"Wake up!"
Tyrael internally groaned. Couldn't he just sleep for another minute or two? He was just so tired...
"You need to wake up!"
This time, he started to open his eyes. At least there was improvement.
"Kid, if you don't wake up now, we won't bother bringing you to a healer. We'll just leave you right here on the floor, bleeding out. Thessarie is pretty good at cleaning. She could clean up the blood within an hour."
Ah.
Right.
That guy.
Tyrael's eyes shot open. He would've asked what was happening but a sudden wave of violent, painful coughing didn't let him do so. Extremely painful, actually. Almost as painful as his nose. Why was that so sore, anyways?
The memories of what had happened not too long hit the elf like a horse. Oh. That was why his nose hurt so much, wasn't it.
Yeah, that made sense. Getting a broken bone that was only just starting to heal broken again probably wasn't that good.
"Helxi, don't try and scare him again. I'm sure you've already done quite enough of that so far. No need to do it even more. Look at him, the poor thing's terrified!" She sighed. "But seriously, you need to stop doing this kind of thing."
When the elf looked at his hand during the brief break between coughs, it was red. Red as in blood. Blood red. Blood that was blood red that was blood that was coming from him.
He screamed.
"Gods, Helxi. Next time can you please not try and kill a kid? He was already out, I could've grabbed him. You didn't need to do anything more."
"But he looked so worthy of being stabbed! And honestly, don't you agree? Listen to him right now! He's screaming like a bloody siren! Just try and tell me that you don't want to stab him. Just try, I dare you. I know you can't lie."
The tiefling turned to Helxi, raising her voice angrily. "I want him to stop screaming, sure, but that does not mean that he should be stabbed, nor that I want to stab him."
The scream in question did stop, but only for more coughing.
Coughing up blood.
That wasn't good, was it? No, no, it couldn't be. Why would coughing up blood ever be good, in any situation, ever? He'd apparently been stabbed, as well. When had that happened? When would there have been time for that to have happened? Tyrael remembered being hit in the face with a quarterstaff, in the nose.
He had to admit that was pretty smart, going for your opponents weakness, but Helxi's apparent intelligence would have been immediately revoked in Tyrael's eyes for, well, using it to knock out an innocent person. And sure Helxi didn't realize that he was innocent but that didn't mean that that was his problem, did it? Hitting people in the head surely wasn't the only way to arrest someone. And even if was, that didn't mean that everyone you thought had done something wrong should be arrested.
Either way, when was he stabbed? Broken nose or not, surely being stabbed would have woken him up if he was unconscious? Tyrael very easily recalled several times when he had been woken up by someone else breathing too loudly. He was woken up far too easily so yes, getting stabbed would have definitely woken him up.
Ignoring all of this, how was Helxi that strong? He was practically a broom handle, and his quarterstaff looked thinner than a strand of hair. So first of all, how would he have even knocked Tyrael out? He couldn't possibly be strong enough. And secondly, how didn't the quarterstaff break?
Tyrael started to notice that he couldn't breathe. Wait, what. Why couldn't he breathe. He wasn't exactly a doctor but even he knew that breathing was pretty important to, well, being alive and all that. There wasn't any valid reason for him to be unable to...
Oh, right, he'd been stabbed. That was probably why.
His already blurry vision was going darker and darker by the second, and he felt himself start to drift out of consciousness. A blurry red shape flew in front of him. Was it a butterfly? Wait, but didn't he get rid of those though? He hadn't seen them in a few days.
A finger poked his forehead. Not a butterfly, then. Maybe he had gotten rid of them. That would be nice.
"Hey, no no no. Don't go to sleep. Helxi you need to get this under control this is a huge proble- kid seriously wake up."
The hand poked him again, then figured out that that wasn't working and chose to instead open his eyes manually. A tiefling that Tyrael hadn't seen before stood before him, green eyes filled with worry but also a mild sprinkling of anger. But, thank the gods, it didn't seem to be directed at him.
Tyrael couldn't help but wonder, though, where did the other tiefling go? The other one? They both had green eyes, were they related or something?
No, probably not. There were probably a heap of green eyed tieflings in the world, ignoring the fact that he had never seen another one before. Just like there were a heap of blue eyed people. That didn't mean that every person with blue eyes was related.
