Reading more than books.

Emery looked towards the noise and slid to hide behind Kaladin, her eyes narrowing. She pulled her dagger out of her shoe.
"Kaladin," She whispered, "That's a Minotaur."
Her voice had jumped up a octave. She could hear it's slow wet breathing and the heavy footfalls. Her nose could pick up the stench. Somewhere between cow poo and unwashed man.

Emery made a noise of amusement even though it was not good in the situation, the Minotaur snorted and pawed at the ground and her breath caught in her throat. She backed up slightly, pulling her dagger out. It glinted in the dim light and she scurried up a tree like a squirrel, her dagger clutched in between her teeth.  Emery positioned herself on a branch overhead and removed the dagger from her mouth.
"Do me a favor and try not to get hurt," She stated.

Kaladin gave Emery a slight smile, and winked at her. Goodness, that probably looked ridiculous. You can't flirt worth shit. Kaladin moved a bit back from the tree Emery was in, walking loudly to distract the Minotaur. He wanted to be the one to kill it. It wasn't a matter of pride or some 'show of manliness.' He had already failed twice since he met Emery; first, when the krakken attacked and Emery saved herself while Kaladin sat on the beach in his boxers, hopeless, and second, when Kaladin had fallen off of his pegasus and put them into this whole mess. Emery had saved his life, and he had to return the favor.

The Minotaur was starting to pick up speed. Kaladin was standing just off to the side of a dense copse of trees, waiting, moving his sword through the air to attract the Minotaur's attention. In his mind, he had already gone through multiple variations of possible plans, thinking ten steps ahead constantly, always carefully the victor. He assumed that, with the Minotaur respawning so quickly recently, it was getting stronger and smarter. Hopefully it wouldn't learn to speak, for that would imply a whole higher level of sentience.

Kaladin halted his protracted train of thought and focused on the threat. The Minotaur was at full charge now, running easily over twenty miles an hour. Calculating velocities and response times, I jumped to behind the thicker trees as the Minotaur got close. As I expected, he was able to change his directory. The first tree he ran into fell over, but he stopped up against the second one, the tree bent halfway over from the impact. I made a few quick jabs into his side, but no more than an inch or two of my sword penetrated his thick skin each time, and I knew I was barely giving him pin pricks. I hopped around to directly behind him, knowing this was likely his blind spot.

OOC: Emery's hair hasn't changed in a while. :b

Emery offered a small smile at the winking boy, it was a tense one as she was mostly distracted by the minotaur barreling towards them. She gripped her dagger and watched, leaning forwards slightly to watch the battle. 
The creature stunk like cow but with several accentuating oders. He had high twisting horns and a massive nose ring, a fashion mistake Emery would like to avoid in the near future. She watched on as a few trees got felled and Kaladin stabbed the beast several times in the side. 
Aim for the jugular! Emery called inside her head,, knowing it was a futile attempt to pass on information.

Kaladin thought quickly, knowing that the Minotaur would tuen around after the slight daze from hitting a couple trees. Thick skin that was hard to pierce. Cutting into his side would be ineffective. Herhaps the throat... but the thing barely had one. There was the head, and then there was the body. That was a large neck to slice, and would probably requiring sawing more than slitting. Perhaps severing the Minotaur's spinal cord would do something to its strength. With this thought in mind, Kaladin held his sword firmly and plunged it into the center of the Minotaur's back. This made the beast stand straight up,arching its back yet, meaning it still had motor control. However after retrieiving his sword, Kaladin saw that the Minotaur seemed to be moving significantly slower and thinking a lot slower. Perfect.

Emery’s breath caught in her chest, watching the sword play and bulls crashing continue below her. Finally the gymnast couldn’t stand it any longer.  Her hair flashed red for a few seconds as she adjusted her position, dagger gripped between her teeth, hanging from the branch, the ridged muscle standing out on her forearms. The daughter of Hecate waited until the massive monster was lined up below her, before dropping. The result of the drop was the girl landing on the Minotaur’s shoulders, taking her dagger out from between her teeth, and ramming it up underneath the creatures chin. For a fraction of a second it roared in pain before dissolving into gold dust.

Emery tumbled backwards, landing flat on her back, winded… then she was aware of the blood. She lifted her hand to her face, sucking in air. The tips of her fingers were dyed red as a result of the horns slicing her midsection when she dropped down.

“Delightful,” She groaned, attempting to sit up.

Kaladin rushed over when he saw the Minotaur puff into dust, and saw that Emery was bleeding. He put down his sword and reached into his pockets, but he was so rushed that he had to check many pockets before finding a little vial of nectar. He put a hand on Emery's shoulder to hold her steady, and offered her the nectar. Gods, after all that she'd been through, saving Kaladin's life and all, she really needed to get back to camp. There was no way she was walking, what with her wings getting damamged from catching him and her belly ripped open by a Minotaur. Still, he couldn't help being a bit.... infatuated by it all. He'd spent a while since he got to camp helping other people, so it was nice for someone to help him out. Kaladin smiled a little at Emery. "Thank you for taking care of that. You're amazing." He said softly. What he wasn't noticing was the pegasi flying towards them, behind his back, up in the sky.

