Tymon could only watch as the creature, with Kae-Lith'a's leg in hand, made its retreat. Any shot he fired now either risked hitting her, or would have been ineffective considering he had to hit the creature's eye just to get it to react at all. On its way out however, some few dozen metres away, the creature had apparently decided to slam its body weight into a tree that just so happened to be in its way; in fact it had opted to use that strategy with many of the obstructions it was encountering, be they smaller branches or evidently, entire trees. Before long however, the creature was well out of view, obscured either by the forest or by sheer distance and for some time, he was stunned, unsure as to what, if anything, could be done to save his co-survivor, whether or not it even made sense to do so, whether or not he should.

This consideration suddenly grew far more contested than any of its equivalents had ever been in the past, the pair had only just managed to reach an allegiant status quo, working together to survive the world they were on and naturally, this clashed with every ounce of training and propaganda in the form of the 'Aeldari Xenographical Profile Module' of his training, detailing them as devious selfish creatures who at times even struggled to cooperate with each other. He was privy to evidence of the opposite however, instead of leaving him to get killed by the creature, she stood alongside him and tried to fight it as any good guardsman would. She was even the one who had helped them get their hands on new equipment that granted, would have helped her survive as well, but he was injured and this gave her every so far disused opportunity to double cross him. It felt wrong to leave her to this fate, it was also extremely convenient that the creature had left a literal trail of destruction to follow and so, stealing what remained of his physically unwell resolve, he prepared the backpack they had found, slung back the grenade launcher over the cooperative shoulder before awkwardly stowing her gear and readied his lasgun. For ahead of him, laid a possibly lengthy walk to… Somewhere…

Iron strong fingers the size of her arms clutched her left shin in a fist, haphazardly carrying her while the creature blundered past and through obstacles both living and nonliving while she tried with what strength she had available to her to make sure the creature would not accidentally or purposefully let her body fall into a position that would inevitably see the gripped leg snapping the wrong way. All the while her armour, running on its sliver of remaining battery power screamed warnings directly into her mind about the damage that creature's fist was doing, how the force being applied was beyond safe operating parameters. Suddenly, a low branch, sprouting from a tree much different than the ones her and Tymon had grown familiar with, struck the back of her head and-

The striking scorpion, alongside 9 others moved nimbly yet cautiously along the relatively flat tree-tops with motions so quiet they would only ever alert the most sensitive of creatures. Occasionally checking the ground metres below them or evading wildlife that took residence in the branches, they neared the objective highlighted on their helmets' HUDs; a small clearing with an even smaller structure in the middle, presumed to be of Necron origin. Unmanned satellites had been surveilling this planet for centuries under Alaitoc's control and while it was teeming with wildlife and potentially rich in resources, it had been effectively blacklisted because of its nature as a failed tombworld, or so Alaitoc's shipwide council had thought. What prompted the deployment of the warhost Kae-lith'a was attached to was the fact that images sent back very clearly showed Canoptek activity, up to and including the repair or construction of smaller structures on the surface, activity that had been steadily increasing alongside energy signatures reminiscent of reality tethers coming online. Despite the tense air this created among the scorpions and most likely every other unit dispatched to this world however, their recon mission featured a distinct lack of the activity those satellites had spotted;

"Forward teams, check in" The crisp radio broadcast chimed in and one after another, various team leaders checked in, all mentioning their distances from their respective objectives, all mentioning a lack of the Canoptek activity.

"Avan'tyr, 8th scorpion strike-host, 4 units out from objective and still no-

'Somewhere' apparently took him up a gentle incline which mercifully saw the thick mud in the ground growing shallower yet more viscous, ultimately netting him a somewhat easier journey down the path of damaged trees, snapped branches and eventually a different species of tree entirely; its leaves adopted the same gentle blue hue as the grass around the obelisk but without the evasive quality, in fact more often than not they were well out of reach, tiny leaves perked upwards ever so slightly like tiny cups while their larger ones continued to grow in that same pattern, much akin to horns while between them hung fist-sized growths that Tymon's brief exobotany training module would have described as seed pods. It was here however where the destruction appeared to start thinning out, signs of the creatures' blunderous travels grew more and more scarce indicating to him that whatever injury the creature was suffering from seemed to be dulling. There was still enough for Tymon to continue plotting his course however, one that lead up the hill, towards the left and apparently up a hill again to the point that the swamp like terrain that Tymon had grown so used to was no longer present; the route ahead of him was now filled with knee-length evasive grass interspersed occasionally with the biomes' new dominant species of tree. By now however, the path had become far less determinable based on the creatures' trail of destruction until he noticed patches of grass that had been flattened. Slowly, fighting both a stomach pain and hope that was beginning to erode, he approached one such patch, swatting some of the prehensile grass away until he was greeted with an outline that to his trained eye, was clearly the footstep of a creature with immense size and weight. He continued to the next one further along, keeping an eye on his surroundings whenever he moved and each time, the footsteps were similar if not identical…

