bakerstreet | Nursed Back to Health

Nursed Back to Health

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Your character has either been injured/sick and had to be taken in (possibly against their will) or has been the one to help somebody like the former. Through the mending process, the two characters in a thread have fallen in love - or at least grown closer and more affection.
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{Works for me! His magic would feel the same still to her, so that wouldn't be a problem. Let me know if there's anything you want me to change.}

"I see you went all out on them".

The girl walks as carefully as possible amongst the charred ruins of what must have been a very solid and orderly factory. The way mortals go on about their lives never ceases to amaze her; in just a couple of centuries they can achieve feats equals to those of the gods, and still they find in themselves the will and desire to keep on going.

How did it go? To boldly go...?

She gets distracted by her own clumsy feet, almost falling face down to the ground and the mess the man nursing his wounds not far from where she is helped to create. She laughs a little, minding her balance. The world of mortals changes constantly and rapidly just like they do. Not even those like the man are immune to the passing of time. It would be just like that for me as well, were things any different to how they are now.

The thought doesn't frighten her.

His magic feels familiar enough. Eleri stops a few steps away from him, smiling softly. The first time they saw each other wasn't all that different from this (it was really, really different, but the mind has a way to soften the edges of some things). The timing is a little off now, but she prefers it like that; she's done enough fighting as it is-- the desire for more eludes her.

"Long time no see, my lord Horvath".

{he's definitely the same guy, just about a millennium older!}

When she last saw him, he'd only recently taken up that surname. The power signature feels the same, and the ring on his right hand, set with a blue stone, is the same token he's had since Merlin apprenticed him as a boy. Times have changed, though. The old factory they're in has had time not only to rise and give birth to jobs and products of industry, but also to then be closed, emptied, and fall into disrepair. The remnants of a botched ritual lie charred and mangled at one end of the building, and the Morganian sorcerers who tried it are in similar states after going up against Maxim Horvath. The battle between the followers of Merlin and Morgana have been set against each other as long as he's been alive, but one side now consists of Morganians for whom Morgana herself is mostly legend. The oldest Morganian left around is no more than a few hundred years old.
On the other side of the long-running battle stands Maxim Horvath, once apprentice to Merlin himself, and now a very old man indeed. He's had too few apprentices himself, and now he's unsure if there are any other Merlinians left around. He's gotten used to standing alone against them, protecting Merlin's legacy, but the battles themselves have gotten rare. Time and world wars brought down the numbers of all sorcerers in the world. Usually he goes up against one or two, these days. It's all he can easily handle, now.

The man sitting in the wreckage looks older, settled deep into middle age, with greying at his temples and in his neatly trimmed beard. He's a good fifty pounds heavier, too, and the way his left leg is stretched out looks awkward. Time has weighed heavily on him, and not just physically. Bleeding, breath coming in ragged gasps, he looks exhausted and drained. He's tired, in a bone-deep way. Hopefully she can forgive him for at first assuming she's just one more battle.

"You'll have to excuse me if I don't get up..." His tone is dry and a little mocking, but there's a deep weariness beneath. "If you've come to join your friends, I'd prefer we get it over with quickly."

"I was rather hoping you'd be up for dinner and dancing". She leans a bit, looking curiously at his leg. "Following your trail was a bit more harder than I had expected, but I supposed the polite thing would be to patch you up first". On the other hand, the girl looks very much the same. The hair may be longer now, the look in her eyes a bit harder-- but time tends to be much more generous to those bound to other powers, keeping themselves as far away from conflict as they're able.

For the girl knows: that war is a cruel mistress, no matter the world one lives in. It is all-consuming and unrelenting in its hunger. But sadness? Sadness is much more forgiving, and infinitely more flattering.

And yet, weary and aged as he is, Eleri can't help but to think he looks dignified and strong still. Like a tree. She raises her hands, the beads and bracelets covering up her arms tingling. "Assuming, of course, you'd be willing to let me near you". Or like a really grumpy, old bear. She likes both very much, either way.

Edited 2015-04-21 01:30 (UTC)

Horvath has always been a large man; very tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, but with his greying beard and his widest point settled lower around his belly, he very much fits the image of a grizzled old bear. Heavy brows lower in a frown, and he pauses, squinting at her a little. His own face is distinctive, with its narrow crooked nose and expressive eyebrows, but human memory is a fallible thing, and in over a thousand years his own memories of faces tend to blur and run. "...Do I... know you?" The deep voice lightens a little, growing cautious. He knows he does, somehow, but still fresh from the chaos of a recent fight his own brain is struggling to pull the puzzle pieces together.

Belatedly, self-conscious of her gaze, he draws up his left leg a little. His ankle drags across the ground, foot stuck at a sharp angle. It is, to her healing senses, not a real leg, just metal and plastic. His own flesh ends slightly below the knee, but it's an old wound, even if the stump of amputation is a little blistered. The movement makes him wheeze, though. One hand has been braced on the ground, but the other is clamped tight to his side over a very fresh wound.

