Night's Omen

Continued from Here (http://angdar.com/nightsomen/index.php?topic=1853.0)

Taro did not appreciate that he had to stop in the middle of what he'd been doing to handle any more drama than was absolutely necessary, but when he found out that Justinian had Aaron (and plus one, whoever the hell she was), he did not fail to act. He looked up as he shut his phone, which Benjamin believed him always to be on, and lifted his chin a little. "How long 'til William gets here?" he asked.

"Not long," he estimated. "His whole immunity thing is rather inconvenient, though," he muttered.

Taro agreed. "Listen, bad news. Something's come up, and I need to go for a while. I will be back, though. Oksana, what do you want to do?" he asked, turning to the petite blonde fox, who was leaning against the fridge with a bottle of water in her hand. She'd just returned, and she had blood all over her. It was truly a sight to behold, because none of it was hers.

"Don't know," she said honestly. "After what just happened, blowing my cover now would be... idiotic. I'm sure there will be some sort of backlash about how I could have stopped that lunatic from getting to Fawn." She looked upset, but only for a moment. "We have a lot of good, sturdy hunters here. I think Benjamin will be fine until William gets here. If he needs it, I'll help, but I doubt it will be a problem. Stavros was up for consideration with Diamond, was he not?"

Taro nodded. "Turned it down. Likes his gig here." He watched as a tall blonde darted by. "Can't say I blame him."

"Taro." The way Benjamin said his name was a warning.

"Just sayin'," the vampire said, holding his hands up defensively. "Anyways, I'll explain when I get back. Let's just say that now is one of those times I'm awesome for being me." And with that, he vanished.

"What the hell does that mean?" Oksana demanded.

---

When Taro had met with Justinian and Iloquil, he had been shocked to find that Aaron was in such bad shape. They told him very little, assuring that Aaron would tell the story in due time. They suggested he not separate them, but Taro wasn't fucking likely going to move them back at the same time, and so he took them one at a time, and successfully scared the everloving shit out of Eithne when he arrived rather abruptly, Aaron draped over his shoulder.

"Grab any medic on staff right now," he told her. He walked the ten or so feet from the stacks to the infirmary and dumped him down on a cot, then went back for the female. When he'd put her down in a bed next to Aaron, he straightened his jacket out a little and waited for the medics to arrive. "They smell like.. salt water," he said. "And they both look like shit."

"Where'd you find them?" she asked. "And how?"

"Not important, not important. Suffice to say, looks like Aaron was not successful with whatever he was doing overseas, and this girl got caught up in it. She doesn't feel human, though. Don't know what she is, but I don't like it."

"I can call Jordan and get her back here," Eithne offered.

Taro held up his hand. "No, don't. They didn't know he was missing. No point in shocking the shit out of them with the details now when we just know that he's alive and beat up."

Eithne hesitated, but nodded. "Fine, I understand. Come on, let's get out of their way," she said, reaching out to take his arm as the staff practically swarmed the bodies. She walked him out of the room and down the hall a ways. "I'll call you when we get a status change," she assured him.

Taro looked mildly irritated - but he always did. "See that you do. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to Mr. Sunshine and Fluffy," he muttered. Eithne did not miss his disgusted sneer as he turned, vanishing into nothing. She knew it was more because he was friends with Aaron and he was concerned than it was animosity towards Benjamin and Oksana. Taro may have been a magnificent jerkass in every sense of the words, but he still respected his guildmates.

She sat down outside of the room and opened her laptop, which she had brought from her office. She had seen an interesting symbol on the woman's arm, and she intended to try and identify it so that she could perhaps find some answers of her own. After several hours passed, her eyes lit up in recognition while surfing the archives of the Therrayan Scholars, and she nearly choked on her orange juice box.

"Not good," she whimpered. "So not good."

Eithne may have had perfectly good reason to choke on her juicebox, but Aaron was completely oblivious of what that reason would be.  Of course, he had no idea that he was back at Diamond, getting pieced back together by one of their talented surgeons or that he was really as close to dying as he'd been.  He didn't consciously know that one of the crossbow bolts had gotten so close to his heart, though some part of his brain seemed to have understood that death was a very strong possibility.  In all actuality, he thought that was what happened while he was unconscious on the operating table.

That, or he was really underwater, which was slightly less possible, but it was the sensation surrounding him.  He felt like he was caught up in a current that swirled around him, dragging him deeper every second.  The harder he fought to swim towards the light above him, the faster he was flung down into the darkness, until his lungs burned and his brain fought with his body over drawing in a deep, desperate breath of cold water.  He didn't want to, knew that it would be the end of him, but the current was too strong to fight and his vision was spotting from lack of oxygen.  His skin felt like ice, the surrounding water only getting darker and colder the deeper he sank, and finally, finally, his stubbornness failed him.  It's natural instinct eventually to breathe, even when your brain knows that breathing is going to kill you just as surely as holding your breath indefinitely would, but he tried.  Nobody could say that he didn't try to hold out.

It was cold, so much so that the icy seawater burned as it flooded his throat and lungs, and the burn was worse for the fact that it was not the oxygen that his lungs so badly needed.  He choked, trying to expel the water in favor of air once again without being able to stop himself, and again only got more cold, salty water.  The pain increased as his brain went into overdrive, gasping and choking on the fluid desperately as his consciousness began to spot and dim again.  He didn't expect to wake up.

Only, he did.  On a hospital bed with a heart monitor, breathing apparatus and pretty much every other machine possible attached to him to make sure that he didn't stop breathing, beating, thinking and whatever else they were afraid for, and he dragged in a deep, desperate, greedy mouthful of air that threw him into a coughing, choking fit.  Naturally, that sent his monitors into a fit and sent sharp stabs of pain through him, but once he'd started coughing and gagging, the saltwater just didn't seem to want to stop until it had been completely expelled.

Imagine everyone else's confusion as they rushed in to find him spitting seawater everywhere, fighting with cords, tubes and wires as he finally just clutched at the sidebar on the bed to ride it out.  He had no fucking clue where he was or what was going on, but he officially hated his life when it was finally over and he was left breathing hard, in pain, and staring across the room at the clearest blue eyes he'd ever seen. 

What.  The Fuck.

 As soon as Eithne heard the machines go wild, she jumped out of her seat, running into the room to ensure that Aaron hadn't just died. She understood the bonding process as violent as the vampiric one from what she'd read. He may have died, but he wasn't undead. Eithne had drowned before; in fact, most of the guild had. The humans had all undergone things like waterboarding to get them used to the idea of it; Eithne and Nicolette, too, unfortunately. Nicolette had been dead for 10 seconds, Eithne for 35. She'd heard Aaron had been dead for longer, but she didn't really gather that it was a feeling you got used to.

She pushed 'send' on her phone as he began yakking up seawater. "Taro? He's awake. Yeah, he's - " she paused. She looked over at the Elemental, who was propped up but in a total daze, staring straight out ahead; at Aaron, but with no focus to her aqua eyes. "I think he's okay. I'll let you know." She put the phone down hesitantly on the counter closest to the door and approached him, hands thrust into the pocket of her jeans.

"Aaron?" she asked, waiting until he'd done with spewing the wretched water all over. Thankfully he'd leaned over the bed - an instinct from drinking, no doubt - and had gotten it solely on the floor, which was now being mopped quickly. A doctor checked all of his tubes, but he backed off when the larger man began to fuss at him. Well, fuss wasn't the right word. Aaron bared his teeth and took a swipe.

"Ahh, maybe you should lay back," Eithne said, nervous laughter filling the spacious room. "You've been through quite a bit in the last few days. It's best if you just relax..." she pleaded, clearly out of her element. She looked over her shoulder at the Lyr, who did nothing, and said nothing.

 Azhure had no concept of time, at the moment. She existed in that moment and in several hundred others; time was not linear, her memories were not linear. She jumped forward and backward, standing with her feet in the sand of a land not yet even discovered; exploring Easter Island only a week prior. Conversations and thoughts blurred together until she could only hear one noise, and it was a rhythmic and technological beep, and it beeped at exactly the same point in time every time for a long time.

She blinked.

The beeping became all she heard; was it growing louder? No, but possibly faster. She did not notice the people as they entered and exited the room, and she did not concern herself with the commotion from the other side. They - it - inconsequential and tragic, falling silently; flowers with no scent. Even as he began to choke on the water, she said nothing, did nothing, was nothing.

What had this stupid, stubborn mortal man done?

Actually, the stupid, stubborn mortal man hadn't done a damn thing except get shot up with a fucking crossbow and then metaphysically drowned in such a way that he almost physically drowned.  Or, maybe he HAD drowned somewhere in there, he didn't know.  The doctors who were making a fuss about him were talking quickly and quietly amongst themselves about the seawater he'd just hurled all over the floor, and about the machines.  He wasn't at his best and didn't care to eavesdrop properly, but they made it sound like he'd fucking drowned and somehow revived himself.  Yeah, because that made buckets of sense.  Morons.

"Get awa--" he started the threaten, but the efforts to be volatile and aggressive just didn't sit well with his current condition.  He couldn't tell if the spikes of pain in his chest or the choking sensation in his throat kicked him into his next fit first, but the attempt sent him into another coughing fit.  Fortunately, this one didn't make it look like he was a kid who couldn't swim just yanked out of the ocean.  Still, it wasn't very scary, and he didn't like that it made him want to do exactly as Eithne said and lean back against his pillows.  He hurt, he felt sick, and he was stupid confused, so why should he cooperate like a good patient for anyone?

