Echos of a fateful meeting

[Sebastian Arcturis]

Bastian spit blood onto the floor. During the ensuing scuffle at the storahe chest, he crawled himself to the wall, using it to makw his way toward the pair.

Leti, unfortunately, seemed to have the situation under control. Bastian paused, leaning heavily against the wall, watch the brother take a step backward. The young man was a healer. Not a killer. This was...this was wrong. The opposite of what should be happening. The world didn't need more soldiers.

The brother took another step away from Leti, face pale, clearly not a fan of the healer's morbid advice. He landed on his knees and attempted to throw up whatever had been in the vial. Bastian didn't care to find out if that would help the man. The soldier didn't imagine he would leave the healers alone if he lived, whatever had happened to Lugh at the bottom of the stairs. He lunged for the mystic, got an arm around his throat and forcibly dragged both of them through the cave entrance and outside into the dark where he quickly and strangled the man despite his flailing. Least it wasn't inside the sacred magic healing cave or whatever Cain's concern had been.

He sat on the ground under one of the windows, leaning against the stone wall, left arm pressed against his ribs, staring un-seeing at the deepening night sky.

He shouldn't be here. Couldn't be here.

[Feleti Eidothea]

It had been hemlock, really there was a high chance that it would paralyze the man first. Leti watched stunned as bastian hauled the man off. The shock didn't last long as Cain's slight groaning brought him back to reality. He help his father push his shoulder back into place and down into bed. He was thankful for the darkness, the lack of noise made it wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that lugh's crumpled body was probably growing cold on the stairs.
Once Cain was settled he made his way back up and past the carnage to find Bastian outside.

The struggle had cost more than just the man's lives. There was a blemish on leti's heart now. Seeing the soldier leaned up against the wall as he was he knew that his time with bastian as a patient would end tonight.
The secret was more or less out, for both of them. There was no longer a reason to hold back.
".....I guess it's time to finish what I started." At first he wasn't sure what to say. He held out a hand to help bastian up " I need to take you deeper down." The warden might desperately want to leave but Leti wasn't going to let him go half-healed. He had made a promise.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

Whatever it was had certainly made it easier to kill him. There was a finality to it now though, in a terrible sort of way.

The soldier was quite happy to be left alone with his pain for a while. It wasn't enough time to sort everything out in his head, however. And that in itself bothered him. Normally things were easy.

It didn't really matter what Leti thoigjt of him, he tried to tell himself. It didn't matter what Leti thoight at all. What did matter was that Bastian wasn't sure he could reconcile all that...time. Not with what he knew about the healer now. Not after being born and raised to do this job. All those things the mystics had said...they weren't wrong.

But he wasn't about to let them all be right either.

He didn't look up at Leti when he approached or spoke. In fact, the soldier seemed quite determined to ignore that the man even existed if he could help it.

It was easier that way. Less confusing. Less painful if he just...pretended nothing had happened. Better for Leti if Bastian didn't care and simply left.

He could walk. With a lot of pain and a bad limp. He would just need a few things first.

A splint, one of the crutches, he could find a heavy enough drug by smell and then whatever was left of his personal effects and he could be on his way. He shivered involuntarily at the notion of 'deeper'. Pushing himself up with a groan and ignoring the hand, he fumbled in the moonlight for the twine they had used on the sage. And then headed back inside without a word to the healer.

[Feleti Eidothea]

Leti still hadn't let the carnage sink in. He still had work he could do.
Having bastian shut down on him right after the chaos of a few moments ago left him feeling hallow. Part of him felt that he just had to fulfill his promise and then he would be able to reconcile the horror.
At first he thought that bastian just didn't want help up...but the lack of eye contact and the eerie silence quickly built a wall between them.
Numbly he watched in confusion as Bastian stumbled up and began searching for something. was he...looking for his sword? Leti trailed behind bastian wanting to reach out but wondering what was going through the man's mind. Was bastian...really going to turn on him? Did their time together mean nothing to bastian now that he knew Leti was also a mystic.

"...bastian?" He asked weakly, the name sounding a lot heavier on his lips than it had been. Had the man's back turned to him always been so cold? It was strange that he had been so frightened of this moment before but now he felt only an emptiness. He would have preferred it in a way if bastian had yelled at him or threatened him.
Leti knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he would have to burry those men tonight. He knew that he would mourn them even if they hadn't been good men. That he would mourn having blood on his hands.
Even so he still wanted to feel bastian's arms around him. Or at least for the man to look at him.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

Bastian was very good at building walls and not so good at taking them down. Two dead men and a few ruined relationships later, he probably shouldn't have bothered trying the latter at all. It had been rather foolish of him to think getting close to anyone would end well. Faced with reality, he struggled to to come to terms with what he had done with Leti and what he...what he should have done in the first place. He wasn't sure which side would win. And he didn't want to be here when one did.

