FIN [PRP Oba] After All This Time [Tes/Dris]

[Fluffesu]

Painted Moose

It wasn't often that Teslaron asked for much information concerning Dris'rynne's line of work. In part because he didn't feel it was his business to know the gritty details of her unsavory occupation. In another part because knowing had the potential to make him worry, and Tes was all about the life of specifically not doing that. But largely because he knew he had a loose tongue, and with two young children about, he didn't trust himself not to say something that could bite him in the a** later.

He didn't often want to know, except for when his girlfriend would be gone for longer than the stretch of a full night, and that was just about all he wanted to know. Admittedly, this wasn't especially uncommon, as Dris' missions occasionally took her out of Oba and into neighboring territories. A few days, a week, whatever was needed to get the 'job' done.

Tes took solace in knowing that at least Dris kept to that timeline with impressive frequency. If she said a week, he'd come to expect a week, with a range of only one or two days as a margin of error.

He did not expect a 'two week' mission to turn into something closer to a month. Almost a full cycle of the moon, with no source of intel or signs of communication. This was likely his fault to some degree. Teslaron didn't consider himself impersonal and didn't mind meeting people, but he'd opted to keep himself (and his children) well away from any of Dris' (likely unsavory) compatriots. He didn't know any of them, couldn't seek any of them out if he had concerns. Only belatedly did he realize this was a mistake. After a month, he would've appreciated having someone who could at least tell him what was going on.

That strategy? The one about not asking anything to keep himself from worrying? Yeah, it was starting to backfire royally.

Whether he asked not not, he knew there were certain dangers to Dris' job, and that there was too often the potential for something to go awry. There was too often the potential for something to go awry when you weren't specifically seeking dangerous people out. Much like it had been over the waning weeks, anytime his mind hit on exactly how unfortunate the circumstances could be, his heart hammered.

What was he supposed to tell the girls if Dris didn't come back? What was he supposed to tell them even now, that she'd been gone for so long? Could they tell he was panicking? Probably not. They were just kids. Kids were dumb. They didn't know. At this point, the 'future' felt like an impossibly looming anchor that would drag anything it caught down, down, way down into the depths of fear and hopelessness and dread and absolute terror-

He tried to keep himself from thinking about it, but not knowing was the worst.  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

Time held no relevance for Dris'rynne. Whole days had passed during her initial recovery where she didn't so much as bat an eyelash, let alone worry about how long it was taking her to get back home. Grunt managed all of that. The healer that had tended to her wounds wasn't one in the magical sense, so she'd had to be stitched up the old fashioned way, and thus wasn't in any sort of 'condition' to make the journey simple by any means.

She was aware of being carried a lot. It felt like flying, or what she assumed flying felt like. In those first few days the herbal concoction she'd been given by the healer had kept her quiet and resting, but somewhere along the line Dris became aware of pain.

There was nothing that could be done for her then. Grunt kept their group to the shadows to avoid another possible jump, and because of that travel was rough going, slow, and without access to a proper healer. Her fever returned two fold simply because the stress her body was under. For the most part Dris'rynne tried to keep it all quiet, to internalize her pain and act like a real leader, but when she was jostled too much she let out such a shriek that the dead could once again walk the earth.

Everything hurt; the bruises that darkened her skin, the little nicks and gashes that would inevitably brush against something, and her torso...It was hard, to sit back and allow herself to be toted about like a helpless waif, but it was harder to do anything productive. Dris'rynne tired so easily when she tried to walk, so doing anything other than riding back was out of the question.

But when she got back to Oba she became stubborn.

"If my girls see me like this they'll panic."

"Better to see the bandages than to see their ma' fall over cuz she pushed herself."

She wouldn't listen to Grunt. Dris'rynne took up a cloak, one of the many they had been using to hide themselves in the larger villages, and covered herself completely. So long as the girls didn't hug her too hard or rush her it would be okay.

But Tes would know.

He was sharp like that, and there would be no way for her to disguise the way she hunched over when she walked, or the perpetual grimace on her face. It wouldn't be so much of a change from her usual frown, but Dris'rynne had been told lately that when she did it she looked sick, so that would be harder to hide. Not that she was even going to attempt it. It would only offend him, to keep something like this a secret, and she would be doing more harm than good to everyone around her.

"Go Grunt, I can make it home from here..."

