For the June of Doom prompts: 9 "Blame", 10 "Can you hear me?", 11 "Bleeding Out", 23 Trembling

So far, it has not been fun at all. And the night does not exactly look like it will bring any change soon, not for the better in any case. Through the cave's mouth Sabrina sees bolts of lightning zigzag across the night sky and the frequent roll of thunder is almost deafening. Heavy rain is pelting down on the beach and the black waves of the sea. Hopefully, Valdo's ferry will not capsize in the severe weather. Well, the deluge from above will probably annoy the shit out of the pampered musicians, but it is not that stormy, and the ferryman is very experienced. They will make it to shore safely, she is sure of it. Sabrina sighs once again. Will she be able to sleep despite the booming thunder and after everything that has happened? On the hard ground with only her cloak to keep her barely warm? She is dog tired from the stress and strain of the day, yet her mind is too churned up, her thoughts too much in a turmoil. And her chaos is all used up, not even enough left to conjure up a warming fire or a blanket, not even a hot cup of tea. And all because of him. Sabrina glares at the sleeping Nilfgaardian, who is totally oblivious of the more than uncomfortable surroundings, the thunderclaps and the Sorceress's troubled mind. She can hardly blame him for that though. After all, the man has lost a bucket of blood and would have bled out like a stuck pig without her magic.

"Can you hear me?" Sabrina had asked, shaking him by the shoulder after she had untangled herself from him and scrambled to her feet. The man must be severely injured, she decided, he would hardly have collapsed just from the surprise of bumping into her so unexpectedly, would he now? However, it was hard to say how much of the blood on his face and armour was his. To her relief, it did not take more than a minute or two and he slowly blinked his eyes open, looking up at her blearily.

"Can you hear me?" she repeated, her voice sharp as a blade. Better to make it crystal clear from the start that she is the one in power here and that she has no intention of making things easy for the hated enemy commander.

The man gave a weak nod, grimacing with pain.

"I'll take off your armour now," Sabrina continued, glaring down at him. "Don't try anything, or you're as dead and pulverised as Filavandrel before you can say fuck." He nodded again, and Sabrina was almost certain that there was a glint of panic in his eyes. Excellent. Things would be a lot easier if he was mortally afraid of her. He did not look too good, either, and, strangely enough, did not seem to carry a sword, nor any other weapon. In his current, incapacitated state, she could probably defeat him easily even without her magic.

She was not exactly gentle with the man, she has to admit, as she removed the blood-coated shoulder-pieces and breastplate. He was the enemy, after all, and her sympathy for him was about as non-existent as her desire to try Nilfgaardian beer. Groaning, he scrunched his eyes shut and made no move to rise or tackle her. Had he gotten her - hopefully quite intimidating - message? Or was he simply too badly hurt to try to resist? He had to be aware that this would end badly for him, after all, it would not be his first time as a prisoner of war in Aretuza. Judging from how soaked with blood the padded black vest the man wore under his armour was on the left side, it was probably the latter, Sabrina concluded. He must have lost a hell of a lot of blood. No wonder he was as pale as a sheet under all the dirt and blood stains. How had the guy even managed to stand on his own two legs and walk just a few minutes before? Sabrina wondered, amazed. A fucking miracle.

With a swift, practised movement, the sorceress withdrew a slender dagger from her bootleg. She always carries it there, or hidden under her skirt when she is not wearing boots. It had come in very handy on several occasions before, mostly when she wanted to deter bothersome specimens of the opposite sex that had the audacity to approach her uninvited, or even followed her through the nightly streets of Ard Carraigh, not knowing who she was. They only did so once and were probably still having the occasional nightmare of the encounter. Served them right. Sabrina's lips curled into a vicious smile at the recollection. Wide-eyed, the enemy soldier stared up at her and the dagger in her hand, clearly afraid she might use the keen blade to cut his throat. How stupid, she would not have bothered to remove his armour if she had wanted to do that, would she now? After everything he had done at Sodden and now here on Thanedd, it was quite satisfying, though, to see the fear in his grey-blue eyes. He had started to tremble, too. From fright or because of the blood loss? Probably from both.

