What Soldiers Do

[Vae]

Continued from here

"Oh... sorry."

It's said that a person often accuses others of their own flaws -- a symptom of the near-universal self absorption that is difficult to escape. An open ended question is interpreted to mean whatever is on the answerer's mind; in this case, Vaeltia was obviously asking him why he was touching her, and well into her personal space.

West stood awkwardly, squinting and blinking at the brightness and flash of sun across water. Cobalt blues and golden whites snow blinded him for a moment as he tried to take in their surroundings. A hand visored his eyes while he looked for witnesses. A year ago, where they stood was a cargo hold; now, only rusted detritus half buried in the mud was left of that vessel.

Satisfied no one had seen, he pointed at a dark mass of ugly blue streaked with greys browns --a cargo container-- a couple of hundred yards away.

"We need to move. Can you walk?"


Vaeltia looked around slowly, before attempting to unfold from the curled position she had put herself in. She wanted....she didn’t know what she wanted.

Where are we? Did it even matter?

He called me ‘little flame’...

The sky was bright, and it hurt she raised a mud covered hand to block the sun.

“Um...yeah,” She said as she tried to stand, the bruises throbbed as painfully as the first time she had taken them, and the scar felt raw. “I think.” Her face was stained crimson and she was shaky still, barely balancing.

She wanted to reach out to him for help, but he had moved away so suddenly...like she was poisonous. That hurt just as much.

Maybe...

“Where?” At least the pain was mostly top heavy, although if the evidence on her arms was following suit with what had happened years ago, then the rest of her limbs were just as bruised.


The mud and stink reminded West of Panama.

We covered ourselves in mud like this to sleep.

"Over there," he said, bobbing his finger. Maybe she'd gone snowblind.

"Cargo container... two hundred, two-twenty yards."

He licked his lips, feeling salt sweat.

We're all... this. So frail.

"We've got to move. This sun will burn us, fast. There's microbes in that mud. We're dehydrating," he continued, listing the merciless environment's immediate dangers. There was little there that couldn't be magicked away, even without waiting for her storm to die down and returning home -- but the lesson was about consequence.

"Adaptability Is Strength," he said, voice firming.

"Can. You. Walk."

Sometimes, it was difficult -- when teaching an Apprentice and teaching an Arrow came at odds.

[Vae]

Vaeltia followed the direction of his fingers, everything was so bright, completely different from Sacramento; which begged the question again. Where on Earth were they?

She blinked a few times, until she could see the container he was talking about. “I’ll try...” Her hand went to her side, the throb that had just pushed through the blond hurt, or at least the memories it dragged up did.

Do or Do Not, there is no Try.

“Yes, I can walk.” If she fell over then so be it, but it was another part of training. West’s hard voice helped, even if she was waffling on whether or not to trust it. Especially in the middle of nowhere, and she really couldn’t let herself believe that he didn’t know the conditions.

He was the one who brought her there.


West toyed with the idea of wrapping them in an Incognito spell, but didn't. Consequences were consequences -- on a more practical note, the sun overhead wasn't going to help anyone notice much besides two people walking.

"OK, let's go," he said, starting to move himself.

His boots picked up mud immediately, making his legs feel slow, and heavy. The disturbed mud gave off more of the dank, decaying odor and he felt himself breathing through his mouth to avoid it.

"Breathe through your nose," West added. "Lose less moisture."


Vaeltia nodded, Blood! It hurts.

Her hand went to her side again, she wasn’t sure if it was the actual pain or the memory that hurt more. And her feet were dragging, pulling up the muck with her.

The smell was horrible, hell she could taste what ever it was that was in the air through the back draft of her breathing.

Through my nose?!

She looked at him again, this time the confusion coming to full. That was when she tripped. She wanted to scream as she hit the mud again, but that would require an open mouth, and she didn’t want to eat the stuff.


West turned at the soft, wet sound. Half of him wanted to tell her that she didn't have to kill herself; the other half felt an odd surge of pride.

"OK."

