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It’s an odd mix of feelings.
Relief.
Panic.
Vigor.
Exhaustion.
Determination.
Uncertainty.
Emptiness.
Entirety.
Joy.
Grief.
Each and every one, along with what seems like ten thousand more, clatter around between Finley’s ears like rough stones, and she’s a moment from collapsing where she stands and sleeping forever.
She needs rest - her head is still spinning, the hastily-patched wound in her chest still smarts like lava, various bruises are starting to ache, and clotted scratches on her face and neck still leak slightly.
A bath would be nice too, if the ash that still clings to her armor and skin, mixed with fine crystalline sand that doesn’t seem entirely of this world and plenty of her own blood, sweat, and tears, is any indication.
And then there’s the sensation of feeling oddly…crowded…in her own mind - what feel like cold, clammy hands grope at the corners of her consciousness, kneading and sifting through everything.
It’s just stress, I shouldn’t worry myself.
Aye. Stress.
I just had the fight of my life.
Aye…
I just need a drink - that will make everything better.
A drink - she adds that to the list.
She needs a rest, a bath, and a stiff drink.
Walking, shuffling, and stumbling through the sand, all the while cursing herself for not charging her bracers after barreling through that cursed maze with Icthlarin, she makes a beeline toward the northernmost house in Nardah. At least one of the things she needs will be waiting for her there.
From across the town, she can see him sitting on the edge of the roof, a telescope in hand. She tries to call to him, but her voice cracks and dies in her throat, so she settles for waving listlessly until he turns his telescope on her and waves back.
“Finley!” As she approaches, he jumps from the roof, landing crisply on the patch of sand that serves as his front yard, and flashes a closed yet genuine smile. There’s relief in his eyes, and the hand that squeezes her shoulder - Wahisietel’s version of a hug, she’s come to learn over the past several years - makes her wonder if he didn’t quite expect her to return. “Come inside, please. Tell me everything.”
She does so, taking a seat as Wahisietel retrieves a pair of drinking glasses and a bottle of rich, dark rum.
He’s happy, she thinks to herself. Rum’s for when he’s happy. Whiskey’s for when he’s unsure of how to feel. Gin’s for when he’s venting and needs to calm down.
The rum is poured, and Finley takes her glass gratefully, raising it in a toast. Wahisietel mirrors the motion.
“Here’s to Sliske’s game, and the snake himself, finally being done with,” she says.
“I will drink a thousand times to that.”
“Then I’ll match that thousand and raise you one more.”
“And have you tottering around my book collection drunker than a still? Ha! No, I’m not giving you that much alcohol, Finley.”
“Aw, come on! We need to celebrate!”
“Well, then, let’s start by celebrating the fact that you’ve come back without any more missing limbs or shattered spines,” he chuckles, taking a sip. “You…haven’t broken anything else, have you?”
“Nah, thankfully.” She takes a sip as well, relishing the almost instant buzz the rum gives. “Few cuts, bruises, burns…a stab wound…but nothing I can’t handle.”
“A stab wound?”
“Aye,” she mumbles, poking at her chest where the Staff of Armadyl had pierced her. Wahisietel’s currently human eyes widen, and he sets down his glass.
“Show me.”
She sets down her own glass and moves to unbuckle her armor, but something stops her - a slight pins and needles sensation that tickles down her arms and stills her hands.
No need to worry him.
Aye, Seren patched it up pretty well.
All my bones are healed.
I can breathe just fine now.
I’m still standing - it’s no worse than the other bruises and bumps now.
Aye.
“Actually, it’s fine.” She relaxes, picks up her glass again, and takes a second sip. “Doesn’t hurt much anymore. It was just a slight prick anyway-”
“Finley.”
Wahisietel’s voice stops her. His hand takes her glass. His eyes level with hers, brutally serious.
“What?”
“That stab likely punctured something. Something vital. You don’t have the best track record when it comes to getting stabbed through your torso, and I need to know that whatever field triage you went through is going to hold.”
That’s just the old Legatus in him talking. I’m fine. Say nothing.
Aye, I’m fine.
Aye! But…
But what?
He’s concerned. He’s already concerned.
Well, then, I shouldn’t concern him further. Say nothing.
No. He’s a cool-headed bloke. He can take it.
…fine. Fine. This time. This time only.
