legionworld | (no subject)

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Who| Marjara and YOU.
What| Avoiding these time ripple shenanigans, thank you very much. She's had enough tampering with time for one lifetime. So she's camping this one out. Feel free to take refuge in the forest for a while.
Where| Marjara's Biome
When| During the Time Ripple event.

Marjara hadn't seen magic work this way in quite some time, not since the Magister Alexius decided to tamper with time and thrust her into an alternate future. What a horrifying glimpse of how things could be that had been. She had understandably no desire to be wrapped up in time-bending yet again. It didn't seem to be doing anyone the same amount of harm as ripping open time's fabric seemed to have done before, anyway.

So here she was, retiring to her little scrap of the station, fashioned into the likeness of the woods she had grown up in. Lush green forests stood tall, nearly blocking the sunlight with their broad canopy save in a few small clearings. Elven ruins stood bleached and bare, half-buried and crumbling, but they were such a facet of even her subconscious memory of these places she was almost glad to see them.

And a warm campire had been set up in the embrace of one of these ruins. Against a half-collapsed stone wall a tent stood, as well as a table for gathering ingredients to brew potions. The lap of luxury and technology it wasn't, but...

Well. She slept better at night, anyway.

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There was a long pause, as if Amélie was honestly considering making Marjara place Guess the Gunman, before she let out a little puff of breath, hand moving to draw the visor off her head.

"Sombra." Not that the name would mean anything to her friend unless she's seen all that graffiti about the corridor.

Carefully, she set the visor down next to Widow's Kiss and the pouch and kit were soon to join it. Finally, she looked over at the elf, her eyes as blank as Marjara had ever seen them. "Is there a stream in here?"

"A little further on. There's a waterfall and a pond, and the water is clear. You really don't want any help with that?" Her brow wrinkled as her dark eyes lowered to the wound, darting back up again. "It's a precarious spot."

She really only had the extra hand to offer, but where her friends were concerned? She couldn't not offer it. Not being able to turn away from someone who needed help was what brought her to where she was in the first place, for better or worse.

And the blankest of stares wasn't going to dissuade her.

"The waterfall or my wound?" Amélie spoke as she started in the direction indicated, assuming Marjara would come along, with only a slight limp as the adrenaline was starting to leave her body and the pain making itself known again.

"If you have a thick strip of leather, I would appreciate it." She would rather not break her teeth.

"Ha." Without mirth, Marjara shook her head and reached for a few vials on the table, before taking stock of her supplies and pulling a leather strip from the tent. It could do without it, or she could find a replacement. Either way.

"You're all so stubborn. Bull's the same way about dressing his wounds. He likes the idea of scarring, though."

Whereas Amélie...who knows. Maybe she's just not used to someone wanting to help. Or she just really is that level of stubborn.

"Men tend to be that way," Amélie commented as she navigated her way through the woods, following the sound of water now that she could hear it. "I usually do not have to worry about them. No sniper of any skill takes injury often, and I am the best in my world. Also Talon has many ways to repair their agents."

When she found the waterfall and pond, she came to a stop and looked the place over. Searching for a relatively level place with a tree or large rock she could lean again, Amélie ventured further, her footing sure despite being injured. The joys of that enhanced agility.

"But they are not here." So she had to handle it on her own.

"And you don't trust me to help. Is that it?" It wasn't an accusatory tone. A little exasperated, maybe, but not necessarily judging.

It could very well be the case. Putting your body in someone else's hands was a frightening thought.

There was a complete cessation of movement from Amélie. In fact, it seemed like she might not even be breathing for far too long as she looked into Marjara's eyes. There were so many facets of her mind that made it neigh impossible to trust anyone. She certainly didn't trust anyone completely... other than Talon. That was never questioned in her mind.

But she was there. When her safe house was compromised, her teammates - the closest thing she had to family anymore - were either enemies or threats. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said Marjara was all she had left right then. She couldn't even begin to fathom showing the vulnerability she was about to with anyone else right then. It was impossible.