At least, probably.
If that were the case then that was very weird, what, why was that the case.
Tyrael's eyes were now open, which was progress. He still couldn't walk, which wasn't ideal, and he could now see the red stain on his shirt, which was much worse, but he still had a mild amount of progress with the opened eyes. A win in the tiefling's eyes, apparently, as she turned to Helxi and faked a smile. Horribly, though. It was very obviously a fake smile. Not even a toddler would be fooled by a smile that was that obviously faked. Not even a blind toddler, actually. That was how bad the tiefling was at faking smiles.
Poor thing, she was worse than Tyrael at faking smiles.
That was saying something.
"Ok good, he's alive for now. Congratulations, Helxi, there's a tiny, tiny, tiny chance you might not go to jail. At least not quite yet, but it's definitely going to happen eventually." She snorted. "Who knows, maybe I'll be the one to lock you up."
Oh. Back to not existing, apparently.
That was fine. Tyrael's head was still spinning, and he wasn't confident that he could speak without emptying his stomach. Or coughing up blood again. Or both. Either way, speaking was a humongous no-no for now.
Helxi, who Tyrael was starting to like less and less, stuck his tongue out. "Thessa, I wouldn't go to jail. Only bad guys like him go to jail. And, as the person who fought and caught the bad guy, I'm the good guy." The aasimar chuckled to himself. "Oh hey that rhymed. That's funny."
"Haha, very funny, but getting back to the serious subject at hand, you always go way overkill. Like that one guy on the bridge. Oh, get this," she said, turning to Tyrael. "One time, when we were still rookies, we came across this one guard on a bridge. He was obviously tired, and we could've persuaded him to let us through. But this one decided to scare him so much he had a heart attack and died on the bloody spot!"
Oh.
Oh, shoot.
If it weren't for the two very strong and very high ranking adventurers carrying him by the arms, Tyrael would've sprinted straight out of the tavern and maybe even out of the town. He'd given someone a heart attack? Just because he was in his way? Nope, that wasn't it. Sure, Tyrael knew that he had to die someday, but this wasn't going to be it. No thank you. A jumps care wasn't going to be how he died, thank you very much.
He tried to walk, but his legs couldn't find the ground, instead continuing to drag behind him irritatingly. Him talking wasn't much more successful.
'I need to tell Felamir I'm here,' is what he wanted to say. But it came out a little differently.
"Need to- mira-" the elf interrupted his own sentence with another wave of coughing up blood. Pleasant, as was everything else that was happening.
"You want a mirror?" Helxi chimed in unhelpfully. "Cause I don't think you should use one yet. Seriously, you do not want to see yourself right now."
The tiefling, who by now Tyrael had figured out was called Thessarie, looked down at him with a weird expression. "I think we should wait for him to not be spewing blood everywhere. Either way, we're here."
Oh, they were.
Huh.
That was a long walk.
In front of Tyrael (and the other two, but he didn't really care as much about them) was a door, just like all of the others they'd passed. But behind this one was hopefully a healer who would make him mildly less likely to die quite yet.
Hopefully, at least.
Helxi knocked on the door, yelling "Hey, we need your help."
A voice came from somewhere behind the door, groaning and saying something else that Tyrael didn't quite catch. It must have been some sort of argument, though, as Helxi groaned even louder in response.
"Oh come on. You're a good healer, it won't take you that long. Plus, Thessarie says that if this kid dies I'll go to jail. Which is wrong and stupid, by the way, but apparently killing criminals is wrong, or illegal, or something like that." At this point Tyrael could just hear the frown in his voice. "If you don't do this for me you're not getting paid for this next commission. Since you're the one who lost them."
A tabaxi walked out to greet them, an extremely unhappy expression on his face. "Ok, fine, and why exactly have you brought a dying child to my door in the middle of the time you specifically gave me to rest?"
Thessarie and Helxi said some things that the elf didn't quite catch. His ears were ringing, and all he could hear other than that was his own breathing and his slowing heartbeat.
The tabaxi looked at him, saying something else that he still didn't hear. He slapped Tyrael's face, but all the elf could do was frown a bit. He said something to Helxi and Thessarie, who tried to prop him up on his feet. It didn't work, though, so Tyrael just fell to the ground. Ow. By this point, his eyes were fully shut.