Eh, maybe because he was hurt, sick and stupid confused.  Seemed like good reasons.

He also didn't know who the fuck the dark haired woman with the amazing blue eyes was, but she seemed very, very familiar.  Part of it was the way she looked, so he'd definitely seen her before, but that wasn't the big part.  Somehow, it was more a sensation of her, like it was her presence and not just the impression he had of her from his physical senses.  It was something deeper than that, which made absolutely NO sense to him.  He must have hit his head really, really hard.

"I'll relax," he started, coughing a little less this time and getting more complete words out, which seemed like a success if he ever heard one.  "Only if you tell me what's going on."

Starting with the water.  He was already putting the rest together in his mind, about why his entire body hurt and where the big injuries had come from.  Midnight, gladiators, normal and totally sane stuff.  Right.  No drowning and no strange women.  Ready, go.

 Aaron should have been thankful that Eithne wasn't Nicolette. She could only imagine how the petite blonde would have delivered this crippling blow of information, and she hesitated, trying to find the right words to describe what had happened. She reached behind her and pulled up a chair, sitting down at his bedside with her hands folded in her lap.

"Well..." she said, looking at those hands, fingers laced together and balled up; she was nervous and it showed. She didn't want to be the one to tell him this. Aaron wasn't known for being a loose cannon, but she knew that he valued his mortality. He was pristinely ungifted, to the point where he could not even be bothered by most magic - it sounded bad, but it was actually good. It made it difficult for others to read his mind (though not impossible; and he could still pass through Irene's mirrors), and it was, he thought, a useful trait. Nevermind that it also meant he couldn't even cast the most basic of spells or realize he was crossing into a ward until he got virtually electrocuted by it.

But now? Eithne cleared her throat. "I have formed no good way to say this, so I'll just tell you what I know. You've been bonded to a Lyr; a Water Elemental. The process is not unlike being turned into a vampire, although it includes marginally less dying, and as far as I know you're legitimately alive as we've all drowned before. Your vitals suggest as such; couldn't hook Taro up and expect to get any signal, so I'm pretty certain my information is correct."

She paused. "From what I understand of her, she's young by their terms, but old by ours. Not a lot of documentation about her history, which means she's kept mostly to herself. She is in every bit as much shock as you are, so please don't try to startle her. I can't guarantee she's not capable of hurting all of us if she thinks she's got to. Although," she said, turning to look at Azhure, "it seems like she's content to be catatonic for the moment."

"Taro found the both of you, where he didn't say. He brought you here and left. Nobody even knew you were in any danger," she said sadly. "I don't know how it could have happened." Clearly, nobody knew, or he wouldn't have been in Midnight for as long as he had. Once Diamond found that out, there was guaranteed to be a sternly worded letter to someone.

If he'd thought about it, I'm sure Aaron would have been thankful that Eithne wasn't Nicolette and that the more...exuberant girl would have told him all of this.  Regardless of the girl delivering the information, it probably would have been a better idea if she asked where he'd been and what had happened before dropping the 'bonded to a water elemental' bit, since he could have told them.  This way, he was only going to be unhappy with the news.

Not that any of this was 'happy' information.  Being nabbed by a pair of freaks with Deliverance accents and a weird incest vibe only to be dumped into a cell in Midnight and then thrown into what looked like a supernatural upgrade on the Roman Coliseum didn't sound like fun.  The crossbow bolts weren't cool, either, but it was the rest that was fuzzy.  He'd remember the details in time, after it all sank in and he understood it better, and wasn't so flipped out by it.

The big issue was that the information he wasn't clear on was the information he didn't want to know.  There was no way that expelling large amounts of seawater from your lungs when you haven't been anywhere near a body of water (except in a dream) could be good, or explained in a good way.  Eithne had to be the bearer of bad news, especially considering who she was talking to.  'Pristinely ungifted' was a nice way of putting Aaron's former state of being, one that he agreed with, though he wouldn't argue that he had the magical talent of a common rock.  He liked not having even the slightest hint of psychic ability or magical openness, and if he had no way of recognizing wards or even simple spells before they blew up in his face?  Well, that was just something he had to live with.  There were other hunters in Diamond for that, and he was fine not having those complications in his life.  He dealt in weapons, which were solid, physical and honest about what they were and could do.  Magic was sneaky and untrustworthy.  He didn't like it.

That meant he wasn't going to like this, either.  As soon as Eithne started explaining, jumping right into the bad news because how could you tell a guy who LIKED being completely and utterly human that he just got an unwanted upgrade?  Still, her approach was surprisingly blunt for her usual, which threw him off a little; he made to speak so suddenly over her telling him that he'd been bonded to a water elemental that he threw himself into another small coughing fit.  It was probably for the better, since it meant he didn't hurt himself worse than the coughing did by freaking out and Eithne had a chance to finish mostly uninterrupted.

The comparison to being turned into a vampire, if only that the 'process' was similar, only made it worse.  His brain did a few mental somersaults over it, and then she was talking about how much dying it involved and that he was legitimately alive because they'd all drowned before.  Yeah, they had, he remembered the waterboarding.  William was the only one who'd beaten his 'record' for longest time dead after drowning, and they'd all thought they'd actually done the jackal in that time.  It wasn't really something that was brought up often.  What she said made him think that perhaps he'd heard the doctors right, and he'd somehow drowned in his dream, but hadn't stayed dead.  That was a nice thing to know.  

His eyes followed Eithne's gaze when she told him about the Lyr that he was supposedly bonded to now, and his eyes narrowed when he was told not to startle her.  Uh, really?

"How is she in shock?" he demanded, but really, 'demanded' was too strong of a word.  After his initially strong movements and reactions, his strength seemed to be confined to his thoughts while his body told him that it just didn't want to deal.  Taking a crossbow bolt to the chest seemed to have that effect, he was finding.  It was annoying.  He just didn't understand how a being like that could bond a human and be in shock over it.  He certainly hadn't done it.  "I was in Midnight, a Coliseum-thing.  Like Gladiator."

He wasn't so sure he liked that movie anymore.

Eithne frowned. "You've got the mystic knowledge of a fern, so I'll try to take that into consideration," she muttered. It wasn't like she wasn't concerned about Aaron; she was, but the prospect of having a Lyr on hand to study, to interact with... Eithne was a Therrayan, to the core. "She's over a thousand years old, Aaron. That she could have killed you with but a gesture is among the many reasons why I'm asking you for a modicum of tact, especially now that she is here."

She shifted her weight in the chair, letting that sink in. If Aaron wanted to get unruly (as much as his bed and current state would allow) and provoke the Elemental, Eithne would leave the room. She didn't want to drown to death on the water in her own body. "Now, as for where you were. I'm sure there are going to be a lot of questions when you get back, but for right now, everyone has gone to the main guilds here to put a stop to everything that's going down. In your absence you may have gleaned that someone upset Midnight enough for them to attack." She paused. "Evidently the lesser guilds are too stupid to realize someone else has been in charge there for a while now."

"The Gladiator thing is new news to me, but then again, I don't focus my study on that place. If she was there, I may be able to get information from her, too. I wonder why she was there," she said, trailing off with a glance over her shoulder. "Water Elementals aren't usually aligned that way." She shook her head a little. "Oh well, I'll find out later. For now, I'm going to contact Irene to find Gunnar and have him come back here. I doubt Jordan will want you out and about, but I don't think she'll protest to coherent and on your feet."

"A dumb fern," he corrected just to be an asshole, though that was very obviously an exaggeration.  Even ferns and other plants seemed to react to magical energy. 

That didn't mean he was uneducated in such matters, though.  He fought plenty of things that used various types of magic and he certainly understood bonds and the like enough to know just how fucked he was.  Or make a pretty good guess, anyway.  This was in no way, shape or form a good thing, and Eithne could be as interested in studying the elemental lady as she wanted, as long as Aaron didn't have to be involved.  Actually, if he could just forgo being involved in any of it, that'd be fine.  He'd trade places with Eithne, since she was so interested.

Yeah, and then Murphy would kill him.  Awesome idea.

No, he wasn't going to provoke the elemental (wasn't going to try, anyway; accidents could happen), nor was he going to provoke Eithne (accidents, remember), because as unhappy as he was, he was not in top form.  He felt more like sleeping than arguing or fighting with anyone, but he felt as though he'd drowned enough for one day and didn't really relish the idea of falling asleep again so soon.  It was another reason not to provoke Eithne, since she was his best source of information while the elemental was silent and letting them talk about her while she was sitting in the same room. 

"She said she 'couldn't let me die', back when I was bleeding in the dirt," he told Eithne, because suddenly, he remembered that.  He turned his eyes back to the woman that he'd been very upset with so far, and wondered if maybe he wasn't being just a little bit of an asshole even being at all upset about it.  He'd have died, he knew that.  That was where he'd been headed when she showed up, and nobody in Midnight would have cared.  It was some kind of medicated, injured enlightenment that would probably not be so successful later on, but for the moment, he understood.

