The very first thing that tipped her off that something was wrong was the sudden heavy quality of the air. She opened her eyes, her cheek pressed against Abelas' chest, and scanned the room slowly. Nothing else was there.
"Abelas?" she said softly, carefully pushing herself up. His eyes were open a moment later.
"What is it?" he asked, voice surprisingly clear considering he had just been asleep. Or she thought he had been asleep. Hadn't he? Isala swallowed, pulling away from him to give him space to sit up.
"Can you feel that?" she glanced to him before looking back towards the doors. It was still dark out, but lighter. Closer to morning than when she'd first closed her eyes. How long had Abelas rested? Was it enough?
"Something is here," he murmured. He rolled smoothly off the bed, wasting no time in grabbing his armor and pulling it on with quick, practiced movements. Isala followed his lead, keeping an eye on him as she did. He moved as if he weren't injured – she had to trust that it was true. Her dresses were still damp, so she pushed them into her pack and opted to keep the borrowed tunic on over her mostly-dry leggings. Her hair had dried in a crimpled mess, but she didn't have much time to worry about that.
There was a creaking outside of the door. Isala's hands froze as she pulled on her boot, and Abelas' attention focused on the entrance. The creaking got louder. Isala's heart thundered in her throat, and she straightened to grab her staff from its perch.
As if that was a sign for whatever was in this home, a heavy weight slammed into the door. The wood fractured, splintering away and allowing Isala a glimpse of what waited beyond. Her breath caught and she reeled.
"Corpses," Abelas grimaced, hands glowing with magic as he watched the emaciated corpse try to unintelligently shove it's way into the room, battling with it's uncooperative half-rotted limbs and the still-sturdy door that now trapped it in place.
"Corpses generally mean demons," Isala said anxiously. Abelas moved quickly, pulling a dagger free and evading the creatures flailing limbs to slam his blade into the back of the corpses head, where neck met skull. It let out an unnatural screech, body convulsing before it collapsed. Abelas was unflinching as he withdrew his dagger, examining the body closely.
"I doubt whatever is here will let us leave now that it has found us," Abelas said gravely. He looked to her. "Can you fight?"
She swallowed. "I – I know some, but I've used a lot of energy."
Abelas scowled slightly, though it wasn't quite as harsh as his earlier expressions. "You mean when you were healing me."
Truly, she didn't see why he was so perturbed by that. Isala huffed. "Well, yes. It was a bad wound. Aside from that, you're clearly the better fighter of the two of us. It's better to have you mostly healed than to rely on me."
Sighing heavily, he turned his attention to dislodging the corpse from the door. It involved a lot of kicking. "What spells can you do?" he asked, sounding no more winded than before.
"Shield, dispel, mind blast, winters grasp, fade step," she listed, ticking them off on her fingertips as she went. He looked at her.
"That's it?" he asked. She bristled indignantly.
"I'm still learning!" she protested. "Besides, normally I'm not fighting. Normally I'm running."
Abelas rolled his eyes, turning his attention to the door as he finally dislodged the corpse and kicked open the door. "If we run into any more corpses, just stay behind me," he ordered.
"Believe me, I wasn't planning on trying to make friends with them," she murmured under her breath. He heard her, though, and shot her a stern glare (to which she offered an innocent smile).
They vacated the room, Isala stepping cautiously over the corpse left behind them. It smelled. Her nose twisted up. The whole mansion smelled, actually.
Creators, she'd made out with a veritable stranger in a haunted house. Had she lost her mind? Abelas was setting a path towards the door on the far end of the hall and her eyes unwittingly traveled down to his –
Stop it. Do not stare at his butt. This is what got you into this mess.
Gripping the handle tightly, Abelas tried to open it. It didn't budge. Isala sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "Alright. So we go back the way we came."
"That is our only option," he agreed, stepping back. Isala waited for him to retake the lead, slipping her staff onto her back and running her fingers through her hair once more, tugging knots free as they walked and working on redoing her braid. It was sloppily done, but better than leaving it as it was.
Absently, she noticed that Abelas' hair was still in the braid she had crafted for him. It warmed her heart slightly. Besides, it looked good. Better than hers, at least, which just wasn't fair.