"Turn onto your side!" she ordered, holding the dagger in his face, and the soldier did, drawing in a pained breath through gritted teeth.

With deft fingers, Sabrina removed the backplate and cut the vest's thick fabric open where it was wettest and where she could spot a longish tear that might have been caused by the blade of a sword. Another cut took care of the equally black and equally blood-soaked and damaged shirt beneath the vest.

The stab wound in the man's shoulder was deep and bleeding sluggishly. It clearly had done so for quite a while, for several hours to be more precise.

"Shit, why didn't you stop the bleeding?" Sabrina exclaimed. "Idiot!"

He did not reply, just groaned softly when she moved his arm to have a better look. To be fair, as the injury was in the back of his shoulder, it would have been pretty impossible for the man to staunch the bleeding without help. He might have been unconscious for some or even most of the time since the end of the battle, too, otherwise he would surely have joined the elves and sailed away together with them in their boats. Well, whether or not he deserved to be called an idiot did not really matter. It simply felt good to do so.

Sabrina let both her hands hover over the bleeding injury, concentrated and started muttering an incantation. The man whimpered pitifully as a stream of magic flowed from the tips of her fingers and poured into the wound. Triss Merigold or Marti Södergren could certainly have done it without causing their patient pain, but she is not a trained medi-witch and only knows a few basic healing spells. It was better than nothing, though, and would save the man's life. At least Sabrina hoped it would - if she did not burn the skin off his bones by accident. Anyway, Triss with her extensive burn scars curtesy of Sodden Hill would surely agree that this particular Nilfgaardian deserved to suffer from all the agony he had coming at him, and more. Sabrina's own memories of Sodden are not much more pleasant than Triss's, only that she has no visible scars as a constant reminder of the deadly battle. And today's bloodbath did not exactly help to make her inclined toward compassion, on the contrary.

Bathed in her chaos, the blood vessels and muscle tissue slowly - and satisfyingly painfully - started to knit and heal.

When the sorceress finally stopped her murmuring and withdrew her hands, they both were panting heavily. The wound was not fully healed and still looked red and raw, but it had to do for now. Sabrina's nose had started to bleed and she had yet to get the Nilfgaardian down the cliff and find a cave to hide in. As it was very unlikely that he would be able to walk on his own, she would need quite a bit of her chaos to achieve the feat, she suspected. To be honest, the man looked more as if he would black out again any minute.

"Here, drink this!" she ordered and, with rough hands, helped him into a sitting position. Trembling badly and stripped off most of his armour, the Nilfgaardian looked much less impressive and a lot younger than before. He could hardly be older than thirty at most, Sabrina noted, surprised. She held a little hipflask to his quivering lips, another item that she always carries with her. A strong bitter, excellent for digestion, to revive one's spirits when exhausted and to calm oneself when annoyed and frustrated - which she is quite often thanks to her fiery temperament.

Obediently, the Nilfgaardian took a swig, then drew in a sharp breath. The alcohol must have been much stronger than he had expected.

"Thank you," he mumbled hoarsely when he had recovered his ability to speak. A little colour had returned to his pallid face. The schnaps seemed to work. Eying the injured enemy warily, Sabrina also took a sip, then she put the flask back into her secret pocket. Would he try to overpower her now that he appeared to be feeling somewhat better and was not in immediate danger of keeling over dead anymore?

"I know you want to run," Sabrina said threateningly. "But don't. Without help, you'd never make it off the island alive. However," she arched her perfect eyebrow, smirking down at the man, "I am not Tissaia de Vries. I will give you a chance."

He looked up at her in confusion, as if he could not trust his ears, believing perhaps that she was nothing but a hallucination. The right corner of his slightly trembling lip was drooping just a little.

Actually, he looked kind of cute like this. A lot cuter than should legally be allowed for a - quite literally - bloody Nilfgaardian.