Kickstart My Heart
Just like any other night Dyarhk made the transition from late night Rhydin into early afternoon Huyglen, only this time he did not do so alone, this time he did not do so looking as he normally did. Rachael Wynter under his arm, he contributed pathetic footsteps down the luscious green passage of trees through the forest, dripping wet as though he had just wandered through a monsoon, one Rachael showed no traces of being in.
"I do not.... something is wrong." His eyes took their last glance at the walk to his home, the house within his sights before they were shut for the long haul, shut so tight they hurt; but that pain paled in comparison to the one his hand hovered over: his chest. He went down, despite Rachael's best strengths, to one knee, and quickly to the other, quickly to his back. The only part of him that showed vividness was his grimacing face, vibrating sweat-glossed cheeks, and hand clenched over his chest not unlike how it had in his younger days, clasping onto the skull of his enemy.
"Merde." Rachael knelt down with Dyarhk as he sunk to the ground. Ungloved fingers moved to check his pulse, and a litany of oaths in French escaped her usually stern lips. Sapphires flicked around for someone to assist them. He looked like he was suffocating. Insufficient air. Tight chest pain. His eyes refused to open. His only focus, his only working brain function: hanging on. His arm, catatonic, was unbending in Rachael's evaluation of his pulse. The all of his muscles tense, particularly those in that arm. He was unreachable.
First on the scene, other than Rachael Wynter, had been Rauland, opener of the portal. He flew over upon his fae wings and Dyarhk standing and his company worried over him was not the sight he expected to see. His very regular smile vanished and he kicked in the afterburner on those wings, sacrificing a mystical sound of wonder for a more insect-like rapid fluttering. He made over in a blazing speed, rounding up to slow down and look over the two, great worry in his eyes as he looked to Rachael.
"What happened?? What's wrong??"
"He is having a heart attack."
Having been trained in combat medicine, the signs were all too clear. After those words left her lips, she moved to begin resuscitation efforts on her friend. Breaths first. By virtue of her Key, she also increased the oxygen content of the Air immediately around them. The longer Dyarhk was in turmoil, the more numerous his problems became. Cardiac arrest brayed on his door, a step ahead of the black-robed cutter of threads himself. His large fidgeting body was a chore for Rachael, or so it seemed. She was not without great strength. It had just been that she seldom shewed it. But she was still one person. And after hearing the issue, Rauland was quick to act immediately. He poofed, and assumed a normal human's size, and with much more trouble than Rachael, helped to subdue the spastic man. Rauland heard coughs emitted that never escaped his mouth. It was all a new sight to him. Like a life depended on it, and it very well did, he shouted.
"Dad!!!" a mystifying voice echoed down the vale, but there was nothing yet, no one to help him yet, only Rachael. She continued to breathe life into her friend. Gloved and ungloved hands began to press against his sternum to help his heart beat. Were she to sing to the rhythm she used to do the chest compressions, the song might well have made the axe-man laugh. Stayin' Alive. Breaths and chest compressions. The tension, the pain adorn his face, it all left. He seemed to succumb to the battle. His head loosened, and his whole body lay just a little bit more into the grass. It looked grim, but in reality, it had been a success. His pulse had returned, as had his breathing, but he remained unconscious.
In the distance, help looked to be on its way. A cast of characters, an old man, and a short santa claus-looking dwarf making down the vale from the lakeside. "My father is coming, he'll know what to do!" Rauland said, bolting from the scene to reach Bernard and increase the promptness of the issue, leaving the two alone temporarily.
Silvery trails traced along her cheeks, scarred and smooth, while she continued the rescue efforts. "I cannot lose you, mon Hache. Not like this." Her words were soft, and perhaps went unheard. "Not like how I lost Donovan."
His face was still, silent, and serene to Rachael's words. A brief, peaceful moment of quiet terror before Bernard and Kamonbak the elder were upon the pair.
"Heavens, the boy." Bernard was an old fae spirit, and Dyarhk one of the youngest men he knew. He loved him like a son, and it showed in the worry on his bearded face.
"Dyarhk!?" Kamonbak shouted, failing to believe it was him.
"This woman came with him from Rhydin. I have seen her before. She is a friend." Rauland reassured, and so did Kamonbak. "Aye, I've seen her." though, Kamombak's assessment remained one of suspicious. He was a very critical strategist. He did not rule anyone out.
