A cactus by any other name

Planting a cactus for Ghilio had seemed like a nice idea at the time. Tal was still hoping to get on the Flowerbirth deity's good side to try and bring a little warmth back to Halo, and what better way to make a good impression then with a plant?

A spiky, arid, kind-of-droopy-from-being-too-wet-in-the-swamp plant.

He reassured himself it was the effort that counted.

And maybe the suffering. Because he was definitely suffering in the stifling heat. He couldn't even cool himself down with sweating; the liquid evaporated the moment it thought about forming on his skin. So instead he grumbled. And bitched. And swore under his breath as he made his way over the sands, following the path he'd last walked with Deimos. Boreal glided overhead, basking in the heat like a scaly white moonlet as she rumbled down directions from above until the courier reached the well-shrine and knelt on the dry ground nearby. Retrieving the tragic cactus in its protective box from his Bag of Holding, he waited while Boreal used sharp, heavy claws to dig a suitable hole before planting the prickly friend and patting the dry earth back into place around its base. "Uh, Ghilio? I know it's not. Um. Well. I thought you might like something green so, uh. I hope you like her." Did cacti even have genders? Tal didn't know, but he'd started calling the plant 'Daisy' so hopefully it fit.

Anju

Anju

They don’t make it far. Riya is unharmed, but she would never abandon her sister, and though the wound is mostly cauterized by the electricity that had caused it, the pain alone is enough to slow Anju’s pace not long after her escape.

Riya’s worry is a pulling, nudging, pleading thing. Begging Anju for one more step, one more minute, just a little further. Already the Bernese-sized dragon has left the skies to plod alongside her sister, providing a sleek, scaly shoulder for the Dragoon to sag heavily against as they stagger side-by-side across the sands. Until Anju can’t go much further, and she sinks down with a grunt. Riya’s sharp, objecting croon is met with a sweat-laced brow that pressed to ivory scales. “Just…just a short rest,” Anju tries to comfort and assure, but Riya isn’t buying it. Molten gold eyes turn to the skies, out of fear of seeing buzzards or some human expression of faith it’s unclear, but that’s when she spots another dragon. Another dragon her size, which means another human. Only, moments later, the dragon dives and doesn’t re-emerge into the sky.

Riya slips away from Anju’s arm to rocket in a low glide over the sand, intent on her scaled sister more than the man she’s with. She flies swiftly to try and close the distance between them, draconic song emanating from her throat, a desperate and pleading thing that promises no harm but asks plainly for help, hoping it would keep her from appearing dangerous with her swift approach. Riya keeps a respectful enough distance away from the young man and his bonded, darting back and forth in clear physical indication of follow me. Anju isn’t far, likely within sight even if Boreal’s bonded were to turn and squint, and Riya has no other options.

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features

Boreal was an amiable dragon, and always curious about other companions. She had just gotten a good height to watch over Tal from above - and keep an eye out for landsharks - when she heard the song of her people and twisted in the air to see what might well have been a distant cousin of hers approaching. Riya's distress was obvious and Boreal winged over to meet her, crooning reassurance as she spiraled around the newcomer and then swooped down to command Tal's attention.

The courier's head snapped up from his prayers and he blinked for a moment at the double vision of two large, pale dragons aloft, but his own companion's feelings and insistence that he follow came through clearly and he rose from the sand to dust his knees off and collect his bag. "I'm comin', girl. What's wrong?"

At least no one had fallen down the only well in the area. He would have noticed that. But he quickly picked up his pace and trotted after the dragons as lightly and soundlessly as he could step across the shifting sands.

The woman was closer than he'd expected, and he slowed as soon as he got close enough to see there was something wrong. With Boreal rumbling encouragement, however, he closed the distance and reached out to pat the woman's foot with a cautious finger. "Uh. Ma'am? Are you..." Well, that was a dumb question and Tal quickly backtracked. "What's wrong?"

Anju

Riya, despite being the older of the two, takes clear comfort in Boreal’s soft crooning, and flies close to her aquamarine sister as she swoops down to summon her bonded. Too scared to do much more than linger close and ensure they answered her call for help. She only strikes out ahead to lead the way, immediately returning to Anju’s side in a spray of sand as she lands haphazardly. The Dragoon had ended up mostly on her back, curled sideways with her wounded side to the heavens, and the dragon shoved her way beneath to prop the woman up into something more like a sitting position.