The library was as they had left it, books sprawled half-open on tables, but this time the duo stopped to investigate. Isale fingered the spines of the many books, trying to piece together some idea of what was going on. One book left open on the table caught her eye. It was a book of superstitions, none of which seemed especially true, but several pages had small tabs sticking from between them. Whoever had read this last had thought them important, apparently. Isala turned to the first mark:
"How to prevent magic formation in the earliest stages," she read aloud. The sentence had her stomach churning uncomfortably. She looked up to Abelas, who had moved closer to see the text for himself.
"Infants and most small children will show no signs of magic…" he read aloud. "Place leeches on each of the child's limbs. When done, burn the leeches. Be sure not to inhale the smoke. Afterwards, wrap the child's limbs in cloth blessed by a Chantry sister."
"This is rubbish," Isala shook her head. "Magic doesn't work like that. You can't just will it away."
He didn't show any sign of hearing her – he continued reading, and this time his voice was grim: "A child showing signs of magic may be submerged in water until the breath is nearly lost. If magic is still weak within them, it will die before the child."
Isala's irritation faded to horror, her throat constricting as she tried to swallow only to find her mouth far too dry. "Shemlen actually believed this?" she asked. "That's – Creators, that's barbaric."
"Shorter lives only mean less time to reach understanding," Abelas said, almost absently, as he pulled back from the book. "It's no use reading any more. We need to keep moving."
"But why were those specific pages bookmarked?" she asked, following him despite her questions. "That isn't just light reading."
"Do you really want to know?" Abelas asked, glancing down to her.
She didn't. She stopped asking.
They worked their way down the library's large hall and down further into the gallery, but instead of walking out the way they came the duo ventured around to the back of the staircase. The door at the back was ajar and covered in shadows, and when they stepped through no light sparked to existence in greeting. Isala didn't know whether to be grateful or upset. It wasn't too dark to see, however, so they pushed forward into what she could only assume had been the servants quarters.
"The whole house smells," she mumbled. Despite it, it was a nice distraction from the books. It wasn't quite so menacing.
"Decay," Abelas answered helpfully, rooting through a nearby sack and pulling back empty handed. "Everything in the house is either dying or dead."
"Including the people, apparently," she grumbled. "If only we could say the same for whatever else lurked in here."
"It'll be dead soon enough," he said with more confidence than she felt. He straightened, and though he was silent she caught the way his hand drifted to hover over his side. Her stomach twisted anxiously.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Fine," he said tersely. "My armor is just bent out of shape."
Meaning that when he moved, it aggravated his bruise. There was nothing she could do to help that. She bit her lip anxiously. What good was a healer if she couldn't even heal him properly?
They moved into the next room wordlessly, and the lights flickered on again. Isala sighed. "Oh, of course. I was starting to think they would just let us wander around in the dark."
"Do you always chatter when you're anxious?" Abelas asked, stepping into the first door on the left. It was a kitchen – or something of the sort.
"Well, you aren't talking," she retorted. "If I didn't, then we'd wander about in silence."
"What's wrong with silence?" he glanced to her, pausing in his inspection of the room.
"We're in a haunted house," she reiterated. "Everything is wrong with silence here."
He shook his head, looking at the shelving. He frowned. "Not all of the food has gone bad yet."
"If you're suggesting we eat it, I'm going to have to ask to take a look at your head," she said. "I'm not touching it."
Abelas sighed, long and slow. "I wasn't suggesting we eat the food," he assured her. "It's simply an anomaly."
"This whole house is an anomaly," she reminded him.
"Well, you're not wrong," he murmured. They left the room, finding nothing more of note. Isala wasn't sure what they were looking for, outside of corpses and demons. None of which sounded particularly appealing. Despite it all, those books still tickled at the back of her mind. It was hard to forget words such as that.
At the end of the hall there was yet another massive staircases – how many staircases did one home need? – and this led to a massive antechamber. Abelas paused for a moment. "There is an elven artifact nearby," he announced, grim-faced.
"Here? In a shems house?" Isala asked. The duo began their ascent.
"A collector, no doubt," he said, scorn clear in his tone. "The statues. The books. The paintings. Elven artifacts are just art to them."
Isala bit down her lip, ire settling in her blood, but above all she supposed she should be grateful it was still in tact. She assumed, at least, that it was in tact. How else could Abelas sense it? That, of course, led to her questioning what ability made it so he could sense it to begin with, but she had just accepted that Abelas knew all sorts of strange magic that she had no where near the capacity to understand – she wasn't going to question this new addition to his ensemble of skills. As he said, tucked away into a corner was an orb – clearly elven – and when his hand passed over it green magic encircled the device. Immediately, the evil presence of the house lessened.
