RP:A Wain in Twain

Characters

• Eleanor
• Hudson

Brief Synopsis After her crystal wand was rendered useless by a band of rogue brownies, Eleanor is forced to ask for help in returning it to its former glory. With Hudson's assistance, the wand's stones are returned to their crystalline form, impressing both parties involved. With her wand restored, Eleanor is able to heal a gaping shoulder wound with the wand's channeled magic, and the two part ways.

The Broken Barrel Inn, Rynvale

Hudson has returned to the scene of his last meeting with Eleanor - the Broken Barrel. He's grown rather fond of the venue, since his washing up on the Rynvale beach. The beer was good. The setting was relaxing, somewhat tropical. He enjoyed the mermaid theme. Even the free peanuts one sometimes obtained at bars were satisfyingly salty. He had no complaints. Plus, his kickball league played Rynvale often enough, being neighbors, and so the bar had become one of his designated cooling off joints. That's what he's doing now, making the vibrant figure in his blue jersey, slumped back in a booth by his lonesome, a half-finished amber ale on the table in front of him, pinning down one of the aces in his ongoing game of solitaire.

Eleanor had been making the Broken Barrel her home since she had been introduced to it over a month ago, and so it was no surprise when she stumbled through the doors. Covered from head to toe in dirt and blood, she clutched her left shoulder, a wound still oozing over her gloved fingers as she shuffled into the main room a few paces. The barkeep looked up at her with a narrowed gaze, but the crystal-tiara’d woman paid him little attention as she sent her own sliver of cerulean around the room. After the shock of darkness cleared away from her vision, she recognized Hudson, albeit his clothing made her hesitate. She knew nothing about his kickball league or the colors of his team, and for a moment she assumed he was wearing the tabards of some self-important local diplomat. The woman wiped a sweaty brow, pushing back her red-stained braids and eventually wended through the tables and chairs to come to Hudson’s table. Without a word, she slid into the seat across the table from him and quickly reached out to snatch up the glass of ale, a small circle of condensation left on the man’s playing card. Unapologetically downing its contents and smearing her bloodied fingerprints everywhere, the woman released a long sigh. “Ah thenk ye fur th' bevvy,” she mumbled as she returned the glass to its previous position. Eleanor had scarcely given herself a moment of respite before she was scooting back out of the booth, and once she was standing, she turned to face Hudson and fixed him with a stare that was a mixture of apprehension and hope. Under her breath, she added, “Ah need ye tae come wi' me," before promptly pivoting around on a booted heel and marching toward the stairs that would lead her, and presumably the alchemist as well, to her rented room.

There's a bit of ruckus picking up at Eleanor's entrance, and it attracts Hudson's attention. He feels the prickle of familiarity as his gaze connects with her person, bloodied and dirtied though it is, though he doesn't move to approach her. She approaches him, however, and as she nears his table, he realizes who she is, and his mouth drops open, just slightly. He tries to stand behind his booth, upending some of the cards that compose his game. "Eleanor, right?" he asks, watching her coolly slide across from him, as if she weren't covered in blood and dirt and gods know what else. He stares as she boldly drains his beer. "Erm, well anytime, you look as if you needed that," he comments, his gaze darting about the establishment to find the nearest server. He's lifted an arm, about to flag one down, when Eleanor attracts his attention with her request. "Right now?" he asks, which is not the most brilliant response but the only one that percolates to the forefront of his thoughts, given the circumstances. This is all very curious, but, not one to pursue a mystery, he hastily begins to sweep his cards toward the center of the table, making a stack. His gaze whips from the vanishing Eleanor and back to the deck that he now crams into its box. He leaves a few coins for the bill and bounces from the booth with no further adieu to the patrons around him, taking the stairs two at a time to follow to Eleanor's room. Where he knocks, trying to look as composed and natural as possible in the face of a passing maid, who gives him a skeptical glance on her way past.