Tyrael started to feel like he was falling asleep yet again. The tabaxi continued saying things, and then Helxi said something too. He could hear his heartbeat slow even more. There was also another voice, one he didn't recognize at the time and didn't remember later. Either way, as he passed out, the last thing he heard was the tabaxi yelling some colorful curses, then something to the others.
After that there was just a darkness that was starting to become all too familiar.

~~~

"You think he'll wake up if we poke him hard enough?"
Tyrael sat up faster than a bullet. A human with messy bluish hair and an overly pointy elf sat before him. The elf stared at him, but nodded to the human with a broken smile, "Guess we don't have to."
Pointy nose, pointy eyes, pointy ears, pointy hair...
The human offered his hand out, "Name's Tulip. Long story, don't ask. Yours?"
Tyrael shook it. "You can just call me Pipsqueak. Most people do."
"If you'd like us to call you that, then sure! Nicknames bring people together and stuff, so why not. I don't really have one, though, so you can just call me Kahlien." The elf beamed at Tyrael.
'Oh gods his teeth are pointy too.'
The shorter elf just offered a weak smile. Smiles were supposed to cheer people up or something like that, weren't they? Yeah, that was what everyone had always told him. A simple smile can make someone else happy or something like that.
Apparently his fake smiling skills (or lack thereof) hadn't improved since he met Throx, though, because Kahlien cringed a bit and Tulip looked like he was going to run over and hug him.
Tyrael firmly decided that that would not be the desired outcome, or desired at all for that matter, so he stopped smiling pretty quickly.
"Sorry... um, just checking, is there a scratch around here?" Tyrael pointed vaguely to the area around the bridge of his nose. "It was broken, but I couldn't really feel it before so I don't know if it's better or not."
Kahlien put a pointy-nailed hand on Tyrael's shoulder, leaning in a bit and narrowing his eyes. "Sorry. Bad eyes. Need glasses but the guards took them away. Anyways. It does look pretty bad, but the actual bone doesn't look broken. Whoever healed you must've tried at the very least. Do have a bit of a scar though, and it looks like it's still pretty fragile, so try not to knock it. Sleep on your back, if you can."
He nodded, but pulled away pretty quickly. "Thank you."
Tyrael wasn't an idiot. At least according to Felamir, who he trusted to tell the truth. So yeah, he wasn't an idiot. So he could guess from the context, he was in jail. Not ideal. But to be completely honest, in most circumstances he wouldn't care less. Best case scenario, worst case scenario, neither existed. He either died in a cell or he got out and died later. It didn't make a difference to him. All except for one thing.
Felamir.
He actually had a family now. Someone who he cared about that actually cared about him as well. And he had left that someone outside, with barely any food, in who knows what weather. So, he had to get a message out to them somehow. As soon as he could.
Maybe he could try to break out or something?
He looked at his apparent cellmates. They didn't seem the types to try and escape prison. If Tyrael was being completely honest, both of them looked a bit like they'd prefer to bake someone a batch of cookies rather than fight them.
"I might just, um, sit here. Sorry to disturb you." Tyrael muttered with a blank stare, standing up and quickly walking over to one of the corners of the small room. It was the only one that didn't have any beds, or sinks, or anything else like that anywhere near it, and therefore it was perfect for him.
The small elf pulled his mostly burnt coat around him. Reaching into the slightly charred pockets, the dead flower was thankfully there. He held it gently in his hand, never daring to take it out of his pocket for fear that it might break into little pieces and fly away with the wind.
Looking around the room was relatively boring, if he was being honest. Its ceiling was far too high up to climb or anything like that, and were smooth. Again, probably to stop people from climbing up it. There were also two small windows, most likely to let in light and fresh air so that the people inside didn't suffocate. A large door, almost half as tall as the room, sat next to him, closed and almost definitely locked. On the wall behind him, on the same level as the windows, sat a hole in the wall that didn't have a lot of light coming through it. Maybe it was where guards sat and watched the prisoners from?
Although, he would probably find that out pretty soon. He was almost definitely going to be here for a while, ignoring his plan to escape.
How would he do that, anyways?
How did someone go about escaping jail?