"That's a very deep, tricky question, my lord". Because, really, people can spend their whole lives together without ever really knowing each other, so to just say yes, you know me it's not... something she wants to do. She fought by his side, because she was younger then, and much more willing to engaged herself in the affairs of others. Now, she knows better.

... She still gets involved in affairs that are not her own. But she knows better.

"But yes, at the very least, you knew of me". Strange, sweet Eleri, who fought and sang with them, for a while. But that was many, many centuries ago. Now she's little more than a stranger with a few fond memories of this man and a few others, walking roads long lost. So she comes closer to him and kneels, a hand raised; the magic accumulating there is a soft, soothing thing, calling for the wound he nurses.

"Now will you please let me treat that?".

"It's... I can-!" But he can't do much for it at all, and he knows it. The battle has left his power mostly tapped out, and whatever he has left for healing himself is far from enough. He could manage a painkilling spell, at best, and briefly he reflects that he's very lucky indeed she's not another Morganian, because if she were a fresh combatant come to fight him, this time he'd lose. Pride urges him to protest help, but Horvath is a Merlinian to the bone, and Merlinians are not good at lying.

"...Thank you." If there's a hint of a grumble to his gratitude, it's nothing personal. He keeps his hand clamped over it unless she makes some move to peel it away, because he's trying to keep himself from bleeding out. It's a very deep cut, and maybe it's a good thing he's a little overweight these days, or it might have gone between his ribs and deeper into something more vital. There are plenty of other injuries, cuts and burns from plasma bolts and a vicious air blade spell he's been at the receiving end of in a few battles, now. A couple of his ribs seem to be cracked, from some other blow, but they're not out of place.

Now that she's kneeling close, he studies her face, dark eyes searching. She looks like she's just a girl... and he remembers singing. She reminded him of Belshazzar, then, his fellow apprentice back when the other man was full of smiles and laughter. Horvath has always been a little dour, a little grim, and when his master fell and his fellow apprentices were lost to him, it didn't help his disposition. The man she fought beside before was noble and a little dashing, dark hair loose in long waves and his tall figure leaner and agile. He was grim then, but not unkind, and looked to as a model of wisdom and devotion to good. The other sorcerers held him in awe, while he kept a little apart, but never acted above them in any way. He'd spoken with her a little, thanked her personally and formally for her aid. And he'd watched her from afar with a wistful look, when she sang.

The man before her now has been worn down around the edges by time. He's a little softer, gentler. His voice comes distant and wondering, as if he's just finding his way back across a long-forgotten battlefield. "You sang... Eleri?"

She has the grace to blush a little, her smile a brilliant thing under his recognition.

"And you listened". She covers his hand with her own, waves of her magic making their way through his flesh, mending and soothing. A deep cut indeed, but he's strong, and it was cleanly and freshly made; it will heal well under her ministrations. "Grim lord Horvarth, whom I never quite dared to ask out for a dance". She takes her free hand to his ribs, feeling the fractures there. His opponents clearly refused to go down without a fight, and Eleri guesses that for that alone they are worthy of some respect.

Pity as well. They should have know better than to battle him. "Many things have changed in your world. I was surprised to find you still lived". She increases the output of magic over his ribs, watching with critical eyes as it advances towards his burns and bruises, the little cuts he's donning all over his persona, until he's very much enveloped by her mana.

"I was happy, as well". Her smile softens. The body may have changed a little, but the man in front of her is very much the same at heart, a few lessons learned along the way, a couple of extra burdens on his shoulders. A bear is a bear, after all. And the claws of this one are still sharp.

There was a time when Horvath could have fought this many and come away with relatively few injuries. He's slower and heavier, now, and this time the fight has cost him a fair amount of blood, but he's still a formidable foe and to stand alone against so many is hardly a small feat. The rotten stink of fouler powers lingers in the ritual circle, a sure sign of some dark doings he could not allow to be completed. He still fights to protect, to preserve the good.

It might be the heady swirl of memories long forgotten, or it might be blood loss, but he feels a little woozy. Horvath is still breathing hard, slow to catch his breath after the fight, but he slumps a little in relief and lets his eyes drift closed briefly. Already the adrenaline is fading, letting all the various aches and pains sharpen and make themselves known. Her healing touch pushes them all away before he's even had time to fully register them. At least the cuts themselves are free of infection, that's possibly the one good thing about wounds made by magic rather than a more physical weapon. Before, he had little need for her gifts, and only brought her others to minister to. Now he's sorely in need of her help. "I'm... often surprised, myself, to still be around..." He gives a wry smile, the joke a little breathless still. "I don't... dance, anymore." He's more than a little bitter over the loss of his leg, and his footwork with it. Horvath was a skilled swordsman, before the injury rendered his balance poor. "But I didn't expect to see you again."