He also understood that he'd definitely been slipped a light sedative of some kind after he'd thrashed, but that was okay.  His day didn't require anything strenuous anymore, and even knowing that Gunnar was going to flip someone the bird and tell them he wasn't leaving the ridiculous number of patients he'd have in the main guilds (which would leave Aaron to hurt for longer until the healer returned) didn't bother him much.  He was about as okay with everything as he ever got.

Fucking sneaky nurses. 

 "Yeeeahhh..." Eithne trailed at Aaron's claim that she said she couldn't let him die. "I don't know if this is what she had in mind." She looked down as her phone went off. With a raised brow and a sigh, she said, "I guess I can further update you on how your favourite people in the world are doing."

She sat forward in the chair, resting her elbows on the bed. "Taro is at Crimson with Benjamin. William just got there. Oksana watched a Crimson trainee blow her own head off to stop Bacchus from gaining access to the guild through her - that's one of the old Midnight vampires, so I'm thinking that your romp in their version of Playland ended up on the good side of up," she added, a dry tone to her voice. Of course she wasn't happy or glad that he'd been taken. But if all that had happened was this?

"Link says that Frost is short members, Varekova included. Considering Connor Batten is accounted for, I don't have a good feeling. Speaking of guild leaders, the prestigious Cobriana is missing. You didn't see him in your stint at Midnight, did you? Because it's either that or he's at the bottom of a ravine somewhere." She frowned. She was picking up her brother's language habits.

"Sorry. Dante and Irene are holding cover at Onyx. Firuza is at Frost, no report of trouble. So, it's just you, me and Nicolette for right now. Want some wat-errr juice?" she corrected, reaching for the small refrigerator by the bed. "We have apple and orange. You probably do considering you have a drip hooked up to you. I'm surprised you're even still awake."

No, he didn't think that was what the Lyr had in mind, either, but it was what she'd said and he DID appreciate the sentiment.  He didn't know why she cared, but he appreciated it.  He much preferred hearing about the rest of the guild than thinking about Midnight right about then, though.  Updates were good, even if he was too banged up (and medicated) to have any chance at getting out there. 

Maybe that was for the best.  He'd had enough of Midnight to last him awhile, and from the sound of it, Midnight was running rampant.  Hearing about the missing Frost members (which included Level 5 hunters, not good) and Cobriana was sobering news, but somehow it bothered him more to think about the trainee that blew her own brains out to protect her guild.  There were higher level hunters who didn't have that kind of loyalty and devotion, but there was a trainee that would do it?  How fucked up was that? 

He shook his head, obviously disturbed by the news, and leaned back into his pillows for a long moment to consider the last few days.  He hadn't known what was going on at all; had some of the people he'd fought and killed just been hunters that were captured during this mess?  Like that poor girl that Oksana had been with?  "Didn't see Cobriana, but the only way I would have would have been if they threw him in with me.  That would have left one of us dead."

It was the truth, and he wasn't so sure which it would have been.  He didn't much like Cobriana only because of what he'd heard from earlier reports about Onyx, but that didn't mean the man couldn't fight.  Plus, he was a king cobra, and though Aaron didn't know his fighting style, he'd have been amazed if the man didn't use that to his advantage.  Diamond or not, Aaron was glad that he hadn't seen Cobriana, just in case. 

Juice?  He glanced up at her as she almost offered him water (not a good idea, which she obviously understood), and she had a damn good point about him still being awake.  He honestly thought it was only because she was talking to him and he was worried that going to sleep would put him in the drowning 'dream' again.  It was probably a stupid fear, but it was still there.  "Please, orange.  Force of will is keeping me up, won't be long.  I wouldn't complain if you removed the drip, though," he told her, somewhat hoping she would. 

 Eithne nodded. She'd wait until Gunnar arrived before she taxed his mind anymore with her questions. "Orange it is," she sang, standing and exiting the room. She called Gunnar while she was in the hall, practically begging for him to come back. He was going to say no until she gave him the tidbit of information about Aaron's whereabouts for the past week or so.

She went back in with a 20oz of the man's requested beverage and opened it, holding it out to him as she took her place in the chair again. "Gunnar's coming back in. He won't stay long, but I need him to patch you up so you can give me the rest of the details before you forget them. I'm going to have him look at her, too," she said, nodding to the woman, "but I don't know how much good he can do. She's not of this world, and I worry that he might be a little out of his league."

She didn't mean it in a bad way; on the contrary, she had faith in Gunnar, but she didn't know enough of how Elementals worked to say that he could just fix her.

As if on cue, Gunnar stepped through Irene's mirror just in time to miss hearing anything from Eithne about him possibly being out of his league, and that actually sucked.  Truly, he wouldn't have liked hearing that she thought so, but knowing why would have been extremely useful in the next few minutes.  After regaining his bearings for a few seconds, he straightened and approached Aaron, who looked like he'd just started drinking the orange juice Eithne got for him.

"Sorry," Gunnar said quickly, plucking the juice out of his hands to hand it off to the pretty lady who'd called him in, and only because he was afraid Aaron might spill it everywhere if he was allowed to hold it during the healing.  Weirder things had happened, and Gunnar probably wouldn't have told half of them even if he wasn't sworn to secrecy by his oath of confidentiality.  Some things just shouldn't ever be spoken of.

Without even wasting time to look Aaron's chart over to clarify where he was injured, Gunnar took up the usual healing position, a hand on the forehead and one over the heart and just started pumping energy into his friend and guildmate.  It didn't really MATTER where he was hurt, because Gunnar was going to fix it all.  It was like finding leaks, plugging them and making it seem as though they'd never even existed, and after a few moments, Aaron was as good as new, minus a few issues.  "Alright, orders are to rest, drink lots of fluids and do what Eithne says until I get back, got it?  No strenuous activity for a little while."

Not that anyone listened to him.  Aaron was healed, so he didn't HAVE to be careful, but he'd lost blood and been through a lot, so Gunnar was all about encouraging him to take it easy and recover.  On to the next one, who wasn't far away or difficult to pinpoint, though when he approached, something struck him as odd.  She gave off an unusual aura, perhaps a psychic or something that he wasn't familiar with, but that didn't negate the fact that she was injured and he was low on time.

"Don't worry, I'll only be a second and I promise I'm not being fresh," he told her in a soft voice, being particularly careful with this strange woman and where he placed his hands as he lined up the power centers, and then started pushing his own energy into her, directing it towards the single injury he could find.  He was surprised to find that the power just flowed, almost like letting a raft float down a river, taking him directly to the wound and swirling his power around it like a whirlpool.  He had no idea why he got such a strong sensation of water from the exchange, but it was both pleasant and a little unnerving how easily this one worked out.  He was used to directing his power and weaving it over and through another person until they were healthy again, but this had just happened like it was the natural order of things.

It was when he was withdrawing that the ease of the exchange became an issue, the issue being that he couldn't withdraw.  When he tried, it was like trying to swim against the tide and being swept further back with every stroke he made until he actually tried to strike out at the force that wouldn't release him; being a Smoke, his magic was suited to healing, but he'd learned that there was a way of drawing energy from someone if he really had to.  In the end, he had to, and it was all that kept him from being sucked utterly dry in no time flat.  He couldn't draw from her as quickly as her power was draining him, but he was pulling like he was dying of thirst, and that wasn't a bad comparison.  He'd never truly felt fear of being utterly consumed before, but this?  This was big, and it was endless.  He was weakening despite his best efforts, and he couldn't even get a sound out to warn Eithne.

Oops. When Gunnar tried to help, all he did was ensure that he was going to have a very bad night for himself. Azhure, of course, was only just coming into consciousness, so she didn't know what was going on. She reached up and pushed him away before he could accidentally kill himself but that didn't mean there wasn't any damage done.

She said something in a language none of them understood, and then tried to get up and out of the bed, but fell short as her injury still hadn't healed.

"Whoa, whoa!" Eithne said, rushing over to her. She kept her distance, but she held her hands out, palms up in a non-threatening motion. "You're hurt, you need to rest," she sputtered, reaching down to drag Gunnar away from her before she could zap him with her magic again.

"Who are you?" she finally demanded. "How did I get here?" Her tone was incredibly entitled and angry, and it didn't surprise Eithne much at all. She really could only assume if she were some sort of nigh-omnipotent being, she'd be pretty ruffled if she woke up in an infirmary, too.

It was true, when Gunnar tried to help, all he did was ensure that he was going to have a very bad night, but he had no way of knowing that beforehand.  If he'd waited to get more information from Eithne about the situation, he'd have been in better shape, but why should he expect this kind of trouble?  Aaron was a magical null, so that wasn't an issue, but this woman being taken down by the kind of injury she had shouldn't have meant that she was the badass that she was.  He didn't know that it wasn't exactly the injury that had brought her down, but the bonding process with Aaron.  Hell, even if he'd known that Aaron had nearly drowned after never being anywhere near a body of water, he'd have been ahead of the game.  He knew none of it, and he hadn't taken the time to ask.

So not making that mistake again.

He'd never been so happy to be shoved away from a beautiful woman before, and all of the training he'd endured completely failed him when the sudden lack of contact with her and her power centers basically just dropped him in a heap on the floor.  Eithne was dragging him away because there was simply no better way to help him, and he certainly couldn't help himself right then. Essentially, he was just dead weight -- pale, shivering, icy cold dead weight -- despite maintaining some semblance of consciousness.  He was technically 'there', but his eyes were glazed and he felt like he had nothing left to him to even attempt functioning.  If the dark-haired elemental had made any attempt to finish him off, he might have tried mentally and metaphysically to fight her, but his magic felt depleted and he was exhausted.  That she was conscious and talking finally wasn't surprising, because she'd just drank in so much of his rather impressive energy stores that he wasn't sure he was even going to be getting up.  He'd never worked himself into a situation this bad before.

