godsays | 26th metal . voice

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26th metal . voice

[ locked to charles ]

Charles.

[ The name is half-gasped, breathless and in pain. He wipes blood out of his eyes. ]

Where are you?

[ locked to the emperor, morgana ]

I'm wounded. Corridor near my cabin. One or both of you, quickly.

[ By this time, he has mostly forced the pain out of his voice, though it's probably still audible. He is calm, he is businesslike. He knows what needs to happen. ]

[ locked from alpha, later ]

Who knows Riddick? Does he usually attack people?

[ LATER YET, locked to close cr (if you think you're on it, you are, if you don't, you might be anyway) ]

I graduated.

Thank you. All of you. You all helped... make me better.

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I'm coming. How badly are you hurt?

Because he can tell that much, and he's got... nothing on hand, really, because he doesn't keep a first aid kit on him all the time. Maybe he should. It certainly would get enough use here.

But he's coming, basically running down the hallway, and he's not really willing to risk turning around to stop in the infirmary for something.

"Calling Morgana and the Emperor." He speaks out loud.

Which means: badly. Very, very badly, plain in his mind. The knife got him in the side, and it definitely hit organs. Without pewter, he'd be down, bleeding out. Without pewter, and without the Barge's medical facilities, he would die from this.

He flares pewter, enough to keep him on his feet. He can't risk dimming it down now.

Good.

He's finally got him in sight, and he rushes over, pulling off his cardigan and balling it up to press against the more serious injury. The telepathic contact is still there, obviously, so he feels how bad it is and what Zane's trying to do to combat it, but he's careful not to project anything to him. He's pretty sure he's never going to be comfortable around blood, especially when it's pouring out of someone he cares about.

"Sit down, I'm going to stay with you until they get here, alright?"

They can worry about Riddick once Zane's not in danger of bleeding to death.

"Yes." Definitely all right. In fact, Zane finds it a truly shocking relief, and he has to make sure, has to stay careful not to stop burning pewter. Charles cares. He cares, he was here as fast as he could be, and he's staying. This is still a foreign feeling to Zane, and he shudders as he lets himself slide down the wall and settle against the floor. He feels suddenly cold, and if he blinks for too long, it feels like the knife is still there, only it's come alive and it's clawing at him from the inside.

He's not sure a wound like this has ever hurt this much before. Maybe it just seems different, because now he's learned to feel - to use his skin as a gateway to the world instead of a wall.

His hand covers Charles', over the cardigan.

Charles immediately kneels down next to him, keeping pressure on the injury and trying not to focus too much on how long it will take Morgana or the Emperor to arrive, and how he can smell blood, and it still makes him want to be sick. There are more important, immediate things demanding his attention, and he carefully shifts one of his hands from the injury to cover Zane's. He'd honestly rather hold his hand, honestly, because he knows how much comfort that is when you're hurting, but keeping pressure on the injury's more important.

"Zane, I need you to focus on me, please." He can tell how much effort it's taking for him to keep his eyes open, and he doesn't want him to pass out. "Talk to me?"

Marsh hears the sudden flurry of pulses, the thrum of pewter and the sharp flares of iron and steel, an obvious fight, and he's not sure he's in any better state of mind than Zane right now, but he can't not run. He rounds the corner, takes it all in after just a moment.

His mind is - as always - a patchwork of open wounds, and he's wound up and scared and angry now, but it's all clamped down hard, because he learned to deal with it a long time ago and he must.

He kneels next to them, wipes away some of the blood still welling from the gash on Zane's head.

"I could carry him to the infirmary, if he can be moved." He's not sure, from the looks of it, if that would be safe at all. "And I have more pewter if you need."

And Marsh, too. He has to remember; he has to remember, now, that when he calls for help, even if he doesn't call, people will answer.

"Morgana and the Emperor are coming." He knows they will. "Marsh. He might wake up." Marsh will understand. Someone needs to make sure Riddick is restrained, so they can figure out what happened. Someone needs to see if Zane hurt him too badly and he's going to die.

He looks up and makes eye contact with Charles. "He came out of the stairwell. He took me by surprise." This is the only thing he can think to tell Charles about. To keep focused.

"Morgana's not far. I don't know about the Emperor." It's not difficult to reach out and find the familiar contours of her mind, but he won't invade the other inmate's privacy without asking his permission first. "I can keep him stable until she gets here."

Besides, he agrees with Marsh: dragging Zane back up and to the infirmary just seems like a bad idea.

"I can keep him unconscious until you get him to the infirmary," he says to Marsh. He doesn't doubt that the other Mistborn can take him in a fight, even if Riddick was injured, but it would save everyone a lot of time and trouble if he didn't wake up in the middle of it. He looks back to Zane, and gently runs his thumb over the back of the injured man's hand. "Well, if nothing else, I guess we know one of the people Alpha got to. I'm sorry you got caught up in the middle of this."

He nods curtly and sets an extra vial on the floor beside them, in case it becomes necessary.

"Thank you. I will make sure he is taken care of, and does not endanger anyone else until this is resolved."

It wasn't his fault, at least not entirely, something he and Zane both feel keenly. Marsh is careful of Riddick's injuries as he picks him up, flaring pewter and tin despite the way the smell of blood swamps him, and bears him away to the infirmary.

With his free hand, he reaches for the vial, and swallows it down. That should be enough pewter that he doesn't have to worry about it for a long while. Long enough for Morgana and the Emperor to get there and help him.