"That will help," he murmured under his breath as he stepped back. "But not enough. We need to continued."
They passed through the large double doors at the end of the antechamber, and the sight laid out before them had her gasping. "By the Dread Wolf," she breathed. "That's massive."
"A collector," Abelas reiterated, eyes glued to the massive bones of a long-dead dragon, suspended above an echoing ballroom inhabited only by more – fortunately inanimate – looters.
Isala's eyes were glued to the behemoth mounted on the ceiling, eyes soaking in every detail as she slowly walked along the ballroom balcony. Abelas moved ahead, inspecting everything he saw.
"I'm going to check the balconies," he told her, looking back at her. "Stay here."
"Alright," she said, not even looking at him. She reached the end of the ballroom and braced her hands on the railings, smiling slightly. Abelas was gone, outside already, but it didn't stop her from sighing. Dangerous though they were, she couldn't den the creatures were marvelous. She could only imagine the image a living dragon would strike.
She linked her fingers and braced it on top of a small lion statue along the railings, but as she ducked to rest her chin against it the entire statuette leaned forward. The imbalance shocked her, pulling a yelp from her even as she jerked away, but her clumsiness was soon forgotten when a loud creaking filled the cavernous room and the tail of the dragon shifted, moving within reach of the railing.
It was then that she noticed the small paper secured to its tail, weighed down by an old key.
"Abelas, I found something," she called, moving quickly around the room. She leaned over the rails to pluck the note from its place, and as she turned back Abelas was there, waiting for her reveal. "It was stuck on the dragon, along with a key."
The key itself was old, but not rusted or broken, and attached to the note with a string. She pulled it free, holding it in her hand as she began reading, her stomach dropping again with every word: "There is no one left to remind me. I can't trust the thoughts in my head. Some of them are hers. But these are mine: Key to the balcony. Do not use. It wont make you better. They lied. She lied."
The handwriting was shaky, clearly troubled, and the words had her frowning.
"I saw something while I was outside," Abelas said. "It was a glimmer – too hard to make out – but clearly magical."
"I suppose that's where we go, then," she said. "Finally get an answer to this damn riddle."
"I think we already know what the answer is," he reminded her. "Someone in this family was born magical. Someone tried to stop their powers from manifesting."
"That's horrible," Isala said softly, shaking her head. "I don't want to talk about it. Let's go."
Instead of mocking her, or ignoring her request, he simply nodded and set their course. They abandoned the upper level of the ballroom, and barely made it halfway through the antechamber before a collection of corpses ambled out in front of them, rusted swords hanging from rotted grips, and Isala's staff was off her back and poised for fighting in an instant.
As he had earlier, Abelas moved with grace and speed, combining magic and the blades of his daggers with brutal efficiency. Two corpses focused their attacks on him, and yet he sidestepped every move. The corpses were clumsy, and it kept them from avoiding the brutal slices he offered them. Isala kept herself focused on the lingering corpse, who charged towards her with surprising speed. She leapt from the fray, frost enveloping her and carrying her forward through the fade, and as the ice passed through the corpse it let out a pained groan and lost his balance. Isala was now a safe distance away, and the corpse was momentarily frozen. She did not waste her opportunity; winters grasp flew from her fingertips, colliding with the corpse and freezing him through. At that moment Abelas emerged from his own battle, unwounded, and slammed his blades into the creature. It crumpled, shattering under the assault, and the battle was over.
Tucking her staff away, she sighed heavily. "Alright. I think we upset whatever is here."
"It's only going to get angrier the further we go," he reminded her. Isala already felt tired. And hungry. And it wasn't even daybreak. Creators, would this night ever end?
They moved quickly, with purpose that had been lacking before now that the end was in sight, and as they went further into the mansion the aura thickened around them once more. Corpses ambled into their path, more demanding than ever before – as if they sensed where the duo was headed. Isala and Abelas worked quickly, Abelas taking care of the majority of the creatures while Isala kept his back clear. She was getting tired by the time they reached the doors to the gardens, and Abelas was clearly unsettled. He was favoring one side, and she had to bite down the desire to ask him to let her heal him. She didn't have the power to fix him and protect herself against whatever demon lurked. Though she trusted his skill, she wasn't going to allow herself to be more of a burden than she already was.
"Are you alright?" Abelas asked, the final wave down and the last door standing menacingly at their front. Isala swallowed, but nodded.
