3:3 Sibling rivalry.

Apparently, Shesua certainly had noticed the two women leaving camp the night before.  The next morning, he bound them not only to Aleksei, but to each other, so that they formed a single file line led by Mi'ishaen and ended by Silveredge.  Shesua led Mi'ishaen on a strap far too similar to Niku's for anyone's liking, and Hophni, very much relieved to be physically separated from Aleksei, dropped back with Rafa and Niku.   He made pitiful attempts at conversation, but Shesua didn't have to shush him, as a relatively annoyed Rafa did the honors himself.

Leaving the path that would have lead the group farther north than the swordcaptain wanted to go, Shesua led the group to a swiftly-flowing river that he gruffly assured Aleksei was easier to cross than it appeared.  Rafa admitted with a sigh that the group had brought a small craft with them when they crossed with the cart, but that they had lost it, the cart, and their other two archers when they were first attacked by Semmites.  The embarrassment in his voice and face spoke to inexperience or ineptitude on the part of the soldiers instead of foolhardiness on the part of the commander, so the seasoned Dragonborn soldier merely nodded in response.  Instead of wondering why Shesua hadn't brought more guards, Aleksei began to think about whether his deliverance to Battlemage Ranclyffe was even of an importance high enough to merit it.  If Cormyr was capable of thinking Sembia's attempted repossession of Urmlaspyr only worth fourteen soldiers and a hastily promoted roadcaptain, it was likely that a condemned Dragonborn being dragged over to Suzail for scientific study might only be as important as seven men and an unfortunately obstinate swordcaptain.

The river wasn't very wide, but the water moved powerfully toward the Dragonmere at varying depths, so Shesua decided to make the seven foot Dragonborn useful.  With a warning that either Mi'ishaen or Silveredge would die if any escape attempts were made, he untied the bonds between Aleksei's hands and loaded him up with the bedrolls and packs.  Rafa was tasked with all the confiscated weapons, and Hophni was given charge of the provisions and health potions.  Rafa noted that it might be wiser to allow at least one of the females to help Hophni with the provisions, but Shesua upbraided him for disrespect.  After a pitifully terse apology, the males continued to prepare themselves for the crossing.

When they had all shouldered their respective loads, Shesua waded out into the water and led the group to the places where the river ran relatively shallowly.  Mi'ishaen and Aleksei followed strongly, nearly tugging Silveredge along behind them.  Niku paddled happily as though the strength of the river were a joke, but nearly cost Rafa his balance any time Silveredge seemed as though she would not be able to best the push of the waters.  Nearly overburdened with weapons, it took most of Rafa's strength to keep up with the hound, so he couldn't do more than call out to Shesua when he heard gagging, splashing and sputtering behind him. 

The swordcaptain was disappointed, but somehow less than surprised to hear Rafa's call.  He swam back quickly to take some of the load off Hophni, leaving Mi'ishaen to attempt to get to the shore without knowing where to move without getting swept away.  She, instinctively heading for the powerful roots of some nearby trees, managed to lead Silveredge and Aleksei to the other side without incident.  Niku paddled after Silveredge resolutely, practically ensuring that Rafa would move in the direction Mi'ishaen was going. 

Shesua grabbed the first two packs he could hold off Hophni, but left the Human behind to continue to struggle.  Once Rafa had dropped the weapons on the other bank and untied the strap between himself and Niku, he threw himself back into the water to physically lead the Human to the shore.  Aleksei put down his load and held Niku back from dashing back into the river, so the hound bounced on the banks, barking encouragingly.  Meanwhile, Shesua, who easily reached the shore, discovered that one of the packs that he'd saved held food that was already half-soaked.  With a groan, he realized that most of the health potions that they had just purchased in the two towns were in the packs closest to Hophni's body, submerged with him, and thus probably ruined by dilution of the river water.  When Rafa and Hophni managed to make it to everyone else, Shesua accused Hophni of trying to ensure his own survival without having reguard for any of the others in the group.  Hophni looked to Rafa, who merely shrugged and walked away from commander and compatriot alike with the excuse that both the hound and Aleksei's hands were free.  Hophni was unable to stand up to Shesua alone, and wound up having a few of the ruined potions poured over his head by his enraged commander.