All he could do was lean his head back against Eithne's warmth, which wasn't actually feeling that bad right about then.

Gunnar helping Azhure may not be working out too well, but he'd done wonders for Aaron; the hunter was given plenty of orders about taking it easy and not overexerting himself, all the usual doctor's orders that he never had any intention of following, but he felt fit except for a weariness that was unsurprising all around.  A good night's sleep would fix that, but he wasn't getting that just yet. 

It was a good thing the doctors hadn't stripped him down completely, since he jumped out of that hospital bed at the same time Eithne rushed forward to drag Gunnar away from the Lyr who'd just dropped him like a bag of bricks, headed for the Lyr even as Eithne tried to appeal to her about her health and pleased that even if his pants were bloodied up, he still had them.  Small miracles, since doing this naked would have been awkward.  Yep.

For as much as he was NOT okay with learning that he was bonded to an elemental now, he wasn't going to let the creature steamroll Eithne and Gunnar without him trying to stop it however he could.  Naturally, that was usually violence with him, but this required a little more tact.  Fortunately, he was somehow okay with that once he was standing between Eithne, Gunnar and the Lyr, watching her with a very careful and curious way about him.  He remembered her from the Coliseum and his near-death experience, of course, but the trauma that should have gone with that was weathered by the softness and comfort of her voice in the back of his mind and the deep, lingering sensation of a calm and soothing presence that had to be from her.  He wanted to refuse this weird, magical shit, but right then, he knew better than to be an ass and try to put her even more off-balance.

Whereas Eithne had kept her distance, he put his hands out in front of him and got a little closer.  He couldn't entirely alleviate her confusion because he only knew what Eithne had said about them getting here, but he could try to help her.  "Azhure," he started softly, not really knowing how he knew her name, but not questioning it.  She knew his, that much seemed to be a truth from deep inside, they knew each other because they weren't alone anymore, and that was terrifying.  "Aaron, I'm Aaron.  These are my friends, they're here to help you.  Us."

Was he calm?  No, not really, not entirely, but he was trying to project all of that deep, soothing feeling that he knew must have come from her essence.  He had this strange feeling that it could all turn into a raging mess if she freaked out, and he didn't want that.

 Azhure had no use for the sheets on the bed, and so she began climbing out of it, as stark as a jay. "You presume to say my name," she snapped to Aaron, pushing aside a medical tray. "Stupid mortals, all of you!" The items on the tray fell to the floor with a loud clatter, but she ignored them as she stepped beyond, feet crushing against the broken glass and metal as though it were nothing.

Eithne began backing away until she got to the door, and it was a good thing, too. She was no match for Azhure, or her ire, and Azhure'd soon learn that hurting Aaron wouldn't do her any good. "Aaron, I don't think she's in the mood to listen right now. We may want to give her space," she said softly.

Azhure looked up at the girl and sneered. "Mood? I have no use of any information you could provide me. I demand you give me passage at once," she snapped. Azhure was under the impression she was trapped in the room; she had no idea she'd been bonded, but rather felt a strong draw to Aaron and assumed it was some sort of magical binding that was keeping her prisoner in the room itself.

In those first few seconds, Aaron had a few thoughts on this matter.  First, there was the obvious fact that Azhure was naked and very, very attractive.  Being a man with a fairly normal sex drive, Aaron was interested and definitely noticed.  Then, the woman started talking, and his interest fizzled down to about what a magazine photograph would have gotten, despite the fact that she was right in front of him.  She was a total bitch.

She was also approaching like she meant them harm, causing Eithne to back off with her +1 (Gunnar) and Aaron to put himself between the pissed off lyr and his friends.  Whether he liked this situation or not, he wasn't going to let the supernatural creature hurt one of them worse than she already had. 

Yeah, she'd find out pretty quick that hurting him wouldn't do her any good.

"Give you passage?  Leave.  You can go whenever you want, nobody's keeping you here," he snapped right back, and her increase in bitchiness may or may not have had an effect on his mood.  Hope for both of their sakes that they wouldn't end up bleeding into each other that way, or their future arguments were going to be worse than they were already guaranteed to be.  "In fact, go.  Get out, we don't want you here and we're not telling you what you don't know."

Was he helping?  Probably not, but at least Azhure was slightly more likely to believe that she was able to leave.  Since the only one present with any kind of magic was in a heap on the floor and Aaron himself had always been the magical equivalent of a particularly dense rock, Azhure wasn't trapped there by any doing of theirs.  Aaron likely could have eased the situation with a quick explanation, but why do that when she was being so nasty?

 She looked at Aaron, tilting her head abruptly as though she couldn't understand why he was deigning to speak to her at all. Of course, Azhure had been, for the most part, a rather solitary creature. Being around people at all aside from Verity and the ilk at Midnight was a culture shock. She leveled her gaze on Aaron for a moment, but seemed to focus past him, to Eithne.

"It doesn't suit you," she said, a knowing tone. "You should be far away from here, with the others."

And, of course, nobody knew what she was talking about, because nobody knew about Eithne and Murph except for - well, Eithne and Murph. And possibly Noelani, of course, but it wasn't a loudly-discussed topic that they had two creatures straight out of folklore in their employ. If it were common knowledge, they'd be getting grabbed instead of Aaron.

Eithne's eyes widened, and she held her hand up. She shook her head ever so slightly at Azhure, who she prayed would get the hint. Gunnar may or may not have known; as he had healed both Eithne and her brother before, he could have sensed their energy was different, but Seelie Glamours were strong, even strong enough to fool a Smoke witch at times.

"Azhure, is it? Please, you've been injured. We're not going to try and hurt you, or keep you here. But I think... I think you may need to sit down and rest before we give you the full story on what happened earlier," she said, palms open, fingers splayed as she tried to impress upon the Lyr the image of calm, blue water.

Azhure narrowed her eyes. "I will sit because it suits me," she said sharply. She turned on the ball of her foot and took a few strides back to the bed, dropping down on the edge of it and crossing one slender, tanned leg over the other. She continued to eye-fuck Aaron, though, which, for Aaron, probably made a lot less sense than it did to Azhure. She didn't one-hundred percent understand that she had bonded to him, but she felt connected with him. She wanted to touch him, to see if it were real or her imagination, but he was so loud and obnoxious she felt revolted by the idea.

Eithne knelt down by Gunnar, careful not to touch him. "I'm not sure what I can do for you," she said. "But I'm going to assume you don't want any water." She paused, looking at Azhure for a moment. "Can you help him?" she asked, though her voice sounded doubtful.

The woman on the bed looked at her critically, then at the man on the floor. He had been trying to help her - to heal her, actually, but unfortunately he was no match for her natural ability. He offended her considerably less than the other blonde man in the room, and so she stood and walked the short distance to him, then stuck her hand out and touched him on the shoulder. Gunnar would feel the oppressive, sinking sensation of her ability siphoning off of him, as though he were surfacing from a too-deep dive and the pressure of the water was melting away with every foot closer to topside.

"There," she said. She stood next to them, awkwardly, as though she were unsure of what to do next, and then went back to the bed. When Aaron stared at her as critically as he had been, she suddenly felt as though she wanted to cover up, and it angered her. She had never in her life felt obligated to wear clothing, but she didn't realize his anger through the connection, which was like a fresh wound, open and festering, was affecting her. She grabbed the bed sheet and wrapped it around herself rather skillfully, fashioning some sort of toga - that actually looked good.

Of course, Azhure looked like a swimsuit model, so she could wear a burlap sack and probably look good.

Gunnar would have LOVED to hear about Eithne being far away with the others, because yes, he was aware that she and Murph had different energy signatures and he didn't entirely understand why.  There weren't many things out there that they could have blood from without being completely infected by it, such as the shapeshifter and vampire situations, so the fact that they seemed so human and then had something else showing through was weird to him.  Maybe some distant relatives were witches?  It was possible, but he should have recognized the signatures, in that case.  It made no sense, but he tried not to dwell on it because he wasn't about to pry; even if he did find out at some point, he wouldn't tell because of that whole Oath thing as a doctor, so the secret was safe.  Anyway, it didn't change the fact that he was insanely attracted to Eithne, nor did it help him while he was on his ass on the floor at her feet.

Aaron was the closest to helping Gunnar at this point, and only because he was trying to make a human shield out of himself.  He wasn't the best meat shield in the guild because he couldn't tank as well as someone like Benjamin (which was ironic, considering their personalities; you'd have thought that Benjamin was easily damaged based on his approach to battle and that Aaron was the near-invincible one), but he was better than Enya if the shit hit the fan and Gunnar was screwed.  Hopefully, the guy would snap out of it soon and be alright.

Orrrrr, Enya could just get the Lyr to help him.  That was cool, too, even if Aaron wasn't so sure about letting her touch Gunnar again so soon after she put him on his ass.  Honestly, it was worrisome because Aaron had never seen that happen before; Gunnar was like the energizer bunny, he just kept going and going until everyone was healed, and that was without energy drinks.  Giving that dude a Red Bull might not actually give him wings, but he could put a small hospital out of business.  Seeing him dropped like this made Aaron seriously wonder what the fuck he was supposed to do with this bitch who was supposedly bonded to him now, especially if she was going to be a danger to people around him.  Was his life over as he knew it?  He really didn't want to be the first person Diamond asked to leave.  That shit just didn't happen.

