The ship, thankfully is unmolested save where the zu tore at the engines, and unlike that one time near Nidavellir, it isn't crawling with goblins. The sound of the daemon fighting still echoes through the forest, and it's with a certain amount of relief that Ardyn heaves open the door.
The interior is a little small, yes, and still smells faintly of ozone thanks to the engine malfunction - but it's a damn sight safer than the outside world right now. Gilgamesh heaves the hatch closed and throws the bolt home while Ardyn runs through an abbreviated power cycle. There's a moment where he holds his breath as the core whines - but it soon settles into the steady thrum of a happy engine, and the lights brighten up.
There's a thunk as Gil discards his breastplate, and his bodyguard slumps into a chair, long legs eating up the precious deckspace. Ardyn shrugs out of his over-robe, and roughly folding it, nestles the baby onto the table. Under the lights it's far more obvious how advanced the infection is. The swaddling cloth is filthy, but it's equal parts waste and miasma.
It's also a boy, for what it's worth. Likely a total orphan by now.
Ardyn breathes in, breathes out, and feels for the swell of the scourge within the infant's tiny body. Gil moves, brushing past him and into the cockpit proper. He lets it fade away, and resting his hands on the infant's body, pulls.
The slide of starscourge moving into his body feels... wrong. It's alien, awful, and he wants to be sick. The baby trembles under his spasming hands, and then - then finally it's over, and the baby wails, high and hungry.
It's four steps to the basin and then Ardyn's heaving, bringing up oily, viscous bile that clings to the inside of his throat and mouth. He can barely breathe - it feels like his whole body is congested with the miasm, spilling out of him through his eyes, his nose, his mouth--
Then there are strong arms holding up his sagging body, a hand rubbing at his back. It's soothing, even though he's tearing up from not being able to fucking breathe -
And then it's over.
He coughs wetly, spits, trying to clear the foul slick from his mouth. The sounds filter back in - the baby wailing, the low hum of the engine. Gil's humming, a soldier's hymn he learned from Gentiana. Ardyn fumbles for the tap, twists it on, flushing away the evidence even though he's fairly certain Gil has seen it, seen the blackness he just vomited up.
But Gilgamesh keeps humming the hymn, gently brushing wine-dark strands of hair away from his sweating forehead as Ardyn watches the miasm evaporate in the light like so much mist, burned away by a dawning sun. The tension drains out of him, and he slumps down against the basin.
Gil reaches up and around, turning off the tap. The baby's wails have subsided into hiccoughs. A Healer's work never truly ends, it seems.
The baby is cleaned, and after some quietly heated discussion, is tucked in Ardyn's (spare, not as nice) robes, skin-to-skin. After they've figured out a nappy, at least. Ardyn will pull Ifrit's plague from all and sundry, but he draws the line at being peed on.
"This doesn't bode well for Morskangr." Gil says, from where he's gnawing at a ration bar. Ardyn lets his head flop back against the ship's wall and only winces a bit at the thud.
"I thought that this close to the rift would be safe." He could feel the energies emanating from what was once Taelpar's verdant hilly forests even miles away, but apparently even the lingering magic of the Astrals couldn't prevent the spread of daemons.
Taelpar itself had been completely obliterated in a single night when Bahamut had rained destruction upon Titan's favoured, a stunning move that even Ardyn wouldn't have believed unless he'd personally seen swords larger than even Oskorpnir's tallest towers rain down upon the land and carve out a permanent scar.
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pt3 cw emeto
The interior is a little small, yes, and still smells faintly of ozone thanks to the engine malfunction - but it's a damn sight safer than the outside world right now. Gilgamesh heaves the hatch closed and throws the bolt home while Ardyn runs through an abbreviated power cycle. There's a moment where he holds his breath as the core whines - but it soon settles into the steady thrum of a happy engine, and the lights brighten up.
There's a thunk as Gil discards his breastplate, and his bodyguard slumps into a chair, long legs eating up the precious deckspace. Ardyn shrugs out of his over-robe, and roughly folding it, nestles the baby onto the table. Under the lights it's far more obvious how advanced the infection is. The swaddling cloth is filthy, but it's equal parts waste and miasma.
It's also a boy, for what it's worth. Likely a total orphan by now.
Ardyn breathes in, breathes out, and feels for the swell of the scourge within the infant's tiny body. Gil moves, brushing past him and into the cockpit proper. He lets it fade away, and resting his hands on the infant's body, pulls.
The slide of starscourge moving into his body feels... wrong. It's alien, awful, and he wants to be sick. The baby trembles under his spasming hands, and then - then finally it's over, and the baby wails, high and hungry.
It's four steps to the basin and then Ardyn's heaving, bringing up oily, viscous bile that clings to the inside of his throat and mouth. He can barely breathe - it feels like his whole body is congested with the miasm, spilling out of him through his eyes, his nose, his mouth--
Then there are strong arms holding up his sagging body, a hand rubbing at his back. It's soothing, even though he's tearing up from not being able to fucking breathe -
And then it's over.
He coughs wetly, spits, trying to clear the foul slick from his mouth. The sounds filter back in - the baby wailing, the low hum of the engine. Gil's humming, a soldier's hymn he learned from Gentiana. Ardyn fumbles for the tap, twists it on, flushing away the evidence even though he's fairly certain Gil has seen it, seen the blackness he just vomited up.
But Gilgamesh keeps humming the hymn, gently brushing wine-dark strands of hair away from his sweating forehead as Ardyn watches the miasm evaporate in the light like so much mist, burned away by a dawning sun. The tension drains out of him, and he slumps down against the basin.
Gil reaches up and around, turning off the tap. The baby's wails have subsided into hiccoughs. A Healer's work never truly ends, it seems.
pt4
"This doesn't bode well for Morskangr." Gil says, from where he's gnawing at a ration bar. Ardyn lets his head flop back against the ship's wall and only winces a bit at the thud.
"I thought that this close to the rift would be safe." He could feel the energies emanating from what was once Taelpar's verdant hilly forests even miles away, but apparently even the lingering magic of the Astrals couldn't prevent the spread of daemons.
Taelpar itself had been completely obliterated in a single night when Bahamut had rained destruction upon Titan's favoured, a stunning move that even Ardyn wouldn't have believed unless he'd personally seen swords larger than even Oskorpnir's tallest towers rain down upon the land and carve out a permanent scar.