Hath no Fury

Some people command the attention of others. The Sunguard that walks through the door is no exception, walking in a self-confident stride that is associated by those that not only believe that they are on a mission, but that they have the aid of their deity to do so--as is often the case for Sunguards. She stops mid-step in the receptacle and her cloak billows behind her from the cold wind as the doors close.

She takes her helmet off. Her copper-blonde hair rolls out, naturally voluminous and wavy. Her steel-gray eyes scan the room. She's looking for something. Someone. And yet she does not say a word. The hunter works best in complete silence.

While some people excel in commanding the attention of others, there are some who excel in diverting such attention. The dark-haired xian man who slips out of one of the care rooms is such a man. He walks slowly with careful grace in his steps. Making not a sound as he moves along. The raven on his shoulder however seems determined to draw attention to them both however, making a loud squaking noise that draws several eyes to the man who is trying to make good his get-away.

"There you are!" Says one of the caretakers of this establishment, moving forward to grasp the xian man by his arm. The woman is not swayed by the suddenly dark look in his eyes. "Why do you keep trying to sneak off?"

Among the groups of people in the main area is a clutch of Alexandrian guards. Among the figures with swords and shields is one with a greatsword over his back, although the armor he wears is little different from any of those he accompanies. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that straight brown hair spills into his eyes, since his helmet is under his arm and not on his head, concealing much of his features, but not the glint of an unnatural green where his right eye should be. "The daughter's lying," he tells the one who walks on his right, apparently the group's leader, in a crisp, confident baritone.

The Sunguard's steel-grey gaze stops on the dark-haired man with a corvid companion, her brow raising as she watches this scene that would look more natural on a theater stage than in the Soldier's Defense. "You shouldn't run away from healing hands," she says, loud enough to get the man's attention.

But her eyes quickly dart over at the mention of a lying daughter. That steely gaze goes wide--then they settle into a glare. Her gauntleted hands curl into a fist. Her expression falls into complete and utter bafflement.

The first thing she does is immediately go for the door. But she's not leaving. She's blocking off the exit, which she does fairly handily. And for now, she observes that brown-haired man with a more unsteady gaze, her hands still balled into metal-plated fists.

The xian man turns at the woman's voice, his dark eyes lit with some emotion that fades quickly when her attention is drawn elsewhere. It's just as well. He turns his own attention on the woman on his arm and shakes her off none-too-gently. "I have no desire for your healing. The bandages are enough." With that he turns away and the woman frowns after him. However... the exit is now blocked quite effectively.

He sighs and looks at his raven but the bird offers him nothing in return. So he moves toward the woman and politely coughs. "Might I go by?"

"Are you sure?" the captain next to Dolan asks, as the group approaches the door in a cacophony of clanking armor that draws the eye of nearly everyone in the room.

"Posit-" The brown-haired man trails off as he prepares to ask politely for the Sunguard to unblock the door. "No. No no." He stops short, the guard behind him just about colliding with him as he backpedals a step. Unconsciously, he brushes the hair out of his eyes, revealing the right side of a face that is twisted and furrowed with three deep clawmarks across it at an angle, the rest of the skin twisted and ruined, a green gem in an etched steel ring set into what is left of the eye socket. The guards glance at the raven and his human that are also trying to exit, then back at the woman blocking the door.

"Sorry, fella," the Sunguard says as she looks to the dark-haired man and his raven. "Old protocol of mine."

She folds her arms across her torso, her gaze settling onto the brown-haired man. "Block the exit so the target /can't run./"

Her lips press together into a thin line as she continues to look at the man currently attempting to backpedal away from her. A moment passes where she just continues to look at him, her eyes in particular lingering on the man's right side.

Then finally, she says, in a carefully neutral tone, "Your new haircut looks like shit, Brydion Donnely."

The xian man looks between the woman and the man and settles back somewhat. It seems that the exit is well and _truly_ blocked. He glances at the raven on his shoulder, but there's still no reply. In fact the bird seems to be ignoring him. He lets out a slow breath and crosses his arms over his chest, resolved to wait this out.

The guards stop and look uncertain, all of them now looking at the brown-haired man. One of the ones in the back suddenly grins. "Speaking of liars...someone you fleeced, Dolan?" He leans into the last words, folding his arms across his chest.

"Andie, you don't understand," Dolan scrambles quickly, the one eye wide as a saucer. "I'm not safe to be around. I don't want you getting hurt."

"Dolan. Really," the now-identified Andie says, raising a brow and even cracking a bit of a grin. "You can pick any name and you pick that one."