"We have to get this man to a bed immediately. Young Miss, come with me!!" Bernard shouted as he came up to her and scooped the man up. Another poof occurred, but Bernard did not quite change in size as he did an entire sort of person. His lovable fat transformed to unflinching muscle, and his soft brows sharpened furiously. He took off for the house with the host behind him.
"Oui, certainment." She rose quickly with that unnatural grace of hers, and followed the group swiftly.
As they ran, the log cabin all to itself in the center of the forest opened up. Their sprinting boots and shoes took off past various garden arrangements, decorative displays and entered the yard space that was void of all things until they came to the front steps up to the porch. There stood Corea. Dyarhk had been only an hour later than usual, and her worries had been thought of as common to have. A ceramic bowl in her hands crashed to the porch floor at the sight of Dyarhk in Bernard's arms, something that had never happened before. Urgency on their face brought fear upon her own. She seemed to share in Dyarhk's shortness of breath and became statuesque up until they made up those stairs, Bernard doing so in a single bound.
"Quick! To a bed!" Bernard shouted to Corea with a gesture to the front door. The woman immediately swung open the front door and backed out of the way with a hand over her heart, swollen with worry.
"Bernard! What is wrong?!" Her hand combing back Dyarhk's hair quickly and feeling his hot and wet forehead, his hair soaking. "Tell me what's wrong with him! Tell me what's wrong with him! Tell me what's wrong with him!!" her first question was looked sadly at by Rauland who was unaccustomed to human ailments. Her second time asking was looked at by Kamonbak who only walked inside behind Bernard, unwanting to spout the worst of predictions from his lips. The third time Corea asked her question, she angrily bounced several times in a furious moment, bawling with tears.
"Madame, he has suffered a heart attack. I do not know what has triggered it. I am not a doctor." Her words, though harsh, held a gentle tone to them. Regret at having to break the news to the woman Dyarhk loved in this way.
?Was it you that helped him here?? Corea asked, pleading for the woman's honesty.
?Oui, Madame, I am.?
Corea stared at her, so confused, and never so out of place. These were not situations she ever found herself in. When people died, they died. There was no mourning, there was only moving on, only continuing to work like she had been nurtured in a lab to do. But being human had a way of taking you over when you began to live any sort of life. She thought she had been adapting to these surprise emotions: laughing genuinely, understanding sarcasm, understanding jokes... tending to a wound, not because it was reactionary, but because she cared.
She wanted to incorporate herself into these emotions, and often times tried and force them on, when all she needed do was let them happen naturally. Like developing her fashion sense, she had been trying to do this forcefully, when deciding upon what she liked and did not like was much more appropriate to let take its course. This was a similar case. Unsure of what to do, she reacted naturally, and embraced Rachael, and let it all out, giving her a dampened shoulder in a very brief amount of time. ?Thank you.?
Rachael was startled at the speed of the reaction, the Watchwoman nonetheless embraced Corea, and smoothed her hair in a gesture of reassurance.
"He can be helped here, oui?"
Quick to sniff, and quick to wipe it away, she looked back inside, scared of the room now Dyarhk was being laid out in. Her sparkling eyes, drowned in tears, remained locked on it while she crossed her arms tightly under her bust.
"If anyone can help him, the Dearings can." Dearing being the surname of Rauland and Bernard.
Corea quickly stepped inside and her heels clacked quickly down the hall while she had left the door open for Rachael. Peering inside of the room, the men were working frantically, arguing with one another.
"Get me a sturdier pillow!" Bernard chunked the thing away that Kamonbak had supplied.
"Here!!" Kamonbak shouted back, already presenting its replacement. Rauland had returned to his tiny size, as he so often and easily did. He looked directly down at Dyarhk over the headboard.
Corea was quick to take his bedside and get as close as possible to his face and take hold of his large wrist and offer trembling words. "You have to be okay. You have to."
Bernard came up to her and drew her worrisome attention with a sparkling glint growing more and more within the palm of his hand. Slowly, he massaged it upon Dyarhk's unbuttoned chest. Rachael watched while the others ministered to Dyarhk's physical needs. Her lips trembled and those silvery trails touched her face again. All their eyes watched the still man give his best Sleeping Beauty in total, still, serenity. Bernard's hand slowly ceased massaging his chest, as did the light of the magic go out, and lastly he turned to look everyone and announce his verdict, quietly.
