pullmeoutalive | log > for lack of a better place to do so

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log > for lack of a better place to do so

He had to wonder how it was that, if no one save a very, very select few could leave Whitechapel, he kept ending up elsewhere. Indeed, this wasn't the steam-driven, smog-choked section of city he called home. This was somewhere else entirely - and startlingly modern in comparison to the Victorian England he was so used to.

It was unseemly of him, but he found himself staring - tall buildings all steel and glass towered over him, and over that lay the clearest sky he'd seen in his entire life. The sun was bright, brighter that it had ever been in Whitechapel, with its constant overhang of smoke. All the better, he supposed, that he was wearing his usual attire, complete with dark glasses.

Alabaster stood alone on the street, a tall figure in smoke black stark against the clean, polished world he now found himself in. There seemed to be no one around. This city, if it was indeed a city and not some ludicrous dream, appeared to be deserted.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, fishing out a pocket watch. In this alien place, was Grandfather Clock - his God, and God over Whitechapel - still watching him through the clockface? Or had the connection been severed with his sudden disappearance?

Such things would be answered in due time, he told himself. For now, there was only the question of getting back. It wouldn't do to have Grandfather Clock's elite agent up and vanish in the middle of a rebellion, now would it?

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His head was swimming, and he was no doubt bleeding all over the place, but at least he'd managed to cripple the damned thing so it couldn't just trot on over than stave his head in.

It took him a moment to gain his bearings, but with a groan he managed to rise to a kneel. Warm liquid flowed from the cut on his forehead, threatening to spill into his eyes, but he wiped it away with the back of a hand. The boar, for its own part, was still lurching awkwardly without the use of two of its legs. Well then, time to put it out of its misery.

Alabaster sprang, honestly with more vigor than he felt, using the fact that he'd ended up behind the boar to his advantage and hurling himself onto the creature's back. It tried to throw him off again, but only managed to teeter haphazardly one way or the other, or give weird little hops. Hauling himself along its back, Alabaster finally managed to take hold of both its ears for leverage as his mechanical limbs drove themselves into the beast's eyes, and then into its brain.

The boar shuddered, gave a final lurch, and died.

Alabaster slumped against the side of the store, breathing heavily. He kept an eye on Saga, and an eye on the boar, and hoped to Gods it didn't come back to life somehow.

"... Hey." The tone of her voice was light, almost conversational, as if she hadn't just spent the last few minutes worrying about whether she'd have to send him (or what remained of him) home in a body bag. The boar she could only afford a little bit of sympathy, and that was because she was a steadfast animal lover. It certainly wasn't the boar's fault that it had been brought here.

No, but it can be blamed for trying to gore him, she reminded herself, and continued. "Are you good to make it back on your own? I don't know how well I'm going to be able to support you in a minute."

"I'll be fine," he still sounded a bit winded, but the fact that he had a gigantic gash in his middle seemed to be the least of his problems. "Grandfather Clock isn't so foolish as to make His servants fragile."

While the dark liquid seeping from the wound just beneath his ribs was hard to distinguish from the dark fabric of his clothes, the stuff seeping from the cut on his forehead was obviously not blood. It was oil.

That wasn't exactly assuring, no matter how she looked at it. Granted, she was relieved that he was going to be fine, but the way he'd worded his response had her concerned.

"All right, Tin Man," she murmured, eyes still locked on the little ball of light that had caused so much trouble. "I'll take your word for it. Then I'll have to ask you not to step too close until I'm finished."

That was just fine for him. He was content to stay where he was and try to stem the bleeding a little so he didn't go about looking like he'd just taken a bath in an oil slick. He vaguely wondered what they were going to do with the hulking body of the boar when all this was over. If the rune brought it here, would it just vanish when Saga was done? He hoped so, because an alternative wasn't coming to him.

There was no denying that she'd always hated this part. She'd endured it eleven times, and each time had been no better than the first. It was understandable, though; if anyone could control the runes, the world would have fallen into chaos years ago. To conquer them took more than just knowledge and self-control, it also took divinity. Her mother would have had an easier time, but this was Saga's task, and the blood that ran through her veins ensured that this procedure wouldn't kill her.

"... Raidho," she whispered now, finally closing her fingers around the light. It flickered, bathing her hand in red, and then vanished. At the same moment, the pain shot through her entire body, not gradual, but an entire wave that forced her down onto one knee with her fingers digging into the ground-- as if that would keep her anchored. Her head was pounding, her heart was beating wildly, and it felt as if every bone in her body was going to crack under the pressure of the ancient magic settling inside of her. Through it all, she kept silent-- not because she felt no urge to scream, but because that was required. It was torture, but to cry out would have signaled her weakness. No rune would have accepted that. She had to settle for biting her tongue with the hopes that she wouldn't bite it off entirely.