"Just winded," she assured him. "I'll be fine."
"The demon here is strong," he cautioned.
She nodded. "I know. I'll be fine."
Abelas looked at her for a long moment, his eyes intense and calculating, and for a moment she half expected him to disagree with her, to decide that she was to just set out and wait here while he did the heavy lifting. Instead he just nodded once, turning his gaze back to the door. Isala relaxed, sighing softly as she straightened, and Abelas waited until she was at his side before reaching out and opening the door.
The Formal Gardens were gorgeous, wild and untamed from years of lack of cultivation, and steeped in ancient and powerful magic. Isala readied her staff, eyes focusing forward at the power's epicenter.
An ancient, demanding roar split through the still air, and a creature pulled itself from the fade. The arcane horror was tall and skeletal, draped in moth-eaten and weathered robes that billowed as it hovered just off the ground, it's lanky arms outstretched as magic swirled up around it. Isala was caught momentarily breathless, unable to not have some respect for the sheer power the creature wielded, but a mix of terror and trepidation quickly offset her awe. Around them more corpses pulled themselves from the grounds, the bodies of looters walking from the house and shambling their way closer. The elven duo were clearly outnumbered, at least five to one, and Isala wasn't certain she could last the length of the battle. Corpses were easy prey, in small numbers, but the sheer scale of this fight – paired with the power of the demon at their front – didn't bode well.
"Stay out of range," Abelas murmured, daggers free and his peculiar brand of magic leaping over his form like ash mixed with blue lightening. "Can you keep them distracted?"
"Yes," she said, even though she wasn't certain that would come without some personal injury. "If you focus on the Arcane Horror, I can keep the corpses scattered."
He nodded, taking her at her word, and as the corpses closed in Isala unleashed a mind blast that had the creatures falling back in ungainly heaps. The confusion gave Ableas an opening – he darted forward towards the Arcane Horror. As frightening as the creature was, it was slow, and Isala could only hope that Abelas' speed gave him the advantage.
However, she couldn't watch him fight and protect him at the same time – so despite all her instincts, she directed her attention solely to the corpses, whose attention centered on her. A few made to follow Abelas into the fray, but she refused to give them the luxury. Winters grasp slammed into them, freezing them in place midway to the elf, and Isala barely had a moment to re-center her magic and fade step away from the oncoming edge of a rusted blade. Ice cracked over the skin of the three corpses she passed through, slowing their limbs, and she watched from her peripherals as Abelas was tossed back. Abandoning the offensive for a moment she sent forth a shield, which wrapped protectively around him and cushioned his fall. The spell drained her, leaving her with only basic energy blasts to defend herself from the corpses, and within a few moments she was winded from evading the damaged blades.
Steadily the corpses encircled her, dark hallow eyes following her as she spun, power slamming into their limbs one by one. When one staggered, another moved forward in its place – it was a doomed pattern. Swallowing down her anxiety, Isala drew the creatures in closer. Her mana returned slightly and she reeled back, calling on the strongest power she had to capture the surrounding corpses. It would drain her far too quickly, but it would give her the advantage she needed. Snow and ice erupted from her staff and circled the gathering, battering the dead with harsh winds and sharp stabs of ice. The blizzard froze them through and she used it to escape the dangerous edges of their blades, hurrying from the circle and putting more distance between them.
Four of the corpses had fallen, and six remained. Abelas was still engaged with the Arcane Horror, magic and weapons steadily beating back the demons defenses. The demon was still strong, but wavering, and Isala knew she just had to hold out for a small while longer.
The blizzard faded, and her mana was still slow to recover as the remaining corpses broke free of their icy prison, groaning and turning to find their target. As Isala moved, blasts of power impacting with their hallow chests, she saw the gleam of something on the edge of her vision. She had no time to turn before the corpse archer acted, arrow flying and burying deep into her side.
Screaming, she stumbled back, hand pressing futilely to the skin beneath the would as if the pressure would stop the burning pain. Ice stumbled from her fingertips, freezing the rotted wood of the shaft, and with a quick motion she snapped the end off. The jolt ached, blood staining her borrowed tunic, but it kept her movement from being too hindered. So long as the shaft didn't disconnect from the arrowhead, she would be fine.
"Isala!" Abelas called. Isala ignored him, turning her staff on her attackers just in time to stagger the ones closest to her. Each movement had her side aching, and her aim was suffering for it. There was no way she could accommodate her wound – no matter how she moved she ached, blood dribbling form her broken skin. Despite that, she knew that if she stopped, then she would most certainly be dead.