"He needs rest, but I think he will be fine."
Corea was the first to initiate a new wave of tears, some of the focus of attention in that room while Rauland and Kamonbak remained silent and shocked still. "I cannot say he would have the same fate had someone not already helped stabilize him." Bernard looked over to the only person present he had not met yet.
"That was Rachael!" Rauland was quick to give credit where credit was due. Bernard simply took a deep breath while his eyes remained focused on the woman that was spoken of.
"I believe thanks are in order for you, Miss... for saving this man's life." Bernard never faltered so much as to blink.
"De rien, Monsieur. I could not...." Her breath caught in her throat despite her Key, and she forced it and the words out. "I could not do any less. Dyarhk is my friend. I could not lose him."
Kamonbak nodded firstly, but Bernard only stared. It was not his place to say anything additional. That was another's, one he respectfully waited for until she spoke. "I Thank you. My daughter thanks you. You do not realize how..... important..." Corea's eyes began to well with tears, tears that Rauland descended down the headboard to help wipe with a human-sized handkerchief that he held up over him like a bed sheet.
"There there, Corea." Rauland said softly, sadly. He had never seen her shed a single tear since her moving to Huyglen. This, all of this, was new to the fairy prince.
In the distance, crying could be heard, an infant. Corea had become adjusted to this sound. She knew it was of no immediate worry, but the baby needed to be checked on. However, she found it tremendously hard to move even an inch from Dyarhk's side. This led her to looking back to Rachael for a moment, this woman who had just saved her husband's life. Trust was instantaneous with that.
"...Rachael, you would not mind, please? ? checking on Marissa down the hall to your right, in her crib?"
"Non, I would not mind." With a swift pivot turn, her precise strides took her out of the room and down the hall to where the infant resided. It was just sundown, a little over seven o'clock as it currently set on the Huyglen clock. But the home was well lit, warmly lit. Rachael may have been curious what lie in that crib as its corner came into view when she entered that nursery. A red-headed infant stood up in a one-piece outfit, awaiting being put to bed. She was just over a year, and already forming words, an ability Rachael may have taken notice to very early on once she had been seen by the toddler. Funny how life gave you the most precious moments in the most dire situations. Despite the gravity of the night thus far, Rachael may still have had her buttons pressed to laugh with the infant posed, "Hello?" in the most adorable question. Her breath caught in her throat again. Such a tiny, innocent child. Please, stay that way, petit.
Carefully, Rachael lifted the infant from the crib, and cradled her against her chest. Softly, she sung a familiar French nursery melody. In her arms she only cried more, unfamiliar with the stranger. The first half of the melody she cried louder and protested with all her infantile strength... and then? She eased into the woman's song and care. Life and almost death in the same night. Her lips twitched in amusement when the infant spoke to her.
"You are precious, petit. A jewel for votre p?re." The normally stern Watchwoman shed some of that metaphoric armor while she cradled Marissa and crooned to her. Rachael's scar was touched at with great interest by slow, clumsy and chubby digits from the nearest hand of Marissa. Interest captivated for the better part of a minute's half before the hypnotic effect of the singing lulled her to a state of barely being able to keep her eyes open. A child's murmuring against the woman's shoulder was heard and felt. She was out. A smile twitched to those usually stern lips at the trust and curiosity of the child.
"Faites de beaux r?ves, petit." Rachael remained with Marissa, keeping her safe and content, while the others attended to her father.
Long, everlasting seconds of worrying turned into minutes, which quickly turned into the half hour, and Corea's cheek apart of the motionless hand of the Palliator as he lay perfectly still and at rest in that bed. The passage of time was unknown to her at the same time every second felt like an eternity. But it was Bernard who understood that it was growing late. He exited that room and came to check on Rachael relatively shortly after lighting that bedroom's lantern, and brandishing its nightstand with a washrag and his medical supply bag. He warmed to her and the sight of Marissa.
?Very few thus far have been able to appease that little noisemaker.? a smile from the elder fairy, lighting the very room with his 3-inch tall emittance. Back to his normal size now, he came over to stand on the top of that railing to the crib. ?If you would like to go home, I can open a pathway to Rhydin. But you are more than welcome to stay here in my house for the night.?
