Chương 388: 10.8

Jewel tore up the earth of the encampment in her claws, her wings threw the winds into a tumult that flattened the less well secure of the tents, and footmen were shoved aside by her coils a couple falling to the ground in shock.. She held back only enough to ensure that the worst her men would suffer was bruises, and her head was through the flaps of Muriel's tent before she had even considered those risks. There, in the gloom was Erhard, grasping at Muriel's seizing body.

A coursing, terrible flex wracking up and down her Captain's sweat drenched body in rhythmic waves.

"Good, you came, her heart stopped beating. I am keeping the blood flowing but I am no Jaksa the Red." Jewel's words were freeing from her lips before she could even consider restraint. The flame of her heart raging out so quickly over her teeth and tongue it felt almost like it was going to immolate the world instead of shape itself into sorcery." Muriel! Shake off this curse! Rise! Breath! Live! Thrive!"

Her words struck the world and Erhard toppled back from his grip as the earth of the ground rose and fell in answer to Jewel's command. Muriel's body, sweat soaked, was breathing again, deep and even. The wane look of her cheeks was gone. The off color of her skin evening out. Flushed with life. Jewel could hear a heartbeat in Muriel's chest. The wyrm trembled up and down her length. Scales raising and lowering in shivering waves.

The roots of her mane at attention, straining where they were pressed down by the tent. The cold wind tickled her ears, the tent broken under the impact of her horns. There had been a dip in the well of her flame, but nothing like had been claimed by the world when she cursed the Waifs, or that had left her in that ill-fated court. Jewel stared down at the woman that had taught her, helped her, practically raised her and then followed her in service as her Captain.

She was refreshed, body restored not just to what she had been yesterday, but with a youth and lustre to her hair. Scars and marks and wrinkles that had built over the years were smoothed away.

"Muriel?" But had she truly been healed? Jewel whispered softly, afraid that she had failed. The woman's eyes opened, unfocused, flickered around the tent, then turned to Jewel. Focused.

"You're alright..." Jewel exhaled. The woman shifted a bit on her back, intently watching Jewel, familiar eyes following her lips as she spoke.

"That still remains to be seen Countess." Before Jewel could refute that, Muriel turned her eyes and head to stare at Erhard, with just as much intent, just as much focus. Her head turned oddly, with stops and starts, failing to shift her facing, overshooting. Then slowly steadying, tension making her shiver before finally settling. Before jerking to turn the woman's gaze up to the light of the sun through the tent. The streaks of blue revealed where Jewel's haste had torn the fabric apart.

A feeble un-coordination was there, joins seizing, muscles shaking as they worked at cross purposes, back arching, shoulders first bunching back and then pushing forward. But then the movements smoothed out, barely a stumbling squirm before Muriel was pressing herself up, bending at the waist, staring at Erhard's lumpy face like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Head twisting, neck turning at a curious slow turn that was soon added to by the shoulders, the spine, until Muriel's muscles were tensing with a contortion of her chest that her ribcage should not have sustained. The soft rumble of a furnace growling into the tent.

"When I was working to preserve some semblance of will and self control in the results of Jaksa's failure, there were times one could see them show signs of life and attention bereft of all else." Jewel felt a snarl curling her lips.

"Nonsense! She's alive! Her heart is beating strong, she can move, she-" And then Muriel, solid and dependable Muriel was staring at her, eyes wide, throat hitching, lips trembling. Tears welling up and spilling over as she made a keening choking sound. Not like sobs, not like any noise Jewel had ever heard before. But like her movements before, that awkwardness faded into smoother noises, the mouth opened with a sharp pop of mucus in her throat and the keening words warbled in a groan.

A sound that further distressed the woman as she quickly snapped her mouth closed, hard enough Jewel could hear the flesh of her tongue catching in teeth. Those eyes clenching shut and that throat grating against itself trying to make a sound. Muriel had looked terrified of Jewel, unrecognizing, completely shocked by her simply raising her voice slightly in anger.

Jewel stared at the woman struggling with herself, with the blood welling in her mouth, failing to realize to swallow or spit, simply coughing and letting it well out of her lips and sticky strings. The wyrm watched as the woman failed to keep holding herself up right in bed at first while reaching for her face. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Stumbling and folding over herself before overcoming that difficulty in the disjointed twisting writhing manner that quickly gained grace in its effort to reach with fingers up her chest, throat, neck, lips, brush, poke, feel in her own mouth, struggle with realizing she had to unclench her jaw, then finally pulling out the bitten off sliver of her own tongue held between thumb and pinky Muriel stared at the meat with rapt attention like she'd never seen it before.

