Recommended Posts

"Peachy..." Rose grunted, the sound punctuating the throb of pain she felt in her left arm. She didn't look away from the barrel aimed at her to try and assess the damage. "Left arm," she admitted a few moments later. The woman glowered at the bandit, the dirty-haired man flicking his gaze back and forth between the pair.

"Perhaps we did," the bandit shrugged a shoulder. "Perhaps we didn't. It doesn't matter now, does it?" He smirked, cracked lips twisting upward. "And I never challenged you to a gentleman's duel. No good sir! This isn't a duel. Call this... a stand off, I suppose if you will," he continued. A sigh escaped his lips. "You see now, I'm in a bit of a tight spot, aren't I? You've killed my family and I'm outnumbered, two to one. The only difference had, is where the guns are pointing." Again, he shrugs.

Rolling her eyes, Rosalia pushed down the desire to fold her arms. "We're not letting you come with us," she said flatly.

"Oi, sweetheart, let the men do the talking," the bandit reprimanded, shaking his head. "What I wan-"

"Oh just shoot him already!" Rose snapped, drawing the man's attention fully to her as he turned. She began to move away, lurching sideways.

Share this post

Link to post

Gran frowned at the raider. It seemed clear to Gran that the raider was stalling, probably trying to figure a way out. From Gran's perspective, the man should just give up, even if he had Rose at gun point, what possessed the man to think that Gran would accommodate him any? Did he truly believe that threatening Rose would make Gran bend to his every whim? A foolish man fit for the low-intelligence level of the general populace from this back-wood area. "Your starting to annoy me, I said be quick about it." Gran's arm twitched ever so slightly as his muscles flexed and locked into place. When Rose finally yelled, fully distracting the raider, Gran squeezed quickly yet firmly, as to not jerk the firearm. The shot rang true, hitting the man in the chest. It wasn't his cleanest shot ever, but Gran never claimed to be a master marksman.

Gran led the stallion up to Rose, a frown seemingly permanently transfixed to his face, watching her closely for any sign of injury that she may not have mentioned. After a moment, Gran sighed returning his sword to his sheath and his pistol to the holster. Getting off of the stallion, he said, "we need to get that cleaned up. I didn't grab a field dressing kit, so we will have to use something else." Gran reached down to his boot and pulled out a knife, which he then used to cut both sleeves off of his shirt. Gran proceeded to cut the sleeves into strips, though he left a little uncut to be used as a rag. "Come on," he grunted as he pulled on Rose's good arm. Gran led her to the river, and using the makeshift rag, began to methodically clean her wounded arm. When he finished, without thinking much about it, Gran used a clean side of the cloth to reach up and attempt to wipe Rose's face.

It wasn't much longer afterwards, that Gran had a makeshift bowl of water boiling over a fire, with the strips of cloth inside. This was his second batch of the cloth strips, the first already pulled out and dried. He had used one of the strips to dress Rose's wound, and put the rest into their pack. When the second batch finished, Gran poured the water out and put the cloth on a makeshift drying rack made from twigs. "We will stay the night here before moving on. The trip should only take us a few more days, a week top. I don't foresee any more trouble along the way."

As Gran predicted, the rest of the trip went uneventful. They trekked alongside the river as the had before, this time being more aware of their surroundings. Every half day, Gran would stop them and redo Rose's dressing, also inspecting the wound to see if it was getting worse. On the third day, the two had to hid in the forested trail as a platoon of soldier headed back the way the duo had come. Avoiding that group added a few hours to the trip, but on the fifth day, the duo sat on their horses over looking the grand capitol city. Being dusk, the torches that flickered in the city, with the light reflecting off of windows, gave the impression that the city was sparkling.

Share this post

Link to post

Keeping her mouth shut, Rose followed Gran without fuss, putting out the air of being bored. She kept herself from flinching as he tended to the wound in her left arm, cleaning off and applying pressure to the offended flesh. She didn't believe that Gran needed to go to such lengths, so far out of his way, to tend to her arm. Rosalia, however, did appreciate the gesture to a small degree so she didn't make any issues about it. At first. As the days crawled by and the man continued to tend to her injury, her annoyance did grow and she eventually shoo'd away his attentive intentions. She knew how to tend to herself, how to apply basic aid.

There wasn't much in the way of conversation except perhaps some small talk here and there. Mostly, they just traveled in silence, needing only to avoid trouble in one other instance. Eventually, their destination was in sight and Rose relaxed only faintly, satisfied to see an end to the first part of her journey. Without glancing at Gran, she spurred her mare into motion again and headed for the gates of the capital. Approaching, she sat straighter and kept her gaze forward, only glancing at the guards as she passed them.

Unease crept up along her spine, causing her nerves to itch with a sense of anxiety that she quickly stuffed down. It was easy to hide in a large city, to get lost in the press of bodies and avoid trouble. Still, she wasn't much of a fan. Gran took the lead now, guiding them through the streets and around those still out to finish any business they had for the day.