Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Now to see if we can find them," Earendil murmured. "This city seems pretty big to me." He turned to the boy. "Do you have any idea where we might find them?"

The boy shook his head. "No, sorry."

"Maybe we should start looking near the clinic," Iorlas suggested, shifting Amir's sling slightly.

"Or just setting out, or sticking close just in case something happens ..." Daeron shrugged. "At least it's a thought."

It took them longer than usual to reach the clinic, the streets were so crowded, and when they arrived they found the clinic empty. Being deeper in the city, it was also more crowded there than it had been near the outskirts.

"Is there a way to find anyone in this?" Earendil asked with a grimace. "This is insane."

"How anyone, even Kyrie, could notice someone watching them in this, I do not understand," Iorlas couldn't help but comment. "People are everywhere!"

"Kind of makes you wish you could speak the language," Daeron said dryly. "Then at least we could ask."

Nearby, musicians began to play a song, and the crowd thinned out slightly as people headed over to dance.

"Appropriately cautious is the term I prefer," Kyrie's voice came from behind the group. "Paranoid sounds so eccentric."

When the group turned to see where she had so suddenly come from, they could see that she and Ahkshi were approaching them from between two buildings. Kyrie was back to her regular clothes today, and Ahkshi was looking nice in some colourful clothing.

"Good morning," Kyrie grinned at the group. "Glad to see some of you decided to join in the celebrations. Sorry we weren't here earlier, we were late getting out of bed."

"We thought you might look for us here," Ahkshi added, "so we t-tried to come quickly." He smiled at the boy that was with them. "Hello, Dannon. G-good to see you again."

The red-haired boy blushed and grinned back at the healer. "Good morning, sir. Happy Old Year's Day."

Ahkshi chuckled softly. "Dannon here broke his leg the first year his family came to the festival."

The boy's blush grew brighter. "I fell out of a tree when I was stalking someone," he admitted. "But Ahkshi fixed me up so I could go home quick enough."

Kyrie laughed and put one arm around her husband's shoulders and leaned against him. "There's more than one reason we stick around the clinic during the festival," she grinned. "Without fail, there's always at least one injury to tend to."

"Speaking of which," Ahkshi frowned, looking up the street, "isn't that one of your c-companions coming? With Daelle, it looks like ..."

Sure enough, from up the street, Wren was approaching with a red-haired girl, and between the two of them they were holding up a White Elf. All three of them were covered in blood, and they were making their way slowly towards the clinic.

"Sooner," Ahkshi said quietly. He set his jaw and started forward to see what was going on, and Kyrie hurried after him.

"Come on," Daeron said anxiously. "I hope nothing happened to Wren ..."

"That's my sister!" Dannon exclaimed in dismay, his green eyes growing wide. He took off after Ahkshi and Kyrie as fast as he could.

"If anything happened to them ..." Earendil muttered; but he let the sentence hang. "Come on, Lin."

"Little help here?" Wren requested when the others were close enough. She had a strained look on her face, and the girl on the other side of the man was dragging her feet trying to keep him up.

Daeron and Earendil hurried forward and each of them took one of the man's arms.

"To the clinic," Ahkshi told them, and he started to lead the way.

Kyrie ran to Wren and the girl to see how they were faring. "Are you two all right?" she asked them anxiously. "Are either of you hurt?"

"We're fine," Wren assured her. "We were just enjoying the festival when we found that man nearly passed out under a tree. He's bleeding pretty badly ..."

Dannon rushed forward and hugged the girl and started chattering away at her in their native tongue.

Kyrie put a hand on Wren's shoulder. "We'll help him," she promised. "Come, we'll need any details you can give us - where you found him, how, everything."

On the way to the clinic, Wren gave as much information as she could. She had discovered that the girl - Daelle - had been shadowing her, and had confronted her; Daelle had offered to show Wren around the city, and Wren had accepted; they'd been simply wandering and enjoying the entertainment; and as they'd passed some trees, Wren had heard something and upon investigation she had found the man lying in a pool of his own blood.

By that time they had reached the clinic, and Daeron and Earendil followed Ahkshi to one of the back rooms and laid the man down on the table inside.

"Iorlas, can you stay here with the children?" Kyrie requested as she followed the others inside.

Iorlas nodded. "I will."

Kyrie turned to Lin and Wren. "If either of you are any good with blood, we could use some extra hands in there, if only to pass instruments," she said.

"I've already got his blood all over me," Wren quipped. "I don't know how much help I'll be, but I'm willing to try."

Kyrie nodded at both of the women. "Follow me, then," she told them, beckoning for them to follow after her down the hall. She led them to the room at the very end of the corridor, where Ahkshi, Daeron and Earendil were already getting ready to work. Daeron and Earendil were helping out by taking the man's weapons and setting them aside, and Ahkshi was cutting away the man's clothes so that they could get to his wounds.

When Kyrie entered the room, she observed all of this as routine; but when her eyes fell on the wounded man's face, her entire body froze, and her face grew deathly pale.