Anju blinks blearily, her breakneck run through the desert leaving her disoriented, leg pulling away instinctively in a lurch of defensiveness that is cut immediately short by the twinge of pain it causes. Hissing out a breath of pain, she resigns herself to stillness, and tries to focus on the newcomers. Searching Riya’s heart and finding only reassurance that the two she had hunted down clearly meant well, Anju takes the risk of speaking to yet another stranger that day and lifts her tired head. “An Ascended woman was destroying a shrine in the Boneyard, one of the ones who attacked Stormbreak,” she grits out, and moves her hand enough to reveal the electric burn marks and dark blood on her brown skin; scorching and marring the areas of both forearms and the front of one shoulder. “Was stupid. Tried to get her to stop. Had to call for the spirits to help me out of there alive.” Her long dark hair had spilled out of its normally tight, perfect bun to spill over Riya’s ivory scales as the Dragoon’s head falls back against her companion’s girth, exhausted. “I was there to worship, I don’t have any first aid on me.” Which she feels awkward and ashamed to admit, feeling like she’s burdening this random man with the foolishness of her choices, no matter how random the encounter had been.

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features

He'd been afraid of getting stabbed or kicked if he'd surprised the woman, and he was glad he'd chosen the cautious approach when she jerked away. Boreal rumbled reassuringly from beside the courier as Riya helped her bonded sit up, offering her own vouchsafe for Tal's behavior, but he was already rummaging in his Bag of Holding for the basic medical supplies he'd started carrying after Sah had nearly gotten his leg bit off by a landshark.

Not far away from where they were currently, now that he thought about it.

A silent thought sent his pale dragon leaping for the sky again, back on lookout duty, as he listened to the stranger's words and eyed the bandages he'd found against the severity of her wound. "Didn't know there was a shrine here," he admitted, chewing his lip. Well... first things first, right? "Uh, I'm gonna try and wrap this around the um. Burny bits. Y'might want something to bite down on." After a moment's thought he cut a small piece of leather off the end of his belt and handed it to her before attempting to gently get a few loops of the long linen cloth around her ribs. "Boreal an' I can get you back to the Caravanseria an' maybe we can find someone who knows what they're doin'," he offered a little dubiously. "I'm not exactly a doctor..."

Anju

Riya sends a soft crook at Boreal’s disappearing back, grateful for the sentinel she acts as, and for helping in the first place. Anju - normally stoic and awkward - similarly projects her gratitude with her face as the stranger begins rummaging around in his bag, pulling out basic bandages swiftly. “Thank you,” she murmurs quietly as he hands her the leather, wedging it between her teeth and biting down immediately. It’s useful within moments as she grunts and her vocal chords strain and warble with pain as he begins to wrap around her ribs and up her shoulder.

Riya nudges her bonded’s cheek worriedly as the woman’s spine arches slightly against the dragon’s side, trying to keep still as the bandages shift against the mangled flesh agonizingly but needing to contend with the pain somehow. Waiting to respond until after that area is wrapped, the Dragoon lifts a limp hand to temporarily spit the leather back out to speak. “I know water’s scarce out here but do you have a little bit for my arms? Wrapping them if there’s still sand in the wounds could cause infection.” She gives a tight, pained smile, small but sincere. “You’re doing great. I can’t ask for more from an unprepared stranger.” Riya nudges her neck then, as if pointing out what Anju had just said, and the Dragoon averts her eyes with a grimace at her lack of manners. “I am Anju, a Stormbreak Dragoon, and this is Riya.”

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features

Tal was used to doctoring dogs, not people, and he was painfully aware of that fact with every wince and grunt the woman made under his attempt to stabilize her wound. His hands were less steady than they would have been on an animal, nervousness putting a little shake in his fingers that couldn't have helped either of them.

Then again, he also wasn't used to dealing with burn wounds on his team either. Sprains, strains, broken bones or bites from other animals, sure. But electrical burns? Never.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, I brought plenty!" Last time he'd had to carry his waterskin under his own twiggy strength and that had sucked plenty. Now, with his handy Bag, he had been able to bring more than enough for him and Boreal to share and he was extremely glad of that fact as he dug around inside the extradimensional space and pulled out one of the skins, waiting for Anju to hold her arms out before pouring the water carefully over them to rinse the wounds there. "Stormbreak? But..." He shook his head, focusing on the task at hand as best he could. "I'm Tal, a Halovian courier. An' she's Boreal," he added with a tilt of his chin towards the sky. "Never met a Dragoon before. D'you know a guy named Finn? Plays guitar?" A babble of conversation, awkward and choppy, but it was the only thing he could think of to distract her while he moved on to wrapping her arms.

