#sharpnosedscout

@sharpnosedscout sent ❝ i’m never leaving you. you’re stuck with me. ❞

While somewhat surprised, Clive still looks at Gav with fondness. He has always been right by his side, willing to throw his life on the line for Clive. He's perhaps one of his best companions and Clive has felt grateful for him more times than he can count.

A smile curls the corners of Clive's lips upwards, a rare sight, even rarer is the chuckle he gives. Gav's overall demeanor is contagious and Clive feels so fond of the man before him.

Exhausted, she thinks, does not even come close to how she feels. Battered and bruised, wrung out and feeling completely and utterly helpless as Tarja and her team try their best to heal Cid of his grievous wounds, that would be more accurate to the truth.

She knows Tarja would say she needs to rest. Jill knows she should, too, is the thing. Her entire body aches, inside and out, her arm most of all from the toll using Shiva has claimed from her. They'd only barely managed to clear away from the crumbling ruins of where Oriflamme's mothercrystal once stood, the area full of aetherfloods and akashic. In the end the only thing she could do was prime to fly both Clive and Cid to safety and have Clive practically drag them all the rest of the way.

But Jill knows also that she'll not find rest until she knows Cid will be alright. Until she has dealt with the fallout of Kupka's attack on their sanctuary. Clive is busy helping Otto and Charon bury those whose lives has been lost and Jill had tried to soothe and reassure where she felt she could, even with the knot of restless anxiety in her stomach, the feeling of uselessness that her powers could be of no help here; and Jill only useful as weapon.

So this had brought her to Gav. Her lips curl to a weak smile, shoulders drooping slightly as she sits down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. She may not know him as well as Cid or Clive, but right now she thinks they can both use the comfort.

" We can share, " Come her quiet words, a slender hand taking one edge of the blanket to curl it around her own shoulders, pulling it taut across them both.

A soft silence reigns. Eventually Jill goes a step further, taking his hand in her own. " Tarja said we'll know in a few bells time if he will make it. If he makes the night, she is confident he will survive. I have faith he will. "

There are few things Clive actually enjoys during festivities such as this. Usually he finds them too loud, too crowded and the false pleasantries exchanged make him uncomfortable, for he can see the way near all of these other nobles regard him in the same way his mother does, with disdain. By now it is widely knows that interacting with him would not gain them any favour with the Duchess, so they avoid him like the plague, granted that he's not at his brother's side. The ones that don't shun him are mayhap even worse for the pity in their gaze.

Clive sighs, gaze straying out one of the massive windows of the ballroom, wondering how much longer he'd have to endure this before he could sneak away.

For now he has found a hiding place leaning against a wall on the far side of the room, watching the spectacle, listening to the music. At some point his attention turns entirely to the musicians, captivated by the ease with which they coax beautiful melodies from their instruments. Clive isn't able to carry a tune if his life depended on it, so it always fascinated him to see other's do so with ease.

At some point he locks eyes with a bard just as another song fades out, having watched him work his instrument instead of anything or anyone else for what he realizes must have been a good long while. Embarassed to have been caught staring, Clive starts and looks away, hiding his face in the goblet of wine he'd been nursing over the past hour for lack of anything else to do, only to realize that it is empty.

@sharpnosedscout sent

12﹕ sender  invites  receiver  to  dance [of the '100 nonverbal prompts'] for Clive! (maybe Gav's teaching Clive a commonfolk dance, in a safe place like Martha's Rest or smth 🤔 but i'm totally open to other ideas!)

It has been a very long time since Clive has danced at all. The last time he recalls of it had been when he was a child. After he'd been thrown into the Imperial Army his days of dancing and fancy events were over.

The noble in him had been beat and forced out of him. He's not entirely sure he even knows how to dance anymore but Gav insists and Clive really sees no harm in it.

Especially when it is just the two of them in this inn room where no one can laugh at Clive if he miserably fails. Nor would anyone bother them all the way here at Martha's Rest.

Gav had barely gotten half a word out before warm, dyed leather pressed over his mouth. He was led by his jaw and elbow to a narrow alley, made even narrower by an attempt to hide both him and Clive behind stacked crates and sacks of grain. Were they not on their way back from a mission - well, more of an errand - he might've thought this was another of those pleasant yet embarrassing dreams his brain liked to pester him with. Still, better to focus on what or who they were hiding from, before he blushed too much. Whatever Clive had spotted had been to Gav's right, which these days meant he'd only heard footsteps before being manhandled. He trusted Clive's instincts so he didn't fuss, but there was questioning expectation in his stare.

Clive pulled Gav even closer against him when someone passed by their hiding place a little too close for comfort. A moment passed and when it was clear no one had spotted them he leaned in, keeping his own breathing shallow as he spoke lowly into his friend's ear. "Look," he whispered, nodding towards a rugged looking man they could just spy from inbetween the storage crates. "It's that slaver." He hissed, gaze sharp and cold as it settled on the man.

A few weeks back they had prevented a group of young bearers from being sold as slaves. They'd been abducted from their homes, treated little better than kettle. When they freed them they'd been dehydrated and malnourished, scared out of their minds, too. Clive felt the anger rise inside of him just thinking about it. Most of them had barely seen their 12th winter. However, the man behind the operation as well as a few of his cronies had given them the slip and managed to stay entirely hidden from their scouts since. Until now.

"We should follow him." Clive said with urgency when the man stepped out of their sight and it was only then that he realized that he still had Gav grabbed by the jaw and pressed to his chest. He let go immediately, pulling back his hands, bringing some distance between them again.

A smile curves his lips upwards as Gav tells him that he wants to do the protecting to. It's hard for Clive to accept protection but it's started getting easier. He's beginning to let people protect him. Jill and Gav, mainly.

Gav may not realize it but he's already protecting him, holding his heart so gently in his hands and refusing to break it. He shows him love in ways that he's never had before. Gav protects his heart.

As bad as Miles felt for the pain Gav was in, the particular curse the younger man spewed did gain a very soft chuckle from him as he pressed the folded cloth firmly against the nasty tear upon the blonde's right-side midriff. It was a curse he remembered hearing fondly many a time from his men during treatment of their injuries, and it was a curse he too had been guilty of hissing out more times than he wanted to admit. The cloth was all too quick to darken with red, as expected -- but with enough time and persistence with pressure, the blood should slow, at least enough that bandages could be applied until their pending return to Hideaway.

That the blow had been struck on the side of Gav's blind eye did not escape Miles's notice. But better to focus on tending to the physical wound first, then salve the one on the pride after. He kept his crouched stance steady for the other, offering support -- literal support, at that -- through a broad shoulder for Gav to stabilize himself using.

"Hmm. By the by, speaking of flames..." The older man mused while he worked, voice a quiet rumble as he did so, hoping to distract the other from the discomfort. "Did you know that in a pinch, and if devoid of medical supplies while in immediate need of care, one can use fire magic to cauterize a wound such as this one?" Though it may easily have been obscured by his posture and positioning, the ever-present furrow of his brow deepened all the more with careful concentration over Gav's body language, on the lookout for any sign of change in his overall condition. "By no means a long-term solution, no -- but offers enough time to reach a physicker."

The cloth was moved just slightly, enough to check on the status of the bleeding. So far, so good; the pressure seemed to have been enough. The sullied object was dropped off to the side for the moment, to be disposed of later. Next, he made a quick grab for the bandages that had been set down next to him at the start of this procedure. As he began measuring the strips for length according to the size of the injury, to avoid using too much or too little, the barest hint of a smile played at the corners of his lips.

"Leaves one hell of a scar, though."