"Hey, you alright? I know Kahlien's a bit scary sometimes, plus it's just an overwhelming experience overall. So it's fine if you're a bit worried." Tulip sat down next to Tyrael, a smile on his surprisingly scarred face.
Tyrael just blinked back up at him, frowning a bit. "What? No, no. I'm not scared or anything, just tired." he replied, shaking his head. 'Why does everyone always try to comfort me? Do I really look that sad?'
"Well, you could always... y'know... use a bed? They're pretty comfortable, plus they're bouncy. And mostly bug-free."
"But the floor's comfy too, and its closer." the elf replied, taking off his cloak for the first time in quite a while at this point and putting it on the floor as a makeshift pillow. Thankfully, this was an apparently nice jail. There didn't seem to be a uniform or anything, and you could just wear your regular clothes.
Tulip visibly flinched at something. "Are you alright?"
Tyrael glanced down at his chest, following his new cellmate's line of sight.
Oh, right, he'd been stabbed. That happened.
His old, messy shirt had a few holes from age, and its original royal blue color had been turned into a reddish brown color from the blood. Even the little patches of fabric he had found wherever he could to sew over the many holes were dyed the peculiar color. Additionally, there were three large messy slashes in it, through which one could very easily see the scarred skin underneath. You could also see the bandages from when he'd been thrown onto a spiky rock wall.
Tyrael, making a quick mental note to stop getting stabbed by various things, just muttered a quick "Yeah."
Many beats of awkward silence ensued.
"Sorry, I might just..." the elf unfolded his cloak, picked it up from the floor and put it back on. It wasn't all that cold, but he didn't really want Tulip to worry.
It was irritating when people worried about him. They got all emotional and overly apologetic about everything, and they often made weird assumptions. It had happened far too many times in the past, and Tyrael was starting to get more and more irritated by it each time it did. So, he decided it was better to just not let people know when something happened. It wasn't like he was lying, or anything, he was just... not telling the whole truth.
He wasn't doing anything wrong. Just trying to make sure people didn't start worrying and get all irritatingly sad. Which meant yeah, he wasn't doing anything wrong. Or being selfish, either.
He was helping other people.
Not just himself.
"Gods, Pipsqueak, you really need new clothes. If there isn't anyone visiting you who could bring some, I think I'll ask my family to bring you some!" Kahlien said in a joking tone, but Tyrael wasn't convinced that he was actually joking.
The young elf nodded mindlessly as he said it, but as soon as he actually registered what his cellmate had said, he asked, "Wait, what?"
This seemed to remind Tulip of something, as he quickly added "Oh yeah! Kahlien's partner's a tailor, so he could prolly get you something if you asked nice enough."
"That's fine, but thank you. But no, that isn't what I meant. You get visitors?"
The pointy elf nodded, spiky hair bopping slightly.
"Can you talk with them in between visits? How often can they visit?"
"Well, each inmate can get max three visits per week, but its up to the visitor how often they visit. My Yulatin visits once or twice a week, but the day changes. And no, unless one visitor brings a letter you write to another friend-"
"-Could we do that please?"
Kahlien blinked at the sudden interruption. "Sure, Yulatin usually brings a few things just in case, then he can hopefully bring the letter to whoever you want and tell them where you are."
"And where are we, if I could ask?"
"Well, in prison, obviously, but I'm guessing you mean the location of the prison, in which case we're around the middle of town."
Tyrael felt the telltale pricking at the edges of his eyes and saw his vision blur. At least these people were nice.
Tulip whispered something to Kahlien, who quickly turned to face Tyrael and asked, "Hey, hey, what's wrong?"
This time he was full on crying. Like, sobbing. Hiccupping. Wailing. All that. "I- I won't be- *hicc* I won't be able to see Felamir aga- *hicc* again, and- and- and then they'll think that- they'll think that I left them but I didn't!" Tyrael raised his face to look at Kahlien. "I didn't leave them on purpose!"
"Listen, Pips, I don't know who Felamir is but whoever they are, I'm sure that they don't think you left them. And why wouldn't you be able to see them again? I'm sure they'll visit, even if you did leave them."
