Skedaddle

[Emora Deen]

Laya frowned as Telanis faded from sight. She curled on her side, burying her hands under the pillow. The dark house was not as cold as it was outside, but it was still freezing to her. She closed her eyes and listened to them in the next room, wondering what on earth Telanis had been doing. The need to get up and see what was happening was strong, but Laya couldn't feel her toes and wasn't sure if her feet would work for her.

So she waited and listened and prayed for a fire.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis stormed back to the other room and seriously thought about preparing a fire before rescuing his brother from his self-inflicted blood trap. He managed to make himself go back to Telanis's side.

"I was trying to..."

"So you left a freezing girl alone in the night? Take her to a town, you fool!"

"You were ill," Telanis murmured, confused. His brother pushed up onto one side and tried to get himself up. "Adonis...how can you stand?"

"Stay still and shut up," Adonis barked at him as he scooped him up by the waist and hoisted him over his shoulders. In a moment, he slung Telanis onto the bed next to Laya without nearly the same delicacy and turned from them both. He went back to the main room and out the front door, grabbing a heaping armful of firewood off the pile he'd stocked earlier and heading back in to the hearth. "Laya, matches?" he called into the other room.

[Emora Deen]

"The mantle," she replied softly, rolling onto her other side to face Telanis. "They should be on the mantle."

She reached out with a frigid hand and touched Telanis's cheek. "What were you doing, silly?" she asked with a gentle smile. Her brown hair fell over her face, and she peered through strands of it at the handsome unicorn. "I thought you were gone to town."

[Soran Nightblade]

Telanis took her into focus and grinned at her dizzily. "Cleaning?" he answered her uncertainly, confused about whether he'd done something wrong. He tilted his head slightly at her pale expression. "You're cold," he said, slowly getting his thoughts in order.

Adonis got the matches from the place Laya had directed him and kindled a fire quickly, running it blazing hot. He soaked some rags from the kitchen with water and folded them on the stones in front of the hearth to heat up.

[Emora Deen]

Laya nodded. "Very... Adonis says I have frostbite." She moved to shift closer to him, scooting her body across the width of the bed. When she was close to him she lay with her head tilted against his shoulder and her hands clasped between their bodies. "I'm human, human's get colder than unicorns I take it."

She listened to Adonis work the fire, and couldn't tell a difference in the temperature just yet, but she thought she would soon. "I really want a scalding hot bath," she chuckled softly to herself. She was covered in dry blood. It was stuck to her bare legs and her chest where where she'd wrestled with the vampire and lost.

[Soran Nightblade]

"I'll get you one," Telanis offered, pushing himself up.

"You'll do no such thing," Adonis commanded as he walked back in with a pile of warm, damp cloths. "Warm up too fast, and you'll make yourself worse," he warned the girl. He wrapped a rag around each of her feet and rubbed the blood back into her toes.

"I can heal her," Telanis said.

"You lie still," Adonis snapped. "You're both impossible."

[Emora Deen]

"Sorry," Laya replied, feeling like she needed to apologies for her state. She watched Adonis's hands as he rubbed her feet. Her toes burned as the fire of life began to return to them. She rolled over onto her back, adjusting the remnant of her shirt in a failed attempt to cover her hips modestly. She felt so comfortable around the two of them that her partial nudity didn't bother her, but she felt that it might bother Adonis.

She remembered in great detail his words earlier and his apology for what they'd done. She felt it was mostly her fault. She felt maybe she had hurt him.

"A sorry state we are," she muttered as she appraised them. Adonis with his broken ribs and bruised soul, Telanis with his bloodsickness, and she with her own share of handicaps. She glanced between the two unicorns, realizing just how much she truly cared about them both.

It made her eyes water and pulled a lump in her throat.

The two of them had unwittingly become her family.

[Soran Nightblade]

"We are kind of a mess," Telanis acknowledged. He pressed in to the girl's touch, running his warm hand over her shoulderblades to try to bring warmth back into her.

Adonis rubbed the life back into the girl's toes and ankles until they finally started to feel like human feet again. Then he threw a blanket over her, including his brother because they were glued together again, and put more warm cloths over her feet.

When he was done, he finally turned and sat back against the foot of the bed. He took a deep breath and leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling. He fought back the temptation to think about earlier, and just made his mind as blank at the paint he was staring at. This place...it wasn't so bad. He slowly reached up and touched his smooth forehead.

[Emora Deen]

Laya thanked Adonis again, smiling now that she could feel her toes wiggle again. She sighed against Telanis, feeling warmth seep into her bones. It made her eyes heavy. Her eyes glanced to Adonis, only able to see a little of him. She wanted to talk to him, but wasn't sure if he would want to discuss the matter in front of Telanis. So she pursed her lips into a line, and deciding to enjoy the peace of the moment, shut her eyes to the world.