The shield she erected around herself deflected the next arrow, and her attention focused on keeping the corpses on the edge of her range. When she looked towards Abelas she saw he had abandoned the Arcane Horror to move to the fringes, eliminating the corpse archers that had taken up point.
Creators, she couldn't even do this one job. How pathetic was that?
No more arrows moved towards her, but the four corpses left were relentless. Abelas had returned his attention to the Arcane Horror, and Isala was slowing dangerously. Another shield surrounded her, giving her a modicum of protection as she pressed her hand to her side and attempted to stem the bleeding. The healing energy was weak, but there, and eliminated the worst of the pain. That didn't stop the risk, however. Each twist of her torso shifted the projectile under her skin, the jagged edges cutting deeper into her tissue. The risk of infection was growing, and she had no means to clean the wound properly.
The shield vanished and a corpse broke through, charging towards her, and she realized in an instant that there was no way she could deflect the blade in time.
Before she could consider her fate – before the sword could meet her flesh – an unearthly scream reverberated through the early morning air. The corpses around her paused, bodies staggering and crumbling as the magic that sustained them vanished. Isala turned, eyes falling on Abelas as he stood victorious against the fading demon. For a brief, heavenly moment, there was silence.
The euphoria of success faded as the pain returned, burning through her side, and she had to support herself against her staff as she pressed a trembling hand to her side. Abelas was there in an instant, supporting her weight against him.
"How bad is it?" he demanded. Isala shook her head, biting down on her lip. She didn't trust herself to speak just then – not without crying. Abelas cursed, a word that sounded elven, but one she didn't recognize, and he carefully lifted her into his arms. The movement agitated her wound, but she bit down hard on her lip to muffle her complaint. He attached her staff to his back as she pressed her hand back to her side, drawing on weak magic to try and help. She couldn't do anything substantial until the arrow was removed, however. She had already moved too much.
"Bad," she finally managed, closing her eyes and breathing deep through her nose.
"I'm taking you into the house," he said. "You need to be treated."
"You manage to save many people with arrows in their side?" she asked.
Silence. She cracked open an eye, saw the clenching of his jaw, and knew that the answer was no. She didn't even have to ask, really. Arrows were the worst to deal with, and it had already been in her for far too long.
"I can do it on my own," she offered as she moved forward, the dim lighting of the house completely unhelpful. "I've done this for others-"
"I can treat your wound," he said. "I have done it before."
"Alright," she agreed. "Shit. Couldn't it have hit my arm? Then we could just amputate."
"We aren't amputating anything," he said sharply. He found the kitchens first and cleared off the table before carefully settling her there. Her jaw clenched as the arrow shifted again, the ragged edges cutting into her tissue. It took an immense amount of will to keep from crying out.
"Check my bag," she said. "I have supplies there. Not much, though."
Abelas moved, carefully pulling the satchel from her shoulder and rummaging through it. Bandages, some alcohol, and clean blades. It was better than nothing.
Those set aside he moved back to her, using the blade to carefully cut along the length of her shirt. This time, she had no measure of self-consciousness – she was far more concerned with the arrow still protruding from her side than whether or not she was thin enough.
"The blood loosens the arrowhead from the shaft," she explained softly, mostly to give her a distraction. "If you move the shaft too much, it'll disconnect. Then we'll have to go looking for the damn thing. We don't have supplies for surgery."
"Then I will have to be careful," Abelas said, confidence in his voice. She wished she could say she was as confident as he.
"You need to cut along the wound," she instructed, staring at the ceiling and refusing to acknowledge that it was her body under the blade. She was used to healing others, not herself. Creators, she knew how much this bled. She knew how dangerous this was. How was she supposed to survive this? "Follow the shaft and it should take you to the head. You need to pull it out in one piece."
That was if it wasn't lodged in a bone, but she didn't think it was. As far as she could tell it was trapped in tissue and muscle.
"Drink this," Abelas ordered, handing her the alcohol. She didn't need telling twice – she took a heavy drink, far more than she would ever casually do, and the lack of food in her stomach aided the alcohol as it worked quickly through her system. The pain dulled, though not completely, and when she handed the bottle back Abelas was holding the blade.
"Try not to move," he ordered as he guided her arm out of the way. She kept it pinned above her head, hand clenched anxiously.
