2022-11-21: If You Give A Mouse A Potion
- Log: If You Give A Mouse A Potion
- Cast:Solitaire Collier Xander Lovell
- Where: Outskirts of Halem
- Date: November 11th 2022
- Summary: Solitaire, near death, finds an unlikely savior.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire Collier drifts in and out of consciousness as she is pushed down the sewer's flow, clutching the head of her axe--the shaft obliterated by a well timed Ida PUNCH--close to her body. This might be it for her, now that the adrenaline is running out and the intense pain from her sounds is hitting her full on. 'Patience', the Demon Axe, twists his body even in her arms to grab ahold of sewer walls and adjust Solitaire's trajectory. They have to get out of Guild Galad as soon as possible before the ARMS dragnet catches them. She'd likely be thrown in jail for a long time. He'd probably be melted down or locked in a vault.
Solitaire eventually crashes out of a drainage pipe in the outskirts of Guild Galad.
Soli...
Solitaire coughs out some sewer water.
Soli, we have to keep moving!
Solitaire's eyes flutter open blearily as, in a crawl she starts dragging her body away from Guild Galad and into the Badlands beyond.
Hours later
Solitaire is covered in dried sewage water and smells about as bad as you might expect from someone who just went through a sewer journey. She is wearing a bloodied and torn Odessa uniform and the 'head' of Patience is strapped to her back. She doesn't have any footwear and she takes turns periodically hobbling and outright crawling across the Badlands, just trying to get... away.
She is covered in wounds. She has a thick carve in her back, two bullet wounds in different shoulders, significant bruises across her face--and that's all that can really be seen. The uniform might be hiding more.
Just hang in there, Soli... If we can get to Halim we might get out of this....
Solitaire, predictably, just focuses on moving.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
When they're not dealing with rounds of the curse digging into them, Xander is reluctant to wander off on his own for reason unrelated to birthday surprises. But sometimes he actually /does/ have tasks to fulfill. It'll be quick, he promised both Riley and himself, to run out and fetch some reagents while Riley dealt with food. One might supposed the Badlands aren't the best place to find alchemy ingredients, and one would be right, but Xander's become skilled in working from miserable foundations.
He's as he usually is, pale and eye sunken, the other patched, can't be bothered to button his shirt. And yet, somehow, he's not the most disheveled person out here today. Xander jerks his head up in alarm at the frist stray sound. His nostrils flare at a scent he used to hate, one that hits his senses stronger than the sewage.
...They're getting too close to the garden's completion for him to be thinking about easy pickings. He should leave. But before Xander can, he sees what he sensed and gives a start.
/Don't be stupid. You remember what happened the first -- and last -- time you tried anything since the curse./
Xander waits in the brush, hoping she'll pass. But when it takes all of one's energy just to move, it's a bit foolish to expect she'll be on her way and he can pretend he didn't see anything. Xander curses to himself and stands up. She's a walking risk of infection is what she is between her open wounds and means of escape for whatever the was escaping, and she may not be walking all that long.
"All right, what the fuck?"
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Honestly it's amazing she's still able to crawl.
And Solitaire is intent to keep on crawling. Even in this state. Her eyes flick towards the brush. As a mousegirl she is very sensitive to possible threats--honestly lets face it, probably HYPERsensitive. Extra sensitive. More sensitive than she really ought to be. Though in this case? Maybe she should be cautious? But she doesn't recognize Xander and someone who curses and asks what the fuck is unusual enough that she's not sure if it's a typical threat or not.
She raises a wrist and wipes blood off her mouth and looks over to Xander. He might be able to see the scars around her throat which might indicate why she doesn't actually tell him 'what the fuck'.
Can you talk? Maybe he can help...
Solitaire shakes her head and crawls another foot.
Soli, if he was out to harm us he wouldn't really have to interrogate us first.
"Mmn...." Solitaire sourly rolls over to her back so she can get a better look at Xander.
"Gotta... Get To... Halim..." Her voice is soft and hoarse. "You... with ARMS?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Hardly," Xander says of ARMs, before he can think if he should lie or evaluate what's going on here. If he weren't a serial killer, it wouldn't be a question, either. Maybe that part of him still gets tugged at, in scenarios like this. Whatever the case, /he's/ not the one in danger, is he?
He starts to approach, then stops hard, looking away and biting onto his thumb. It's possible to see his fangs. It's also possible to miss them, what with the agony and focusing on survival thing. No one would blame anyone that.