A few hours after they got moving again, the group hit a heavily wooded area, and instead of a march, the pace became a civilian amble.  They covered much less area than they would have with a day's hard march, and when the light of the sun disappeared completely, there was still so much tree coverage that the light of Selune, trail and all, hardly met the ground.  They were forced to make camp, and Shesua ordered that everyone who was not fully in health receive healing.  This was easier said than done for Mi'ishaen, who drank an entire health potion to no apparent effect.

"It might be that Shesua gave you a river water potion," Rafa whispered disgustedly, forcing himself not to look toward the sheepish Hophni.

"No, this is fury of Mishka," Aleksei laughed.  "Her body's acceptance of healing is overruled by disgust with situation."

"The river wasn't easy to cross, and for a moment, you led us," Silveredge soothed, sitting behind Mi'ishaen and putting her head over her shoulder.   Mi'ishaen, who recognized the position, managed to crack a smirk.  "Perhaps it would be good for you to meditate- clear your spirit."

"And how does m'lady believe should I do that?" Mi'ishaen asked, only half joking.

Silveredge sat up straight and wrapped her legs over Mi'ishaen's thighs, resting her ankles on them.  Mi'ishaen's natural stiff-backed posture suddenly softened just a bit, as though the Tiefling realized that she was being difficult to guide.  Encouraged, Silveredge put her bound arms over Mi'ishaen and into her lap, so that the two were as close as they could possibly be.

"Alright, I'm uncomfortable," Mi'ishaen lied with a genuine smile.  "Now what?"


"Master Aric would have us sink deeply into our souls," Silveredge said calmly.  She inhaled deeply after she finished speaking, and Mi'ishaen faced forward, then did the same.  Both women released their breath in a low, steady stream, but after a few beats of shared silence, Mi'ishaen turned her head back over her shoulder.

"That makes no sense to me," she whispered.  "What does he mean by that?"

"He requests that we silence all the outer and inner callings on our beings, making ourselves one with the emptiness of our thoughts.  We thus become neither heavier nor lighter than air," Silveredge replied.

"By the hells," Mi'ishaen retorted, allowing her body to slump even farther forward.  "Sounds like there's probably a whole training session for that bloody nonsense, and it's not for people like me."

"I also am thinking that meditation is good," Aleksei chimed in.  "My blade father is teaching me of what I am saying to you before, the meditation on the killing."  With this, he sat down and contemplated Rafa, who was sharpening his sword.  Hophni, meanwhile, got up from his place on the far right side of the fire to sit on Rafa's left side.

"I mean no offense to your father, but that sounds... counterproductive," Rafa interrupted as he looked up from his sword.  "Why would anyone meditate on people they've killed?"

"Without the consideration of these people's families, their friends, their homeland, the way they are fighting and their faces, there is no understanding, no growing," Aleksei noted as he looked into the heart of the campfire.  "There is no remembrance of kinship between everything that lives.  There is only being murderer."

"That's... a very religious... monkish, actually... thing to say," Rafa mused.  "But I'm afraid I can't imagine you being a monk, ser."

Aleksei threw Rafa a curious smile as his only response.

"I can try to remember how those slavers fought," Silveredge noted, relaxing her arms without unwrapping herself from Mi'ishaen.  "But it was so quick, and random-"

"Well, I can't," Mi'ishaen sighed deeply, feeling Silveredge's body move slightly with her own.  "And I can't remember their faces at all."

"Me neither," Rafa shrugged.

"This is because you are fighting while you are asleep," Aleksei counseled, smiling as he remembered the old lesson.  "When you are awake, your eyes see only the steps of the death dance, and your body sways with it, filled with the song in the blood."

"Oh, gods, Aleksei!" Mi'ishaen charged, flopping herself backward into Silveredge so hard that both women nearly went to the ground.  "You can't tell me you process all that mystical nonsense while you're sopping drunk."

Aleksei chuckled as he considered his bound hands.  "Sometimes, I too am asleep.  But, I am more awake when I am drinking, and more asleep when not."

