Ana shrieks as her body crashes through the thick forest canopy and plummets towards the ground. She tries to grab hold of whatever she can, but the sticks, leaves, and branches evade her every grasp. Before she even has the chance to think, she's already shot past everything within arm's reach.

She screams, and she falls—

“Ana!” Blake shouts, his hand outstretched towards her.

The ground—no, the roof of a circular hut—is rapidly approaching, and she strains, stretches out her arm as far as it can go. Her first, second, third attempt fails and she's not going to make it, she's not going to reach him in time—

He grabs her hand, yanks her to his broad chest, flips them around and holds her tight as they—crash! They shout, cling to one another as the wood and cloth of the hut roof explode around them. Torn fabric, dust and splintered wood rain from the sky as their bodies slam into the rudimentary wooden floor and fling apart.

Something snaps—Blake screams until he slams into a crate along the opposite wall, the wind knocked from his lungs. Ana barely manages to cover her head before she crashes into a stacked pile of crudely cut logs on the other side. Dust explodes around her and within seconds, she's buried under the timber pile.

Ana hears her boyfriend groaning in pain on the opposite side of the room. Her whole body trembles, muscles screaming, as she attempts to push her way out of the log pile. Her lungs ache with every breath, with every cough caused by the settling dust.

The logs tumble away from her back in what feels like one piece at a time. By some kind of literal miracle, they survived.

She weakly pushes herself onto her knees and drags herself free from the log pile. Her lungs cry out in pain as she coughs herself hoarse on the resulting sawdust. Her body collapses just beyond the settling logs—she needs a moment to breathe.

In. Out. She trembles through every breath. Her lungs are on fire.

“Bl–” Ana enters into another coughing fit. After a long moment of struggling to breathe, she tries again, “Blake?”

His groan is guttural.

“O–Over here,” he replies after a long beat, his voice barely audible in the silent room, “You—you okay?”

Ana drags herself towards him, one agonising movement at a time. Her limbs—her whole body aches from scrapes and scratches. Her left wrist screams when she puts too much pressure on it. Her muscles tremble with every crawled step. Even her throat hurts when she tries to swallow the pain.

“Yeah,” she replies, unable to hide the rasp in her tone, "I'm okay. You—"

She freezes—her eyes locked onto the steady flow of blood dripping down Blake's face, pooling behind his head on the floor. His right arm is twisted at an almost grotesque angle, but the lack of blood seeping through his sleeve at least gives Ana hope that the bone hasn't broken through his skin.

Her eyes blur with tears—she blinks them away. Now is not the time.

"Blake," she starts cautiously, dragging herself the final few feet to his side, "You're bleeding."

He closes his eyes and hums in response.

Blake's already pale skin is an almost pallid shade of grey in comparison to Ana's light brown fingertips. She gently brushes aside his bangs to get a better look at the wound—her fingertips tremble against his face. She knows head wounds always look a lot worse than they are due to the increased amount of blood vessels near the scalp. She knows this.

But it still—it looks bad.

It looks really bad—she needs to stop the bleeding. Her eyes dart around the room, landing on the various pieces of torn cloth from the ceiling—no. Bad idea. He needs something safe, something that won't come with an immediate risk of infection.... she grabs her shoulder bag and swings it into her lap, flipping open the lid to rifle through it.

Phone... sunglasses... hand sanitiser... pepper spray... no, no, no—the first aid kit was in Allen's hiking pack, wasn't it? She deeply resists the urge to curse, her brows pinched in frustration.

"Ana?" Blake groans, the fingertips of his good arm grazing the hand clutching the outside of her bag, "What's wrong?"

Ana forces out a long, trembling breath—her lips resisting the smile on her face as she gently laces their fingertips together, "I'm just... really glad you're okay."

She pulls the hand sanitiser out of her bag, and gives Blake's fingertips a gentle squeeze before she lets him go. There's only one thing in this room that she trusts enough to be relatively okay with using as a temporary bandage—she puts the hand sanitiser aside and begins to tear at the hem of her skirt.

Blake's eyes go wide—he slaps his good hand over her own—she flinches and freezes in place.

"Wha–?"

“Whoa, hey—what are you doing?” he asks, a dash of panic in his tone.

She resists the urge to slap his hands away; "Blake, you're bleeding. This is the closest thing we have to a sterile bandage right now.”

Ana goes to tear her skirt again—his hand doesn't budge.

“Blake.”

“Use my coat,” he pleads, weakly shuffling aside to free the fabric from under his back—he's not very successful.

Ana frowns, giving him a look, "Blake, it's just a skirt. I'm only going to tear off enough to make a bandage."

"That's not the point, Annie," Blake replies, returning her look with one of his own, "I just don't want you to—" he stops—he sighs, "Can't you please just use the coat?"

“But you love that coat—"

“Please,” he implores with a gentle squeeze of Ana's hands, "Not your skirt.”