"Awesome, her highness sits," he muttered under his breath, because yeah, this was going to suck, and no, he couldn't help it because she was making him want to shift uncomfortably with the way she kept looking at him.  At least she seemed to have helped Gunnar, who gasped like he hadn't been able to breathe properly since he dropped, and looked a lot more aware, if exhausted.  That made Aaron feel a little better about the continued intensity of her gaze and the way that he kept wanting to stare her down.  He almost couldn't help himself, especially when she was utterly naked, so that when she pulled the sheet up around herself, he averted his eyes suddenly like he was actually ashamed of the staring, but when he glanced back, he realized it wasn't entirely the fact that she was naked that had him staring; that mattered, of course, but it wasn't the whole reason.  He still felt drawn to her, like magnets in his eyes or something weird like that.

He'd never been the poetic sort, but you get the point.

"Uh.  Thanks.  For helping him," he said, awkward and unsure if he was really mad at her, or if she was mad at them.  Was this what people bonded to vampires felt like?  Christ.

When Aaron thanked her, she didn't know what to say. She wanted to say something horrible to him, to hurt him with her words and make him feel as disgusting as she suddenly felt. She had never, that she could recall, felt so vulnerable or open in her life - even as a youngling. It had all come about very quickly, too - one moment she was sitting there, then the next she felt as though her skin was crawling.

She looked at Eithne, who was busy helping Gunnar stand up and help him get brushed off. She wanted to talk to the girl, specifically, about what had happened. The odds of getting her alone, however, were slim - she could see that the man who had been on the floor cared for her, and after he had provoked her powers, Azhure wasn't likely to get any one-on-one time with him standing by.

"What happened to me?" she finally asked, and her voice was quiet. The thing about a water elemental is that they're very much like their domain; Lyrs tended to be not emotionally unstable, but rather very quick to change how they felt (act and react), and despite changing all the time, they greatly dislike it when it happens without their control. "Why do I feel so awful inside?"

At that last remark she looked right at Aaron, who she had narrowed to the source of her anguish. She wondered if he came closer would the feeling worsen? She had never before in her life been nauseous until the very moment where she pondered. It was as though she were picking up on how much shit she was really in without really understanding it.

Not that it would make Azhure feel any better, but Aaron was feeling pretty unhappy right about then, too.  He didn't realize that they were a great big cycle of shittiness, but each time he felt worse, she felt worse and in turn made him feel worse and then her.  It was not cool in the slightest, but what was even less cool was that he was pretty sure he didn't like her at all, yet he wanted to get closer to her, to lay his hand against her arm, to see how she felt, and that was BULLSHIT.  This was NOT acceptable, and ANGER is much better than VULNERABLE, damn it!

She looked at HIM when she asked what happened and why she felt so awful, and he rolled his eyes without thinking about it.  She felt awful, yet he was the one who'd spent how long in Midnight's Coliseum and then almost died?  "You bonded me to yourself.  After you stood in the audience and watched me kill things and get my ass handed to me in Midnight's playground.  Also after I took a few crossbow bolts to the torso.  I'd say thanks, but I'm pretty sure both of us are going to wish you just let me bleed after this is all over," he told her, and yeeeah, letting Enya do it would have been a better idea.  Tact wasn't Aaron's strong suit unless he was really trying, which he did occasionally.  All Diamond hunters were qualified to take command of a guild in place of a guild leader, which meant that Aaron knew how to be tactful if he had to.

Hey, at least the pink elephant in the room was gone, right?

Yeah, based on the way Gunnar coughed and glanced away, he was thinking that he shouldn't have done it like that, but it wasn't like Enya had been all that gentle about telling him.  Of course, he wasn't a superpowered elemental badass who'd dropped the megahealer without trying.  Damn it. 

"If it helps any, I'm sorry.  I didn't really do anything, but it sucks and I didn't mean whatever I might have done?" he offered, hopefully before she lost it.  He was trying.  Kind of.

 Azhure had not been expecting what Aaron was going to tell her, if only because she'd never had the desire to bond someone before. She'd seen others do it, and she'd watched them die, and she'd watched them suffer, and she'd watched them become every bit as human as the humans to which they were bonded. She'd watched them wither away to nothing after their bonds had died. Azhure had gone many, many years without ever having fallen in love, or even in intense like with a human, because they were fragile and their lifetimes, to her, passed in the blink of an eye. The only one in the room who even stood on the same plane as her was the girl, and the girl seemed very intent to hide what it was she possessed.

Fine with Azhure. One less potential enemy she'd need to worry about.

When Aaron did drop the bomb on her, she only looked at him, her plush lips motionless as she sucked her cheeks in every so slightly, creating more definition of her high cheek bones. It was as though she were frozen for those few seconds as he tactlessly told her what had occurred. Either Aaron did not realize, or did not care, that her life was much more affected by this than his was. Becoming bonded made you weaker or frail, in the eyes of others, Azhure could be a target. Bonding stripped you of who you were and made you a shell, filled with the thoughts and feelings of someone else; in this case, someone that she did not know or care for in any way. It was effectively mind rape, at the most basic level - and it would be slow and arduous, and every moment of every day.

Her eyes, the colour of green glass, widened just enough to show - not fear, but just heightened emotion altogether. Her heart was racing, though, so much so that it made her hands and feet tremble. She broke eye contact with him, looking away, at anything anywhere away from him. She didn't cry, simply because she was made of water and could control that aspect of herself, but she felt like she might just lose that control. Her eyes felt moist, but no tears came. She had to maintain the idea of dignity, at least.

"I require clothing," was all she said, her voice as shaky and frail as as child's. It was uncharacteristic, and even in the short time they'd known her they could see that.

Well, Aaron and Azhure were on the same wavelength about one thing, and that was the subject of bonding.  He'd never had any desire to be bonded to anyone else, and he wanted nothing to do with magic.  That whole 'magical equivalent of a particularly dense rock' thing?  He was not only cool with that, but really, honestly preferred it.  He liked not being at all magical, and he was so completely a null that Enya had dubbed him 'pristinely ungifted', which he'd proudly taken as a compliment.  He didn't have a problem with other people being magical because, damn, someone had to do it, but he didn't want to be that person.  If it bit him in the ass, so be it, he'd take it, so long as he didn't have to do the magical shit.

Except, was that really an option now?  Oh, God, don't tell him he had to deal with magical shit, please.  He didn't want anything to do with it.

Just as quickly as he'd gotten angry at Azhure and the situation, enough that he dropped that bomb so insensitively, he felt almost sick thinking about it.  She was a Lyr, an elemental.  It was an elemental that had made the vampires what they were, and that was diluted or something, wasn't it?  Was that how it worked?  He was bonded directly to the elemental herself.  Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.  Here he was comparing it to the bloodbonds that vampires had, the humans that shared their lives and feelings and thoughts or whatever the fuck, but that wasn't it, was it?  The vampires were bonded to the elemental through blood, and here he was, bonded to this elemental through what, water?  Lyr didn't work through blood, not as far as he knew, though there had been a lot of it.  He didn't know or really remember the tears, so that was beyond him, but god, he was so screwed.

His heart was racing and he wasn't even paying full attention to her at this point, instead thinking that maybe he should have listened to the doctor's orders for once as he backed up a little to sit down in the chair that Enya formerly occupied.  Azhure calling for clothing didn't even really hit his mental space as anything more than a 'oh, clothes would be good' as he ran his hand through his hair and worked over just how screwed he was in his mind.  So screwed.  Screwed times infinity.  Tenfinity.  Holy fuck, would this fuck up his lifespan?  What was going to change?  What wasn't?

 Eithne was in the process of helping Gunnar to another room, but she really didn't want to leave them alone in there with eachother for very long. She also didn't want to risk Nicolette getting in there and opening her mouth, come to think of it. With a quickness, she sent someone to grab clothing for the elemental; she had no idea what size she was, but she went ahead and guessed 'small'. The woman had wrapped the toga skilfully enough that something such as a sari wouldn't be too much of a stretch. When the woman came back with a plain black one, Eithne released a sigh of relief, took it, and went back in.

She was shocked to find the two of them on opposite sides of the room, totally silent, and avoiding eye contact. Aaron had finally sat down and was alternating between nervously running his hands through his hair and leaning forward to rub his eyes; Azhure had her elbows rested upon her knees and was leaned forward slightly, eyes glazed as she stared off into nothing. She looked like a toy that had lost its wind-up key in mid-motion for the way her body sort of hung forward.

"Here," Eithne said, handing it out to her. At once, the Lyr looked up, then stood without a further word to take the clothes. She dropped the sheet wordlessly, then slid into the soft material of the sari, running her hands along the soft, silken material. The top was simple, nothing more than a thick band of fabric that wrapped over her chest, and the skirt was long enough to hang at her feet, despite her height, which was in her legs. Azhure could not help but feel as though she had been given black to mourn the passing of her freedom, and stared down at the floor until Eithne cleared her throat.

"I need to move you guys from the infirmary now that this is all... sorted. Maybe somewhere where you can talk?" she asked, squinting her green eyes hopefully.

