if you want it you're gonna bleed

[endgames]

Who: Nara Shikamaru endgames and Mia frost_jewel
What: A joint mission
When: Forward-dated to February 6-18
Where: Outside the Luceti enclosure, in the jungle the mighty jungle
Summary: After an ambush outside the fort drives everyone into the jungle, two separate missions overlap and must cooperate if they want to get out alive.
Rating: PG-13, probably?

The journal message was brief - to the point. Due to increased activity in the area, extra volunteers were requested for jungle patrol squad duty, to bolster their numbers and replace the wounded. Medical aid from an assortment of enclosures was also petitioned, to treat the ambush casualties.

As those involved would realize a few days later, it's exactly what the Cultists were waiting for.

Comments

[frost_jewel]

[First, she lifts her head out of her hands and shakes it 'no'.]

No. I know he's from Excenn. Once we got started, we were...discouraged from speaking.

[endgames]

She says he's from Excenn. He's a younger guy.

[Apparently there were a few of those on this mission, because Shikamaru never does get a name. Oh well. All goes quiet again, as Shikamaru is relayed the measure the team at the fort will be taking.

Occasionally Shikamaru interjects, providing a better strategy. If it weren't for the fact the battery in the radio has to be dying, he'd save it. Usually he can think around fatigue, but that grayness around his vision is messing with his ability to keep things straight. Fortunately, at last the conversation comes to a close.]

Understood. Over and out.

[He clicks the radio off to conserve what battery's left. Rather than go further back in though, he slouches heavily against the wall of roots at his back.]

[frost_jewel]

[Once he addressed her, she started watching him, and she sees him slump and has to check herself before trying to stand. It won't do to knock herself out on tree roots. Getting up with careful attention to where she puts her feet, Mia crosses their 'cave' until she's beside him and can kneel again.]

Something is wrong. Let me help you if I can.

[It's practical - they need all the able-bodied people they can manage, because safety is something they're just pretending at - and personal at the same time. The instinct to feel his forehead and check his pulse is too strong to fight off so she does it, jungle heat be damned.]

[endgames]

[He lets her - it'll put her mind better at ease to determine things for herself. He doesn't think there's much she can do to help, on the other hand.]

It's fine. I just wasn't kidding about that nap. I need to rest.

[Chakra uses a lot of energy - his hands are still shaking from overexerting himself there. On top of that, using Twila's magic has a weird way of making him drowsy too, he's noticed.]

[frost_jewel]

It's a little late to order you home to bed, but I can try something else. Hold still, please.

[She's so used to people tensing and moving away when she says that (for heaven's sake, what are they so afraid of?) that she holds onto his shoulder tighter than she really means to. A Restore spell takes very little of her energy, especially compared to the effect it has on its target; she casts it on Shikamaru knowing it won't bring him back to anything near full strength, but it can only help. The way his abilities work remind her of Katara and Aang.

He should feel less exhausted, at the very least. Mia still intends to let him sleep and keep watch herself, unless he thinks they don't need the extra effort.]

Is that better?

[endgames]

[It actually does, in half. It's funny how he doesn't stiffen, not until he can tell it's working. What she's going reminds him a lot of Katara, with that spirit water.]

How'd you do that?

[He still feels drowsy - no escaping Twila's weird side effects - but no longer so bone weary. She should feel it too, when the uncontrollable trembling in his arms stops.]

[frost_jewel]

[When she feels his exhaustion fade, as she pulls back her Psynergy and opens her eyes again, Mia smiles, genuine if small.]

I used some of my energy to help you get back some of yours. It's no substitute for real rest, but it makes a difference.

[Almost satisfied, she lets go of his shoulder.] Speaking of real rest, you ought to get some. Or at least to try.

[endgames]

Hmm... [Settling his head back he hums. There's some questions he has about that... He makes a note to ask them later. There was something more pressing he needed to tell her; he drudges it up from the back of his mind before he can drift off.]

