Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Timestamp: Vhalar 100th, 717 Immediately following Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Luckily for Qit, she'd been stalking a herd of hefrein that had departed northwest from Sweetwine Wood. She was eyeing this particular herd due to it having several younger deer in its ranks. Deer that the Menagerie wanted. So this had brought her close to Scalvoris town, a bit up the road from it, where she set up her tent the night before.

Unluckily for Qit, her sleep had been disturbed by a Nightmare. And while she'd helped defeat the monster with the help of... of... that woman, she'd not walked away unscathed. Rather, the furthest thing from it. And so, just as the sun was beginning to rise, a blood curdling scream could be heard along the road leading into Scalvoris Town.

Qit had awoken to her body screaming in pain from so many different points, and she couldn't see for the blood that was running down her face. She managed to extricate herself from her bedroll, and scrambled out into the morning dew covered grass. The cold droplets of water stung against the burnt skin and exposed flesh. Qit tried to calm her breathing, to stuff down the panic and pain. She hissed through her teeth, focusing on deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Her feet were already moving toward the town, toward her healer. It didn't matter that she was naked as the day she was born, she was so covered in blood and swamp muck from the Nightmare that no one in their right mind could find anything lewd about the scene.

Slowly, painfully, each step carried her down the road, her breath ragged, but focused. As she moved, she tried to register the extent of her injuries. The worst of it was the burns upon her the soles of her feet, upon her knees, on the palm of her left hand. She kept wiping the blood the gently streamed down her face. She remembered the burning of the acidic blood that splashed down upon her. She remembered diving into the water to try and neutralize it and wash it off. She remembered scraping away a couple of layers of skin to get the burning off of her. There wasn't much burning now, at least in the scraped areas, they just stung really badly in the exposed air, and were dirty. After all, she'd fought the beast in a swamp, the natural equivalent to filth.

The city gate was coming into view, and thankfully the portcullis was raised. Clutching her left arm with her right, putting pressure on the laceration on her forearm, she continued forward. Finally one of the guards saw her, and immediately realized she was naked and injured.

"Oi, get a litter here! Send a runner to the Order! We got a bad one here!"

The guards swarmed around her, several spreading out, wondering if an attack was coming. A couple more arrived with a litter, when a guard reached out and touched Qit'ria's arm. Her bloodied hand snatched out and grabbed him by the beard. "No... touch... me.."

"Miss, what happened? Bandits? Monsters? Pirates?"

Qit'ria sat upon the litter held between two stout, armored guards, "Nightmare." Someone draped a cloak over her form, and she laid back on the litter, feeling the guards do their best to carry her smoothly to the Order.

The guards were muttering, fearful, it had been a while since they'd seen such ghastly wounds from a Nightmare. It was many of them's worst fear, for guards couldn't protect anyone from the nightmares, themselves included. As they carried her into the Order's outpost, the litter was set upon a table, and some blonde woman approached her with some soaked cloth. Qit's hand snatched out and grabbed the woman's wrist, holding it fast, "Get Faith."

She flung the woman's arm back at her, and several others tried to approach her, Qit snarled and hissed at each of them in turn. One of the guard's stepped forward and forced her shoulders down onto the table, and she kicked and screamed and growled. The name 'Faith' kept escaping her painful cries. She refused to stop fighting, refused to be treated until Faith arrived.

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The instant Faith's cool to the touch hand alighted on a Qit'ria's forehead, the wild woman calmed a bit. She stopped her snarling and kicking at the rest of whom tried to help her, many of which were lingering to see what had happened. Rumors of a Nightmare circulated. A beast that could kill you while you slept, and no one would ever know the difference. Every person knew someone who'd died in their sleep, some blamed health, others blamed these Nightmares.

With a smile, "Faith..." Qit'ria reached out, clasping Faith's forearm in the traditional Sev'ryn manner, albeit much weaker than she'd had the first time they'd met. Faith asked what happened, and unlike last time, Qit had no reason to lie. As a result of her mildly perforated eardrums, she was speaking in slightly louder than a conversation voice, "Nightmare... beast. Big hopcroak. Try eat me. Try eat magic woman. We fight. I kill it... No thing hunt me. Never again."

Moving wasn't nearly as bad as the last time she was on this table looking up at Faith. The infection was only just beginning to spread, but she tried to explain as best she could what happened. She grit her teeth firmly, steeling herself, as she took in a deep breath, and pulled herself up into a sitting position. Air hissed through her teeth from the pain of moving her exposed and burnt skin. She slowly turned so her legs dangled off the table.