"Alright," she breathed, closing her eyes tightly. "Alright. Do it."
…
Isala was sobbing by the end of the procedure, her eyes screwed shut as she tried to keep from moving. The arrowhead was free, however, and sat innocently at her side while Abelas quickly worked to disinfect the area and bandage it. She was low on blood, light headed and dizzy, but the wound was clotting and her blood replenishing with the help of a weak healing potion that Abelas had found in his scavenging around the house. It would take weeks for the tissue to mend back together, and days before she could move without fear or pain.
He secured the final wrap, hands surprisingly gentle as they brushed over her skin. "There," he said, exhaling heavily. "You should be fine."
"That's good to know," she said, voice weak. She looked over to him, hand still awkwardly held over her head. She was too scared to lower it. "How bad was it?"
Abelas looked like he didn't want to answer, but he did. "You moved too much. The wound is deeper than it should be."
"It was move or die," she said, and he nodded.
"We need to get you upstairs," he said. "You can't lay in the kitchen forever."
"I wouldn't mind laying here forever," she argued. She didn't want to think about how much it would hurt her to move – even if Abelas did all the real work. She sighed heavily at his unimpressed expression. "Fine. Fine. Just – give me more alcohol."
He handed her the bottle and she took it, lifting herself only enough so that drinking didn't accidentally turn into choking. When she pulled the bottle from her lips he took it, re-corked it, and placed it back into her satchel, which he now carried on his shoulder. Then he slipped his arms under her – mindful not to jolt her too horribly – and lifted her. She bit down hard on her lip – which had only just scabbed over from her previous abuse of it – and tasted blood.
"Ir abelas," he apologized. She shook her head.
"It's fine," she said, her breath hitching as dulled pain continued to throb in her side. "Just maybe go slow?"
Though he didn't respond verbally, he did slow his pace, his grip gentle. The stairs were a nightmare, Abelas unable to keep from jolting her completely. Her hand gripped at his neck, nails biting into the skin, and he didn't say a word.
Despite the severity of their situation, the house at least felt calmer now. They returned to the guest bedroom, where Abelas carefully laid her out on the bed before depositing their stuff once more. She was unable to do anything but watch as he blocked the door off with the dresser again, and as the alcohol worked through her system she steadily forgot the pain in her side and instead remembered she was wearing a tattered shirt. Her skin flushed in embarrassment and she threw her arm over her eyes, as if she could forget the entire situation.
"You should eat," Abelas said. "There were some rations in your bag."
"I'll puke if I try," she said.
To her surprise he didn't argue, but he did set one of her ration packs on the nightstand at her bedside before moving back away and beginning the tedious process of unbuckling layers of armor. She watched him – her curiosity always got the best of her – and her cheeks flushed at the vision he presented. Creators, but he was gorgeous, and her body didn't seem to care that she was essentially bedridden.
He moved back over to her, stripped to his leggings, and she saw his side. It looked bad – some wounds had reopened during his fight – and she immediately felt bad for complaining as she had. She reached out her hand to grab his, tugging him close enough so she could press her hand over his side. She, for once, was completely unsurprised when he caught her hand again and held it away.
"You need to save your energy," he said. "Rest. You can heal me in a few hours."
"You're going to risk infection," she argued, looking up at him with a stern frown. "At least let me minimize that risk. It will make me feel better."
He sighed, and she expected an argument. Instead he released her hand and held his arm away from his body, barring his side to her. She let out a soft breath of relief as she reached for him again, pressing her palm to the delicate skin and letting the dredges of her magic bubble up to the surface. Skin knitted slowly under her touch, just enough to stop the bleeding, and purified the beginnings of what looked to be only a mild infection.
As it turned out, Abelas didn't have to worry about her accidentally overextending herself – her hand dropped within moments as the last of her strength left her. Her eyes closed and she breathed slowly, trying to think clearly past the haze of alcohol, and she was only started from her attempts as she felt his hand brush gently along the inside of her wrist - a surprisingly tender display.
"Rest," he repeated himself. "I will keep guard. Now, there is no aura to keep looters at bay."
"Not many shem move through the forests," she said softly. "We'll be fine for the day."
He didn't argue, but she knew he didn't agree. By now she had come to realize that his safety was not something he took lightly – and hers, it seemed, had moved up slightly on his list of priorities.
"Sleep, lethallan," he ordered. "You will heal faster."
Isala gave a token grumble of dissent before sighing and letting her eyes close.