Eleanor had had to pause and turn to give Hudson an incredulous look when he asked, “Right now?” as if it was the most absurd thing he could ask. She wasted little time in whirling back around and storming up the stairs, ignoring the strange looks her commotion has stirred up. Safely back inside her room, it remained bolted in her wake until she heard the anticipated knock, and once more, she hesitated; she barely knew this man, this strange alchemist who had literally washed ashore one day last month, and here she was, about to unlock the door and share a small part of herself with him -- her bleeding shoulder, that is. The gloves on her hand were soaked from the attempt at holding pressure to her wound and she quickly yanked them off, her hands trembling as she then unbolted and yanked open the door. In the doorway, she stared up at Hudson, the gem in her diadem glinting blue and green in the half-light of a nearby gas lamp. Without regard for the alchemist’s personal space, she reached out with her left hand, hovering it near his shoulder to usher him inside her room, furtively looking over his shoulder and up and down the hallway. Satisfied the maid had long departed, she rebolted the door and turned to look at Hudson. “Ah need yer help,” she said sheepishly. “Ye can change things, reit? Ah pure techt, ye changed water intae bucky. It wasnae stoatin bucky, but it was still bucky.” The woman was not one to beat around the bush when she was actively bleeding from a nasty gash. Her skin was pale where it was not smeared with blood or dirt, and sweat formed winding rivers through the mess. From her many-pocketed belt, she produced a gnarled elder tree branch with several plain-looking stones tied to one end, and held it up in her right hand with a deep crease in her brow. “A bludy brownie broke mah wain.” A lot of her tattoos were fading the longer the crystals remained stones. “It turned th' crystals tae rocks. Rocks! Ah cannae use rocks!” She huffed in exasperation and pain, a few of her ribs likely broken as well, and waved the wand at Hudson. “Ah need ye tae fix it!” Softer, she added, “Please fix it. Ye hae nae idea hoo important it is tae me.”

Hudson's thoughts on the strangeness of the circumstances are the mirror image of Eleanor's. On top of everything, the maid in the hallway is giving him the evillest eye, as if he were a gentleman caller and Eleanor a tavern wench. Turning an embarrassed shade of red, Huds makes a brusque gesture at the woman for her judgmental stance on the situation. "It's not what you think," he hisses at her, only for her to side-eye him and step into another room with her cart. He doesn't have much time by himself; the door opens, and he is promptly yanked inside by Eleanor. "What's the idea here?" he asks immediately upon gathering his surroundings. His gaze lingers on the blood blossoming from the wound at Eleanor's shoulder, and he pales somewhat in the face of it. "Clearly you do need somebody's help," he agrees, his breath catching as she begins to make her case for how his ability to turn water into wine somehow translated into a more helpful ability to turn rocks into crystals. He feels his heart drop out of his chest. This is something he should be able to do, and yet it's the sort of think he's attempted so many times, only to run up against failure. He meets Eleanor's eyes, and his gutted expression tells her everything. He curses, at first beneath his breath, and then openly. Lest this become rather alarming to Eleanor, he breathlessly nods further into the room, signalling that they should move away from the door. "I... I can try," he manages at length. "I'm nervous... I mean perhaps because they were crystals before, but you know I'm not very good." His eyes linger on her shoulder. "Should we maybe wrap that up in the meantime?"

Eleanor was frustrated, and grew paler with each ragged breath. Thrusting the cursed wand again in Hudson’s direction, as if expecting sparks to fly from the stones, she shook her head. “Please Hudson,” she insisted with an unwavering gaze. “It main be ye. Nae a body else can ken--” She grunted, her features contorting into a grimace. Gritting her teeth, she breathed shallowly through the pain, her nostrils flaring as she waited for it to subside into a more manageable state. Turning away from the door, her features softened, briefly, into one of apology, and she moved to take another step deeper into the quaint sea-themed room. Upon nearing the center of the room, however, near the foot of the bed, her head began to swim and her whole body swayed before the strength in her legs began to give way. “ 'at soonds loch a guid idea,” she began to slur in that heavy accent of hers, a roguish smile tugging at her lips. “Ah hae tint a lot ay bluid.” El grew fainter, and she shuffled her feet to regain her balance; with the remainder of her reserve strength, she somehow avoided losing her footing, and lifted her chin in defiance of her apparent weaknesses. “But 'en ye fix mah wain.”

