Everything tasted wrong, and the blue male curled his lips at the idea of eating it. Drinking it, although he was so damned thirsty that he had tried licking the condensation off of the walls. That had only made him thirstier and he growled in discontent. He had a bowl, not a freshly flowing runnel, and the water out of it tasted metallic and had the odd flavor of a multitude of separate plants, most of which were poisonous. Were they trying to kill him? Why, when they had gone to so much trouble to bring him here? The elder seemed to have a do or die viewpoint, and merrily ate and drank everything he'd been given. He was still alive, and didn't seem much the worse for it, so maybe it was time to give the bowl another try. He lapped it down to the bare bottom, and suddenly felt tremendously sleepy. It was too much trouble to lift his head, and he fell asleep right next to the bowl.
And woke feeling much better. The pain in his leg had abated and he was able to stand without flinching. Able to look through the bars and get a better look at his surroundings. A barn. He was being kept in a barn, like food. And he could see, hear…smell, the female who was so familiar. She watched him warily when he stood, and he snuffled at her. She still smelled like him.
"Banastre." She said, and he stopped, puzzling. Banastre? It sounded familiar, as familiar as she was. It would be something he would certainly contemplate if he was alone and in the quiet, but he had none of that here. His perceptions were filled with the annoyance of being way too close to way too many of his kind that he didn't know or trust. He wanted to be back out in the snow. In the blessed silence, away from this assault on his heightened perceptions. Then he could make sense out of it.
"Noisyloud." He snapped back at her and she gasped.
"What? Ban, what did you just say?"
Ban. That was even closer to his soul than the first word. "Noisyloud." He repeated in exasperation. "Here. Barn. Noisyloud." He grasped his ears and folded them closed.
"I'll see what I can do about that." She still felt stunned, her attention going to the human she stood with so often. Her mate? Possibly. He was a fine human male, strong, and clean.
"If their senses are better than ours, then this noise could truly upset them. If it's affecting how well they settle, then it does us no good…we'll move the two of them."
Evelyn sighed, narrowing her eyes. She knew, of course, that they were going to attempt to cure Banastre. She just wasn't sure she was willing to put him through any more than he'd already experienced. But leaving him like this was not an option. "There's no change." She muttered, and Liam shrugged.
"He's been Afflicted for a long time." Liam noted slowly, and she snorted. That, or it just wasn't working at all. Others were visibly changing, recovering, but a healthy Ban was bouncing off of his stall's walls, just as lupine as he'd ever been. And he'd had three doses in his water. "Some of the older ones don't do well with the cure, diluted. He may be one of them."
Evelyn didn't want to even consider what it would take to get that down him, undiluted. He wasn't overly big, for a worgen, but he was still formidable.
"We have time, Miss Whittaker. We are patient. We've come so far already; Aranas's potion is a step in the right direction. We've already done more than any other when faced with the Affliction, in very little time. Have faith in us. Have faith in him. We have time."
She nodded, but was still unconvinced. When had she become such a pessimist? Others were coming back; others seemed to be recovering, but not Ban. It would just be her luck that he would not regain any more of himself that he had stubbornly held onto. What then, keep him as a house pet? An overgrown mastiff? It was just a foolish idea that she had to chuckle, and that seemed to make Liam happier. Good for him.
"Get some sleep, Miss Whittaker, you'll feel better after some food. Some sleep. This hasn't been easy."
She nodded, left to return to her room at the inn. She had the suggested food, bath, and crawled into bed. She had been there for a couple hours, deeply asleep, when the first bombardment hit. She rolled out of bed, stunned, coaching rifle already in hand before she opened her eyes. "What the?" she hissed, yanking open curtains. Another bombardment hit, and she dropped them to hunt for her clothes. She'd figure out the whom later, she already had the what figured out. Under attack, but by who?
She ran down the stairs, not surprised that the common room was in chaos. "Who?" she demanded of Liam, coming out of his own room. He shrugged his own lack of comprehension, falling into step behind her.
"I don't know." He admitted. "But I intend to go find out. Go make certain that the worgen are secured. It would disastrous if they got out…"
That was an understatement, and she ran towards the barn. All of the worgen were awake and the vast majority of them were setting up a horrific din, but they all seemed secure. Liam was gone for what seemed like forever, but she understood it was probably only an hour or so, before he burst through the door again. "Your highness?" She asked warily, and he frowned at her.
"We're under attack by the Scourge." He stated as if he, himself, didn't quite grasp it. "They have ships. But they are certainly undead. Get him out of there, right now." He motioned at Ban. "We've run out of time."