A faint flush suffused Rachael's scarred face at being "caught" in such an uncharacteristic manner for the stern Watchwoman. "Merci. I would wish to spend the night." And make sure that Dyarhk opens his eyes to experience another morning.
Bernard gave a look to her of understanding. He nodded and patted her arm, which was barely noticeable to Rachael given their size difference. ?If you need me, I will be in the living room, right down there. Kamonbak I am certain will set you up in the guest room. This house is fuller than it usually is, but do try to get a good night's sleep. Dyarhk's power comes from his friends, and he needs us strong so he can be. I will come check on him by the hour.? he floated on by Rachael like the floating candle he could be mistaken for. To the living room, and his pipe collection where he eased his glow into a chair.
Her lips twitched in that well-known by Dyarhk gesture of repressed amusement with the gesture from the dimunitive Bernard. "Oui, merci." She awaited the direction to the guest room, where she would try to rest, if only for, as Bernard stated, the strength her friend needed to remain strong.
Kamonbak stepped out from the room, a hand through his short white hair while he looked for Rachael. Spotting her down the hall, he approached her with two armfuls of bed linens under his arms. ?Well... I'll set you up in the guest bed. I got an extra blanket and pillow for you, in case it gets chilly.? guiding her down the hall.
Inside the room, he abandoned the linens on a very hill-like puffy bed, the rise in it the fault of already too many linens. But my, was it soft. Kamonbak lit the lantern in the room and tuned it down to a warm that he was used to, giving away the secret of who regulated the lights in the home. ?If you need anything, my room is beside this one.? he stared a bit into the fire. ?...Thank you, for what you did. Dyarhk's not a bad man. Whoever antagonized on this condition is going to receive their talking-to, rest assured of that. Now get some sleep.? Kamonbak exited the room.
Rachael would not tell the man that she did not normally feel the cold, or heat, for that matter. That was something she kept private, for only a select few to know. She readied herself for bed, cocooned herself in that mountain of bed linens, and forced herself to sleep.
Just like any other night Dyarhk made the transition from late night Rhydin into early afternoon Huyglen, only this time he did not do so alone, this time he did not do so looking as he normally did. Rachael Wynter under his arm, he contributed pathetic footsteps down the luscious green passage of trees through the forest, dripping wet as though he had just wandered through a monsoon, one Rachael showed no traces of being in.
"I do not.... something is wrong." His eyes took their last glance at the walk to his home, the house within his sights before they were shut for the long haul, shut so tight they hurt; but that pain paled in comparison to the one his hand hovered over: his chest. He went down, despite Rachael's best strengths, to one knee, and quickly to the other, quickly to his back. The only part of him that showed vividness was his grimacing face, vibrating sweat-glossed cheeks, and hand clenched over his chest not unlike how it had in his younger days, clasping onto the skull of his enemy.
"Merde." Rachael knelt down with Dyarhk as he sunk to the ground. Ungloved fingers moved to check his pulse, and a litany of oaths in French escaped her usually stern lips. Sapphires flicked around for someone to assist them. He looked like he was suffocating. Insufficient air. Tight chest pain. His eyes refused to open. His only focus, his only working brain function: hanging on. His arm, catatonic, was unbending in Rachael's evaluation of his pulse. The all of his muscles tense, particularly those in that arm. He was unreachable.
First on the scene, other than Rachael Wynter, had been Rauland, opener of the portal. He flew over upon his fae wings and Dyarhk standing and his company worried over him was not the sight he expected to see. His very regular smile vanished and he kicked in the afterburner on those wings, sacrificing a mystical sound of wonder for a more insect-like rapid fluttering. He made over in a blazing speed, rounding up to slow down and look over the two, great worry in his eyes as he looked to Rachael.
"What happened?? What's wrong??"
"He is having a heart attack."
