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Night in the Wastes - by Dournbrood & Perada » April, 2022
Three battles with the creatures known as the Xar-Kah. Four days out in the Wastes... for what? To find the Ferinals and see what's going on, of course. If Lavine had been in charge, she would have gathered more people for this. For two people, it was suicide. Nevertheless, Lavine was not about to let Madeline come out here alone, so here they were.
The Wastes' enervating effects had been bothering Madeline the last couple nights. That on top of the Xar-Kah venom she couldn't purge was enough to keep her from resting. So, there she sat at the edge of the fire's light, shivering and looking a lot less pink than usual. Her hair was even sitting a little flatter against her head.
Lavine tended her weapons and equipment while watching poor Madeline, but kept her eyes downcast. Everything in her training told her this was a failed mission. Scrub it and get out. However, it was important to finish it, so she'd see it to the end. The sounds of the whetstone against her blades was all that she had against the burning and crackling of the fire. Hopefully those Xar-Kah bastards... or something worse wouldn't spot them. Lavine hands Madeline her cantine, maybe a drink of water would help a little. "Ere..." she says, "Try and cool yerself, Maddie."
Madeline, after a few seconds of silent ogling, happily accepts the canteen and takes a few swigs. There's... a pretty lengthy gap of uncharacteristic silence from the girl, and then she speaks up: "...Hey Lavine?"
"Aye?" Lavine continues to tend her weapons, bringing one of those spadroon swords up to examine the edge. Madeline would have seen what Lavine does with two of them; dual-wielded. Lavine opened up Xar-Kah carapace like it was can of fish.
Madeline watches Lavine do her sharpening-thing. It's kinda satisfying to watch the whetstone go against the metal like that, the sound it makes being oddly... palatable. "...I don't gotta look at myself to know I'm in bad shape right now, but I'm not calling it quits either. Before tomorrow comes, there's something I want to ask of you."
"Speak yer mind then, it's nae like I'll eatye... lest yer inte that sorta thing." was Lavine's reply. Nope, she had not lost her sense of humor, no matter how bad things got, covered in wounds or otherwise, she still had a grin on that face.
Madeline, meanwhile, was looking drained of color, and that aggressively-happy tone of hers was just... gone. "We're both tough little turds, that much is true... But, Lavine, if I die out here?" She looks at Lavine, deadpan. "I want you to cut my hair short, and take the trimmed-off stuff with you. No matter where I'm buried, or not-buried. You keep that hair, understand?"
Lavine's smile faded. "Ye'll nae talk like that. We're going home, both o' us, or we're not goin' home at all. Ah'll carry ye back to Mira's Hope if I haveta." She meant every last word... it showed in glowing, violet eyes. Madeline blows a rather dry and unenthused raspberry at Lavine. Ppbbbtt. "C'mon, you know I'm not going to go out any other way except kicking and screaming. But really. Let's say the worst happens, right? I need you to do the hair if that happens." Her tone doesn't budge an inch. "This is... extremely important to us, and I'll probably like, come back and haunt your bones if you don't."
"What ah said, stands." Lavine replied, returning her sword to the sheathe. "How'er, I'll... respect yer wishes... regardless, ah will see ye back to Mira's Hope. Believe that." Lavine proceeds to do field work now on her armor... which has taken a beating out here.
"Well, that's the thing, it's not just my wishes." Madeline offers in reply, "If it were just about me, I'd tell you to kick me a few times after I'm down for being such a wimp and leave it at that..." Well, at least she hasn't lost her sense of humor, aside from that line being delivered like she's reciting it at a funeral. A dry chuckle at that, but it was funny. "Nae..." it showed that there was something on Lavine's mind too. "If I can speak freely?"
"Hmm... I can't stop you. No promises on trying, though." A very slight smirk from Madeline. "Go for it."
"If I knew then, what ah know now... we'd not be 'ere. I know the mission's important to ye, but had I been a better friend to ya... I'd nae have let ye go." another chuckle, "Not that I could stop ye, that is."
"Hey, I was leaving with or without anyone. Ferrand was, like, 'the town is going to explode if you do not do this now' levels of dead-serious. I'm not gonna back down from a challenge, either." There's a pause, again. "But, hey, I've gotten one good thing out of this trip... I know I can trust you. Like, real deep."