"Unessmus, Hophni, stop fraternizing with the prisoners," Shesua commanded from the left side of Mi'ishaen and Silveredge.  "We are no friends to them."

"Sir, yes sir," Rafa replied distantly, his eyes wandering someplace else for a few moments. 

Hophni immediately got up and walked back to his place on the right of Aleksei.  Aleksei, for his part, looked up from his hands to Silveredge, whose gaze had also momentarily strayed.  When she felt his attention upon her, she turned carefully to him, searching his look with concern.  Without a beat between this and her decision, she took her arms up over Mi'ishaen and held out her wrists to Rafa.

"Will it please my lord to draw blood?" she asked, her urgency moving powerfully in the passive request.

"No, of course not," Rafa shot back, confused.  "What are you-"

"Bahlzair," Aleksei breathed, looking into the nearby tree tops.  "Please also to cut me free, that I may physically turn him away."

"What are you on about, the pair of you?" Rafa asked with a clear note of alarm.  "Who's this Bahlzair and why would she be here?"

"Never mind expecting the captive to explain himself, Unessmus," Shesua said flatly.  "He and his wives are all mad.  We cut them free, they're liable to take the camp apart themselves- you see how they even fight each other."

"He's male," Mi'ishaen finally corrected, confused.  "Why would you think-"

"I tell you, cut me free," Aleksei repeated.  "Bahlzair is wanting blood- a fresh fight, chaos and your death.  Things like this are pleasure to him."

"Well, I can't blatantly disobey an officer," Rafa frowned, his eyes flitting between the trees and his commander.

Silveredge contemplated her hands for a few moments, then scraped the inside of her left wrist with her right hand.  Drawing blood after the third scratch, she got to her feet and touched blood to the ground in a tight dashed circle, avoiding Aleksei.  But since she and Aleksei were still attached by rope at their hips, she could only go as far as the strap between them would allow.

"Stop at once," Shesua demanded, getting up and putting his hand to the hilt of his blade.

"Don't you dare threaten us," Mi'ishaen replied, her eyes narrowing.

Silveredge stopped moving, closed her eyes and breathed in, listening to everything while creating a silent space within herself.  Just as Shesua began to cross the camp toward her, she dropped her head.  Aleksei's trunk contracted slightly, as though he had been pushed away by a much stronger creature than he, and glorious black wings momentarily appeared at Silveredge's back with their full span extended.  Hophni jumped to his feet, but when Rafa glared at him, he didn't respond any further.

"By Baator," Mi'ishaen spat, jumping to her feet at once.  "What was that?"

"A ward," Silveredge replied with a touch of embarrassment.  "Against evil."

"This... is wise... Shadow Child," Aleksei managed, catching his breath.

Rafa thought quickly, then unrolled the confiscated weapons.  Without a word, he cut the women's ties to Aleksei and put Mi'ishaen's fanged daggers into her hands before Shesua or Hophni could even respond.

"What are you- you're arming them again!" the swordcaptain finally sputtered after Rafa began attempting to untangle Silveredge's spiked chain.

"With respect, Commander," Rafa began,  "the last time we ignored the warning of the Dragonborn and his wives, we walked dead into an acid trap that I myself should have identified at ten paces.  Tymora clearly favors them, and I want to live."

"I got the perimeter; you coming, Edge?" Mi'ishaen began as she cut the bond between herself and Silveredge with one of her daggers.

"Better that I take the center, so please our lords," Silveredge replied, noticing the shortening of her name to a tag.  "My weapon has reach."

"You give a fig for what they say?  If you want center, take it," Mi'ishaen commanded, shamelessly stripping off her dress in favor of the armor that had been in her confiscated pack.  Hophni watched her metamorphosis with a strange, childlike wonder.  "Armor?"

"No," Silveredge admitted as she watched Rafa undo Niku's strap without cutting it.  "Hampers spells."

"Fine.  Rafa?"

Just as Rafa looked up to respond, Shesua stepped forward and smacked Mi'ishaen's still-bare shoulder with the flat of his sword.  "Who commands here, you or I?"

