped, his eyes flicked up to Aelius', "its weave would lose its aspects, son of Ko."

His captured hand splayed fingers, brushing against the calloused palm and base of fingers as it left the grasp, delicately but with determination. He leaned over to the sitting man, offering an elaboration with a quieter, deliberate wording.
"It would be unmade."
Phrase short like a drop into the pool as deep as the abyss in those velvetine-violet eyes.

The side of Walter's index fingertip, rough from not only alchemy and wartime but playing music, too - tipped the beautiful outline of the paladin's chin up, as if to admire how the braided hair framed the bronze face differently, brushed lighter than a wayward wing to the tip of the golden earring.

"Speaking in simple terms, I would kill the magic. Unname its nature. Take what energy is released for my own," he spoke, in a tone quiet and low, almost a confidant's murmur, and it would almost seem flirtatious if his eyes were not open wider than they should be for such. If there weren't fangs between the moving lips slightly larger and sharper than human ones, if there wasn't a pair of smaller gripping fangs just behind those.

If that gave pause - excellent, his eye contact did not waver a fraction of a moment, and his hand fell alongside his body,
leaving his surgical kit in Aelius' care.

It did not take eyes like his to see that where Walter's shadow fell, it was darker.
The flame of the lamp flickered, and light was right again.

"Most of it would scatter into the void of potential new threads, into the aether - and some of those threads would imbue the weave of my own body, such as it is," Walter informed politely, straightening to his full height again, shrugging the broad shoulders with feigned innocense, a smile faint in the corners of his mouth, glimmering in his eyes with a touch of some dark mischief. "The dead flesh would, however, remain, devoid of even undeath, until healed by other methods than ours."

He crossed his arms, the gloved hand resting on top.
"This stain should heal in time, I hope. It does not hurt. Let's concern ourselves with the others, and..." He blinked, mind suddenly coming to a realization that prior statement could not have been just a turn of phrase. Not with this one. "...what exactly do you mean by 'fly'?"

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

That expression, no matter how fleeting, did not go unnoticed. He wondered who or what that pain was for - the sick and dying? A poor memory? Himself? Something else Aelius couldn't grasp, not with how little he knew of the man..?

Between that and how Walter froze at his touch...

...but they had things to focus on, people to save. He filed this all away for later - he did want to check in on the man. Just not yet. This wasn't the time.

He listened carefully to the other's words; slowly, as the gravity of it dawned on him, his eyes finally lifted to meet Walter's. Brows knit together, lips parted in a question he couldn't quite form. And then something struck him.

The touch of Walter's finger along his chin, the dark, darker, yet darker shadow that loomed behind the man, the way those eyes didn't reflect light as they stared widely down at the living flame... The absoluteness of his words. It felt like he was speaking to someone else entirely in that moment, something that commanded attention in a starkly different manner than the way he'd seen the lord do. For that moment as the light flickered, it almost felt like an oxygen-starved room suffocating his own flames.

He couldn't say he was afraid. No, he wasn't afraid. But there was recognition there as the lamplight flickered back to its full strength. Recognition of the power of the man standing over him. Walter was... far more than he gave away. And that fascinated Aelius; he, himself, managed to contain the fiery fury of the sun within him, the very celestial body that gave life just as easily as it took life, that kept the cold and the dark at bay, but could scorch down entire kingdoms should it wish. And across from him was a man that might be able to just... take that away. It felt like he had the power to just tear out the paladin's very soul.

For a moment - just a moment - Aelius yearned for that. If Walter really could kill the magic in someone like that, could he sever the tie Aelius has with Ko? Is he powerful enough? How would that feel, to be free of this burden..? To never have to hurt someone again, to burn someone again. To be forced to kill in his Father's name.

But then the thought was quickly replaced. Then nobody will need me. I won't have anything, and they'll all leave me again.

The weight of the surgery kit grounded him from his thoughts. He blinked, the dim glow of his eyes flickering back to life as he shook his head to clear out his head and organize his thoughts back to their conversation.

"So... what you're saying is - magic won't be able to heal them, if you were to do that..." His words were slow, thoughtful. There was obviously a lot more to it than that, but in the moment, that was his focus. He frowned. He clearly wasn't pleased by that thought. Heaving a sigh, he shook his head again and grabbed the kit, heaving himself back up as he stood. "No. A last resort, I think." It was a little selfish. He wouldn't meet the other's eyes as he said that. If they couldn't be healed, then there was no point in Aelius being here. He would be unneeded. He didn't want that. "For now, we go one by one. Ease the pain. Stop the spread. Do what all we can first."