It was late when they finally arrived. Her girls would be snug in their beds now, which meant she would have to wait until morning to see their sweet faces again. She leaned against her walking stick (a parting gift, courtesy of Grunt, after reluctantly leaving her side) to catch her breath. Dris'rynne could see the outline of her building from here; she was barely half a block away, but her body was already tiring. The shifter stumbled in the street, knocking into a passing Oban, before falling onto her knees with a sharp cry.

She unconsciously put a hand over her wound. At least she hadn't tore the stitches open again, though that bit of consolation did nothing to ebb the sharp ache. Dris'rynne drug herself closer to the exterior of the closest building, and dropped onto her backside. Her lungs drew in great, shaky breaths and were exhaled in barely muffled hisses.

She was so close.

At that point she didn't know that she was crying or what a mess she looked like. All Dris'rynne knew was that she wanted to go home. The all too familiar fear of death drug her senses down, and she started to panic. What if her wound reopened and she couldn't get back to them, back to him- Dris'rynne turned her head to look at the outline of her building with her heart pounding in her ears.

Help me...please, I need help...I need you, Tes...  

[Fluffesu]

This time of evening would've usually found Tes inside, if not sleeping, than at least trying to relax. He didn't have any business with the outdoors, and it wasn't like he could leave the house while his daughters were in bed. But the stress of the waning weeks left him restless and with an impatient anxiety that maybe soon things could return to some semblance of normal. If he just kept an eye out, if he watched and waited and had patience, and was diligent in his attentiveness to his surroundings, than she would be there, striding down the street on her way home. But if he wasn't keeping an eye out, he'd miss her.

Did it make any degree of rational sense? Well, no, but he didn't have much else to occupy his time.

Teslaron perched at the edge of their balcony (if it could be called as much). It stood about wide enough so that three people could fit on it, and stretched out from their apartment about as much. It was certainly no place for a whole party, but it was a decent enough surveillance spot, for the early part of night, anyway. With the sun long since out of view beneath the horizon, and the shop lights being put out one by one around him, to signal the shut-down of the street, things became too dark for him to see clearly.

That was when he usually called it a night. He couldn't see, couldn't do anything, everything else was silent and boring around him as the last few lingering shopkeepers and market patrons headed out. Nothing of interest would happen beyond this time of night. Of that, he was relatively certain.

He prepared to head inside.

He pushed back the cloth curtain beyond the entryway, and made to step, but stalled briefly. There was, off in the distance, near the ground, just a flicker of tiny movement. It wouldn't have been anything of note, except it was dark all around, and most were inside already. The movement wasn't near enough to see properly, but from his vantage point, Tes decided the dark silhouette looked like it had the shape of a person, though perhaps a bit blob-like. Cloaked, then?

Cloaked figures far off in the distance dropping to the earth with no one around to tend to them were suspicious, at best. The Matorian squinted at it, as he tried to make out the finer details. Teslaron wasn't a trusting man, and he didn't care to help the poor and injured. If this were a regular night, he wouldn't have thought about it again. Bandits weren't uncommon in Oban cities, and this was a set-up if he'd ever seen one.

There was no reason to leave his house and his kids for a potentially dangerous and wholly unnecessary trek out into the street.

But he did it, anyway because he'd been waiting for something, anything that might be related to his missing girlfriend. Teslaron left his apartment at a decidedly wary pace. He locked the door behind him, and made his way down the street with a sort of slow, mistrusting deliberacy, glancing every which way as he moved, as if expecting someone to be here to mug or murder him.

No stalkers were forthcoming, and as Tes approached the downed figure, he allowed himself a bit of a closer look. A woman, most certainly, laying down near the walls of a shop, out of the way, covered in darkness. Any details beyond that were shrouded from his view. "Miss," Tes asked as he knelt, voice strained with skepticism. "I saw you collapse, are you..."

A single lock of white fell from inside the cloak's hood and spilled out onto the street.

