Bloody Arrival (Talisa)

[Tobias Snow]

Madness, that was what this ill forsaken journey was. Nothing but one mess after another, most of the tools he had taken had been stolen or broken. Yet still he had managed to pilfer a Donkey from a luckless Farmer who might have still been chasing the foolish young Smith had he now menaced the old man with his pair of gleaming Swords. He should have never gotten atop the foul creature though. Oh sure he had seen the attack on Winterfell and he was sure that someone might have escaped but he had also witnessed the so called execution and frankly he had seen his cousins often enough running around hither and thither with their late lord father that it was hard to believe those children were the heirs to house Stark.

Yet it was fear that screamed upon him to flee the village... So he had, gathering up what little he had, hammers and anvils and anything unable to be carried was left hidden within the secret places of his grandfathers home. He had a small pack with a few little things. His swords and his woolen cloak. His apron and a few shoes if he was given a chance to horse a shoe or sell what wares he had upon him to make his trip easier. He had lacked a wagon and had he had one would the soldiers have let their blacksmith turn craven and flee from the village.

So it was that after endless days and nights of running, and stealing and otherwise being a horrendous miscreant bent only on getting to some place that might be safe. He some how ended up worse off. Though he had no idea how he had managed to get to where he was alive or for that matter where he actually was as the Ass he happened to be mounted upon decided that it wanted to wonder on its own path despite the man upon it trying to force it to stay upon the muddy path that might have been a road. He could feel the cut on his side bound with a piece of what remained of his tattered and tore cloak twinge leaving him to not see the branch that just happened to be low enough to catch him and lay him sprawling on his back on a pile of what he hoped with simply mud. His swords lay at either hip in their simple scabbards and he was slightly sure that the Donkey had ran into the tree on purpose just to supplant its supposed master. Forcing himself to his feet he pondered again just gutting and eating the thing if not for his lack of ability to hunt... or fish or even apparently gather a berry on his own as he stumbled hungry and thirsty into a person that he could have sworn had not been there not a minute before...

Then their was that rumbling cramp again, the painful nausea of hunger that had him falling as blackness and pain rippled up through him. He was hardly sure if it was death he found but if it was it hurt as annoyingly as life had been and he wished he would be thrown into the fires of a forge to end that horrible pain again. He truly wished he had been near fire then he could have healed his cut with flame then he would not be in such horrible straits. Yet their was nothing to be said of it nothing to be done but let it all end...

[Deleted]

Screams had become her lullaby, a lament of the damned and soon to be rotting corpses. Agonized cries of pain and half mad ramblings for loved ones lost. Pleadings, whimpers, whines, tears, screams, bellowed curses and mumbled prayers had become her life. Rows and rows of the dying, injured, and perhaps even some dead lay before her. A scattered handful of medics did their best to attend them, Talisa was among them. Amputations, crude stitches, antibiotics and pain relief given in the form of mashed plant life. She smelled of herbs, blood, and death. Worse than most of the soldiers she would imagine. The soldiers called them angels, bringers of peace and of relief, whether from pain or life itself they did their best to treat the damned. She did not feel like such a divine creature, her hand instinctively trailed to the small pouch that hung at her side. It was bulging and jingled with every step she took. It was overflowing with wedding bands, ones that she gave the messengers that came and went to take home to the deceased families. It seemed they were more than bringers of death than of life. It was heartbreaking how many lives war destroyed.

It was a new day, a new dawn. She had gotten little sleep but she grew accustomed to the dwindling hours of rest. She laced up her boots, ready and willing to dive amongst the chaos and find new men to add to the ever growing number of bodies. They were running out of supplies, they would need to send for more. She made herself a mental note to speak with Robb about when the next supply caravan was coming in.

Bloodied fingers gripped at her dress, the man attempting and failing to sit up, his words coming in gasping stutters, she had just finished stitched the length of his torso. Gutted from collar to hip bone. The poor lad was a mess and by the youth of his face she would say just barely above sixteen. He shouldn't be here in this field of mayhem and death, he should be at home with his family, his parents. he clung to her as she moved to stand, his eyes desperate and pleading, panic and blown wide in terror. "D-don't leave. I don't...to die alone." He coughed out, face as pale as a ghost as he struggled to grate out even a few disjointed words. Lovingly, she brushed the hair back and away from his eyes, her lips spinning a perfect lie.

"You won't die here, you'll recover from your injury, return home as a hero and have a wonderful scar to brag to your friends about. Women will be falling over their feet in an effort to reach your side." he wouldn't survive. She knew that. He had lost too much blood, all she could do was give him the comfort to die peacefully. She pulled a few sage leaves from her pouch, grinding them up and lifting his head for him to swallow. "Try to get some rest, I won't go far, I promise." That at least, was truthful. She never left her patients alone for long. His death grip upon her dress loosened and reluctantly he fell into a fevered sleep.

