Naois could barely go on, his concentration was great, it was what kept him going so far, but his endurance was depleting swiftly. He stumbled and fell, but managed to rise from the dust. The ashamed angel pulled on, despite pain and suffering.

He finally reached the sanctuary and seeing it only made him begin to cry once more. He was so ashamed, so disappointed in himself. His grief for the poor souls that the wraith would harm was overwhelming him. He couldn't take it no longer and collapsed, his blood still pouring from his wounds.

(Prior topic)

Ayumi sat high up in one of the tree's by the outskirts of the city, her bow in hand. She watched the angel stagger towards to city crying, not quite understanding the situation before her. She let out a light gasp when he stumbled, seeing the wounds on his back. What sort of creature would handicap a person so horribly and then leave them alive? And for what motive too?

Gently she hopped down from the tree and followed him. Her curiousity taking the lead. When he finally collapsed at the sanctuary steps she rushed forward and dropped down by his side, lifting him up slightly as he knelt beside him. "What happened my dear angel kin?" she asked, brow furrowed with confusion.

The angel managed to speak before pained sobs, "The wraith, the wraith." He looked at his own hands and let out a new stream of tears, "By my mistake so many will perish. I failed. I failed!" He clutched his sides, and shook his head vigorously. "The wraith left me with his parting gift, flight no longer, I've failed." He sagged back down to the ground, weak and spent.

"A wraith?" Ayumi mottered, for a moment she thought, then shook her head as she looked down at the broken angel before reaching into her pocket. As a ranger things came in handy that she found. Yet nothing in her pocket was ideal enough to help him in the present time. What they needed now was a healer, many of them were in the santuary yet the trouble was finding one who would willingly help.

Because he was younger than she he was easier to carry, yet her weight was evidently lighter than his. Eventually though she did get him into a nearby inn and on a bed so she could heal his wounds.

He awoke with a flutter of his eyes. He looked up, 'maybe it was just a dream..' he leaned forward, but collapsed back. He sighed in desperation. The angel managed to look around the room and wonder how he got here. 'Perhaps it was the other.' he groaned, the pain in his not-quite wings throbbing and aching. He noticed that the sheets were reddened quite a bit. He gave up trying to do anything and sank into the bed.

"Take it easy, angel kin." Ayumi said emergin from the inn's bathroom with a bowl of water and a cloth. She placed the water beside the bed and dabbed cloth in. "That wrath certainly had a good go at you." She pushed him up slightly so she could reach his back with the cloth and clean the wounds. "But dont worry, you will soon be right as reign."

"How can I be right again? My wings are useless, and such a failure is not reason for them to be fixed." He sighed, lacing his hands together. Naois looked up to his angel-kin and looked down in disgrace. It could be said he was overreacting, but for a being who has devoted himself to removing evil and protecting the innocent, such a matter is almost unbearable.

Ayumi sighed, it was the same with most angel boys. When she was younger they were allways in the air, personally she didnt see what was so exciting about it. "Sure your wings may represent you being an angel but usually the strongest being is the one who has nothing." She ran her fingers delcatly down his wings, "The bones will heal with time and the skin will regrow although scarred your wings should hold the same sort of shape they did before... a bit."

Aralishia Bandaar, a bit wobbly after banging her knee on a barstool, gazed around the inn, and walked with a nearly unnoticable limp into the bathroom, where she saw an angelic being bleeding profusely from his back where angel wings normally sprouted; another angel at his side calming him.

What evil would cut an angel's wing? No, what fool would cut an angel's wing? She wondered, as she knew wings were one of the more sacredt things and an angel may corrupt having lost their wings and seeking revenge.

"How can I be right again? My wings are useless, and such a failure is not reason for them to be fixed."

Ara, upon noticing that she had been noticed by both angels, spoke up, though her voice was a bit cracked at the melancholy sight.

Greetings, I was merely passing, but I have noticed you're injured.. she said, taking on a strange light voice as not to disturb the teary-eyed angel. She took on a slightly harder voice as she continued. I swear to you my loyalty in slaying the a savage beast, but you must find a healer first. But first, what, or whom, did this to you?