Azhure's head snapped up, and she looked from the fae to the human, quiet for several beats of the heart until finally: "There is nothing to discuss. Nothing can be done to reverse this." She said it dryly, as though she had accepted the fact that she had no way to escape it unless she were to terminate her own life, which she had far too much pride to do. She had heard stories of Djinns freeing themselves from their Meisters after waiting patiently for the right moment, but Djinns also had so many loopholes that Lyrs did not. Azhure could never imagine being anything other than water, but were she to choose, she would choose those demons of air and flame that tricked men into wishing themselves to their deaths.

"I should like to lay down in a bed," she said suddenly, realizing that Eithne was basically kicking them out of the infirmary. If she didn't speak up, she would end up put somewhere else even more cramped or uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I have the perfect room for you," Eithne said, already making plans to take her to the room with the large fish tank and the waterbed. She hoped Azhure wouldn't be terribly insulted by it. To Aaron, she only nodded. She'd have to give him what she and Nicolette could dig up later, but right now, the duo needed to talk. Not needed to in the sense that there was much unsaid, needed to as in needed to strengthen their bond before both of them just became ill and vomited up their intestines. Well, not that graphic, but - it would be bad news bears if they didn't try to familiarize with eachother, period.

See? Enya had the clothes thing sorted out just fine, so Aaron didn't have to bother himself with female coverings, which was a good thing.  He was only good at taking them off, and only when sober at that, so trying to get him to figure out that a sari was clothing and not just a weird-sized sheet would have been impossible; many lulz were going to be had at his expense at a later date.  In any case, he was mentally flipping out over his current situation while she basically did the same thing, and only looked up at Enya with any real focus other than being aware of who was in the room with him when she spoke up about moving them from the infirmary. 

Fantastic idea.

As though he's previously forgotten, he remembered that the infirmary meant that he was at the guildhouse and had wonderful, quiet, spacious quarters of his own that held a lot of weapons that he could just to occupy himself, or a comfortable bed that he loved and could totally crash out on.  He had TV, movies, games, whatever he might want that didn't include Midnight, Lyr or anything other than following the fucking doctor's orders and forgetting about this craziness.  Perfect plan.

He had a damn good idea what room Enya was talking about when she said she had the perfect room, but honestly, he didn't care where the Lyr went.  He didn't understand anything about proximity and had no clue how likely it was that he'd be crawling into her room and probably even her bed for some contact of some sort that evening, and instead took her saying there was nothing to discuss as the final bit of encouragement needed for him to leave.

"Seconded," he agreed, and then got up to vacate the infirmary for her, headed for his room and some time to himself.  Or at least, that was the plan.

 Eithne shook her head as Aaron took right the fuck off, around the corner of the hall before she and Azhure had even exited the door fully. Whatever, let him run. He'd have to deal with it sooner or later, so she couldn't fault him for wanting at least a night to himself, although she was pretty certain they needed to be in closer proximity than the distance between the two rooms. Of course, vampires and their blood bonds could be halfway around the world - but that was after several weeks, at the very least. She'd just have to do more research on it, honestly.

"This way," she said, guiding the elemental, who walked at a measured rate. "Aaron will come around. He's what I refer to as Pristinely Ungifted, which means he has no magical talent whatsoever; no aptitude, and in fact, is immune to much of it. It's one of the reasons he isn't attracted to me," she admitted, knowing Azhure already had figured her cover. "Anyways, this is going to be really hard for him to swallow, so just ease off of him for a few days. He doesn't even know you. Aaron's not a one-date sort of guy, if you get the idea. He's like the opposite of my brother. I mean, he's still a guy, but the likelihood of him having several illegitimate children all over the world is next to nothing. Aaron's kind of absorbed in his work a lot, so he doesn't really get out. You're a gorgeous girl who he's suddenly stuck with. Get my drift?" she asked.

She turned around, noticing Azhure had fallen way back, and stood in total shock as the woman put one hand on the wall to stabilize herself before falling right the fuck over. When she hit the ground, she began shaking - seizing, in fact, which freaked Eithne the hell out, because she'd never dealt with a seizure victim before. She ran back to her and reached out to touch her to try and stabilize her, but hesitated, realizing that she could end up killing herself by accident in the process. When she realized Azhure's eyes had pretty much rolled back into her head, she did the only thing she could think of.

"AARON! AARON! COME QUICK!"

Everything Enya had to say about Aaron was pretty much true, though he'd have probably preferred it if she didn't broadcast such personal habits as all that; her brother had a reputation for having all sorts of fun, mostly just because he was Irish.  Actually, entirely because he was Irish, Aaron and Taro had decided.  Yeah, Enya was also Irish, but it was different because she wasn't anywhere near the Irish stereotype that Murph was.  Starting with his name, Murphy O'Shea and his red hair all the way to the accent that sounded like some New York or New York/Irish mixture when he was sober and could consciously try to mellow it out (and sounded straight up about-to-start-speaking-leprechaun-Irish when he was sloshed, which made Aaron wonder just how much Murphy wasn't telling them about his background) and his ability to drink on an almost supernatural level, Murph was the perfect stereotype of a hard-drinking Irish badass.  He even got into fistfights and was thrilled when his St. Patty's Week celebration started with an ambulance at his favorite bar, and carried an actual flask.  With Murphy around, being the party-type of guy was impossible because keeping up with him landed you in the ambulance. 

Laugh all you want, but Aaron had learned his lesson.  Any time he even got it into his head to keep up with Murphy, he'd lost all of his money in pool to either Murph (who could do ANYTHING while completely annihilated except remain upright for an entire evening in a bar stool) or Taro (who was a rotten cheater and telekinetic), and that was on an easy night.  There had been worse ones, and he kept making the pool mistake.  He sure as hell wasn't going the 'one-night stands' route, because even if he didn't know how many Murphy had gotten, he'd seen the bastard get yanked off by pretty girls often enough to wonder what the fuck was going on.  Murphy wasn't the ugliest dude he'd ever met, but he really didn't understand what women saw in him.  Whatever, he wasn't competing.

Okay, so Enya was totally right and he'd have had no arguments if he'd been asked.  No legitimate arguments, anyway.  He'd dated here and there, but it was difficult to get a real relationship rolling when you had a job like his, and he really wasn't the kind of guy to have a whole pile of bastard children all over the place.  He wasn't used to having women in his space, especially not extremely attractive women, so yeah, he wanted a little time alone.  That and a nap. 

Definitely a nap, as lame as that sounded.  Maybe Gunnar had been giving him good advice for once when he said to take it easy (that was a lie, Gunnar always gave good advice that Aaron never listened to, but the consequences were only occasionally instantaneous and unpleasant), since Aaron was about halfway to his room when he started feeling crazy nauseous again, and not in the 'thinking-too-much-about-crazy-shit' way, but the actual, physical, 'i'm-gonna-puke-my-guts-out' way.  He sped up, because he'd be damned if he didn't make it to his room and the comfort of his own bed before he crashed out, but the closer to his room he got, the sicker he felt.  By the time he got there, he hit the trashcan by his bed and filled it with more seawater (seaweed included this time, which he choked on and had to actually yank out of his throat), then crawled into his bed to basically be miserable.  Then puke again.  All in a matter of just a few minutes before someone was banging on his door and telling him the Lyr had collapsed, that Enya needed him immediately.

Yeah, because he was getting up.

"Go 'way!" he shouted, face pressed against the side of his pillow, but it wasn't like he could honestly just ignore it, especially since whoever it was just kept banging on the door.  "FUCK!"

Getting up felt, at that very moment, like the most difficult thing in the world for him, but he crawled out of bed and threw his door open, not even bothering to close it or interact at all with the baffled medical technician that covered the infirmary when Gunnar was busy doing other shit.  Instead, he went back the way he'd come, back towards where he'd left Enya and Azhure, and his pace picked up as he went because -- SURPRISE! -- his ailments eased as he got closer to the two women.  By the time he reached them, already realizing on some level what the problem was, that he wasn't the only one suffering and seeking to ease both of their conditions, he dropped to his knees beside the Lyr and pulled her up against his chest.  Honestly, he didn't know how this was supposed to work or if close contact was even what was necessary, but he'd been thinking about it almost non-stop since he'd been healed, so there had to be something to it, right?  God, he hoped so, cause if he puked seawater one more time, he was going to lose it.

 It's good that Aaron deigned to stop trying to get some of that pesky rest he so deserved and came back out to help, because Eithne had not one fucking clue as to what she should do. She didn't want to touch Azhure, but she was running out of choices. Not only was the woman seizing so badly that it made Eithne want to cry, she was seeping water from every pore on her body - it looked like she was about to lose control of her physical form, but her hands were scrabbling at the hardwood floor, bending her fingernails back or breaking them off entirely, as she tried to connect to herself and stop from turning into a fucking puddle of water.

When Aaron showed up, Eithne actually jumped back a foot or two, which was good, because he just came right up in that shit like he knew what he was doing (he didn't). When he just reached over in the most not-givingest-of-a-fuck way, though, that was when shit got real. Azhure's Kong fucking Kong of a seizure slowed to a steady, but heavy, trembling, and she looked like she'd just fallen into a river. She proceeded to throw up over Aaron's shoulder, thankful that seaweed was all that had come up (she'd thrown up a sand dollar before and fuck those things), and then the very second she was done vomiting, she began crying. Uncontrollably. And she was holding onto Aaron so tightly she might have actually left bruises on his arms when it was all said and done, but at the moment, that may not have been the first thing on his mind (it certainly wasn't on hers, though the well-being of others rarely was).