Because it had meant a lot.

His name coming out of Leti's mouth made him pause, but he only closed his eyes and took a breath and considered the wreckage of the table, He judged one of the legs would make an acceptable splint. A bit thick, but straight was more important. Bastian tried not to think about the fact that if Leti hadn't had some magic ability, he likely wouldn't be walking on it at all. But first he needed his clothes, which he was hoping he could find in Leti's...in the healer's...in the bedroom.

Taking each step with a grunt or groan of pain, he made his way down to look. He knew he needed more medical attention than just a splint and something for the pain, considering the new bruises and blood, but he didn't exactly care about Leti's promise right now.

[Feleti Eidothea]

It seemed that bastian was set to be stubborn once again. It almost made him want to laugh as much as it made him want to cry. He watched bastian wander about ignoring him, clearly putting together some kind of plan.
With a sigh he moved a little closer to bastian and hesitantly placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "Bastian." His voice quiet but more certain, pleading slightly.
"Let me finish patching you up." He didn't want to have to fight anyone else tonight. Especially not bastian, but he wasn't going to let the man leave with half bandaged wounds.

He pushed down his own wavering emotions and resolved to physically restraining the man if he needed too.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

He stiffened at the hand on his shoulder and the tone of the healer's voice. It was a lot easier to ignore something that didn't touch him or sound like his friend in pain. It also made it a lot more painful to continue to do so. The soldier wanted to say something, anything, even just a simple no...

It was a different sort of pain than physical. Something that bore through his chest without any visible wound. It was a new feeling in some ways, but also...familiar in a discomforting way.

Bastian swallowed and pulled away from the man, stepping into the place he had been living for the past few weeks, trying desperately to pretend it held no more significance to him than the any other place in the world and only making the ache in his heart worse.

He found his clothes, or what was left of them, folded on top of a small chest. Coin purse, knife, boots, and all. Except for his sword. After Leti had presented it to him that first time, he hadn't bothered to keep track of it. He hadn't thought he would need it. He limped over to the bed first, searching the last place he recalled seeing his weapon.

[Feleti Eidothea]

Leti sighed as bastian shrugged him off and instead moved to the bedroom.
He moved to the chest to seek out another vial, something much less potent but enough to knock bastian out for a little while. He quietly un capped it and followed bastian in to the bedroom. There he found the man gathering his things and getting ready to leave. This wasn't right. He hadn't known if there was a good way for the man to leave....but this wasn't it.
It wasn't hard to 'sneak' up on the man considering he was being completely ignored. He didn't actually need for the drug to be ingested skin contact would be enough. He poured the vial of liquid down bastian's back. He stepped away knowing that likely bastian would think leti had betrayed him. He had in a way. Leti knew that bastian didn't like having his agency striped from him. The liquid would likely seep into his back and make connection with his spine long before he could do anything about it and within minutes the soldier would be unable to move.
It was cruel and underhanded but after what had happened he wasn't sure there was much worse he could do.

He stayed out of arms reach but he was also watching bastian carefully not wanting the man to hit his head when his legs inevitably gave way.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

Bastian was aware of Leti's presence behind him but he didn't pay him much attention on purpose. He knew the man approached again and while he was prepared to pull himself away again (he wasn't sure what he would do if Leti refused to let go), the soldier was less prepared for the shock of something wet running between his shoulder blades and soaking into the bandages and his skin

A noise of surprise left his throat, not entirely sure what had happened. He turned to Leti, saw the man backing away with something clutched in one hand and quickly put together what the healer had done. Or at least the broad strokes. He'd mentioned finishing what he started (vaguely menacing even from a healer) and then patching him up, so he could only assume it was some sort of sedative or the like. Something to keep him from going anywhere.

He frowned slightly and a betrayed expression flickered over his visage before he locked that down too. Fine. Whatever it was, Bastian was determined to maintain his chosen course of action. He reached up and pressed the robe to his back, doing his best to absorb any stray liquid before shrugging out of the fabric. But Leti was right, there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.