He moved back over and squatted, wrapping an arm around her and rolling her into both and lifting. The nastiness of the mud was old hat -- easy to block out of his mind. Soft parts of her that he couldn't avoid touching, less so. There was a slight exhale of exertion as he lifted. West was exactly as strong as he looked, and it was lucky for them both she wasn't larger. The upside was, he had the constitution of a horse, and could carry her forever.

Two hundred yards is two football fields. Ten twenty yard dashes. Twenty first downs. That's all.

"Just... close your eyes. Try and sleep. Just an hour or so to ride this out."

It sounded inane, but he couldn't think of anything else she could do while they waited. He took a slow step forward, finding his balance with the added weight and the mud. Then another.

[Vae]

When she fell the fangs dug into her gums. Sending pain through her jaw and starting up the light coppery feeling again. Vaeltia whimpered quietly, magic may be fun, but there was nothing fun about this.

When he touched her, she stiffened.

What now?

Is he?

And then after a moment of struggle he was holding her, his hand pressing into her side. The whimper came again, looking at him in fear. He had touched her, that meant something; what exactly, she didn’t know.

“Sleep?” she wanted to laugh, she was shaking. He didn’t know, there was no way that she could sleep.

Even if she wanted to, but she couldn’t...but then she could, maybe.

If every time she closed her eyes she couldn’t feel their hands on her.


West was conflicted when he felt her stiffen and saw the look -- but the alternative was dropping her back in the mud, or making her walk.

So he did something rare.

He talked.

"When I was in the Army, my drill instructor used to say 'If it isn't raining, we're not training'," he said. It took an effort to speak, but he kept his voice even and soft.

"He had this philosophy that if we trained in the worst conditions, we'd be prepared for anything. Anything better than the worst would be easy. I think I spent a year muddy."

He paused, and kept going. "I Awoke young. It would have been easy to cheat in the Army... a spell here, a spell there. I didn't... and I think he was right. Right and wrong. Maybe, yes, prepare for the worst... but not all the time. It makes people brittle."

Twenty yards. Tenth of the way there

"After the Army, I did a stint as a cop. Well, not really. SWAT. That's when I decided Lehr was wrong. Teamwork is just as important as preparation."

He paused, looking down, seeing if she'd relaxed at all.


Vaeltia was fighting the midbrain mentality she was getting into because of her Master. There was just something about the entire situation that screamed ‘set up’ in her head. But... he wasn’t acting on it.

He was helping, and her bright blue cat eyes were starting to loose the touch of fear, and she was learning about him, about the why behind his actions.

She ran her tongue over the sharp points of her teeth.

He had been pushing the worst conditions onto me.

But there were reasons. At least the shaking was slowing, although the press of his gloved hand on her paradox-bruised side wasn’t exactly helping to make her comfortable.

She let out a small sound of agreement before turning her head to rest on him

Trust. Doing that much was difficult, almost painfully so. But she forced herself to face the memories, and to give in just a little.

[Vae]

It seemed to be helping. West blinked as a rivulet of sweat ran into his eye; the salt burned.

"Lot of Mages have died in Sacramento," he continued.

"When I was in Baltimore, damn near the whole city was wiped out. It's hard to forget that sometimes it happens because people just weren't ready. Or couldn't work together."

He sighed, frowning slightly.

"They'll talk about how we love violence, or don't care about the Veil... but they'll look to us when the war spills over into their libraries and coffee shops. So we have to be ready... to protect them." There were other, fundamental reasons, why he didn't care for Guardians or Libertines, but he wouldn't ever deny not caring for the way they looked at Arrows like dumb savages. Ultimately, the Pentacle was bound together by tradition and fear rather than common dreams.

"Have I been too hard on you, little flame?"

Maybe that's why Chris and Diana left.

Vaeltia listened, just listened.

The hand in her side was keeping her awake, or at least from completely relaxing, eventually the pain would over come her, it always did. She could feel the sun on them, the light touch of sweat as the places he was touching her felt just enough warmer that she could feel him.

Every breath, and the light vibrations from his words. She slowly reached out to the supernal again. She wanted to see his words as well, hopefully he wouldn’t drop her. It probably wasn’t helping that her own nimbus was still sharply surrounding her, it was something that she seemed to forget about at times.