His eyes fell onto the man's hand again. Hidden as his arms were crossed defensively, even if subconsciously. Aelius' brows twitched and he stepped close to Walter, holding a hand out to ask for the other's. "No." he spoke firmly, voice raising some as those once more blazing eyes met with Walter's. "If you are afflicted, let me heal it. There's no reason - "

The sickly man stirred, groaning. Aelius stopped and glanced over, clamped his mouth shut, took a deep breath to try and calm the temper that made that faint glow around him flicker like a flame, the heat emanating off of him strongly. "...outside." He strode past the other, opened and held the door, ducked through the door himself, until the pair were back in the miserable overcast natural light. Once the door was closed, Aelius immediately stepped right up to Walter - less than a foot between them - and leaned down to guarantee eye contact. His words were low and sharp - there was anger bubbling beneath them, but not directed at Walter per se. "It's in the early stage, I can get rid of it. If you let it fester, you're going to wear yourself down until you're just like that man in there or worse. If you hide it, you risk letting others catch it. You're a leader here - you cannot hide something like this. You're going to get hurt, and hurt others. Now give me your hand."

Again, he held his hand out.

And, with another twitch of the brow, he followed up with the man's question. "But to answer you - I mean what I said. It's more inconvenient than anything, really, but... when needed, I can sprout wings of flame. Dangerous near buildings, or in wooded lands..." he huffed.

 

[Walter Thornley]

He saw it. The momentary yearning. The affront that followed. The revelation was no more than a shadow on the wall, but coupled with Walter's own words the son of Ko could infer the truth, in time.
He knew someone, once, who... history certainly rhymed, didn't it.

"I agree with you, even though I didn't say they would be bereft of regenerative magic. If you can induce regeneration after burning, and I remove the power of that disease that could counteract you, it could be a complete solution. Hollow spaces don't stay empty in any bodies." He tilted his head slightly. "But yes, last resort - even if only necrotic tissue is left with no vector to multiply itself, it by itself can kill a body," the baron shifted weight. "My method is less precise than yours, perhaps, I could guide your burning, as my precision lies in finding where a foreign weave is in the bodies."

He moved back, maintaining distance, a half-inhale parted his mouth preceding an answer, but the patient's groan shut both of them up. Walter lingered, muttering something in Altalusian, and offered 'Konrad' water before following suit.

He slipped out of the room, pushing the door closed behind him with a quiet and seemingly effortless precision, barely making a sound. His shadow on the surface of the door grew larger, and once he turned, he could see why. Aelius was looming, an avatar of flame heated by his own anger. The dreary air seemed to shiver above the paladin's shoulders. Walter stood his ground, though his hands unfolded, lowered at his sides with an undulation of his cloak falling along.

He listened. Nodded calmly, not breaking eye contact.
"I was the first in quarantine." He chose his words carefully. "Look for yourself, of course - I reckon it only managed to push skin-deep. I would-" he stuttered, like a block in his speech was preventing him from saying what he yet tried to say a few times, "...would n-not... mind..." His tongue could not make that lie. He minded. He very much minded someone taking his hand and burning it.

You are going to look, boy, or I take your eyelids and break your neck just so.
Walter's eyes fell away from Aelius. He couldn't look. His jaw knit for a moment, and he forced himself to be here, and not a decade ago.

Without thinking, gloved fingers curled and arm wrapped around him, resting at the small of his back. The joints of the right hand ached in protect - the exess heat cascading off Aelius was simply...
No.
No.

A sharp inhale through the nose and an unintentionally sharp, "I only have one good hand left and I have-" A short puff of an exhale and he realized he was losing composure. "I don't want to handle this in the middle of the street, if you don't mind. But look all you like."

Walter raised his hand, so Aelius could inspect it. Did not quite put it into the grasp. Could not make himself.

Spots. Pinpricks. Greyed out and undoubtedly dead flesh. More spatter coming into the bend of the cuff. All small. All inert, surrounded by pale flesh, pulse besting hard through the cappilaries.