Tes scrambled at the fabric, pulling it away from the woman's- the crying woman's face and was at her side in a heartbeat. "Dris- Dris'rynne-" His fingers fumbled with her cloak, dragging at it messily and pulling her to him. "What have you done. Why are- Don't cry, baby, please. You're hurt-" The observations came forth as he noticed them, quick and thoughtless, breathless, and with something like hesitant hope mixed with concern, dread, fear. Why was she like this? Where had she come from? Why was she alone? "I'm here, Dris. It's okay. It's okay..."  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

Footsteps were closing in on her, and Dris'rynne couldn't decipher if that was a blessing or a curse. If it were a member of the guard or just a concerned citizen then she might be able to get the assistance she needed to make it home. More likely, at this time of night, the footsteps belonged to some sort of bandit. Someone who was looking for a quick purse to steal - joke was on them, she was flat broke - or something of value to take. Dris'rynne moved slowly, rising up just a fraction to move one hand underneath her body towards her blades-

"Miss...I saw you collapse, are you..."

All at once everything changed. Dris'rynne inhaled sharply, regretting the action almost immediately when a sharp, bitter pain spread throughout her torso. She clucked at her cloak, sucking in another sharp breath through clenched teeth. The shock of hearing his voice after wishing for it so hard was almost too much for her.

"T-Tes...? Oh, oh thank the goddess you came. Yo-you really came..." Dris'rynne could barely talk around her tears. She was so happy just to see him again that it was all she could do just to keep breathing. Her shaky hands fumbled to touch him, to hold him too her so she could feel him and make sure it was all real. I made it, goddess be praised, I actually made it.

"It's not okay." She shook her head, the shock of her happiness mixed with fear now. "They'll come...they'll follow me and the girls, they know about the girls, all of the girls and you-" How long would it take for another to step up where Flys had left off, and decide that her family would make a suitable target? What if her daughters left out one day to play and didn't come back? What if Talori never made it back to visit?

She reached up to touch his face, eye wide and searching. "You're okay, right? They didn't - and the girls? They're fine too?"  

[Fluffesu]

Painted Moose

But what if he hadn't?

The thought came to him even as Dris' grateful praises fell from her lips and as her fingers reached to clutch at him the same as he'd held to her. Tes almost wouldn't have come. There hadn't been a real reason for him to come out here, since all he'd felt on his approach was hesitance and skepticism. It wasn't as if he'd been expecting her. He might have left her, Dris'rynne, his woman out here and not even known. She could've been by herself, out in the middle of the street, and he wouldn't have even known.

It wasn't the case this time, but it very easily could have been. Frighteningly easily.

He slid an arm beneath her shoulders, and lifted her into a more upright position, so that she was situated with her head resting against his shoulder and both his arms tight around her. They shouldn't stay out in the street. Tes hadn't wanted to initially and knew that if Dris really was so injured as to just be laying out here, they should seek out the safety of their home immediately. He didn't know if he should move her. Or how he should, more accurately.

Hesitantly, his fingers skirted along the outside of her cloak, over her ribs down to her waist and to the edge of the bandage wrapped around her stomach. He didn't know what to make of it beyond that she was bandaged and had been left alone here. She'd had to come from somewhere, and as far as he could tell, no one else was around to help her. He couldn't say for certain, but it felt like if she'd been in danger of dying, that time might have, hopefully, passed.

"They're... they're alright," he murmured quietly, as he steadied one hand against her back and dipped the other beneath her legs to lift her up to his chest. "I did leave them for a moment, to come out here, but they're fine. In bed, asleep."

Or they had been. Was there a chance they wouldn't be, now? Dris'rynne sounded uncharacteristically concerned. Though he rationally knew that there was at least more of a chance for than against that his children were still fine, in bed, asleep, an anxious flutter stirred up in his heart. He picked Dris up, and started the slow path back toward their apartment. "Just breathe," he encouraged softly. "I'll get you home. We'll sort it out, then. Don't worry. It's fine. Everything is fine."  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

Dris'rynne hissed through her teeth as Tes helped to situate her into a more upright position. She could feel the stitching pull at her tender, abused flesh and when the moment had passed the warrior found herself more exhausted than she had ever felt in her life.

At least when she had given birth there had been a sense of relief and joy that came with the profound pain. Now, there was only fear and a need to get her family out of Oba as quickly as she could.

"Good, good..." She exhaled a softer breath that time. They hadn't been found yet. Dris'rynne turned her head to the side, pressing her cheek against his chest so that she could look up at her boyfriend. The slight jostling of his rising frame was uncomfortable, but it wasn't nearly as hard as walking had been.