Hudson's hands hover over Eleanor, as if spotting her, as she seems to physically curl inwardly under the pain of her shoulder wound. He's afraid to touch her without permission, but she looks wavering and about to collapse. He wishes there were some kind of towel nearby, that he could wind around her shoulder, staunch the flow of blood, at least. He finds himself in receipt of one wand, and he looks at it sort of helplessly. He begins to say the name of stone - worth a shot, anyway - but Eleanor is moving further into the room, presumably to find a towel and treat herself. He follows, mindful that she might capsize at any moment - indeed, she does seem to be capsizing. Time to act and worry about being offensive later; he winds his free arm about her waist, supporting her, as she begins to sag. Huds is no body builder, but fortunately for him Eleanor is light enough to exert considerable pressure and yet not drag him down with her. He struggles to guide them toward the bed, where, with a grunt, he tries to lower her. At least she could faint on something soft, if she was going to insist on fainting. The sheets would be bloodied, but that's not exactly his concern at present. "Don't move," he says, leaving her wand on the bedspread beside her and ducking into the adjacent bath to rob the towel racks of any and all absorbent fabric. He returns to Eleanor and, with a sharp intake of breath through his teeth, begins the Operation-like process of winding a towel around her injury without pressing too hard or jerking in any particular direction. He feels a little lightheaded himself, this happening so fast and rather gruesomely. "We should get you some water once this is secured," he says.

Eleanor really had no intention of moving away from her spot on the edge of the lumpy mattress. She hissed between her teeth as she settled into it, both of her hands gripping the sheets as she worked her way through another wave of pain. Her right hand left the sheets in favor of gripping the bottom right bedpost, smearing her blood around the wood as she white-knuckled past yet another searing sensation. El looked down at her left shoulder, where a wide gash and the resulting blood concealed a fading tattoo. She glared at Hudson when he returned, as if he was to blame, although she knew otherwise; she was just in quite a sour mood thanks to the group of brownies who had all but ambushed her in an alley. The spell blade had never seen such organization from the fae creatures who usually lurked in woods and only attacked those who trespassed into their territory, but she could scarcely recall all the details of the fight before her vision started to grow dark around the edges. “Ah am nae gonnae anywhaur unless it's tae mudder th' glaikit creature fa did thes,” she spat through grit teeth. She held tighter onto the bedpost as Hudson set to work compressing her wound, and for anyone paying attention, the gem in her diadem began to faintly pulsate, a subtle glow ebbing and flowing to match the stubborn woman’s erratic heartbeat. The wound had been caused by some sort of magick or poisoned blade - El wasn’t sure which - and it burned with rage, radiating outward from her shoulder into her chest with each push of pressure the alchemist utilized to temper her bleeding. At his suggestion for water, the woman shook her head, adamantly opposed to the idea. “Nae water …,” she said, quickly reaching for one of Hudson’s arms with her right hand. With a stern stare that did not match the wry smile on her lips, she added, “but whiskey will dae.”

Hudson withers under the dirty look he's getting from Eleanor. He feels like a man who's helping a woman give birth, or something, or what he imagines a man helping a woman give birth must feel like. All this hostility directed at him, except here he isn't even to blame. He speaks what he hopes are soothing words to the rather grumpy spellblade: "Indeed, well, I think you're going to be just fine, so long as you don't move suddenly." He hopes that is accurate. He is not a doctor. He's vaguely distracted in his careful winding of the towel by the blinking at her forelock, and he turns to look dead-on at the diadem, his breath catching. "You're really a woman of mysteries, Eleanor," says Huds, realizing that now is not the time for involved questions. Leaving her to hold the end of the towel, he roots through the tavern room's minibar - first in search of water, then, upon her request in search of whiskey. He goes about prying free the cork, pacing throughout the room, as if it provided necessary elan for this exercise. He retrieves a cup from the bathroom - it probably was used to wash out toothpaste, but this was of no moment, as alcohol surely was cleansing of germs in any event - and fills it with a dosage of brown liquor, which he passes on to Eleanor. Now there's no avoiding it. The wand. Hudson picks it up, his hands feeling out its contours, moving over the porous shape of the stones. He feels a flutter of anxiety, naturally, given the circumstances, as he tries to mentally assert himself against the element. "Do you remember what they did to cause this?" he asks, trying frantically to clear his thoughts. Talk about performance anxiety!