“Aye, alright.” Doffing her armor and outer coat, she eases the hem of her tunic up to her chest, revealing the wound. Miniscule crystals knit closed the once gaping puncture - she can feel them holding her skin, sternum, and lung together like stone stitches, slowly healing everything they touched. “It’s fine, see? All patched up.”
Wahisietel leans in, a hand reaching toward the crystal-encrusted skin.
“Indeed, but…Finley? What exactly did you get stabbed with?”
***
I recognize her wound. I recognized it even before she lifted her tunic.
A similar lesion shattered and tore through Lucien’s chestplate at the 18th Ritual.
Thus, waiting for her to reply is a bit of a waste of time, but I need to know. I need to hear it from her.
“The Staff,” she says flatly. “The Staff of Armadyl.”
I nod, my suspicions confirmed.
“And how did that come to pass?”
Another question I already know the answer to.
My brother.
The claw marks across her face and around her neck. The way some of her hair had been torn out. The shadow burns on her hands and arms. All Sliske’s calling cards.
They must have fought.
And, with him in possession of the Staff, he must have stabbed her with it.
“We fought. Sliske and I,” she begins.
Yes, that much is apparent.
“I picked up the Staff.”
Did you end up falling on it?
“And, I…stabbed him.”
Wait…what? How, then, did you-
“And then, he stabbed me with the other end.”
“Ah. I see.”
Again, my suspicions are confirmed. Yet, something still bothers me. I ponder it as I set out my medicine kit and begin helping Finley to clean and patch her various other wounds - I confess myself ignorant of Elven crystal healing spells, so I leave her chest wound alone after I’m satisfied that her vitals are stable.
What bothers me is something almost indefinable, even for me. It’s a bit infuriating, relying on a gut feeling alone when I’ve spent almost my entire life searching for tangible fact, but that gut feeling is all I have right now.
Finley herself bothers me.
At least, something about her that wasn’t there before bothers me.
It’s subtle. Almost not there at all.
A flicker in my peripheral vision as I retrieve a needle and suture thread from the kit.
A sting in my nostrils as I stitch up a gash on her forehead.
An odd twisting in my gut as she smiles and her eyebrows don’t shoot halfway up her forehead, like they usually do, when she does.
A theory slowly replaces the gut feeling. A theory born from what I know for a fact the Staff is capable of.
Zamorak and Zaros…
Finley and Sliske?
No.
No, that’s not…
That can’t have happened.
I felt it.
I know.
I KNOW HE’S GONE.
HE HAS TO BE GONE.
But, the facts stare me in the face from behind Finley’s eyes, and I have to keep myself from screaming.
I have to keep myself from retching.
I have to keep myself from reopening that hole in her chest and ending him like he should have been ended so long ago.
Does she know?
No. Likely not.
It’s subtle. He’s subtle.
Like a latent virus, he’s there, but he’s not acting out. Not yet.
She doesn’t know.
How could she know? How could she notice?
I almost didn’t notice, and I…
…I know him.
So, what do I do?
Reveal him?
How?
No.
No, I can’t.
If I do, she might find out.
Finley might find out about everything. Everything.
Everything he’s done.
Everything he’s taken.
Everything he’s completely and utterly broken.
Not to mention it would stress her out like nothing else.
So…
I remain silent.
For her sake, and for mine, I say nothing.
And I smile back.
***
She offers a smile as he finishes stitching the gash on her forehead that Gregorovic left. It’s a smile as genuine as always, but something feels stiff, and the pins and needles shoot across her face for a moment.
It’s just that gash. The stitches are a bit irritating - don’t worry yourself over it.
After a long moment and an ever so slight twitch of Wahisietel’s hands, and he smiles back.
“Well now. We still have rum to drink,” he sighs, sliding the medicine kit back under the bed.
“Aye, that we do.”
And they drink, Finley recounting the rest of her story, and Wahisietel offering no commentary besides an occasional hum of interest or hiss of displeasure.
As night falls, so does Finley - off her chair. Wahisietel leads her to the bed - which she guesses she’s slept in more times than he has - and she flops onto it with a grateful groan.
Aye, sleep. That’s what I need now.
Sleep, then.
Aye…
Sleep!
The last thing she sees before her eyes slam shut is Wahisietel setting a second bottle on his desk.
A bottle, nearly empty, yet with a few nips of clear spirit still within.