"But they- but they can't, they *hicc* they can't, they can't go into- *hicc* into the city, and they're still waiting, and I'm-"
"Well, think of it this way. If this Felamir is willing to wait out of town for you to do whatever you were doing, do you really think they wouldn't trust you? You seem like a nice kid, and I'm sure your friend thinks the same." He quickly grabbed a handkerchief from Tulip and passed it to Tyrael, "So it'll all turn out alright in the end, ok? Just trust me."
The young boy sniffled and hugged Kahlien. Much more reluctantly than he had hugged Felamir when they had first met, sure, but still not a common thing for him to do the majority of the time. Maybe he was just more sentimental overall recently.
Given the chaos of the past week or so, he wouldn't be surprised.
Kahlien pat him on the back tenderly, as though he'd gotten a lot of practice. Which he may have, may have not. Tyrael never had the chance to find out. Kahlien did give off the same energy as an older sibling, maybe he was one.
"Feeling better Pips?" Tulip asked, ruffling the elf's hair a bit.
With one final sniff, Tyrael nodded and said with a wavering, croaky voice, "Yeah, thank you."
Kahlien nodded, as did Tulip.
"So, Um. Bad at conversation, only had this idiot for almost a year." Tulip gestured at Kahlien, making him laugh a bit. "Uh. Normal people talk. I dunno, do you have any favorite foods or anything?"
"Sorry. It's fine. Um. A friend of mine used to make really good noodles, I guess those would be my favorite? Yeah, yeah. Noodles are good." He smiled a bit, remembering the last time he'd eaten them. "I, um, haven't had them in a while. But where I'm from it'd be pretty much ice cold by now, so my friend would make them for me heaps." Tyrael looked up from the spot on the floor he was staring at, towards his cellmates. "I used to get a lot colder than everyone else for some reason, so I used to always wear an extra coat and eat more hot food than everyone else. It was kind of irritating, but it meant I got more noodles. So yeah, they'd be my favorite for sure."
"Ah, right. Nostalgia's cool. Personally, I couldn't possibly ask for anything but a wheel of cheese. Haven't had any in years." He pointed to Kahlien dramatically, "Kahlien! Your turn to speak!"
He smiled. "Ah, my partner Yulatin makes cookies very well. He brings some every time he visits, I'll ask for some extra for next time if you like them. He should visit tomorrow or the day after. Look forward to that, I suppose."
"Ok then! Um, next question. Any pets? I used to have a lizard, no idea at all where the little guy went. Pips!"
"I had a ferret for a while. His name was Louis. A friend got him for me as a prank but my brother really liked him so we kept him, until he ran away." Tyrael's expression saddened a bit as he remembered. "One of my other friends moved away around the same time, my brother was really worried about me."
Kahlien asked, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah. Zenoré just moved away, so I wasn't too sad about her. Mostly just Louis, to be honest."
The trio went silent for a moment. Tyrael thought back on the events of that week again. Was Louis still out there? No, no. It had been a few years, ferrets didn't live as long as people, let alone elves.
He stared at the ground. Poor Louis. Hopefully he was in a better place. Maybe he had some ferret friends or something in the Beyond. Or some people friends too.
And, ignoring the sadness that came with the realization that his childhood pet was probably long gone by now, Tyrael turned his thoughts to Zenoré. Where had she gone, anyways? It was kind of weird she hadn't taken her sister or her father with her. Maybe she was living on another continent or something? Yeah, that had to be it. Tyrael had heard something about a neighboring continent having some sort of peace thing happening, maybe she had gone there?
Tyrael nodded internally. Some of the younger adults in the village had left for other, bigger cities. Zenoré had to have done something like that.
He turned his attention back to the conversation.
"Um, Kahlien. I think its your turn."
"Right, I forgot about that. Well, I haven't had any pets, but I was friends with a talking cat for a while if that counts for anything. I'll do the next question. What's your favorite color? Tulip, you go first."
"Blue." He turned to Tyrael, showing him a bit of white at the roots of his hair. "Why else would I dye it like this?" He grinned. "Maybe we could try dyeing your hair sometime, if you'd like? We have kind of the same natural color, even if mine's a bit darker. It'd be a waste for you to not at least try, anyways."
Tyrael nodded, tempted to smile but deciding against it. "That'd be nice, thank you. And, um, I don't really have one." He frowned. "Well, no. That's a lie. I do have a favorite color, I just, um, don't know how to describe it. Sorry. Um, Kahlien?"