Whatever she was saying didn't make any sense, literally, as it was in an ancient language, but Aaron might get the gist of it - she was sad. Really sad. Sad to the point where if she said what she'd just said in English it might have made him cry. She couldn't stand to look at him, or anyone, and when her green eyes met his for a second, there was a clusterfuck of - just - misery, or hopelessness, even despair would have not been enough to describe the tiny galaxy within her eyes.

"Uh, you can carry her to her room," was all Eithne said. "But I'm gonna go ahead and say unless you want to do this," and she made a motion at the huge mess on the floor, "every hour on the hour, you'll stay close by until Nicolette and I can figure out what to do about this." She spoke in a largely authoritative manner, with cadence and tone not unlike her brother. Yes, Eithne had lost her patience after having the shit scared out of her.

Honestly, it wasn't like Aaron had a clue, either, so Enya didn't have to worry too much about fucking it up herself; his saving grace was that it was his proximity that would ease the situation, so he just dove right into the mess Enya was trying to deal with and scooped the Lyr up.  With their bodies pressed together like that, he felt less like throwing up again himself and...apparently, she felt more like doing it, since she did it.  Right over his shoulder and down his back, though like his own, it had the distinctly weird sensation of being cold seawater.  And seaweed, which was gross, but it didn't feel to him any of the times like he was really vomiting so much as rejecting a hell of a lot of saltwater, so the fact that she'd basically just puked down his back didn't gross him out as much as it might have if it was actual vomit.  Shut up, it was how he was rationalizing it without thinking he needed a shower immediately.

It wasn't like a shower was a realistic goal, anyway.  Azhure was clinging to him, shaking hard despite being done with her seizure-style symptoms, rambling in a language he didn't understand, and crying hysterically.  Really, he should have been focused on calming her down and remained calm himself, especially since he didn't speak the language she was speaking, but that...didn't seem to matter.  It made no sense and he didn't consciously know what she was saying like he'd have known if she was speaking English, but with the emotions running so high, the two of them being so physically close and neither of them realizing they should even try blocking each other out (he wouldn't know how to, anyway), it was somehow leaking through to him.  He didn't actually know what she was saying, but he understood.

Did that made any sense?  The sadness wasn't just hers in that moment, but allowed to wash over him like a fucking tidal wave that took his breath away and threatened to drown him for a moment, then succeeded when he regained his bearings for just a second and then made eye contact with her and was totally swept away.  He didn't make any indication that he'd heard Enya speak over the sound of water rushing in his ears and the horrible sadnessmiseryhopelessdespairohgodlostdyingwhywon'tsomeonehelpme washing around and through him.  He might have unwittingly saved his own pride when he shifted his weight to the side, leaning against the wall and pulling her more into his lap, then burying his face into her neck and wet hair where the tears that followed could be lost against her skin.

He had no idea what he'd just done, what they'd just done.

All he knew was that he wasn't letting her go until some of this eased up, and then, yes, he'd do as Enya said and take her to bed with him so that there was no more explosive vomiting or any seizures.  He'd never had a seizure and he didn't want to try it out for the first time today; he'd already tried out tears for something other than horrific pain, and that was unpleasant enough, however unprepared for it he was and unable to stop it. 

 Aaron shifting them was good; Azhure was slowly starting to allow her body to relax enough to stop the shaking, but it didn't change the violent outward bursts in which her emotions moved; at this point, Eithne was much further down the hall, and shielding herself with her own hidden abilities so that she could maintain a presence for a while longer. It wasn't until she saw Aaron bury her face in Azhure's neck and his shoulders quiver slightly that she decided she was out like a drag queen. She generally avoided seeing grown men cry, and she didn't want to strike it up at current. Not when he was already strung out enough, because she was used to being unable to charm him into not being a douche.

Azhure eventually stopped crying, though it took well over five minutes, but the tears were working to strengthen the bond, even if they only did a little to stabilize it. It hadn't occurred to Azhure that she was forcing Aaron to feel everything she felt, not until thoughts that weren't her own, memories that didn't make sense (a brother specifically, nearly a twin in appearance but younger in age, along with other family she did not have) crossed through her head and flickered in her mind's eye. She knew them, but only because he did, and it confused and frightened her. She couldn't close the connection off completely, but once she had become conscious of it, she did slow it tremendously, to the point where Aaron would be able to function enough for the both of them.

Meanwhile, she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, feeling sick, but for previous reasons - pure, unadulterated links to the minds were not only dangerous, but invasive. That she had even seen it at all made her feel as though she'd violated some code of ethics, and there was no telling how she would react if this went the other way around. Aaron might actually be the more private of the two; Azhure had nothing eventful to share, but the feeling of someone in her head sickened her. Aaron, on the other hand, might not care about the feeling, but what they took away from it would piss him off. He was lucky that vampiric abilities were harder to use on him; some vampires would take memories away just for the sake of taking them.

Azhure put her hands on the ground and pushed up with her whole body, staggering as she tried to get her footing. Her bare feet slipped across the massive puddle that covered the floor, toes becoming tangled in the seaweed. She wanted to go lay down, but she had no idea which way the room the fae had been taking her to was. She tried to dry herself off, but only succeeded in reducing her sopping, dropping appearance to one of a damp nature. Her powers were so exhausted; she was so exhausted.

"I need to go to my room," she told Aaron, finally. She was waiting for him to regain himself, and whenever he did, that was the first thing she'd say. "I don't know where it is," she added, surprisingly honest given that she didn't know something and she was admitting it. Even with as gorgeous as she was, she looked wrecked then, like a girl who had consumed far too much alcohol or had just recovered from an overdose. No doubt she'd seen better days. She felt pretty bad, too.

Aaron shifting them may have been good, but even better was Enya heading off down the hall and out of sight, since the last thing Aaron would have wanted would be witnesses to him shedding tears.  It happened so rarely that Azhure managing it twice in just a few short hours was rather impressive, and honestly, he was pretty sure that the most in the way of tears he'd allowed since he was much younger had been his eyes watering from pain throughout his hunting career, or from laughter.  That wasn't crying, not as far as he was concerned, and he was sticking to it.  This, however, was.  That wouldn't sit well with him later, but it was such a mental and emotional overload from her end that there was nothing else he could do.  It was overwhelming, all-consuming, and he didn't even realize that his own thoughts and memories were mixing into the debris caught in that whirlpool.

Obviously, he didn't stand a chance at recovering until she pulled herself together, just being carried along in her current and unknowingly strengthening the bond right along with her as they went.  Only when it all slowed some did he manage to ground himself once more, metaphysically trying to get his feet back under him, and this was definitely one of those times that being a total magical null was screwing him over royally; he had no experience to draw from in dealing with anything he was experiencing here, so all he could do was try to wing it.  He was usually pretty good at that, but this was still a ridiculous situation to be tossed into, and now he was lacking in helpful Therrayans.  Damn it.

By the time she started wriggling around, trying to get away from him, he was feeling a little more like himself, enough that he tightened his grip for a moment to try to slow her roll, not wanting her to rush off immediately and fuck them both over.  He definitely didn't want to repeat that experience.  "Don't."

It was a single word, but he made it count enough to keep her still until she could handle supporting herself on her own, and then he used a shaky hand against the wall to get himself up.  One glance around, and he was glad to know that he was NOT cleaning up all that water and seaweed.  Fuck that business, though he might have actually preferred to clean it up than continue to deal with this.  Fuck, he felt like shit, and now he had to take care of this girl?  Why exactly was this happening to him?

With a sigh, he again ran his hand through his now damp hair, then wiped at his face like she'd gotten him wet and he wanted it gone; nope, no tears here, not ever.  Yeah, because he was totally convincing.  Wait until Taro heard about this bonding thing, especially if he realized that there were only a few ways that a Lyr could bond someone.  Basically, tears or kisses.  Yeah, Aaron didn't want to deal with that conversation.

"Can you walk alright, or do you want me to carry you?" he asked wearily, already accepting the fact that he probably would be carrying her, and he wasn't even likely to be staying the night in his own bed.  He wanted to, but how would she deal with that?  Would she be upset without the damn waterbed?  Would she even know what she was missing if he took her to his bed where he was comfortable?  He hated to be selfish like that, but her little overload had worn out most of the rest of his reserves, so all he wanted was something comfortable and familiar, even if he had to share it with her.  "Come on, you can stay in my room for right now.  I'll behave, I promise."

Honestly, he was too tired not to.

 When Aaron issued the command, Azhure found that she was inclined to obey. Forced, even, but part of her wanted to, and that made her want to fight it. When she tried to, she found that she could not, not fully, but that was probably more because of how completely exhausted she was rather than her lack of ability to overcome it. Even bonded, they could still deny eachother obedience, but at this juncture they were both too worn to fight it out. She could foresee much fighting in the future, and it saddened her. Aaron was the last person she would have chosen to bond had she a choice in the matter; he was resisting every step of the way and it was hurting her in ways she never imagined she could be hurt.