But the grin falls away into a sigh again as she looks at 'Dolan' a bit more, her gaze taking on a more level mood. "Bry, I really don't want to dress you down in front of all of your 'friends' here and I don't want to cause any more of a scene than I have to. Here's the deal. I let your friends go. You stay. And /you/ stay," she says, now looking at the raven-man--err, well, man with a raven. "I'm a Daeusite, unlike /someone/ here who has shirked his oath. I can heal you if you don't trust their healing."

A mixture of interest and something else close to understanding flashes through the xian man's eyes when Dolan gives his stuttered response. Just there for a moment and then gone again. The raven on his shoulder clicks twice and it's his turn to ignore it for a change. Instead he turns his dark eyes on the woman who offered to heal him. "If I do not trust those whose occupation it is to heal, then why would I trust someone I do not know at all to do it?"

"Go on. I'll be back later." "Dolan" is examining his shoes, but the captain slaps him companionably on the back. "Then excuse us, Sunguard. We still need his help, so try not to kill him." A few chuckles from the others as they all move for the door.

He waits until the others are gone, then looks over at the man with the raven. "She's probably right, but you have the right to refuse." _I have no idea why you would._

Andie let the guards pass by her, her eyes both trained on Dolan and Karasu to make sure neither one leaves. It's not like she has her longsword drawn and ready, but her height and build advantage over both men make her look plenty intimidating.

"Because I've met my fair share of paranoid people who won't let hospital healers take a look at their wounds then come to regret it later and come running to me when they're a few seconds away from bleeding out. Also, again, I swore an Oath to protect people--"

Andie's eyes settle on Dolan for just a moment.

"--which, again, someone else seems to have forgotten, so I have to be an annoying pain in the ass and offer to heal you."

Karasu flicks his eyes between the two people. Then raises his hands skyward. "I have no desire to come into the midst of your... past. Perhaps I will regret that I did not recieve healing and yet..." He pauses here as his raven clearly begins to chide him in clicks and whistles. He sighs and shakes his head. "It is my fault that I was wounded. Let my body heal it in its own time. Perhaps I will learn better from it."

This time, Dolan's head snaps up, and he straightens, for the first time since his shoulders slump. "Andie, when did you become a goddamn bully? You can't make him accept! I haven't forgotten anything! I've got a goddamn DEMON after me! I'm trying to protect YOU, for the love of the gods! When did you stop asking why?"

He's talking fast, now, and slashes an arm across his body in a forbidding gesture. "I don't care if you hate me. You've got the right to, after what I did. Do what you want to me. Leave him alone. Let him go."

The Sunguard's attention snaps right back onto Dolan as he calls her a bully. Her steel-grey eyes burn. This is a familiar look for him, not that he was ever on the receiving end of this expression. But then the word 'demon' drops out of his mouth and she's completely taken aback, her mouth opening.

"A *demon*?" She raises her hand and brings it right to her forehead, like to massage out a headache that's suddenly formed there. "Bry, I... Yeah. /Shit/. We need to talk."

She finally moves out of the doorway. "Look, you can go," she says to Karasu, apologetically. "Sorry for wasting your time."

Andelena sighs, folding her arms back across her chest as she looks at Dolan. "Well, that explains some things. /Fuck./" The Sunguard shakes her head. "Sorry, I just... Haven't been the same since you just up and left on me. I kept thinking you were some sonuvabitch who decided to give up on Daeus--on me."

GAME: Dolan rolls perception: (17)+7: 24

Karasu moves then, glad to have permission to leave it seems. He moves forward, but stops at the woman's side and whispers something quietly to her before moving beyond her and toward the exit. His words are quiet, murmured, but Dolan's keen ears still barely catch them. "I know what it is to be a danger to one you love, do not judge him too harshly. If you will."

Dolan's human eye goes to Karasu when he pauses, and the smooth part of his features relax in what might be gratitude. It's short-lived, though, and his shoulders again slump in relief. "No. I didn't give up on you. I got caught. There wasn't time to explain. To tell you. I couldn't risk it connecting you to me and grabbing you. I had to get it away from you. I know you must hate me. But look. I don't know if it'll find me again." Terror underlies the words, spilling from him fast and frantic.

"I will keep that in mind," Andelena murmurs back to Karasu as he passes. She looks at Dolan with a softer gaze than before.

She listens to him talk, and her stance relaxes a little. Before she says anything, she takes a slow breath, her eyes closing and opening as she inhales and exhales.

"And it attacked you," she says. "That's why you're scared. You've... Well, you've gotten close to it. And you survived."

She thinks a little more, even as he's terrified. "The good news, Bry, is that we're currently in one of the safest places to be right now when it comes to demons. And now that I know /where/ you are, you aren't alone. Hell, we're surrounded by more of our own than we've almost ever been in this city. Just..."

There's a subtle sorrow in her eyes as Andelena looks at Dolan's scarred side of his face. "Don't go running again. It would only make things worse."