Listening to Madeline, Lavine nodded once after a few moments of silence. "I appreciate that, Maddie. I'll make sure ye wont regret that. Further... I'm sorry... for... uh... cavin' in yer heed back then." she wanted to tell her that for some time.
Madeline gasps in surprise and then coughs a few times. "--You're still worried about that?" She offers Lavine a dismissive gesture. "They healed that super duper fast after it happened, and I went and saw a bunch of really talented doctors in Am-Xitha the next day. There's nothing wrong up there. Really." Another pause. "I'm just weird up there of my own choice, y'know? Stayin' cheery in honor of my brother and all that."
"Yer brother?" Lavine asks curiously, "Ah, I see... still, the reason I'm sorry fer it... I hate the notion that the demon in me did it. It shows just how much less I have that under control." she looked down at her armor and thought on it some, "I always have this fear that I'll lose control... and wont stop until I've painted a whole room red with the blood of innocent people."
"I mean, if you can't control it, you can't control it. And if it's decidedly not you in control, then if you ask me, the blood isn't on your hands." Madeline shrugs, and then... sighs. "...Yeah. I had a twin brother. Mathys was his name."
Lavine looked at Madeline as if she'd grown a second head and, yet, said nothing to that. It was good she had friends who understood what it's like to be a half-demon, against your will. "Mathys..." she repeated thoughtfully, "I had a lot of cousins... adopted family. Closest thing ah had... and wouldnae have taken anything fer them..."
"Yup. Mathys and I... we did, like, everything together, growing up. We'd even started learning to play instruments together, and were shaping up to be the best duet players... probably ever? Maybe." Madeline shrugs. "...Probably not, but... we were only like, ten or... eleven at the time? Just doing everything together, being kids." Another sigh. "Being brats, roughhousing and all that. One day, we were..." She begins to look... distant, eye seeming to gloss over. "...just playing, as usual... I knocked him down, not hard, and he just... didn't get back up." She pulls her legs close to her chest. "He wasn't crying or... bleeding or anything. But he wouldn't get up." She just sorta... stares through the fire, shuddering like she's freezing all of a sudden. "He just wouldn't get up..."
Lavine places a hand on Madeline's shoulder. "Ye needn't say ne more." she says, understanding completely. "You know... I dunno who my mum's side of the family is. Never met 'em. 'Ell, they prolly dun even know I exist. The Arberil family was all I knew... Dad was a captain of the Airship Navy... Mum was a doctor. They had no children o' their own an' dah found me years ago during the battles at Blackgate... an infant, still clutched in me mum's arms... freshly born."
Madeline reaches up and uses her palm to wipe tears away from her left eye. "...Man, you lot make me start to feel guilty for having a loving family that's still, like, alive and all that." She looks distant for a moment. "Well, I mean, except for Mathys, but... I just stay playful in his stead, and keep my hair long enough for the both of us, you know?"
"Aye." Lavine replied, staring into the fire...when her eyes glow like they do...it was for a few reasons...rage, pain...and emotion...and she had quite a few going on. "Hey, don't ye feel bad, ye ought feel grateful. Not all o' us come from bad straits. Between me an yew, ah think some folks just play it up." more levity in a bad situation.
"Oh, I bet a lot of 'em do, anyway. But I try to at least respect it at face value as, like, a courtesy thing." Madeline shrugs, and offers a big yawn. "But that's not my place to judge, really, I'm not exactly the poster-child for being respectful..."
"I wasn't serious." Lavine says, "But aye, not mine either." Lavine noticed the yawn, "Ye go on and rest, ah'll take first watch."
"...Thanks, 'Vine." Madeline says, with as warm a smile she can give with this exhaustion. Blinking a few slow, heavy blinks with her one good eye: "Oh, and if you tell anyone I cried, I'll rip your lips off and stick 'em to your butt." She goes ahead and sprawls out after that, knowing full well that with how she feels, tonight is not going to be a restful night.
Lavine laughs... it was a good one. "They'll haveta torture it outta me... and that's a heavy 'if'..." she says, "Sleep if ye can..." Lavine takes her cantine and takes a heavy swig, fighting off sleep while she keeps watch. She was sore from the wounds she took, and the fighting. The more she takes... the more she heals... somewhere, there's a limit to it all. But if it saved lives? So be it. No, not a hero... just someone who has said 'Enough.'