"Mediwizard! 'Ealer! ANYBODY WITH A BLOODY WAND! I need 'elp!"
Scabior's voice rang out harshly through the gleaming white corridors of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. He raced forward up to the first floor, yelling his fool head off along the way for anyone who could help him. Sköll screamed in agony, her hand over her face, puss and blood oozing from between her fingers.
The instant Sköll had fallen from the tree he had known something was wrong, and he kicked himself mentally, once again, for not noticing the stench the bundimuns produced earlier. Just under the tree a growth of bundimuns had made their home in a rotting log. If Sköll had only hit the log, things would have been fine; he could have brought her back to the camp, and had Fenrir heal her in two seconds flat. The bundimuns however had complicated things beyond anything Scabior had been prepared to face. Not exactly happy about having their residence intruded upon and endangered, they had spat their acid directly at Sköll's face. Within seconds the flesh had begun to melt away from her cheek, crawling its way over her nose and eroding the skin dangerously close to her eyes.
Reasonably, Sköll had panicked. Her screaming had sent adrenaline ripping through his veins, but he could handle that. He felt that every day on his job. What he couldn't stand was when a team of three healers, all in lime green uniforms had rushed into the room and Sköll's shrill cries were abruptly ended. It was as though all the adrenaline that had been pumping through him suddenly turned to ice, sending an eerie chill through his being. Scabior paced nervously, up and down, up and down, up and down, on the verge of wearing a hole in the tiles. He hadn't exactly expected to end up there of all places that night, but that wasn't on his mind as he continued to let his feet work out the frustration he felt welling up in his throat.
Scabior had desperately wanted for Sköll to start screaming again.
The door to the room she was being treated in was closed, had no windows, and Scabior wasn't sure he wanted to open it. He could live another few minutes not knowing for sure if he had killed her. As long as he didn't know, he could convince himself he hadn't.
His head shot up when the door opened and a green clad witch with a friendly face popped her head out.
"Mr. Samuel?" she asked in a kind tone, and Scabior nodded, knowing that this must have been a name Sköll had given the healers.
A huge rush of relief flooded him as the healer gave a genuine smile. She stepped out of the door and closed it behind her.
"Your fiancée is waiting for you. She'll be ready to go home as soon as we can get her a potion. It shouldn't take more than half an hour."
"Thank you, ma'am," Scabior said in an almost whisper, his voice rough from the racket he had made coming in, and from the continuous strain of guilt he felt.
"Just be a little quiet for her, she's got a bit of a headache she said."
More like a massive migraine, thought Scabior, but he only nodded and pushed past the healer to the door. He opened it and resisted the urge to turn around and chunder behind the door as the guilt overwhelmed him.
Bandages covered most of Sköll's face and head, with blotches of red and yellow seeping through at odd places. She gave a weak smile but turned her head so he couldn't see the damage.
"'Ow're you feeling?" he asked, kneeling down in front of her.
"My head hurts a little..." she chortled, but quickly stopped with a wince. The rest of the healers cleared out, leaving Scabior and Sköll alone in the room.
"You told them you were my fiancee?" he asked, trying to get her mind off the pain, but this seemed to only upset her.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything else. They were about to knock me out and I wanted them to tell you everything that had happened if things... if things went wrong," she answered, lowering her head a little. "I didn't think they would tell you the details if they thought you were just my boyfriend, and I didn't have a ring to prove I was your wife."
Scabior nodded, admiring her clarity of mind even when suffering the pain she had. "We'll get you 'ome soon, they're just getting you a bit more medicine," he said, lowering his head. He took a deep breath before raising it again, looking Sköll in the one eye that he could see. "I think we need to come to an understanding."
"An understanding?" Sköll asked, going to turn her head to face him, but thinking better of it. She didn't want him to see the mess of bandages that she knew must have appeared quite horrible from the way he had looked at her when he'd entered the room.
"You need me," he said bluntly, and Sköll cast a glare his way. "You do. You need someone to look out for you, make sure you don't get caught by something you can't 'andle." You need someone who can do magic, because Merlin knows you can't., he added mentally, and she seemed to catch his drift. "And I need you," he admitted, but added quickly, "you're the best hunter I've got."
"So you're puppy-sitting, is that it?" she asked in a rather snappish tone. In her mind she was quite capable of taking care of herself, but Scabior disagreed. They had been too long without having someone fight. There were always the brave ones that would stand their ground, and if Sköll ran into one of those, then she wouldn't stand a chance.