Neither Rafa nor Mi'ishaen had time to reply before a suddenly vengeful Aleksei stood up and moved to elbow the swordcaptain in the face. Rafa blinked, not wanting to draw his sword against the Dragonborn without witnessing an unprovoked aggressive move from him.

"Never will you do this again," Aleksei breathed, his words striking the warm air as visible puffs of chill wind, "or I promise you, you will answer me."

"Commander, with respect," Rafa offered from behind Aleksei as he got to his feet.  Niku padded away from him toward Silveredge, at the center of the camp.  "You hit the male's wife.  While she was top-naked-"

Just as he spoke, a glistening stream of noxious arrows soared from the right side of the camp toward him, slashing at his uncovered face and soaking into his armor.  Surprised, Rafa gagged as he began looking for whatever trap he believed he set off.  Hophni, meanwhile, was visibly stranded between helping Rafa and defending Shesua against Aleksei.

"No trap; fresh spell," Silveredge pronounced from her central location.  "From my left, left!"

Niku shot off like an arrow, eyes and ears alert.  Mi'ishaen finished buckling her armor and looked in the direction the dog had gone, frowning with the attempt to think of Bahlzair's next move.  Without any idea of his motive, she quickly remembered that he seemed pleased to attack anyone.

"This is his challenge," Aleksei snorted, his tone wavering between warning and threatening.  "You do not know how to answer him.  Free me, or you will die."

"I fear neither spells nor threats," Shesua responded, bringing his sword between the Dragonborn and himself.  Aleksei closed his eye and turned his head to his right while exhaling deeply.

Silveredge noted Hophni's utter dismay and decided to prevent him from scaling a tree only to possibly find the assailant there.  She moved from the center of the camp to bodily force the trembling archer into the protective circle she'd made, then turned to Rafa, who had not moved since the acid arrows assailed him.

"Truly I may destroy this place," Aleksei admitted.

"Then why should I free you?" Shesua shot back, his voice thinning into a hissing whisper.  "You are a soldier, and know what it is to take captives.  Would you do as you are asking me, were I such a danger?"

Mi'ishaen successfully caught sight of the elusive dark Elf before Niku did, but made the mistake of trying to climb the tree in which he was perched.  As she bounded for the first low branch of a nearby tree with the intent of swinging herself up to him, he unleashed a sticky mass of threads at her that she wasn't fast enough to completely avoid.  Caught by her tail and one hoof, the Tiefling lost control of her upswing and flopped upside down so that her back was instantly stuck fast in the same web.  The bough on which she'd swung came down with her, but only tore away enough of the web to leave both arms and one leg free.  Niku ran around in a large circle for a full minute, distracted by the attack.

"Where is my brother?  Did you find him?  He will look like midnight and smell like burned eggs," Silveredge reminded, looking up from Rafa momentarily.  The hound shot off into the trees, pausing at times to put his nose to the ground.

"Brother?" Rafa managed, completely unheard by anyone but the Shadar-kai in front of him.  Frowning, she refocused on him and poured more of the precious health potion down his irritated throat.

"He is my answer, as I am his," Aleksei muttered.  "I know why is he asking me to fight him now, when I am least ready to answer his call, but I must not let myself fall to the power that coos so sweetly in his ears."

The unmistakable silver pact dagger sung across Silveredge's turned back, headed for the cowering Hophni.  Mi'ishaen, who could do little else but watch, saw the thing stop midair at the border of Silveredge's ward, gleam an inexplicable crimson, then drop to the ground.  Silveredge shivered at the touch of the poison on the thing, but managed to keep working.  Niku gave up tracking Bahlzair and soared back to her, sniffing at Hophni's packs in the attempt to find more good potions.

"Hey-" Mi'ishaen called.  As she did, the blade seemed to pick itself straight up, then fly back toward the direction from which it came.

Aleksei noticed the gleam from the corner of his eye and turned to try to see Bahlzair, but Shesua immediately moved in front of him.

"No," Shesua said flatly, holding his sword at the ready.  "You are not going anywhere out of bonds or my sight.  For all I know, this is a coordinated attack, planned to set you free.  I'm not having it, ser."