Eleanor reached across her chest with her right hand to grab ahold of the towel. Hudson’s comment about her apparent enigma status earned him a confused look, her brow furrowing low over her celadon-hued gaze, and she considered for a moment if dragging him to her aide, as it were, was a good idea after all. It is too late for second-guessing, however, and with a grateful sigh, she took the glass of whiskey and quickly downed it. The alcohol smarted on its way down her throat, but being it was the second glass she had swallowed in as many moments thanks to Hudson’s earlier unwilling contribution, she was beginning to feel the familiar tingle near her cheeks accompanied by a flush therein. With the alchemist occupied by the wand’s history, El took a moment to study his features as if committing them to memory for the first time; she would have to thank him properly later, but for now, his words inspired a defeated and frustrated noise from the spell blade. “Ah am nae sure. they cam it ay nowhaur, loch--” Like they were coming for her. “Weel, they cam it ay th' mirk, an' began tae mutter somethin' in th' leid ay th' fae. It gart mah stomach turn inside it. Ah tried tae barnie them aff, but naethin' ... naethin' woods wark.” She struggled to conceal her anger over the situation, her mind reeling with possibilities and potential reasons for the attack in the first place. Another sigh was pushed forward before she went on to add, “Naethin' happened. That's when Ah noticed whit they hud dain tae mah wain.” The various charms and runes that she had cast with the wand were beginning to fail the longer they went without a connection from the wand’s crystal to that in her diadem, and a surge of nausea slammed into her, causing her to sway slightly. She just gripped the towel tighter with her right hand as if that would balance her, her left hand squeezing the life out of her comforter. Briefly, the blonde warrior closed her eyes, breathing slowly through her nose. When she reopened her eyes once more, they were filled with her doubts and fears, but also her determination and thirst for answers. “Please, please teel me ye can dae somethin', Hudson. Ah woods be in yer debt.”

Hudson may have asked Eleanor a question, which normally provokes an answer, but he is also frantically trying to clear his mind. These sorts of things - attempts at new alchemy transformations - were always easier done in calm settings, not, you know, around the spurting of blood. He thus looks at her with a widened gaze when she speaks at him, as if it were unexpected. It takes him a second to recall that she's just replying to him, and another few seconds to piece together maybe 65% of what she's said. Her accent, normally endearing, seems suddenly preclusive. As if he were missing vital information. He smells the wand, as if that might reveal further facts to assist him in whatever he's about to attempt. He's not even sure what sort of smell he'd be looking for. As if pixie dust smelled like something. "Right," he murmurs, casting a look at Eleanor, who seems to be wilting as he further delays, anxiety twisting his competency. Her words twist his heart. Please, please, succeed. "Just... Don't pass out on me," he tells her, his tone slightly apologetic, as if were already contemplating the failure of what he's about to attempt. He manages to wrest his gaze away from the very blanched Eleanor to look at her wand, clutched tightly in his fist. He extends his arm, pushing out Eleanor - splayed out and bleeding on the bedspread - from his mind and focusing singularly on the stones. He feels their contours, their porous surfaces, their dense mineral structures, and his mouth opens to sing the word in a whisper, like a plea. It's the word for 'stone,' and it doesn't immediately sound like the word for stone. It's more primordial than that, like a word that must of course mean stone but existed before the word 'stone' existed. Huds' eyes shutter as he holds the note. With a piercing cry that's not unlike a finger running a circle around a crystal goblet, the stones in Eleanor's wand revert to what they had been before. Huds, startled into staring at what he's done, can barely believe it, and nearly drops the wand out of surprise. "Holy...!!" Several expletives follow, and still assuming that time were of the essence, he pitches it at Eleanor, so that it lands on the open sheet beside her.

