alina (starkov) oretsev (sankta) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-01-31 19:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, alina starkov, mal oretsev |
WHO: Alina & Mal
WHAT: Alina's hand gets crushed during the battle
WHEN: Backdated to ~the fight~
WHERE: Streets
WARNINGS: Minor violence.
Alina didn’t think she’d ever really be used to fighting. She hadn’t been born for it, but she had grown into it. She didn’t really like it, but there were a lot of opportunities for fighting in their new homes, and Alina felt some sense of obligation to protect those who couldn’t fight. So, she fought where she could.
(And in the end, she was never quite as scared in a fight as she was when she was waiting for the Darkling. Which wasn’t to say they hadn’t faced impossible, terrifying creatures. But they were not her personalized terrifying creatures.)
And so this fight was chaotic, like others they had been in, and Alina was running on adrenaline, but she was no running on fear, because the light was there, and it was steady and reassuring. As was Mal. Half of her senses were on him at all times, making sure he was okay; she knew he would be doing the same with her.
She was busy recollecting herself after a particularly grueling Cut. She didn’t notice the attacker moving from behind her. Botkin would have been disappointed.
She didn’t register the attack until the trident had already connected with her left hand, sending it rebounding into a nearby building. Her hand felt like it shattered on impact and Alina couldn’t hold back her scream as her body flared white hot with pain.
…
Mal, on the other hand, rather felt as if he had been born to be a fighter. Originally, he’d thought he was born to be a soldier, but after deserting the First Army, he didn’t feel he could quite claim that title. He was now just a blade, or a gun, in Alina’s hand. Metaphorically speaking. In the literal sense it meant that he kept track of her at all times, that in a fight he was primarily focused on defending her, and secondarily on winning the fight at hand.
It had been a long time since they’d been in a skirmish like this, though, and he had his work cut out for him. He stayed primarily at her back, trusting her to take down any assailants in front of her, turning occasionally when he had a free moment to fire off a bullet or two at the hostiles that were coming into her range.
It was when he was besieged by three of the warriors - Sirens, someone had called them - that he left a hole in her defense at a key moment. He shot one in the head, stabbed the second in the heart, and whirled to sink his knife into the third one’s throat, but the third Siren had already thrown its trident. Mal’s knife slit their throat a moment later, but he hadn’t been quick enough to prevent Alina from getting injured.
He fired off two quick shots to stop the next two hostiles in their tracks, and then, in the heartbeat of respite that followed, he turned to her. He did his best to shield her with his body even as he grabbed hold of the trident and pulled -- as gently as was possible, which was not very gently at all. He knew he was causing her more pain and injury, but being stuck here could cost her life. Once her hand was no longer stuck, he helped her through a nearby door into an abandoned shop, carrying the trident under his arm (because it would be stupid of him to give up such a weapon in a fight like this).
He barricaded the door behind them with a nearby chair, settled Alina in a corner against the wall and then grabbed a shirt off one of the racks to use as a bandage for the wound. But when he examined her hand, it became apparent that the bleeding was the least of her worries. Many of the small bones in her hand had been broken, and the skin that wasn’t broken was already beginning to bruise.
“I’ll find something in here to make you a splint,” he said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “And then we’ve got to get you to someone who can set those bones properly.”
--
Alina did her best not to scream again when Mal began to unwork her hand from the wall. Her awareness of everything else fell away, so that she was nothing but the pain, eating at her sense of soul. If she’d had words, she would have pleaded for him to stop. If she’d had her mind, she would have known that she couldn’t ask him to stop.
With her right hand, she gripped the back of Mal’s shirt, as if anchoring herself to him would help her blot out of some of what was happening.
She was scarcely aware that they had moved, just clinging to Mal and trusting him. She came back into her own body when he saw her own and he looked at her hand -- when she looked at her hand, too, because she knew it was a bad injury. Not life-threatening, but there were so many intricate parts to the hand, and it felt like all of them were broken. Her hand was nothing more than pieces of glass crammed underneath her skin. She couldn’t stop the tears that were still spilling down her cheeks.
She couldn’t make sense of Mal’s words -- they were utter gibberish to her, but she nodded, because she trusted him.