Her eyes granted her sight once more, her mind authorising just enough lucidity to process a headache so painful it deterred any attempts at complex thought besides identifying the change in terrain before one of the planets strangely colourful spherical bushes retracted rapidly into its shell, thwarting all hopes of a cushioned impact when-

-covered in sensors and its definitely powered" Avan'tyr spoke, the command host replied;

"Command Avan'tyr, do any appear to have been tripped?" Kae-lith'a and the rest of the strike-host waited, scanning their surroundings constantly from their tree-tops, shuriken pistols primed;

"Avan'tyr command, I don't believe so, its scanners have definitely pinged us a few times but it doesn't seem to be reacting at all, my guess is that our stealth equipment has it fooled"

"Command Avan'tyr, move out of the ping radius now and await further instructions"

"Avan'tyr command, understood moving to-

Her legs armour had buckled, her shin screamed the same painful melody as her head, but thankfully the one in her head had silenced itself somewhat. She saw a strange looking nest around her now, one the creature finally came to a halt before tossing her to the side onto a pile of-

A nest… This creature was territorial, so much so that it had created its own encampment by a tree barricaded on all sides save for its entrance, adorned with the skulls and carcasses of other creatures it had slain; a few split-jaws, another larger four legged creature with a beak and the 'carcass' of a canoptek mechanoform, much like the one the pair encountered. Tymon, dozens of metres away, could see little else as he was below the nests ground level, but the hill offered a clear option to get to higher ground and assess the situation properly. Before he could move however, he would catch a glimpse of the creature that had taken his co-survivor, shuffling in place ever so slightly to make sure its remaining functioning eyes could see the entrance to its camp. The restrictive view he had however was reassuring, the damage that the pair had inflicted upon it was serious; one arm was clearly somewhat lame while there was serious scarring and charring around the eye that Tymon had hit. The creature was wounded, he was now equipped to destroy light vehicles as opposed to merely scratching their paint and he had Kae-lith'a's equipment with him as well, meaning she would be able to help him once his ambush began.

"Open fire!" Kae-lith'a and the rest of the 8th Scorpion strike host fired screaming shurikens across the river at a number of multi-legged insect-like flying mechanoforms each sequentially emitting brief deep green beams, effortlessly cutting through foliage and trees that stood between them and a separate team of striking scorpions attempting to maintain a crumbling defensive formation. One of them tried and failed to evade one such beam and it struck his armour, injuring him before another came to his rescue, dragging him behind cover. Slightly further along the river were 4 modified light equipment carriers moving away from the fight at best possible speed.

"Fifth strike-host to eighth! We need to fall back! We've suffered heavy losses and there's more Acanthrites incoming!" The broadcasted voice was nearly breathless, shouting over heavy shuriken and beam fire.

"Eighth to fifth, we've got you covered for now, get out of there"

Bright shurikens slammed into the sides of a number of the Canoptek aggressors, damaging some, downing others but only for Kae-lith'a's hud to suddenly glow a deep red with a warning as an acanthrite turned to face her, unleashing a cutting beam she would barely-

There she was; lying unconscious and injured on a pile of smaller carcasses and fruits further inside the creature's simple encampment. Tymon on the other hand was a dozen metres further up the hill now, nestled between two bunches of prehensile grass, aiming down at the creature with his las-gun while his stomach tried and managed to churn some more, forcing him to vomit. He was quick enough to notice this happening however and just before the sickening taste entered his mouth, he turned his head to the left, catching his shoulder in the ensuing stream. Quickly the smell invaded his nostrils, replacing the natural scent that this planet's nature offered him. The bowel suppression pill should have lasted far longer than it appeared to; he still felt the side effects that came with it, the fever, the shivers, but it should have stopped him from vomiting altogether. All told, the implication was that his body managed to force a bowel based response despite the inhibitors acting and this meant he was fighting something that was neither bacterial or viral in nature. Who knows, perhaps some of the ration bricks were off? Like the thin veil of optimism he wore during his discovery of prospector three however, this one quickly fell away. The only other realistic cause for his illness now was parasitic and almost nothing he had with him could cure that right now, save for the bio analysis kit. Another pill might work, but it could only serve to further the parasites agenda because some species were known to prefer warmer climates. One bridge at a time however, he was metres away from the creature's encampment and ready to strike, so he swallowed a second pill hoping it would have the same effect as the first and allowed the pain to gradually subside.

