Post-Fiend Checkup

Log Info

• Title: Post-Fiend Checkup

• Emitter: Dolan

• Characters: Andelena, Dolan, Lysa, Zeke

• Place: Temple of Daeus

By the time they are done escorting the family home, the light rain has resumed, making the walk back to the temple more than a little on the wet side. Drinking has been discussed, but Dolan insists on making one stop first - the Temple of Daeus. "I'm freezing," he tells the other two. "Had this happen before. Wounds from demon claws can do some weird shit. I'd better have Zeke look at these before they're healed, and make sure there isn't anything else in them." He's got his cloaks wrapped tightly around him, pulled close, his hood up.

This is said as he approaches the temple doors. "Zeke's one of the senior Sunguards in the Temple," he explains. "He's done a lot for both of us."

"All of us should get looked at," Andelena says, walking alongside Dolan with her hand on his arm. The Sunguard wears a small smile just for walking with her Corona and being close--a small victory in the face of evil that has seen them both through the darkness. "That little fucker hiding in the dark got at me, too. Not a little, but you never want to play this shit too safely when you can help it."

She looks over to Lysa. "Oh--Sunblade. Bry and I are both on the rough side of things when it comes to talking when we aren't in front of kids and nobility. You know how it is."

With the rainfall, Lysa has lifted the hood to her cloak. Her helmet has been doffed and is clipped to her belt. If only to keep it from hampering her head's movements. She had made the offer to heal the wounds earlier, so did not repeat it. She knew that Dolan would accept or not at his own discretion and she trusts his judgement.

Nodding her head, Lysa shrugs and remarks, "I am being aware of Zeke. He is being a good man." But she smiles and turns to regard Andelena, "If I was not being saying it earlier, that was being very good work finishing off that last fiend."

And then a pause before she takes a deep breath and begins speaking, "After the fight. I was being scanning the area just in case of there being any lingering evil. I was being sensing.... something. It was being feeling more evil than anything I have been being feeling before. And this was not being my first fiend to fight... But it was being leaving the area. By the time I was being finishing my scan, whatever it was was being leaving my range."

When that is finished, she laughs a bit, even if it is to make herself feel better. "Sunguard, I was being growing up and raised by a troop of mercenaries. My mother was being dying giving birth, and my da was being knowing only the life of a traveling mercenary. Believe me, I have been being hearing far worse than I wager you could ever be being saying." A pause and she adds, "And I will be being much the same way, when away from kids and nobles. Aye."

To the luck of those looking for him, Zeke is in fact in the main area of the temple and easily visible from the entrance. He is in fact just finishing his devotions in front of the main altar to Daeus, rising slowly to his feet and looking up at it with warmth before turning toward it. A younger acolyte immediately catches his attention, offering him a cup of tea that he takes gratefully.

A subtle sniff is given to the tea before Zeke drinks the cup down all in one go and offers the cup back to the acolyte who hurries off with a wide grin. Surely to tell their friends that they had gotten to interact with Zeke. He watches them run off with some amusement before turning his attention to the temple at large to see if anything requires his immediate attention.

"You caught that too." Dolan's tone is dark, and he shifts just a little to more easily offer Andelena his arm. Unusually for a man and a woman walking together, the Sunguard walks on Dolan's right-hand side, the same side as the artificial eye, but he makes no comment, doffing his hood once they are in the temple proper and out of the rain, thanks to the magic that shows only the skies above. "Damn near made me sick. I've got some ideas, but we'd better find out who that was."

"Glad that ain't bother you. I don't swear like that in front of my mama, neither," he adds to the conversation about rough beginnings. "But, even my mama said a demon in the house is reason enough to swear." Suddenly, a flash of a cheeky grin cuts across the dark look he wears, like opening a door with light behind it. "The Knight is still good to us. I swear He heard us out there, baby. There's Zeke." He raises his other hand - the one not supporting Andelena - in a wave to the sith-makar.

"I've tangled with these things before," he adds as he approaches. "I suspected possession when the kid challenged me, how many ten year olds would do that?"

"You, me, and the Knight, baby," Andelena responds to Dolan with a wide, wide grin. "I know we were heard. That, back there, was all the work of servants of the Knight doing what they oughta do."

