Droullin does not fully understand why Vitalis calls herself a hellion until she sees her fight.
The woman, usually so stoic and steady, holds nothing back on the battlefield. Droullin physically jumps in shock the first time she hears her barbaric scream. Her glaive is a spinning vortex of death, carving through ranks of monsters like they are naught but wheat to be harvested. Blood joins the paint already swiped across her face, and she does indeed look like a creature out of hell.
But Droullin is not disgusted, nor intimidated, by that fact. She is instead entranced by the powerful shift of Vitalis's muscles, the savagery of her strikes, the way she never seems to tire. She sees, now, what Vitalis meant when she referred to inner strength. Vitalis is made of strength.
The hellion cuts down the last enemy in her path and stands over its corpse, breathing heavily. Droullin watches gore drip from her blade and her hands. She feels profoundly glad that she fights beside Vitalis and not against her. She would not last a moment beneath that rage.
As if she can feel her stare, Vitalis turns. Their eyes meet across the pile of bodies in the hellion's wake. For a moment, Droullin sees no hint of the woman she knows. The only thing in Vitalis's expression is pure, primal fury. But then she blinks, seems to remember where she is and who she is looking at, and relaxes. She settles her glaive into its place across her back.
The motion draws Droullin's gaze to her arms, and with a jolt the vestal realizes that even though all of their enemies are dead, fresh blood is still running down Vitalis's skin.
"You're injured," she realizes in alarm.
Vitalis shrugs, as if she has not really noticed. Perhaps she hasn't. Droullin wonders how much of her battle trance is mental and how much is physical. Does she not feel pain?
The vestal crosses the dim passage to her companion and reaches out. She does not have to be touching a patient for her healing magic to work, but it is more effective when she does. And perhaps she has other motivations as well, but she thrusts those thoughts from her mind.
Vitalis lets her lay one hand on her shoulder without complaint. With the other hand, Droullin opens her versebook and holds it up to read her healing incantation. As she speaks, white light envelops the hellion, trailing like fluid to the places her skin is broken and brightening over the wounds. When it fades a moment later, Vitalis is left with a few new scars and nothing more.
Droullin closes her tome and looks up at Vitalis to find the hellion already watching her. Their proximity gives her a jolt, but she does not step back. She waits breathlessly for Vitalis to say something; do something.
When she speaks, it is familiarly low and brusque, but somehow also raw. "Perhaps words do have power after all," she admits.
It is so close to Droullin's realization from only moments before that she smiles. "As do you."
…