Mi'ishaen finally won herself free of the web with her wriggling, and fell on all fours to the ground.  As she picked herself up, she noted an unrecognizable male moving toward the area with a drawn bow and a crouching animal of some sort.

"Edge!" she called at once.  "Company!"

"Niku, strangers!" Silveredge called, again looking up from Rafa for a few seconds.  When she forced her blurring eyes to refocus, she finally decided the Rafa's wounds would require the use of the entire health potion.  She sat him up on a tree and began to try to convince him to drink it on his own.  Meanwhile, a streak of light tan and red shot away from its search for potions to fly beyond the Tiefling.  Surprisingly enough, the animal accompanying the figure held its position even as the hound ran toward it, barking all the way.

"I am more than able to free myself, but you are not wanting to see this," Aleksei managed, a growl not far from his voice.  "Too cheaply are you selling the lives of those following you."

"Who are you to tell me this?" Shesua hissed.  "You try your hand at distracting me- you shall not prevail, though you have the tongue of a demon."

"Beware," Aleksei warned as he rolled some stiffness out of his neck and shoulders.  "It is respect that speaks to you, not inability."  He took a single step toward the swordcaptain before an arrow split the air between the two males, missing the leathery side of Aleksei's chest by inches.  Shesua assumed that Hophni had finally found courage enough to do his job, and thought nothing of it, but Aleksei paused to smell the air around him.

The silver pact blade split the air again, intended for Rafa, but deflected when Silveredge moved into its path.  Instead of striking the side of the guard's neck, it sliced the length of Silveredge's lower arm before losing its momentum and falling in front of her.  Feeling the effects of Bahlzair's poison much more keenly this time, Silveredge lost her balance and toppled from her kneeling position to the ground.  Rafa, powered more by the desire to get his healer out of harm's way than the effects of the actual attempted healing itself, managed to drag himself and Silveredge into the protective ward she'd drawn.  The blade picked itself up and flew back the direction it came again, and Hophni at last darted out of the protective circle, only to have Mi'ishaen run to grab him.

"Where the hell is your weapon, you useless sack of rat shit?" she spat, annoyed.  "There IS an archer this time!"

"Stand down- this instant!" Shesua demanded, realizing that he was practically alone against Aleksei.  "I'll run you through where you stand!"  But the Dragonborn merely turned toward the direction from which the pact blade had come.  Shesua moved to put his sword edge directly under Aleksei's throat, and Aleksei watched as a recognizable figure fell silently from a bough a few trees behind the swordcaptain.

In the mind of the Dragonborn, no one in the world existed outside of he and the figure, and he sighed deeply as the ache in his chest throbbed miserably within him.  "Do what you dare, but I will answer you."

The world danced around Silveredge's glazing eyes with a sick green cast, but the bauble above her right wrist seemed to somehow dig an extra inch into the arm, sending an agonizing pain up her entire side.  She opened and closed the hand slowly as she looked into its cobalt center as though enchanted by it.  Rafa pawed through Hophni's bags, but found only ruined health potions.  Worse, Niku immediately deserted whatever confrontation he'd enjoined, bounding toward Silveredge as though she'd called him.  A smaller, leaner dog ran into the camp after him, only to be turned upon once Niku arrived at Silveredge's side.  He pounced on the leaner, shorter creature, keeping it away from Silveredge with frenzied snaps and slashes.

Mi'ishaen pushed Hophni toward the direction from which Niku had run, and as she lifted her gaze to show the reluctant guard the place where she'd seen the figure, she was struck by the clear sight of an intense eyed, dark brown haired archer.  The male was focused on a point at Mi'ishaen's right, and the Tiefling didn't want to think twice about what he could be aiming at.  She hopped up, turned in the air, and kicked at Hophni with both hooves, leaving herself to fall straight down onto her outstretched legs and folded arms without being able to see whether her hunch had been correct or not.  When the offending archer's dog was suddenly distracted enough to allow herself to be grabbed by the back of the neck and thrown back into a tree, however, Mi'ishaen felt that she'd gotten a satisfactory answer.

Most useful he's been all day, she thought to herself as she surrendered her weight to the ground for a moment.