The rest were doing well enough that they did not require her immediate attention. The other nurses were attending to their own patients, it was difficult when there were so many and so few of them. She sighed softly and stepped outside the rows of the injured. Her eyes fell upon a starry eyed donkey who appeared a bit disgruntled. Whatever was the creature doing here? A flicker of movement caught her attention and a figure drenched in black and obviously injured, immediately had her darting forward. She wasted no time in trivial introductions, she slid an arm around his waist and tried to lower him back to the ground.

"Please, my name is Talisa, I'm a medic. Let me see your injury, let me help you." Her words were soft and gentle, willing him to obey. Where had he come from and why was he here? It mattered little, for now she needed to tend to his wounds.

[Tobias Snow]

He felt something, though he was hardly certain as to what between the pain of his various wounds, the blisters broken upon his feet beneath his boots. The Cut on his side, that he was uncertain as to when he had gained. Not to mention the hunger of not having eaten properly since he was home. His cloak was dirt stained and dark from sweat and mud. His skin face scratched and once thick northern clothing in tatters. He had no idea as to what had happened since leaving his home, or even who now held the place up there only that while he was a Stark by blood he was a bastard... and he had seen what they had done... Yet he was so tired and he had no idea as to where the here was.

His wound burned at his side and dragged at him with each step even with him trying to keep the wrap bound and pressure upon the wound that had cut it open. It was the voice that stunned him, something about it making him want to listen and not flinch a protective presence that brokered no denial. She asked to see the wound and yet something about her tone made him let her see it. He let her lower him to the ground, the sodden mass of earth and mud even as he gritted his teeth to the pain. He had lived with burns and scrapes and cuts all of his life with his work but somehow he felt physically worse than he ever had.

Forcing himself out of the cloak to let her see the wound revealed the bracers on either arm. Of his own design the steel on the leather that wrapped it around his Arm was in the shape of a Wolf's head. It was simple and plain and yet it was unmistakable to anyone as anything but the Sigil of the house Stark. He had made them as his personal pride and joy... Eventually he had planned on making a full set of armor to prove he was a master smith... yet that day had not yet come.

He wished for words but he had nothing to say and he was so tired that all he wished to do was sleep. Why was it that he had ran from home again... their was a purpose he could swear it and yet he could not remember what that purpose was. It was probably the tiredness and the pain. He could almost feel the stick wetness of the blood against the cloth wrapping that coiled around his waist in the hopes to control the loss of the liquid of his life.

“Names Tobias Snow...,”

He managed to mutter before blessed sleep managed to take him...

[Deleted]

Talisa knew neither friend nor foe, only the field of medicine. If they were wounded and screaming for mercy or help, she would be there. Did it matter whose banner they carried? Did not all men have wives and families back at home? Surely someone would mourn a name etched into stone, she could not bear the sight of another's suffering. It wounded her, more than she cared to admit and probably more than was healthy. She did her best to treat most everyone, regardless of their stature or colors. The wounded man before her, he was treading through deaths doors and Talisa did not think twice about rushing to his aide.

She caught him, or at least tried to lessen the fall as he slumped into her, managing to grate out his name before he fell to dead weight within her grasp. She grunted, falling to her knees as she took his considerable weight She pulled the material and the bandages from his torso so she could better assess the wound. It was old and had been allowed free reign to fester. Infection settled within it and she wasn't sure she had the stock to treat it.

"Marian!" She called for another nurse, first things first, she needed to get him to a cot where she could treat him, hopefully without further risk of contaminating the wound. The woman appeared quickly, nodding as she grabbed the man's legs. Together they carried him among the rest of wounded and quickly Talisa set to work. Using a hunting knife bathed in crushed lavender, she removed what she could from the necrotic tissue. Packing the wound with a mixture of Garlic and lavender, hopefully to keep any more infection from the wound, she sutured his flesh.

She redressed the wound, bounding him tightly in bandages and pulling his shirt back down over his head. She sighed softly, rocking back onto the balls of her feet. She had done all she was able and only time would determine if he would wake up a second time. She rested the back of her hand against his forehead and tested for a fever, it was slight but not horrible. She wrung a damp cloth in the water basin and laid it over his head, it was the best she could do, for now.

[Tobias Snow]

Darkness wrapped around the tired man as he lingered their in a deep and lightly fevered sleep. He knew not of what was happening around himself as he lay. Yet time trickled past and and pain became a thing forgotten as he lingered their on Deaths door. His eyes seeing his mother on her death bed but a few years past and his grandfather not a year before. Empty eyes staring at him as he stood without a hammer staring at them. He was a smith, what was he doing running around the country side. He could not remember, and he was so tired so he slept on, not knowing of the work happening to him, the wounds being closed by needle and herb as he lingered within his own mind looking at the figments of his past, his memories. Of his grandfather looking at his Swords and claiming that they were at least as good as Castle Forged steel.