"Dangerous, for certain, but you can still fly," he offered, the smile returning for a brief respite, "That must be a magnificent feeling, to be up there, and have the whole world beneath your passing. Now that I think of it... do you get sick often, Aelius?"

The violet eyes narrowed curiously.

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

At the other's correction, Aelius visibly relaxed, tension leaving his shoulders as if just the thought of being unable to heal someone was a heavy burden upon them. "That's a relief, then... Glad I misunderstood, in that case." But he nodded along regardless. "The help would be appreciated. Between the both of us, certainly we can help purge this plague." His words were quietly confident in the way that he always had to be; how would it reflect on Ko if his son was uncertain in his own abilities?

But once outside, Aelius watched Walter with an intensity that matched the heat coming off of him. In fact, small flickers of flame started to lick off of the paladin's hair from his anger. As soon as the nobleman's eyes dropped, however, that anger started to ebb away. The man was clearly struggling - Aelius had only known him a few days at this point, but from what he'd seen, Walter was almost always perfectly composed, if a bit tired. So to see his composure finally break...

...well, Aelius couldn't stay angry.

His eyes followed the man's shifting of his arms, the hiding of the bad arm, and the eventual reluctant offer of the afflicted hand. Instead of taking it right away, Aelius closed his eyes and took in a deep breath to calm himself, and brought his hands up to smooth down the flames of his hair, as if he were simply smoothing down some loose locks. Bare hands and all. Unaffected entirely by the flame. When they were lowered, he flicked off cinders like one might try and flick water from their hands if they had nothing to dry them on.

"...Alright." He spoke with a sigh, exhaling out the last of his anger as the tension in his brows loosened. "I'll just look right now." He slid a hand under the other's - this time, it was hot, uncomfortably so, but not yet painful. His other hand ran its fingers along the pale skin, gently pulled up the sleeve just a bit. There were marks so fine, he was... honestly a little concerned that he couldn't be that delicate.

After a few moments, eyes still considering the pinpricks of plague upon Walter, he said quietly, "...let's take care of who we can today, first. But this evening, I'll rid you of this. And I promise, I won't..." he paused, gritting his teeth. He wanted to promise he wouldn't hurt him. And he could lie, but... well, he was terrible at it. For a brief moment, fire flashed before Aelius' eyes, muffled screaming that was always somewhere in the back of his head no matter how many years had passed...

He clasped Walter's hand between his and gave it a squeeze. "....I promise I'll do my best to not hurt you. But it needs to be done." His voice was still quiet, but firm.

His hand was released. The paladin took a moment to run his hands over his face, and by the time he pulled them away, he had put his smile back on.

"Yes, it's absolutely wonderful," he said despite contradicting his earlier statement that it was just an inconvenience. He had to back it up a bit, after all; he couldn't make it seem like any of his gifts - and thus Ko's gifts - were negative in any way. The High Clerics would be severely displeased.

"Ah, no, I don't." He honestly hadn't put much thought into it. "Never have. The sacred blood of our Heavenly Father must burn away any illness that tries to reach me." He paused, tilting his head and jingling with the slight movement. "Though... a magic illness never swept through Naya Vapna." Not that he was aware of, at least. "...So I suppose we'll just have to see with this one."

 

[Walter Thornley]

The mask was familiar. He wore it every day, and he knew that the currents of fear ran deeper than the flame could reach. So the flame had to be bright enough, always, to hide that. The act had to be loud enough. Never loose shoulders. Duty. Legacy. Whatever else they wanted to put on him.

He looked at Aelius flicking off flames, and he remembered the rhyme.
Frost on the window. Some small room colder than limbo, wake up, please wake up. The snowstorm.
His jaw shifted, and the baron swallowed words. 'I could take it away. If you want me to.' He could, probably only for a while, but he remembered the rest of how it went. In the end, he was only halfway here. And not worth more than any other monster.

He smiled, but his fingers squeezed the hand back and moved from the clasp carefully. His own palm was rough with callouses from all sorts of things, not the soft, weak hands of a nobleman. Hands that brought him above mountains, pinched strings and shelled hazelnuts probably - the joints on long fingers knotty like tree branches, the palms wide enough that any tool besides a sword belonged.

Right now, he made a quick job from adjusting the thick embroidered cuff of his impossibly lazuli-hued shirt, and covering his wrist again, tone light as he agreed,
"It needs to be done."
And folded both hands behind his back. The handle of the claw-dagger from the south touched against the bend of his right elbow, and Walter found it calming.