Then her expression turns more sober. "Yeah--that man Bry and I saw--that probably had something to do with what you felt, Sunblade. We saw someone leaving. A man. And you're right, Bry. It was fucking fishy from the very beginning."

But she doesn't elaborate as they approach the senior Sunguard. She gives Zeke a wave with her free hand. "Hey Zeke!" she calls out to him.

Nodding her head, Lysa says simply, "I am being honored to have fought beside you both. You are being true warriors and guards of the Knight." she adds.

And then the group approaches Zeke. She was not attacked by the fiends, and did not get so much as a scratch, much to her chagrin. She wishes that it'd been her, not them. Every time things like that happen, she thinks that somehow, on some level, she has failed. But she'll never admit that aloud.

She nods to Zeke and reaches up to lower her own hood now that she is within the protected area. Other than that, she braces herself to attention to a degree.

The waving certainly draws the attention of the sith-makar who is already looking for anything out of the ordinary. He tilts his head a moment, then shifts his tail behind him in a little pleasure as he heads over toward the three. He stops just a touch shy, his green eyes nictating a little and then he looks them over more carefully. "Peassce on your nessstsss." He rumbles politely. "Thisss one sssenssesss that you have come for more than a sssocial call. A room then?"

"You didn't do so badly yourself, once they showed themselves. Peace on your nest, Zeke, and brightest of days. I'd say it's just a social call, but you damn well know better." Dolan's grin is sheepish, and he gives way to a convulsive shiver. "Damn shadow demons again," he explains. "They had the kid and the wife of one of the Sunblades killed in the attack on the temple, plus her butler." The sheepish look has gradually morphed into a black scowl as he speaks. "They're all safe and unhurt, but they got both me and Andie. Mind making sure there's nothing worse in there?"

"One of these days, we will drop by with just a nice present or something, no nothing, no demons, no bullshit," Andelena says with a small smirk. "Sadly, probably ain't gonna be one of those days."

She nods to Dolan's explanation of what all went on. "We fought hard. It could have been way worse, but the Knight was with us." There's a fond, fond smile on her face. "All of us."

Nodding her head, Lysa takes in the casual way the others speak to Zeke, and she herself relaxes her shoulders, as well as her stance. "Aye. They were being courageous and strong." she admits. "I am being hoping that there e being nothing corrupt within the wounds." A pause, "In the end, we may have been being earning a new recruit for the Sunblades in the process."

Zeke nods low to them and doesn't seem to mind that they're all here on business. He makes a gesture for them to follow him, and leads a familiar path into the temple to one of the rooms. It is a neatly appointed and fairly large area. Clean sheets tucked into a bed, a round table with two stools, and a small bedside table cleared of anything. "Thisss one will need the armor to be taken off; to better sssee the woundsss. Doesss any require assssisssstance?" He seems ready to offer such.

Dolan had followed readily enough, but at the mention of removing the armor, he lets out a breath and turns to Lysa, scratching at his hairline. "Um," he starts, unbuckling the weapon belt and setting it aside in the corner. "I don't think the Sunblade here got hit, but - look, me undressing is -" He's hesitating. "It ain't pretty, all right? Don't panic. I'm okay." He shivers again, and starts with the buckles on the armor. His own surcoat and breastplate is off in short order, piled atop the weapon belt. The leather cuff that disappeared into the armor proves to be strapped across his body - as if it's a restraint of some kind on the left shoulder.

Andelena steps forward to help Dolan, because he's the one who got hurt the most. It's just a little touch here and there with the buckles that he can't reach. "How's the shoulder feeling?" she asks him carefully, before going to unlatch some of her own armor to allow Zeke to examine her own minor wound.

Yeah, Lysa was planning to let Andelena be the one to assist her man. After all, she wouldn't want to get between the two of them for -any- reason. She smiles as she sees the obvious affection between the two of them.

But when Andelena is finished helping Dolan, she steps up and says, "Be being letting me help you there." So that Zeke can help Dolan while Lysa assists the redhead.