Little Flame.... That almost started an entirely new round of red-faced Vae. “Not dead, jus’ stronger.” she said through tightly shut teeth.

Paradox was a part of learning, right? She had to experience it one way or another, it was just the other reactions that she was starting to have that was much more confusing. Feelings she hadn’t felt for almost six years.

But then West was opening up, it was a bit odd. Nice, but odd.


As they crossed the halfway mark, West felt the muscles in his arms tightening and going numb. He wasn't anywhere near dropping her, but the part of him that was always combat aware filed away the information -- if the need arose, he would be slower to draw and less accurate.

Be steel rather than iron.

For a few silent moments, West mused back on their meeting in the park. Magic was sacrifice, but also wondrous. There was a difference between strength and hardness. Strength bent; hardness broke.

"How about the next lesson be your choice?"

[Vae]

She smiled, “Ow...Um...Okay.” She carefully rubbed one of her bruised wrists. “I don’ know what I should be learning though...” she trailed off as a thought popped into her mind and she had to shift her attentions away.

Interesting how it meant that she couldn’t feel the pain in her side. Of course the uncomfortable confusion was also starting to show.


West crossed the three quarter mark with his eyes closed, waiting until he felt the sweat track down his cheek before opening them again.

Thirsty.

"No rush," he said. "Think about it."

Heavens knew he'd thought often enough about turning back Time. He'd already figured out how to pass messages backwards. It was the sort of thing that once you realized was possible, was frightening. Not only the implications -- but what attention it would draw, or what would happen if someone studied the weave and realized what you'd done. He resisted to shift her weight; both because he knew it would hurt her and that it would do his arms no good.

"Saw this Mage, Uriel," West continued. He spoke to distract them both, and his thoughts flitted backwards.

A small smile formed.

"We had a sniper shooting at us. He stood there, shielding us, catching each bullet and curving it back around at the shooter. One of the coolest things I ever saw. Wanted to learn to do it the second I saw it."


Vaeltia looked up at the man carrying her, the steady sounds of his walking was at least giving her a rhythm to breathe too. It didn’t stop the overpowering scent of decay from seeping into her nose, it was better than the paradox buffet though. Instead she concentrated on his words, as she continued to relax, except for small points where her mind kept moving back and forth, weighing each of her words.

“Turning bul’ets? I could see where that could be difficult.” she said, her teeth still clenched so the fangs wouldn’t cause more accidental bleeding. “but it doesn’t seem too hard...Actually, the whole teleportation thing is kind of cool, but that seems a bit advanced...”

But she knew that it didn’t matter what happened, she like learning from him, even through all the paradox and pain. She was letting him carry her.

“Could we start looking in that direction?”

[Vae]

"Mmmm... sure," West answered. There was a slight hesitance to it.

"It'll take a while. Disciples can ritualize Portals, then cast them on the fly. Teleportation doesn't come until you're an Adept."

And, of course, Apportation came at Mastery. It was a long path.

"I don't mind showing you -- Scrying and Sympathetic castings are always useful, especially for Arrows."

He slowed as they approached the container, stopping to push open the door with a muddy boot.

"Can you stand?"

Otherwise, he was going to have to figure out how to sit. He doubted he could hold her for another forty-five minutes.


Listening to him talk, it was more than just an Apprentice listening to her Master. It was hearing the slow reverb of his voice the tremor and the pulse of his tone. The sound waves as he shifted his mouth slightly to change the way air flow sounded. It was beautiful, a perfect machine.

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah I can stand.” Vaeltia said her teeth still shut after she shook her train of thoughts free. It was her side that was giving her the most trouble. That and the vertigo that happened the moment her feet touched the ground.

She held onto him, mostly for stability. “Thank you.”


"Yep."

It's what soldiers did.

He could feel his mouth drying out, and the shade of the container was suddenly relief from the sun. He lifted the edge of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his nose. It probably looked like a kid's version of a cowboy bandit, but it would help recapture moisture.

West studied the mud for a moment, choosing to squat rather than sitting.

"Can you sleep? If you can't, be best if I linked us if you're gonna talk."

He tapped his head and pointed to hers.

To be Continued