As the two boys stumbled into the clearing beyond the trees where the blonde Runeholder awaited them, they were stunned and taken aback by what they found. Brady's eyes narrowed in confusion, his ominous feeling in no way seeming to have come to fruition. "A boy?" His voice sounded as if he used the last ounce of strength he had to push the words past the barrier of his lips.
Dangling from a low-hanging tree branch before Phoena was a young boy tangled up in a net likely meant to catch a large animal of prey. One would have expected such a trap to be checked at least daily, but the filthy state of the child suggested otherwise. "What are you just standing there for?" Callan hissed, breaking Phoena from her stupor. "He's suffering. We need to help him."
"It's just-" Phoena started, her voice trailing of listlessly as she gawked. Callan shook his head with a huff, leaving Brady to lean against a tree for support.
"I'll be back to check that," he assured the telepath, gesturing at the bandages covering Brady's chest, "once I get the kid back on solid ground."
Brady nodded, smiling through his own pain. "His sleeping thoughts are muddled, but even so, I can tell that he's suffering. Don't worry about me too much. I can wait." A brief smile crossed Callan's face, and for once he could appreciate Brady's talents since they weren't trying to crack open his own mind like a chestnut. Phoena still stood rooted to the ground as he approached her.
"Really?" He shot her a look of disdain, finding her actions- or lack thereof- to be truly shameless. "What makes you think that leaving a child like that for any longer is okay? Aren't you supposed to be the brave one? Look at the kid. He couldn't hurt you if he wanted to."
"This has nothing to do with bravery," the blonde took a defensive stance with her words, "I don't like this situation. Something just isn't quite right. I think we should-"
"And I think it's high time that you stop ordering the rest of us around. We didn't elect you as a leader," Callan cut her off sharply. "Now give me one of your swords so I can cut the boy down."
Anger flashed behind the emerald of her cool expression. "No, I won't." Her countenance twisted into a snarl, and she stepped back away from the Grand Commander's son. "I refuse to have you use my weapon like that."
"Shameless," Callan hissed under his breath, digging through his pack for a small flip knife. It would take much longer to hack away at the thick ropes compared to a few swift swings with one of Phoena's swords, but if the girl refused to cooperate, he has his own methods. He flicked the blade open and started sawing away to the net without so much as a glance back toward the others. Despite that, he could tell that Phoena had gone to Brady's side as he could hear her fussing over him like a mother hen, offering water and medicine to dull his fever.
"Just sit, please." He heard Brady beg and nearly chuckled, but restrained himself, knowing that it wouldn't be smart to upset Phoena any more than he already had. Each band of rope he cut away recoiled toward the branch that supported it with a satisfying 'thwick,' and each band gone meant the young boy trapped inside was one step closer to freedom. As the last rope fell loose, Callan caught the boy as he dropped from above. He tossed the net away, watching the kid with concern.
While the boy hadn't woken up, he was somewhat responsive, wriggling in Callan's arms with a groan. Faint murmurs escaped the boy's lips but much of what he said was nonsensical rubbish. Callan wasn't sure if the kid was even speaking a proper language. Cradling the child, who couldn't have been more than eight years of age, he cautiously reapproched the others. "Is he okay?" Brady asked, while Phoena glowered silently beside him, eying the young boy as if he was an omen of immense misfortune.
"I think he will be after he wakes up and gets something to eat and drink." Callan guessed that it was nearing a week since the boy's last proper meal based on his sickly state. But not only was he suffering from severe malnutrition, his tiny body was severely scarred and slashes- too deep to have been made by the ropes and too fresh to have happened before his capture- oozed blood. He fished a salve to stop the bleeding from one of the bags and bandaged the boy up as he had with Brady earlier that day. "We'll be able to do more for him once he wakes up," Callan murmured, still holding the gauze in his hands as he leaned the boy gently against a nearby tree then crouched low to the ground to take a look at Brady.
He reached out for the edge of Brady's bandage to examine the wound, but his hand was quickly swatted away by Phoena's. "Let me do it," she insisted, urging him to back away.
"Fine." Callan narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her behavior, wondering what in the world she might hope to gain by acting this way.
Phoena blatantly ignore his stare, as she expected no less from him considering. "You've been touching that child, and who knows what harmful things he could have been exposed to. It's safer for Brady this way, especially since he's already so sick to begin with. We can't chance it."
"What are you talking about?" Brady murmured drowsily in reply, blinking his eyes rapidly and squinting at Phoena's face. "I'm fit as a fiddle, right as rain-"
"Sweating more than a swine under a sunlamp?" Callan offered.