They stare at one another for a long beat as blood steadily trickles down the side of Blake's face.

Ana sighs. His gaze is firm—he won't change his mind about this. Even bleeding out onto a derelict wooden floor, her boyfriend remains as stubborn as ever. She nods, a silent agreement to use his coat instead.

Blake withdraws his hand with a thankful smile. He tries shifting to give her better access to his coat— "Ah—ow, sh—my arm."

"Blake—!"

"I'm okay! I'm okay, just—" he grunts, his face contorting through the pain of jostling his broken arm, "Yeah. Can you—?"

Ana holds him steady with a trembling hand while she tugs at the base of the tan coat hidden beneath his back, "Already on it. Just... I'm gonna tug it out on three, alright?"

Beads of sweat have already formed on Blake's brow, and his breathing is heavy; pained. He nods, sharp and short. His good hand is visibly trembling by his side.

Ana takes a deep, stuttering breath herself. She's trained for this. She needs to focus—to treat Blake less like a partner and more like a patient. She can do this. She has to.

"Three... two... one..." She yanks the fabric out from under his back—it jostles his arm.

"Ow—fuck!"

"Blake."

“My arm’s broken—let me fucking swear!” Blake snaps—he stops, winces, and softens his tone, “Sorry. I’m sorry, I didn't mean to—Ow, Christ. Hell in a handbasket."

Ana rearranges the coat's hem so that she can tear off a piece without jostling his arm again. She stops—frowns, "It's fine—did you bring your lucky lighter with you?"

"Wha–? On the hike?" Blake asks; he sounds confused.

Ana nods, "Yeah, did you bring it?"

"Uh," he furrows his brow, eyes blinking rapidly as he tries to think, "Not sure. I can't—My head hurts; I can't remember."

Ana touches his unbloodied cheek with trembling fingertips, "It's okay. Don't worry about it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she reassures him with a wry smile—she then brings the hem of Blake's coat to her mouth instead, "I can improvise. Now hold still—these fancy fabrics aren't the, uh, easiest to rip."

Blake chuckles—his throat seizes and he breaks out into a short, sharp coughing fit. His lips twist into a pained grimace and he groans. He offers her a weak thumbs-up from his good arm to give her the green light. Ana can’t help but giggle in response, mindful of the ache in her lungs. She can worry about herself later.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, then she bites down into the small tear already present in the jacket's fabric and begins to rip. 

───※ ·❆· ※───

“--odien. Godien!”

Godien gasps awake, eyes snapping open to see— "Ow—Blast!" He slams them shut again, curling in on himself because good Gods, his eyes are on fire—he makes a noise that's definitely not a whimper and covers them with his hands.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Father Faolan soothes, his tone as gentle as the hand rubbing circles on the prince’s back.

Godien resists the urge to scoff or make a sarcastic remark. His eyes hurt, his hand hurts, he's sopping wet and he’s cold. He’d bet that his cheeks are even covered in a mess of ugly gold smudges thanks to the holy water dripping past his face—on what plane would he possibly be okay?

“Breathe, Firelight.”

Godien’s eyelid twitches, but nevertheless he tries his best to breathe in, out. He even tries to open his eyes—nope, bad idea, ow. Why does everything around him have to be so bright?

He feels someone move his body into a sitting position, his wet hair slapping against his cheeks as he gets into a proper seating position. He grimaces—eugh.

“Ugh... what happened?” he croaks, trying to shove an annoying strand of wet hair behind his lower left horn—it doesn't work. He pulls a face as it smacks right back into his nose with a wet plap.

“That’s what I would like to ask you,” the Holy Father replies.

Godien freezes. Right. Yes. That. He furrows his brow—nausea spins in his gut as he tries to think about that stupid glowing rock and what—oh. Oh no. The pain in his hand throbs, and he instinctively hides it behind his back.

He opens his mouth to say something, anything—

“Your Holiness," a new voice speaks up in an apologetic tone, “Please forgive me, but I could not locate the Saint."

Godien quietly shuts his mouth as the Holy Father releases a deep, tired sigh.

“I’ll retrieve him,” Father Faolan replies, removing his hand from Godien's back, "Please take care of his highness until my return—and Godien?"

Godien squints just enough to see the stern look the Holy Father sends his way before the pain becomes too much and he has to close them again.

“Yes?”

“Don't move," Father Faolan states—no, orders, “We will discuss… all of this,” he gestures to the room at large, "once you have been seen to by the Saint. To say that I am... disappointed in you at the moment… is an understatement.”

Godien swallows nervously—he's unsure if it's sweat or holy water dripping past his brow. It could be either. It could be both. It doesn't matter. The sound of Father Faolan's footsteps leaving the room has him shivering. It's either that or the cold. Not that it matters either.

Oh, Gods.

He’s doomed.