With Lysa assisting Andelena, Zeke is more than happy to provide assistance to Dolan, though Andelena has already done much of what is needful. Still, being a hand to put things in a neat pile for wearing later is a use that Zeke is not unfamiliar with. He does what he can, in short. In a low voice he queries Dolan. "Ssshe isss a new companion? Thisss one could asssk her to remain out-ssside if you are not comfortable." Soft-skins were not sith-makar in these matters, but he understands this much at least more than some of his kin might.

When the armor is removed, the nature of Dolan's injury is clear - a set of claw swipes look to have snuck just under the edge of the breastplate across his abdomen, leaving furrows coated with dried blood in their wake. It's nothing too serious, but it probably isn't comfortable.

"It's not bad," he answers, with some surprise. "It was bothering me before the fight, but by the end it was fine. I had other things to worry about." A quirk of a grin accompanies that. "I think it's getting stronger, too."

It's not until he answers Zeke that he hesitates. "Yeah. Sorry. She ain't need to see this." He waits until the Sunblade has stepped out to remove padding and shirt, to reveal a change to what is now familiar to Zeke. A gold ball is visible on either side of each of his nipples, and the structure makes it clear that the metal goes through them to hold them in place. The injuries are also much more visible now, flesh rather than muscle, and his skin prickles with chill once the shirt is off.

Andelena grins back at Dolan with the revelation about his shoulder. "You do great work with the Knight's blade, baby," she says. "Which isn't to say you don't do great work with the greatsword--heh--but it seems to cost you less when you use it. Maybe that's part of why the Knight was looking out for us out there."

She eyes the claw swipes with narrowed eyes. "They were tricky little fuckers, weren't they. Hiding in darkness like that. I know we've seen them do that before. I'm gonna have to up the ante next time."

Zeke waits for Lysa to leave before looking over Dolan's injuries with a keen eye. It doesn't take him long to nod. "Thisss one can sssee that they were caussssing damage to the flesssh with unnatural cold." He motions to Dolan's skin and then shakes his head in dissatisfaction before looking at Andelena's arm in the same scrutinizing way. "There ssseemsss to be no infection, no dissseassse. No ssspell on the woundsss sssave the unnatural chill. Thisss one will heal them then."

He waits a moment for their tacit permission before lifting his head slightly and touching his medallion. A pulse of warmth emits from the sith-makar, knitting together the wounds and rendering them little more than memories in his wake. He scrutinizes his work in the aftermath, eyes narrow before nodding. "Are you ssstill cold?"

Dolan just nods, and leans against the wall in relief as the touch of Daeus clears such things away. "Thanks, Zeke, and thanks to the Knight as well." He considers, then shakes his head. "Not like I was before." He looks over at the dent in the side of his armor - he seems to be fortunate to have escaped worse than a bruise, but even that is now cleared. "Andie's right. We ought to come by when we're not tangling with demons. It'd be good just to talk."

Andelena, living up to the display she gave when she staggered up all bloodied from the demon incident in this very Temple, appears to have been coping rather silently with her own wound, giving a soft sigh of relief when her own wound is healed. "That worked," she says. "Thank you, Zeke."

She looks at Dolan's armor that's dented, too. "I'll give that a look later and see if there's anything I can do," she says. "My time at the forge has to mean something after all."

Zeke's tail gives a gentle shift. "Thisss one isss alwaysss glad of the company of good people, sssuch ass your-ssselvesss. It would be good to sssee friendsss more often, but thisss one doess not mean to infringe upon your time. Thisss one knowsss that you are hunted." He seems at least somewhat pleased with how well their injuries have healed. "It iss good that there isss no lingering effect. Would you like a-help with your thingssss?"

"You're not, Zeke. You're a breath of peace in all of this." Dolan straightens up, and begins to get back into clothing and armor. It's torn and stained, but there is nothing to be done about that, really, and he sighs, once the shirt and padding are back on. "We are thinking high summer to be wed, if that suits you. We should meet to be sure we understand the rites." He picks up the brace, examines it with a sigh, and seems to be debating. "Yeah, I need it. It was a lot happier with it on."

"Always a breath of peace," Andelena agrees with Dolan, looking to Zeke with a smile. "I think I have wedding rites down now. But that just might be my wishful thinking. I'm pretty sure I'm not declaring anything that'll be binding in the eyes of the gods that I don't want to be binding, at least."

