RP:Over and Out

Summary: Lionel and Raphaline, following a fateful report to the queen, escort one-another to the medical wing where the willful songstress opts to administer ample healing personally. Lionel begins to process the recent battle, the loss of a dear friend, and his demotion from Knight-Commander. Raphaline notes a bond.

Frostmaw: Fort Medical Wing

Raphaline doesn’t waste any time once Hildegarde dismisses her. She leans a bit more heavily on the warrior when they turn to leave and even more so when they begin to walk down the halls towards the healer’s room. “Are you alright?” She inquires, canting her head just enough that she can see Lionel out of the corner of her eye. As they round one corner, her legs begin to give out under her to the point that she tosses her left hand out to brace herself against the nearest wall. Pain begins shoots up her left arm as the shoulder twitches from the sudden weight. “I think I over did it on the magic,” she says, attempting to jest about her physical state of affair; its funny, she has always been the one healing others not her needing the healing. Once she gathers her strength again, she removes her hand from the wall and braces herself for the final bit of the walk. Where her hand once was there is now a partial, red hand print on the wall.

Lionel carries Raphaline amply, his gaze forward. He is on mission again. Mission now consists of medical treatment. In mission, Lionel is cog in a wheel. In cog, Lionel does not have to face the torment on his soul. Then she asks that question and it shatters down in his mind and he has to be human again and he sighs, lightly. But before he can reply, she very nearly falls. Out of instinct as much as decency, the man moves up behind Raphaline to offer braced support. Nearby, a guard stands vigil, but turns her head in concern. Then she bows -- to a Knight-Commander who is no longer present to receive such courtesies. Lionel suddenly feels very guilty; he forgot to remove the badge. Right now, however, there are more pressing matters. He waves her off and catches Raphaline at the waist, then swoops her up into his full hold, carrying her into the medical ward without asking permission. “I’ll be fine,” he tells her finally, hoarsely, then placing her down upon a bed. What an autohit fiend, this guy, let me just say. A clinician comes racing, sharply glances to them both, and throws up his hands. “-Neither- of you should be walking, Knight-Commander, let alone one of you -carrying- the other. Go over there and get ready. I’ll alert more staff.” Lionel snickers, trots to a bed beside Raphaline, and hops on. “Not Knight-Commander anymore,” he mutters out of earshot of all but his songstress companion, pulling off the broach and flicking it into his pocket.

Raphaline too tired to argue with the sudden sweep off her feet, she just leans in against him with a soft sigh. If anyone else found out that she got carried, it would never be the end of it. She notes the guards still bowing and clenches her hands together, knowing all too well their oblivious politeness is just another sharp stab at the once commander. “Don’t get any funny ideas about me, I could have walked.” She finally retorts when he sets her down and she finds a soft bed under her back. Goodness, nothing felt better than this bed right now. At the sound of more footsteps, she turns her head enough that she see who it is. And there, another familiar face. Softly, she laughs to herself. When the clinician leaves the room, she places one forearm down on either side of her body and pushes until she finally has herself up in a sitting position. Slowly, she swings her legs over the side of the bed, finding it best to feel the floor under her feet. At his utterance, she glances up with worried emerald eyes and says, “That might not be so, but you are still you.” To try and help out the coming healers, she begins to peel off her jacket first, revealing bare arms underneath. Her left shoulder is turning a nasty shade of purple and black while both her arms bare small cuts to the flesh. None are deep except the one closest to the shoulder wound and it is from this wound that flowing blood is coming from. “Yep, I really over did it.” Turning to Lionel once more she points to the mark on his throat, “Looks like you took a hit or two as well.” She scoots to the end of the bed and reaches out with her right hand, “No need to bother them with a small cut, I can heal it easily enough.” She tries to touch her finger tips to the cut.

