| Down From The Wall |
| Summary: | Ludovic checks in on Alia after the Qatunax raid. |
| Date: | 2019-09-12 |
| Related: | Follows: The Enemy On The Wall. |
| NPCs: | None |
| Players: |
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| Medico's Tent, The Rogers Front |
| A medico's tent, now with more Princepsa. |
| 1875-09-12 |
Ludovic stays on the wall for a while after all that happened, helping to rebuild morale and all those post raid things, and so by the time he makes his way to the medico's to get his own wounds tended to they've probably finished tending to the most important of their guests. He's also looking tired and kind of bedraggled. His hair and beard kinda scraggly with blood. His hands are clean though, as is his face. "You alright Alia? It looked bad from where I was."
-
Alia was not a women given to embarrassment, nor were the Imperials concerned with propriety, and so she had been treated in the tent, no deference given to her status, and she had lost her leathers as well as her armor and weapons. She had managed to find a large robe to pull over herself though, as she was laid out on one of the cots, head turned towards the far end of the tent where a curtain had be drawn. She stared at it so intently, that it took a few long seconds before she registered that someone was talking to her, and that she recognized his voice. When she looked back, though, her smile was relieved, warm, concerned, as she held out her hands. One for the man, and one for the elementi that padded in beside him. "I'll be alright." After a fashion, of course. The sheer amount of bandaging she had around her middle and around her shoulder was visible even through the robe she was wearing, "But Darius…" She laughed, in that odd way that people sometimes did that was half a laugh and half a sob, hiccuping down her first attempt to continue, "You're a matched set now."
-
"I saw." Ludovic looks about for something to sit on before simply kneeling on the ground besides her cot. "He's going to have the most terrible aim and pour wine all over the table for weeks. I hope you know how to take advantage this time around."
-
Alia reached for Faith first, of course, for the elementi was faster than his much larger master, and Alia did her best to pull him close with one arm, burying her face in the thick fur at his neck, hiding there, for a few minutes, only the shaking of her shoulder revealing her tears. Once she had mastered herself, and poor Faith's fur had soaked up most of her tears, leaving her eyes bright and her cheeks only slightly wet, Alia finally looked to Dovi again, "I suppose it's a good thing he drank all of the Ricoshan Red ages ago." She tried to add a smile to the poor joke, but she had trouble forcing her lips to curve upward, "You are alright? I couldn't see, they dragged me too far away. I killed the one Darius set on fire, I know I managed that." She had managed nothing else. Except to nearly get herself killed.
-
"I'm fine." Ludovic tells her "I barely took a scratch. Just this here." He touches the already scabbed over laceration on his cheek. "And a bruised forearm." He is hesitant for a moment before taking a vial from his things and pressing it into Alia's hand. "Vitae." he explains. "When you're both home later you should decide if he's going to use it." Another hesitation and then he explains "It's too precious to use without it really really mattering and it won't bring back his eye. Maybe it might have before. Well. I just know it won't fix that. Anyway. Don't give it to the healers. They will waste it. Just discuss if it's important enough to use it now or not with Darius and be sure to tell him that I don't think we'll see another dose of it before this war is over."
-
Alia watched Ludovic as he settled beside her, "You shouldn't have to kneel on the floor." She was just about to continue on and try to either sit up, or look to find him a free seat when he offered her the vitae, "Dovi, this is too precious a gift." But the conflict within he could read on her face. Both of them knew how precious Darius' life was, even if it was, in some cases, for wholly different reasons, "This is…won't you need it for yourself?" She did not bother to argue the point of the healers, she knew Dovi was right.
-
"Its as comfortable as sitting." Ludovic tells her simply. "Most of the time. Don't worry about it." He complaint about it being too precious he just looks at it evenly through but he answers the question. "If you save it." he says "And its important that I have it. Then I'll have it no matter if you or I am carrying it. Besides. Its not really a gift. Darius can owe me." He gives her a quick grin and a wink. "You know. There just happens to be a certain county - provincia - that's technically mine. Darius isn't going to need it forever."