Not three minutes of respite would pass before Kae-lith'a, alongside 7 remaining members of her eighth strike-host hastily disembarked out of the falcon tank and into a clearing where their only means of planetary egress waited; an orbitally dropped Aeldari warpgate. Two other falcon tanks hovered a few feet above the air, turrets aimed across the river at a number of heavy weapons carrying spyders accompanied by more Acanthrites while wraiths effortlessly slinked their ways over the ground towards a firing line of scorpions, guardians and hovering support gun emplacements throwing hundreds of shuriken bolts downrange.

Tymon's plan was simple and it involved taking advantage of the creatures distracted and weakened state;

Leave Kae-lith'a's weapons further down the hill, somewhere obvious and easily visible for the eldar to see, allowing her to arm herself once again. Following this, Tymon would return to his present defensible position and lure the creature towards him with lasgun fire and a lot of shouting, operating on the assumption that the creature would see him as a territorial challenge and approach to settle it. This would make it easier for Tymon to hit the creature with his grenade launcher while giving Kae-Lith'a a chance to escape and hopefully help him. A pang of doubt stabbed the side of his mind when this part of his plan formed, but in truth he had no choice. Once again he was forced to silence his doubts with the argument of the pair being in the same boat and the fact that she had saved him once before. He also noted that if the grenade launcher did nothing to stop the creature, then Kae-Lith'a nipping at its back with a chainsword and a pistol would do little to nothing to resolve the situation. Of course, alternatively, he could just leave her to her fate. She'd probably find a way out herself, or she would get eaten and the chance of her just turning against him and firing at him~

Shut it

Regardless of the situation, even if Kae-Lith'a was not involved at all, the creature, upon establishing his survival, would likely just return and absolutely massacre him. The creature needed to be rendered no-factor and this was the best way to go about it. With that nail in the coffin of 'the friendly eldar debate', he prepared to put his plan into action.

Kae-lith'a was moments before joining her compatriots in defending the scientific vehicles in their escape as one by one they were warped out of harm's way and back aboard Alaitoc. One falcon tank turned its turret to face the approaching onslaught of wraiths and in doing so, gave one spyder the opportunity to discharge a deep green bolt directly at the unlucky vehicle, detonating one of its engines, sending it spinning and drifting on its remaining one before detonating on the spot and sending her flying into the falcon on her left and-

Kae-Lith'a's weapons were now leaning against a tree on the way up to his position. He also caught a glimpse of her on his way down and noticed that she was awake now, albeit trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible while the creature continued to nurse its wounds. Tymon was now back at his vantage point on the hill with his lasgun aimed downrange and another splitting headache as his temperature crept up again. All were symptoms of physical exertion where there should truly be nothing but rest at this point, but he had no choice now and so, phase one went into action;

Deep piercing red lasbolts were sent downrange, striking the ground in front of the creatures nest, intentionally missing and drawing the creatures attention.

