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Aderyn slinks into the Septim-Broussard residence like a cat, trailing in dried mud and the syrupy dawn sunlight.
Stationed at the base of the stairs, Alexine – a new Blade Sister – raises an eyebrow. Aderyn gives a sheepish smile and a little wave. With an uptick of her chin, Alexine indicates the shedding boots and mucky coat should be abandoned on the coat rack. Aderyn accepts this with a tired grimace and does as bid.
Alexine nods her approval, but stops with a frown as Aderyn starts to pass her on the stairs. Aderyn pauses, looking back. Alexine taps her own cheek, causing Aderyn to mimic the move. Her fingers come away with dried brown flecks. Aderyn gives the older Blade a laconic shrug, waving away the concern on Alexine's brow with a laissez-faire flick and continues her ascent before anything can be said.
Aderyn's room, a tiny little nook of a space, is at the very top of the old townhouse so it takes two flights to get there.
At the landing on the first, Buck – another of the new Blades cadre – is currently guarding the master bedroom. Aderyn starts to ascend the second flight, when Buck softly clears his throat. Aderyn glances back to see him beckoning her with perplexed wrinkles in his forehead.
With a curious head tilt she does so. Buck starts to say something but Aderyn quickly shakes her head, pressing a finger to her lips and looking pointedly at the bedroom door. He gives an understanding nod. Telegraphing his movements with enquiring raised eyebrows, Buck reaches for her hair. Aderyn might be unsure what he wants, but she helped train him, and so trusts him with a quick nod. From the skeins of hair escaping her slowly disintegrating bun, he plucks several leaves. For lack of anything else to do with them, Buck scrunches them into a pocket.
His brow still wrinkles with confusion and concern, so Aderyn gives a half-shrug, head twisting in askance. Like Alexine, he touches his own cheek to indicate the rusty marks; again, Aderyn dismisses the worry with a quick grin and an airy hand-flick. Patting a hand over an affected yawn, she swiftly turns away – bam! – into Roliand, coming from the bathroom.
The older Blade's assessment is swift, and he makes a sweeping gesture towards the still open bathroom door. Aderyn draws a breath, bringing a hand up to make a point. Roliand's face settles, hard as rock, his gesture towards the bathroom sharper; she's not going to skate past him like she did the others. Resigned, Aderyn goes into the bathroom.
Roland's gentle with the swab and sterile water. More gentle than Dr Ivers might have been, and he certainly doesn't bluster and huff and demand answers as Dr Ivers would.
It's only once all Aderyn's cuts have been cleaned and covered; once he has delivered her safely to her room, that Roliand takes her hand, radiating a fierce protectiveness she can only think of as brotherly love, and asks,
"Who did this to you?"
Aderyn's laugh is an embarrassed hush of breath between wide, smiling lips. "A tree."
Aderyn watches with puckish, pursed lips as Roliand's zest softens into confusion.
"God's honest," she continues, hand over heart, as his brows steepen. "A job went Pete Tong and I fell out of a tree."