Lore: Upon The Heels of War

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:50 pm

Vlad ran to room after room, and found nothing. Finally, he ran into the one remaining room, and there he spotted Tenele bound and gagged on the floor. He ran to her side and knelt beside her, checking her throat for a pulse.

She was alive... Vlad released a breath he hadn't meant to hold and replaced it with smokey air. The air had no real affect on him; breathing was just a force of habit for him, not a matter of life and death, the it still felt awkward. "Tenele," he said, pulling the gag off her mouth and raising her up to a sitting position.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:54 pm

Tenele took a shaky breath. She glanced around. The chandelier was gone. It must have fallen with her. She looked and saw a blurry man before her. She blinked and realized it was Vlad. Her eyes were too water to really see him. She smiled faintly. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and her head tilted back. She went limp again. Breathing no more.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:07 pm

Vlad clutched Tenele tighter as she lost consciousness. How to get her out of here...he began working his arm under her knees so he could lift her up, when a groan of wooden beams sounded above them. The no life king looked up just in time to see the ceiling collapsing toward them. He reflexively sought out the power to teleport, and found nothing. In the time he had left, all he could think to do was dive on top of Tenele to block the avalanche of debris. He cringed as a heavy wood beam cracked against his bare back and embers showered over him. Kneeling on his knees and elbows over her, he managed to catch the weight of everything that fell on them without crushing Tenele. Outside, the crew of firefighters had begun pumping well water out over the crumbling house, filling the air with steam and slowly winning over the smoke. Vlad managed to turn his head sideways and see that there was an opening above him that showed the night sky through the smoking pile of rubble that covered them. He arched his neck toward it and took the cleanest breath he could of the smokey air, then pressed his lips to Tenele's, breathing into her lungs. Damn it, if she wouldn't breathe, he would breathe for her. Besides, the act took his focus off of the incredible pain that was going through his back and skin. He wondered idly how many hundreds of pounds were sitting on his back right now, and wished he hadn't wondered it. He drew another breath and gave it to Tenele.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:14 pm

Tenele for the longest time showed no responce to Vlad's breathing attempts. She laid there motionless, pale as death. The gods once again were kind. The rain began to fall again, helping the firefighters to put the fire out. The smoke was no gone, but the heat was soon dimmed. However the wood was still very hot.

Tenele's eyes blinked open as she felt cold water drip down on her face from some place. She coughed, wheezing and still unable to get air. Her vision blurred, her eyes blood shot from staring into smoke. She glanced up, blinking rappidly hoping to keep her vision clear long enough to see the person above her.

She faded into a fit of coughs, still trying to suck air in through her dirty lungs. She felt as if she would sufficate again, as if no air was clean enough. For a moment she looked as if she would pass out again. She closed her eyes and it did look as if she was gone. However, she couldn't bare to keep them open since they burned so much.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:27 pm

Vlad looked down at Tenele as she struggled for air, wishing he could get her out of this somehow. They were both strewn with ash and smoke, and she looked pale as death. She also looked....blurry. He blinked hard and she looked whole again.

He sighed, and it came out more like a groan. Stretching his neck, he pressed his lips to her forehead, wanting her to stay awake with him. She'd stopped breathing for so long...he'd really thought he lost her.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:35 pm

She blinked her eyes open when she felt soft lips press against her skin. She glanced up at Vlad, only seeing a big black and white blurr. She coughed, shivering from cold. It wasn't that the air was cold, it was that her body was blistered from the heat of the fire and the warm air felt freezing to her. She coughed several more times, taking in large weezing breaths and it was clear that she wasn't really breathing. She was trying very hard, but the air just wouldn't go past the soot that filled her lungs.

"I... can't... breath..." she whimpered, coughing and taking in a deep breath. This one actually fought past the smoke in her lungs and fllled them. For a moment she stopped coughing. She fell back against the scorched floor after her last cough, falling still. The heat had drained her energy.