With fingers scraped and bleeding and darkness and tears pressing at her vision, the pressure eased off enough for her to shakily etch the newest rune into the air. Once again, it glowed, and the boar vanished, sent back to its homeland. With that out of the way, Saga was free to collapse-- which she did, chest heaving as she gasped for breath, and bangs plastered to her forehead with a cold sweat.

Alabaster watched, half fascinated, half horrified. His own contribution to this little outing seemed small when compared to the agony crossing Saga's face.

Only after she fell did he approach her, assuming that she had finished what she had set out to do. Still, he didn't do anything as presumptuous as pick her up - he was a mess of oil and boar's blood, instead he just knelt by her side, careful not to drip on her.

Normally alert and aware, it took a few minutes for Saga to register his proximity. An odd combination of blood and oil assaulted her nose, and made her stomach flop weakly in protest, but she glanced up anyway. Alabaster was hard to make out, even as close as he was, but she tried to bring him into focus.

"Sorry..." A new gold piece had added itself to her bracelet before she spoke again. "That... you... had to... see that."

"I see nothing to apologize for," came the reply. She was obviously still reeling from whet he'd just watched her do. "Do you need a moment?"

I need a week.

"No." The girl attempted to push herself up, grimacing at just how little her arms were willing to cooperate. "If I... do... I'll pass out... here. I need to... stay... conscious... until I get back." Gods, but she really hated this part of rune-hunting.

Alabaster wiped a hand off on what little bit of clean fabric he could find on his coat, and offered it to her. Now wouldn't they be a sight walking down the street like this? Well, the day was young yet, and he hoped not too many people were out and about.

Truth be told, they were lucky it was still early. People would just be getting up, and hopefully not venturing outside for a little while. Keeping this thought in mind to placate her nerves, she accepted Alabaster's hand, using it to pull herself to her feet.

... Which turned out to be a mistake, given that her unwilling knees promptly buckled.

He shifted his grip on her quickly, catching her around the waist again, and giving with her slightly so he didn't jar her around too bad. "I apologize for the mess," he remarked, but he figured it was preferable to letting her hit the pavement.

((ooc; gd it, my widget's not working. I'm trapped in Alabaster's journal. D:))

Saga's only response was a smile, faint around the edges, but genuine nonetheless. It wasn't as if she hadn't gotten messy before, and it wasn't anything that some laundering (or new clothes) wouldn't fix. Given that he could have just let her fall, she didn't mind this at all.

((awwww Alabaster wuvs you. :D))

He'd take that smile as a 'don't worry about it'.

Alabaster steadied her, letting her gain her bearings. He doubted he could fully support her for long, but he didn't think she was the type to just let him tote her around either.

Sure enough, she rested a hand on his arm, murmuring her gratitude before she shifted away and started a slow stagger back home. It was going to be rough, but it was infinitely better than leaning on him the rest of the way. Alabaster was injured, too.

It was beginning to be a theme, but Alabaster kept an eye on her in case she lost her balance again. Injured he might have been, but of the two of them, he was probably the most steady. He'd been through worse, but a beating was a beating and that boar had delivered almost as good as it got.

And so he followed a half-step behind Saga as they hobbled to her apartment - she looking exhausted and worse for the wear, and he looking like he'd had a run-in with a rabid car.

So it was that the not-so-dynamic-and-perhaps-more-bedraggled duo finally arrived at the apartment in one piece. Never mind that one of them looked as though an oil can had attacked him, and the other couldn't even stand up straight. She'd even had to pause every now and then, and now she was swaying unsteadily in the kitchen and grasping at the back of a chair for support.

"How badly are you injured...?"

"It's nothing I can't handle. You should lie down." On the positive side, he wasn't dripping oil all over the floor, his hurried attempts at field dressing earlier had paid off a little. So long as there were bandages somewhere, he could clean and dress his own wounds properly.

Saga ignored the suggestion for now (no matter how badly she wanted to obey it), opting to move past him and open a drawer under the microwave. A large roll of ace bandages lay there, which she drew out and offered to him.

"I meant what I said." She looked up, meeting his eyes as best as she could. "If I... sleep now, I won't wake up for two days."

He took them, meeting her gaze. "Then go. If anything, you've earned it." Then, as an afterthought, "I promise not to burn the place down." There was food, there was reading material. He would be fine for a measly two days.

The girl nodded; that simple act might have been her undoing, or perhaps she had just been maintaining her posture until Alabaster had assured her that he would cope. Whatever it was, she only made it two steps towards her room before her eyes closed and her legs gave out.

Hey, at least the floor was comfortable.

Alabaster had to wonder how many times she'd gone through this, only to fall on the floor and lay there for days at a time. As much as he hated leaving her there, his first priority was cleaning himself up.

When he was satisfied that he wouldn't bleed all over her, he carefully scooped her up and carried her to her bed, taking the time to bandage her own bloodied fingers and clean off what grime he could from their encounter on the street. That done, he shut her bedroom door behind him and plopped down on the couch, contemplating how to pass the next couple of days.

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log > for lack of a better place to do so

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