Regret is a funny thing
Brica floated on the winds, her black wings spread wide, the feathers shifting to follow the currents. Once she had been described the landmarks to look for, and a direction to go, she had taken to the air trying to hunt down Janyice. She was frustrated and worried. Guilt plagued her that she had let a friend down, not been good enough to help them. A few times she had needed to take action in the air. Fel bats or whatever the creatures were had come to investigate her as she cleared a canyon that was in line with the landmark spire she had been described. “Go the Spire, when you see the edges of the city, start there and look for encampments for the siege.” She had found the encampment, and it had only taken her a bit for her fears to be justified. Janyice had been seen heading into the city, and not in a welcoming manner. Now she was floating over Suramar. She had wanted to look at the beauty, but instead she was trying to find her friend. The smoke became a curiosity, having sprung up not far from where she had last seen some torn bodies being investigated. She banked, winging her way closer. She could see bodies in motion on the ground, moving quickly towards the smoke, pausing to check the fallen bodies that lay across their path. She curled her way down around the plume, the magical nature making her beak itch as bits of it crossed her path. The wind shifted, taking her through the smoke for a moment, her eye watered and she involuntarily cawed loudly as she came down to the level of the tallest rooftop. The winds were shifty here between the buildings, and she pulled her wings in tighter to hasten her decent.
Janyice was swinging. Uncontrollable, deadly accurate and powerful. She knew it was her own fault, she knew it was. She held it all in and in her hubris thought it would be okay. That it would work out.
The head of yet another demon fell from its shoulders. The base of the hilt of her other sword was pomel deep in a skull, and her foot was kicking a corpse into the waters of the canal aside her. One of her smoke pellets had gone off as one of the fel hounds had rushed her, forcing her to detach the bandolier from her hip. The acrid smoke poured from the hound’s mouth as the pellets were chewed on and stuck to the insides of the creature’s mouth. It gasped for air as the sick green of the blood of the demon spurted from its now detached head and mixed it’s smell into the smokes already deterrent smell.
Janyice moved around a corner as the arrow pierced just past her elbow, the small joint on her robotic left arm. Her sword dropped as she rejected the arm from her body with a quick tug as her mouth snatched and tugged on a leather strap to do so. She would need a new one now. Nirasha would be angry her work was trashed now. Her steps were heavy and her vision blurred. A crow in the distance. She knew what that meant. She looked up , true to her nature and squinted trying to strain for what she knew was coming. But it never did. "So you’ve abandoned me too, have you my Val'kyr?“. Janyice trudged forward, not noticing the fact that she had been walking on a broken leg for at least 3 blocks now.
Brica caught sight of the discarded arm and the still twitching form of the felhound. It’s skull burned through from the inside. She banked fast around the building, spying the hobbling Janyice as she did so. Beating her wings hard she chased down her friend, only spotting the Eradar spell caster at the end of the block. Brica’s wingtips brushed Janyice’s hair as she passed, not slowing down as she flew towards the demon. She shifted, where there had been a overly large stormcrow, now, there was a several hundred pound angry bear barreling into the red skinned woman. The roar of anger spilling from her maw as bone crunched at the impact. Flexing her claws into the cobbles of the canal road, her momentum carrying her not only through the demon, but past as well. The feel of the interrupted spell sparkling along her fur. She let her body rotate in a slide before her claws caught purchase and she rose on her hind legs lunging forward with both front paws in a splatter of gore as she crushed the life from the fallen demon. She took in Janyice’s form through her good eye, the fur around her missing socket a mass of old burn scarring. She snorted at the woman.
Her eyes were blurred, and she could feel the fatigue finally setting in. Her leg started to give, as she smiled. It wasn’t the death she was promised, but it would do. Her sword came up and swung Wiley. Her normal form was gone. It pushes air and slipped from her hand as she took a headlong dive forward and fell with a sick crunch. Her right shoulder plate rolled away, the crystals now a full broken blue and it was sure to be that her shoulder has damaged now too. The popping sound was the final nail in that coffin.
Her breath was ragged, she just heaved and sobbed. Her left eye was already swelling and the pool of blood at her side was finally evidently able to flow. She was worse for wear, and as she rolled to her back, she looked up again and just coughed. "Oh. There you are, I’d reach for your hand but I can’t feel anything anymore.”. She chuckled dryly until it was replaced by a hack of blood, that spittled upwards and dripped onto her face and a bit on the fur of the druid.