"Blood get on me." She pointed to her forehead and left cheek, the tops of both arms, shoulder to wrist, the bottoms of her feet, both of her knees, and her left palm. The skin underneath was red and oozing."Blood burn me. Like hot water. Make skin bubble. I scrape off, use swamp water. Stop burning little." She then pointed to the long gash in her left forearm, "Tongue tooth." She hadn't noticed her ear injuries though they were beginning to bleed. The woman's wounds were dirty with swamp water and debris. The redness of infection around them was hot and swollen. And yet, somehow, Qit'ria managed to keep herself upright.

The pain was intense but she was tougher. "No have Nightmare afore."

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Qit'ria listened intently as Faith spoke. It seemed dousing her wounds in swamp water made things worse, not better. She mentally shrugged, it felt right in the moment. And when Faith said that the medicine would sting, Qit snort-laughed. A little bit of stinging after what she had gone through would be-- "Shit that hurts you fat cow!" Thankfully the comment was in Xanthean because it clearly wasn't the friendliest.

Seething, and now staring daggers at the healer, Qit'ria continued to follow orders, and laid down as instructed. In response to a musing of Faith's Qit's chest puffed out, "I no find trouble. I am trouble." Qit'ria tried to think back to the evening before the Nightmare. There hadn't been much. She had been tracking a herd of hafrein that came strangely close to town, and then made camp. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary. She shrugged at Faith's question.

"I woked up in big forest. Big big. Trees taller than sky fluffs. I great hunter. Happy there. I meet... mean mouth city woman. Name... Sipper I think. She not know wild. Useless. Giant baby frogtail come out lake. We hunt it. It turn dark. Turn mean. Turn big frog. Sipper do magic things. Lots bad mouth. We kill it."

Qit'ria tried her best to remain stoic during the remainder of the treatment but every so often, a pained hiss or snarl elicited from the woman, sometimes accompanied by a swat or kick at Faith. She'd never been a particularly good patient, especially when maintaining her faculties. She did notice that Faith looked a little... rounder, in the stomach, in the face. She had indeed gotten fatter.

"You have baby? With... Paddyrags?"

Against Faith's previous command, she sat up once more, stubbornly. "Tell me how do heal. What you do. What use."
She made sure to make eye contact with Faith, and forced herself to stay upright despite the weariness, pain, and wooziness that was all through her. She was not to be denied, "I fix me next time." She looked around the Order to see that many sets of snooping eyes were spying on them. There was no bashfulness from Qit'ria despite being naked, covered in blood and muck, though she didn't like them seeing her in a weakened state. She hissed at them, and several of them scurried off to get back to what they were doing.

"How love Paddyrags? I no love no one. No on no love me. What like? Look... sad. In Desnind, people marry, one get sad. Or both."

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Qit'ria huffed in annoyance. She didn't like being told what to do by anyone. But still, she listened, out of respect. Faith was good people. One of the extreme few. It's why Qit'ria had demanded for her in the first place. It wasn't that she was a cook, though Qit hadn't actually had any of her food, nor that she was a healer. She just... something about her made Qit like the woman. She was pleasant, but not weak. Qit didn't feel the need to treat her like prey or competition. Faith was more like... the sunshine that leaked through her tent in the mornings. Only warmth and comfort.

And Faith considered Qit'ria a friend.

Qit went really quiet at having heard those words. A life of actively avoiding people, having abandoned her family did not allow for friends to exist. But something about this island, about these people brought themselves into her life. The impacts people were having here was... something else. And it was hard, hearing that she was someone's friend, and truly mean it, for the first time in over ten arcs. She had a friend.

Tears burned in her eyes, as she made sure to keep her face turned away from Faith as she continued her work. Part of Qit wanted to reciprocate. The thought of telling someone that they were her friend though, brought her heart beat from mildly elevated from pain to absolutely racing, and her chest heaving in panicked breaths. Then something stung, really stung, physically, and Qit just spat it out, angrily from the pain, "I your friend too!"

She felt very sheepish once the words were spoken though. Her face and body turned a bit away from Faith, not enough to hamper her work, but Qit was feeling exposed. It took so much of her control to not run and hide, and only managed it because she knew Faith was working, and respected that work. But she didn't really feel like talking more, until Faith deemed her patched up. When she was finished, Qit sat up, her shoulders a bit slumped, and she looked up at Faith, eyes behind a few strands of hair, and in a soft voice, very unlike the brash and loud huntress, "Thank. I hope you baby strong, happy."

Qit'ria refused to stay the night, gingerly slipped off the table. She accepted any medicine that she would need to continue her healing, and a simple robe so she didn't have to walk naked through town, again. Turning to leave, moving slowly in her pain, she stopped. She took a deep breath which raised her up on the balls of her feet, before rocking back onto her heels. She turned around to face Faith, and stuck out her bandaged arm in the traditional Sev'ryn greeting. "Friend." Her eyes were still a bit water but there was a look of stubborn fire in there. She said the word friend, but Faith wasn't a friend to Qit.

She was family.