"Yes, I guess you are right. Though I doubt they will be of much use from now on," He looked out the window at the incoming traffic. He sighed and tried to ease his pain. I just hope I can stop that wraith from causing more harm..." the angle tensed when he mentioned the wraith, he leaned back into the bed. The funny thing was that he looked like just another human like that, if you don't notice some of the remaining angelic features.

When the Elf entered he glanced over. At her question he replied, detailing the events in vivid detail. He tensed every time he spoke of the wraith, and became teary every time he mentioned the souls that would perish by the wraith's hands.

"Miss..." Ayumi addressed the woman afterwards, "You would be helping me a great deal if you could fetch me some spare sheets from the inn, we will be needing a couple of bandages and im running low on cloth."

Afterwards, Ayumi continued to tend to the angel's wounds. The bleeding had slowed and began to thicken but to keep them from infection she needed to cover. Any larger wounds were quickly stiched up.

The angel shivered and balled up, his wingless state making it difficult to become comfortable without the feeling of their presence. He sighed, all will to do anything at the moment was gone and he was left in a completely null state. He just remained curled up there with that blank expression.

"Now then you, i know this hurts and all but you have to try and cheer up a little," Ayumi said encouraginly to the angel. She smiled at him, and then when she got nothing but a blank look she said, "Listen, i'll try to take your mind off it so, erm... whats your name?"

Aralishia's sight went blurry, and started speaking to herself, telling herself what had happened, what he had told her; she couldn't understand all the information the angel, now wingless and contorted in pain, had dumped upon her, leaving Ara at a need for breath. She became absorbed in her own thoughts, herself feeling the pain of the wraith's claws.

...he described the agony of having one's wings sliced at, ripped with blackened fingers, plucked, and destroyed by the knife of a nefarious tyrant. He had still mud on the back of his silvery head, and his halo dimmed when he spoke the word 'wraith'. It was as if he could not bear it himself to speak of dark prescence.

She had the impression he couldn't bear to look at another darkned face, to speak of the wraith, to even write his name.

She looked upon his teary face, pain seeping through his smoldering eyes, they burned when he looked at her, she had to gaze elsewhere. The pain, she realized, was insufferable- 'twas far beyond the pains of flesh and bone. The crimson cloth around the featherless stumps reddened further at he turned to look at Ara, and plentiful worries embraced her as she realized she might be staring, and the thought came about her that it might be rude to look upon such a ravagely harmed creature and not take immediate action; Ara realized that there was no action she could take, and she felt confined to her gaze as she stood over his bed, emotion burning her eyes and blurring them. She brought her stare to the floor, and when she thought he may have turned away, she sought to stare at him again. She thought her need to look upon him was an attempt to console him in some way, but simply couldn't take his gaze, as if ashamed of trying to console the man. Perhaps not ashamed, but embarassed to try to console a stranger, or what seemed like it. Looking at the pain he exuded, she felt her throat constrict that it oft did when she would overwhelm herself with pain and release it in the sanctuary of tears.

A sense of awe came over her as he continued to be selfless, not thinking of his own revenge or of his pain, but attempted to soothe the pain of empathy that the other angel expressed. Ara never quite understood empathy, other than it being the pain of others, and she thought of her benedictions she gave for him silently and herself nearly in tears, and she wondered if she herself was empathetic, if she even fathom such a concept herself and express it. She found it so unfathomable.

Do...you she managed to say to the ball of a wounded angel know of, uh, any...way for.. she continued through a cracked voice that she found herself unable to find wings..to grow, back?

"Naois." He watched her, exhausted still. The exhaustion was probably the largest reason for him remaining so still. He had dragged himself across a hefty distance before he finally collapsed. If he was feeling better it would be undoubted that he would be doing everything in his power to defeat the wraith and keep it from taking more lives. Sadly all he was capable now was to sit and cope with the pain and mental fatigue. With the elf's question he passed on the answer, "Do arms regrow? Do legs regrow? Thats your answer." His answer was a whisper, he could not directly answer it. It would make him think of things he would rather not.

Ayumi listened to the woman's question and her face lit up, "Hey, the other week when i was at the market there wasa woman selling weird angel statues, she said that they could grant the owner the ability to bear wings, i'm sure they will work on angels too." She beamed at the idea, pleased she had seen it before, "And its a pleasure to meet you Naois, i am Ayumi Aomori."