Demons and odd looking Elves rounded the corners as Brica took in Janyice’s condition. The healer in her started to take over, but at the sight of all the angry mobs on each end of the buildings, Brica shifted not to her human form, but to her Worgen form long enough to lock her fingers into the plates of Jan’s armor, “Take a deep breath,” she warned before her muscles strained as she hefted the other woman up, leaning them towards the canal. Growling she heaved the two of them out over the waters of the canal “don’t you die on me, not on my watch you don’t” she snarled before the cool waters of the canal covered them. Once they hit the waters Brica shifted again. The fur of her worgen form melted away to a rubbery black and white pattern. With care she quickly gripped the armor where Janyice’s mechanical arm had fitted in her teeth, it was awkward and the metal bent under the strength in her jaws.
Muffled sounds. The roars, the water. It seemed to rush. Consciousness was fleeting. Eyes open, darkened sky’s, hacking. The bone being set, the sharp pain and the dull roar of and aching head
Her arm felt limp, no movement, her leg was broken and her energy was draining with each passing second.
Words, she could make them out. She had no voice, just a scream as the bones moved free in her leg and the final feeling of shock kicking in. Vision. Fading again. Her body shook, feeling cold. The soft tingling of magic to stabilize was felt but her body still stayed motionless. A voice…Soft, calling. She tried to strain to hear it. Then blackness. Her senses were numb. It hurt, it was so lonely. Why did she need to do what she did, why was this how she reacted. She should have gone back to Dalaran, back to … Eyes open again, catching breath, body shaking from the cold, the wetness the blood loss. Her voice ached in her throat as she tried to reach out with an already dislocated arm and clawed terribly at Brica’s form, her voice was hoarse and terrible. Nothing like the laughter or song she had been like before. Hair matted to her face, cracked and dried blood on her skin. Terrible, she was a terrible person. Weak, useless
Brica set to work once the leg was set as best as possible. She set some rejuvenation magic to work, trying to bolster the woman under her hands. Taking the plate pieces she had taken off the leg, she splinted the thigh with the leather straps and the plate. She felt around the shoulder, gritted her teeth, yanking the joint back into place. The second scream to split the air carried on the wind. Brica looked frantically around. The boat was coming into a shore now. She saw no movement on the dock, and unsure of the boats intentions, Brica lifted Janyice with as much care as she could and made her way onto the dock itself. Now she started raiding Janyice’s pouches. She found a field medical kit, some bandages, some thread and a needle, a healing draught which she popped the seal on, and fed to the shocky woman. Brica was running out of time. She hadn’t wanted to, but she had no choice now. She could see the foam on Janyice’s lips. Hear the bubbling in her breath. Deft fingers undid the latches on the chest armor.
The humming sound of the cold air surrounded her. Her body still felt cold and she could finally feel parts again but had no will to move them. The voice was faint, aside from the ringing thumps of her heart in her ears. "Fe..Jan…wh…Do nw…“. Her eyes tried to focus but failed. It was too powerful a feeling the pain and agony now that the Adrenaline was fading. Her eyes just clamped shut. She tries to focus, tried to think but words and sounds were not even there.
Letting her mind retreat, was not an option. There were things that needed doing. People she still needed to see. Her fingers moves slowly trying to move, to manipulate a small pocket of the now torn and tattered pants she wore under her now useless armor. A small stone, no larger than her palm was slowly worked out. Her body was so weak and she had no way to know if it would even matter.
The rustling of the underbrush was at first attributed to the gust of wind that blew across the shore, but the second and third was much more noticeable.
A pair of hunters rustled from the sparse brush and tree line. One a tall elven female night elf with simple chainmail and a taut bow, the other a human male, rifle pointed at the pair of women on the beach head. The two hunters both bared marks of the lodge deep within Highmountain. This at least looked promising
Brica looked up from her watch of Janyice. still slowly feeding in rejuvenation magics into the prone woman as her own strength allowed. This was harder, this took more effort. She had to blindly feed magic after having spent so much time using the minimal magic to fix smaller bits. At the moment she was having to blanket her friend. She looked at the pair, her blood soaked fur, and worgen presence was probably not a friendly image. She shifted into her normal human shape. "She needs a hospital…” she offered the pair, “I did the best I could, she is stable, but far from out of the woods…”
“Long story short, she was under attack, I did the best I could, and that best brought us here.”
The pair looked at the other two for a moment, then the elf replaced her arrow into her quiver and made a shooing motion at the bodies. "This is a war, we are all under attack. It is I’d no concern of mine what happens here. Do not cross the border brush or you will have another enemy to contend with.“. The pair turned and began to walk away.
Brica rose in a snarl, "So you are going to just leave us here like this?” The hunters stopped and the man turned his head and just looked at the snarling woman. "We have no provisions for those that are not authorized. Find your way around the fjord on the south wall, and you’ll find an alliance landing camp. You can get a boat back to Stormwind there.“. And with his words spoken they continued back into the brush.