After several long minutes Laya felt much better, felt the heat coursing through her body. She slid almost reluctantly from the bed and left the room for the kitchen.

Laya looked under the cabinet for a small chest. It took her a moment to find it in the dark, but she pulled it forth and opened it. Inside were some medical supplies, and a bandage roll.

She went back into the room that glowed with the fire it shared with the living room. She knelt down in front of Adonis. "Let me wrap your chest, this should help your broken ribs. I cracked a rib once as a teenager and my father wrapped this around me." She showed him the tan bandage.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis had begun drifting off as surely as the others were, but he brought himself to more attention when Laya got up and about. He monitored the way she walked on each foot to be sure nothing seemed damaged as she passed him. But when she came back with medical supplies and knelt in front of him, he stared at her in confused silence.

"I'm fine," he said uneasily. "They'll heal on their own..." He let himself look closely at the bandage and picture it tied around her tiny form when she was a child. He sat up straighter and felt the harsh pinch in his chest suck the air back out of his lungs.

[Emora Deen]

"Please? I promise it will help," she told him softly. She pulled the metal clasp from around the bandage and unrolled a little of it. "My brothers and I wrestled a lot, and I got hurt when my older brother Lockland tackled me into a tree. He never was one for thinking ahead. So his nearly two hundred pound form squashed my ninety pound one to a pulp." Laya smiled softly. "Father was furious."

She glanced up to Adonis. "He told me it had magic powers because I was too stubborn to use it."

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis studied her for a minute. He finally leaned forward, off the footboard, and lifted his arms away from his bare ribs. He watched her like a hawk in uncertain silence.

[Emora Deen]

"Warn me if it is too tight," she told him softly. Laya went about looping the wide tan bandage around his chest. Loop after loop, pulling it tight and careful not too make it too tight. When she had wrapped his chest and there was nothing left of the bandage she replaced the metal clasp that pinched the end of the bandaged down. "There." Her hands lingered over the clasp for a moment longer, before she drew them back into her lap.

Laya glanced up to the bed where Telanis lay. She wasn't sure if he was sleeping, but she couldn't keep quiet any longer.

"You kissed me," she muttered in disbelief, swallowing. She had never thought Adonis was capable of such an act. It was like her mind automatically assumed he wouldn't know how. Her face paled. That had not been what she wanted to say.

She shook her head, narrowing her eyes. "Thank you, Adonis, for saving me from him. Thank you, for being kind to me. I just hope that I didn't hurt you when he... made me want you." She met his eyes briefly before shifting to sit next to him at the foot of the bed, and her eyes found the fire. She stretched her feet out before it, wiggling her toes in front of the heat.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis touched the bandage on his ribs absently as she finished it. It felt snug, but not uncomfortable. The support did kind of help his breathing.

When she brought up the kiss and the rest of what had happened, he froze. Guilt and memories pushed through him, and not just of her. At times like this, Erik's memories swirled with his until he couldn't tell what was really him. For just a moment, she had distinctly wanted him, and he had wanted her too, a desperate, sympathetic need he had no control of. And she'd known it. He'd led her to that situation. He could have found some other way to get the monster under that seal. He could have just done something, ANYTHING different. He saw her bloody, miserable form under him, suffering, screaming, ripping from the inside out while he laughed and groaned.

No. It wasn't him. It wasn't him. He stared into the fire and let the memories rip through his mind. Just get it over with. It was inevitable.

"I'm so sorry," he barely breathed. "It wasn't me."

[Emora Deen]

Laya narrowed her eyes. She knew that look, she knew she got it often when her mind was troubled with the haunting memories of the past. She wasn't sure what Adonis had seen in his life, or what he had done, but she knew that look. "You didn't hurt me," she said softly, reaching out for his hand. She placed her hand gently over his. "You didn't do anything wrong." She turned so that her hand could touch his cheek and she turned his face towards her. "You saved me."

She nodded at her own words. "You saved me. What you did wasn't what frightened me. I was terrified of him waiting in that doorway for you to give up. And even if we had been forced to do that act and if we hadn't been able to escape as we did, I would not hate you. I would not think ill of you in anyway. You are my friend Adonis, whether you want me or not. I would have rather it been you than him. I know you would be kind to me. Its not bad when it is with someone who is nice to you, when it is with someone you care for. I hope one day you allow yourself the chance to see how beautiful it is when it is not used to hurt someone."

Laya squeezed his hand. "You have a good heart," she told him with a grin. "Even if you say nasty things to me. I hope someday I can help you rid yourself of the demons that haunt you, as you have helped me."