It wasn't fine; nothing was fine, and there was plenty cause to worry. However, in that moment Dris'rynne was trying not to focus on it. She was trying to do everything Tes had instructed her to. The shifter took as deep of a breath as she could, then exhaled slowly, changing the rhythm only when she needled to sniffle or when one solitary, lasting sob threatened to push through.

Dris'rynne closed her eye, and allowed the tension in his body to slip out, leaving her limp. The swaying of Tes' walking form was enough to help keep her in a calmer state, if only for the moment. She wasn't out of it completely, but for the moment her panicked sobs had transitioned into a quiet, unconscious sort of cry.

"Can you...can we go to their room? I won't wake them, but I want to see."  

[Fluffesu]

Painted Moose

Teslaron wasn't a strong man, nor was Dris'rynne especially thin or light. He wasn't much in the habit of toting anyone except his toddler children around, especially not someone as muscled as Dris. Under most circumstances, he wouldn't have tried to carry her the block to their building or up the stairs to their apartment. Usually there wouldn't have been a need to. But Tes found that, whether he thought he'd be able to or not, he could now, because there was a need this time and probably no other way for them to return together.

A stiff exhale escaped him at Dris'rynne's question. They both wanted things. He wanted to know why she'd been laying in the street. Where was her troop? What had they been doing that had left her like this? Why was she so concerned for the girls now? What had she been doing? Where had she been?

So his first impulse was to tell her no. No, he would not take her to see them until he his own needs had been met and his own questions answered. He had asked, hadn't he? At least, he thought he had. Maybe in the mental turmoil of the moment, Teslaron hadn't actually managed to vocalize any of his actual worries, but they were still there, thrumming with a nagging sense of curiosity and dread.

It was only because Dris'rynne sounded worried, worried that whatever she'd done could bring them harm that Tes didn't refuse. And because he'd left them alone to come and get her. Dris' business was something of a mystery to him, but he did know people. One moment with his guard down, while both of them were out of the house, really could be enough to cause a tragedy. She was worried. She was so worried for them. What could've happened. What could've changed. Who caused this.

He was shaking by the time they made it to the apartment door. He'd locked it because he didn't trust what was out here, and that felt like a wise decision now, if not somewhat of a hindrance. He fumbled for the key, struggling with the woman in his arms and the door and-

By some miracle, the lock clicked at his press, the door opened, and he stepped inside.

"What happened?" He asked a little more insistently. "Who hurt you? Who is trying to hurt them?" He notched his chin toward the girls' room. "And why?"  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

It was only after they were more than halfway to their home that Dris'rynne became aware of how much physical weight Tes was having to carry. She couldn't protest; actually found she didn't much want to, because for the moment, her pain was lulled into a numbing ache. Her own dead weight, as well as her swords and whatever kind of awkward hold he had to keep her comfortable couldn't have been easy to pack her with as well.

She should have told him to abandon the swords in the street; she could either retrieve them later, or hell, just let the urchins have them. Those were the blades of a dead woman; an easy recognizable blade that would bring more ill fortune on their heads than she needed. Dris'rynne had the terrible urge to rip them off right them, to unclasp the hilts and let them drop, but even if she could fumble with the clasp she wouldn't be able to move around enough to free them, not without ruining whatever kind of spell was keeping Teslaron moving.

Later. She would have to dispose of them later.

With her eye closed Dris'rynne wasn't immediately aware of exactly what his struggles consisted of, until she heard the fumbling of a key, but by the time she'd open her eye to help they were already moving inside.

She ignored him at first. Dris'rynne canted her head, turning so that she could see with her last remaining eye into the girls' room. Her depth perception had been off ever since the accident, so distance had always been tricky for her, but in the moonlight she could see little tufts of colored hair against puffy pillows. A shock of red, and a little ball of white; both tucked in and sleeping soundly.

Dris'rynne exhaled, as if the tension had been the only thing keeping her bones from becoming jelly. She tapped his arm, sliding her own around his shoulder so that when she started to move her legs, hoping to stand, that she might get some sort of assistance with her balance. "Think we can make it to the washroom? When we get there I'll answer everything. I just...really need to clean these."

Sleep sound have been at the top of her priority list; nothing would do her more good than a solid night of rest, but Teslaron deserved answers. Answers she couldn't give unless she was doing something to keep herself awake, and cleaning the grim out of her wounds seemed like a decent idea.
 