In time though the man woke, he was hardly sure of the time as he seemed to be within a tent of thick canvas, a cloth was damp and draped over his forehead, his tattered shirt remained upon him with the blood stains upon the cloth even as he realized that the blood was no longer wet. His gauntlets still glittered on his arms and he cast out for the pair of short swords he had been wearing. Yet sitting up was painful and left him wracked with pain as he fell back touching his side, he wondered if he had done anything to break the wound open again with his movements.

“Anybody awake around here?”

he called as loudly as he was able to do from laying on the small camp cot that kept him above the sodden mud on the ground. He was sure their was the tint of blood and death swirling about in the air as he breathed, as he stomach heaved for a moment only to find nothing to push from his body as it lead to nothing. It was horrible and he decided that he needed to just go back home, once he knew where he was and how to return at least. If the people that had him would let him go.

[Deleted]

It took the man several hours to come around a second time... not that Talisa minded, she had a thousand soldiers to tend to and that number was growing with every passing day. She didn't have enough hands, she didn't have enough medicine, bandages, supplies, it was all she could do to keep these men breathing, the longer they slept peacefully, the less stress she obtained. She buzzed for cot to cot, tending, cleaning, bandaging, suturing, offering poultices, remedies, anything and everything she could, but she was only one woman, she could only do so much. When finally his eyes opened, and he called out to someone, anyone, his voice a hoarse shout, she was fast to attend him.

Talisa crouched down beside him, hushing noises escaping her quickly. The sun was beginning to dip from the sky, more of the wounded were pouring in, some in dire straits, others with minor cuts and bruises, but her company from the night before had just drifted off and she needed him to be still, and be silent, if not for his own injuries, than for the rest of her patients. She loosened the bandages around his torso, checking the injury, it was bleeding, but not horribly, he hadn't ripped the stitches... thank God.

"Relax, calm down. My name is Talisa." She spoke with gentle softness as she rebandaged his flesh. Winding the white bindings tight, to keep the muscles from moving too freely, she moved as gently as she was able but she knew it wouldn't be enough, Wounds were painful and she didn't have enough for everyone, she needed her pain meds for those who needed amputations, removing bullets. " "You are in the camp of Robb Stark's army. You will be safe beneath my care, I swear upon it. Where have you come from and how have you obtained such a nasty injury?"

[Tobias Snow]

No person could move faster than light or sound, oh sure the lady arrived to use pain filled scream quick enough, but then Tobias for all his stubbornness was hardly a fool. He had known that he had a wound in his side and it was more the reality of not knowing where he was that had driven him to try and stand. So why would he fight the woman that had, well he had no idea as to what this woman had done for him or for that matter to him. So that was the question then, where was he and why was he there? The woman, was unique a beauty and air of command seemed to wrap around her though not like a king's no hers was more subtle one knowledgeable in their craft. To him it was a look in her eyes, the way they looked upon him much as his grandfather would gaze upon worked steel to judge the blade or shoe as worthy of use or not or whether the apprentice had to try yet again to find that hard to find perfection.

"Relax, calm down. My name is Talisa. You are in the camp of Robb Stark's army. You will be safe beneath my care, I swear upon it. Where have you come from and how have you obtained such a nasty injury?"

He had seen, with her coming the sun fading from the sky, even as her hands moved to check his wounds, yet after his abrupt rise from unconsciousness he treated the pains much as he would any burn from the forge. Though in his defense a burn tended to hurt for longer than a cut, yet this was no ordinary cut. Of course he was as likely to burn a wound shut as he was to let a healer sew him into one piece again.

“Truthfully, between fear to sleep and running all this way from home, I can hardly remember how I managed to collect the scratches... The Burn Scars... those I remember, my grandfather told me to remember those for each was a lesson learned of what not to do in a smiths forge...”

He replied rather simply as she checked and redressed his wound. He felt no slackening to the pain, so he would simply have to live with it for the moment. It would do no good to scurry from the tent of his cousins healers anyway... he had been looking for his cousin after all... though he was hardly sure as to why he was looking for him any more. Blame a man for being crazy if you like, but words meant nothing at times, especially in times of war, for all he knew this was a trick to figure him out and who he was. Heal the guy who fell off the donkey figure out what he knows and then kill him once he is no longer useful.

“Pardon, me for asking, Lady... Though times are rather dangerous and it seems my swords are no longer upon my body, so I wonder what proof you wish to offer me that this is Robb Starks camp... and not a Lannister one parading about as the other to fool the wandering soldier into spilling secrets best kept in camp?”