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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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.

Morgana's mouth twists in what might have been a grimace, but she reaches out, fingers sliding through the blood on Zane's forehead, up to find the wound. She's gentle, but she knows it must hurt. His scalp starts stitching itself back together quickly, her eyes turning gold again. It fades, and the bleeding stops. "Walking's not going to be easy, but at least now you won't bleed wherever you go."

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26th metal . voice

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