Private Tales The Ways of Magic

[Thallan]

Thallan looked over to Raea when she spoke up, and his gaze paused on her injuries. He stepped over to her, inspecting to see how bad they were. Raea looked as if she might collapse any moment, so Thallan directed her to a chair. He squatted by her side and took her arm, inspecting the wound at her shoulder.

"That is a great question, Raea," he replied after a moment. "Have an answer, Shae?" He didn't even deign to glance over at the noble fae woman as she got dressed.

"Maybe they wanted to prove a point," Shae said, her voice small and tight.

"Hmm." Thallan still did not look at her. He moved to pick up his tunic that been discarded onto the floor and walked back over to Raea. He tore of a piece of it and tied it around Raea's shoulder to slow the bleeding. "Tell me exactly what happened after I left, start to finish. Don't leave out any details. We could use this information to catch the ones that got away and punish them. Isn't that what you want?" with his last question, he finally looked at Shae.

She was fully dressed once more, and when her eyes meet Thallan's, there was something like anger in her gaze. He knew it was not directed towards her 'attackers', but rather towards Raea for having the audacity to still be alive. Thallan found himself glad that Raea was still alive, if only to get on Shae's nerves.

 

[Raea Stormcrow]

Her features tightened at his examination, as though she were a piece of meat. A rather diced up piece of meat, as it turned out; she bunched up some of the too-sheer fabric and pressed it into her ribs with a damp squelch and a sharp wince at the pain.

"Consider their point made," she gritted out as Thallan worked on the wound in her shoulder. She was not about to let him strip her naked to deal with the slice across her chest, though. "Even if all they proved is that they bleed." That I do, too. That I am woefully unprepared to deal with whatever mess he has gotten me into.

Even though the whole situation had kindled a foreign feeling in her: hope. She still knew less about herself than she had this morning, but one thing was certain. Her fae ancestry was no longer in question, even if every other detail of her life was.

"You can't expect me to just...just speak those words in front of everyone, can you?" Shae murmured to Thallan. The heat in that momentary gaze at him was there and gone quickly. Raea could feel the insincerity radiating off the woman. She didn't know if this was a play or not, but she could tell that the Lord of the manor had his own doubts.

She disliked this noblewoman intensely, but she didn't know how best to handle this situation. She herself didn't believe that what she was saying had happened... but...

"Where," came an icy voice, filled with arrogant command, "is my daughter?" The voice came from outside Thallan's room, directed to whomever might be outside this room.

Raea pressed the cloth into the laceration harder, face paling further with pain and, paradoxically, clearing her head.