The boots have been enchanted to repel the squelching muck of a waterlogged dirt road, and luckily that magic needed no activation but the cause. Walter strode on the shallower side of the puddles, anyway. The houses were mostly one storey, for the reason of shallow foundations. Shallow and old, he was beginning to understand - even the shanty town was built on something that had been there before.

"Of course," he simply agreed to the claim of sanctity.
Boys like them did not become like this, bent halfway between human and something else, on a blessing touch. They were made. Carved open on an altar drenched in red, and Aelius still wore his red with at least projected pride, even though his words had the faintest taste of pitch on the tip of the tongue. Not lies, but not convictions, however strong and prideful the tone they were spoken in.

Aelius was bleeding excess that expressed itself in flame. Surely, he was sent here as a trial. Lavishly offering that radiance like blood in water. It almost made Walter feel something... unusual.
Like they were being compared.
Point of attention, check every Huntsman's background in regards to ties with the Empire.

"No illness of the Shroud nature ever touched Naya Vapna - that you know of? How fortuitous, indeed. Your clerics must be exquisitely talented."

He let the words hang in the air as they walked to the next door.
"Keath and Paula behind this one, late stages, I have given something for the pain, but..."

There was a soft, strange sound from behind the door that made Walter pause as he reached to put on the other glove.
It sounded like air escaping from a thick, wet peater sack, and some kind of wet sand spilling dully to the wooden boards.

Walter blanched, gpanced at Aelius, and kicked the door open with urgency, right hand moving under the cloak, to the hidden sheath.
Only for the inside to breathe a dense cloud of green fog that swayed towards the new opening.

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

As the pair walked, the sun tried to pry its way through the clouds, but either the gray was too strong or the will of the sun just not strong enough now. Aelius peered up at the overcast sky with a small wrinkle on his brow. It was very rarely that the sun couldn't shine through when he was around... and it was strange. The faint silvery glow from behind the clouds made his heart sink. It felt almost like Ko was turning away from him. Had he voiced his doubts too much? Did he not even need to voice them, and the Heavenly Father could recognize it in him? Had he insulted his father-god in some way? Or was this an ill omen..?

Looking back down to Walter, a brow twitched at his response. 'that you know of?' That was supposed to be a private thought. Was he really so easy to read? No wonder the light of Ko wasn't shining down on him. "That's right," he replied a bit too quickly, the thoughtless, instinctive response of someone refusing to acknowledge that something was wrong.

"The clerics of our Heavenly Father are very skilled. We all make sure to look out for those under Ko's light." He paused, peering up at the gray sky, lips tightening for a few moments. Still no rays parting the clouds. "...and... those who aren't." Something at the edge of his mind poked and prodded at him; the Empire looked out for their own, and there were things they did to others that they said were 'for their own good.' Things he'd been ordered to do. Towns at the edge of the Empire that refused to worship Ko, now nothing but ash.

At least here, Aelius could really try and help people. Do something with his powers that wasn't just... burning. Even if all he was ordered to do was ultimately for a greater good... It had to be. It was just a relief to finally focus on healing.

Or... trying.

The noises coming from the home immediately gave the paladin pause, his heart sinking. Whatever that was, it didn't sound good. After an exchanged glance and the door kicked in, Aelius rushed forward, pushing Walter back behind him protectively - just in case. There were no shambling bodies, no undead lunging towards them, so Aelius' next focus was the fog; this was a plague, after all. This part of town may be quarantined, but he still didn't want that getting out. He pushed off his foot and into the room, thrusting a hand up and across the cloud. His palm sparked. In a flash, the foremost part of the cloud that threatened to spill out was engulfed in a burst of tightly controlled flame. It was quickly replaced with a horrid smelling smoke that poured out the open door. And horrifyingly, in that momentary burst of light, not a single soul was seen within the room.

Just... a horrid mess of what looked to be mold, sloughing off in chunks and falling onto the floor where it spread even more.

Aelius' eyes scanned the room. It was a small home, not many places for its residents to hide. The paladin stepped further in to start to look for them, when something caught his eye - and pulled the breath from him, stopping him dead in his tracks. One of the piles of mold... he swore it was almost in the shape of a body. But it looked like dough that had spread out, and then left to rot and mold, only vaguely holding its original shape...

