#((get hype))

"What did you do." Lady Gaya demands, standing. She's eyeing where her sword lies in the dirt. Vaelus ignores her in favor of dropping to her knees besides Occtis, hand halfway to his pulse point before she catches herself.

"Is he--" Thaisha appears at her side, her voice tripping over itself. "Vaelus. What is this." Vaelus holds up a hand.

"I did what I said I would. I told him to rest." She looks up at Thaisha. The black of her sclera is stained red with burst vessels. "Thaisha. I did not kill him." But a ripple of doubt runs through her--what does it mean, to tell a sleepless spirit to rest? It's not as if she can check his breathing. It almost surprises her, the pang that tears through her at the notion. Foolish, she thinks. Always getting attached too soon.

But she's been silent for too long--Julien speaks when it's clear no one else will say it. "Not that I don't trust you--well--but. How do we know?" Thaisha sucks in a breath. Then, suddenly, decisively, she's crouched beside Vaelus, hands on Occtis' chest. She mutters a word in a language that Vaelus still thinks of, knee-jerk, as profane, looking as fierce as she ever has in battle.

There's one terrible moment in which Vaelus is sure the magic doesn't catch. That the body is just a body, and it is her fault. Then--the air shimmers like heat from a forge, and Vaelus watches as the steel on Thaisha's body glows once again. There's a shift, a transference of energy, and through the thin material of his shirt Vaelus can see the silvered sutures on Occtis' chest begin to flare orange in response.

Thaisha's eyes fall closed and her face does something complicated and painful. "He's--well, not alive, but he's here. I can't heal an empty corpse."

Thank you, Mother, is all Vaelus can think. She watches as the glow in Occtis' chest seems to radiate outward, under the skin, then consolidate on the gash from Julien's sword; the awful bruising layered on his throat. His skin--forces itself together. It's not like the magical healing Vaelus has seen before, where the body simply regenerates faster than nature allows. It's more like tearing in reverse--skin and muscle stubbornly contracting like pinched dough.

"Fantastic. The dead boy is still only mostly dead. But I still don't have an answer, so what the fuck was that?" Julien is still tense where he stands behind them, keeping one eye on Gaya as she finds and sheathes her sword.

Thaisha glares. "I don't know. I wasn't the one keeping watch with him every night."

Heat rises in Vaelus' chest. "He's not an elf, Thaisha, I don't know what resting looks like for corpses,"

Thaisha huffs. "No, I--"

"Was I supposed to know he was trying to get himself killed again? I assumed he was trancing when we took shifts!"

"No, it's. You're right. I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I just--" Thaisha sits back on her heels, scrubbing a hand over her face. "I'm angry at him, not you. Fucking idiot probably just wanted to see what would happen."

Julien looks between them. "So, what, are you saying he was just a little tired? He tried to kill me because he was, I don’t know, grumpy?" He scoffs.

Thaisha stands. "You and I both know that whatever that was, Occtis was not in control." When Julien scowls, opening his mouth, Thaisha holds up her hand. "I have spent a lifetime attuning to the undead, Julien. I can sense them. Occtis is usually--like a little candle. But that? It was a fucking bonfire. So either something he did made him worse, or he's just getting worse, and I'm choosing to believe it's the former because I need this to be something I can fix."

There's a beat. Julien exhales hard through his nose. "I. I will trust you here. For now. But if his little nap doesn't cure him," his gauntlet creaks as his hand flexes, "I will not have another Tachonis trying to sabotage me."

Thaisha only nods, solemn. "Help me move him?"