As Aleksei turned at the dull thud of Hophni's body hitting the ground, the dark figure moved with an easy, feline grace behind the swordcaptain.

"No!" a male voice hollered from beyond Mi'ishaen, prompting Aleksei to search the area for its source.

And Bahlzair quickly covered Shesua's mouth with a firm hand, bringing his re-poisoned pact blade across his exposed neck like a concert level cellist would draw her bow across her instrument.

The archer left his position to run down to Hophni's body, checking for life.  Mi'ishaen finally sat up and noticed that the arrow clearly intended for Aleksei's shoulder was just low enough to split the middle of Hophni's skull.  She couldn't help but laugh sharply, gaining the archer's furious glare.

"What's funny about this?!" he spat in an anguished voice.  "This man-"

Aleksei listened for the cessation of Shesua's pitiful gagging, then turned himself around, staring into Bahlzair's triumphant eyes.  The dark Elf held Shesua's tortured face next to his own as tenderly as a lover would, a pleased smile slowly spreading across his face.

"You are making him die much too quickly," Aleksei chuckled, a bitter smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.  "It cannot be that you are killing me this way."  With a deep grunt, he snapped the ropes that held his wrists.  Bahlzair allowed Shesua's body to finally slide free of his arms, but Aleksei didn't waste a moment looking at it.  As the shocked archer set another arrow from his position beside Hophni, Aleksei launched a powerful unarmed assault against Bahlzair.

"Which one are you going to shoot?" Mi'ishaen dared, rolling over and preparing to attack.

The question gave the archer pause, and in his moment of indecision, his gaze caught the blood red eyes of the dark Elf.  Seconds afterward, a barrage of foul arrows hissed toward him- though most of them missed him when he slacked his bow and ducked, the ones that connected burned like liquid fire on his skin.  Mi'ishaen waited around him for a few beats, mentally comparing his response to Rafa's as though she'd been an acolyte of the Bone College.

The fight was short, but charged- Bahlzair got his pact knife slapped away from him, sustained multiple punches, and was at last victim to a thunderous head butt.  He responded to the last move by spitting in Aleksei's right eye, but as the Dragonborn released him and dropped to one knee, he noticed Mi'ishaen running toward them both.  Figuring she was merely over-concerned about Aleksei's one functional eye, he prepared to summon his pact blade to his hand.  Mi'ishaen wasn't thinking of Aleksei's eye, however.  She had merely became curious about a permutation of the move she'd just tried on Hophni.

Vaulting off Aleksei's back, Mi'ishaen pushed her body sideways as she aimed her hooves for Bahlzair's face.  The move connected beautifully, though a bit off target, and the dark Elf crumbled to the ground with his arms wrapped around his struck chest.  Mi'ishaen again landed fully stretched out and had to roll over to get up.  Aleksei, very much like Stone, hadn't been bothered at all, but his eye was too irritated to even re-open the first lid.  Bahlzair pushed himself to stand as quickly as possible, then nodded his bleeding head in encouragement as a slew of sticky threads appeared at his hands and threw themselves at Mi'ishaen.  They pushed her back to the nearest tree and pinned her there, with her back to the entire group, but she had an excellent view of Bahlzair disappearing into the trees beyond the nearly-destroyed camp.

"What are you- what the-" she called after him.  "Where are you going?!?"

"Does anyone need healing?" the archer asked, getting to his feet with difficulty as he attempted to understand what he'd just witnessed.

"Here," Rafa croaked.  "That beast's poison's been almost the end of this female."

Niku whined at Silveredge's feet until the archer staggered toward her- then he jumped to his feet and began growling like a savage beast.  The archer's dog, who had suffered one pounce too many, attempted to get up to counter, but the archer reached over and pushed her hind joints down with his hand to compel her to sit.

"Knock it off, Valeria; he's only worried about her," he said as he put his other hand out to Niku.  "I'm not going to hurt her, boy.  I want to help- good boy, now.  What a good boy- loves mommy, yes, he does.  Good boy loves mommy."