...That is a lot of blood. But the garden...
Xander pinches his eye shut, then rips a health vial off of his belt, tossing it Solitaire's feet without looking at her.
"Inject yourself with that."
Hey maybe that should be explained instead of just demanded? ...Okay, apparently he's not going to readily do that.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire isn't really bothered by fangs. She kinda has a slight Noelle-esque buckteeth thing going on herself though that's probably less creepy. But she IS a beastwoman so fanged people are closer to home than those who aren't. Though...
Xander doesn't seem like a beastman. Maybe he's hidden his tail somewhere?
Or maybe he's a Crimson Noble but Crimson NObles are pretty acceptable in Filgaia in the modern age so she just sort of decides to not immediately worry about it unless he turns into a monster and tries to eat her. Because she has something she's a lot more worried about.
She looks down at the health vial at in front of her and picks it up with a hand. She stares at it.
Looks like a health potion... Worth a shot...?
Solitaire shakes her head.
....What? Why??
"Needle..." Solitaire says softly.
...Okay, uh... Let me help.
Dark tendrils emanate from the axe on her back and deftly pluck the health vial from Solitaire's hands.
Stick your arm out...
Solitaire grimaces, shifting to he knees and smacks her face with both hands. This might be her greatest challenge yet but she can do it.
She holds out her arm and the tendrils go *poik* into the arm and empty the health vial's contents into the bloodstream. Some of the lighter wounds fade and the heavier ones look a bit less dire.
Solitaire takes a few deep breaths before looking back to Xander.
"........... Thank you." Her voice is still quiet even if she feels a bit shameful for having been in this position.
"Doctor...?" She asks. She sounds suspicious of this good turn of fortune. She is not someone who usually gets good turns of fortune.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander is bad enough with lies that if he tried to claim he was a beastfolk, he'd forget the whole having a tail issue. He could say he lost it? He wouldn't think of that until an embarrassing remark already passed. It'd be a whole Thing. Unfortunately, he /is/ a monster.
But he's trying very hard not to eat her. It... doesn't really work like that anyway.
When Solitaire complains about the needle, Xander heaves a sigh. "Gashes like that and you're worried about a /needle/..." he mutters, rummaging in his bag. "It won't be as effective --" He cuts off, abruptly looking to see tendrils of darkness crawling from her axe to administer the syringe.
"Uh." Xander stares, watching it happen, not quite sure he's seeing it happen, and wondering, if it is happening, where in the top ten list of weird things in his life it should fall. But the alchemy does its intended work, helping her heal at least some of her wounds and give her a boost to her survival odds.
She thanks him, and Xander fiercely looks away. "... Don't." He sighs again. "And not anymore. Don't get your hopes up."
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire gives a confused quirk of her head when Xander tells her not to thank him. She doesn't seem to get it. But on the plus side (for Xander, perhaps) she doesn't press the matter either. Solitaire doesn't recall this person in the Odessa files though--lets be real here--she barely looked at those anyway. But Patience doesn't seem to recognize him either so it's possible this really is just some helpful stranger.
She sits back on her butt, reaching into her bag, fishing through it for a moment.
Before she pulls out a bunch of coins--about 200 gella worth in coinage (stolen from Venetia though to be fair she threw them at her) and offers them to Xander.
"Won't get... hopes up." She promises before gesturing to herself. "Solitaire."
Hold on need to put a bandage on...
A dark tendril fishes around in the package and puts a bandaid on the injection site. It has a cartoon kitty on it.
"Can I tell him...?" Solitaire murmurs. She listens to the axe's answer before nodding once.
"This is Patience." She nods to the axehead. "Hurt too."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander thinks nothing of Solitaire going through her own bag, thinking it might be for her own medical supplies. Until she produces... is that gella?! He spins around, bristling and teeth bared.
"What? No!" That is /not/ what he meant at all! And it would be bad for either one of them right now if he got close enough to take it from her!
While he's baring his teeth in indignation, the tendrils provide the bandages Xander had once expected but /not like that/. The fight gets knocked out of his face, and Xander is left holding his head in one hand.
"Patience," he echoes, exasperated. He could use some of that right now. "I'm a not-doctor, not any kind of /blacksmith/. Unless your axe can eat medication, I can't help."
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
The dark tendril pats Solitaire on her head. Even with a deadpan expression she seems kinda used to this treatment from the axe...'s evil energy? Sure.
