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 Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 8:23 pm
Chel walked silently, the only thing steady about her being her grip on Chris and her other hand on her shoulder. She watched Jack carefully, very much on the brink of exhaustive breaking. There was one more thing she had to do.
Eventually they found a relatively private hallway, similar to the one they'd been in earlier. As Chel approached some of the more dense crystal clusters grew, slightly ebbing along the walls in a delicate pattern. She tried to ignore it.
"Thank you." Not only for now, where she gestured him to set Chris, but for back in the throne room, for everything. "You can go now."
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 8:26 pm
He moved Chris as indicated, setting him down as gently as he could. "You're going to need help," Jack said, already reaching for his kit as he knelt. "Unless you learned better nursing skills than I have between then and now."
It was only half a joke.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 8:34 pm
"I'm not sure," she said smoothly. It was true too. She didn't know any more nursing skills, certainly not as many as Jack and yet ...
There she was, kneeling with Chris' head beside her legs. Chris' shirt was carefully pieced apart from his skin. She knew what she was doing. The damaged skin became nothing as she placed a hand on Chris' open chest. Her eyes glossed over in the same deep void that Holly's had had, but when Chel touched Chris, he didn't break. Smooth crystal covered over his hole, filling in the gaps and creating synthetic tissues, cells; she was healing him. As she worked, the crystal on the walls around them wove themselves deeper into the stone, erupting outwards and threatening to take over.
The black color faded from her eyes and Chel waited. She continued to stroke his hair gently, and waited. It was the waiting that killed her; was she too late? Had he already been dead before she'd tried?
She should have been concerned with Jack's presence. Thousands of voices were alive in a chorus that sang through her head with paranoia. Jack was going to attack her now. Take her powers. Take Chris, kill him for being healed with Merlin's magic.
Yet all she could do was wait for it with the soft rhythm of her hands keeping the crystal regenerating. "Open your eyes," she muttered softly. Waiting.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:07 pm
It was funny, in an out-of-body way, that Chel was fixing a hole in Chris's chest. Funnier yet that she was filling it with something harder, something that barely knitted itself to his skin and called itself human. Because that's what they always did to each other. What they'd always do to each other. Find the biggest, most fatal hole in the other's body and try desperately to fill it any way they could before it took their lives.
Spackle the holes with cold dark crystal and hope what results is still human enough to be recognizable.
Open your eyes.
Chris's eyelashes fluttered and he could barely make out the blurred lines of Chel leaning over him. But he could feel her hand rhythmically running through his hair, flaking off dried and crusted blood as it went. All of him felt dried and crusted, really. Like he'd come so close to death his veins had already started to dry up.
It was probably mostly because his coat was starting to dry.
"Dead?" He croaked. If this was death, he had complaints.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:14 pm
He watched, rapt not with fear but with wonder, strangely. Jack had yet to see any Great Knight perform an act as wondrous as this--with power like this. And as such, he was quiet out of respect.
(Power always comes at a price. He sees the way her energy fades, her body sags, but dares not intervene. Her demeanor is different; he becomes careful and concerned out of instinct, even when fully aware that power could just as easily turn on him.)
A small breath escaped him in surprise as the knight stirred. "Not dead," Jack correct him, his volume matching Chel's. It was practically a miracle to come back from that sort of damage; or was it easy to mend, considering the crystals had done it in the first place? He didn't know; he couldn't begin to understand what might be going through her mind right now.
Glancing around, he noticed the crystals had reacted to her magic and shuddered inwardly.
"That...was amazing," he said breathlessly nevertheless. "Take it easy now. Both of you," Jack amended, as Chel looked drained from the effort.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:18 pm
Chel's mind was relatively easy to sift through at the moment, actually.
It was focused on one thing and one thing only: Chris being alive. She had done it. She had fixed her cousin and brought him back from the brink of death. She could- she could do anything. No, that wasn't entirely correct. Merlin's power could do anything.
But she could control it.
"Easy," she murmured to her cousin, hands held out in support if he needed it. "Not everyday y'get resurrected." Jack's observation was correct. Chel had taken a massive beating from Holly nonetheless and was only bandaged on one of her wounds. The other two were drying but still cracked and bled every once in a while when she moved the wrong way.
Her hand went back to her shoulder, the worst of the three, but she was there for Chris, not herself.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:27 pm
He squinted, willing his eyes to focus on the face. No, two faces. Jack was there too. There was an edge of panic at the back of Chris's mind at seeing him again, but it was beaten out by exhaustion.