"I don't know why he attacked me." Zane, specifically - because this was specific. "He wanted to kill me. He tried."

"Thank you," Charles is sure to say before Marsh leaves, glancing over his shoulder at him quickly before looking back to Zane. There's blood staining his hand by now, and it makes him want to be sick. He's so tired of things like this happening. All he wants is for everyone to be safe, and apparently, that's always too much to ask, here.

His voice sounds thick when he responds, not like he's on the verge of tears, but this is just. Terrible. "Do you know why?"

"No."

Peculiarly, the more distressed Charles gets, the more calm Zane does. Maybe it's some function of how the world seems to retreat from him; the pain seems so much more important to focus on.

Without thinking about it, he summons up the steady beat of brass inside him, and Soothes Charles. "I'll be fine," he says. "It's all right." He's had worse. He's had worse right in front of Charles. He knows he can survive this.

"I know." And he does. They're lucky that they're here, where they have people who can heal injuries almost effortlessly no matter how serious the wounds were to begin with. And Zane's right - he's been through so much worse and been able to walk away from it, but it doesn't change the fact that he wishes there wasn't another opportunity for him to try to stop him from bleeding out.

He manages a sort of crooked smile, and doesn't try to tell him to stop Soothing. It's become something of a comfort, to not have to feel strong, negative emotion as strongly in times like these. It's what he would have done for Zane if their positions were reversed.

"I'm just tired of watching this happen to you. You have an unfortunate knack for being caught up in the middle of things like this."

He does have a terrible knack for it, and Morgana's knack is for arriving late. She practically skids around the corner, one hand bunched in her skirts to keep from tripping herself. She rushes to them, drops on Zane's other side. There's so much blood, the scent is coppery and familiar and she feels panic rising, the inevitable uncertainty, I don't know if I can heal this.

Because she is not naturally inclined to this. She wasn't taught this, not properly. Not the way she was taught to destroy. But Zane is hurt, and if she does nothing, he will die. It doesn't matter that he'll wake up. He will die.

She swallows past her tight throat, and reaches out to nudge Charles' hand - and his cardigan - away. "It's fine," she says, and her voice is calmer than expected, steady. "You'll be all right." It's more order than statement. You'll be all right. Morgana stretches her hand out, thinks you're a High Priestess, and her eyes glow. It's slow; organs stitching back together seamlessly, then muscle and cartilage and skin. There's a strange sort of painlessness to it, at the very least.

"Sometimes I get in the middle." Sometimes it's his fault; he knows this. And maybe that's not all such a bad thing. He is willing to get into the fray when it's people he cares about who are at risk. Sometimes violence can be good.

He doesn't want to be violent. And he loves being violent. And he can temper both of those... or maybe someday he'll actually be able to pick the former.

Morgana is half-panicked, but he dims the Soothing anyway, not wanting to touch her with it. He knows she doesn't like the idea. But he will be all right. "I know." Zane's voice is calm and low, a rumble in his chest. His eyes stay on Morgana. "I'm breathing. I'm fine. Take your time, do it right."

Charles doesn't protest Morgana taking over, but he doesn't really know what to do. There's blood on his hands, and the sweater's actually kind of soaked with it, so as much as he wants to reach out to them, he can't. At least, not physically.

He does project affection and concern back to Zane, because he's pretty impressed with how he's handling it, and he wants to make sure he knows he's not going anywhere just because help's arrived.

"Thank you for coming," he says to Morgana, and the appreciation is evident in his voice.

She barely nods to either of them, keeping her eyes on his wound instead. Flesh knits faster, and when it's almost done, she lets herself glance up, from Zane to Charles.

"What happened?"

He brushes more blood out of his eyes; the scalp wound has turned into a gory mess, all out of proportion to its seriousness.

"Riddick," he says. "He took me by surprise." And he wasn't burning pewter at the time.

"Marsh took him to the infirmary. I think it's fairly safe to assume that he's one of the people Alpha tampered with." Which means the other affected warden is just as likely to be violent, and God only knows if the count Ned had was accurate in the first place.

She hates that, how easy it is to be taken unaware. It isn't a product of the Barge, it's a product of life, and given her last moments in Camelot, it's a fear she'll always hold in the back of her thoughts.

"How many others are there?" She wonders, with a flair of paranoia, if either of them could be Alpha's victims, too; it's brief and fades quickly, at the very least, dismissed as too nonsensical.

"Four. Or three." He can't remember the distinction between the numbers, why one was the right one. His eyes close, briefly.

Charles nudges him gently with his elbow. He doesn't want to touch him with his bloody hands. "You can rest once we get you back to your room. Unless you'd rather go to the infirmary?"

And he can't help but pick up on what Morgana's thinking.

"We're not affected. Neither are you."

She glances at Charles, and nods; she doesn't have to ask if he's certain. She does just reach for Zane's shoulder, squeezing to keep him awake. Rest will do him good, but better in a bed than the middle of the hall.

"We'll help you up."

"Why would I go there? To the infirmary. The people I trust are here."

He nods, at the idea of going to the bedroom.

"Can you take care of the scalp wound?"

"Probably a good idea to get that sorted. We've already made a bit of a mess of the hallway."

It's a very weak joke, and he knows it, but it's better to have something to distract himself for the moment.

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youwillgotohell - 2013-10-03 15:09 (UTC) - Expand

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