We have to move again, in the morning. The situation's too heated... [A yawn drowns out the rest of his thought. He wipes his mouth and starts over.] ...and too many people are unaccounted for to waste manpower recovering us. We're on our own for the time being. We need to be ready when the Cultists expand their search in the daytime.

[frost_jewel]

I understand. I'll need a little time in the morning to help him with his leg first, but if he improves enough he'll be able to walk on it carefully for a while after that.

[Outside the confines of the barrier, her healing is stronger and more effective. Nala is better for fractures but off-limits.]

Now go back there and sleep for a while. You can trade with me when we're closer to morning.

[endgames]

[The look he shoots her is baleful. There's probably a short-lived argument that's less of an argument, and more thinly disguised whining about having to move (:T), but eventually he acquiesces and moves to the back of their tree cave.

He has the foresight to move on the other side of their other companion, in case Mia needs to see to him in the night. Not that he has much conscious memory of it; despite the cramped quarters he's out as soon as he settles, and unless forcibly shaken out of it will sleep hard through the night.]

[frost_jewel]

[While he won't get the whole night, she gives him most of it, staring out into the jungle and listening for anything other than forest-night noises. No barks, no howls, barely the occasional distant broken branch. She can't get complacent. A surprise could come at any time.

She's a fair hand at keeping time, though, and a few hours before what passes for dawn she retreats to the back of their tree cave, drawn voice quiet, to wake Shikamaru and ask if he would mind keeping watch for a while. If it's too hard to rouse him she'll leave him be, but she would prefer the chance to sleep herself, even if only for an hour or two.]

[endgames]

[There's probably only a handful of people who'd be aware Shikamaru is a light sleeper on the field, in contrast to his ability to sleep through anything anywhere else. So while he wakes slowly by his own definition of it, it's not without success, no.]

Hm? [It's sluggish, but he sits up a little straighter with a grunt, opening one eye to look at her.]

[frost_jewel]

I'm sorry. [She'll risk his irritation for the sake of their collective safety, every time.] I need to sleep for at least a little while.

[Or I will only slow you down. After his display of shadowy heroics, that's poor repayment.]

[endgames]

S'fine. [He closes his eyes - five more seconds on the snooze button - before abruptly leaning forward. Brushing dirt and dead leaves from his trousers as he maneuvers around to the front, he rests a hand on one of her shoulders briefly, in gratitude.]

Thanks. I'll wake you when it's light out.

[frost_jewel]

[Mia just nods. The spot she vacated so long ago is still there, empty, waiting; she takes a few seconds to check on the young man again, though he hardly made a sound while she kept watch and he hasn't moved. Then she's sitting down again, curled into a corner that isn't sharp but has more knobs and lumps than she's slept on for a long time...and then she's out, dropping off like a stone.]

[endgames]

[Taking seat at the mouth of their hiding spot, Shikamaru sits cross-legged. Brain still waking up, he stretches his senses to kick it back into high-alert mode. It works, and he spends the rest of his watch time periodically checking over his shoulder at the two sleeping inside the tree cave and deliberating over plans in his head for what move they should make next.

When the sky begins to look more deep blue than black in between the gaps of the overhead roots, he rocks to his feet and steps outside. He walks the perimeter, never straying far, but getting a better lay of the land as it becomes visible. The jungle is far from still, even in this early morning, but he senses no sign of the enemy.

Going back inside, he gives it another hour yet before he wakes Mia, wanting to give her as much rest as possible. She'll need the time to check up on her patient though, she said, so eventually he crawls back towards her side to poke her shortly in the hip.]

[frost_jewel]

[On the outside, she slept peacefully; on the inside, it's a toss-up between feeling like only a minute or two since she closed her eyes, and trying to save herself from a sudden assault of nightmares set in the ruins of a city where people dragged themselves hungrily from place to place. As the sun rises outside her rigid nest of roots, the people chase her through the city, through a desolate theme park with tacky decorations, through Luceti, always catching up and always faster than she can run.