There's a wicked grin on her face as she looks at Dolan, but then she sees the way that he's looking at the brace. "No shame in it, babe," she says. "Sometimes--it is the way it is."

Zeke's tail is certainly saying something now the way it shifts back and forth, and he moves gently in to take the brace from Dolan. "Asss your mate sssaysss, there isss no ssshame." A healer's hand guides Dolan into the brace, Zeke's sure movements making it easy, and his gentleness making it no hardship to bear. "You have come a long way from where you onsce were Dolan. You ssshould be proud; your effortsss have led you to victory many timesss."

"Yeah, I s'pose." There's a heavy sigh in Dolan's tone, though, and he accepts the assistance to re-secure the brace, lifting his other arm to allow it to be re-buckled there as well. "I s'pose I'm pretty damned lucky I can fight at all, yeah? That I can even pick up the greatsword." Then why does he sound so disappointed. "I don't suppose it'll ever not hurt."

Andelena, at least, gets a grin. "You haven't yet promised your soul to a stick of butter. Take heart in that, at least."

Andelena practically cackles at that one. "Yeah, I have no use for sticks of butter. They get soft quick and you know how much I hate that." Another wicked grin is thrown back at Dolan there. "But I know it's rough, baby. You've worked really, really damn hard. I'm with Zeke on this one: rejoice in the victory, cherish what we've done and what we will do."

Zeke glances at Andelena, an odd expression of confusion on his features, but he lets it go as 'one of those things' before he finishes with Dolan's arm brace. "Thisss pain." He says, a claw very gently on the injured shoulder. "Isss a reminder from the Dragonfather, that you endured what would have broken otherssss. It exisstsss not to remind you of the limitationsss of your-ssself, but to remind you that you have onsce exceeded sssuch expectationsss of the flesssh."

He looks at Dolan very seriously. "Onsce there wasss a time where you were at the Dragonfather'sss very door, and now you are hale enough to bring Hissss light to dark plasscesss. Never doubt your-sssself."

With that Zeke lowers his hand, and nods. "Thisss one will let the other in if you are ready." He looks at the pair, and when no words against such are forthcoming, he opens the door and welcomes Lysa in once more.

Her back to the door, Lysa was waiting patiently. Believe me, there have been plenty of times during the training of a Paladin where patience was trained and tested for no other reason than to train and test it. So she was just standing out there, thoughts of the future rattling around in her head. For now, she was just considering the next upgrade she wanted to get for her weapon. Flames to represent the heat and light of the sun. If it could be made to look more like sunlight than licking fires, that might....

And the door opens, her head turning with a smile on her face, "Be being good to return?" She asks. Then she nods and follows Zeke back in. "I am being knowing that the Sunguard are quite good at healing. At the same time, I would be being happy to volunteer my Sunblade skills at it should the need arise sometime." she says to Zeke. "Please be being not hesitating to call upon me if you are being having need."

"Yeah, sorry." Dolan is once more wearing shirt, padding, and brace, tears and stains and all. He has not yet resumed the armor, and now leans against the wall, laughing at something Andelena said with a wicked note to it. "I'll take that to mean you want it when we get home, baby." A wink from the remaining flesh and blood eye, but he turns to Lysa. "I ain't want to scare you or nothing." How would seeing him disrobed be frightening?

He sighs, though, at Zeke. "More than once," he sighs. "S'pose you're right. Long as I can still do his work, I can live with it. And damn if I ain't do that."

"When don't I?" Andelena fires back at Dolan, still grinning. But she cools it a bit as Lysa walks back in, giving the Sunblade a little wave. "Hey. We're both good--Zeke just patched us up. Shouldn't be anything in the long term to worry about."

She looks at Zeke and Dolan again. "Zeke's got the right of it. Use it as a fire for the hearth, so we do His work better than anyone." There's a warm look in those steel-grey eyes as she looks at Dolan in particular.

