The expatriate Garlean Medicus speaks in a quiet and soft voice, yet her words are startling nonetheless.
"Alright. We'll get you some pain relief and then... you know...if you want alone time with Para, I can sleep upstairs."
Despite the fact she had rushed back to the Solace after the confrontation in the canyon, despite how upset she had been over the fact he had been attacked, she hadn't had time to consider how those around her were taking it all. Before she had returned to the hidden alcove where her brother had been stabbed, her guard had given her some rather strange looks, along with some words about how while he wasn't happy that the attacks had hit so close to home. He was happy that she was willing to take more direct action after they had - and even that had not caused her to consider how everything looked to everyone else.
"You two seem close, is all," the Medicus mentions after watching her eyes go wide. "Roll up the sleeve of your right arm, please."
The Medicus finishes giving her an injection, a strong painkiller from Garlemald, smiling at her as she gave a short series of instructions, followed by an apology for how unpleasant she had been earlier. Her arm stung from the pressure of the medication pooled into her muscle, but it wasn't unfamiliar to her, and she was grateful that the pain across her throat, around her wrists, and on her cheek would subside soon.
"I'll get all this disposed of and rest upstairs. Come get me if you or Para need anything," the Medicus adds, before packing up her doctor's bag and heading out of the room, leaving the two redheads alone. She waits until she hears the door shut entirely, before standing up from the bed the Medicus had moved her to for inspection and treatment, moving around the half-wall that separates it from the bed Paradyme is sleeping in.
It has been perhaps the roughest twenty-four bells she's had since arriving in Eorzea, if not the roughest twenty-four bells of her life since the day she thought her twin brother died. It had started with her and the Captain having a fight in his yard, which led to her heading to the Solace in the first place. Within a bell or so, the Yellowjackets had arrived with Paradyme, explaining that they had found him unable to move on the road between the Mists and Limsa Lominsa, a stab wound in his back. It wasn't all that long after that the Medicus had arrived, requiring her to become a surgical assistant as the doctor worked on healing the partial severing of his spinal cord.
When the Yellowjackets brought him back to the shelter, a faint roar had begun to fill her chest, amid the panic and guilt. While the young lioness had been trying to find a solution to the Shikari's attacks, she had kept a level head, clear of emotions, thinking of both their current situation and of the future for their entire movement.
Upon finding out the Shikari had attacked him, the lioness stirred from her serenity, growling rage beginning to form. As the surgery to repair the damage to his spine wore on, the growling grew louder, filling her chest with a pressure she couldn't place. Upon the arrival of the Captain and his personal physician, the growling had turned into a roar, one that initially was released at the knight as the Solace's proprietor began to regain his ability to move and speak.
She became a lioness rampant, all her caution was forgotten. Citing the need to retrieve something from the library upstairs, she had excused herself from the commons room while the proprietor saw through her ruse, he was in little position to rat her out immediately, which gave her enough time to cast the forbidden spell that whisked her away to the canyon.
Everything didn’t go well after arriving there and announcing herself. She was nearly knocked off the cliff-side into the water, which gave the Shikari the opportunity to capture her. Before he could escape with her, the Captain and their Raen friend had arrived, along with the flashy Highlander pirate. Somehow, the Captain managed to talk the Shikari into fighting him one on one, with their fists, but before disarming himself, the Shikari had sliced her throat with his coated blade, leaving her paralysed and silent.
Ultimately, the round of fisticuffs went to the knight, and the end result saw the Shikari being pinned to the ground primarily by the sheer weight of the man's axe. The Raen had given her a small antidote that began to purge the poison from her system, healed her as best as he could in the field, and bound up the slash across her throat. After a bit of ice cream to help with the pain, she'd rushed back to the Solace.
Shaking her head to chase away the memories, she slipped up onto the bedside that the proprietor was facing, climbing the short way up the bed before settling beside him. He was covered with fresh sheets, the bloody ones from the surgery having been changed while she was away, and he was deep asleep now. The guard for the Solace had taken out his morin khuur while the Medicus had worked on her throat, wrists, and cheek, the soothing sounds of the stringed instrument allowing the proprietor to rest at last.
Fingertips trace along the contours of the sheet as she watches him breathe, though she avoids letting them stray down his back too far, not wanting to cause him any more pain than she already has. Although it hurts to do so, she speaks as her fingers trail along his shoulder, arm, and side, tears beginning to line her lower lids, her voice soft and filled with warmth.
"...sorry, for all of this..." she rasps, voice hoarse from the wound and lack of speaking for two or three bells. "...warned you...you didn't listen..."
Her voice trails off as her emotions get the best of her again; the lioness is still rampant, not assuaged by what they had learned in the canyon. Someone had intentionally misguided the Shikari, and that someone was still out there, still able to hurt those she cared for, and the thought of the man beneath her fingers being harmed again was overwhelming.
She reaches up to brush his hair from his face, fingertips sliding through his now short locks, her touch faint upon his scalp so as not to wake him. He stirs lightly in his sleep, causing him to wince as his spine reminds him it's healing, and she withdraws her fingers from his hair, letting them drift back down his shoulder and arm.
It's not long before the painkiller begins to make its effects felt, causing her eyes to flutter shut. This chases the rest of the tears from her eyes as she dozes, her fingers again returning to his hair for a brief moment. Half asleep, she shifts her weight, stretching her legs out towards the foot of the bed as she lowers herself to her side, curling up along his front side as she too slips into sleep.
Not long after she curls up against him, his arm drapes across her, holding her well into the morning.
(( @paradymeshift [the Proprietor], @medicuscaelius-ffxiv [the Medicus], @lance-of-fury [the Morin Khuur master], @thelionofdalmasca [the Royal Guard], @mugishalffull [the Raen (only male Raen ever)], @roscoerackham [the Pirate] ))