[Fluffesu]

They'd made it home. They were together. Everyone was alive, even though Dris'rynne was indeed injured pretty badly, it seemed like. That was still better than the worst of Tes' imaginings, when his woman hadn't come home in a timely manner. The girls would be so excited to see her after weeks and weeks of not. If her current state was anything to go off, it meant that she might not leave again for quite some time. Teslaron didn't want to be pleased that Dris was so gravely injured and had been found crying in the street and had likely struggled desperately to get here, but he was. Very secretly, silently pleased.

As the woman shifted in his arms, he moved with her, keeping one arm clasped about Dris' shoulders as he set her on her feet. Tes stuck with her, steadying her as they made their way, as a unit to the washroom. He watched her as they did.

Whatever had caused this near-crippling injury, he had to admit to not being entirely certain if they were equipped to handle it here. Tes wasn't a healer, and neither was Dris. She'd collapsed in the street, and though he couldn't say for sure, that felt like something a roll of bandaged couldn't fix on its own. But it was late, and if they left to find someone more capable, they would need to wake the girls and bring them along...

Teslaron swallowed thickly as he gently settled Dris'rynne in front of the washbasin and dipped to her side. His gaze traveled down her frame, landing on where he now knew her wraps were covered by her clothing. It was still dark, he couldn't see beyond that. He had to step away from her to light the candles that would give them some sort of visual. As he did, he cast a worried glance down. "Do you really not think we ought to find someone more suited to tending to these sort of things...?"

The question was quiet and soft, but even that was enough to remind him that there were others, and they weren't as gentle when they left his lips. "Did this happen on the way back? Your group- Did they leave you like this? Who would attack you? Why? Why weren't you home sooner? Why- Why were you concerned about the kids?"  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

[5/10]

Straightening her posture was out of the question, but being able to move, albeit at an odd shuffle, felt better than she imagined it would. Mentally it meant she was better off then she had feared. In that alleyway thoughts of the after life hadn't been that far from her mind, and now, though tired and aching, she was able to move, which meant she could heal. Dris'rynne occasionally lurched a little too far forward, stumbling over her own feet, but in those instances she would just hold onto Teslaron until she was ready to keep going.

By the time she was situated before the wash basin Dris'rynne was winded. She leaned back against it, closing her eye for a moment to focus on breathing. After a few measured, steady breaths she opened her eye to look at Tes. "We can't risk it." Once word started to spread that Korres was dead the local scum would send out eyes to healers, just to make sure a shifter wasn't being treated and 'hiding out'. If they found her then it really would be over.

She sat up just enough to unclasp her cloak. Dris'rynne gingerly pulled it to her right side, careful not to overexert herself in the process. Her skirt was torn and bloodied; the top was gone completely, having been replaced by bandages. Several large, discolored bruises marked her flesh, as well as smaller gashes and cuts. Nothing was nearly as encompassing as the thick bandages that circled her torso.

Her hair was longer now. It no longer ghosted against her shoulders, but rather it covered them, just teasing the edges of her shoulder blades. Hunched over as she was it looked much longer, and helped to cover her face. "Everything was a lie." Her fingers balled up into fists. "The only oban we found was the one who orchestrated it all. He had a grudge against us, against me, for taking his business from him and wanted to settle the score." There had been no master, no grieving husband seeking revenge and no chance of getting out of there without casualties.

"I tried to erase as many of them as I could, but I was so scared one would get away and...they knew about the girls, Tes. They knew about you." Dris'rynne's voice broke. Never before had her private live and her career come that close to one another. Thinking about it now sickened her, and she had the urge to wake her daughters just to bring them into the washroom with her.

"What if one got away? If one group knows how to get here and find them then more will find out if they don't know already!" Her head lolled down, and when she snapped it back up there were tears in her eyes. "I tried to get home as soon as I could. Don't you think I wanted to be here? I tried, Tes, and I ******** it all up. More than half of my men are dead because of me. I couldn't even bury them because of-" She gestured sharply to her torso before slumping back against the wash basin.
 

[Fluffesu]

Painted Moose

She wasn't much for specifics, was she? Though, Tes really couldn't say that he wanted to be privy to the finer details. He never had been, and Dris'rynne knew as much. Still, it left him to piece together what he knew about this particular mission and what little Dris had just told him. It didn't seem wise to ask for more, if she was already in a mood about it, and he did trust that he could figure it out if he just had enough information.

