He’s quite still. Admittedly rather helpful when she’s trying to cut his bindings, but past that point, it’s just perplexing. “You did. But I don’t think that will suffice as payment if I lay down my life for you here,” she quips back, perplexed by the man’s relative calmness. Is he in situations like this often? “I might as well be,” she returns, but gets no further in her explanations thanks to a shout from an angered man that breaks through her words. Caoimhe huffs, winding her skirts up quickly in preparation for a fight. It’s been a moment – and the last fight ended rather poorly. Hoping for a better outcome, she shifts her grip on the knife in her hand and is about to buy her company some time when he refuses her. Her brow raises as she looks back, blowing a stray curl from her face before she shakes her head. “I can care for myself–” she begins, speaking over him, when a rock juts between them. Caoimhe narrowly dodges, wrinkling her nose at the closeness, then whirls around to try and see the culprit. No time, really, as a woman reaches forward, clawing for her face. She’s never been one for lethal force, and so a simple shock does the trick, stunning the woman enough to fend her off. By the time Caoimhe turns around, her fellow fae has healed himself. Good, then. Proves that her suspicions were right.
“You’ve done a rather good job of playing damsel already,” Caoimhe can’t help but laugh, responding in Sidhe of her own. She’s bound towards a comment about the barbarity of fae that she’s seen, but there’s no time, not as a man reaches for her shoe as if to yank her off of the makeshift (and quickly burning) stage. After a firm stomp on his fingers, she searches for a brief moment for the tree in question. “Good enough,” she replies simply, allowing sparks to fly. The roar from the crowd grows at the action, taken aback by the magic performed before their eyes. Unfortunately, the thatch roof of the house below the tree catches alight as well. Now she’s really in trouble. “Not my best,” Caoimhe means to tell the other man, only to find him gone. Her head swivels, searching, and attention is evidently given to the wrong direction as a fist clobbers her ear. The hit sends her toppling, ears ringing, but she’s well versed enough in defense – that much is shown by the sparks flying from her fingers before she thinks twice. A yelp fills the square, the pained noise of her attacker, and the smoke rising from him as well as the nearby house is enough to make some people cower. She takes her chance. “That’s right! I’m a witch, and a right good one too, so you’d be wise to back away!” Despite the bravado of her words, she jumps when her back collides with something – or, rather, someone: the fae man. She really should ask his name… a question for later, perhaps, when they’re not back to back and wielding weapons in defense of their lives. “If you’ve any ideas as to how we should escape, please, feel free to voice them now,” she mutters to her company, holding onto her knife with a white-knuckled hand.
•·················•·················•
The flames from his near torching is a little too close for comfort and he sidesteps around it. Not that it does him much good when the tree joins the bedlam, and smokes begins coiling around them. Soon, they won’t be able to see; not in the sea of people, and the smoke acting like a fog. He listens, relieved when he hears her voice over the noise of all else. Even manages a laugh. “You’ll find my talents with lightning are a great deal worse than yours!” he says to her, dashing forward, blocking a blow with his sword and shoving them back with all his strength. “I won’t complain. It was a well done hit.”
Where is she? He turns in a tight circle. Her voice calls - not to him, but to the villagers. He suppresses another laugh, creeping closer to her as he sidesteps the people fleeing away. Many are teetering between the edge of fight and flight, watching the woman with wide, suspicious eyes. “I have one or two,” he says near her, a hand on her elbow to steady her as their backs press together. His lips thin, turning in a tight circle as he scans their surroundings. For once, he thanks his height, spotting the burning house. “Give me a moment. Two, if you’re kind enough. The house will burn enough soon to draw some of them away, we just need to bide some time.”
For knowing someone all of a minute (or two, if you count their initial meeting in the village square some days before), it’s natural to press his back against her. To trust in the steady presence she presents. When an opponent steps forward, one of them dispatch them before stepping back. Another time he might enjoy - or, in truth, he might linger on the thought of it more later, when the villagers aren’t pressing ever closer, angry eyes brighter than fae fire as they approach the stage.
“They really enjoyed the bit about witchcraft and the fire. I think we just need...” He looks around a minute, lifting his elbow to his mouth as the smoke grows ever thicker, the flaming tree engulfing a home bit by bit and joining the steadily burning bonfire beside the - where he would have stood without her swift thinking.
Faolan indicates the stage they stand on. In Sidhe, voice muffled, he says: “I can’t help noticing this stage is going to collapse any moment. Perhaps you can scream about witchery again? We send this pillar down, this whole thing will collapse. Ember and ashes everywhere. -- and then we’re going to jump and run like the queen herself is behind us.” Does the Otherlands still have a monarchy, actually? He frowns, halting a beat, puzzled as he says: “Assuming the Otherlands still has a queen. It’s been a time. No matter. Yes, or nay?”
His grip on his sword changes. It’s a shame; he doesn’t want to leave it behind, not when he has little other things to use. But he’s certainly not plunging his bare hands into flame. “If we head for the forest, there’s an abandoned shack a little ways in. They think it’s haunted, they’ll leave us behind. Or we’ll lose them.” Faolan’s willing to take the risk. Better than lingering, and being burned at the stake for witchcraft, as their fight is confession enough. “One, two...”
When he reaches three, he flings the blunt edge of his blade against the burning pillar at the center of the stage. His near final resting place. It wobbles, the edges of it feeble, and falls sideways across the stage to the crowd below. “Now!” He jumps off the stage, sword abandoned, bones jarring from the landing. One hand reaches out, offering assistance she perhaps doesn’t need. The hesitation is only a moment, the cries of the villagers around them reaching a crescendo, before he’s running, the smoke as their shield.