Naois nodded, though it would not be the same. It was one thing to not have wings to start, but to have them and to have what seemed like another's wings was something else for him. He lost his wings, he caused his own suffering. He would not take the easy way out.

Seeing she wasnt of much help to the situation, she quickly finished healing his wounds, or healing as much as she could. Once done she looked at him as though a peice of artwork, "Now then, i'll be supposing you want to rest and so you should too, its getting late already and im worn out from tending to you too, so i will just have the sheets changed then you can go ack to sleep."

She removed the sheets and then went off in search of some new ones.

"Do arms regrow? Do legs regrow? Thats your answer."

Ara snarled at Naois as he replied sharply at her, and she thought for a brief moment of his reply of seeing her long, pointed canines in the likes of a wolf. She regained her stature as the other angel spoke of a statue, and seeing the angel's disgust, she understood his feelings and regreted her growl.

He winced at the growl, curling tightly at the sound. It reminded him of the wraith, the growl that tore at him. He shuddered and glanced fearfully upwards a though he was about to see the wraith clutching the heads of countless victims. His mind flashed the thought in an almost real image that was frightening enough to make him scream.

As Naois looked up at Ara, she gazed down calmly at him. She thought of the evil in his heart that her snarl must have brought and felt a small guilt, but thought that it was his own fault. Here she had finally felt empathy for someone, and he is curt with her? Disgust washed over her anew, but she brushed it aside and looked into his pained eyes, this time not adverting her gaze.

"Yes?"

"Im back with the sheets!" Ayumi said somewhat gleefully cutting their conversation as she put the sheets on, there was a cold scilence in the room which she considered a tad odd. She then looked from one to the other and looked somewhat concerned, "What did i miss?" she asked.

He just stared at her, watching her, the elf. He lay there helpless and she was hardly. In many ways he was clearly inferior, it would be humbling if he had not been humbled many times over already. Perhaps it was something he said? He let his head tilt back down and hoped she knew he meant no ignorance. The last thing he needed was somebody angry with him, who could easily dispatch of him before he could succeed, well...second to the wraith itself.

Nothing important, just a lot of, uhm, open thought Ara replied at the angel's sunny disposition and merry attitude.

Cannot you see that he is in pain, I in both disgust and empathy, and you come skipping in as if nothing has happened to the poor man? Ara thought, but covered her disgust quite well.

Naois was now looking cold, Ara saw why the other angel got new sheets, damp ones would make him much colder.

As soon as the sheets were on the bed, they soaked in the blood, which was starting to smell foul. Blood usually had a saltier smell, why did the angel's blood smell so foul? A curse from a wraith is enough to make one's blood turn darker.

Ara continued to stand, watching as the other angel continued to care for him. Ara turned towards her. Do you mind going into the street and looking for a healer?

Ayumi nodded cheerfully and then left the room with the old sheets. She cloed the door behind her and sighed, buy the happy-go-lucky image was hard to keep up. It was annoying enough she had to stay in the city for more than 24 hours when all she had come here for was to stock up for her journey into the plains. She dumped the sheets in a nearby laundry box and marched out of the inn, now she had come to the issue of needing to find a healer, she had already asked around the bar earlier and the barman had said the local healer was out so she was just going to have to search around.

Puzzling over the child's broken wrist, Geis carefully realigned the bones. She hollered, but didn't move. Carefully, with tree bark that he collected he fashioned a sling and gave a beatific smile, trying to tell her that she would be all right. She smiled too, but only through tears of pain and gibbered something else in her strange, foreign tongue. He shrugged trying to politely convey blank incomprehension and she instead gave him a hug. This he understood at least and returned it, trying not to scratch her with his claws.

She left in a flurry of feet. Around him, excited younglings pranced and his interrupted story seemingly delayed forever.

"How'd you do that?" One of them asked. The others quickly agreed and he tried to pacify them with a highly unlikely tale of scaling the highest mountaintops in search of wisdom...

Aralishia, deciding to search with the angel for a healer, especially since she had been rude, walked out of the bathroom with a silent, solemn look back at Naois. She retreated out of the inn full of hollering vagabonds, and she too was a vagabond, but she did not belong in their rougish culture. Ara walked out into the street and gazed up at the saphire sky. The sun was a few hours from its meeting of the horizon. Ara entered a shop near the inn and walked in where the familiar lupine Geis was the healer.