Leo's presence did not draw Jewel even as he pressed his way into the tent past her neck. Looking between Jewel, shocked to utter stillness and Erhard, contemplating the blood covered woman who had earlier that day been bed ridden with fever. Blood welling up from her mouth thickens, the line dropping from her chin and pools in the blankets covering her waist. Finally, her priest snapped his fingers, drawing everyone's attention to him. Muriel's gaze shot to his fingers first, then slowly turned to his face.

Her bloodied lips twisted, puckered, then spread in a blood soaked smile that began small but was soon widened. Jewel was speechless. But Leo spoke softly.

"There, there girl, what a mess you've made of yourself. Bet that hurts yeah? Open up, let me see." He reached out to her, he pressed at the sides of her jaw with either hand, she did not respond to him, did not recoil or flinch at all, merely allow him to press and gently pry her mouth open again. Watching him, his fingers, then turning up to Jewel before quickly turning up to the bright blue of the sky past the tent. Blood poured from her mouth where she was still bleeding from her tongue.

"Erhard, gently take hold of her shoulders and hold her firmly, then seal this wound in her tongue." The wizard took hold of Muriel and there was none of the instinctive tension of the woman that should have been there. She was pliable as wet dough in two strange men's hands. The look of it made Jewel's heart clench and her insides quiver in unease, this was wrong, this was so terribly wrong.

When the Wizard healed her cut tongue Muriel's whole body tensed, she made another garbled, choking sound in her throat and more tears welled up. But she seemed to thrash without purpose, trying to pull away or move but giving up far too quickly when even meeting the slightest resistance from those that held her. After she stilled, eyes blinked slowly, before they settled on Leo. His voice still spoke softly, gently.

"I will need more time to be sure, but I believe we are already too late. She has almost certainly already departed this body." Jewel stared at the man, her voice strained, angry, but before even the first word could leave her lips Muriel recoiled, only held in place by Erhard's hands, stopped long before a proper struggle had set in.

"I've never seen a case before, but it has happened and been recorded many times. The body is made whole by a miracle, but the spirit is gone from them. Passed from mortality, leaving an empty living corpse, It is a kinder fate than the opposite, but a cruel one nonetheless." Jewel stared at the woman, who breathed, who looked around, who moved, but not how Muriel did. She was alive to every sense Jewel had.

Even the world in her flesh sang of how living they were, practically brimming with pride to have done exactly as Jewel asked for. Healthy, young, vital. Leo snapped his finger again, and the head turned smoothly this time, then back to his face, eyes intent, face moving more smoothly than before.

"In men, it's of course, a disaster. Without the spirit, the body is helpless to do the labors needed for it, in children it is more manageable, the unsouled can learn, some among the temples claim that a new soul can grow in a young enough body." He looked down at the blood that covered all of Muriel's front and blankets clinging to her body. There was a bit of heat to his words.

"With adults and women? They are sometimes kept if the family is large and rich enough to support them. Given a year they can even survive bearing children with great care." Jewel felt her flame clench. The thought of doing that to Muriel?! Even just her body!?" No" Jewel spoke the word, but it left her mouth as more than speech, a single candle flicker of white hot fire flashing in the partial shade of the tent.

Muriel flinched again from the light, Leo and Erhard were silent considering Jewel before her head priest nodded. Again his voice kept soft and gentle, in tones that Jewel finally realized was keeping the staring body of Muriel calm and complacent. The woman that had taught Jewel so much didn't even understand the words being said beyond their tone! He took a deep breath then continued, voice kept friendly, soft, gentle.

"Then the only proper thing is to put this body to rest. Even in the very young, they are feeble-willed things later in life. They often come to harm themselves or enact it on others. The tongue?" He gestured to Muriel's bloody mouth, the gesture causing the body to dip and raise its head to follow his finger.

"That's the least of the injuries the unsouled have suffered when kept past the spirit's departure. Some have drowned on their own spit. Even if they can walk they wander off and are never seen again." Jewel stared at the bloodied woman, the body of her friend? She smelled like muriel, she breathed, she looked and followed with her eyes. But where was the bright attention, the judgement, the wisdom!? Bethica's warning echoed in Jewel's memory. Of a life lived with all forgotten.

The horror of it settling down on Jewel's flames. Leo was still talking, still soothing, still keeping the living corpse's attention with gestures and tone.

"I'm not certain she has truly left entirely, however, I will need to check thoroughly. It may just be a shock to her reasoning. I can be sure by sundown at the earliest." Jewel stared at what every sense told her was still Muriel. But his words felt far too true.

"Inform me when you know." Then Jewel began the delicate operation of untangling her horns from the tent without dropping the whole thing upon the two men tending to what was left of her friend. The fire in her chest desperately keening to escape.