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As his head leaned back against he hull of the chopper, Anuksu suddenly twitched involuntarily, almost wincing slightly. Hopefully either they would reach their destination quickly or that blasted sun would set. Not only was his eyesight much poorer during the day, but the sun had another far more painful effect. Though spending time in the light of the sun did not actually harm Anuksu, another bit of the demon's fine print was that it would constantly feel as though it was searing away his flesh. Despite the fact that Anuksu was very used to this feeling by now, and could function almost normally during its effect, it didn't help at all with the pain, for as he began to resist its effects, it intensified.

Quickly realising what he had done, he shifted slightly in his seat, still not opening his eyes to try and make it look as though he had meant to do so in the first place.

As he grew comfortable once more, thinking too much on the demon's deal brought back familiar painful memories, and they began to cloud his mind.

---

...He could again, feel the rain lightly kissing his skin and flowing down his wings. He could feel the flames from the ruined tower behind him. He could feel the tears sting his eyes. He could feel his body drained from using far too much healing magic... magic which had proved innefective. He could hear the voice of the demon lord as he whispered promises of aid to him, which Anuksu had managed to ignore.

But it was not the rain, or the fire, or the tears, or the voice, or even his exhaustion that held his attention. It was the girl in his arms... dying. He moved his wings forward to slightly shield her from the rain. A moot point, but one rarely thinks of such things when faced with death.

"Anuksu... don't do it. Remember *cough*

She coughed up another mouthful of blood, which Anuksu wiped away quickly.

... remember what you... stand for..."

Her voice was weak as the last of her blood left her, bleeding out all over Anuksu as he held her. Her wounds had been too great for any vampire to survive, even one as old as she. Even as she was dying, she stared back at him with loving eyes, and placed a hand on his cheek.

"Don't talk."

He heard himself say. As though that would save her. He knew she was going to die, but he still found himself unwilling to accept it.

The demon smiled as he could tell that the paladin's will was faltering at seeing his love dying before him. Anuksu could again hear his mocking voice after he had given his offer for help. The demon looked down at a nonexistent watch and tapped his wrist.

"It doesn't look like she's got a lot of time to wait for you decide."

In this moment, his righteousness, his courage, his devotion, as well as all of his magic, all of his skill, all of his power... were all nothing. He had fought against the unimaginable terrors of the world unafraid, and come out victorious. But in this one moment, fear held his heart tightly in its grip. He had found the one monster he could not protect others from... death.

---

Fortunately the sound of the chopper landing and Twitch ordering everyone to get off snapped him back to reality. As he slipped off the chopper, he tapped into a bit of his vampiric magic, making the wings above his ears, as well as a bit of bulk from underneath his cloak seem to dissapear.

The new comers as well as a great big...machine landing in the front yard was not ignored, most of the customers, pints in hand, of course, went to go have looks out the windows at the people coming in. Sun was curious as well, but more about who was coming through the door, instead of what they came in.

He lightly tapped the bar again, and ordered two, digging into his back pocket for the appropriate, if a little singed, note. The bar tender looked at it, raised an eyebrow, and put it into the til.

"Don't worry bout change, I'll probably need more." Carefully he handed one of the glasses of dark coloured liquid to Madi.

"Here. And yeah, I'm Sun. How can I help you, bunny?" He was half distracted, wondering how many more people would be coming in, before taking a large sip of his drink.

A few more...and it'd probably be enough...

Rain would be in the fits of more spasming, almost identical to Goku with the heart virus (if you don't mind the DBZ reference), sans the chest-grabbing. His breathing would be strained, the same kind of breathing one does when they're out of breath in a very humid atmosphere. Though, to the touch, he was deathly cold. His pulse was unusually high, but not quite over-the-top.

Though, at one point, a bulge would seem to form, pushing up his hair, a few inches from the crown of his skull. It would travel a few inches back and shrink back down again while also disappearing from sight between himself and the pillow.

Hono had a moment to pray that she had not actually seen something move out of the corner of her eye, wondering if the man had pests or if it was something he had caught from the bed xp

It was a risk, but she let go of his wrist to quickly braid her long red and black striped hair out of her way before she sat on the bed next to him. She knew better than to try and restrain him even if it looked like he was having a seizure and might thrash himself right off the bed. If it came to that, she could keep him from falling to the floor and potentially hurting himself even worse!

She quickly pulled the pillow away, tossing it on the other bed so that he was laying flat, and then the soaked top sheet, tossing that to the floor at the end of the bed.

The next step was harder since there was a dampening field in the room, but she did manage to summon two large yellow wisps, setting them about three feet above the bed where they not only lit up the room like it was noon in an open field, but they raised the entire room temperature by a good 25°C. Hono thought it was nice and toasty warm now... but most people would find the room almost sickeningly hot.

If this was something normal then there was a chance that the man could simply sweat out the illness in a few hours, although she would have to watch him very closely to make certain that he did not become dehydrated!



Katie was wrong about the trust thing, if anything Rae was more worried about having to fend off an attack with her arms full than in handing her friend over to someone else while he was out xp . It would have been different if Quinn or Anuksu had asked, they were not real high on her trustworthy list at the moment, but she had no reason not to trust Katie!

She had told Damion no before due to the simple fact that she needed to establish a strong connection to Maximos magically speaking, that was done now and so she nodded to Katie with a grin. "If you wouldn't mind? I haven't been here before, and I think he would be a tad mad at me if I managed to trip over his arm on the stairs and sent us both for a tumble!" xd

Well the bug had another think coming if it thought Raven was going to go all girly and run away screaming, she was a bird after all, and more inclined to eat bugs than to be afraid of them....she wasn't going to try and eat this bug though, but that was mostly due to the simple fact that she knew where it had just come from, and thought that brains would likely give her indigestion! xp

With a slight growl she snapped a hand towards the bug, intent on sending it flying into the nearest wall where she could more easily squish it or at least pin it with a gust of wind while she checked the man before trying to get a better look at the nasty little critter. No use in killing it right away when she had no idea what the heck it was...

The pill bug would curl up into a ball in midair, bouncing off the wall and rolling a bit across the boarded floor of the Tavern, unmoving.

Rain himself was still nowhere near consciousness. There was a slight dribble of the fluid staining the sheets from his ear, but other than that, he seemed to be... well, fine. His body temperature was quickly returning to normal, he stopped sweating (despite the heat increase), and he actually looked peaceful.

When Hono would once more look at the curled-up pill bug across the room, it seemed larger than before. In fact, it was larger. From an inch or two, to almost half a foot. It just then uncurled itself, and began to crawl around the floorboards, as if looking for something.

stare "Now that is just icky..." Hono usually tried not to be too judgmental, and she didn't know if what had happened was normal for the man, but he did look better now that the bug was out, so that led to the thought that the bug was a parasite.

Turning her attention away from the man again she glared at the bug as it started skittering across the floor, mentally preparing a wind spell to create a shell of hardened air (like a big plastic bowl) to try and trap the bug if it tried to get away or even attack.