Emery slid forward slightly and laid a hand on Kaladin’s chest to keep her balance; everything had kind of gone fuzzy around the edges; so much for keeping out of this fight.


“Really, I hadn’t noticed,” She said in an attempt to keep herself focused on not passing out due to lack of energy and pain. Emery’s hair had turned black with streaks of red that kept flickering to grey. It took emery a few seconds to taken in the bottle Kal was holding out to her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to do anything with it because her knees buckled and her vision went black.   She would hit the ground rather quickly if Kaladin didn’t catch her.

Kaladin saw her wavering after she talked, and had already put his arm out, so when she fell, he caught her quickly. He sat down on the ground putting her in his lap a bit, figuring this would be the easiest way for him to give her nectar. He gently leaned her head back against his shoulder, and dripped some nectar into her mouth. He then laid her down on the ground and inspected her wound. He didn't know how much nectar she could take, or he would have just poured some down on her wound and called it good. He could induce, based on the fact that she was a child of Hekate, considered a minor Goddess, that she wouldn't be able to take as much as he. However, there was the fact that Hekate was technically a Titaness until she sided with the Olympians. This left him confused, and he knew the only way to ensure Emery's safety was to give her the minimum amount of nectar and clean her wound the old fashioned way.

Kaladin found his first aid kit in his pocket and got out some rubbing alcohol. He paused. Propriety said he shouldn't really be moving her shirt at all, but logic said that it would make cleaning her wound easier. His skin flushed as he pushed her shirt up, only as far as he needed to. He tried to focus on his work to not be distracted, and cleaned her wound. It wasn't too bad as far as depth went, but it spread across at least half her torso laterally. When we was done cleaning it, Kaladin dropping a few drops of nectar onto the wound and bandaged it. He wrapped it with the wrap-y stuff around her chest, and put her shirt back into place. He put away his first aid kit and stood up. He needed a plan; fortify here for the night, or try to get Emery back to camp, or maybe go get help.

As he scanned the area, he almost fell over when he realized there was a pegasus standing right behind him. He smiled at it, and saw that it was the one that Emery had been riding earlier. It was certainly more inclined for rescuing a fellow winged creature than the other one would be to rescue an idiot who had tried to show off, he figured. He asked the pegasus if it was okay to put Emery on, and it didn't protest. So Kaladin picked her up, and considered what the best option would be. He could sit her up and hold her in place, but he might end up holding her where she'd been hurt... or in other places that might get him hurt. Draping her across the pegasus's back would face the same problem, whether she was face-up or face down. Kaladin was also not comfortable enough with his flying skills to be able to perform such a task. He decided the first option would be the best.

He put Emery up in the saddle, and quickly got on behind her. He put his hands on her hips to hold her in place, and leaned her up against him. That would have to do. He trusted that the pegasus could fly them back safely, and then they took off. The flight back was rather uneventful, as the pegasus flew very carefully. When they landed near the stables again, Kaladin got off and got Emery off, and then wondered where to take her. Her cabin, or the infirmary.

Emery groaned and opened her green eyes, staring at the roof of the infirmary… how did she get here? Every fiber of her being ached… like she had fallen out of the tree; her shirt was missing, showing her tie-dye sports bra and her muscled abdomen, half way covered up with a thick blanket.  The healer had redone the bandages that Kaladin had done…

“Ah,” She let out a small gasp of pain as she tried to sit up, pain lanced up her abdomen… Stupid Minotaur… stupid horns… stupid demi-god luck. The blanked had slid down showing the waistline of her jeans. Not that Emery cared she was half naked, she used to run like this all the time before life had gotten complicated.   She let her eyes shut again for a few seconds before opening them again to see if she could grab someone’s attention.  

“Kaladin?” She asked, her breath hitching in pain again.

Kaladin had been averting his eyes up to this point, not entirely sure about the rules of propriety here. He was good at reading people, but not good at understanding all of society's rules. When he realized Emery was awake, though, he shot out of his chair and stood up next to her. Oh, Gods. He was definitely looking at her now. She was astonishingly well-built, and Kaladin was a little jealous. Obviously, he was muscular, but on the smaller frame she just looked... alluringly intimidating. Luckily enough for Kaladin, Emery's eyes were closed during this glancing over. By the time she had opened them, Kaladin was looking at her face, and then focused on her eyes. He noticed that there was pain in her voice.

"Shhh, Emery. Take it easy. " He said softly, not wanting her to sit up or start yelling at him for being an imbecile. Both of these seemed equally likely in Kaladin's mind. "Do you need anything?" He asked, figuring it would be better if he did the talking. Less chance of explosion or pain, then.