He tried to use the wall, Leti's desk, anything to keep himself upright in a vain attempt to fight whatever the healer had done to him. But through it all, he didn't speak. Nor did he make any move toward Leti. Part of him understood this was...better. That regardless of what Leti planned to do to him, healing or otherwise, he deserved it. That walking down the mountain, with or without the theriac was a stupid idea... But the rest of him only knew how to keep pushing forward until his limbs stopped listening to him and he crumpled to the floor.

A lot of other muscles stopped listening to him too. Most notably, not only did it hurt to breathe, but it was suddenly a lot harder to do it at all. Bastian couldn't help but look at the man he had come to trust and care for and with sad, terrified eyes. He kept trying to push himself up, but after a moment it was all he could do to lay there.

[Feleti Eidothea]

Leti watched with a welling sense of guilt. Even though he had tried to mentally prepare himself for it seeing the look of betray and the way bastian scrabbled about to try to continue his determined path. As bastian collapsed Leti swallowed the urge to apologize profusely and instead calmly reached out to take the man's pulse. he could tell that bastian's breathing was slow and slightly labored, his pulse too was a bit faint but it should hold out long enough. The healing would likely reverse the sedative long before his own liking. He wasn't really looking forward to having to physically constrain the man.
"I'm sorry" He said hardly above a whisper as he gathered bastian up and hoisted the man onto his back. He knew bastian could still see and hear him. In a way, he felt more sorry because of it.

He carried bastian out of the bedroom and turned to go down the stone stairs. Leti didn't need a lantern, he knew the way on memory alone, but he took one purely for bastian's benefit. He held the lantern with his mouth, needing both arms to keep bastian from falling.
from where he was rested on Leti's shoulder Leti doubted that the man could see little more than the light from the lantern and their own feet as he descended them both down the labyrinthine corridors.
It continued that way for a long time, through narrow spaces and wide. It seemed that Leti was taking bastian down to the deepest part of the mountain, the floor looking less and less carved, more like the natural mountain.

When they finally came to a stop the gentle sound of waves could be heard distantly. Leti waded them into the shore of dark water and laid bastian on his back, carefully making sure that the man's head was ashore. As leti set the lantern aside bastian would be able to see the expansive cavern ceiling. He blew out the lantern but instead of darkness following the action a gentle glow began to illuminate the cave. Directly above them the only marker showing that this too had been work of the monks was an ornate much larger carving of the lullaby mural. It was slightly marred by time and the forming of stalactites.
Despite the sound of waves, the movement of the water breaking on the shore was slow and mellow. The mouth of the cavern being far off beyond view.
Once Leti had settled bastian he set about carefully removing the bandages, bastian wouldn't need them anymore. He set them aside and pressed his hands to bastian's chest for what he assumed would be the last time. He began to sing the lullaby, his voice clear but sad. He reached out with his gift and unabashedly sought out the connection that would allow him to heal bastian. His hands and the water around them seemed to glow faintly with, the glow increasing each time the tide came in. It wouldn't take too much of his stamina here, he would be able to heal bastian as if the wounds had never happened.
As he sang the bruised ribs mended themselves, the cuts knitted together leaving hardly any scars, and the scars left from the previous sessions faded. His leg strengthening and the paralytic breaking down as his lungs sorted themselves out to full. He gazed down on bastian's face as if looking deeper into bastian's soul and memorizing it.

As the last of Bastian's injuries healed Leti reluctantly took his hands away, by now the sedative would be gone. He didn't move away, wanting to be in arms reach in case the man paniced. He wasn't thrilled about the idea of bastian bolting off and getting lost in the cave.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

"No," he forced out at the apology the man gave him. He didn't accept it. Nor did he want to accept what was happening. He would have much preferred the man knock him out rather than this, especially once he realized where Leti was taking him.

Deeper.

If he'd had any control over his limbs, he would have struggled to get away. Instead all he could do was hang there like dead weight on Leti's back and panic internally. Eventually, however, he had to accept there was nothing he could do about it, that despite the lantern, they were headed into the dark through a narrow space and he didn't want to be here. Not alone, and not with Leti. He went pale and broke out into a cold sweat.

By the time they reach the underground lake, the soldier would swear they were at the heart of the island itself. It sure sounded like it, from the regular rushing sounds that he only figured out where waves when Leti settle him in the water. He attempted to express his discomfort at the wet and cold and the dark with words but it came out only as a bunch of mumbling. After a moment, taking in the carvings and the soft light of the water, however, he understood, but it was only at Leti's hand on his chest that he managed to shake off some of his terror and relax.

