bakerstreet | ( nursed back to health shipping meme. )

[He chuckles. Not because he thinks she can't order the old alderman around but precisely because he's certain she can and she will, if need be.] I like you. [Said declaratively, if a bit woozily.]

You're going to like me less in a minute.

[ She gets her fingers under his thigh again and lifts, jostling his shin with her knee until she's fairly certain he'll brace his foot and keep his leg up so she can start to wrap some bandages around it. ] Keep your leg there.

[His snarl of pain could give the wargs a run for their money. Torn and abraded by the half-dull candid claws of the wargs (and the dirt he'd dragged himself through, thankfully cleaned away), his leg strongly objects to being moved. But he doesn't jerk or lose his footing, planting his boot to keep it in place while she works. He's a little embarrassed at the visible display of pain, but it's too late now. Hard to look macho when the lady's found you bleeding to death in a pile of dead monsters.]

[ His snarl of pain gets a sympathetic grimace from her but doesn't slow her down at all. Instead, she wraps his leg with quick, economical motions, pulling tight enough to keep things together and to slow any further bleeding but hopefully not so tight that she risks the blood not getting to where it's supposed to.

Once she's tucked the last knot away, she shifts to sit back on her heels a little, her bloody hands resting casually on his legs.

The dead monsters around don't seem to bother her much. ]

Did you get here on foot?

Yeah. Didn't want to risk the horse. Left her behind in town. [He examines the wrapping approvingly.] You smell like fresh horse sweat so I assume you didn't come on foot? [Thank fuck, he wasn't going to have to limp back to town leaning on her. Strong as she was, that would have been exhausting for them both.]

[ Éomer is very strong, yes, but Eskel is a mountain of a man, still wearing most of his armor, and he's badly injured to boot. She probably could haul him all the way back to Hjaroarholt if she had to, but then she'd also be needing a bed to recuperate in, and she's not sure the village would be kind enough to extend that much courtesy to them.

She hums. ]

You really aren't from around here, asking one of the Rohirrim if they got somewhere on foot.

[ To be fair, many peasants don't own horses, or if they do, they're pack horses and not for riding. But yes, Éomer came on horseback. ]

Can you stand?

Dunno, maybe you didn't want to risk your mount either. [He laughs. He braces one hand on the tree, then his back. It's sturdy, for being a scrubby thing poking out of the hilly grasslands. It'll give him something to push against.] Take my hand. Between the two of us, I'll get up.

Firefoot's killed his fair share of wargs.

[ Besides, they weren't hunting wargs any more, they were looking for a witcher. And she found him.

Shifting back up to her feet, she brushes her hands off on her legs and then reaches out to Eskel, bracing herself to accept his weight and to haul him up off the ground. ]

It's not far.

[True to his words, he regains his feet, though his sword- rough hand grips hers tightly.]

Swords are over there somewhere. [He pants, pointing.] Just need to get those and then I'll go wherever you want me to go as long as you promise I can be drunk and horizontal when I get there.

Edited 2020-09-01 01:53 (UTC)

[ Her hands are just as rough as his, and her grip is strong and sure as she helps him regain his footing. She steps in close to him once he's standing, reaching out to try to steady him until he stops swaying dangerously. ]

I'm not sure if you should be hunting for your weapons right now... if you fall down, you might not get up again.

[ Shifting her grip on him, she brings her hand up to her mouth before catching sight of how bloody her fingers are and grimacing. Right. That won't work. Instead, she purses her lips and whistles without her fingers to assist, still managing a piercing shrill note that cuts through the woodland air easily.

It doesn't take long for the sounds of a horse approaching to become clear, and not much longer after that for a massive gray stallion to come cantering into the little clearing she found the witcher in. ]

Can't leave without them. [He insists, leaning on her as he feels and then sees the stallion arrive. He lights up at the sight of such a beautiful beast, as he has a somewhat incongruous soft spot for animals. As the horse comes closer, he extends a hand.] Hey there.

You're not going to, calm down.

[ Watching Eskel soften in the face of her giant charger cements Éomer's opinion of him in a way that little else could. She takes great pride in her horse, in all of her horses, and has raised him from a foal and trained him to be able to carry her in full armor in the midst of a battlefield without hurting himself. He's a magnificent beast, and she's terribly proud of him.

She isn't, however, oblivious to his faults. ]

Careful, he bites.

Alright. [Bypassing the nose then. He pats the stallion's shoulder with the hand he can move enough to do so.] Never seen horses like you have here. If I make a little money, maybe I'll get one to take back home with me come the fall.

[ She feels a little bad that Eskel's attempts at petting were thwarted, so she elaborates. ]

You smell like a warg. [ Considering he's been rolling around with a fair number of them, and is covered in their blood, that's hardly surprising. ] I've trained him to attack them.