Can you help me? She called him in the wolven tounge, which she hoped he would recognise.

OOC: I found a great connection with the 'Clan of Wuthering Plains' This is near directly before that encounter. This is so perfect! If everyone reads all three topics they will understand my fragments and excitement

"Perhaps?" Geis asked in surprise, his tongue still incapable of making the proper syllables- he stumbled over the 'haps' but all in all it wasn't a bad attempt, especially for him. "I mean, yes, I should be able to." He smelled blood- it was clear as day she was asking for a medic.

The gaggle of children surrounding him demanded to know who the 'pwetty lady' was and he shushed them. The elf smelled... of blood. And not fresh blood either, the scent of a wound that had been weeping for some time assaulted his nostrils. It held a very familiar scent too... something...

Nah, it couldn't have been.

"Who is Geis?" Ayumi asked the woman who had decided to join her, she then looked at the person the woman had seen, he had been fixing up a sling for the little girls arm and was now facing them, "Oh, that's Geis..." she said suddenly realising.

OOC: I had a brilliant plan of this being directly before so I could attack Wraith. Thats kinda why I edited it to be "Can you help me?" Instead of "Geis?" But this works too, we can have a rip in space time so I know you and Naois both then and now.....I need to figure this out. I shall PM you. I am confused and this isn't working.

IC: Ara grinned as she heard him speak in her first language, wolven, as she was herself half wolf. this dire secret prevented her father from being captured, though she no longer knew why she wished to protect him. An angel is greatly injured by Kos'harn. You must be able to help?

Ayumi sighed, "Well as long as you too are speaking wolven i will be off, theres no point in me being here really is there..." She crossed her arms and walked off, not to the inn but to the edge of the city, she no longer had any reason to be here, besides more pressing matters were held elsewhere.

"I shall try my best," Geis replied. "I am sorry Children but I have a patient to tend to." Subdued, the children let him go though not without some wailing and some tears. He had become something a favorite with the kids, and taking him away just when it was storytime just wasn't fair!

"Let's go," Geis said imperiously. He hadn't noticed the other person's abrupt departure due to the children but narrowed his eyes anyways- city life was making him soft. If he couldn't notice simple things like presences... bah, he had best not dwell on it overlong.

"What sort of equipment do you have?" He asked, walking forwards. "Bandages? Herbs? What is the nature of the wounds..."

Long after the encounter in the woods and very shortly after his battle in the desert, Kos'harn found the place that the broken Angel was resting. You have awoken my spirit, scum. For that and the pain I suffer, you will pay.

Kos'harn was just outside the Angel's resting room, watching through the windows. In his hand he held a long chain. It drooped, nearly touching the floor, came back up and over his left shoulder, across his back and down over his right, before repeating the pattern several times over. But it was not a normal chain of gold or silver, it was a chain of skulls, some human, some not, all polished to perfection.

Kos'harn concentrated hard before simply sliding through the wall before him. On the bed was a pitiful sight, the wretched Angel.

"I have but one last task with you" he said to the barely conscious being.

He lay the chain down, draping it over the Angel's prone frame. Then he went to work. With his clawed nails he began to score into his victims flesh.

"One for every crime I have committed. I cannot forget, you shall not. These wounds will be hard to heal" he explained.

An hour later and the process was finished. From toe tip to neck line the Angel was completely covered in short, deep cut lines. The Angel's blood pooled on the floor below him, covered the fresh sheets, and his entire body.

"4,308" he said, "One and a half century's of crime. May neither of us ever forget. And so I leave you."

Once again he phased through the wall and was gone into the night....

Naois's body was alight with pain and agony. The pain was the worst he had ever felt, worse than his wings, worse than the pain that he knew he failed. This time he felt it all. With every cold, evil, finger that lashed his flesh he was pumbled with the pain and suffering caused by each death the cut represented. He screamed, a scream that mourned all the souls, all the lives, all the futures snatched away by this beast. He now carried the burden of all the souls that seek justice. There was no doubt, the wraith must be vanquished.

Geis' body stiffened. Once he left the small building, the stench of blood became overpowering. He didn't know how the humans didn't notice. Couldn't they tell? What were they, blind, deaf and dumb? Even the air was smudged in red and greys, the fine particles wafting through an open window. He knew then, without Aralishia having to tell him, that this was the angel.