Anju

He may be nervous, but Anju is too drained to pick up on it as she would have otherwise. With no magic in Stormbreak, she’s accustomed to healing slowly even with modern medicine, and while she’d never been hit with electrical attacks before she is adept at gritting her teeth through pain for the sake of healing.

Relief paints her pretty face plainly at his hurried answer, and she lifts her forearms for him to splash the water against. It makes her hiss, but the relative cold (what minimal chill remains from a hard-pressed flask in the desert) is more of a relief than she had anticipated, so the sting is minimal. “Tal,” she says back in her lightly accented voice, committing the pronunciation - and his face - to memory. The distractions are deeply appreciated, and though replying means forsaking the leather, the pain is lessened with the water enough for her to forcefully ignore it in favor of conversation. Not her strongest suit, but anything was better than focusing on the pull of cotton against gnarled skin. “And I’ve never met a Halovian at all,” she counters, distantly amused by that in a way that makes her wonder if she’s in shock. “Yes, I know Finn. Though not well. He is - or was - a member of our government.” Then he and October had moved around in the wake of the Tower’s destruction, and Anju had not bothered to keep herself apprised from there. “What is Halo like? The books we have compare our lands like they are antithesis. All I know is it is an icy-” Riya nudges her, breaking her off before she can call it a wasteland like the books had said. Anju tries to recover smoothly, but as a creature who is far from socially apt, it’s clearly fumbled. “Er, that it’s relatively inhospitable.”

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features

She was hurting and he was making it worse. Sure, it was so that in the long run she'd be better, but at the moment Tal just felt miserable as he did his best with what they had. A wounded dog couldn't tell him what hurt or help guide him through what needed doing, but at least he knew what to do with one. This...

He winced whenever Anju did, trying his best to be gentle but there was only so much that could be done without magic to speed things along. He gave a sharp nod to every answer she gave, letting her know he was listening even as a bead of sweat rolled down his face and dried before it reached his chin. One arm wrapped, he moved to the other as she asked him a question in return.

It was a good thing he was busy cutting the next strip of bandages instead of touching her, because his snort - part amused, part disdainful - might have jostled something painfully. "Inhospitable? Sure, if you're a Torcher," he scoffed, though it was a good-natured sort of rivalry with the toasty coast. "O' course we've got ice an' snow' an' more snow an' blizzards. But we've also got sunny days without a cloud in the sky an' the glare of the snow bright enough to blind any fool not wearin' goggles. There's the Sea of Glass that looks like it goes on like a dream o' forever sometimes, an' the Tundra with its rollin' hills that hide herds of reindeer an' moose an' luxere. There's the Fangs an' all their dangers and mysteries, but if y'don't like wild, wide open spaces an' bein' able t'see where you're goin'," - unlike the swamp or the jungle - "then the Citadel is blessed by Frey so it never gets too far below freezing anymore, an' it's a pretty big city, too!" Not as big as Stormbreak, sure, but nothing to sneeze at! Tal was clearly very proud of his home, his chest puffing out a little and his hands steadying as he talked, even while wrapping the bandage.

"Why'd y'come to a dismal, awful ol' desert like this t'pray when y'could have gone to one of the nice shrines there?" he asked curiously. Because what was tact?

Anju

There is nothing he can do but hurt her for the greater good, and she does not begrudge him that. In fact she is grateful, beyond grateful, and the sympathetic winces make her feel a little more human. A little more grounded. Reminding her she was more than the way Wessex had made her feel; small, useless, easily discarded. His humanity reminds her of her own, and cuttingly contrasts to the lack she’d seen in the Wraith.

He waxes on about his home, and Anju hangs on every word, a quiet woman to her core. But it’s more than that this time. The world he spins is a beautiful one, full of things the books had never mentioned, and she finds herself upset that they hadn’t seen fit to do so. “You should be a writer, or a storyteller. You have quite a way with words,” she compliments bluntly, as was her way. He’d certainly convinced her to at least visit.

His question isn’t unexpected, and as she holds out the next arm for him to care for she grimaces slightly. “Until recently I’d never traveled. Stormbreak was my home, I am her soldier, I never felt a call for the Wilds. But after the attack on the Tower, it was…too hard to be there and feel the emptiness.” It feels uncomfortable to talk about her emotions, especially with a relative stranger, but she is too cut-and-dry to leave out the reasoning. “I am Ludo’s follower, and the Boneyard seemed a fitting place to visit their shrine. I had already visited their Woods in the Greatwood.”

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features

Whatever else his words had done, it seemed he'd successfully distracted her from her wounds for a little while and Tal ducked his head against the flush of heat over his neck and ears, eyes fixed firmly on the arm he was bandaging as he mumbled: "Not really all that much. Just when it comes t' the Tundra an' my dogs." His home and his team; two things he loved more than almost anything else in Caido.