He looked to the other side of the room. The other source of mold looked the same.

Aelius wasn't the smartest, but he wasn't stupid. He could put two and two together. His hands twitched. A dizzying wave of nausea hit him, but he swallowed it down. He had to.

"...can..."

A flame was spurred to life in his hand. Held tightly, licking up his arm, fingers curled around the ball of fire. He couldn't take his eyes off of what remained.

"...can they - is there anything left to save..? At all? Can you tell?" His voice was low and steady despite it all. He felt like he already knew the answer. He already had a flame ready to burn the house down. But he needed to be certain.

 

[Walter Thornley]

The baron caught that all-too-quick reply. Did not smirk. Did not huff. Only his eyelashes lowered, gaze turned away from the radiant ember of foreign god towards the dreary townscape ahead. He was a product of a different atam, but he studied the ways of different cults, and how they formed, and how they weren't much different from religions other than in the scope of power. In this world, there were no great beasts of more dubious intent than men.

He did not comment on the fate of those who did not worship. A pause lingered as they walked, the sky having no mourning tears to shed. The ardent devastation cradled neatly in the person next to him made him want to bare teeth, not out of anger but on instinct. He had to reason with himself, which was hopeful, that it seemed dormant enough, pushed rather than seeking to erupt. That was something to process.

And, back in the moment ahead...

The scent of petrichor that was not a scent crawled into his waking breath and slid like a scalpel right under the skin, electric. His mind swayed before the baron himself did, stopped momentarily in his advance inside.

Death was everywhere, waiting, blooming into worse. Death was in that room, squirming shroud-woven, with a million maggots in a million fungal threads, from a nameless soldier's dying dread in the cold night, waterlogged under the rain, ankle-deep in the dirty water and bone-deep in the fevers of festering wounds. That delirium had drifted as an imprint with the final sparks of a departing spirit.
They body may have sunk, or may have walked, afterwards, it mattered not. The cost of death ran high in Arpa, because it took the strongest thing from you it could keep - and man's fears and hatreds were so often the strongest even without wars to steer them.

Something in Walter's waking mind had gone. Dimmed, like the motes of light sacrificed to his truesight. His stomach clenched, but it was a numb feeling of tension, alert, that established over his entire body, sparked every nerve awake and ready for the fight. His convictions, sympathies and fears receded into that fog in the forefront of his mind, irrelevant. Something in him had to go far away so he could keep at least part of himself intact from... all this. And something else, like a silent baring of teeth, like a lunge ready to surge forward and overtake him in a single swoop - had to be kept at bay.

The orange flash brought him back into the moment, burning out the fog. Aelius' figure shifted in front of him, came into focus again as the golden-white braid swayed on the crimson-clad back.

A grey-leather glove landed on the paladin's shoulderblade, shifted up. The mien of the lord of Bremen betrayed nothing as he moved beside. He seemed paler, perhaps not from the color gone from his face but the outlines seeming somehow sharper, shadows falling in the curves of the skin and the folds of his clothes deeper than they should.

Smooth, fluid stalking without hunching, he moved into the room, ahead. His eyes, luminous with that cold glow that was now an established halo on the outskirts of his iris - shifted from one shape to the next.

"...can..."

There was a fire behind him, a flame he felt in a reading before he saw the orange glimpses dance along the broken boards of the floor and places where corners shaped that light.

Everywhere arround him. All connected, seeking to connect. Wriggling, squirming, trying to burrow, trying to find the tiniest cut, scratch, an open mouth, a cracked lip, a spot chafed raw under the armor. It wanted to be breathed and to make home in the wet network of lungs and tissues, it wanted to be expelled into the air and seek some more. It was a muddy color.

"...can they - is there anything left to save..? At all? Can you tell?"

Walter's hand extended, as one would lift a hand slightly to see if raindrops would touch it and confirm the weather. His silhouette seemed to pulse. No sound, no pressure in the eardrums, no shifting of the spores floating into the air, trying to wriggle between the floorboards, away and outwards.
Perhaps his vision went black from the effort to contain the Other Thing that was not a separate being, a force seeking to drive him where there was so much promise of destruction that he had to go there.

Perhaps, his shadow took the light from every source in that dim space soaked with the magic miasma, for a brief moment, and every aspect screamed as its weave was pulled with violent gravity towards the man - and seemed to cease then, the purified Shroud filtering into the ambience, outward. He closed the gap between himself and one of the bodies, and pulled the glove off his other hand, covering it with the cloak as he seemed to make contact.

