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This is bad.
The wing’s a bad place to take a shot on a good day, a bad place to take a shot during takeoff or landing, a bad place to take a shot in sunny fucking perfect weather. This is not a good day. This is not the ground, it’s raining, and Vi is falling out of the sky.
She goes head over heels and tries to brace herself but she knows without a doubt that this is going to hurt, no matter how prepared she is, there’s nothing that’s going to save her. She has a few seconds too long to think about it, too little desire for introspection to let her life flash before her eyes, but she spares a few apologies for the promises she’s not gonna get to keep, the people she’s not going to get to call, Sorry I wasn’t a better daughter a better friend a better sist—
She hits a dune, rolls, can’t help the half-scream that’s knocked out of her when her bad wing gets caught under her as she goes, tries to slide, flips again, lands in a heap of her own black and red feathers and wonder how much of it’s her colors and how much is her blood.
She tips her head up, feels the rain on her face. Everything is hazy gray, like she’s fading out into the cloud cover, even as she fights, tries to count her breaths, tries to breathe deep enough to check how badly she’s injured. The answering sharp red flare of pain provides the answer. Bad. bad enough that she doesn’t know what ribs it is that have taken the hit, if it’s her back, if it’s her wings. It’s bad enough that it doesn’t matter. She’s not going to make it.
She’s not going to accept that.
She’s gathering her strength, still counting, still figuring out the exact angles of her joints and how much she can muster, even through the haze, as she hears the footsteps. She stays slack, closes her eyes. Play dead. Catch them unawares. She doesn’t know if she has the strength to— she’ll find it. She has to.
The footsteps pick up into a run, get clumsier— that’s unprofessional— and then there’s the distinct sound of—
“ Shit.”
It’s close enough that this is almost certainly the only chance Vi is going to get, so she moves. She launches herself up and forward in the direction of the voice, managing to knock the figure onto it’s back before she’s even opened her eyes, and then—
She makes a mistake.
It’s only half a second, half a second of faltering when she opens her eyes, half a second of shock at the splash of raven hair across the sand, of the wide started eyes, of the parted pink lips, of Oh, she’s beautiful , and then she moves like a coiled snake and flips, slamming Vi down underneath her so hard that Vi feels something give in her wings and can’t suppress another choked-off scream, and then there’s steel against her throat.
“Don’t move.” the other woman orders, and Vi hisses.
“Not a lotta choice in the matter there, sweetie.”
“Don’t call me sweetie.”
“Well I don’t know your name, now do I?”
“—Caitlyn.”
Vi’s vision clears enough from the pain to give focusing her eyes another attempt. The woman on top of her has hair strung in a low pennant pony-tail. Her clothes are tactical gear, and there’s a rifle across her shoulder.
...of about the specs it’d need to be to shoot Vi down from half a mile off.
Fuck.
“Can’t say it’s nice to meet you, Caitlyn.” Vi manages.
“Likewise.” Caitlyn says, clipped. She looks... stressed. Something in Vi’s mind is trying to put up a signal that something is strange here. She’d learned to trust that instinct, she lets her head drop, giving the impression of surrender and a little bit of distance from the knife.
“Forgive me for putting up a decent fight for my life.” She snarks. “I’ll be sure to fly into the bullet next time. Just let me go and we’ll try this again, huh?”
Something looks raw and hurt in Caitlyn’s expression, but to Vi’s shock, she just...drops the knife. Sits back and shrugs off her backpack.
“What are you doing?” Vi asks.
She should really have learned to stop asking people with the guns that question a long time ago, but maybe the 454th time or whatever really is the charm, because Caitlyn answers.
“I need to dress the wound in your wing.”
Vi’s eyebrows pull together. That... didn’t make sense.
“....Why. Would you do that. You put it there.”
“Because I didn’t mean to.” Caitlyn says, voice clipped, and for a minute that doesn’t process at all. No one carries a rifle like that unless they know how to use it.
“Because you meant to shoot me in the head?” Vi hazards. “Because I really didn’t mean it about the releasing me again for sport, Angelface, I only get hunted recreationally—”
“Oh will you—” Caitlyn cuts herself off, takes a deep breath in, lets it out again. “—there was. A griffon. I’ve been tracking. I’m not— I only hunt animals. Not people.”