She was clearly gravely injured. Teslaron didn't need to see bruises, ripped clothing, or bandages to know as much. He did assume it was at the hands of someone not within her circle, though he supposed that wasn't entirely impossible, either. Slowly, he sank down to her side and helped the process of delicately removing her filthy, blood-splattered garments from her frame. Dris' work was dangerous. Whether he actively chose to admit to it, he realized that was fact, and that meant there could be a great variety of mishaps that he likely wasn't equipped to deal with.

This was one of them. Though terrible, certainly, he found that he was more relieved to see her alive in this moment than actively concerned for her wounds. Wounds that he definitely did not know how to treat fully. Would they have to seek a healer...?

Swallowing, he dusted Dris' hands away, and set to removing the wrappings, himself.

Quietly, and as he unraveled the bandages from around her torso, he muttered, "Did you really think you could live with one foot in both worlds and nothing would mix?" It wasn't necessarily the most uplifting of commentary. "Killing people, I'd say that could be pretty offensive to some. It might make others real angry to lose someone at your hands. So it's not really surprising, I think, that they'd look for something to hurt you. Your men, your children, me. It's not a shock that anyone would know about us. You aren't entirely inconspicuous to begin with."

"But I assumed it was a risk you were willing to take. You had an opportunity to stop when you became pregnant, and you probably should've then, since that would've been when more important people started to come into your life. You didn't, and I don't blame you for that."

"I'm not very brave," he admitted as he dabbed at her darkened skin with a wet cloth. "And I'm not very strong, and I'm not very smart. That wouldn't stop me from at least trying to take out anyone who had the gall to come into this house uninvited, but who could say for sure how it would turn out? If this is only just now becoming a problem, after this many years, I'd say you should consider yourself lucky."  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

She straightened as much as she could to allow Tes better access. For the most part she was quiet; only grunting and huffing when things got a little more than she could suppress.

A part of her didn't want him to remove the bandages. Once he did there would be no way of hiding just how close she had come to death. Not only was the wound on the front side larger than any she had dealt with in the past, but it's twin, the one residing on the back, was just as ugly.

"Maybe?" Dris grunted, raising her eye to the ceiling as he worked. "I'm not going to lie and say I didn't enjoy my work. I thought I was doing good by taking on jobs that the guard wouldn't touch and for a while things were good."

She shifted. "I should have stopped when I was pregnant. I did, for a while, until the girls were old enough. I thought about it; changing jobs, maybe asking Malila if I could work with her, but it always felt wrong. I wanted to be more than what my family told me I could be."

More importantly, she wanted to show her girls that their mother was more than the rumors; some pitiable handicapped shifter who was only good for birthing oban bastards. She wanted them to know that she was something more. That they could be proud of her in a way she had never been of her own mother.

"You're strong where it counts, Tes, and you're smarter than you think." She flicked his arm; softly, with just enough of a snap to even count. She didn't move her hand away, though; it remained, close enough to his skin to touch but hesitant.
 

[Fluffesu]

Painted Moose

As Tes unwound the bandages from Dris' torso and let them fall into her lap, he came to the not-so-startling conclusion that ah, yes, things were as grievous as he'd expected. At least she'd been tended to to some degree. The stitchwork could probably be better- certainly so if the bloody seepage was anything to go by. But someone had tried to take care of her, and Dris'rynne was home now, in any case. It could only get better from here. He hoped. His golden gaze flicked briefly to her face, only to see it turned upward and away, before he settled back to the task at hand. "Oh, yes," Teslaron grunted stiffly as he soaked a rag in the wash basin before gently dabbing it to the edge of her wound. "I can see how this must be loads of fun. Very enjoyable."

Beyond that, he stayed quiet while he worked. Not out of any intense concentration, so much as he didn't know what to say. Tes knew that his woman was very close with her younger siblings, and he doubted strongly that they said much to put her down, but beyond that, he couldn't say he knew much of her parents, certainly not enough to know what they'd 'told' her she could be.

'Murderer' probably wasn't what they'd hoped for.

Tes wiped delicately at the torn and battered edged of Dris'rynne's skin. How long had she had this wound before she made it back? He was no healer and no expert on injury, but it looked to be more than one or two days old, and she'd been gone for so long...

