The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Elias took the glass in his bloody hands. He wouldn't tell the creature the half-life, especially on someone who had built up an immunity to it. He held the glass in shaking hands and then downed the drink, wincing. "Well, at least I won't feel the pain anymore," he said bitterly, settling back against the floor.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon realized the flaw in his strategy as he watched the man bleed quietly. Not all poisons worked quickly. He could already feel this body sucking something out of him like a straw, and he didn't think he'd last much longer. He couldn't be sure the drink was safe. Woman, he asked inside his mind. I know you can hear. I'm out of time, so I'll let you choose; want to drink this?

[Emora Deen]

Tenera felt like she was waking to a dark room. The world was blurry, an empty void she seemed trapped in until Havitharon's voice called to her. "Drink..." It was both an answer and a question. Drink what? Drink why? Drink now? Edges of color began to bleed through the void, until she was standing on a ship before a naked prince bleeding on the floor.

What happened? What happened...?

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon shuddered. Tenara's confusion was tearing at his focus. He put a hand on the table to stay steady. I can't promise it's safe, but this... piece of shit drank it too. Want...your body back?

[Emora Deen]

Give it back. Give it back!! She was so angry. He'd taken her body? Her body. Without asking? He could... just do that? What if he took it and never gave it back? Get out!

[Soran Nightblade]

Her command was like a spike through his brain. It went through his being like an absolute truth. What she demanded must be done. He sucked in a tight breath and dropped the sword. If he just dumped her back into her body, would she collapse and be at this guy's mercy? He didn't have a choice. The command was tearing into him. Sparks ripped at his soul like burrs, demanding he comply. He grabbed the cup and chugged it. Tenara's shaking hand spilled about half of it in the process. It was all he could do to stumble to the opposite wall from the injured poison master.

The sparks ripped at him. He fell into them and let them tear him into something properly separate. His tall form emerged, nearly translucent, just behind her, and collapsed.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara stretched along the floor, her limbs fuzzy numb but beginning to tingle with sensation. She stared across from her to a Prince of Arken, in all his bare glory. He was injured, and two of his fingers lay across the floor. The being had done all this... with her body? She'd been so close to convincing the Arken prince to side with her, to help her get home and maybe, somehow, avoid a war. Now...

He was bleeding still and would keep bleeding unless...

Tenara twitched and her hand moved. Her toes wiggled. She dragged herself forward. The boat rocked as a wave struck it and she slid across the floor. She'd forgotten about the storm. Had barely noticed the wrath of it outside, and especially after Thvoros had taken her body. She shivered at the memory, at being wedged in that dark place at the back of her mind. She glanced to the being, to his weakened form lying on the floor just behind where she'd been. The three of them made a sorry group. They couldn't even be on their feet.

She was never getting home at this rate.

Tenara grabbed Elias's shirt, crawling to kneel next to him. "Do not make me regret this," she warned him, and wrapped his hand in the fabric.

“Oh, you’re back…” Elias shook from shock and cold. "Thanks..." he said through clenched teeth. He didn’t groan as she tightened the wrapping over his hand, which meant he had I high pain tolerance or he couldn’t feel it.

“Do not thank me,” she said in a hiss. “And you,” she said, turning her attention on Havitharon. The ship rocked and she stumbled on her knees, grabbing the wall behind Elias. “Never. Again.” She tried to keep the quiver of fear out of her voice, tried biting back the knowledge that she might not have any say in that. “And why is he naked?!”

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon tried not to look as unwell as he felt. His vision was flooded with a blue light, and Tenara's scowling form was barely a silhouette against the brightness. "Too many place the hiding poisons," he mumbled incoherently. "Had to fixdrink the rings."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara growled. That made little sense, and he seemed to far gone to clarify. She slipped around on her knees and crawled back to the bedroom at the bow of the ship. She grasped the wool blanket hanging off the mattress and pulled it off, crawling back to the prince. She was about to toss it over his body when she noticed the the terrible scars along his sides and disappearing behind his back. Odd scars for a prince to have... It distracted her until the next wave crashing against the hull slid him along the floor towards her. She fell forward, using the momentum to drag the blanket over him, or at least most of him. She used the table to pull herself to her feet and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the crate slipping back and forth across the floor as it passed, crashing into the back wall.

"If I had any strength left in this body, I would toss you both into the sea," she spat, and made her way, stumbling and slipping back to the bedroom at the front of the boat. She grabbed the sliding door wedged between the cabin walls and slammed it shut.

She came out a minute later, grabbed the sword, and disappeared back behind the door.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon didn't move from his spot. He wasn't surprised she was angry. If someone did that to him, he would have killed them. He couldn't get over the feeling of her command taking root in his mind. The absolute, unquestionable impulse to obey her. If he had any energy to him, he'd definitely be livid about it, but for the first time since being dragged here, he felt tired. Tired was too simple a word for it. It wasn't as though he had a body. He was depleted. If he let himself be honest, it was a terrifying feeling. It seemed like he was on the cusp of existence, like the slightest thing might scatter him to the wind. He didn't try to move or talk. He didn't bother to be wary of the unsupervised prince on the floor across from him, or to wonder if the drink he'd given the woman was having some nefarious effect on her in the other room.

The rest of the day and all through the night, the storm abused the ship. Havitharon's senses returned to the sound of gulls loitering around the masts. Guess that meant they still had masts. He opened his eyes to the exact scene he'd closed them on. This time, light was filtering between the cracks in the wallboards. He could see better than the night before, although everything was still a bit hazy. In a sluggish motion, he climbed back to his feet. The poison master's clothes and equipment were still lying on the floor. He didn't think it wise to let the man have them, but then, what did it really matter at this point. When they got wherever they were going, whichever of them had control of the ship would try to make him their slave, and he would have to find some way to kill them. Did it really matter which? He stepped over the poison master, and went up onto the deck. They'd dragged the anchor a good bit from where they'd first parked, but there didn't seem to be any big rocks nearby, so the hull should be intact. He squinted gold eyes at this world's strange yellow sun and walked to the bow. He dropped to a seat there, watching the alien sea chop around them.

