Ita Med 3

[18:25] The redhead is holding himself against the tarnished tiling of the shelter's frontage, holding a hand against a limp arm. He seemed the worse of wear, littered by scrapes, bruises, and superficial burn marks- although glaringly severe.

With a gasp, the scoundrel twitches sideways, at first alarmed, but then loosening his tensions under the realization it was Ita who had approached him.

"Y-you're 'round. Shite. I need... a bit of help."
(Ciarán)
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[18:28] Ita about expects this, after seeing his last flagrant display. She tosses her sack off to the wayside and scurries up beside him.

"Yeah, I can tell..." she mutters. Her voice lowers and she glances around. All the better she's wearing her spectacles to scan the streets, filthy or not.
(Ita)
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[18:29] Ita whispers: What were you thinking? Low and I saw you- I was helping Bert walk around after he was missing his leg...Are you alright?
[18:30] Without ceremony, the thug places a hand by Ita's shoulder, seeking support. "L-let's go inside. Please?" With a pitch, he started limping sideways, seeking a more furtive avenue into a safe spot.

"I am alright, but I need this shit cleaned. That milksop got me too good."
(Ciarán)
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[18:31] As she'd offered to Bert before, she offers her shoulder in support to Ciarán, helping to keep him aloft. In spite of her slight appearance she's got a sense of sturdiness to her that's good for that sort of thing.

"Right, right...C'mon. Hurry up. Out of the street, out of the heat," she chides, leading him into the kitchen and latching the door behind her.
(Ita)
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[18:32] Ita says, "Sit down...Chair. Or a bed. Whatever you need, Cia."
[18:37] Yanking his own weight off his legs with support of the walls and Ita's own auxiliary efforts, the ruffian collapsed by one of the stools poised beside the nearest table. The mere sight of a chance for respite drew alleviated, yet desperate gasps of relief out of him.

'What were you thinking?', she'd asked, but what was the answer not clear?

"It's the only way I get to send a fuckin' message, Ita."

Ciarán drags the upper section of his frame atop the table, loosening a pained sigh. More than a few things had snapped within his innards, but not even that seemed enough to quell his determination, or more plainly...

his anger.

Teeth grit, fists clenched, and the fiery resolution of his eyes seemed to brim and swagger with ethereal blaze.

"I ain't lettin' those pieces of shit rule over us. Osric gotta pay. He'll pay, he'll fuckin' payalright." A repetitive, maniacal repeat- a few screws had been loosened. "He'll pay with his head if I have my way, and that'll be sooner than later." A fist slams against wood, churning the furniture across its stretch.
(Ciarán)
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[18:43] Ita's already set to fretting over Ciarán's state and his appearance. The question was largely rhetorical, but still she found the need to ask it. It's about the answer she expects and she replies to it with a sigh.

"I...I know," she mumbles, scurrying to his side.

"It's bad. I know. I've seen it and keep seeing it every day, but you can't just run in here alone and start throwing fire. That's how you get killed."

That was and is naturally her chief concern, her brother's well-being.

"It's not something you should do alone either. Isn't that the whole point of the Syndicate?"
(Ita)
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[18:54] "The Syndicate is fuckin' falling apart, Ita." That was the dire truth, the truth he dared not to embrace. To give in to the toilsome burdens of time and the wearing out the Order of the First Light had subjected them to would symbolize an inherent weakness, and the very concept was one Ciarán, the Heathen, detested.

Burned gashes and hematomas covered his arms, chest and back- some of those wounds had been instantly (if very poorly) cauterized by Acteon's own explosive attacks. And even then, his burbling rage did not make way for reason.

"I'll get out there alone if I have to- I'll chew my way through Osrona and burn that fosse of a city to nothing by myself, if I must. My 'comrades' are giving in," fingers grip the brim of the table, and the wood of the furniture is charred, splintering chunks of seared birch off. "They're deliverin' themselves to witches and making pacts, turning themselves intoservants again. I AIN'T A FUCKING SERVANT!"

Sudbury had submitted to serfdom for too long, pushed into the lacing grasp of an invisible link of bondage where the rich exploited the poor... why would they thrall themselves to yet another sovereign? What did Moonfall have to offer them?

Ciarán was an anarchist until the end. "Kings, lords, masters, gods... they're liabiliti-" he lets out yet another pained gasp, gripping his paunch where a lung had been shallowly perforated. "L-liabilities. I ain't having it."