She was still not quite aware of what was happening. She hadn't realized that Vlad was the only thing saving her from death at the moment. His strength holding the weight that could crush her form into the marble flooring. She blinked her eyes rapidly still trying to get him to come out clear. She would need to wash her eyes out with water to do that. Although her tears were working good at the moment. Watery trails of tears ran down the side of her face, washing away the soot in two clean white lines.

The sound of stomping could be heard as the rescue crew bounded through the house, not carring whether or not it was unstable it seemed. Or maybe they hadn't noticed.

"They have to be dead, no one could have survived this..." one of the voices said as it filtered into where they were.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:48 pm

Vlad's hearing had grown blurry and distorted, but when he heard the sound of rescue workers on the other side of the rubble, he dug in to find his voice again. "Start excavating, you useless fools!" he said, and was surprised to hear his voice barely rise above a whisper. He took a deep breath and tried again, but it was even quieter. They'd never hear him though all that. He had to hope they'd just start digging.

"Maiden," he said to Tenele, wishing she would see him, say something. Tears kept streaming down her cheeks, making tracks in the smoke on her skin. "I'm here," he tried awkwardly.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:55 pm

Tenele took a deep breath. She smiled, though it was as if she were a blind person staring blankly a head at a blurry mass. "I can feel you close to me..." she said softly, coughing slighlt. Her voice was horse. "I was afraid I'd die... and I would never see you again. Good thing I was wrong..." she said and started coughing.

One worker stepped right onto the rubble that was pressing down on Vlad's back. "I thought I heard coughing coming from down here..." he said and kicked a burned log away.

Tenele coughed again as what dry soot that was left fell down on them in a shower, filling her lungs with dirty air again. She coughed uncontrolably, shaking with everyone of them. Finally she regained control as the rescuers started the slow porcess of moving the boards. "I hear them," one said and they all dug in.

One by one the boards were lifted away. Tenele began to start to fade out again, her breath ragged now and barely there. She reached a blistered hand up to Vlad's face and ran it smoothly down his cheek. She could feel him, however still unable to see him. "I lo-" and her hand dropped. Once again her lungs had given out on her.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:03 pm

Vlad managed not to cry out as the worker stepped over his back. Tenele didn't seem to be able to see what was happening, and he wasn't in a rush to alert her. Rain filtered down through the mess and ran in pinkish tracks over his skin before dropping onto tenele. He didn't want to scare her more, but he wished she would keep talking to him, to keep him awake.

"I lo-.." Vlad's focus cleared a bit as Tenele fell unconscious again. No, please... He drew another breath and pressed it into her lungs slowly, beginning the task again. The rhythmic breathing helped to keep him alert, but his arms trembled under the pressure above them. Sinead's idiots had better be doing something useful out there.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:07 pm

Board after board, beam after beam was tossed a side and finally the weight on Vlad was moved until there was one last beam and a few little boards. The men gathered around and looked at Vlad.

"What? Are you two making-out in all this?" one of the men asked as he and the others grabbed a hold of the last and most heavy beam and managed to shove it off of Vlad.

The only thing keeping Tenele from falling into the realm of the dead was the air that Vlad forced into her weakened lungs. The men, of course did not understand this.

"You two look a mess.... Hey... is she alive?" another asked, throwing the last few boards off. "She doesn't look alive..." The men grew sad suddenly as it seemed the weight of what had just taken place finally sunk in.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:16 pm

"Would I be here kissing a corpse?" Vlad rasped between breaths, trying not to lose focus. His back was a mess of blood and gashes, and on top of that, it felt well and truly broken. Vlad attempted to reposition it ever so slightly and pain shot through his legs. He gave Tenele another breath, dizzy with relief and pain at once. His muscles were starting to quit on him, but he couldn't just collapse on top of her. He sagged his waist against hers, managing to keep his upper body up to avoid putting pressure on her lungs. "Don't just stand there, make her wake up!" he tried to scream at the gawking workers, but his voice cracked into a whisper mid-sentence. He put another breath into her lungs. "Water!" he ordered them, having no better idea to get her to wake up.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:26 pm

One of the men rushed away and the others stayed. They were talking amongst themselves about how she wasn't breathing, there for she was dead. After a while the water was brought to them. The man set it down next to Vlad and looked at him before trying to poor some down her throat to wash the soot out. He then sprinkled some on her skin lightly. Although he really didn't realize that if she was passed out she probably didn't know to swallow and there for would end of drowning.