It doesn't seem like Xander wants thanks or payment in money? Is it not enough? Or maybe it's too much??
Solitaire frowns in thought. She reaches into her bag, digging in for a bit longer this time before finally pulling out a ....
candy bar. Still in its wrapping. Her hands shake as the enormity of this decision starts to hit her. She slowly sets the candybar on the floor (it is chocolat and has almonds in it!) and pushes it forward across the ground towards Xander. Her foot taps on the dirt rapidly as she looks between the candybar, and up at Xander, then back down to the candybar again.
"Patience... Can eat medicine." She promises.
'This guy is really hard to read, Patience...' Solitaire thinks to her companion.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander knows an evil shove, why not an evil axe?! At least the evil axe gives head pats. No, Xander takes that thought back, if the shovel tried to pat him on the head he'd have to throw it into the ocean.
Then Solitaire offers... more payment. Xander buries his face in his hands. "I'm not taking your mon --" It's candy. Chocolate, specifically. Xander's one eye lights up, a sparkle in life there that's been missing for the entirety of this conversation. It's dead almost as face.
"I'm not taking your candy either!" She's practically vibrating over having to give it up what the hell!!
In what may now seem like a completely hypocritical move, he hurls a small satched down at Solitaire's feet... a satchel with a few pieces of round, red candy. But also not candy: curative medicine that tastes exactly like candy. Cherry flavored.
It's as if there remains an invisible barrier between the two of them Xander refuses to cross. It's incredibly rude, he knows, as if he's acting like she could infect him. Whatever! Let her think that! He's trying not to leap over and stab a person in blood frenzy over here!
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire flinches as something is tossed her way instinctively but scootches forward and peeks into the bag. "..." Notably, Xander hasn't told Solitaire about the whole blood frenzy thing if she gets too close and continues to have no idea what's going on. Presumably, if she DID know that getting oto close to Xander would result in a blood frenzy, she'd probably choose not to do that! But that wouldn't be nearly as funny!
She's not sure how to take this. Is this just charity? If it's charity, why is he being so grouchy about it? Her hypersensitive instincts are yelling at her contradictory suggestions.
She should ask for more information.
"Why not?" She asks. "Is it... not good enough...?"
Maybe...
"Not sick." she tells him.
Want me to try talking to him?
Solitaire isn't sure. Patience doesn't usually like revealing himself.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Why not, she asks, and Xander only flusters further, like the question is annoying but also embarrassing -- for him.
"Because -- because you need that, don't you?!" Ugh. He growls and folds his arms, looking away. "Don't let people help you and then extort you afterward. I didn't even fix you up properly!"
There's a pang at that, but one he's learned he has to let go. There's a lot more medical attention she should be given right now, but she's better off getting it in Halim. That kitty bandage did nothing to mask the blood! Xander reaches into his bag and spritzes perfume on his collar, breathing in. Don't think about blood.
He gestures to the bag he tossed, refusing to look in axe and mouse direction again. "It's medicine. For your axe."
WHY IS THAT A SENTENCE THAT EXISTS NOW
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire's eyes narrow. "....Not letting you extort me!" She protests as Xander attacked her honor! But it does get her to snatch back that candy bar (for now, she might throw it at him in a moment as she (after sneakily palming one of the cherry flavored healing gummies) holds the bag over the axehead of Patience and shakes a whole bunch of healing candy at it.
"ROOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHH!!" Patience bellows as he transmogrifies into a massive draconic head of miasmic shadow that CHOMPS down on the healing gumbies, devouring them whole before just as rapidly it shifts back into the form of the axehead, the shaft rapidly growing out from under it in the vein of metal demon regeneration. When all is said and done, the axe looks almost as good as new.
"Patience don't be... Noisy." Solitaire complains, rubbing at her ears. "Who... Are you?" He's.. spritzing himself with perfume?
Could it be...???
"Crimson...Noble?"
She has heard stories.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Good!" Xander snaps back, like they're having an argument now and he's winning.
Once again it's that god forsaken ask that throws him, Xander flinching in alarming as it bellows out and devours the candies given with an actual head, which both makes more and less sense. He stares blankly as Patience grows -- regrows?? -- in a fashion Xander swears he's seen before but will not recall in the moment of SCREAMING AXE, EATING CANDY.
And... repaired by it.
"Noisy is... the least of it?!"
But it /was/ rather loud.