Turning away, Amélie pulled her top off, leaving her in her bra and displaying those back tattoos. "It is not a matter of trust, but one of physiology." A pause. "My own." Not the elf's lack of an arm.

She hung her top on a branch and then worked the green flag crusted with her own blood off her leg, the muscle in her jaw twitching as she reopened the wound. This was just going to get more and more painful as she went along, but it needed cleaned. She worked on her boots and greaves next, quickly removing them with practiced hands.

"I do not bleed the same way others do. My blood is more akin to that of a corpse than the living and breathing. I do not want it on your hand." She then closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip a moment - a brief show of something. "I also do not like to be touched in any kind of medical way."

It's that something that sinks in. So it was putting herself in someone else's hands. Anyone's. It wasn't personal. Her lips twitched slightly as she settled on the rocky edge of the pond to watch her, unable to help but unwilling to abandon her.

"That makes sense. You've been through a lot, and after all that it's easy to imagine how uncomfortable that would be." Amélie had mentioned undergoing...something to become as she was. Whatever it was had left her like this, blue-skinned and cold-blooded.

And yet for all that, she'd chosen to come here.

That said a great deal.

"You have no idea." Words barely audible. It was necessary, what they did to her, so her thoughts reminded her. It made her into the effective killing machine she was, the weapon Talon needed. She didn't regret it, incapable of that emotion any longer, but that didn't mean she had enjoyed the experience.

Undoing her pants, Amélie leaned against a tree for leverage as she worked them down. "A bullet wound is similar to an arrow wound. Only that as a bullet is not attached to a shaft, once it enters the body it can travel to all sorts of places." She was talking to keep herself focused beyond the growing pain as the fabric was pulled from her injury. "So a clean through and through is best for the body. Mine is like tha- ahhh ahhh..."

Her words cut off to an honest expression of pain as she essentially ripped the pant leg down in one motion to just get it over with. Fresh blood welled up from the torn tissue that looked more like a mangled laceration than a clean bullet hole. That blood was dark and thick, more oozing than bubbling up as it should have done.

Every muscle in Amélie's body was tense as she drew in slow steady breaths with her eyes closed, working herself through the pain. It was only a moment, but one that made it clear why she hadn't tended to this earlier.

And then the moment passed, Amélie working her pants completely off to hang with her shirt. "Most bullets mushroom upon impact, making exit wounds larger than entry wounds. Humans improved upon the concept of the arrowhead making it cause more damage to pull out than to continue pushing it through the body to the other side."

She didn't argue that fact. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, but it wasn't worth balking at when the woman was already in pain. There was no need to add it to by tearing open older wounds.

Especially once she got a look at what had been done.

Her eyes widened as she reached for her instinctively with that cry, though stopping herself and drawing back at the last moment. She has this, she can take care of herself, she forced herself to remember, though the damage was ghastly. Was that a result of her slowed heart-rate and corpse-like blood?

"You mentioned the one who shot you. A name. Are they a danger to us?" Marjara swallowed, lifting her gaze to the sniper's. Better to just keep her with a steady line of questions to answer, things to distract her while she worked. Better than doing nothing at all.

Amélie didn't see the reaction from Marjara, but once she opened her eyes she saw the distress upon her face. With her down to her undergarments, she gingerly touched the wound, carefully picking the few remaining piece of fabric off it.

"Sombra," she repeated. "We are safe here; she does not know this location, nor does she have a reason to follow me tonight." At least not until she found the tracker Amélie had planted on her. "My omnicomm is running a program that is currently tracking her. If she comes near, I will know. And then I will deal with her."

She held a hand out for the leather she'd asked Marjara to bring.

"And is she likely to attack anyone else?"

Her words trailed away as Amélie extended her hand. She could guess what came next, had seen it before out in the field. Surely there was a better way of handling this, a less painful way.

But she also must be doing it this way for a reason.

Grimly, she extended her hand, the leather strap held there tightly. It was all she could do for her, something that gnawed at her.