Having been trained in combat medicine, the signs were all too clear. After those words left her lips, she moved to begin resuscitation efforts on her friend. Breaths first. By virtue of her Key, she also increased the oxygen content of the Air immediately around them. The longer Dyarhk was in turmoil, the more numerous his problems became. Cardiac arrest brayed on his door, a step ahead of the black-robed cutter of threads himself. His large fidgeting body was a chore for Rachael, or so it seemed. She was not without great strength. It had just been that she seldom shewed it. But she was still one person. And after hearing the issue, Rauland was quick to act immediately. He poofed, and assumed a normal human's size, and with much more trouble than Rachael, helped to subdue the spastic man. Rauland heard coughs emitted that never escaped his mouth. It was all a new sight to him. Like a life depended on it, and it very well did, he shouted.
"Dad!!!" a mystifying voice echoed down the vale, but there was nothing yet, no one to help him yet, only Rachael. She continued to breathe life into her friend. Gloved and ungloved hands began to press against his sternum to help his heart beat. Were she to sing to the rhythm she used to do the chest compressions, the song might well have made the axe-man laugh. Stayin' Alive. Breaths and chest compressions. The tension, the pain adorn his face, it all left. He seemed to succumb to the battle. His head loosened, and his whole body lay just a little bit more into the grass. It looked grim, but in reality, it had been a success. His pulse had returned, as had his breathing, but he remained unconscious.
In the distance, help looked to be on its way. A cast of characters, an old man, and a short santa claus-looking dwarf making down the vale from the lakeside. "My father is coming, he'll know what to do!" Rauland said, bolting from the scene to reach Bernard and increase the promptness of the issue, leaving the two alone temporarily.
Silvery trails traced along her cheeks, scarred and smooth, while she continued the rescue efforts. "I cannot lose you, mon Hache. Not like this." Her words were soft, and perhaps went unheard. "Not like how I lost Donovan."
His face was still, silent, and serene to Rachael's words. A brief, peaceful moment of quiet terror before Bernard and Kamonbak the elder were upon the pair.
"Heavens, the boy." Bernard was an old fae spirit, and Dyarhk one of the youngest men he knew. He loved him like a son, and it showed in the worry on his bearded face.
"Dyarhk!?" Kamonbak shouted, failing to believe it was him.
"This woman came with him from Rhydin. I have seen her before. She is a friend." Rauland reassured, and so did Kamonbak. "Aye, I've seen her." though, Kamombak's assessment remained one of suspicious. He was a very critical strategist. He did not rule anyone out.
"We have to get this man to a bed immediately. Young Miss, come with me!!" Bernard shouted as he came up to her and scooped the man up. Another poof occurred, but Bernard did not quite change in size as he did an entire sort of person. His lovable fat transformed to unflinching muscle, and his soft brows sharpened furiously. He took off for the house with the host behind him.
"Oui, certainment." She rose quickly with that unnatural grace of hers, and followed the group swiftly.
As they ran, the log cabin all to itself in the center of the forest opened up. Their sprinting boots and shoes took off past various garden arrangements, decorative displays and entered the yard space that was void of all things until they came to the front steps up to the porch. There stood Corea. Dyarhk had been only an hour later than usual, and her worries had been thought of as common to have. A ceramic bowl in her hands crashed to the porch floor at the sight of Dyarhk in Bernard's arms, something that had never happened before. Urgency on their face brought fear upon her own. She seemed to share in Dyarhk's shortness of breath and became statuesque up until they made up those stairs, Bernard doing so in a single bound.
"Quick! To a bed!" Bernard shouted to Corea with a gesture to the front door. The woman immediately swung open the front door and backed out of the way with a hand over her heart, swollen with worry.
"Bernard! What is wrong?!" Her hand combing back Dyarhk's hair quickly and feeling his hot and wet forehead, his hair soaking. "Tell me what's wrong with him! Tell me what's wrong with him! Tell me what's wrong with him!!" her first question was looked sadly at by Rauland who was unaccustomed to human ailments. Her second time asking was looked at by Kamonbak who only walked inside behind Bernard, unwanting to spout the worst of predictions from his lips. The third time Corea asked her question, she angrily bounced several times in a furious moment, bawling with tears.
"Madame, he has suffered a heart attack. I do not know what has triggered it. I am not a doctor." Her words, though harsh, held a gentle tone to them. Regret at having to break the news to the woman Dyarhk loved in this way.
?Was it you that helped him here?? Corea asked, pleading for the woman's honesty.
?Oui, Madame, I am.?