Cold. He could feel a fathomless space, a faceless force, drawing an open inhale through him as an anchor, and consume the offering. Walter shuddered, his breath hitched. Under the cloak, he seemed to move and touch the other body, and the shadows on him seemed to be leaking wisps of darkness.

Words were robbed from him. Words were with the sympathies and philosophies and more complex thoughts than what his core demanded.

The lights were back in order.
Shadows fell as they should.
Aelius' flame flared brighter as the ambient energy concentrated towards the one with breathing, living weave.
Something was missing from the room that no bodily senses could discern.

The remains were a strange, grey-brown concentration of dead matter. It stank, it oozed, and it did not seem to move.

Adjusting the glove back onto his hand, Walter turned, and pointed at the flame, then at the figures.
'Burn it', clear as it gets.
His lips did not move, nor did his face lose the expressive quality of a funeral mask.
The man of Bremen strode toward the exit, his cloak grey, not black, in the dim daylight.
His eyes passed over Aelius, through him, almost unblinking.
Burn it, so it does not feed on itself and come back.

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

The hand on Aelius finally made him tear his eyes away from the horror of it all. He peered sidelong at the other man as he entered, the shadows around darkening with every step. Watched as he extended a hand. And then, that pulse - as the light in the room was eaten up, the weave suddenly ripped from everything in the room even if just for a moment.

In that moment, Aelius shuddered with a deep sense of emptiness that left him... cold.

It was brief, but the intensity and gravity of it left the demigod somewhat shaken. The light flickered back, the heat returned to his hand, and he clenched it tightly. Clinging to this piece of his soul manifest as the flames licked at his flesh, skin unburnt and unbothered, as if he were afraid of losing it. Was he? Part of him certainly was. Somewhere deep in him, something still yearned to have his flames extinguished.

But now, he had to focus. He had things to burn - the silent indication of Walter's pointed finger to the now muted, grey-brown decay. He nodded solemnly. Not another word exchanged between the men. He recognized that look on the nobleman's face, that distant look in his eyes, that set, grim expression. The look of someone locking away a part of them to do what needs to be done. That dissociative state where the horrible things you witness - or do - are tucked away to process later.

He understood all too well.

In just moments after Walter stepped outside the once-home, his shadow was cast heavily from the sudden burst of bright flames erupting from within. And then the flames engulfed the whole house. Aelius was risking nothing. If this was the fate of the affected... they couldn't risk it.

The Son of Ko emerged from the flames untouched, eyes burning with the intensity of a funeral pyre, face just as grim. In that moment, even without all the grandeur of his golden armor and weaponry, his imposing, unharmed figure silhouetted by the bright flames echoed imagery of the Heavenly Father, even if only vaguely - that moment where the light around him made him look like a dark void in comparison, where flames crowned his head and nearly curled around like horns. The flames burned so intensely, they looked almost radiant... Like Ko, Aelius had the capacity to be warm and loving, or... now, he more resembled the destroyer-half of the god.

Once outside, he turned to the burning building and raised his hands to it as if to warm his hands over a campfire, or perhaps to calm a frightened animal. The flames that threatened to climb higher and leap to neighboring buildings flickered and sunk down. Aelius held the flames in place, containing the fire, making certain it consumed the entirety of the house and its contents. He made terrifyingly quick work of it.

The building collapsed in on itself, crumpling into ash. He let the flames burn a few moments more, then finally began to lower his hands, balling them into fists. The fire lowered with his arms, flames slowly dying out, until his hands closed and the majority of the flames extinguished. All that remained was a thick pile of grey ash, speckled with cinders.

He did not look at Walter.

"We need to check on everyone. See if this has happened to anyone else." Aelius' words almost sounded cold in their tone, but... They didn't have time to grieve, to be sick. They both were accustomed to putting this mask on to get business done, and Aelius recognized that in him. They were men of action, even if to their own detriment.

 

[Walter Thornley]

The figure on the street watched the house go up in flames with Aelius still inside it. Beyond the flames' roar, an exclamation from the entry to quarantine, alarmed, a figure in greys and greens hurrying towards him, calling out after him and the paladin still inside.