As much as he could ignore the healer and pretend he wasn't there, the connection they shared through what he now understood to be Leti's magic was undeniable. He could tell the healer really was sorry. Bastian was sorry any of it had happened at all.

It was a miracle to breathe easily again, without any pain. A relief to feel the ache leave his shoulder and side and leg. The soldier gasped in a deep breath almost as if he didn't believe it and then, as he felt his limbs begin to listen to him again, he tried to scramble backward out of the water, panting, gaze locked on the glowing waves as he tried to focus.

He really didn't want to be here.

Bastian frantically looked over at Leti and stopped moving, too many emotions crashing over him to be able to say anything or do anything but look at him. They coalesced into what he could only associate with the one pain that hadn't gone away with the healing waters. The hole in his chest. Grief. He grasped at the feeling desperately. Because if he was sad and frustrated and confused, he wasn't worrying about where he was. "Leti..."

[Feleti Eidothea]

Leti knew Bastian's fear like his own now. But it hadn't affected him while he was healing bastian. Only now that their link was broken could he understand the man's emotions, now that they had time to settle into the back of his mind. They were a jumbled mess but at the very least he had felt that he wasn't hated....not enough for bastian to murder him.

He met bastian's gaze and managed perhaps the ghost of a smile. But now they had switched places and he couldn't bring himself to say anything. He stood and moved ashore to re-light the lantern, passing it to bastian as he did so. He made a small motion for bastian to follow him. Then he carefully began to guide bastian back up, it was odd not needing to slow down for bastian to rest, or hearing the tap of the crutches. As much as bastian was desperate to be away from the dark cave, Leti was equally dreading what Lay at the top.
He knew that he would need to give the two men a proper burial.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

The warden didn't hate anything. Hate require effort and a passion that he only possessed in small amounts. He didn't feel anything for either of the mystics that were dead upstairs beyond regret that he hadn't killed the one the first time. Actually, no, he didn't even have that. Because he never would have met Leti. So he didn't feel much of anything.

Leti had captured most of that small amount of passion the soldier had. Bastian was attempting to bury it.

He lay there a moment, watching the man relight the lantern so they could return up (once again conscious of his lack of clothes and not at all ashamed of it, though he was a bit...even more confused), wondering why they hadn't come here first. Too obvious, he supposed. But he had been unconscious for days and clearly carrying him wasn't the problem. Something else then, but what?

Unfortunately the distraction didn't extend that deep or last that long. Leti started walking back toward the surface and Bastian picked himself up off the shore and looked up after him and the entirity of the space and where he was seized him, like something reaching into his chest and gripping his heart. Bastian was certain (unreasonably so) that he couldn't move. As if the poison Leti had given him hadn't really worn off and all he could do was stand there.

He took a deep breath and then another, dark gaze focused on the other man. He was fine. Actually fine. Thankfully, Finally. He could handle a cold wet space alone. Maybe. "Leti," he managed, voice clipped and nervous.

[Feleti Eidothea]

Leti likely could have saved them both a lot of trouble if he had brought bastian here first....but he knew that not doing so had been the right move. It wasn't a place that Cain liked showing to outsiders, and knowing that bastian was a warden he was glad he hadn't. He knew that the only reason he was standing here now was because bastian was here, and because he had built....something, with bastian.

The sound of his name being called caused him to pause and turn back, his eyes finding bastian's gaze easily.
".....bastian?" He replied managing to reply despite the way his own voice seemed reluctant to surface. He noticed that bastian was further back than he had thought. His eyes curious but calm as they laid on the soldiers face.

[Sebastian Arcturis]

He wasn't exactly sure what he needed the other man for, but the recognition felt good from both ends. Leti's eyes on him seemed to be too much, but he used the lifeline to pull himself together. He tightened his grip on the lantern and swallowed his fear and moved finally, closely following the man in silence.

There was a lot he should say. But he didn't. To explain...well, anything. Leti had rather effectively crushed his plans of leaving without recognizing him or Cain. He felt...obligated to...to something. He also felt frustrated. At Leti for going against his will. At himself for allowing any of this, all of this! to happen.

He was increasingly aware of how cold it was, surrounded by tons of rock and hidden from the sun. So maybe he had been lying to himself before and he didn't entirely dislike being underground with Leti. But he certainly didn't like it.