"Over here you fat frakking gak-sucker!" He shouted, immediately regretting it as his headache suddenly grew worse, then he fired again, Kae-lith'a noticed as well and the creature, still nursing its injuries, charged out of its nest and made a beeline for Tymon. Now it was exposed and Tymon aimed directly at the creature as it started closing the wide gap between them and in doing so, he connected almost all of his shots perfectly along the torso. It only seemed to piss it off at first but eventually the dozens of sizzling black scorch-marks on its chest started to wear it down, each hit either drawing a perfect line where a previous one had impacted, or painting a brand new burn somewhere on its chest. With the nest still in his eyes, he noticed Kae-lith'a take the opportunity to escape, slowly stepping out into the open while the creature was distracted and eventually vanishing behind it and out of his view. She must have seen her weapons by now and hopefully not a moment too soon because exactly that was when his lasgun ran out of charges. Harmless clicks escaped the weapon now as he pushed the trigger again and again and that's when the creature took the opportunity to speed up again, unimpeded. It didn't matter. The creature was close enough for the launcher now. Half of the distance had already been closed and so he propped it up and got to his feet, still battling headaches and stomach pains before firing. He missed, too hasty. Another shot, the creature was closer again, another miss. He cursed himself as fear swiftly took over. If Kae-lith'a was going to attack, she had better do so soon. He fired again but this time, struck the creature's torso, ripping half of its chitinous hide off. The creature staggered, fell to the ground behind itself, scrambling to get back on its feet. It was a sitting duck and Tymon did not let this advantage escape him. Another grenade, another hit, this time it's hip. Huge amounts of flesh was exposed now as muscle vanished into a strange green mist, the creature's blood perhaps? No matter, it was still trying to get to its feet, Tymon prepared another shot but its good arm managed to rip a chunk of dirt out of the ground and chuck it at him, forcing him to stagger backwards as the mudball fell apart mid air. Then it tried to get back to its feet, its sights set squarely on Tymon as only one leg would cooperate. It was metres away now and still had Tymon within the outer reaches of its range if it decided to lunge at him. In fact, it seemed like it was about to and, weary with exhaustion, Tymon could do little more than scramble backwards. Then it screamed out in pain, the same cry it emitted when Tymon hit it with lasbolts. Strange metallic melodies screamed behind it, Kae-Lith'a's weapon, all of which were followed by deep fleshy thuds as the creature stumbled once again, revealing Kae-Lith'a behind it unleashing every last shot her weapon had before darting just past its arm, cutting a deep gash into it with her chainsword. She had it distracted and to his surprise was apparently doing serious damage. Its once functional arm flailed in a vain attempt to hit her, only for her to slink nimbly out of its way before sending two shurikens straight into the creature's face. Blinded, the creature flailed about again, trying to hit something but Kae-Lith'a was well beyond its range, returning back behind the creature to put a few more shurikens into its back. All this gave Tymon the opportunity to reload his lasgun with his second of three energy cartridges, allowing the now empty grenade launcher to slip out of his grasp before taking aim at the creature and firing again. Dozens of las-bolts cut through the air while Kae-Lith'a returned to a safe distance, all hitting the writhing creature's body before eventually, under duress of las and shuriken fire, it fell limp. Eventually, believing the creature was incapacitated, Tymon lowered his weapon and allowed his exertion to hit him. Panting, he looked over at Kae-Lith'a; her leg armour was severely damaged, caved in all around the left calf.

"You alright?" He asked, breathless.

"Yes uhm…" There were clearly other words in the pipeline, despite how pained she sounded; "Yes…"

Neither of them would say anything and Kae-Lith'a reloaded her weapon. Then the creature moaned again, almost growling. Tymon fought his exhaustion one more time to aim his reloaded weapon at the creature and fired, this time directly into its face. Kae-Lith'a joined and soon enough, its face and likely its brain were a decimated and seared mess on the creature's body. Moments later, Kae-Lith'a cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground, clutching her leg.

"Kae-lith'a?" Tymon half yelled; "What's going on?" Startled, he approached her and she would try to answer;

"My! Leg!" She'd managed between pained, breathless pants. Tymon quickly put two and two together, but wondered how she was able to walk earlier, then she explained, albeit poorly;

"Powers' not…" A pause, more pained sounds

"What do you mean?" Tymon was in front of her now, looking at the ruined leg piece;

"Armour… Armour! Armour has no power!" He quickly put two and two together, she must have been using her powered armour as a crutch.

"It loses power in uhmm…" She would get interrupted by Tymon; "In the fight, yeah uhm…" Fear quickly shot through his chest a second time.

"Are you able to walk?" Kae-Lith'a knew enough of what he was saying to answer;

"Maybe, yes, but I need rest" Somewhat relieved, Tymon sat down beside her. He was in no shape to help her walk back home.

"Then we can… Slowly come back…"

"Yeah, I'm in no rush either… But we need to go before it gets too late…" With the exhausted state the pair were in, travelling during sunset was likely to be a complete death sentence and so, once the pair replenished what little strength they could in the short time they permitted themselves, they plotted their route back while Tymon allowed Kae-lith'a to use him as a crutch alongside her chainsword when their journey began.