…
Mal only paused briefly to use his thumb to wipe away a few of her tears - a useless gesture, really, because they were still flowing, but he meant it to be reassuring. He didn’t bother with reassuring words. She might or might not regain full normal use of her hand - he didn’t know. He wasn’t going to feed her any lies. Besides, they didn’t have time for a conversation.
He pressed the cloth of the shirt against the back of her hand, the open wound, and moved her good hand with one of his own to press gently against it, as much as she could bear. He knew the pain must be excruciating, but it was important to try to staunch the bleeding. Once he was confident she was holding it there on her own, he got to his feet - in a low crouch, so as to stay below the windows - and scanned the room for materials to make a splint.
There wasn’t much. He finally found a jacket made out of a fairly stiff leather, and broke a long thin wooden piece off of a display. Returning to Alina, he slid the wood under her arm so that it supported her forearm, wrist, and palm, and cut a large rectangle from the leather to wrap underneath it. He made it long enough so that the leather would also support her fingers, and stuffed little rolls of shirt cloth in between each finger to keep them steady. Then he cut multiple longer strips of the leather and used them to tie around her forearm, wrist, and hand to keep the splint in place, adding a folded square of shirt cloth - which appeared to be cotton or something similar - against the broken skin of her wound. He finished it all off by wrapping what remained of the shirt around her arm and hand to bandage it further, and removed his belt to tie her arm against her stomach in a makeshift sling.
When he was done, he looked up at her. “You’re going to have to walk,” he told her, gently. “I’ll help you. Ready?”
There was just no way he could carry her through the fray without risking both their lives. Thankfully they had stayed relatively close to the community center, and only had to make it a few blocks. But a few blocks in the midst of this kind of a battle would mean that he’d have to continue fighting.
--
Alina tried desperately not to make any noise when Mal applied pressure to the bleeding of her shattered hand, but she couldn’t stop herself. She swallowed down wails that came out as whimpers. Her entire body flared white hot with pain.
She was at war with herself; her most base instinct wanted to get away from his hurt, and she had to fight to keep the hold on her logical mind that told her Mal was helping.
When he came back, she held out the shattered hand for him and ducked her head down into her knees. She bit down on the knuckles of her good hand, but that did little to quell the noise of pain that even the slight movement of Mal wrapping her fingers created. She shuddered and tried to remember how to breathe.
Some Sun Summoner she was.
She was dizzy with pain when he was finished. She wasn’t entirely sure that her legs would hold her, but she knew they had to move, so she nodded and reached for him with her good hand.
…
“Sorry,” Mal murmured under his breath as he worked, although he wasn’t sure if she heard him. He felt awful hurting her, but it was necessary to make sure she wasn’t hurt even worse on the way back.
He pressed his knife into her good hand, just in case, and held the trident in the hand that he wrapped around her waist. He kept his pistol in his free hand, since that would be most useful for keeping hostiles away from them. Then he carefully helped her to her feet and headed for the door.
--
Alina tried to steady her focus as she stood, fixating on the knife to the best of her ability. She knew that she had to be on guard the best that she could be if they were going to get out of here -- not only for her safety, but for his. She knew that she was slowing him down, making him a target, and it was that thought that drove her to ignore her hand. She breathed. She knew how to take pain, she tried to tell herself.
Alina kept up with him, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to remain as aware of their surroundings as she possibly could.
…
Mal moved them out the door and quickly around the corner, relieved to see that the fighting seemed to get less the closer they got to the community center. Once it was in sight, he could see that there were people defending it. He turned to raise his gun when he heard footsteps running up behind them, but before he even took a shot, the Siren fell with an arrow in its throat.
He looked back at the community center and noticed the archers in the windows. Then he dropped the trident, sheathed his pistol, and picked up Alina to make a run for it, trusting the archers to cover them. He ran on sheer adrenaline, and was relieved when the door closed behind them.
“Medical,” he gasped out. “She needs medical.”
Someone gestured in the direction of the medical set up, and he carried her more slowly over to it, then set her down in one of their chairs and knelt beside her.
--
Alina wasn’t necessarily expecting Mal to pick her up, but she didn’t fight him. She went almost gratefully up into his arms, because there was much less for her to have to worry about. She curled up against him, trying to make herself as small as possible. She let the rest of the world fall away, because there was nothing else she could do now. She listened to the sound of her breathing and the sound of Mal’s. She cried into his chest, because she couldn’t help it, because her hand ached from the rushing of her blood.