[ It explains why Firefoot snorts and dances a little in place, obviously unhappy with this warg-smelling man being led closer to his side, but all it takes is a few terse commands from Éomer to have him stilling, though his ears make his displeasure known. ]

Just give him some time to settle.

[ Eskel isn't the first man to visit the Riddermark and want to take some horseflesh home with him; usually Éomer isn't exactly encouraging of such endeavors, mainly because she's stubborn and a little territorial, but if Eskel makes it through these injuries, and if he isn't heartily sick of anything Rohirrim by the end of his recovery, she'll help him find a colt or a filly to take with him. ]

Yeah alright. That's fair, buddy. [He concedes to the horse, dropping his hand to not cause further offense. He's vaguely aware of how filthy he is, covered in warg blood and witcher blood and mud and soot. And he's so, so tired.]

[ Patting Eskel on the back, Éomer maneuvers him closer to the horse and then ducks down to give him a boost up into the saddle, heaving with her not inconsiderable strength to get the injured witcher up onto her horse. ]

I'll fetch your swords, hang on.

[ They aren't particularly hard to find, even half-buried in warg corpses as they are, and it doesn't take her very long to lash them to Firefoot's saddle, followed by her own kit and Eskel's bags both. Once she's satisfied with that, and lengthens her stirrups a little to accommodate his longer legs, she heads to Firefoot's nose and strokes her hand over his neck as she murmurs to him quietly and coaxes him forward. ]

[Eskel makes a series of uncomfortable noise, his attempts to not express his pain, let he startle Firefoot. He's dizzy and there's bright white spots of pain in front of his eyes but he gets up onto the horse. He admires Éomer's raw strength for hauling his weight up onto the saddle with shameful little assistance from the wounded witcher. He settles into the saddle, gripping the horn of the saddle with white knuckles. He grids his teeth, bracing himself as the horse starts forward. He just has to stay upright and conscious until she gets him back to town. He can do this. Won't do to faint in front of the lady, would it?]

[ Éomer is torn between letting Eskel suffer in silence to allow his wounded pride some plausible deniability and facing the practicalities of their situation head-on.

Being practical wins out, in the end, as she knew it would. ]

Do you need me to tie you to the saddle?

[ Her voice isn't loud, but it isn't particularly gentle, either. She's not trying to coddle him. She just wants to know, does he need her to lash him to her horse so that he can't fall off? ]

Let's hope not. [He says, grimly. His face is pale and sweating.] Gonna try to stay upright on my own, thanks.

[It doesn't work. All it takes is a few changes in the terrain beneath them for Eskel to realize he can't hang on with his knees because his right leg simply won't respond without feeling like something is threatening to tear.]

Alright. You...might have been onto something there.

[ Éomer isn't silent as she moves to pick up the length of coiled rope she carries with her, but the stream of words that come from her mouth aren't really meant to be responded to. They're for Eskel's benefit, but they're said in the same tone she'd used to calm a spooked horse, giving him something else to focus on as she secures him to the back of her horse so that he doesn't have to strain so hard to keep upright. ]

[It's amusing and endearing, the way she murmurs to him like she would a nervous horse. It almost takes the edge off the way she has to secure him where he sits. Even if he has to admit that once the fear of sliding off has been mitigated, it helps considerably.] Sorry. [He says, of his stubbornness.] Not used to dealing with this kind of thing with help, makes me wanna act like I can handle it when I obviously can't. Can't remember the last time I got my ass kicked like this.

[ Caught out, she laughs a little, unrepentant but also a little embarrassed nonetheless.

Once her task is complete, she reaches up and pats Eskel on his good thigh. ] You're a man. [ Mutated witcher or not, that much is true. ] It's to be expected. You're all the same, down at the core. None of you are good at accepting help when you need it, least of all from a woman.

[He gives her an incredulous look.] Your sex's got nothing to do with it. I just watched you stitch up me up without flinching and with all the skills of any field medic I've ever met. Woman or not, that's impressive. Your womenfolk out here are tougher than some of the men in other parts of the world that I've met. I'm more than happy to place myself into your incredibly capable hands, providing I can get my head out of my ass, thinking I can get by on my own. As it stands, I think a puppy could kill me right now, if it felt particularly motivated.

We learned early on that even those who do not wield a sword can still die upon one. [ An understatement, to be sure. ] And how to carry on once the menfolk have gotten themselves slaughtered.

[ Nearly every village has a farrier, or an inkeeper, or a tanner who is a woman, a widow taking over her late husband's profession, a woman stepping in to fill a need when there is no man around to do it instead.

She pats his leg again. ]

It would have to be a rather large puppy, I would hope.

[He makes a small noise of understanding and just focuses on staying upright, at last lapsing into the more taciturn mode typical of witchers.

When he spies the town, he thanks the gods. He's dizzy again without distraction, nauseated from the potions that are finally passing out of his system, and in terrible pain, the arm which hangs uselessly at his side in particular.]

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