Eleanor imagined the wand smelled of sulfur, or she would if she weren’t faint and woozy despite her stern stare at the alchemist. The spell blade was determined not to show weakness to Hudson, or anyone else for that matter, and it was this stubbornness that compelled her to grit her teeth against another throbbing pang in her shoulder. Her blood was slowly seeping through the towel, staining it beyond easy repair, and around the edges of the fabric, slivers of some sort of black ink seemed to stretch away from her shoulder, radiating a little bit further outward with each adrenaline-rushed heartbeat. El glanced down at the dark tendrils, her expression growing even more worried; the tattoo that she had carved into her shoulder had been meant to protect her, but whatever blade had been used had been well-aimed, the magic inscription’s tether severed. She lifted her celadon-hued stare back up at Hudson, then directed her gaze to the inert wand, apprehension tightening her chest as she watched with a bated breath as the alchemist attempted to call into action the stones’ former state. Her brightly-colored eyes fixed on Hudson, and she could all but feel the magic he summoned prickling along the back of her neck and inspiring her hairs there to stand on end. Soon enough, though, she could sense the change, and she released the breath she’d been holding, let go of the bloodied towel, and quickly snatched up her now-repaired wand with her right hand. “ By th' gods, ye hae dain it!” she exclaimed, twisting the wand back and forth to view the many-faceted crystals. The longer she wielded the elder branch, the stronger the glow of her diadem’s gem. With a slight but roguish grin, the woman added, “Ah ne'er doobted ye.” Eleanor was ready to try the wand out now to test the quality of Hudson’s work, and tugged the towel away from her wound with a wince. Aiming the crystals toward her left shoulder, she braced herself, gulping down several large breaths; tensing against the potential backlash of using the wand so soon, she began to gather the strength she needed to heal herself against the toxins that now spread outward from the wound. At first, it sounded as though she was moaning under her breath, but much like the alchemist’s ability to speak the true name of something, she was also calling upon words to enforce the spell. The crystals in her wand assumed a bright glow, matching in strength the surge of light from her diadem; the woman’s moan became a growl, and the hand wielding her wand began to shake as a beam of light shot forth. Directed right at her wound, she howled in pain as the impact of the magic laser-like light hit one end of the gash. However, El was far too weak to counteract the poison, and only had enough energy to cauterize the wound itself; this is exactly what she then proceeded to do, and she all but tore her bedsheets with her left hand. White-hot pain traveled up her arm, as if fighting her healing powers as the beam of light continued to move, slowly, across her wound. The smell of burning flesh permeated the room, and with another yowl, Eleanor accidentally flung the wand across the room, her eyes rolling back into her head as she collapsed backward onto the bed. As consciousness struggled to claim her, the dark tendrils of poison ceased their travel away from her shoulder, as if laying in wait partly down her arm and across her chest; for now, the wound seemed to stop bleeding, a jagged burn in its place. Eleanor was pale, a flush spreading across her cheeks and neck, and her breathing was shallow.

Hudson blanches at his own work, evidently not having had as much faith in his abilities as Eleanor had. "I can't believe it," he murmurs as he watches the surge of energy that accompanies Eleanor's being reunited with her wand. She begins to murmur now, her voice throaty and low, and Hudson's hand freezes on the bottle of whiskey he'd been about to lift. A drink for whatever comes next. "Are you OK?" he asks her, licking his lips and glancing about the room as if nervous that something else had entered. Some fairy, assaulting her now at close range. A glance back at Eleanor confirms that this is not the case, but rather that she's about her own brand of magic. Hudson slowly lowers himself onto a corner of the bed. He watches the movement of Eleanor's mouth, the shape of the words she's speaking. His hand pours them both some whiskey, the movement easy in his mind's eye, though he nearly spills as Eleanor cries out and writhes in pain, falling back onto the bed. "Holy," he whispers the word with a certain reference, leaving the glassware and whiskey behind on the nightstand to hover over Eleanor's pale figure. "Are you okay?" he asks, mindful that his window of consciousness with her might be closing. "Eleanor?"

Eleanor lay half-on the bed crosswise, her legs dangling off its edge, and she kicked her booted heels against the floor, struggling to push herself further up the bed. “Och aye,” she mumbled breathily with a quick, crooked grin. She began to weakly dig into the mattress with her elbows in the attempt to prop herself up, and added, “Ah will be braw, dornt ye fash yerse.” The woman grunted and grit her teeth as the pressure and weight she placed on her shoulder sent searing pain rippling in waves across her chest. Sucking in a breath through her teeth, she pushed backward, her heel grabbing the bedframe alongside the mattress, and she used it to propel herself back with a gasp. She now collapsed once more back against the bed, a new twister of dizziness whirling around her, causing the whole room to spin before her head lolled over to the side. Once more, the spellblade bought about her crooked grin for the alchemist’s sake now, and she tried to, somewhat blearily, look up at him. “Yoo're nae bad, ye ken?” Her smile softened, and with it the rest of her expression did as well, as she fixed her celadon-hued gaze on him with as much focus as she could muster. “Ye hae saved me,” El started earnestly, “Ah owe ye mah life, Hudson.”

Hudson's eyes widen was Eleanor protests and begins to move about, evidently with only limited success. His gaze takes a turn about the room, under the pretense of trying to make himself useful. He remembers the whiskey he's just poured, and he fetches Eleanor's glass and returns bedside to hand it to her, just as she's settled in to look up at him and make her proclamations. He snorts, her statements stirring the ghost of a crooked smile in the alchemist. "I generally try not to make situations worse, ye ken?" he retorts playfully, mimicking her accent with a self-deprecating duck of his head. "Glad I could help." He lifts his chin, indicating at the whiskey. "Drink up and have a nap," he says gently. "I expect your ah, magic tattoos and wand will have you all sorted by the time you wake up? Only thing ailing you be a hangover?"