"Essentially," he said with a bit of a smirk. Sköll glared. She seemed to glare a lot more when she had medicine running through her system. Scabior found himself wanting to aggravate her further just to see her get mad. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but she had quite a cute wrinkle over her nose when she was angered.
"Face it love, you didn't do so well against magical moss. 'Ow do you think you'll do against a wizard?"
Sköll crossed her arms, and stared at the floor, which Scabior took as conceding defeat.
"You'll protect me?" she asked after a moment.
"I'll jinx the paper that gives you a cut," he confirmed in a mocking tone. She looked at him full on, not bothering to be embarrassed about the bandages.
"From anything?" she asked, and it seemed like such a serious question that he couldn't tease her.
"Anything," he said firmly, making a slight blush rise to Sköll's cheeks as a healer came in and handed her a small vial of green liquid that matched her uniform.
"Drink that up before you go to bed, and don't eat any strawberries for the next week. Don't apparate or use the floo network for the next few days either, you'll splinch and undo all our hard work," she instructed. Sköll nodded her understanding and Scabior helped her up. As they made their way slowly from the room and down into the lobby.
"We're going to need to find a telephone," she mumbled, earning an odd look from Scabior.
"One of those muggle contraptions you speak into?" he asked, making Sköll give a short giggle.
"Yeah, one of those. Give me a disguise, would you? Make me pretty?" she asked with a bit of a laugh. Scabior tapped his wand as gently as he could over Sköll's head, getting rid of the bandage and turning her into a rather busty redhead. The pair stepped out onto the cool street, the heat of the day having been eliminated by the oncoming night.
"We're just going to have to apparate I guess. I forgot, phones need money to work."
"You'll just splinch, and we'll end up back 'ere anyway. What we need..." Scabior drawled, looking around for something he could use to get Sköll somewhere she could rest.
"Is a victim," Sköll filled in, unnerving Scabior slightly.
"Can you cast imperio on a moving target? Say, one that's in a car?" she asked, making him raise an eyebrow. "Trust me," she said, leading him towards a more populated street. Discreetly, Scabior drew his wand, holding it behind his back and pointed it at an oncoming car. It slowed, and much to Sköll's delight, stopped right in front of them. She flung open the door and got in, scooting herself over to the other side of the car, and patting the seat next to hers. Scabior, who had never been a car in his life, got in rather cautiously.
"Make him go forward," Sköll commanded, and the car began rolling. "Good thing he was the only one in the car. I'll tell you when to make him turn."
The ride took nearly an hour, and by the end of it Sköll was nearly asleep and Scabior was mentally exhausted. He had never held a spell for so long.
"Wipe his memory," she said, getting out of the car, and waddling her way over to a rather dingy looking door in a thick grey wall. "That'll need unlocking," she said, pointing half-heartedly to the lock. Once inside they made their way up the stairs and into a tiny, two room flat, as grey as the wall outside. He removed the disguise from Sköll as a sort of automatic process, knowing that if Sköll had led them here, that they were safe in this place.
"This is where Fen lives?" Scabior asked, seeing the wilted flowers on a table, an obvious attempt by Sköll to bring something bright and lively into the place.
"Not really." She grimaced, having just downed the small vial that the healer had given her. "Mostly he lives with the pack, or with you guys," she said, wobbling her way over into another room. Scabior paused to look at a fridge, where finger paintings from years past were held up by magnets, and notes in Fenrir's handwriting that made promise after promise to bring food for her, or to be at her dance recital on Tuesday. Scabior silently wondered just how long ago Sköll had been in dance classes.
"Scabior?" she called softly, and he made his way into the bedroom, which honestly wasn't much of a bedroom but who was he to judge. He didn't have a flat of his own.
"Can you get rid of pain?" she asked, creaking her good eye open. Scabior frowned.
"No love, I'm only good at causing it," he said, touching a strand of her hair rather than pulling it.
"How very fitting," she mumbled, closing her eye and patting the bed beside her. When she didn't feel it shift, she opened her eye again. "There's no couch. It's either this or the floor."
Scabior sighed, kicked off his boots and lay down next to her, and for the first time that evening he realised that when they got back to camp, her father was likely going to murder him.
A Note From Grizzly
I drew Sköll for those of you who wish to see her.
art/Skoll-Greyback-315422179
You may also have noticed that my paragraphs and dialogue are now connected properly, that's all Blaklite's doing. She said, and I quote, "Can we discuss something?" and proceeded to go on a rant about how my dialogue grammar sucked. So from now on I will strive to break myself of the horrible dialogue-speaker-seperation habit.
Thanks,
~G