Walter's arm rose in a halting gesture, and he turned to watch the flames to the sound of the footsteps emerging within, the illuminated figure. His gaze did a once over, head to toe. Still dressed. Unharmed.

"My lord?"
The lord watched the flames go down with the Huntsmen. A heavy look cast to them. Remember. This is what may happen if the Empyrean breaks. And he proceeded down the street in a stride, and let them disperse on their own.

No door left behind to mark in chalk.

Somewhere deep inside, he was beyond nauseous. This was the beginning of the campaign and the first blow of it landed hard into his mind.

Next door. A woman who'd heard and seen the fire, breathing terrified, heavily marked but alive, breathing interspersed with pained moans. Walter leaned over her, put a gloved finger to his lips, patted the unaffected shoulder, and hunched over her, half-protectively, inspecting leisons on the skin. He took the weave out of them first, to the shuddering cry of terror even as the pain receded. She could feel it, for a moment, he knew. He straightened up. Looked at Aelius, nodded to the woman, now a touch more relieved of the burrowing sickness and a little scared.

His people moved outside, keeping watch. They were from the ones that have been with him in the field and knew to take some of the burden when the lord stopped speaking out loud. They looked into the doors, faces and hands covered, and marked two more in chalk while Aelius and Walter moved door by door. A quiet, trained construction of a procedure where before there was none.

A man died in front of them, that day. Made a last shuddering exhale that railed into a gurgle at the end, light leaving the eyes, chest falling for the last time with a brief twitch of the body.
The burrowing then quickened tenfold. The green stains started spreading all over like inkstains over wet fabric, and Walter grabbed onto Aelius' arm to hold him back, apply his final cure first. Proper order had to be maintained.

He lingered over the body, then, the edge that he was balancing on growing razor sharp. Trembling fingers furled into a fist. The scent of rot, burned flesh and soot soaked through their clothes.

As he turned to exit, the lord looked at Aelius. A quiet, pained understanding that he was not sure would meet the crimson eyes. A nod that he hoped would be encouraging. He hoped the man understood.

Outside, a newer Huntsman, William, was trying to demand from him what to be done with the ones the lords have visited. Walter stood still. Struggled to find words. Caught the eye of Reginald and shook his head, waved them off. Not now.

Reggie understood. Turned to the men. "Check in on the survivors, calm them down, explain. Let the lords do the primary treatment. Prepare room for inspection. Anything carrying traces of fungus should be burned, soap and other cleaning agents must be applied to the rest. House near entrypoint must be made habitable to contain those treated, until the remedies arrive for restorative treatment."

The lord only turned to watch the weave carrying the aspect of the flame, to once again devour everything that could have fed the yet surviving fungus.

The shanty town remained, narrow spaces and that scent of odd earthy mold the strongest.
And movement within.

Walter looked at Aelius. Raised the good hand to touch the paladin's shoulder in encouragement, even though he himself felt in these moments that he'd rather not be touched.

Because the thing that breathed through him was a quiet, horrible, mindless force, not quite unleashed onto the world, and it was just there, he could feel, on the other side of the razor's edge. It had to be balanced. The Call to Harvest was like the hurricane wind, trying to take what was left of the lord and run until the excess was, all of it, was done.

 

[Aelius of the Dawn]

He did not expect this day to be good by any means. But he certainly didn't expect it to be this horrid.

Aelius had to keep reminding himself - there were still people fighting, still living, ones they could still yet save. They just had to stop the spread.

But he couldn't get those scenes out of his mind. The smell that followed him, staining him, even if just in his mind; the sound, that sloughing off of what were once people, dropping to the ground like wet sand; the feeling of horrible finality as what were once homes were razed to the ground. He'd heard of plague-ridden towns outside of the Empire being burned to ashes. He was always told it was for the greater good, to keep others safe. But seeing the suffering firsthand, trying to help, to heal, and to see the end result worse than death... and knowing deep down that he could end the plague here and now if he so chose...

It all sickened him.

The woman's wails haunted him from the first home he burnt today. He wished he could have comforted her. She wouldn't want him near her right after seeing him do that, he was certain. So many he wished he could do more for. But he had to be hardened, needed to be the hand of the destroyer, even if just for a few houses. But those houses contained lives, generations, history... and now it was all gone.