She almost put up a fuss, then silenced. Perhaps he was right. They would either give Ban the partial cure, or they would kill him trying. At least, if they failed, they had not given up on him. Hopefully he wouldn't put up too much of a fight…
He put up one hell of a fight; it took six men to get him in the stocks. There was so much growling, snarling, and snapping that getting the first dose into him was actually fairly easy, and he settled into a lethargic stupor. But still, an hour later, he remained exactly as he was. Four doses, and still nothing. She sighed in disgust; he must have the constitution of a golem. And they were running out of time…
"It's up to you, Miss Whittaker." Liam sighed, and she considered it.
"Give me the bottles."
Ban came to, groggily uncertain. For some reason, he was in the stocks. And he'd been in them for quite awhile, every muscle screamed defiance. What could he have done that would have earned this…
Bram. They'd found Bram. He was in the stocks for murder. It was over.
"Come on, Ban…" Evelyn, and she sounded desperate. "Please. You need to come back."
Come back? Where had he been? He opened his eyes to chaos. He was, as he had ascertained, in the stocks. He was not the only one, the courtyard was full of stocks, and each of them had a worgen restrained in them. Dangling easily within his view were his own hands, and his heart sank. Those weren't….hands…exactly. "Evelyn?" He asked in a voice that was not his own. She couldn't see him like this. It had been better that way. But she was there, and there was no way to hide from her.
"Ban!" She had been sitting at his feet, and she jumped up, staring at him in shock. He completely understood, this was not precisely how he wanted to wake up, either. She seemed to handle it better than he was trying to; her reaction was to wrap her arms around his waist. "You're back. Say something. Anything!"
"…..Anything?" He replied and she spasmed into a sudden fit of uncontrolled laughter. "I don't quite find this amusing, Evelyn." He had changed, cursed with the Affliction, an over grown dog, and she was laughing. Bram was dead. That he remembered. Everything else was desperately fuzzy. But it seemed like the more he said, the more she laughed. And it wasn't even an amused laugh; he didn't like its vaguely hysterical overtones. "Can I at least get out of the stocks? Or am I here for some reason?" Like, if they'd found Bram. How could they not have?
"It was to restrain you while we kept throwing the potions down you. You were stubborn and didn't want to come back."
"How long has it been?" He was pretty sure he didn't want to know, but he was pretty certain he needed to know. And a moment later, he was pretty sure he didn't want to know who was bombarding the village he was in, but was as certain he needed to know.
"A few months. Not that bad."
Months…and not that bad, did not fit together quite as blithely as she wanted him to swallow it. "And the coastal bombardment?" He was in for a pence, he may as well have the rest of it.
"Scourge assault."
And when it rained, it poured. He sighed, shaking his beard….and since when did have one of those? He'd always prided himself on his clean shaven appearance. Clean shaven…the idea was now beyond foolish. "Can I get loose?" He really didn't want to be locked into the stocks if and when the Scourge made a toehold.
"Of course!" She yanked the pin, and he hissed when she pulled the yoke up and he stood. She seemed so happy. He couldn't quite understand why. He could think of plenty of reasons why it wasn't a day to be happy on. He was a worgen, and he'd apparently been this for awhile. Covered in hair. Bram was dead. So many things…
"Evelyn… Where is my father?"
She froze, sighed, and then rested a hand on his arm. "Ban. He's gone. Bram is, as well. Your mother. Her sister."
His world spun, and he had to sit where he had been standing. If she was correct, he was it. No one else. "Are you well?" He managed, and she sat next to him.
"You left a will. With your barrister."
"Of course I have a will." The idea that he didn't was insulting. Why was it even a point of discussion, unless…. "Bram didn't?"
"No."
He should be surprised. But he honestly wasn't. Bram had been so complacent that the idea he might die probably had never occurred to him. Ban had gotten himself into, and out of, more scrapes than he cared to count. His own mortality had become perfectly blatant to him, and making certain that Evelyn got everything if his stupidity caught up with him only made sense.
"And your father left everything to Bram. And then you."
"The assumption was that you were marrying into the family. That would have taken care of everything, Evelyn." She had to understand that. He was appalled that her care hadn't been seen to, but he understood his brother's and father's limited view. The day she married Bram, it would have become a moot point. She had been theirs since his father had brought her home, a bundle of ruffles and lace. Before that, she had just been the daughter of his father's business partner. After that, she'd been family, the little girl his mother had never had.
"I know that, Ban. But you were the one who bothered."
"I was the one with the highest chance of being knifed to death in an alley before I hit age twenty five."