He certainly wasn't ever going to wax poetic about his sisters, after all!

Her own words brought back the fall of the Tower that Finn had told him about; all the lives and homes lost, the priceless belongings and memories, and the peace of mind of the survivors, all stolen away in a few minutes of violence and fury. He swallowed uncomfortably, awkward in the expression of grief and uncertain what to say that wasn't stupidly trite and utterly useless. The mention of the Shrine was a lifeline he seized eagerly, sneaking a glance at her face again.

"Huh. Maybe I'll go back an' check it out when it's safe again. Mostly I've just seen Ludo in Torchline. It's got a shrine there, too. An' it's not so stupid hot this Flowerbirth." The bandaging work was slow and literally painstaking, but he finally finished and looked her over a little helplessly. "You're gonna have to soak these to get 'em off," he warned. "Is there any other place y'need patched up before we get movin'?"

Anju

The heat is a convenient explanation for the flush of color on his features, as Anju is not particularly socially astute. Blunt, forthright with her emotions? Absolutely. Aware of the emotions of others? Certainly not. “You have dogs?” she alights upon the topic, needing further distraction for the last few layers of bandages over her throbbing forearm. Animals were always far easier to understand and appreciate for Anju.

A moue of distaste twists her dark lips in agreement. “I’d heard it was cooler, which is the only reason I would visit. It is far too hot otherwise.” So perhaps Halo is looking like a more enticing place to visit with each moment. As he pins the tail of the bandage in place, Riya helps shift Anju up to a cross-legged sit, and she grunts with the twinge in her shoulder; a far more annoying injury in terms of mobility than her forearms. “No, these were the only wounds. Thank you, Tal. I owe you a great debt.” And his help had not even reached an end, would not until they’d reached the caravans.

A slight grimace of reluctance creases her face. “Could you help pull me up? You can grab my belt,” she offers awkwardly. Riya is already prepared to help leverage her up, but she can’t brace her hands against her companion or the sands without some degree of agony.

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features

"Yeah! I run a sled t'deliver goods to the tribes out on the Tundra. Got a whole team that I've trained myself. They're very good," he added proudly, always happy to boast about his dogs. "The best in all Halo. My lead dog, Bella, is really somethin' special!" He beamed at Anju, always pleased to talk about his favorite subject even under a situation as bad as this.

He nodded vehement agreement that Torchline was usually far too hot, then sat back on his heels to watch worriedly as she sat up. The bandage twisted in his hands as he wrung it uncertainly, then gave a decisive shake of his head in the negative. "Nuh uh. You're not in any shape for walkin'. I've got a better idea." He didn't have a sled that he could pull out of his Bag, but he did have a rope and his winter clothes for when he returned to Halo.

He took Boreal's head between his hands and looked into her eyes, impressing on her what he needed her to find. The dragon harrumphed a basso understanding and took off. Meanwhile, Tal retrieved his cloak and began to cut some holes in the edges with his knife. "Figure we can set up a travois, an' Boreal and I can pull it. Dunno that it'll be any less painful for you than walkin', but it'll be faster an' probably a lot better than falling." He flashed her a crooked grin as he worked. "Maybe you can put in a good word for me with Ludo next y'see It, yeah? I need all the help I can get!"

Anju

The locations mean little to her, but she does manage a small smile at the eagerness he shows. “I like dogs,” she says simply. “Most animals really.” It’s why she’s friends with Lena despite their contrasting morals and personalities; Anju visits the Celestine on a regular schedule just to look at all the animals.

She is more than ready to deal with the pain of movement, which is why she is stunned by his unexpected, stubborn refusal to help her up. He is rather more intense in the moment than Anju had assumed he was capable of. Whether it’s that or the selfish relief that - presumably - another plan will be presented, she slumps back down against Riya to rest.

“Riya can help pull too,” she offers awkwardly, touched by how his offer hinges entirely upon himself and his companion physically exertion themself just to ensure her comfort. She is not very heavy, but the gesture is still meaningful. A tiny, amused smile flutters on the corners of her lips at his request. “I will try. But Ludo likes games and toys, if you didn’t know. Make sure to bring some to the shrine and it will help you all the same.” After a lifetime in Stormbreak, Anju is pretty well-acquainted with the likes and dislikes of the heralds, but she’s unsure if that knowledge is as widespread beyond their stone borders.

I didn’t mean to be this kind of creature
The brain, the heart, the color or the features