The less painful way would require injections. Amélie did not like needles, nor was she willing to go to Medical. Sure, they could handle this wound a lot better than her, but it would mean letting doctors poke and prod at her along with having to explain how she'd gotten shot and by who. No, this was the best solution at hand.

"Not unless she's provoked or defending herself," Amélie replied as she took the leather from Marjara. "I provoked her by tailing her. I dodged the majority of the gunfire, but SMGs have quite a spray at mid-range." She moved to the edge of the pond, finding a good place where she could enter the water with relative ease. "She's smart and resourceful. The longer this time effect remains, the less trouble she will get into. The less paranoid she will be. You would know her as the Legionnaire named Azucar."

Her eyes moved from the water to Marjara. "I am going to be incapacitated for... a bit. Please stay, make sure I do not accidentally drown myself." And then, without hesitation, she put the leather between her teeth and slipped into the pond.

As soon as the water hit her wound, submerging it, Amélie bit down hard on the leather as she half-swallowed the wail of pain the sprung from within her whether she liked it or not. Eyes squeezed shut and head tilted back, she whimpered in pain as one hand shakily grabbed for a rock near the bank to anchor herself to and the other went to the torn flesh of her thigh. Growls and groans mixed with her whimpers, the muscles of her shoulders and torso flexing frequently as spikes of red hot pain coursed up her leg and through her body as she scrubbed at the dried blood and mangled skin, freeing it from the clotting and letting the water cleanse the sweat and grime from the wound. With it came fresh blood to flush as much of the impurities as she could from it.

Amélie would apply an antiseptic back at camp when she dressed the wound, but for now this was best, if incredibly painful. The water around her leg turned a dark color as both flakes of dried blood and the thick ruddy fresh blood rose to the surface, tears from the physical pain streaking from the corner of her eyes as she worked that wound. Just a bit longer...

It was a difficult thing to watch. Not for the last time, she wished she'd had any talent at all for healing magic, and what little she knew wouldn't be of much help to her now. Thought she might be able to offer her some relief when it was all over.

She'd stay, despite that. Amélie would need the hand up and out, perhaps a shoulder to lean on, on the way back to camp. At the very least, she'd need help traversing the forest with her leg likely to be paining her something very terrible.

One went almost out of impulse to her left side, as if to grasp something no longer there, before falling away again.

Finally letting her hand drift to the side, arm floating on the water, Amélie drew in measured breaths and quelled her expression of pain to muffled whimpers. She stayed like that until the blinding whiteness in her vision dissipated and she could begin to think beyond the pain. Muscles began to relax a little as cognizant thought and logic took over once again, allowing her to open her eyes.

It took her a moment to remember where she was, head lolling to one side to take in the elf nearby. She went to speak but paused to take the leather from her mouth and work her still jaw a moment before she could manage words, voice a bit hoarse.

"My apologies for that. I do not know how long I was out. Will you toss my clothing into the water? They need washed." And Amélie needed a few more moments before she put any weight on her leg.

"You're not seriously apologizing for this, are you?"

Marjara's eyes narrowed briefly, before she reached for the other woman's clothing and tossed them in her direction, slipping closer to the water's edge in the process. "I have something that will help the pain, when you're ready to come out."

"Oui. I demanded that you essentially do nothing. I am not blind to your compassion, Marjara." Shifting stiffly, Amélie snagged the clothing and dunked them in the water. "You have a good heart."

The top didn't need much, but the pants had soaked up a fair amount of blood. Methodically, she dirtied the water even more with the remnants of her blood. "Is it potent? Otherwise, it may be wasted on me and better saved for someone normal."

"Potent enough. It's what I used to keep the pain at bay when I still had the Anchor attached to it," she replies grimly, fishing for the vial before holding it up between two fingers.

"The taste isn't the greatest, but it makes things a little more tolerable. And it's not a waste if it's even a little useful."

"I am sure I have had worse," Amélie replied, looking over her shoulder at the elf. That was when she realized there were tears on her face. Making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, she paused in cleaning her clothes to splash water onto her face, rubbing the tear tracks away. Such weakness she had displayed...

"I will gladly accept it."

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