He swallowed and took a breath. "I didn't realize you cared what they thought about you," he murmured quietly. "Your family, that is. And if you see them as rarely as I expect you do, I can't imagine their perceptive changes very often... Do they know what you do? Do they care that you risk your life and come home looking like this? If you're doing this because of them, you're a stupid girl." He let out a soft huff, then pinched his lips shut.

Teslaron had to admit to being unbothered by what Dris did. Life wasn't especially precious to him. Dris could kill as much as she liked, and it wouldn't be particularly offensive. If that was what pleased her, that was fine. But to return home to her family in such a perilous state, that was less acceptable. "What would I do," he muttered, pressing the rag to the bottom edge of her wound. "if you didn't come back? If this had killed you, what would I have done?"

Reaching to layer his free hand over hers, and press it to where it hovered over his skin, Tes looked to her face. As much as he didn't think he had much room to tell her what to do, this felt important. "You can't do this, anymore."  

[Painted Moose]

Fluffesu

Dris shifted uncomfortably as he set about cleaning her wound. Of course this aspect of her occupation held little charm to it. Everyone wanted to return home from missions like this with their head held high, greeted by family and able to regale them with tales of their spectacular victory. No one ever wanted to talk about their failures; few were even able to speak of them at all.

She certainly didn't find it fun, or even mildly pleasant, to be sitting prone on her bathroom floor while her boyfriend cleaned her up. In all honesty she didn't know how to reply to his snark, and breaking the silence seemed just as difficult. Occasionally she would hiss when the pain of having her wound probed proved to much for her gritted teeth to hide. Dris'rynne shifted once; an unconscious move to move a little further away from him, to catch a break, before settling back and allowing it to continue.

"My sisters know what I do and they worry." Honestly, she didn't know if the other members of her family cared about her well being or not. Her step-father wrote, though not often, but her mother...well, she hadn't spoken to her since long before the girls were born. "I care about what you think about me." She murmured. "So maybe I am a stupid girl."

Feeling the touch of his fingers against hers, Dris'rynne turned her gaze towards Tes, widened her eye when she realized he was looking directly at her. Despite being around him for so long, having his full attention, even in a situation such as this, still brought color to her cheeks.

"...I know." Dris exhaled and took an unsteady inhale. "I can't just...hide but if I don't then-" Dris'rynne huffed and shook her head. "Later. I'll work that out later." She moved to turn her hand just enough to squeeze it.

"...I'm sorry. For all of this."  

[Fluffesu]

Painted Moose

Tes inhaled a slow breath, then grunted noncommittally. 'Hiding' didn't exactly sound like anything he was especially interested in doing either, and it wasn't really a suitable life to subject two little girls to. But then, neither was subjecting them to a life without their mother, and he didn't like the thought of putting this off until 'later' and forgetting about it. In the moment, it felt dangerous- because it was. For all of them. There wouldn't be much opportunity for 'later' if this started to happen continuously. There might not be opportunity for later if it happened even just once more. He shook his head. "No one said we needed to stay here," Teslaron uttered.

He couldn't even begin to guess what had brought Dris'rynne here in the first place, never mind why she'd stayed for so long. She had no family here, and Oba wasn't exactly a pleasant place. Regardless of whether or not they'd lost a war, Fire folk just had a tendency to look down on people, and neither Dris'rynne nor Teslaron were exactly considered 'top quality' citizens.

Tes liked it because even though it was hot and inhabited by assholes, the desert was familiar and reasonably exciting. There was enough of interest here to keep him entertained. Perhaps that wasn't what was best for raising a family, though...

He draped the wet and dirtied cloth over the basin and set to rummaging about through the washroom cabinets for clean bandaging. "We'll need to seek a healer in the morning," Tes decided after suspiciously squinting at a roll of 'clean' bandages procured from a bottom drawer. "As much as I'm sure you trust me to take care of you, I've never had to deal with anything like this before," he admitted. "And I would prefer if someone more professional than me or your rag tag group of heathens saw to your well-being."

For a brief moment, he studied Dris' stomach and the wound lanced through it, before hurried beginning to wrap it. "So... Is that your only goal, then? Just to prove to your family that you can be 'more' than they thought you could be...?"