"The queen could heal her," one of the men responded quickly. "But, I don't know if she could brink back the dead..." he finished.

Tenele didn't move. She didn't blink, flinch or budge. She didn't breath, cough, or gasp. She did nothing but lay there, seemingly dead. After a moment she groaned and blinked again, glancing around wildly as her eyes blinked constantly to clear her vision.

Her breath rasped and it was clear that her breathing was just getting steadily worst. She looked up at Vlad and smiled, ignoring everyone else. Actually, they were to blurry to be seen. She raised a hand that shook violently from the lack of strength up to his face again. "I can't stay awake..." she said weakly. "I can't breath...." she coughed.

"If this is dying..." she said, swallowing. Her voice was raspy. "Cracker's sister..." she told him. "Friends from the town... pay back... kill ones you love..."

Her smile turned playful. "I guess... she didn't realize... that you love... no one..."

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:38 pm

Vlad's expression changed as Tenele spoke. Her words seemed to make his whole body hurt more, or hurt in a place he didn't know how to locate, or something. "You can breathe, Tenele," he choked. "Keep trying, the fits will pass." Love nothing? Him? Was that what he was? "Damn it, Breathe, Tenele," he rasped, sinking his forehead against her shoulder desperately.

"If I say it, will you just breathe," he barely whispered.

The workers stared at the situation blankly; no one moved to separate the two barely-conscious survivors, since their survival seemed conjoined at the moment, but someone did have the good sense to run back toward the castle to seek out Sinead's assistance. If they couldn't move Tenele, they'd have to bring help to her.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:43 pm

"I don't care..." Tenele whispered as the breath exited her lungs. She sucked it back in slowly. "I don't care what you think of me..." Her eyes began to close again and one of her hands saught his. She tried to twine his fingers with hers. "I don't care if you..." she coughed uncontrolable, this time a little blood came out. She had coughed her throat raw.

"I... love... you anyway..." she said softly, rolling her head to the side to lean her face against his. Her eyes were open for a moment. The breath left her lungs, though this time her eyes didn't close... they stayed open... staring straight into nothing.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 12:01 am

Vlad's eyes widened as her face pressed limply against his. He jerked his head up and stared at her. "Tenele. Tenele!" He glanced down at her still body, and around at the lack of any help. Love? He breathed into her lungs again, but felt his throat close. He swallowed a thick lump in his throat and tried again, but now his breath was shaking. Almost as if he...

"Step aside, let me see what's happening," a strong female voice said from nearby. Queen Sinead made her way quickly through the crowd until she stood a few yards from Vlad and Tenele. She paused and tried to take in the situation.

Vlad heard her voice and raised his mouth from Tenele's to look at Sinead. The pleading look in his eyes made her take a sudden step forward and stop again. She had never seen Vlad look like that. Never.

"Please, My Queen," Vlad barely managed to say.

Sinead rushed forward and knelt next to her maiden, reaching around Vlad's arms to place both her hands on her chest. Workmen's hands took the no life king by his waist and shoulders and lifted him up away from her, laying him painfully on a stretcher nearby. Vlad stared at Sinead and Tenele from the corner of his consciousness, out of energy to speak.

Sinead ignored everyone else and closed her eyes, a soft clow appearing beneath her hands and spreading around Tenele's whole form. In about a minute, the glow slowly faded and Sinead opened her eyes. The spell had healed Tenele's lung damage and external wounds, but she would be tired for a while.

Vlad stared to see if she would wake up.