#[ ◈ ] you can’t esuna stupid [crack.]

[weatheredpileoftomes]

unintended

I was still experiencing the writing emotion so I asked for friend prompts, and Chaanqa asked for Frydlona or Majha HW roadtrip, so here we are. Pre-Majha/Ysayle, ~850 words. Spoilers through the lv 53 trial; canonical violence, injury. Slight canon divergence, in that I put a smidge more time between cutscene and trial.

Several things have gone wrong.

Majha is an idiot.

Even if it was just a quick and violent mission, even if she was only going with Ysayle Iceheart, she should have brought her cane. Never mind that a conjurer’s power is slower to destroy than any of the red magick X’rhun has been teaching her, even when she’s calling on the same elements, she would have had her cane.

Instead she has this stupid bloody useless sword, worse than a stick, worse than the dropped dessert fork she’d saved Raubahn’s life with because it’s been forged and engraved to keep her from drawing from energies outside herself. The cavern they’re in is earth packed until it’s shiny, not a twig in sight.

X’rhun has taught her how to use her own energies to cast a healing spell. A healing spell, for the quick treatment of straightforward injuries before a healer can get there.

Ysayle’s injuries don’t look straightforward, and Majha is the healer they need to get there.

She doesn’t need a cane to feel the sluggish pulse of Ysayle’s aether, just to do a blessed thing about it. She fumbles to draw her focus and fit it to the hilt of her sword, making something vaguely familiar in shape, and concentrates. Gathering the energy is no different than it is for casting any other spell. Pushing it out through the focus is…well, it’s red magick, clumsy as it feels when it’s aimed at an ally instead of an enemy.

She gasps with relief when she feels the heal take, energy running from her to Ysayle in a bright cord before it sinks into Ysayle’s skin.

It’s not enough, it’s not enough—Ravana had flung Shiva across the chamber as if she’d been, well, a bug, and Ysayle had bounced on the way down. Majha gathers more energy and casts again, and again.

If she had her cane, if she had a single Twelve-damned stick, she’d start with a Benediction. There’s so much aether in the air around them, floating past Majha’s helpless fingers, and pouring it into Ysayle would stablize her for long enough for a regenerative spell to start mending her bones and the flesh they’d damaged. There’s a wet sound to Ysayle’s breathing that Majha itches to Esuna away—if her ribs have cracked, if they’ve pierced a lung…

Vercure. Vercure. Vercure. Why red mages call it that, unless it’s a warning that it’s worse than a simple Cure spell—more draining, harder to learn, less effective—

The edges of the cavern seem darker. Majha blinks a few times, the pinpricks of torchlight wavering. Ysayle’s skin is so cold against her fingers, colder than the brisk Dravanian air alone accounts for. Majha half-expects to feel frost melting at her touch, and half-expects the pulse in Ysayle’s throat to stutter to a stop.

You can’t have her, she thinks, blinking again as she draws a deep breath. She’s mine now.

They’re wrapped in earth, cradled in it: old, old stone, and a distant river underground. Ravana is an iridescent buzz not far away, finishing whatever he intends to finish before he returns, and when he does Majha needs to be ready to kill him. That doesn’t leave her much time.

Giving up is not an option, low as her own aetheric reserves are getting. She doesn’t give up. Ysayle had put herself in front of Majha, and Majha will be damned if she lets her regret it.

She pulls the cork out of a bottle of ether with her teeth and drains it; casts again, and again, and this time she sees Ysayle’s chest rise on a long breath that turns into an ugly coughing fit. Majha drops sword and focus together next to the discarded ether bottle and wraps her arms around Ysayle, drags her to a half-sitting position and holds her as she coughs up an ugly froth of blood, like she’d almost drowned in it.

She probably had, for that matter. It’s not that different.

Ysayle’s ribs have no strange give under Majha’s hands. Once the coughing passes, her breathing steadies, slow and even. Her eyelids flicker but don’t rise.

Majha settles her gently on the cavern floor again and wipes the blood off Ysayle’s face and her own hand. The icy chill is fading fast now, and Majha wonders if Shiva had…frozen something, maybe, frozen Ysayle so she didn’t die too fast for Majha to do anything about it.

She should get up and go looking for Ravana now, but weak as she feels right now she doesn’t think she’d be any good as the eikon-slayer. If he needs to get stronger, well, so does she.

She curls up next to Ysayle, head resting on the silken spread of Ysayle’s hair, and lets her eyes close.

[bookwurme]

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