Helpful Therrayans indeed; Nicolette and Eithne would become their best allies in the next few weeks to come, if only because they would find information to prevent them from killing themselves. Or eachother.

  Now that they were both in a standing position (despite her posture mostly coming from the wall, where she had her shoulder pinned with her upper body turned so that she was more or less facing it unless she turned her head, she realized that she felt immensely better than she had a half hour prior when they had been separated and squabbling. The bond had yet again been strengthened, causing some degree of ease despite the problems at hand.

"No, I think I'm okay," she said, her feminine voice bouncing at the end in volume as she stumbled. She certainly didn't look okay, but she didn't want him to carry her. He was the one who'd had the shit kicked out of him, after all. She held her hand out at the very least, looking not unlike a lost child, her ethereal ocean-coloured eyes large and still showing some measure of fear. It was just the two of them at the moment, and she had no worries about what Aaron might think regarding her vulnerabilities. She'd just seen him cry, so for him to know she was afraid? That was acceptable - at least, for the moment. As soon as she rested and got her shit back under control, she vowed that nobody would ever see her emote again.

She made it a few steps before she felt dizziness overtake her, grabbing his arm as she began sliding down to the ground. "I'm sorry," she mewed, and the sound may have been lost altogether had he not scooped her up and caused her head to be nestled against his shoulder, right by his ear. She was surprisingly light for having such height to her, and she did not fail to notice the strength that he exhibited despite how much he'd gone through. He was a Diamond, after all, something that she didn't quite understand the gravity of just yet.

Azhure had to focus on what he was saying, because she'd already begun to drift off. She found it difficult, if only for the fact that the gentle rhythm of his steps and his arms around her caused her to feel comfortable enough to allow sleep to creep in. "Behave yourself?" she echoed, clearly not understanding the implications of his remark. Aaron would find that many of his jokes would be lost on her until she had time to adjust to him, but she severely doubted that he would want to think about "their" future together anytime soon.

Obviously, Aaron had no clue what he was doing here or that she was so inclined to obey.  All he knew was that she was a mess, he was a mess and he didn't need her fighting his efforts when he already wasn't at his best.  That she quieted down and listened didn't occur to him as being anything supernatural or the like, just that she listened and realized that he was helping her; at this point in the game, he was inclined to just go with the simplest possible answer and hope it was right so that they could move on with their evening.  He wanted some sleep, preferably without being utterly miserable.  If that was agreeable, and all.

None of the scarier implications had really had time to sink in too far, other than those few minutes he'd had before Enya had started shouting to consider his life, which hadn't been long enough.  He didn't realize how badly they could hurt each other without trying, or the damage he could do without knowing he was doing it.  Being a magical null had been awesome while it lasted, but being inexperienced now was pretty dangerous, especially if Azhure decided to pull a fast one on him at some point; would he even realize what she was doing?  Probably not, not unless Nicolette or Enya were informed enough to tell him what was going on.  Watch out for kisses, Aaron.

For now, he didn't have to worry about it because the damage had already been done -- again.  She wasn't likely to go for any kisses anytime soon, and he sure as hell had no intention of crying again.  In fact, 'again' was the wrong word, since he hadn't cried to begin with.  Nope.  It hadn't happened, and that was the story he was sticking to.  She could be afraid, that was allowed out of noncombatants, especially female ones, but he didn't cry and he hadn't.  Period. 

Good talk.

Back to being himself, albeit a very tired, completely worn down version of Aaron, he didn't have the patience to wait around for her to decide that she needed help, but he also didn't have it in him to fight with her, which made for a very awkward situation.  He ended up staying close for the brief period that she tried to do for herself, and was therefore prepared when she took his hand first and then just didn't manage to support herself; it made scooping her up into a bridal/princess carry easier, and he even managed to shrug off her apology.  "Don't worry about it, I got it."

Yes, by 'it', he meant 'you', but that was a little too 'caring' for his current mood and desire to not appear to be a pussy, so the change in words made a little more sense to him.  It wasn't like it mattered, anyway.  She wasn't really listening, and he knew it, especially once she asked him about the behaving comment he'd made.  To him, that meant she couldn't have heard him properly or just wasn't awake enough to think it through, because it didn't even occur to him that the comment wouldn't make sense to her.  "Don't worry about that, either," he assured her quietly, not having any desire not to behave himself, anyway.  All he wanted was sleep, and if she was there to keep him from puking up seawater and seaweed, that was acceptable.

As soon as he hit his quarters, he kicked the door shut with her still in his arms and didn't stop until he'd set her down on the side of the bed that he spent less time hogging in the middle of the night, then crawled in on the other side and pulled the covers up over both of them, no fucks given about what was socially acceptable or how things were supposed to work.  That could be discussed after sleep happened.

 Azhure was incoherent for the rest of the ride down the hall, and had fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Wherever Aaron arranged himself was fine; Azhure didn't move, nor did she dream, nor did she make a sound other than a very soft breathing. When she awoke, it was morning, and she was in an unfamiliar room with a man she didn't recognize and clothing she had not purchased. It took a few moments for her to really put together what had happened, but she finally did (which was good, because otherwise... look out).

She saw that Aaron was still asleep, and reached over to gently shake him. When he didn't move, she shook a little harder - and finally, she resorted to giving him a sharp cuff against the back of his head. When he inevitably sat up (with moderate shock, no doubt), she had already leaped off of the bed, and much like a cat, was admiring something on his dresser (who even knew what it could have been, a photo, a trinket, a speck of dust) as though she had no notion of what had just occurred.

She turned slowly, gazing upon him with the corner of her left eye, and in that instant looked beautiful and yet incredibly wicked. "Good morning," she said, her accent stretched out across the slow roll of the words. "Did you sleep well?" She turned fully at this point, something in her hands (a pendant, string, a sock?) and wound it around her fingers as a sign of agitation. She was uncomfortable, regardless of how regally she behaved.

Aaron wasn't nearly as quick to wake up, which shouldn't have been surprising, all things considered.  He'd gotten his ass royally kicked, nearly drowned a few times, actually drowned at least once (he was sure of it), been metaphysically bonded to someone and made horribly sick by the same bond, then had to carry the bitch's ass to bed so that they could both get some rest.  Even by Diamond standards, he was tired.  Though he could have gone on longer and harder if he'd had to, the fact that he was able to sleep and subconsciously knew that there was no danger demanding that he be awake meant that he was going to sleep, damn it.  Shaking him awake just wasn't something that he was dealing with.

Naturally, that meant she had to escalate the situation. 

He woke up very suddenly when she cracked him in the back of the head, sitting up too quickly at flicking his eyes around the room in a silent, immediate search of his surroundings that only showed her playing with something on his dresser, a photo of himself and his little brother from the last time he'd been out to visit for some beach time and surfing, and he wasn't fooled.  He rubbed at the back of his head and glared at her some, well aware that she was to blame for the blow and not at all happy about being woken up.  It was hardly his fault that she wanted to be an early riser.

The way she looked at him as she 'realized' he was awake didn't fool him in the slightest, nor did her polite question, and his eyes dropped to whatever her hands were playing with -- the leather cord with the Norse rune on it that his mother had given him on the same visit that the picture had been taken; it had been his birthday, hadn't it?  He'd had the necklace hanging from the edge of the frame, hadn't he? 

"Like a rock," he told her, straightening a little almost like he refused to let her discomfort affect his own demeanor.  Truth be told, they were both uncomfortable and this was a terribly awkward situation, but damn it, he wasn't doing that weird dance right now.  "How'd you sleep?  You...like the necklace?"

His eyes dropped back to the necklace as he asked, an automatic movement, but one that would serve to remind her of what she was doing; it seemed like a very absent gesture on her part. 

 Azhure found the rune very interesting indeed; it was Laguz, and much of its definition had to do with water (for the tangible side) and everything that the element represented for the mystical side. Ridiculous. She'd bonded herself to a man who had the magical property of petrified horse shit, and he had the rune for psychic growth hanging on a little stand in his room. She wondered if he'd even known what it was, but felt very likely that it had been a joke.

She ignored his question about the necklace, giving only a raise of the brow as she looked pointedly to the symbol and then back to him; as if to say, "Seriously?" and instead focused on the photo again.

"Your brother looks almost identical to you," she said, letting the obvious statement fall. She was sure it would be neither the first nor the last time he'd hear those words, but she felt it developed some normalcy for her to make them her own. She had accepted that she was stuck, and water was nothing if not adaptable. "I slept poorly," she said, changing gears. "But I'm awake now, so it doesn't matter."

Azhure could not remember when there had been a time that she did not dream. Humans often pined for dreamless sleep; a man of the Diamond may, indeed, prefer it to the plague of nightmares that may siege his mind after his eyes closed, and in truth many hunters slept only due to exhaustion - it had been a reason why one of the Frost hunters was put on absence for a few months. But to Azhure, dreams were like another realm of reality, where her consciousness merged with all others, and she could see and feel and share, and in turn learn, accept, and be given. She was a Lyr, though, an Elemental connected to the very universe in a way that even science could not understand. There was no way she could think to articulate what a dream was, to her, but it was NOTHING like what a human would imagine.

"Should we dine?" she asked, feeling a quake in her stomach that she was not accustomed to. Azhure ate, but not as much or as often as humans did, and she believed that she was only feeling hunger because Aaron was. She did not relish the ghost-pangs that would come with being bonded. Vampires had it easy.