The fire that burned within him was hotter than ever, but for how long would it continue to blaze on? Standing against the world was a sore strategy, and Ita was right to advise against it, but the Heathen's mind seems painfully determined.
(Ciarán)
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[18:59] Ita flinches in the face of his fiery declarations, eyeing his dire wounds after the combat with Actaeon, the knight who seemed to have some kind of soft spot or pity for her. What a bitter irony that was.

She sees eye to eye with Ciarán, more than she cares to admit, but she doesn't share his explosive words and personality. Far more subdued and subtle. Yet, bit by bit, she finds herself agreeing with him more.

Those that had were unwilling to share with those that didn't, even going so far as to make it a point to boast on. They hoarded, clutched their wealth tightly to their chests when it did them little good in the long run, and swore that it was right.

"God, Cia, hold...hold still. Take it easy."

It doesn't do her any good to know that finally, once she'd banded with those of a like mind and cause, they'd scattered to the winds and lost their fire. He sure hadn't and now he was paying the price. The young woman touches his shoulder and her mana invades his system; the same dizzying, dulling effect of illusion magic grips him.

"Lie down. I got a kit for stitches and some ointment. If you keep flailing around it's only going to make it worse."

While her spell does its work, an attempt to sedate his fiery demeanor and dull his pain, she rummages around for her supplies.
(Ita)
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[19:05] "Don't numb me."

Ciarán's muscles tense up, and his mana circuitry heats with impalpable flame, coursing a surplus of magical fire within their minute, carnal alleyways. In an instant, Ita's subtle influx of illusory mana was expulsed by their puissant intensity.

"I'll feel the pain."

Things had changed brusquely, and in accordance to the nature of those new times, so had he. Complacency, laziness and comfort were luxuries he could not afford any longer- this very scene would come to repeat hundreds of times over, so why accept the solace Ita offered him?

To remain alive, flame had to be stoked, but hurt was the only tool that made such an endeavor possible. His birth had been one of hurt, as well as the remainder of his life and toiling within the Syndicate, why would he expect it to change?

Now, more than ever, it was time to embrace fact their uphill battle would have tobe fought even more arduously.

"I'll learn to carry through this, or I ain't doing it at all. Stitch me up."

Teeth grit, eyes narrow. He braces.
(Ciarán)
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[19:15] Ita wasn't forceful with the illusory numbness, and in an instant it's dispelled. He refuses the comfort she offers. Perhaps for good reason. There is a pang that passes through her; the succor she tries to give to others is getting refused as often as it's being taken.

She is getting better at hiding her thoughts and feelings, sometimes by necessity. This is no exception and she puts on a business-like demeanor that is only barely tinged with dejection.

"Right. Just. Hold still then, please," she bids him. This is what she'd wanted to do in the first place, wasn't it? Out of the line of fire, offering help where she can. Ita'd imagined it would've felt different.

Reality is often disappointing and she ought to know that by now.

The young woman opens her kit and begins swabbing the filthy wounds clean with a pad of cloth and some astringent, working through any and all of his discomfort. She pushes up her glasses, takes a carefully threaded needle, and begins the undesirable work of stitching his wounds shut bit by bit.

"...There aren't any other active members? I saw Bert the other day. But...his leg was gone. I don't know what he's been doing."
(Ita)
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[19:24] As his injuries are fiddled with, the rogue dares not complain, squirm or groan. This is what he had coming, this was the woe he had made Ita be a herald to. His hands skim along the table with incredible pressure, causing it to stir mildly.

"Of course there are. They're either deserters, cowards or dastard mollies deliverin' themselves to the grasp of the witches without a second thought. Already acceptin' to be slaves again, just in a different shape."

It was difficult to discern if Ciarán was more pained by his curing process or the mental heft created by the unpredictable turns his home organization had taken. The work of years- all his dedication...

Trashed?

"But I don't care. I don't give the smallest shit. I've been showing them the meaning of fear, they've seen it, and they'll continue to witness me. It doesn't matter how many times I'll get clobbered, burned or cut."

(Ciarán)
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[19:29] Ita had fret over watching him throw himself into the literal and proverbial fires of his revolution when he went toe-to-toe with Actaeon. Now she has to watch him deal with the pain and bear the brunt of her needlework.

