[Saahs]

It didn't seem like Knox was entirely interested on the topic of his most latest piloting stunt. "During your second on-hands training day your team ran into an uncharted storm."

How does he... Laz subconsciously leaned away from Knox, only just enough to be barely noticeable, but enough nonetheless. His gut clenched in anticipation, but the other man didn't react to his blatant perturbance. With no response to bounce off of, he found himself blurting out, "Ho-o-ow did you hear of that that's classifie--"

"Records of you calling over the com systems concerning an airborne abnormality," Knox resumed, his voice so quiet yet harsh enough to catch Laz' attention. Aggravated him, too. The man looked over at him, having yet more to say. "The first call you sent was over an hour before anyone else reported similar."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

Lazarus scrunched his nose in disdain. "...Yes. I," he started and quickly finished. His eyes averted themselves from Knox's.

Which only encouraged the significantly taller man to persist, though nothing of his mannerisms changed. "Why is it that you noticed the storm so long before the tools made specifically to detect storms before they can be a danger?"

He could feel two stupidly blank eyes burrowing into him. Nothing spilled from his lips for, hopefully, long enough to get on the bastard's nerves. "I'm sensitive to stuff," he attempted, "If something's, about to go haywire, I can usually tell." It wasn't an outright lie; he mentally kept his fingers crossed that it would be an answer enough for Knox.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

A quiet hum came from Knox, and he turned the object in his hand over a few times before saying anything else. "The wording of your calls," he droned, "made it sound like you could tell it was a storm." His eyes flicked back to Lazarus just when he thought it'd be safe to look in his direction again. "What made you think there was a storm ahead?"

He couldn't help but sit a little more upright as his haughtiness reared its ugly head again. "I think given that it was a storm that 'think' is a bit of a weak term in this case, wouldn't you sa--"

"How did you know there was a storm ahead, Lazarus jen Thelvario?"

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

The crooked smirk that had started to pinprick at the corner of Lazarus' mouth twitched into a frown. This man knew far more about him than he thought. Oh no. Oh, gods this was not going to end well. "I... I am to assume that I... cannot get out of answering these questions in truth and full, am I?"

Knox shrugged slightly. "An answer is an answer," he said. "But what your answers are will not be disregarded. So consider these answers."

That... did not help him determine whether telling the truth would bring him closer to a horrible death than farther. He licked his lips and lowered his gaze to the fake leg still in his lap. "I... don't know if I can right now," he admitted. "Right now. I, I need time to think. Rest."

A deep breath in that was sighed out as, "I have had a long day, I'm sure you can understand." He smiled dryly to his new friend.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

That seemed to poke some sort of nerve in Knox, if the slight turn of his head in Laz' direction followed by a deep and belated breath of air. "Very well. You are not to leave this building without my accompaniment."

Of course he wasn't.

"Otherwise, do as needed to regain your strength. You have until midday tomorrow to recover and prepare to travel on foot."

Oh, for the love of-- "Travel, what, travel where, I agreed to listen to you blather on and answer your bloody questions, I agreed to no such thing as travelling with some pseudo-military do--"

BANG.

Stars filled his vision, and dissipated into colourful static that tingled in his brow. The tingling quickly started to hurt as his brow ridge and forehead was pressed hard into the dusty table. A hand pushed uncomfortably tight against the back of where his neck and head met.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

Lazarus keened in pain through his teeth and shot a glare up at Knox, now looming over him with as blank a face as could be. "There was no agreement made on you coming with me. You will be coming with me, regardless of whether you agree to do so or not."

Try as he may to struggle, his hands were merely pulled back and held firm against his spine. "Not very good at keeping things civil are we, friend?" he sneered. "May I at least know whether I should be steeling myself for some honourless execution staged behind an abandoned factory, or something else? Worse?"

When he looked back up at Knox, he was eyed in kind. "We will have to see. In the meantime--" Laz' one foot was knocked out from under him.

"Nghauh--" His shoulders and face slid off the table as the rest of him crumpled to the floor unceremoniously. He glared up at Knox once more.

Knox stared back. "Be mindful of yourself. The path I have to offer you is better than what else awaits you."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

His face contorted into a hateful scowl, and he held eye contact with Knox as he pulled himself back to his foot with one hand gripping the table, and the other lifting his leg back into his arm. "Fine," he muttered. "Whatever the hell it is you want from me I hope it was worth pissing me off this much."

His hips turned and landed him back in the chair. As he worked his leg back into place, his eyes occasionally shot more daggers into Knox. Who of course had yet to move or do anything that hinted to him actually being a living person. Lazarus was pretty sure he was being kidnapped by an automaton right now. He stashed as much of his supplies in his arms as he could, toted it off into the one bedroom, then came back to do the same with the rest.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

Lazarus nudged the door with his foot so it was almost closed behind him. His arms crossed over his chest as he looked over his current inventory of... old stuff. Most of it was set on the nightstand, with the only other safe looking surface to lay anything on being the windowsill next to it also stacked with salvaged objects. ...Now that he was a little less frantic, a lot of the things he'd grabbed were not going to be of much use in cleaning up his wounds.