Corea stared at her, so confused, and never so out of place. These were not situations she ever found herself in. When people died, they died. There was no mourning, there was only moving on, only continuing to work like she had been nurtured in a lab to do. But being human had a way of taking you over when you began to live any sort of life. She thought she had been adapting to these surprise emotions: laughing genuinely, understanding sarcasm, understanding jokes... tending to a wound, not because it was reactionary, but because she cared.
She wanted to incorporate herself into these emotions, and often times tried and force them on, when all she needed do was let them happen naturally. Like developing her fashion sense, she had been trying to do this forcefully, when deciding upon what she liked and did not like was much more appropriate to let take its course. This was a similar case. Unsure of what to do, she reacted naturally, and embraced Rachael, and let it all out, giving her a dampened shoulder in a very brief amount of time. ?Thank you.?
Rachael was startled at the speed of the reaction, the Watchwoman nonetheless embraced Corea, and smoothed her hair in a gesture of reassurance.
"He can be helped here, oui?"
Quick to sniff, and quick to wipe it away, she looked back inside, scared of the room now Dyarhk was being laid out in. Her sparkling eyes, drowned in tears, remained locked on it while she crossed her arms tightly under her bust.
"If anyone can help him, the Dearings can." Dearing being the surname of Rauland and Bernard.
Corea quickly stepped inside and her heels clacked quickly down the hall while she had left the door open for Rachael. Peering inside of the room, the men were working frantically, arguing with one another.
"Get me a sturdier pillow!" Bernard chunked the thing away that Kamonbak had supplied.
"Here!!" Kamonbak shouted back, already presenting its replacement. Rauland had returned to his tiny size, as he so often and easily did. He looked directly down at Dyarhk over the headboard.
Corea was quick to take his bedside and get as close as possible to his face and take hold of his large wrist and offer trembling words. "You have to be okay. You have to."
Bernard came up to her and drew her worrisome attention with a sparkling glint growing more and more within the palm of his hand. Slowly, he massaged it upon Dyarhk's unbuttoned chest. Rachael watched while the others ministered to Dyarhk's physical needs. Her lips trembled and those silvery trails touched her face again. All their eyes watched the still man give his best Sleeping Beauty in total, still, serenity. Bernard's hand slowly ceased massaging his chest, as did the light of the magic go out, and lastly he turned to look everyone and announce his verdict, quietly.
"He needs rest, but I think he will be fine."
Corea was the first to initiate a new wave of tears, some of the focus of attention in that room while Rauland and Kamonbak remained silent and shocked still. "I cannot say he would have the same fate had someone not already helped stabilize him." Bernard looked over to the only person present he had not met yet.
"That was Rachael!" Rauland was quick to give credit where credit was due. Bernard simply took a deep breath while his eyes remained focused on the woman that was spoken of.
"I believe thanks are in order for you, Miss... for saving this man's life." Bernard never faltered so much as to blink.
"De rien, Monsieur. I could not...." Her breath caught in her throat despite her Key, and she forced it and the words out. "I could not do any less. Dyarhk is my friend. I could not lose him."
Kamonbak nodded firstly, but Bernard only stared. It was not his place to say anything additional. That was another's, one he respectfully waited for until she spoke. "I Thank you. My daughter thanks you. You do not realize how..... important..." Corea's eyes began to well with tears, tears that Rauland descended down the headboard to help wipe with a human-sized handkerchief that he held up over him like a bed sheet.
"There there, Corea." Rauland said softly, sadly. He had never seen her shed a single tear since her moving to Huyglen. This, all of this, was new to the fairy prince.
In the distance, crying could be heard, an infant. Corea had become adjusted to this sound. She knew it was of no immediate worry, but the baby needed to be checked on. However, she found it tremendously hard to move even an inch from Dyarhk's side. This led her to looking back to Rachael for a moment, this woman who had just saved her husband's life. Trust was instantaneous with that.
"...Rachael, you would not mind, please? ? checking on Marissa down the hall to your right, in her crib?"