Eleanor kept her gaze trained evenly on him now that the fog of pain was beginning to ebb, and she soaked in his appearance as if seeing him just now for the first time. His attempt at conveying her burr sparked a dry, husky chuckle from the spellblade, but she winced as the gesture reminded her of the broken ribs she had not yet tended. A wry smile remaining in check on her lips, she dipped her chin into a nod of gratitude. “Weel Ah am glad ye waur available fur helpin',” she replied, knowing full-well she had ripped him away from a fascinating night full of fun. “Althoogh yer accent needs a wee wark.” The spellblade chortled to herself, but the sound was broken up by a few raspy coughs before she wearily gestured loosely at the alchemist. Gratitude clear in her gaze as she lifted the glass in a faint toast, the woman brought the glass to her lips, wasting little time in draining it of its contents. It was afterward, with the bottle propped haphazardly against her side on the mattress, that she looked over toward Hudson again, whatever charm she had previously held in her face shifting away in favor of a more somber expression. “Ah will be braw,” she repeated more brusquely than was necessary. “Ah dornt gie hangovers.” The woman said nothing in regards to her “magic tattoos and wand”, preferring instead to ignore the fact that she had been seen as weak in front of anyone, much less a stranger she had not yet shared much time with getting to know. Unused to being tended by anyone, she saw their transaction as complete, allowing her guardedness to begin to rise up in her once more now that the wand was repaired and, for now, her shoulder was on the mend. Shying her gaze away in misplaced bravado, she concluded with, “Ah willnae forgit mah debt.” The finality of her tone implied that Hudson did not need to remain any longer if he wished to leave.

Hudson rolls a shoulder in an easy shrug, a grin lingering on his features as Eleanor teases him about his accent. "Och, probably need a drink or two, aye, before I manage it proper," he says, making an encore attempt as he reaches for the glass he'd poured himself. "To an alchemical miracle I'm unlikely to ever manage again," he says, mirroring her toast. He sets the tumbler to his mouth and drains it in one fell swoop, wincing as he does so. Still holding the grimace, he sets the glass back on a credenza with a clink against the wood. "I should be thanking you for pushing me, to be honest," he says, waving off her comments about debts. The thought of what he'd accomplished is only belatedly hitting him, with the gravity of a sack of bricks. He feels lightheaded with his accomplishment and, pathetically, is itching to return to the lab. With a boyish cant of his head, he bends down to pat the foot of her bed, the gesture meant to be encouraging. "Right, so. Get well, Eleanor. I should probably do the gentlemanly thing and scram before housekeeping pokes their head in and gets the wrong idea." He lifts his eyebrows and extends an arm in a wave as he moves to leave. "See you around."

Eleanor was inwardly cursing her pride, but was not about to relent in her apparent dismissal of Hudson. She truly did owe him her life, although she considered that the gravity of her situation had been lost on the alchemist without the right context. His continued attempts at mimicking her thick burr helped alleviate some of her self-loathing, and as she dared another sidelong glance in his direction, a smirk settled on her lips as if it belonged there. Coupled with the fact that he seemed just as intent on leaving as she was of kicking him out, the smirk faded subtly with resignation, and she jerked her chin in a nod. “Reit, we definitely woods nae want 'at,” she drawled. “Those damn hoosekeepers.” El knew little of the customs of this land, but if Hudson implied it might look “ungentlemanly” for him to linger (whatever that meant) then she took his word for it. Before she was willing to let him leave, however, she pushed up on her elbows with a grunt, and propped herself up on her right elbow as much as she could. The spellblade then, carefully, reached out with her left arm, palm open and bared for a handshake of gratitude. “Thenk ye, Hudson …” Beat. “Truly.”

Hudson pauses to hang back long enough for Eleanor labor at propping herself up. He leans forward then, his hand grasping hers, equally gently. "No prob," he says as he releases her hand, drawing back. He offers her a thumbs up as he turns to head to the door. "Good luck sleeping it off," he says as parting words, throwing up a hand in a last wave before he heads out, shutting the door behind him.