His lips pressed into a thin line, and he huffed. Where to begin. Okay. Limping over to the bed, he pulled the ancient mound of blankets hiding it aside. Thank the stars, the be itself wasn't nearly as scary as the shit that covered it. With a little more semblance of privacy to trick himself with and another place to lay his effects, he got to stripping off his armour.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

His leather jerkin, spaulders, and gauntlets were chucked into a corner of the now bare bed, and he worked the padded tunic's fastens open and shrugged that off next. It landed right where he wanted to on top of the other armour pieces when he tossed it. His undershirt he didn't take off right away, instead looking down at himself and plucking at the tears in its fabric. There were a lot of them.

That was a lot of bullets that had done nothing but grazed him. A lot of bullets that were literal centimetres from killing him. His hand wandered up to graze the crown of his head-- only to recoil back from the sudden sting the faint contact incited. "Shit..?"

With a quiet, quivering sigh, he shimmied out of the still drenched undershirt and tossed that on top of the pile as well.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

It didn't take long to inspect the cuts on his arms and torso. Not much damage had been done there at all. A part of him didn't want to check his head. Sure he seemed fine now, but what if it was way worse than it looked? Head injuries were no laughing matter (and it rubbed him quite the wrong way that Knox had bashed his head so with the injury he had and all), and-- despite it working no differently than usual so far?

It felt like the stinging stretched low enough that his third eye could be affected by the cut. It truly depended on how deep the damn thing was, and he really, really didn't want to his end to be spent in a musty old hut in the middle of the godsdamn Tengel fucking Rainforest where no one but some pseudo-soldier who had to be a cultist android or something--

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

His fingertips traced the length of the cut running across his scalp. It indeed barely missed the edge of his third eye socket, running from slightly above his eyebrow and just to the socket's left; up beyond his hairline, and well along the crown of his head. It ended about half an inch behind where the inner back of his ears lined up. Just a little too long to stop right at the centre of his crown.

But it felt... shallow. No, perhaps it wasn't shallow at all? And yet the damage didn't seem to reach as far as he imagined it would, given the extent of what he'd actually sustained.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

Because it was, especially deeper in its length, a rather prominent split in his flesh. That was where the injury's effects ended. He couldn't feel exposed bone anywhere, and while he passed over plenty of blood vessels that had clearly been hewn straight open, it was scabbed over smoothly--... and he could recall spotting blood in the water when he first fell in the river, but it stopped showing up as much after a while and it never crossed his mind until much later.

This... probably should have killed me, he realised with a light and sing-song hum. A soft titter began to lilt from his lips, gaining in pitch until he was doing nothing but wheezing. And then it became a brief but furious shout as his body lurched.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

His metal foot curbstomped itself into the wall several inches off the floor. Crunch.

Lazarus gawked at the crater his ankle was now lodged in, his breaths coming and going in loose shudders. Carefully, he wiggled his foot loose, and quietly went about to treating his cuts. Tears dribbled down his cheeks the whole time, but luckily, there wasn't much that needed patching up that was in his line of sight any way. He couldn't see his own head, he could get away with crying while treating the big stupid gash across it.

The monotonous movements it took to work on his injuries weren't enough to keep his mind from spiralling. And fast did it spiral. They're dead. His teeth clenched down on the inside of his lower lip and both cheeks. They're all probably dead and I'm over here, on my feet barely a scratch on me and already interesting the local nutcase club.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

By the time he'd finished cleaning himself up and put everything away, he was sobbing hard but quietly; barely a sound made but the force of each hiccup enough to make him teeter. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. This wasn't what he'd hoped his first day in the fleet would go at all.

And now more likely than not, his entire crew was either dead or on their way to be, and he wasn't.

This wasn't how he was supposed to go.

Night snuffed out whatever remnants of light could trickle into the room, and not long after that Lazarus was dropping himself onto the side of the bed, and from there just sank onto his side. He didn't bother pulling his legs up as well. He was too tired.

Maybe in the morning he'd get a fever and die.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Saahs]

Come to think of it, maybe he did get a fever.

That following afternoon, he found himself already on a manmade road through the jungle-- along with Knox-- and with no reliable memory of the events between falling asleep and... now. His brows knit as he thought, but his pondering was interrupted as a stern voice startled him.

"Down this way. There are some things we need to do before entering town." Knox took a sharp turn to the right, marching straight off the path and into a thin break in the thicket.

Stammering, Lazarus watched him go daftly before fumbling to follow after. "Town, what, what town, Knox what town we're not going to Lamenolai, are we? Knox?"

[ 3BPs awarded ]