"How'd-" he stopped, swallowed hard and took a deep breath, "How'd I get resurrected? Did I really die?" He remembered the crystal. But truly dying? That was terrifying.
As clarity returned his eyes roved over Chel and immediately caught on the injuries. His gaze cut to Jack with what might have been accusation if he wasn't so damn tired. "Why aren't you healing her?"
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:36 pm
"I..." He made a soft sound, almost a chuckle; this was all more than a little surreal. "Resurrections get mildly distracting."
Part of him wondered if it really was a smart idea to heal her; he had no idea what her motives were now. Then again, it hadn't been particularly smart to follow after Chel on his own either, so he supposed he was now on this path wherever it ended up taking him.
Breaking out the bandages and what was left of his alcohol, he scooted to Chel's side to tend to the wounds--well, if she let him. He didn't think it was a good idea for her to expend more of that power over a few scratches. "It was a close call."
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:44 pm
Chel's free hand was shaking above Chris' chest, waiting for him to wince or to cough or to do something that indicated he needed help. She would pour herself out if it meant he would live.
"Idiot, don't worry about me," she said tiredly, but not without relief in her voice. "You okay? Be honest, anythin' hurt?" Worry painted her exhausted voice, a strange whiplash from her normal brusque demeanor.
She didn't deny Jack's help but neither did she lean into it. She could feel his uneasiness, sense it the same way she could the fear in her mind. Neither party was really comfortable with the arrangement.
Yet he was here and not in the throne room. That had to count for something no matter how much she wanted to shirk off his attempts at friendship as something from the past.
"So you didn't run," Chel said casually to Jack as she watched Chris.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:50 pm
He glanced back at Chel with a stern tilt to his eyebrows, but gave a weak shrug. "Everything hurts. But I guess I almost died, right? So. par for course."
He had to take a second to breathe, because apparently talking too more energy than he'd ever realized. He wiggled his fingers, then his toes. Slowly rotated a wrist. Everything was at least in working order, though stiff and aching. He watched quietly as Jack began to patch Chel up. "Thank you," he told them softly.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 10:08 pm
"Never had before," he answered simply as he tightened the last bandage over her shoulder. "After you face a worm about the size of that tower, not much is left to phase you." To Chris, he added, "No thanks necessary. This is just another battle we'll win in the end; my job has always been to ensue we make it there is all." The real question was at what cost--their party was starting to fragment, and now this.
Kneeling back on his heels, he produced his water skin and let a small portion be his means of cleaning his hands. He then offered it to the cousins, though it was obvious he was wondering: what now? If Chel could bring Chris from the brink of death, she could just as easily obliterate him if that was her whim. Despite their exhausted states, Jack was technically the one at their mercy.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 10:17 pm
Her face twisted when he said everything hurt. It wasn't really the kind of thing to joke about when she was on edge. Her hand immediately pushed into Chris' skin to send more of Merlin's magic into him. Anything in an attempt to ease the pain.
Again her eyes went black and then faded, more quickly this time, but she came out twice as winded. "Of ... of course," she told him, trying to catch her breath between words. It took a bit, but she finally calmed down enough to push the waterskin away. She didn't need it, Chris did.
To Jack, she simply said, "You should prolly stick with Shun and them f'you wanna do it their way."
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 2:18 pm
Chris eyes widened and he grabbed at Chel's wrists, trying weakly to pull her hands away. "What are you doing?" Whatever it was, it felt ******** weird, but he was more concerned about the way her shoulders slumped as the black faded from her eyes. "Are you trying to kill yourself?" He demanded.
He tookt he waterskin only because his mouth was too dry to argue. But he paused as he lifted his head to drink and looked down at the crystal filling the gap in his skin. It wasn't like the crystal that had stabbed him, this was almost smooth and looked knitted to the edges of the wound. He rested his head back on the ground and blinked up at the ceiling, putting two and two together. "So that's a thing you can do."
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 2:23 pm
"Yup," she responded shortly, removing her hands from Chris now that he was responding healthily. At least, close to healthy.
Her hand tipped the skin back in an attempt to get him to drink. The crystal was weird, but water was needed.
With a slightly manic tone she added, "You can't kill me." It was for Jack to hear too. They couldn't take this from her. It was hers. She'd earned it. "If you kill me I don't think those crystals will hold. So you can't."
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 2:27 pm
Water dribbled clumsily down his chin but he obediently drank for a moment before pushing her hand back. "I'd never kill you. And I'll hill him if he tries."
Big words for a man on the floor, but Chris glared at Jack as if daring him to defy him. Whatever Chel was now, she wasn't acting evil or corrupt. Yet. That was good enough.
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