Lionel is drifting into thought again the instant he graces the bed. It’s still there, over and over again -- Briar’s death. It will not fade. He wonders, briefly, if it will ever fade; if the deaths of Alexia and others before her will resurface like a plague on his psyche. Yet perhaps there is hope for him yet. As soon as Raphaline has readjusted, peering at him like she does, and speaking to him so sweetly, he blinks and looks up to her, dazed but humbled. “I suppose I am at that,” he answers. He had plans to say more, but Raphaline’s jacket removal reminds him she has the right of it. He begins to unbutton the black dress shirt -- always with the black dress shirts, this one -- but midway, he realizes what she might soon see. Near as Lionel is aware, the only present Lithrydelians who know of the… issue… with his backside are the staff here in this wing and possibly Caedan Navarre. And the only reason Caedan would know if she never actually stopped stalking him upon his return. Even Briar never knew. Even -Briar.- There it is again, her death, flashing in his eyes. He grits his teeth and finishes unbuttoning the shirt. The white undershirt underneath will do for now. If he can tilt himself just right before people start poking him and prodding him, this issue will be avoided. As he ponders this, the songstress is touching him over his throat, soothing, healing. “Th-thanks,” he says, biting his lip and staring off into some suddenly very interesting painting. It doesn’t take long for three nurses to rush into the room, exasperated with Raphaline. “Please, my lady, let us help you,” one asks, as the other pair glance her over and prepare the necessary treatments.

Raphaline doesn’t even have to drum up very much magic to heal the small cut. While her hand is within his sight, he may or may not noticed mottled skin from what looked like an old wound on the said wrist. “There,” she concludes as she withdraws her hand and sits back more heavily on the bed. She eyes the warrior for a second, brow lofted at his odd behavior but before she can get another word out the three nurses cut her off. “Yea, yea, I know the deal.” She sits back and allows two of the nurses to begin examining the cuts on her arms and carefully rubbing healing salve into them before bandaging up. As for her shoulder, one of the nurses run their hands over the wound finding there might be a small fracture to it. The nurse places one hand on either side and with a count of three, pushes so the bones realign with each other. She lets out a rather harsh hissing sound as the nurses wrap it up to hold it into place to heal. “Alright. Now, can I help?” The nurses gives her a rather sharp look, but the stubborn look in her eyes challenge such notions. For now, she is the only one with magic. “Now, move.” Moving past the nurses, she moves to sit beside Lionel. “Do you have any other serious wounds?” Out of the corner of her eyes she can see one of the nurses throwing up her hands in dismay that bard just can’t hold still.

Lionel does indeed notice the mottled skin, although he tries his damnedest to avoid staring. His throat gash is remedied so fast he has to verbalize something to test it. “There,” he agrees, and his voice is ringing pleasantly all over again. He blinks at his own clear cadence. Then before he knows it Raphaline’s being treated and none too eagerly. There’s some impatience in her spark and that is positively peculiar. Only once she’s finished does the cause become clear -- she is seated beside him, designated physician. “I thought we were getting seen by…” An apologetic half-second look is passed to the nurses, who are literally all three of them arms-folded as if they operate in unison in all things. “...Oh, ah, I have this…” Lionel retracts his left hand and grabs hold of the collar of his undershirt, then in one calculated yank tears the fabric down cleanly from neck to chest. He is very, very careful to avoid breaking the hem on the backside. What is revealed in his upper-frontal immodesty is a slash mark ranging from five centimeters above his left nipple all the way down to his rightward abs. It isn’t gruesomely deep, but it is deep enough that stitches might be of use. It is very clear from the tracks and the angles that it must hurt -considerably.- Lionel simply shrugs. “I think that’s it.”

Raphaline tucks her left arm in close to her waist line so she doesn’t try to use it. At the sight of the chest wound, she motions with her right hand to the nurses before saying, “Thread and needle please. I can use a small spell to at least encourage the body to begin mending the wound from inside.” She turns her gaze up from the slash to the commander for a moment to state, “I’m sorry if my hands are a bit calloused.” Carefully, she reaches over and runs her fingertips first along the right side of the cut, a soft hum on her lips. When she reaches the bottom, she traces her fingers along the left and back to the top of the cut once more. If her body hadn’t already rebelled over the use of magic, she might have used a stronger spell to heal the wound up completely, at least now, it might not scar. One of the nurses deposits a needle already threaded with a huff into the bard’s hand. “This is only going to hurt for a moment.” Starting at the bottom, she pushes the curve needle under and through before dipping it back down and across the wound. “Let me know if I hit anything that hurts more than just the needle prick,” she says after a few more stitches, “it might be something more than just the visible wound.” When she reaches the top of the wound, she turns her gaze up to him as she ties off the string with ease and hands the needle back over. “There. Now, you take an easy.”