“....Some wouldn’t consider me a people. ” Vi says, slowly.
“Well, I would.” Caitlyn says, flatly, like the very suggestion otherwise is offensive. “—It was a small griffon. It’s raining. It has a similar coloration.”
“You... hit me by accident.”
“You don’t need to rub it in. Is it true that— your kind have hollow bones?”
Vi blinks, processing. “—Yeah. Why?”
Caitlyn finishes the work she’s doing on Vi’s wing, which— is stinging a little less now, and carefully folds Vi’s wings the best she can, moving carefully, although Vi thinks that the lingering her hands are doing might be more reverent than medically necessary. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Vi’s so caught up in the feeling of careful hands against her wings that for a second she forgets that she asked a question entirely, doesn’t catch Caitlyn’s non-answer, is taken completely by surprise when Caitlyn moves her arms underneath Vi.
“Hold onto me.” She instructs.
“What are you—”
Caitlyn lifts her without further comment, tucking Vi carefully into her arms, arm under Vi’s wings to provide cushioning for Vi’s back and ribs, ignoring the startled noise Vi makes as, despite herself, she obeys her instincts and reaches up for Caitlyn’s shoulders.
“Try to relax.” Caitlyn says. “—But stay awake. You need to be awake to tell me if the pain gets any worse.”
The pain has gotten worse, but Vi breathes through it, focuses irrationally on the way Caitlyn smells. It’s... floral. Has to be strong, she can smell it through the rain. She closes her eyes and presses her face more into the hard edge of a shoulderpad.
“Got it.” She grits out.
“You may find it easier to stay awake if you... make conversation.”
“You want me to make small talk with you? After you shot me?”
Caitlyn hisses out a breath. “I am trying to help.” she says, tone controlled, and...shit, that tone kinda sounds familiar. Kinda sounds like the one Vi uses when she’s upset.
“You’re a really good shot.” Vi says.
“There’s no call to rub it in—”
“No, hang on.” Vi says, cutting her off. “Hang on. I’ve got a point with this one. You’re...not used to missing this bad, huh?”
The silence is heavy, the only sound the movement of Caitlyn’s boots on the sand that’s starting to give way to proper ground, the steady drum of the rain.
“....No.” she admits. “I’m not.”
“Well. At least it’s a failure of your eye and not your aim.”
“My eye is my aim.” Caitlyn snaps, and wuh-oh. She sounds more upset now, “If I didn’t hit what I was aiming for I don’t get to retroactively claim—”
“There was nothing in the sky with me.” Vi points out. “You didn’t get mixed up between two targets. I was the only target.”
“I—” Caitlyn cuts herself off with a sigh. “Why are you comforting me?”
Vi snorts. She is, isn’t she?
“No idea.” She mumbles. “Hate seeing pretty girls upset, I guess.”
“Well I hate seeing pretty girls bleeding because I shot them. ” Caitlyn deadpans, which startles a laugh out of Vi, rapidly followed by a hiss of pain as her ribs object to the jolt, and Caitlyn adjusts her.
“No more jokes.” She mumbles.
“Save ‘em, if you stick around.”
Caitlyn gives her a curious look, and Vi clarifies, trying to disguise vulnerability as banter.
“—I mean, hey, if you want to leave an injured harpy alone with a medic and just hope they’ve got my best intentions at heart, I guess I could use the practice fistfighting—”
Caitlyn hisses. “—No, I wasn’t going to leave. I just figured you would want me to wait outside. Considering.”
“Nah.” Vi says. “Not every day I get picked up.”
She gives it a beat, grins. Caitlyn sighs, but her cheeks are a little bit pink, and Vi’s tallying that a win. Truthfully, she’s... feeling out of it. The haze of the hit and the pain are a hell of a drug. She shouldn’t be allowing this at all, but it’s....working. She’ll take it.
“—Name’s Vi.” She offers. “By the way.”
“Vi.” Cait says, and the way her accent curls over it makes Vi want to ask her to say it again, and oh. Alright. This might be trouble.
Well. She’s always liked trouble.