"Ah, probably just pink. It's pretty." He turned to Tyrael, "Do you have any questions? Conversation starters? Anything like that?"
"Oh, um. If it's ok to ask, what are you two in for? It's fine if you don't want to answer sorry, it's kind of rude. I'll go first I guess. I, um, killed a dragon."
"But isn't that a good thing?" Kahlien asked, looking at the ceiling. He was probably just bored or something. Tyrael didn't blame him, honestly.
"It was the dragon that was protecting the town."
"Oh. Yeah. That would be kind of a problem. Anyways, I stole a heap of sheep. Fire may or may not have been involved. So, I'm in here for, I think, three years. You know how long you're in for?"
The short elf shook his head. "Um, no. I think I was knocked out when they decided all that stuff. So, Kahlien, what did you do?"
"I killed someone. Two people, actually." he said in what was probably the calmest voice possible. "I've been in here for four years, I think, and I'm only in here for another hundred or so."
Tyrael and Tulip both stared at him like he had grown a second pair of eyes. Tyrael for a split second was tempted to smile and say 'murder buddies', but he immediately decided no, that was a horrible idea, he shouldn't do that. That would probably get him in even worse trouble if any guards or anything heard him and misunderstood.
And also it was just stupid.
So yeah, he decided very quickly that no he wouldn't say that and no he would never say that, as it was possibly the most idiotic thing in the world.
Kahlien, probably noticing the dead silence that came with him saying this, shook his head and rephrased it. "It wasn't just anyone, by the way. I'm not sorry for it. My partner's family wasn't exactly the nicest, I'll say that much. They hurt him. At one point they were threatening to practically keep him as a prisoner so, I did what I did to protect him." He smiled. "I regret nothing."
There was only silence for a few moments after that.
Tyrael thought about what Kahlien had said for a minute. Why was he in jail, anyways? The whole thing sounded like he shouldn't be in jail. It sounded like it was just revenge or something like that.
But then again, there was the fact that he had killed two people. Two people whose families would forever have a huge hole in their lives. Two people who would be watching him from the Beyond. Judging, watching, just waiting for him to do something wrong.
He shivered a bit as his stomach turned uncomfortably. Probably just his stab wounds or something. It would make sense for it to hurt so yeah, that had to be it.
"Wow. Um. First off, what in the hells, that sucks, why were you even arrested. Secondly, Yulatin doesn't seem that sad! Is he ok?" Tulip exclaimed, standing up in alarm. "That isn't an ok thing to do to a person! Why were you arrested and not them?" he continued yelling many things, mostly the same stuff, and didn't calm down until maybe an hour later.
Tyrael found himself smiling at the pair. Sure, they were chaotic, and sure, they were technically criminals, but they were actually pretty nice. That meaning it was nice talking to them. They weren't nice, per se, just fun to be around. Fun in general, actually.
Dinner came not too much later. It didn't taste bad, but then again it didn't really have any taste at all, so that wasn't much of a compliment. But, again, it didn't taste bad so that at the very least was good.
And sure none of that made sense, and Tyrael gave himself a headache trying to decipher what he had just said, but he didn't care. Not at the present moment, at the very least. For once, he had just a shred of hope.
Maybe this would turn out alright after all.
Just maybe.
The trio went to sleep at their respective beds, each one peacefully, even blissfully, drifting off to a dreamless sleep.

~~~

Tyrael yawned, stretching his arms a bit. He hadn't slept that well in ages! As he yawned, he noticed a sharp pain in his arm. Peculiar, to say the least. He opened his eyes, whatever thoughts he had a moment ago lost. His arms were bruised.
'What in the...?'
Tyrael looked up to see two overly familiar figures in front of him.
"Ugh, he's awake. Cara? Can you get the family?"
"Course, Swallow."

a/n
5204 words

yet another chapter! at the time im publishing these there'll still be a few more, so look forward to those in a few minutes heheheh

question 8: what do you think about Cara and Swallow bent back? when I first came up with the idea maybe a year ago I was cackling in my seat but I'm not so sure it's that good anymore, so I'd be glad to hear your thoughts :)

I don't really have anything more to say, but in a chap or two I'll probably be blabbing ALL about my youths when writing so. yeah

see you next time!