Brady let out a slow puff of air, the sound dragging on dramatically. "That too." He took the back of his hand and swept it across his balmy forehead. "Is it hot in here, or is it just me?" A trace of a smile quivered on Phoena's lips as Brady looked up at her, but it just as quickly faded and she refocused her attention on removing roll after roll of gauze.
Callan lingered in the area, craning his neck to see the wound. "Well?" He asked, his view obstructed by Phoena's form. "What are we working with?" Instead of giving reply, Phoena turned her head away, looking as if she might be sick. "Nothing good, I'll take it," he mumbled then crouched next to Phoena with a practiced grace.
"I thought to told you to-" Callan's sharp gazed silenced her.
"You can barely look at him without dry heaving." That and looking at the wound, even if the boy he rescued was sick with something, helping Brady now was more pressing that worry about such a what-if. The slash on his side was circled in red and lines were beginning to flare out from the center of the wound. Callan eyed Brady nervously as a thought popped into his head.
"Don't mind me. I've been blocking you out for the most part," the telepath murmured, "I figured you'd like that better."
"Just... Don't hit me, okay?" Callan insisted.
"Why would I-" He yelped suddenly as Callan put pressure on his skin. The area around where Brady's stitches were radiated heat like a match. The telepath himself felt his skin scream at the mere touch of another. As Callan drew his hand away, fairly certain that the infection would become much worse if they couldn't get medicine soon, Brady added, "Don't you dare do that again, you sadist!"
Callan pushed himself up with a frown. "I needed to tell if it was tender, and I knew you weren't going to like it..."
"Who would?" Brady grumbled as Callan turned to Phoena.
"Clean the wound as best you can. I have some medicine worth trying in my bag." He dug it out and tossed it over to Phoena, who bobbled it, not expecting the sudden throw. "I'll be checking on the kid."
"Do as you please. It's not like your choices could possibly affect anyone else, least of all an entire nation," she huffed, pacing back toward Brady.
Her declaration caused Callan to pause and look back at her doubtfully. "That's what you're blabbering about?" He let out a heavy elongated sigh, "Why does a little boy have you do worked up?"
Phoena answered without so much as batting an eye in his direction. "This situation may not strike you as unusual, but something here isn't right. You shouldn't have jumped in so hastily."
"Eight year old boy," Callan argued. "Is he going to annoy you to death?"
That comment riled Phoena up, her shoulder squaring as she rose, facing Callan and showing no sigh of relenting as she had before. "You might not be serious, but I am. I don't think it's a good idea to keep that boy around us."
Callan thought on the bad omen Brady spoke of during their arrival at the clearing, but the telepath hadn't warned him against helping the boy, and if any of them were best suited to make such a claim, it would be Brady. Something else must have been lurking, which sent a chill creeping over Callan's skin. "I'll make this easy for you then," the Grand Commander's son spoke calmly, though his intensity matched Phoena's without so much as a shift in his demeanor. "If you leave that boy behind, you can forget convincing me to go."
"But-" Brady, who had only been observing the argument up until that moment, cut in. "We-"
"Shh, not now," Callan warned, waiting for Phoena to respond in the one and only way he knew she could, as they needed all the Runeholders in order to save their home.
Her eyes narrowed, knowing she had no choice but to admit defeat. "If anything goes wrong- anything at all- you will take full responsibility for it."
"Understood." With an agreement reached, the two went back to the respective tasks, Phoena dressing Brady's wound and Callan examining the boy to ensure he was still okay. He hated to admit it, but looking at he small boy reminded him of himself as a kid. The bronze hair, warm skin, the frown that seemed worn into his face. He stopped himself with a firm shake of his head. The fact that this kid had been left out here to his own devices was what bothered him the most. Unlike this boy, it would seem, his own imperfect family had tried, failed he felt, by tried at the very least to embrace his shortcomings.
"O-Orin?" A weak voice muttered, snapping Callan out of his spiral of pity and self-loathing to meet blue eyes so pale that they were nearly colorless. Yet more striking than the color was the utter terror that consumed the boy's gazed.
"Who?" Callan wondered what made the boy so petrified. "I can assure you I'm not him."
"My- my brother," boy stammered wrapping his arms across his shins, rocking himself as tear overflowed. "He was- nevermind."
"Hey." Callan lowered his voice to nearly a whisper, "We're here to help you. You don't need to be scared of us."
The boy dragged his head up slowly, his face looking as shallow and pale as a phantom. "Help?" It contorted in a mix of pain and longing. "I'm not the one who needs help..."
"Is there someone else out here?"
"Not yet," the boy's voice quaked, tremors of anguish lining the heavy tone, "but there will be."
***
Whoo! It's been awhile, but we're back with a new chappie! *hugs the sweet babies that had been somewhat abandoned* Hope I wasn't too rusty!
#TeamCal or #TeamPhoe -- Which side of the argument are you on?