Silveredge didn't move a muscle, but the hound suddenly stopped growling.  He padded carefully forward, sniffed at the archer, then sat down and put his head on his paws as he watched the two Humans slowly move the Shadar-kai's limp body to a treatable position.  The archer produced a health potion, and Rafa didn't think to ask any questions about it.

"Aleksei, how's your eye?" Mi'ishaen asked, trying to wriggle her way free of the web.

"It is very much burning," Aleksei replied.  "I am thinking soon it will be lost, too."

After ensuring that Silveredge was swallowing the health potion instead of just letting it pool in her mouth, Rafa pushed himself to his feet.  Grabbing one of the health potions that had been thinned by river water, he slowly made his way to Aleksei and got it into his hand.

"May not heal it," he managed with a tight chuckle, "but at least it'll stop the burning, won't it?  Here- lie flat."

The green mists, which had almost overtaken Silveredge's sight entirely, began to dissipate, and she felt the remains of a slightly-sweet substance in her mouth.  Her eyes widened in horror, and an unknown male face smiled widely before her.

"The...last..." she whispered, finding her throat sticky and unresponsive.

"No- tell her no," Rafa called as he quickly doused Aleksei's barely open eye with the watery potion.  "Our last proper health potion was the one she used on me.  Where's Mi'ishaen?"

"Over here," Mi'ishaen groaned.  "Stuck to this damned tree, or I would have been down there lending a hand, don't you think?"

"You?  Help anyone?  That'll be the day," Rafa muttered, watching Aleksei's second eyelid rapidly open and close.  "Gods, but that's scary, ser."

"This is part of being now more kin to dragons than to Humans," Aleksei grunted in a pained voice.  "It is not much feeling better, but I am seeing kind of grey shapes.  There is maybe still little healing in the potions."

"Right; I'll get another.  Thank Tymora they're good for something," Rafa managed as he got himself back to his feet.

"Just gonna let me hang here- fine," Mi'ishaen sighed.  "How's Silveredge?"

"What was that creature anyway?" the archer asked as he tested Silveredge's ability to follow his fingers with her eyes.  "And this one's much better, miss."  With great effort, he forced himself back to his feet again.

"That creature is Bahlzair," Aleksei replied.

"We know him," Mi'ishaen added.  "If I see him again, I'll kill him."

"This is what he is hoping for, yes," Aleksei laughed as Rafa returned with another ruined potion.  "Ah- that one is stinging almost worse than what already is here."

"Well, either there's more river water in here than there was in the last one, or there's more of the actual potion in here than there was in the last one," Rafa shrugged.  "Either of those is better than acid or poison, so-"

"These two are dead," the archer frowned, leaning close into Shesua to check his breath.  "We'll have to take their weapons back to their families."

"You must be joking," Rafa scoffed, sitting back on his ankles.  "There is no way I'm going to take Hophni's bow back to-"

"If that coward hadn't died, I'd've killed him myself!" Mi'ishaen interrupted, hollering loud enough for her voice to carry through the trees.

"You're a pitiful excuse for a Cormyrean soldier!" the archer cried at once as he wearily sat down on the ground.  "Is there no mettle in you, no dash of valor, no flash of courtesy?  What would you, have his father think his son alive and lost somewhere?  No indeed; we must with all haste put the man's bow directly into his father's hands- his, and no other's."

"Oh gods- fine, take it up," Rafa groaned as he got up to cut Mi'ishaen down from the tree.  "Ser, how fare you?"

"It must be that there is more potion than river water," Aleksei replied, sitting up and blinking both lids in slow succession.  "I am now seeing color, though still everything is blurry.  There is no more burning."

"What happened to your other eye!?" the archer asked, taken aback.

Mi'ishaen flopped to the ground like a rag doll, and felt a very uncomfortable tingling in her extremities.  Rafa, noting that her movements were ginger and slow, got under her right shoulder and helped her back toward Silveredge.

"It is lost many years ago," Aleksei replied simply.  "I am never remembering that maybe it is not looking pleasant to others until someone is responding like that."