It is not a pleasing sight. It makes her innards twist into knots. Even if he takes it all with great aplomb and discipline there's no joy in this task.

"...You're going to end up dead," she pipes up, barely a squeak as she continues to stitch another laceration of exploded skin shut. Once a wound is closed with stitches she passes her hand over it. Rather than bandages she forms an earthen shell over the cut to protect it. A little twist of her earth magic where he might forego the comfort of illusion.

"I don't know what the witches are offering, or Moonfall. But...maybe, if they're in the same position as you, they could be allies instead of enemies. What makes you say they're slaves there?"

All sorts of rumors come flitting in and out from all over. There's no shortage of them on any given day.
(Ita)
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[19:35] "Already Crane gave his own flesh, blood and spirit -or whatever to create some monster. An aberration, whatever that thing was. He lost his voice making it come to life, Ita." There had been no hints or cues as to what the alleged monstrous wight of his tale had been, but it was likely the First Order was fighting it in that very moment.

"He may call it sealing an alliance, but in what kind of alliance are we forced to be crippled and muted so that their aspirations may come true?"

Containing a wiggle, the enforcer hisses at the closure of yet another burnt scrape, bearing the ache brought by the upset blister.

"To HEL with that! I'll give them a piece of my mind soon enough. Will I end up dead? Maybe. Don't care. I've been livin' for these ideals, I'll die for them too."
(Ciarán)
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[19:40] His convictions had always been something she admired about at him. The fire, the zeal, the desire to make things right in a world that had gone woefully wrong. Yet now she saw the more unfortunate side of it, just as she bore witness to his pain.

Ita tries not to look to closely to his eyes as she seals up another tear in his skin with needle, thread, and solidified earth. It'll hold together a slight better than your average bandage, infused with mana.

"...I don't know if I ever met Crane. Seen bits of him. Is he...pretty high up?"

Her attempts at small talk are stinted, an effort to distract both of their minds, while her hands are well and busy at work on cleaning and sealing the last of his unsightly burn wounds that had flayed open his flesh.

"I know it doesn't matter...But I care. Low cares."

It's what little she can offer other than the obvious labor she puts over his scarred skin.
(Ita)
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[19:49] "High, yeah, if the bloody word serves as any way to lever himself up from the humiliation he's submit himself to. I'll make him see reason too, even if I gotta fist it into his skull."

Despite Ciarán's inflamed rage, Ita had proved to be, once again, someone he could rely on. She had come a long way from being a pickpocketing urchin, and that was a column he could rely on, however simmering his indignation and anguish had become.

"I know you do."

He rises, sliding a pair of fingers along the remainder of a lengthy, formerly scorched grate in his skin, now sealed into a piece of tissue that could be dubbed reasonably healthy.

"But this army is slowly dwindlin' down to I, me and myself. It's because you care that I ought to fight harder- to fuck 'em up. So that the lots of you kids won't have to draw blood."

"You never asked for any of this- but I have.I relish in it. I cherish the chance of burnin' all of Esshar down."

Exhausted, but seamed and needled, the thug limped in his stand, dispensing a heavy, long yearn.

"... but, thank you, Itty. You got my back, just as I got yours."
(Ciarán)
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[19:56] That didn't bode well. The higherups of the Syndicate, bending to some...nefarious ritual. Losing their voices, their sanctity. None of it is pleasant news, though all of it is certainly illuminating.

She puts the last plaster-like bandage over the final wound, etching into it-

...A little, crude smiley face, drawn with her index finger.

"You and Low both say stuff like that. No, Cia. If I didn't ask for it too, I wouldn't have offered to help," Ita says with a solemn shake of her head.

"It must not occur to either of you, but I'm helping because I want to. I don't have to like it to lend a hand; Hel, I'm doing it because I don't like any of...of this."

She gestures loosely all around her. A world in which a place like this kitchen was needed wasn't one she wanted to ultimately tolerate.
(Ita)
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[19:58] "I..."

He grimaces, before it shuts down to a rigid scowl. Perhaps he had overstepped his own boundaries by assuming that the need for violence was not something nor Ita or Arlo were prepared to bear. They had welcomed its brunt the moment they swore fidelity and some degree of allegiance to their cause-

so why did he continue to downplay it?

"I get it. I do."

An index softly taps Ita's forehead, thumping her head half an inch away and back, springing mildly.

"You're a fighter. We are."
(Ciarán)