Closing her eye, she took calming breaths. A direction, at least she had a direction. Glancing to make sure her patient hadn’t changed status in the last few breaths, Brica took a good look around. She was on a dock that abutted the shore. She looked around the immediate area, taking the warning to not go past the brush. She could see where a boat had been pulled up the shore, but the space was empty, the boat gone for at least a day. Then she began to wonder, and looked back in the direction they had come. There, just coming into view was an empty boat following it’s magical path. She oriented herself, looking to the wall along the south of the fjord. Quickly Brica loaded Janyice into the boat when it came to the dock. As she suspected, at the bow was a rope. Gripping the end of the rope in her teeth, Brica jumped into the water, shifting to her orca form, and towed the boat in the direction she wanted to go. A battle of wills ensued, but the strength of the druidess won out, and slowly, she lead the boat in the direction she had been given.
The fjord was tall, bit short in width. An opening appeared rapidly as the druidess pulled, the passenger In tow. Her body stable but still at a critical point in its care.
The sight of the sparse tents and a pair of tired looked helmeted guards notes the slowly moving boat in the water. "Ain’t that a one of them boats from the elves?”. The other guard shrugged as it came into view. "Dunno. Nobody tells me nuthin"
Brica was exhausted from fighting the boat as she pulled it closer to shore. The magic of the boat kept trying to pull it back to where it belonged. She pulled the boat as close to shore as she could, shifting to her bear form once she could get her paws into the rocks and gravel. She pulled hard as she came up towards the pair of guards. Shifting to her human form, and quickly moving to the side of the boat and grabbing Janyice to drag her over the side as the boat immediately started going back towards it was supposed to be. She fell back into the water, Janyice falling atop her. She struggled to a sitting, and looked at the guards, “She needs medical attention…” she snarled.
The guards looked between each other as the bear walked out of the water, then a human form appear and pull a body from the board the boat wander off on its own and the yelling. It was always the yelling. The guards pointed behind them with their thumbs at a small tent and a campfire with a cloth robed older man and a leather clad dwarf. The older man, seemed to notice the commotion and came over to investigate
Brica took a shuddering breath as she stumbled to the ground next to Jan’s body. She checked to make sure the splint hadn’t shifted, that the stitching at her ribs was still tight. “I can go with her and keep her stable. If you have a small amount of food you could spare, I could use the recharge while we wait.” she offered weakly. Everything was starting to catch up to her, fatigue had drained her reserves, and she wasn’t sure how much more magic she could draw on at the moment. But Janyice was stable, her breathing was even, even if she wasn’t completely lucid. Not much Brica could do our here if she had a concussion that was resisting the blanketing of magic, but at least she hadn’t felt any fever.
The older man took in a quick view of the darker skinned woman and waved at the dwarf. The stout man walked to them with a small bowl of some stew and a hunk of bread. "Aye, eat lass. I’ll take o'er from ‘ere". He cracked his knuckles and wove them through the air. The water from the shore seemed to move. The water seemed to separate and began to explore the outside of Janyice’s body. He kept a soft mantra across his lips as she helped keep the woman stable with fresh eyes and magic.
Brica dove into the stew like the starving person she was. She watched the magic as it worked on Janyice. Watching how it ebbed and flowed around her. The healer in her wanting to see how the other would work it. Before she knew it, the bowl was clean, the last of the hunk of bread sopping up the last of the gravy in the bowl. “So how do we get to Stormwind?” she asked of the others, trying not to disturb the man working the magic, while she kept an eye on what was happening to Janyice.
The dwarf kept to his work, keeping her stable and the older man chuckled. "My dear you be only need ask. I am the mage charged with assisting those that are in need of a rush home. I will be preparing a portal shortly. Let Kor stabilize your friend first"
She relaxed slightly then, “Thank you, my name is Brica, and this is Jan…” she started to say more, but stopped, deciding that was enough for names. She wasn’t sure if there was going to be fall out from Janyice’s actions, so best to keep things simple for the moment. “I was too busy trying to patch her up and get us moved from the fighting to do a proper read on the extent of her injuries. Just hit up the major stuff and tried to flood her to take up the little things.”
“Lass ya did what I rec'n you could”. Kor spoke briefly before returning to his work. She nodded, realizing the food might have been a mistake as she fought hard to keep her eyes open. She had definitely overdone it on the magic, with all the shifting and the exertion of fighting the boats magic.
Kor took a hand and ran a soothing mist across Brica’s body and returned to his work. The older man smiled as she seemed to finally relax and finally fell to the beach sand. The work done and the stability of the broken warrior was done. Now the fun part.
—–
The portal seemed to blink in and out of existence rather quickly as a watchful eye was keenly trained forward. The eyes narrowed as they turned back into the treeline of the fjord. A trip was in order, and the hunter needed to ensure their prey was still going to be fresh.
(( Tagging for collaboration and whatnot. @worgenspandasgnomesohmy ))