Smirking a bit, Lysa shakes her head. "If you are being worried about my sensibilities... remember that when I was being twelve, I was the primary surgeon for twenty five rough and tumble mercenaries. Mercenaries who were being having tastes for the brothels after a good fight. I was being spared because my Da was being the Captain and nobody was being wanting to be being drawing his ire."

She shakes her head with a shrug and adds, "I have been being seeing it all. Believe me." Nope. She hasn't. But she has confidence for days!

"Now. If you are being finished with the technicalities of being healed proper... may we be being finding a way to be being getting some mead in our bellies?" she adds with a smile. "My treat."

Zeke looks at the pile of armor. then looks at Dolan. "Do you want your armor on, or ssshould thisss one have it sssent to your home perhapsss?" He doesn't seem to think that he's being invited to whatever drinks are being had. "Thisss one could deliver it, if you prefer." He understands of course, any caution that they might have about someone unknown knowing the location of their home.

Dolan hesitates, scratching at his hairline. "I mean, if you wanted to come with us, I can wear it and drop it off tomorrow," he offers. "If not, it can be dropped off. I'd be glad of your company."

He grins at Andelena, but the grin is short-lived, and he stares at Lysa. "You think so? Thinking you've seen everything there is to see is likely to get you blindsided by something that can send you home to the Sunlord before you knew what hit you." He hesitates, and draws in a deep breath. "There's a lot of shit out there that's worse than brothel fights. Let me show you."

Without another word, he turns his back to Lysa and grabs the tails of his shirt, pulling the back up with a hiss so that she can see at least most of his back. The left shoulder is pinned in place, but much of his back and the right shoulder are visible. True to his word, it's not pretty.

Most of his back, disappearing into the waist of his trousers and upwards to the top of the shirt, is a carved bas-relief of scars and missing flesh. The flesh beneath the skin has been carved away in a complex pattern that recalls nothing so much as a stained glass window, aesthetically pleasing in its way but must have been horrendous to endure. The window has a dozen cracks across it, across his back, wrought in what can only be whip scars. It is macabre art, the workings of a madman.

"Come with us, Zeke," Andelena says with a soft smile, looking at the Sunguard. "Even if you don't intend to drink--just being with friends is comfort enough, y'know?"

And then Dolan shows her his extensive scarring. The smile falls away, and the Sunguard looks far more sober than before. She looks to Lysa with a small nod of acknowledgment. "This shit can... get so much worse," she says. "So, so much fucking worse. I hope you never have to deal with it."

"I have been being seeing..." begins Alaryn in arrogance. And then she spies the injuries revealed by Dolan. Her voice trails off and she at least has enough self control to not gasp in shock. She does however, take a step back. "Be being forgiving me please." she offers softly, "I've been being having a habit of speaking without thinking. It has always been being a problem of mine."

"Indeed. Be being joining us." offers Lysa. "I will not be being trying to guilt you into drinking my mead even." she offers with a twist of her lips upward. "It can be being affording to buy since it is being a brew that I have already been being making myself."

She gestures out of the room. "But I will be being purchasing you whatever you are being wishing to drink."

Zeke nods low to Dolan, and then to Andelena. Like Dolan's mate he doesn't comment on Dolan's scars, but then... He'd been there when they were fresh and life-threatening. The sight of them now merely causes his gaze to darken, and then he picks up a piece of Dolan's armor. "Thissss one will accompany you then. Ssshare wordsss... and drinksss." He looks at Lysa. "Thisss one enjoysss tea very much."

Silence satisfies Dolan that either his point is made, or that no such message is ever likely to find its mark. Either way, he drops the shirt and tucks it back into his trousers, then turns to face Lysa again. "I s'pose it's time to find a place to drink. Come on, Zeke. You're more than welcome." A flash of a grin, and he looks down at the weapon belt, left with the armor, the picks up the sheepskin jacket and both cloaks. "It's raining, though. Bring a cloak."

"Let's get out of here and go make some memories, yeah?" Andelena says with a smile. "We'll find somewhere that they've got both booze and tea. Surely there's gotta be someplace in this city..."

Her own white cloak goes up, and the four Daeusites all filter out of the Temple in search of a place that fills that exact criteria. It doesn't take them forever, thankfully, and maybe that's more of Daeus's smile on all of them for it.