Afternoon was swift to descend upon the pair and as the mud encasing Tymon's boots and Kae-lith'a's armour grew thicker, so too did its capacity to actively sap their strength; every footstep took blinks of an eye longer than the last until they interrupted their journey for a brief rest, only for the arduous cycle to begin again as the temperature slowly began to creep back down into the dangerous yet familiar cold that the pair had survived previously. By now however, the planets' name had retreated into the recesses of Tymon's subconscious. He could not care less about the name of this world anymore, in fact some lesser parts of Tymon's mind had resigned him to a cold, eternal sleep that would eventually be thrust upon him by the planets' climate. Kae-lith'a on the other hand, was swift to notice Tymon's dip in strength and his apparent dip in lucidity; he was getting notably slower, not just physically but mentally too, often drifting off of their chosen course back to prospector 3 until Kae-lith'a corrected his path. Eventually she was the only one navigating them while Tymon was just about able to put one foot ahead of the other until finally, the ground grew firm. The sight that was the ruined prospector three was only metres away now and while it was far from homely, the heater provided a much needed refuge from the planet's oppressive nights. Knowing an end was in sight, every step suddenly grew harder than the last as the effort they needed to keep going swiftly shifted to one of a mental variety but soon enough, they were at their damaged tent, only then did Tymon permit himself to collapse onto the floor and rest, practically leaving Kae-lith'a to her own devices as he did. Likewise however, she too permitted it; the dark made it difficult to tell, but his skin felt slick to the touch and when the screen on the dataslate shone bright enough to show her his face, it became clear just how far he had pushed himself with his skin being pale as a corpse. She managed to put herself into a sitting position and start fumbling about with the armour encasing her leg in a bid to expose the damage the creature had done, but with very little luck; the armour had warped inwards, obscuring one of the latches she'd need to get at to remove the leg-pieces. She also figured that the low temperature would likely make treating the probable injury at best unnecessarily difficult and at worst, downright harmful, so she turned her attention to the now suspiciously quiet Tymon, only for a deep fear to ambush her already weakened state of mind; he looked barely conscious, if at all, his skin-seal was peeling off too, hell if she hadn't seen him moving earlier she could not have been blamed for considering him a corpse.

"Tymon?" She somewhat hastily called out. His reply was both delayed and dreary;

"Hm?"

"You.. need to.." Again, she sought words that she knew only in native Asuryani, but managed to find an adequate substitute in the vocabulary of eavesdropped imperial transmissions; "You need medic!" Tymon just chuckled with his weakened voice before continuing;

"Yeah, tell me if you see one, would you?" His sarcasm did little to help, or perhaps he was losing his mind?

"No, Tymon, you need to…" Low gothic words either continued to escape her, or simply did not appear when she tried again to convey what she wanted to say. "you need to… medical you…"

"What are you trying to tell me to do, woman?" His head tilting towards her was by far the most movement he had performed in their present interaction. He was still alive enough to do that, but his response did not help. With a grunt of effort on her part, she leaned forwards, gesturing at the bag that had become his backrest, at his skin seal; "You need to fix it!" He seemed to get the message this time;

"Hm? Oh that… Yeah it hurts…" He was clearly not all there;

"Fix it! Fix.. Everything! The.. the… the sick!" Anger crept into her voice, even while he seemed on the verge of death, he still did not seem to comprehend the danger he was in, but this time around it was the rational side of her mind that cut Tymon some much needed slack; he was injured, he was ill, exhausted, probably alongside a whole host of other issues, it was no surprise that he was struggling to do anything.

"You mean.. Oh.. You mean I need to heal?" Finally, she was getting somewhere, she had heard the term 'heal' once before on an imperial channel;

"Yes! Heal it!"

"I'll have to do that later.. I can barely~" No, not later.

"Heal! Now!" Her urgency managed to call forth some remaining part of Tymons' lucidity.

"Easier said than done…" He tried to explain but Kae-lith'a would not have it.

"Tymon please! Now!" There was a moment before Tymon would finally get to it.

"okay.. But I need water first…" Something Kae-lith'a could finally help with. Quickly she reached to her hip and grabbed her hydrator, holding it in front of his mouth; "Open" He'd cooperate and she let him drink what likely was his first drink of water in hours and once she was satisfied he had had enough, she stopped. Tymon swallowed, leaning against the backpack he still wore;

"The medkit.. In the bag" She had barely managed to sit herself down and his backpack was out of reach. "I.. I cannot.. I need to heal.."