She chuckled wryly, and he shrugged. The truth was the truth. And right now, the truth was that he was not himself. And if he had time to digest that, it would probably be worse, but from the chaos rising around him, he didn't. "You're wearing my coat." He noted…and he was wearing nothing but fur. She was also carrying his coaching rifle, both of his pistols, and his rapier openly. And unless he was completely deluded, she wore one of his shirts and a pair of his morning breeches. The only thing she wore that he couldn't place as something from his wardrobe were her boots, heavier and sturdier than any of his. "You're wearing my clothes…"
She only snorted in response, unlimbering the coaching rifle with an ease he would have been hard pressed to emulate, checking the breeches, and resting it comfortably on her shoulder. "They won't fit you now." She noted with the same 'isn't that obvious' tone that his mother had been famed for.
"Maybe I need a pretty collar." He snapped back, and she laughed.
"It is so good to have you back, Ban." She breathed, seriously, and he hung his head. He didn't feel returned. He felt cursed; for all that he had never felt healthier or stronger in his life. "We fought for you." She continued, cautiously resting a hand on his arm. "Please."
He sighed; she was the one soul he could never deny. He picked her up, and she didn't struggle or even stiffen in his grasp, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "We've come this far, Ban. This is just a partial cure. But Aranas will finish, we will cure you…all. You have to have faith."
Faith. There was a blessing he'd never been accused of before. He was, by his very nature, a cynic. Moody. Dark. Besotted with concrete pleasures, drink, food, gambling and women. The finer things in life. Those were gone from him now. Even if he was cured, the Affliction chased from him, too many things were gone. Bram. His father, his mother. The streets of Gilneas had been painted in blood that night, and he'd done his fair share of it. But he had stood to get Evelyn out, and she was still here. There was still a reason to stand, even if he was this.
"Scourge?" He asked in the split silence after another bombardment, and she shrugged in answer, light in his grasp. He replaced her on her feet, and she nodded to herself.
"Just something else to kill, Ban." Her words were matter of fact, her gaze was steady, and the coupling of mastiffs she headed for were far more dangerous than the fancy gentlemen's guard dogs he and Bram had been gifted with. "These just need to be killed…again…for it to count. For Gilneas."
"For Gilneas." He agreed, gracefully dropping to all fours to lope after her. Part of him cringed inside, but he was accustomed to a speed and dexterity that wasn't well suited to walking on his hind legs.
Scourge. Evelyn curled a lip in hatred, viewing the low slope down to the beach. After all of these years, they were still a problem. The Wall had kept them at bay this long, but now it appeared they had ships, and the Wall did not protect against those. But now, in this darkest time, the Light had, in the oddest of ways, blessed them again. Their defenders were returned, their heroes stood again…taller and more vicious than ever. Banastre's humped shoulder was at her knee, and she was mounted on her large cob. If he stood, he'd be close to eye level with her, in spite of the horse's height.
Several worgen were already down there, on that beach, this time their carnage squarely focused on the undead invaders instead of Gilneas's population. "Ban?" She asked slowly. He was shocky and silent, and she wished he had more time to grasp what had happened to him. They just didn't have the luxury to give him that. He needed to stand again. He needed to stand now.
He sighed gustily, and it was almost amusing how that had not changed. It was the exact same deep, 'you ask sooooo much of me', sigh he had always had. He stood on his hind legs, his attention firmly focused on the nearest group of Scourge, and he stared at his hands for a long second.
"Here goes nothing." He muttered, gesturing.
There was a flash of light, and the hollow thu-thu-thu of the spell going off, and Evelyn crowed in delight. That part of him was returned. His soul was returned. She was willing to take Banastre in any package, as long as it was truly him. And this was indeed, still truly him. She balanced the rifle on her elbow, released the dogs, and grinned. It was time to stand again.
Except for the night when everything had fallen apart and apparently a few months he didn't remember, Ban had never truly fought in his life. But now, on this beach, locked into a form that felt more like him than he had ever felt before, it came like breathing. Cast, cast, and when they were too close, go to claws and fangs. Evelyn beside him, a deadly mark with the long arm she shot and reloaded with a practiced ease. She had changed so much… Bram had been livid when Ban had taught her to shoot. 'Not anything a lady needs to know, Banastre!' He had spat. 'You ruin her. Racy novels, guns, next you'll be keeping her out after midnight, and then what?'
He curled a lip over a fang in distain as he laid on the speed, outdistancing Evelyn's dogs, even her cob, as he moved to close distance with a Scourge catapult moving to bombard the village. Bram would have had Evelyn be a frightened little doll, to be protected, unaware and unable. Clueless of what transpired between a man and a woman behind closed doors, afraid to protect herself. Never.
He tore into the catapult's crew, softening them with a flurry of quickly cast spells, then dropping in the middle of them… his way marked by his own growling snarls. He was a beast. An animal. But still a Gilnean. And still, apparently, loved by Evelyn. If that was all he had left, then it would just have to do, at least until a full cure was perfected.