"It seems we're both still full of surprises". Her eyes soften, and her hand gives his a gentle squeeze. No, he wouldn't now, would he? This reckless, stubborn man. Age may have changed him but it seems to her that the battles he got himself into were still very much like they were: too much of a risk, too near the end of his own damn luck.

"I would lie if I said it was my choice", for it never truly was. She was always glad when it happened, at least for a time. That it did here and now... she's relieved beyond words. Had she not been tracking him down, perhaps he would be standing as he is. "But I'm nonetheless glad it happened". The thought unsettles her.

"And I know you are quite happy too, so there's no need to embarrass yourself saying it, my lord". She takes his hand, peeling it away from the wound; it is mostly close now, the man nursing it out from any real danger. "I supposed I should begin to lecture you know about the dangers that come with combat and all that, as any respectable healer should". She puts on her second best stern face, which is... not really that much of a face at all.

"Shame on you, shame on you. You shouldn't have been fighting alone".

The risks are, in fact, now greater than they ever were. The rote scolding, however, is met with a slightly incredulous look, and a weak trace of amusement. "There's few, if any, left to stand beside me. But I will remember that the next time a bunch of Morganians get ideas about summoning demons, and leave them to it." It's a mild scolding, in return, but he gives her a weary smile. "And you needn't call me lord. I've no right to that title, you know..." Master Horvath would, technically, be the correct title for a sorcerer of his level, but Lord is an easy honorific and she's certainly not the first to use it, nor probably the last.

"It is good to see you again, even if the circumstances could be better, and thank you..." Now that he feels a little steadier, he shifts to better sit up and shifts his hand in hers to give her fingers a gentle squeeze in return. His waistcoat is clearly a loss, drenched in blood and cut in half a dozen places. He's in a tweed suit, and it too is probably too singed, cut, and bloodied to be saved. The man inside the clothes is considerably more whole than he was a few minutes ago, anyways, no longer oozing out his own life force through various injuries. He's still a little winded, and very tired, but intact and out of danger. Having his ribs healed does make breathing easier, and he draws in a deeper breath out of sheer appreciation for that. "Could you... mm..." His gaze goes to a cane lying a short distance away, long and black, with a silver dragon's head for a handle. It's a sword cane, because old habits die hard, but his need for it is a more basic and practical one than self-defense. Unfortunately in the course of the fight it's been knocked out of the reach of even his long arms.

Edited 2015-04-21 17:51 (UTC)

"That would be lovely, thank you". It's best when he's smiling. Joking and smiling and scolding-- that's what makes a bear a healthy, living-to-see-another day bear. She smiles peacefully, letting him have his say on the matter, but really, it was hopeless. "I know, my lord". It was never a matter of having to say it so much as it was of wanting. For he would be one, back in her home; grim and dark and fair, he would be admired as he once was here, and the Gods would honor him, and love him.

(As they did with her, a long, long time ago)

Her eyes grow warm. It's such a wonderful word-- again. She could count with one hand the times a thing like this has happened, and most of them had been as happy as this one. "Your thanks are not needed, my lord". She takes back her hand, gently, to do as he asks; there is no wound left-- not even a scar.

The cane is a pretty, solid thing. She walks with it, twirling before presenting it back. "But still very much appreciated".

At being called a Lord again, he just smiles a little more, and rolls his eyes as if he were fourteen instead of fourteen-hundred-some. As much as time and wars and the world have worn at him, he is in some ways more relaxed and easygoing than he once was. He'd have gone mad ages ago, if he hadn't learned to lighten up just a little. He's still a little grim and dour, though, a slightly grumbly old bear just past his prime. Of course, he's only accumulated good deeds and heroic acts since she saw him last, and if time had blunted his claws much, he was clearly still dangerous enough to win the recent round against the odds.

"Then thank you again." He smiles up at her, just a little sheepish as he accepts the cane. He does not twirl it, but uses it to lever himself to his feet, and that's something that takes him a long moment and a little bit of struggle. His knees aren't bad, but they're not as good as they used to be, either. His left leg is slightly uncooperative, since it's a prosthesis and an old one at that. He's also carrying some extra weight, and still slightly light-headed from blood loss, so even once he's on his feet it takes him a moment to be sure of his balance. He will be surprised, later, to discover today's fight hasn't left him with a single scar. There are so many, he wouldn't have minded another, but to have no new ones at all is more unusual.

Now that they've met again, and she's healed him so quickly, he doesn't want to see her go. It's as rare for him as it is for her to see anyone he's met from so far back, and if he can remake the acquaintance he wants to hold onto that opportunity as long as possible. It's also very rare for him to invite anyone into his home, but he has some idea of what she is, and that she poses no threat to the things he keeps protected there. "Please... may I invite you for tea? Are you hungry?" Not only is he still out of breath, but he may sound just subtly desperate to detain her. The please is not just for formality's sake. "I know you said thanks isn't necessary, but if you don't wish to see it as repayment, then... just humor me? I so rarely have guests..." Horvath would never say that he's lonely, but that's only because he barely remembers there's an alternative to it.

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