"Right.. Yeah…" Slowly and awkwardly, Tymon set about slinking his arms out of the straps on his backpack so he could twist around, unzip and retrieve the bio-analysis kit still stowed firmly in the found bergen, only for him to accidentally spill out its other contents. It didn't matter, he had what he needed and rested it on his lap.
"Could you turn the heater on please?" He managed to ask, noticing his fingers jittering and shaking to such a degree that would have made opening the box impossible. The device was next to Kae-Lith'a thankfully so after finding the switch, she quickly turned it on allowing Tymons dexterity to return. He opened the kit and was greeted by the small display, a control panel beneath it, a number of cables and vials full of chemicals, most of which he had no idea what they were. Everyone received a basic degree of training with a bio analysis kit however, so with a flick of a switch, he booted the device up and navigated the menu into 'diagnostic mode'. Following the machines' demands, he pulled forth the cables coiled up to the right of the panel, separated the electronic pads from the IV feeder pipe and hooked himself up to the device, then it was just a matter of commanding the machine to diagnose him and allow it to work its magic. The device was quick with its diagnosis and while it clicked, whirred and occasionally injected him with small amounts of fluids, Kae-lith'a's attention was split, in part on her own leg as she tried in vain to ascertain its condition through the armour and in part on her co-survivor but eventually, it came back with results;

PATIENT CONDITION; SEVERE

Massive dehydration detected

Blood nutrient levels dangerously low (32.6% of recommended)

Minor blood-loss detected (~710ml loss)

Foreign contaminants detected in blood (0.2 parts per million)

Massive active immune response detected; cytokine levels approaching toxic

ERROR: NO PATHOGEN DETECTED

ULTRASOUND SCAN REQUIRED FOR CONTINUED DIAGNOSIS

The machine was designed to be easy to use, so his training covered all of the basic functions including the ultrasound scan feature, but beyond this point the machine could only recommend treatment regimens; a medic would normally have the final say in what treatment would be carried out, especially in unusual situations like this. But regardless, he continued to follow the device's instructions; eventually the fourth and fifth cables hung from his stomach and he let the machine begin its scan and three nerve wracking minutes later, the diagnosis was finalised;

WARNING: POSSIBLE (83%) FOREIGN MACRO-ORGANISMS DETECTED

LOCATION: LOWER INTESTINES

TREATMENT ADVISED ::: SINGLE STAGE ::: 12h

FSAP_A4 - Anti-Parasitics ::: FULL DOSE

NUTRIGEL - SUPP_446 ::: 1 gram, slow release

LSS ::: FULL DOSE

Patient is advised to remain stationary for…
12 HOURS treatment time + 4 HOURS rest and recovery

Patient is further advised to ingest…

4 LITRES OF WATER

[COMMENCE TREATMENT?]

That… Fracking… Pond…

It was the only place he could have gotten intestinal parasites from.

Internally, Tymon cursed at Kae-Lith'a for forcing him, almost at gunpoint, to bathe in that pond. The one thing he wanted to avoid had occurred and it drove him up the wall with a livid feeling that demanded he lambast her with waves of 'I fracking told you so', but there was far too little energy left in the guardsman to act on that particular emotion;
"Frack…" He started, stowing his anger with ease. "Turns out I do have fething parasites"

"Hm?" Kae-lith'a's eyes met his head, still slick with sweat.

"The thing that's making me sick" He spoke, while pulling forth numerous vials from the compartments in the lid, assuming they'd all be labelled with the same names displayed by the machine; "It's parasites…" He placed all three vials into a number of receiver ports behind the display.
"I probably got them while bathing" Those words almost instinctively angered her, reminding her of the fight the pair had, but this time all was tinged ever so slightly with guilt.
"but I think the… thing… can get rid of it…" Some element of Kae-lith'a wanted to apologise, another did not, but she replied regardless;

"I.. I don't know the words" But this time, her vocabulary had nothing to do with it, his statement however brought a gentle wave of relief to the shores of her mind. Tymon continued to go through the machine's prompts until he reached the option to 'commence treatment'.

"It'll have to put me under though…"
"What is… 'under?" It was a term she had heard every now and then, but neither her briefings on low gothic nor her hours of eavesdropping gave her the context to understand the term;
"It'll force me to sleep while it fixes me" Every word takes more and more effort now, but these were finally a few that Kae-lith'a understood.
"It will… make you sleep… and heal?"

"Yeah… It says it'll take like~" She interrupted him.

"Heal now.. Please.. " While there was relief in her voice, she knew he was not out of the woods yet, the sooner the machine went to work, the better.

"Okay… I'll see you tomorrow…" His eyes managed to meet hers, she had moved closer to him in the brief ordeal despite her leg but he could not reciprocate the concerned, yet hopeful look in her eyes. He reached for the console one more time, tapped one final button before the IV-feed flinched ever so slightly, pumping a dark blue fluid into his stomach.

His eyes grew heavy…

Hers did not…

But eventually she looked away with those same eyes…

Then his finally shut…