He couldn't imagine what Walter was dealing with throughout the day. He'd noticed how the man had gone nonverbal. How part of him had shut down entirely. Aelius had seen people shut down like this before; usually, back home, the silence would be beaten out of them, or channeled into unbridled, silent, seething fury on the battlefield... He didn't know what to do here.

By the time Aelius had finished that last house, his face had been set and he'd spoken little - mostly just what needed to be said at this point. He would return to being soft, to whispering soft words of soothing, when they focused on trying to care for the living. But now...

The lord's hand on his shoulder seemed to snap him out of some kind of reverie. The touch of another - one who wasn't dying, begging for help, or for death - broke right through that mask. Unlike Walter, touch was comfort to Aelius - it was essential, was grounding, was something that reminded him of his humanity.

The moment his hand clasped his shoulder, that stony expression shattered and revealed something heartbreakingly human underneath. His brows knit together, his lip trembled, eyes squeezed shut as if he were trying to forget everything he'd seen that day, and he took in a deep, shaky breath. He brought his own hand on top of Walter's and clasped it, squeezing it.

He remained like that for a few moments, clinging almost desperately to the small gesture.

He swallowed down any tears that threatened to choke him.

And boxed it all up once again.

He released the man's hand. He blinked away what may have been tears and wiped away that vulnerability from his face. He was strength. He was order. He was sunlight. He couldn't be any less.

"...A few more houses. Then, I take care of your hand. Then, you rest for the night. I'll make the rounds overnight to check on everyone and provide healing."

 

[Walter Thornley]

The hand was warm. Walter stood there, quiet, for as long as the touch lasted.
He could say a lot of words, to everyone who was hurting. A lot of words that had to be at least convictions. Half of them, familiar platitudes, caught in the throat, another good portion pinned down the tongue because they weren't true.
He could listen to a lot of words, greetings, sighs of relief, pleas for help or at least the end of suffering, that meant nothing to the end result.
He squeezed the shoulder gently, soaking in the warmth from the palm that had just sent blazes up buildings until there was nothing left to burn. Thumb moved against fabric.

Eyes hurt, exposed to light after dark rooms, and to the weave that flowed in the world around them, the readings engraving into his senses as surely as another person could perceive color. He knew the limits, there, but this was not the place to use the sight sparingly.

He glanced to the paladin's expression. The lord's own lips pressed tighter, and he would not avert his eyes.
He had to find the words. Move the pins that locked his tongue to silence.
"We h-helped... more than..."

The world was lurching back around him with unwavering reality of itself, tearing into every sensory input at once - the washed-out palette split into shades and layers of intensity in color, every sound was too clear down to his own breathing and heartbeat, every horrible stench they've bathed in for a while now, mixed with the damp wood and the cleared up rain.
A few more.

Walter slowly shook his head, pointed at the barricaded space. His mouth felt numb.
The ancient survivalist part of his mind dispensed words with the courtesy of a miser.
"Something there." He took a long inhale, exhaled partway. "After is... after."
Nobody was exiting quarantine until they were certain the burrowing plague would not carry over on clothes.
Given what he saw, Aelius could be an exception, and Walter considered it.
Envy, a slightest touch. He was coming back to himself.

Another shivering inhale, and he forced his mind into focus, struggling against the currents of alarm running through the roots of his nerves with lightning, chilling with the cold sweat making the shirt cling to his back and neck.
"The night will fall surely as the sun will rise again. Avoiding sleep during the hours of the shroud would not do either of us any good." That was true, he knew it was, and so he could speak it. Not that he was ever that reasonable, himself. But he was not alone now - he was a lord, and he also knew too much of the wounds that bled through absent stares and knit jaws and clenched fists.

"I'll send out for supplies, including my own. Come dawn, and your powers' allied aspect, we will deal with what we're dealt. You need rest and a change of clothing, and we both stink of burning and decay. This place... you are a beacon. It sees you clean through. Not a good place to deal with death alone. To think those thoughts alone."
The man's palm left the shoulder with a short brush down the back before detaching.

Walter had returned to himself, and what it meant was not just the dizzying clarity, not just that the Call weakened enough with the threat diminishing. He would have to struggle against the barrier to pull on that power, now.
And yet, he took the lead walking, to the mismatched doors and hammered-together walls of disparate boards and cloth roofs hanging over the ragged facades in places. The green was crawling all over them in lavish spatters.
"The original four, first. Ready yourself, warrior. We have to see it through."