-
Alia studied Ludovic in silence, brow furrowed, before she simply nodded, reaching beneath the robe to tuck the vial away. "Thank you, Dovi. I will keep it safe and not use it unless at greatest need." She glanced to the hidden area of the tent, "I hate being so weak. I couldn't help him. I couldn't help you. I could barely help myself." Try as Alia might, she was not, and likely would never be a great soldier. Her spirit was willing, but her body was, well, weak. "I know. One day I know."
-
Ludovic says "There's nothing you could have done to stop his pride Alia. He had the same opportunity to retreat that you did."
-
Colour came to Alia's cheeks, at that, "It wasn't my choice!" Which was both the truth, and stupid. "They picked me up and carried me off, like I was a One damned sack of potatoes!" She clenched her jaw, "He ordered me off the field, he ordered them to make me go." Alia lifted a hand, despite her outrage, fingertips alighting on the place where Darius had kissed her cheek, "Doesn't he understand how important he is?"
-
"He does." Ludovic tells her. "And that's part of the problem. In some ways when Darius retreats the Empire does." He says "I thought he should this time but." he shrugs his shoulders "Its hard to say how the imperials would take it. Maybe it was the right choice."
-
Alia glared at Ludovic, though it was clear it was the situation she was angry at and not him, "How could it be the right choice!? Every time they attack, every time, he tells me to stay safe, he forces me away from the battle. He says I have to survive, but I'm not important! I'm not the Princeps!"
-
Ludovic gets back to his feet and paces the few steps alongside her bed. "It's because he loves you." he explains. "When you love a woman and you see her in danger like that. Real physical danger. It makes you a bit crazy." He looks back to Alia. "It makes you angry and scared and the only things you can do is rip away everything that's in the way. We can't fight when we're like that, Alia. We lose track of wha'ts important. We don't even really care if someone is hacking great bloody chunks out of us if only it means your loved one's safe. I know you feel something like that for him too. So you've gotta understand something like how he feels when he sees you dying. And Alia. It did look like you were dying."
-
Alia's faced paled, as Ludovic spoke, leaving only bright red splotches on her cheek. "I.." Mark this moment down in the books, Ludovic d'Korbina. Alia was lost for words. "I…" She frowned, thoughts churning away in her head, "He's never said so." But then, that wasn't Darius' way, and it wasn't as if she hadn't seen precisely what Ludovic had mentioned, more than once, though that had been a different man who had loved her. "I'm sorry, Dovi. I don't know what to do. I can't retire from the field, you know that." Though, well, "I'm terrible at physical fighting. But I couldn't just leave him. I would give my life, if it meant saving his."
-
"He doesn't want or need you to give up fighting Alia." Ludovic tells her. "At least I don't think he does. He just needs you to let him save you when you need it. Just like he needs to learn how to let YOU save him." He gives her a wry look. "That's the hardest part. There's a terror behind letting your love see you being weak too."
-
Alia fell silent, hand unconsciously working her fingers through Faith's ruff, her eyes falling to settle somewhere in the center of Ludovic's chest. "I don't know how to do that." That wasn't just the hardest part for men, and Alia rarely, if ever, allowed herself to seem weak. "I'm sorry that I put you both in danger. I should have stayed back."
-
"I don't think you did Alia." Ludovic tells her. "You left the field when you were hurt enough that it was effecting how everyone else on the field behaved. What else could you have done?"
-
"Killed more of them." Beat, "Like you did." Ludovic had been away long enough, that word of his deeds had filtered even down to the medicos' tents. "They are already weaving tales of your deeds." She frowned, "Was the leader really as awful as they say?"
-
"So." Ludovic says "You think we should remove every soldier from the field anytime they have a bad day and get hurt? Have you any idea how many times I've been beaten as badly as you are now Alia?"
-
"That's not what I said, or what I meant. But if I had done what a soldier was supposed to do out there and actually killed any of them besides finishing off the one Darius started, I might not be in this position in the first place."
-
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself." Ludovic says sternly as he continues to try and cut to the chase. "You were fighting five trained men. FIVE. The Princeps also got hurt. I don't need to say anymore. If you still feel like this tomorrow you've two choices. You either hang up your sword and make the libraries and labs your entire life or you take the lesson and you get better. And you remember, every damn day, that no matter how good you are there will always be someone who does better."