"One day we'll get you a patch," Mi'ishaen laughed as she sat down with a thud.  Niku, who didn't understand the concept of blood circulation, immediately plopped himself in her lap.  She rolled her eyes, but figured it would be better for her to rub out her stiffness than for Niku to curl up with the still-lethargic Silveredge.

"Who are you?" Rafa demanded, now noticing the arrow that had been the end of Hophni.  "You killed this bugger yourself, and you want me to cart his bow back to his family!"

"If it weren't for a miscalculation on this female's part," the archer explained gallantly, "he wouldn't have died.  I'm certain she meant to merely deflect the arrow with his armor, but unfortunately, I was aiming higher than she expected.  You know how it is when the fairer bodies try to read the murky field of battle."

"Oh, sod off!" Mi'ishaen spat.  "What you see there is the most defending that brave and powerful example of a Cormite ever did, and I'm more for slitting your throat than for painting my dainty nails, you bloody prancer."

"So says that delicate dress you're wearing, certainly," the archer replied with an eyebrow pulled high on his brow.  "Pray give the man's weapons back; be they never so unsuited to his hands, he must have them."

"They're not mine- nor the Dragonborn's neither," Rafa answered, crossing his arms.  "They do belong to the lady what holds them, so knock it off and tell me- oh.  Oh, for- ugh.  I command you, by the seal of the Dragon imprinted over my heart, that you unfold to me your title and your business in this land."

"By all the devils in Baator," Mi'ishaen moaned, allowing herself to fall backward onto the ground.  Silveredge laughed lightly, and Niku bounded up to turn himself in tight, excited circles.  Across the camp, the smaller dog began barking.

"Shush, girl- that's my dog, Valeria, and I am Iordyn Raibeart the Younger, son of Lionar Yesha and Lady Hanna Raibeart of Marsember," the archer replied as he got to his feet to render a bow.  "I do gladly make your acquaintance, good ser."

"Blade Rafael Unessmus of Moonever," Rafa said as he gave a small bow.  "Swordcaptain Shesua was leading seven of us, at the start, having left half his power in stocks... for incompetence in training... the Crown perhaps ought to have sent a different batch altogether.  This prisoner, Ser Aleksei Voyonov, was sent for by a battlemage in Suzail, and those- Mi'ishaen and Silveredge- are his wives.  They aren't technically prisoners at all, and came along with him because no one told them that their husband was about to be carried off to Cormyr.  I'd be embarrassed at their treatment so far, but they've made the best of it- done better than the rest of these, obviously."

"We shall, in good time, consider all these things," Iordyn nodded as he sat back down gracelessly.  "But presently, we must rest.  On the morrow, we go at once to make your superiors to know of this tragic venture.  Have you the power of the written word?"

An uncomfortable silence ensued, and Mi'ishaen rolled her eyes.

"I have," Silveredge offered quietly, "if my lord does not."

"Can you wait five minutes from death's door before doing something for someone else?" Mi'ishaen groaned.  "Not ten minutes awake together, and you're hiring yourself out for people who treat you like- you and this nutty half-blind sponge will buy my death with frustration!"

"Maybe I am telling you of how I am coming to be guard in Urmlaspyr," Aleksei smirked when Silveredge looked at him quizzically.

"I command but few words, my lady," Rafa admitted with a wan smirk.  "And those all found in the prayer books.  I shall welcome your help- but I'll respect the first wife, as you do.  I'll not have you bound up to myself, and I won't have screaming matches with you.  The male what did that kind of fuckery is dead."

"If she's going to write your missives, you're going to pay her," Mi'ishaen stated flatly.

"That's fair," Rafa shrugged.  "What says you, my lady?"

"What you will give me, so please the most beloved, I will gratefully accept," Silveredge smiled.

Mi'ishaen balked at the new title, an unexplained blush warming her cheeks.

"Well, then, this sweet siren shall be your arm," Iordyn grandly proclaimed.  "My lady, you shall have Marsember before Suzail, for it's just across this next waterway.  When you've reached it, you can send off your lord's word and wait for orders.  I shall go with you all."

"Oh, gods defend us," Rafa groaned.

"No, don't keep praying that," Mi'ishaen urged.  "I think they're making sport of doing the opposite every time you ask."