"I was rescued," Dolan-Brydion admits, head hanging, shoulders slumped, positively sagging. He wears the look of a man defeated. "I - uncovered a cult, while you were in training. I was trying to have all the information for you...they summoned _it_. It saw me." The man is clearly still scared, but ... maybe relaxing a little? Just a little? "I ... I'm sorry. I didn't know how else to protect you. I ... are you sure you want to deal with - that?"

He doesn't bother to push his hair out of his eyes, letting it fall over the ruined side of his face. There are some acid marks on his right forearm as well, and on the side of his neck, but nothing anywhere near as bad as his face. "They brought me here to try to restore my sight. I've .... been trying to help the guards, but - I don't know if I can handle that."

The Sunguard bites her lip a little when Dolan says he was gathering information for /her/. She shakes her head. "Bry... By the Morning Lord's light, if I had known..."

She sighs, looking away from him. "Gods. You know, I kept telling myself all this time that you just found some broad who was stuffed to the gills with more money than sense, except she was, you know. More dainty and ladylike. Not that's ever been your type, of course, but I thought the only damn way it made sense was that you abandoned me, you abandoned the Knight, and what we had for a taste at... I don't know. Being a farmboy with a princess wife or some shit."

There's a slight smirk on her face as she admits the last part. "So I've been struggling with the worst parts of me, as you saw. Looks like you've been doing the same, and honestly? I don't blame you now that I know. I can't."

"Andie...." Dolan-Brydion's eyes still don't quite meet hers. "What did I do to deserve you? I know I abandoned you, but never for that. Never for that. If I wanted dainty and ladylike, I'd've bedded Jourdie." He references a fellow student of Andelena's, an absolutely beautiful girl who meant well and had perfect manners and absolutely nothing between her ears. "I ..." He trails off, at a loss for words.

Andelena just snorts. "Jourdie? Yeah, she would have been all over you. She told me once if I got tired of you to let her know. I told her to..."

She seems to remember she and Dolan are very much still in the Soldier's Defense, a place of healing, and she just shakes her head. "Anyway. Look. I'm not gonna come running after you like a lovesick puppy. Quite frankly, I just came here to ask if anyone had ever seen a guy by your description--not like it would have helped. Seriously, whoever cuts your hair these days, fire them." Yes, the haircut and not... well, the obvious. Classic Andie humor.

She walks a little closer to Dolan, or Brydion, and she stops short just a foot away. She's still standing just as tall as she did before he left. At least in that regard, she hasn't changed. "We can hunt that bastard together. Not... like we were before, because you still hurt me /bad/, Bry. Only time's going to heal that. But we can as brethren in Daeus's light."

Slowly and glumly, Dolan nods. He, by contrast, is slumped, drawn in on himself. A shell of the rake he was. "I - I don't know if I can, Andie. I can barely wield a sword with any accuracy. It's getting better, but -" He looks away. "I still serve the Morning Lord, as best I can, here. I ... don't know what I will do if it comes here. I'm learning the bigger blade, I have a better sense of where it is. I'm just not there yet."

Andelena takes Brydion by the shoulder. It's a friendly gesture, just like at the beginning of their time together when they were much younger. "Bry, here's what you're going to do. You're going to let me help you. And when I ask you for it, you're going to help me. Because that's what we've done since the beginning."

She squeezes his shoulder gently. The warmth in her eyes has finally returned. It's a look that Dolan hasn't seen since... Well, since he left.

"So what's it gonna be?" she asks. "Are you going to run again? Or are you going to stand?"

One thing that will not be lost on her - there's a lot more muscle in those shoulders than there was before he left. Dolan has definitely not let himself go - at least, not completely. He finally looks up, looks up at her, half of that face giving her the same adoring look he'd given her for years, before they were even a thing. The other half of his face is a frozen mask of scar tissue, but half of it hasn't changed. "I ... I guess running isn't really an option, is it?" he says finally. "I don't want to hurt you anymore, and I don't want you to get hurt. So - I'll stand, with Daeus to guide us. Right?"

Andelena smiles. "With Daeus to guide us, we stand. You're getting the hang of it, farmboy," she says, echoing a moment in time when he was really only a young man--and she was also really only a young woman. She gives him a little squeeze again on the shoulder before she draws back, turning around.

"I'm at the Temple most days," Andelena says. "Fernwood otherwise. Don't be a stranger, Bry."

And out the door she walks again, the Sunguard with her white cloak billowing out in the winter wind to go radiantly into that cold night.

Dolan is left to stare after her, standing amid the bustling servants and clergy in the area, his gaze wondering and more than a little baffled. "As you wish," he breathes quietly, almost too soft to hear, then follows after her into the night, with a decent pause between them.

-End