The pain was beginning to fray away more of her logical mind, until all that was left was tears and the pain and the growing fear that she was going to lose her hand. How would she fight the Darkling if she lost one of her hands? She wasn’t nearly strong enough as it was.
When he put her down, she grabbed at him with her right hand, not wanting him to go far.
Later, she would have no idea why this thought came into her mind, because it was ridiculous and not the sort of thing that she would have normally said. But. Well, pain.
“Mal,” she cried. “We can’t get married now.” If her left hand was crushed, she couldn’t wear a ring.
…
“What?” Mal asked, unsure for a moment that he’d heard her correctly. Why would she possibly be thinking about marriage at a time like this? He would have expected her to be upset about her power; with a crushed hand, it would undoubtedly be harder for her to make the hand movements that drew light to her, shaped it, wielded it like a blade.
But it appeared that she was serious, and he took hold of her good hand in both of his, squeezing it gently. “Don’t be ridiculous, Alina. Your hand will heal. And even if it didn’t, we could still get married.”
It was a novelty still for him to even think about that. Although of course he loved her and wanted to share a home and his life with her, some part of him, he realized, still half-expected fate to throw another wrench in their relationship. He wondered if it was something she’d been thinking about, recently. He’d never have guessed.
--
With little distraction now, Alina had devolved into full-on crying. She would be highly embarrassed about this later, because she wasn’t one for hysterics at all, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t familiar with pain, but this was the most physical pain she had ever been in.
She grabbed at his hand hard with her good one, trying to give herself an anchor.
She did manage to not blurt out that if her hand didn’t heal she couldn’t wear a ring. She needed some semblance of dignity to come back to in the morning.
“Really?” she asked wetly, which was perhaps no more regal at all.
…
“Really,” Mal assured her. “What, did you think I would leave you if you lost a hand?”
He tried to say it lightly, to inject some humor into the moment, but it wasn’t easy when her tears were breaking his heart. He knew it was probably more because of the pain than because of her worries about marriage, but the worries were the only part that he could help with. There was someone here now, starting to unwrap her bandaged and splinted hand. Mal held onto her good hand a little tighter, trying to distract her from it.
--
Alina leaned into his strategy, knowing that it wasn’t going to do her any good to see her hand again. This had to happen, too, so all she could do was try and push through it.
“Maybe,” Alina said, her voice wobbling. “You are kind of stupid, Mal.” It was by no means her best zinger, but it was a play at the normalcy they would have usually had.
…
“Not that kind of stupid,” Mal retorted, but he was smiling. Her voice was wobbling, but she was making jokes, and that meant she was going to be okay. He reached up and brushed her cheek with his hand, wiping away some of her tears. “Not anymore, anyway.”
--
Alina laughed wetly, glad that they were at a point when they could joke about such things. It hadn’t been so long ago that she had been watching Mal watch Zoya. Watching just about every girl rather than her.
Alina let out an uneven gasp of breath, slamming her eyes shut as they finished unwrapping her hand.
“Tell me what they’re doing,” Alina asked of Mal, because she didn’t want to look, but she wanted to know if she was going to lose her hand.
…
“They’re going to try to set the breaks,” Mal said, after he’d dragged his gaze away from her face and down to her hand. He held on tightly to her good hand. “It’s probably going to hurt like hell. Anything you want me to do to make it easier?”
He knew jokes would only get him so far. He didn’t know what else to suggest. She could hold on to his hand as tightly as she needed to, and she could scream and cry. She would know better than he did what she really needed.
--
Alina knew all too well that there wasn’t really anything that anyone could do. She just had to be with this pain for the time being.
“Just keep talking,” Alina requested. “A story, whatever.” It didn’t matter what he was saying. She just wanted his voice so that she had something else to fix on in the midst of all of this.
…
Mal never found it hard to talk to Alina, and yet he couldn’t immediately think of anything to say. Then she suggested stories, and he took a moment to remember the stories they’d heard as a child.
“You always liked the one about the mermaids and their singing magic,” he said. “I’ll probably tell it badly, but I’ll do my best.” He paused. “Do you remember their names?”
--