"Non, I would not mind." With a swift pivot turn, her precise strides took her out of the room and down the hall to where the infant resided. It was just sundown, a little over seven o'clock as it currently set on the Huyglen clock. But the home was well lit, warmly lit. Rachael may have been curious what lie in that crib as its corner came into view when she entered that nursery. A red-headed infant stood up in a one-piece outfit, awaiting being put to bed. She was just over a year, and already forming words, an ability Rachael may have taken notice to very early on once she had been seen by the toddler. Funny how life gave you the most precious moments in the most dire situations. Despite the gravity of the night thus far, Rachael may still have had her buttons pressed to laugh with the infant posed, "Hello?" in the most adorable question. Her breath caught in her throat again. Such a tiny, innocent child. Please, stay that way, petit.
Carefully, Rachael lifted the infant from the crib, and cradled her against her chest. Softly, she sung a familiar French nursery melody. In her arms she only cried more, unfamiliar with the stranger. The first half of the melody she cried louder and protested with all her infantile strength... and then? She eased into the woman's song and care. Life and almost death in the same night. Her lips twitched in amusement when the infant spoke to her.
"You are precious, petit. A jewel for votre p?re." The normally stern Watchwoman shed some of that metaphoric armor while she cradled Marissa and crooned to her. Rachael's scar was touched at with great interest by slow, clumsy and chubby digits from the nearest hand of Marissa. Interest captivated for the better part of a minute's half before the hypnotic effect of the singing lulled her to a state of barely being able to keep her eyes open. A child's murmuring against the woman's shoulder was heard and felt. She was out. A smile twitched to those usually stern lips at the trust and curiosity of the child.
"Faites de beaux r?ves, petit." Rachael remained with Marissa, keeping her safe and content, while the others attended to her father.
Long, everlasting seconds of worrying turned into minutes, which quickly turned into the half hour, and Corea's cheek apart of the motionless hand of the Palliator as he lay perfectly still and at rest in that bed. The passage of time was unknown to her at the same time every second felt like an eternity. But it was Bernard who understood that it was growing late. He exited that room and came to check on Rachael relatively shortly after lighting that bedroom's lantern, and brandishing its nightstand with a washrag and his medical supply bag. He warmed to her and the sight of Marissa.
?Very few thus far have been able to appease that little noisemaker.? a smile from the elder fairy, lighting the very room with his 3-inch tall emittance. Back to his normal size now, he came over to stand on the top of that railing to the crib. ?If you would like to go home, I can open a pathway to Rhydin. But you are more than welcome to stay here in my house for the night.?
A faint flush suffused Rachael's scarred face at being "caught" in such an uncharacteristic manner for the stern Watchwoman. "Merci. I would wish to spend the night." And make sure that Dyarhk opens his eyes to experience another morning.
Bernard gave a look to her of understanding. He nodded and patted her arm, which was barely noticeable to Rachael given their size difference. ?If you need me, I will be in the living room, right down there. Kamonbak I am certain will set you up in the guest room. This house is fuller than it usually is, but do try to get a good night's sleep. Dyarhk's power comes from his friends, and he needs us strong so he can be. I will come check on him by the hour.? he floated on by Rachael like the floating candle he could be mistaken for. To the living room, and his pipe collection where he eased his glow into a chair.
Her lips twitched in that well-known by Dyarhk gesture of repressed amusement with the gesture from the dimunitive Bernard. "Oui, merci." She awaited the direction to the guest room, where she would try to rest, if only for, as Bernard stated, the strength her friend needed to remain strong.
Kamonbak stepped out from the room, a hand through his short white hair while he looked for Rachael. Spotting her down the hall, he approached her with two armfuls of bed linens under his arms. ?Well... I'll set you up in the guest bed. I got an extra blanket and pillow for you, in case it gets chilly.? guiding her down the hall.
Inside the room, he abandoned the linens on a very hill-like puffy bed, the rise in it the fault of already too many linens. But my, was it soft. Kamonbak lit the lantern in the room and tuned it down to a warm that he was used to, giving away the secret of who regulated the lights in the home. ?If you need anything, my room is beside this one.? he stared a bit into the fire. ?...Thank you, for what you did. Dyarhk's not a bad man. Whoever antagonized on this condition is going to receive their talking-to, rest assured of that. Now get some sleep.? Kamonbak exited the room.
Rachael would not tell the man that she did not normally feel the cold, or heat, for that matter. That was something she kept private, for only a select few to know. She readied herself for bed, cocooned herself in that mountain of bed linens, and forced herself to sleep.