"Does it /matter?!/" he snaps of who he is. But she's asking and it'll get weirder to hide it, and it's not like it's even incriminating. He's being stubborn for no reason. "Ugh. I'm Xander. And no. I'm just a traveling alchemist."
Just nothing, but don't worry about it.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Does it matter? "How should ... I know?"
Xander assures her he's just a traveling alchemist, though. Solitaire sniffs her clothes and then says, "Had to... escape through sewer." a bit defensively like now she thinks he just doesn't want to smell her. That would explain the perfume. Maybe not the fangs but he's probably just hiding the tail somewhere..?
Normally Solitaire would probably be a bit hesitant to trust someone just because they healed her up but she does hold a similar belief in not letting yourself get extorted.
She is feeling a lot better even if her wounds haven't entirely healed. Se is able to get to 'standing up'. She doesn't approach, keeping some distance sensing that he doesn't want to smell her.
"Wanna be buddies?" She asks.
????
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Her response to that blindsides Xander. "That was rhetorical! Of course it doesn't matter!" But he already told her!
Another heavy sigh (does this guy breathe properly) and Xander goes through his bag again. "Certainly /smells/ like it. You should take this too, I guess." He tosses her another few candies. These ones are green. They taste like apples.
Again, he refuses to explain himelf, but they're antidotes, of a sort. Something to lower her risk of infection.
He's going to end up going back to camp with less supplies than he started with. Annoying. ... Not like he won't make it up with larger batches later. Whatever.
But once Solitaire stands again, Xander flinches, shifting back half a step like he expects her to bite him.
Her next question is as good as biting him. Xander gapes at her, stunned, and failing to find his voice for several moments.
"... /What?!/"
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
SOlitaire has no idea that she's stealing more of Xander's supplies. Haven't you ever heard of the story about if you give a mouse a cookie? She's always happy to get more candy (to a point, she's got her pride) but it's not the receiving of candy that's twigged her pride it's Xander claiming that her trying to repay him is some kind of extortion!
She gets more candy. She has some of the antidote and she does look like she's feeling better. It's not enough to staunch the stench of blood even if the bleeding has stopped because it's still all over her clothes.
Solitaire reaches for her uniform and removes the coat, tearing off pieces to make impromptu bandages.
"Tasty..." She mumbles.
She looks back to Xander. "Buddies." She tells Xander with exceptional patience. "It is... another word... for 'friends'." A pause. "Badlands dangerous." She gestures to herself. "Bodyguard."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Because she's not stealing! He's giving them out! Don't make him acknowledge that though this has all been stressful enough already.
And it's getting more stressful by the moment!
Xander keeps staring at her, mouth open, words not forming until they finally burst out of him.
"I know what /buddies/ means!" Intellectually, maybe not spiritually. Especially if this conversation is any indication.
He rakes his fingers into his hair and over his scalp. "I don't need a bodyguard. /You/ need to get to Halim and finish recovering. And maybe get away from whoever the hell did that to you?"
Solitaire could have been the instigator. Xander's not /unfamiliar/ with Odessa. A member of it asked him to join once. But it's none of his business, and even if it were, he's lost all right to judge people for the violence they get up to.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
He has a point. We shouldn't linger...
But it's rankling at her that she can't repay Xander. It might only be a bunch of candies but it's CHARITY and it makes her feel small in a way she doesn't care for even if she's not stubborn enough to die over it.
She takes in a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.
"Okay." She says. "Will find you... after healed up. Properly, then."
She pulls down her mask for a moment, staring Xander for a long moment--then pulls it back up, effortlessly swings 'Patience'--an axe that looks way too big for her come to think--up and starts hobbling on her way to Halim, faster than before.
"Patience..." She murmurs.
yes...?
"Maybe all nice people are grumpy about it?"
I think you just attract weirdos, Soli...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander shakes his head and sighs. "Yeah, sure."
He does not mean that. He thinks she'll probably forget about it or get caught up in her own business, or he'll get caught up in his, and they'll never find each other again. What are the odds they cross paths again?
Maybe about the same as trying to stab someone harmless only to find out they hold a fragment of godly power? Xander?
Solitaire stares at him, and he eyes her uneasily, and then finally she sets off on her way again... all little of her and that massive axe. She'll... probably be fine. He doesn't have to worry about it. He's not worried about it. Why would he be worried about it?!
And once the smell subsides, he lets himself breath back in deeper, growling into his hands.
"Whatever!" he says to no one in particular, and storms off on his own.