-
Alia opened her mouth, the colour high on her cheeks, and looked for all the world like she was going to argue. As they always seemed to do these days. But then she didn't. Because Ludovic was right. And she had to accept that he was right. "You're right, Dovi. And I will get better. I have to." She paused, before she continued, "You won't always be here to save us." Not 'me', but 'us'. "Thank you for keeping him alive, Dovi." She hadn't seen it, but she had heard.
-
"He saved himself in the end." Ludovic tells her with a smile. "You'll probably hear all about it." He sits down on the end of her bed. An act that probably isn't all that clever given the weight of the plates covering much of his body. "The champion was a big man. Bigger than me. With a big club coated with sharp chips of stone. But no. He looked worse than he actually was. All that size, and the ridiculous weapon, made him too slow." He gives her a sly smile. "He said his name was Death. So now, when I'm drinking, I can genuinely say I beat Death."
-
Alia smiled, a genuine one, this time, "I've already heard about it. 'It's not as bad as it looks,' he said to me, when they were carrying him here. I saw the burns on his face. He sealed the wound himself. He'll wear that scar forever, now." Unlike Dovi, who had had vitae and so lost only his eye. "I think you could have said that quite a number of times already." Alia did not seem to mind the weight on the bed, only shifting slightly to try to counterbalance him. "Such arrogance, though. And yet, I cannot say it isn't deserved. They seem to grow stronger every time we meet them." A moment, "Did you save his weapon?"
-
"Ah but those tales are believable. This one is like the army of undead. Nobody believes me when I tell them that one." Ludovic gives her a smile back. "Tell you what Alia. If you reckon you can manage to do it. I'll teach you." He shakes his head. "No. Didn't think to. There's probably a pile of weapons taken today around somewhere."
-
"The people speaking about it certainly do believe it." But then they had seen it, most of them, "I would be glad to learn. I do not know how well I will do." She lifted an arm, which was, well, slim, tone, but without much muscle. "I do not think I will ever be as strong as you are." She nodded, "I will have to see if I can find it. If it was made in a similar way to the axe you gave me." Oh, Alia. Always in alchemist mode. "Will you stay a while and keep me company, Dovi? Maybe we could have a meal, before they decide if they'll allow us to see Darius?"
-
"The reason I said - if you can manage." Ludovic tells her. "Has nothing to do with you not being strong and stuff. Its because you'll have to submit to basically being a squire and, let me tell you, a squires life is harder than anything you've done so far. But." He gives her a smile. "As a bonus. I wont make you clean my gear." He nods at the question about staying. "Ravenous myself." He rubs at a matted patch of beard beneath the face wound. "You'll have to put up with me washing though."
-
"You'd be surprised at the things I've had to do in my life, Dovi. But I've never backed down from a challenge." Alia settled back on the cot, "That's good then. I can barely lift your armor." She settled, making herself as comfortable as she could do, "I don't mind. Go and clean up, if you like. I'll just take a bit more rest, and then we can eat." She continued after a moment, "That was brilliant work with the stone."
-
"It wasn't the same." Ludovic tells her. "That black glass axe cuts through armor just like my own weapon or Darius' do. If that club had been made the same way I'd have been here a good while back getting stitches. I've still got a scar from when Tavat hit me with the axe." He grins when she says about the armor weight. "What makes you think a newly arrive twelve year old squire can lift it either?"
He requests some wash water, a bucket and a chair and then moves back into the space. "I was kind of surprised it worked but, yeah, I've been practicing that sort of thing for a while now. Ever since we ended up creating a pit for you up on the meadow. Do you remember it?"
-
Alia looked deeply interested at mention of the ability of the axe, but she set that aside for later. "I don't expect that they do. But twelve year old boys eventually grow into men, while I, alas, will always be as I am. I haven't grown an inch in a decade, or as near as, and don't expect to again, save sideways. Or in the front," and here, she allowed her hand to settle on the flat of her belly, "but then I will be entirely useless except for eating sweets, I suspect." She nodded, at the question posed, "Yes, I remember. you've grown since then. You can tell me about your experiments as we eat."