[Emora Deen]

Elias blinked his eyes open, feeling the terrible throbbing ache in his hand. He groaned, sitting up and looking about the cabin for his invisible attacker and the woman he’d possessed. Of course, he couldn’t see the creature and the princess was either behind the bedroom door or up on deck.

He dragged himself over to his trousers, trying the ignore the mass of damp fabric tied around his hand as he went, but then he came across his fingers lying on the floor. Cold. Gray. He picked one up, and threw it angrily.

He dragged his trousers on. It was difficult with one good hand, and the more difficult it became the angrier he got. Eventually, he stood, and went about collecting his rings and other valuables from the floor, settling down at the table with them. He smoothed them all in a line, five rings in toys. They were seemingly normal to the naked eye, but each one had a special job. One might be a metal he could scrape away with his nail and mix with a drink. Another opened to a small vial of powder he could mix into food. Some were paralytics, some were sedatives, one caused extreme illness, and the last was poison—swift and ruthless.

He picked one ring up with his good hand and spun it on the tabletop. He settled his bad hand on the table and unwrapped it slowly. He winced at the messy stumps of his pointer and middle finger, then he went to where he knew his brother kept the knives. He plucked one from the drawer and slipped it through a crack in the stove to heat it. A few minutes later he dragged the blade from the stove and sat at the table again. He stared at his hand, at his missing fingers, and pressed the red hot steel to the first wound. He made a tight sound in the back of his throat, clenching his eyes as the pain lanced up his arm and his hands shook. Then he flipped the blade and pressed it to the second knuckle. His arm rattled violently and when he was finished he drove the blade into the table with a harsh bang.

His trembling hand took up his rings, placing them on their given finger, and moving the other two to his other hand. They felt strange there, and it would take some getting used to. All of this would take some getting used to.

[Soran Nightblade]

The sound of a bang in the cabin pulled Havitharon's attention back from his thoughts. Had he finally attacked her? Or maybe one of them had collapsed? He told himself it made no difference either way. He could just wait and see who emerged from the cabin.

That's how it should have been, anyway. There was hardly any sense in playing favorites when he'd have to fight whoever remained regardless. Still... he thought of the way the woman had looked the night before, when he swore she had no intention of claiming him. When she spoke of her home with sorrow behind her eyes. Even if it was all a lie, wasn't that preferable to the snake who just waltzed onto their boat and poisoned her?

And after he'd done all he could to disarm that asshole, her response was somehow to see to his wounds and clothe him. For a second, he hoped that bang had been Tenara walking face-first into something down there.

"I'm just going to check," he sighed to himself, rising up. He jogged slightly as he made his way back to the cabin. What the hell was wrong with him?

As he came down the stairs, he spotted Elias fully clothed, wearing his tools and jewelry again. The pile of bloody cloth on the table was at least some satisfaction. "Damn it, woman," he grumbled. He came to her door and knocked, but his hand failed to strike the wood. It just passed through. "Fuck," he continued grumbling. If he couldn't touch the door, he figured he could walk right on through. When he tried, it hit him in the face and blocked his passage. "FUCK!" These nonsense physics rules were driving him to his last nerve, and his temper was poor to begin with.

[Emora Deen]

Elias tilted his head towards the door as it rattled, but it didn't open. He stood, going to it and slowly sliding it open so quietly it barely made a sound. He wasn't sure why he was trying to be quiet. If the knife in the table hadn't woken her, he doubted the door opening would.

The woman was lying across the bed, curled around the sword as if it were a lover. There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey hanging precariously from her half-open hand. Her bare feet peeked out from beneath his brother's trousers. She must be cold, he thought, and he might have felt pleased with that if she hadn't given up the blanket to him.

She definitely needed something other than his dead brother's hand-me-downs... He tilted his head, stepping into the tiny room and lifting his foot up onto the bed, along next to hers. He admired the difference in size, and took a step back. He appraised her thoughtfully, glancing back at the knife wedged into the table. He could kill her. Go back to Arroes as he told Emil he would...

But his mother...

Elias sighed, slipping out of the bedroom and sliding the door shut again. He went to his black pack on the floor, pulled it onto the table, and reached inside for a pad of parchment, his ink, and quill. He scribbled some lines of text onto paper, tore it from the pad, and stuffed it into his sack.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon followed Elias's every move, watching to see what the hell he was doing. Unfortunately, he couldn't read his handwriting. He couldn't make heads or tails of the way he'd perused the closet, either. If those clothes had belonged to his brother, perhaps he wished to claim victory by seizing his assets now that the rival was gone. Brothers were exceedingly rare where he came from. The more he watched Elias, the more suspicious he seemed. Havi finally took advantage of the open door to go to Tenara's side. He stayed by the doorway as he asked, "Are you alive, or have you drunk yourself to death?"

[Emora Deen]

Tenara groaned. Her hand slipped from the bottle and it flopped over onto a pillow, just at a precise enough angle that it did not dump the rest of its contents out on the mattress. The voice was like a fly in her ear, and she swatted at the air as she rolled until her belly covered the sword and her arms and legs stretched along the width of the bed. She covered her head.

"What does it matter?" she murmured into the sheets, becoming more aware of the world. The gentle rock of the ship and the terrible fact she had to pee. Bad. Where the hell was she going to do that at?