Mia's breath catches when something real touches her; she doesn't startle awake so much as snap there, hardly moving though her eyes open wide to try to focus on who or what is close enough to-

They close again almost as soon as her awareness sharpens. It's just Shikamaru, and he doesn't look worried. It's morning, the heat already picking up, different sounds coming to life in the dense green world just inches away.]

I'm up.

[endgames]

[He nods.] You have an hour to look him over, if you need it. If we can move earlier than that, it'd be better.

[frost_jewel]

It shouldn't take as long as that.

[Pushing herself away from the root wall, she grimaces. It feels like she's been sleeping on iron. Iron with rocks in it.]

I'll do that first, but give me your canteen again, so I can refill it afterward.

[At least now she can see, though there's a plant-dusty haze there under the roots and a stray burst of it makes her eyes water as she moves from half-lying to kneeling. It bothers her that the young man isn't awake yet. She's been over his injuries, but could there be something she missed, or something Psynergy couldn't detect?

Mia banishes her worries so she can focus on healing instead, hands just shy of touching his broken leg. When she dives into her Psynergy for something as intensive as this, she loses track of the rest of the world; Shikamaru won't be able to shake her out of that trance without serious effort. It rarely takes longer than she estimates, these days, what with all the practice and the growth of her abilities. She doesn't - can't, not with the constraints of their situation - heal the break completely, and she doesn't remove his crude but tidy splint of branches and bandages either.

Dim, flickering in the back of her mind while she works on trying to ferret out any other injuries she can fix, Mia knows something's not right. It's a cry, or something, way back there in the world with her physical self, but she's too busy to address it right away and she trusts Shikamaru implicitly-

She doesn't know her patient is awake and looking scared and shouting, not at first.]

[endgames]

[At first, Shikamaru gives her her space. Cultists aren't the only thing they need to watch for anymore, as the jungle wakes up. Wild animals and other beasts will be a concern too, so he keeps on the lookout.

When he checks back over his shoulder periodically, as he is wont to do, he can't help but notice how intense Mia looks. When he asked how it was going at one point and got no answer, he edged closer, only in time to notice her patient beginning to squirm. Too late to half the shout that follows, booming to his own ears in the need for silence.

Swiftly he closes the distances, one hand reaching out to muffle the boy's screams (he's in pain and panicked, but he can't take the time to soothe either feeling just yet) while the other grabs Mia's arm tightly enough to bruise, shaking it.]

Oi! Snap out of it!

[frost_jewel]

[She does snap, immediately back into awareness of herself and a world of shaking and noise and what is going on here, she doesn't ask, too startled at first and too worried about the yelling thereafter.

Shaking herself free of Shikamaru's hold, she reaches for the boy's hand and arm, thinking - correctly - that if she tries to hold him still in any firm way he'll only get worse.]

You're safe. [It isn't a hiss, but she drops her voice to live under his, trying to beat the noise with intensity.] We're here to help you, don't you remember?

[Of course it makes sense for him to react like this. If his last memory wasn't of fighting, then it was of openness, an entirely different version of the same jungle.]

[endgames]

[He loosens his grip on her arm, just enough not to hurt her, but keeps it there as an anchor for the time beings. He's still not sure what's that about.]

I'm Nara Shikamaru. You probably don't remember me, but I'm with the other MSF volunteers. You need to quiet down now.

[frost_jewel]

[By the time Shikamaru finishes speaking, he has calmed considerably, still looking scared but nodding against the hand over his mouth.]

I'm sorry we scared you. [Mia hopes his leg doesn't hurt still. Healing it shouldn't.]

[endgames]

[Shikamaru releases them both, when he's sure the boy will be quiet. He shoots a look at Mia, but decides to ask his questions for her in private, later.]

Apologize later.

[He thinks that might have been a growl in the distance.]

[frost_jewel]

[She heard it.]

We have to move. Your leg can hold you for a little while.

[It's hard to maneuver with all three of them in close quarters, but she'll try to help him get to his feet as well as he can.]