The author of this post briefly wonders if alluringly intimidating is an actual term. But alas, that is not part of the story line. Back to Emery. 
She felt his warm calloused hand press against her shoulder as he encouraged her to stay firmly on her back, Kaladin didn't need to tell her twice as the pain was building in her lower back from shifting strain. 

"Pain medication... lots and lots of it," She mumbled, looking down at her stomach. The cuts themselves weren't that deep they just hurt like heck. "As well as a t-shirt."
She seemed to know Kaladin was having issues keeping his eyes on her face. Emery settled back down onto the pillow, her calloused hand touched the back of Kaladin's lightly, her eyes closing again.

The first order was rather simple for Kaladin to process. It was not suprising that she was under a lot of pain. The second one, of course, was mildly embarrassing. It was as if she had known he was looking, and Kaladin did not want to admit that. He wanted to be that nice fuy that didn't, but... he shuffled away from her, smiling when her hand touched his. He found her the strongest pain meds he could and took them over to the bedside tabel along with a glass of water. He stood awkwardly for a second. Where would he fine a t-shirt? Did they have some lieing around? He could give her his shirt, of course, but he'd been wearing it all day; fron flying to falling to Minotaur fighting. He didn't bother checking, but it was likely that it didn't smell very good. "Where should I get the shirt?" He finally asked.

Emery struggled to sit up again, pain crackling through her back.
"There should be a tub of orange camp shirts under the surgical table," a young healer piped up while passing and carrying a bunch of linens. "Green container, cant miss it." 
Emery smiled slightly before wincing again, the thin scars on her shoulders seemed strangely silver in the dim torch lit lighting. Most of the day had already vanished and Emery was exhausted... as well as hungry. 
She wordlessly reached for the medication before downing two of the pills and the entire glass of water. It would take about fifteen minutes for the stuff to kick and eventually knock her out. Emery took the shirt after Kaladin returned and pulled it on, hiding the scars and the muscled skin below the fabric. 
"I want to go back to my cabin," She announced, attempting to stand. Emery could stand but she was not so sure on the walking... hnngg... hopefully her cabin wasnt to far away...

Kaladin heard the other person explain where the shirts were and got one he thought was Emery's size. He hoped he had guessed correctly so that there would be no offense taken from miscalculation. It seemed to go on without difficulty, so he assumed he'd guessed correctly. He was not expecting Emery to stand up, and put a hand on her arm to stabilize her. She wanted to go back to her cabin? But it was fine if Kaladin stuck around here while she healed.... he couldn't say the same about her cabin. He didn't say any of this, obviously. "Are you okay to walk? I can carry you. I carried you here fron the stables." He almost smacked hinself in the head. That was erroneous data. He might have been showing of, which was ridiculous. He'd done nothing worry of showing off. "Will you be alright on yoyr own? You'll heal alright?"

Emery yawned, "You can stick around if you want, I don't care.''
Since it was during the mortal school season most campers were away and it was only herself and her brother who had taken up living in the forest for the time being. "Besides, I tend to act a little loopy on pain killers. You wouldn't want to miss all the fun would you?" 

In truth Emery didn't want to be left alone... being in pain and alone was the scariest thing that could happen to her. "I wont say no to being carried," She stated, holding out her arms. It was his own fault that he had offered. Besides, it would give her snuggling opportunities.

Emery gave him a small smile and then squeaked as Kaladin swept her feet out from under her, adjusting her position so she slid back a little bit and rested her head on his shoulder. Hoping she would fall asleep on the way over, her hair had faded back to auburn while she had been passed out. 
It took about three to five minutes before they reached the cabin and Emery slid out of his arms, resting against the bookish boy for a few moments. 
"Thanks," She said looking up at him with her bright green eyes.

Kaladin carried Emery to her cabin, and couldn't help but smile when she fell asleep. When they reached her cabin, she slid out of his arms but was still leaning uo against him. "You're welcome." He said softly, and kissed her forehead. "Am- Am I allowed in?" He asked awkwardly, pointing at the door. He didn't want to impose in case she had decided against him slending the night or something. He also wanted to make sure  to ask permission before entering the building. It was an old custom, but spoke through many generations.

She looked up at Kaladin, “You can come in, and it’s just going to be me.” Emery snuggled deeper into his embrace for a moment before disentangling herself from his grasp and moving over to her bed, pulling off her converse and massaging her forehead. Her brain was becoming rather sleep befuddled as she scooted over in case Kaladin wanted to come and sit next to her. Emery stretched out on her bed and moved over to the side some, pulling her pillow to her chest.

“Come on, I don’t bite.” 

Emery had fallen asleep in a matter of seconds, still fully clothed. Her cheek rested on the bunched up pillow and her arm covering her eyes. Her chest rose and fell with a calm steady breathing, hair fanned about, and an empty gap next to her.  Emerson’s face had relaxed and she seemed years younger without a ton of stress that usually came from living her life. She was naturally on her side, facing Kal.