Lionel closes his eyes as Raphaline works her magic. He leans back ever so slightly, palms pressed upon the bed sheet. He steadies his breathing, nodding silently at comment of calloused hands and then nodding again in the exact same stance when she asks him to indicate extraneous pain. The prodding hurts, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. Nothing at all next to what he has endured in the past -- physically and most certainly emotionally. What troubles the Catalian is that Briar’s death -still- flashes. In vain effort to ignore the pain in his chest, another sort of chest pain causes his eyes to roll back behind their lids. Then she’s finished. Lionel looks to Raphaline, glances down at the wound, and breathes heavily. The nurses are cleaning up; the woman is still beside him. “Much obliged.” He grabs his dress shirt and wraps it around him, steadying the buttoning and arching his back. “I suppose I have an office to clean out.” And a fallen aide-de-camp’s belongings to separate, too.

Raphaline gives him a look, the kind of look that says no you won’t be doing that. She, with a bit of struggle since she has only her right arm, pushes herself into a standing position and crosses back over to her own bed. “You need to rest.” Stretching out across the bed, the bard allows herself to relax into the comforting bed. “And I don’t just mean physically.” Her eyes begin to flutter closed and she can feel her own body trying to shut down and put herself to sleep. When she hears the nurses leave, Raphaline adds, “You need time to rest and process otherwise you are going to push yourself too far.” Her own mind is wracked with worry for those who stayed in Larket, but for now she hangs on to the hope that she will see them again.

Lionel can’t seem to argue with that. He frowns; unfortunately for him, he’s so tired the fretful gesture just ends up looking cute somehow. Ugh. The worst. With a pronounced sigh, he lifts his legs and lays down. “You know, uh,” he comments after an awkward moment. “There are rooms we could rest in that aren’t filled with…” He waves a hand as if to accentuate the horror. “-Doctors…-” It’s all he says, though. The two of them are laying there on their beds in the medical ward and Lionel is doing his best to compel the idea that they relocate. But then he tilts and looks at Raphaline and he chuckles lightly with a shake of the head. “Then again, you look like you could as well as fall asleep right now. I’d suggest a certain bard I know to help you drift to dreams, but she’s preoccupied… drifting to dreams.” He’s so exhausted it’s all the former Knight-Commander can do to jest.

Raphaline opens her eyes and tilts her head so her emerald eyes fall upon him as she begins to chuckle. "You know when you get tired like that and try to jest its rather endearing and cute." Shaking her head, she reaches up with her right hand and brushes her curls back out of her face as she closes her eyes once more. "I may not be able to sing myself to sleep, but if a certain sweet commander keeps distracting me with his cuteness I might not be able to ever sleep," she jests as another silver-belled chuckle escapes her. For a moment, she winces, given the movement of her chest has jarred her left shoulder just a bit. "It is alright, they will leave us be if only to get me healed up so I don't stick around too long and try to heal anyone else who comes in. They know me too well, I helped out the ward last time and the time before."

Lionel furrows his brow at that. The next shake of his head is short and blatantly embarrassed. “Pfft,” LIonel says, possibly for the first time in his life. “Pfft, I say.” She’s definitely right about the nurses, though. They’ve all cleared out in an intentional hurry and there’s been no sign of that clinician either. “Still… I admit, it seems every time we get a scene together, so-to-speak, I learn something new about you. Why, just last night you did that hand trick and water was -everywhere.- And today, well, I guess I could comment on your having worked in this wing before, but I’m thinking more about…” His words are growing sluggish. He’s practically falling asleep while talking. That’s Lionel for you, though. Either too quiet or rambling. There is rarely any middleground. “...’bout how you stood there with me in the th, throne room… talked to the queen. I don’t…” Lionel shifts onto his side, facing Raphaline across from him. “...I don’t… know what comes next. For Frostmaw. For Lithrydel. I just know a darkness is spreading, as darkness has spread before. I know I intend to fight it, whether Knight-Commander or peasant or anywhere in-between. I’m not talking just Macon, here. I’m thinking all sorts of things are happening and it’s all slanted and I’m… going to fi…” He’s drifting fast. “...just… thank you, lass. Just thank you.” He’s asleep.

Raphaline tucks his words safely away for another day when they both aren't exhausted. When she believes him to be asleep, she adds her last words in before she falls asleep as well, "You are a brave soul trying to find your way. We have that in common, you just don't know it." Another deep sigh before she allows her body to finally give in to the exhaustion that has been plaguing her since she left the Larketian shore. The dreams that come to her are a mixture of the fight as of recently, and the memories of past wars she has fought in. Somewhere among all those images she thinks of those who were left behind and those who came back. Maybe, here, she can find a place or a movement to be a part of and finally let go. Like she had said, they both things in common, both had people to let go of and paths to find.