What he hadn't expected was for the angel to be *that* badly injured.

He started sprinting. It wasn't that he didn't want to leave Aralishia behind... it was just that he *had* to move. These wounds might be beyond his power to heal, certainly beyond his meagre skill to completely erase. But try he must for-

"A healer heals." He whispered.

He burst into the inn, not caring about how the innkeeper got up abruptly calling for the guards, not caring how the customers scattered as the lone lupine figure entered sniffing the air as if for prey. The stench of blood was overwhelming, masking itself as it spread throughout the building. He followed the most concentrated path and briskly climbed stairs and corridors till he found the door.

The sight devastated even him.

Thousands of tiny, thin, reed-like cuts had been slashed into the angel's frail form. Deep wounds wept at his back. He almost retched- he had once witnessed a bandit attack on a village but even then... even then he was sure he could help. Right now, despite the pitiful nature of each wound individually, collectively they threatened this being's essence. He had to get to work, immediately.

Biting his lip, the lupine started with the two largest wounds- they were badly infected and likely life threatening. With a grimace he took a small bottle out of his cloak- brandy humans called it. He had never seen so much before entering the city, but he had seen some before- it was a potent disease-destroying water. Splashing some onto the cloths strewn around the room he began gently dabbing the gaping wounds.

"Who did this to you?" He asked quietly, not expecting an answer. "Why?"

OOC: Wraith, that was a lot of god-moding, hopefully it was planned between Naois and you.

Ara, noticing that the lupine had started sprinting, ran forward, keeping pace with him, but knowing she could run faster, harder, the run of a true wolf. The dirt kicked up in dust as she hit it, running so fast as the try to run away from the fear of the new smell of blood.

She came inside the inn, blood surrounding the senses of the men visiting the inn. It was barren in the halls, and the main room was filled with the stench of new blood. The men and women froze in horror, glancing towards the bedroom where the newly injured angel was laying in bed, perhaps dead. The wraith had been in this inn, and the blood mixed with the stench of something foul. He was still here.

Ara ran faster than she thought she might into the room. The angel was drenched in blood now, not from his slowly healing wings, but of thousands of slices of flesh. The flesh was torn from his body, hanging limp from each wound, weighing itdown, making each cut all the more painful. Naois was writhing in agony, and when he finally saw her the lupine came in, rushing to attend to his wounds. Aralishia froze, seeing the torture of the young angel's mind. He, nor she, would have much sleep once this had finnished.

Ara charged back into the hallway, knowing that whatever would become of the condemned angel, it had been the doing of the wraith, and whatever the wraith may have done the angel and to countless others, karma had evaded him. She knew the suffering, the tears, she lived the pain and she drew breath to smell of blood. The wraith was responsible for the life of Naois, and whatever fate awaited him, so should be the wraith. The gods usually took care of such matters of karma and fate, but none were attending to the matter, none of them seemed to have the guts.

Ara broke into the deserted passageways, nearly breaking the doors, when she found the wraith standing at the edge of the passage, attempting escape. Ara crept forward silently, pressing her blade against the rotting flesh on the back of his neck.

You're through, Wraith she spoke in a growl so low it made many a man shudder and draw quicker breath.

Naois couldn't do anything but scream. He screamed until he could scream no more. Even in silence he attempted. His world was becoming darker, blackness seeping into his vision. He struggled to remain alive, struggled to not let the souls' cries for justice fade away. He ceased struggling, falling into a sleep. Perhaps for the bettering of whomever was healing him.

"This is obscene." Geis whispered, trying to keep the struggling angel pinned down. The screams were shattering his eardrums- but more than that, shattering his soul. There were hundreds... no thousands of voices, all screaming in tandem with the angel's. He didn't know who or how or what had happened but he did know that it couldn't be pleasant. He wasn't sure if the angel would survive. In fact, if anything, he was pretty sure the angel would die.

But at least the angel was fighting to survive. That much he could tell. Not by the screams but by how his body was responding to his ministrations. Already, the wounds were slowly closing- many of them had stopped weeping blood. If progress continued at this rate he had no doubt that the angel would survive- and potentially- thrive. Most who were injured to this extent lost their body's ability to cope with stresses and died thin and emaciated but he could tell that this angel still had the fire of life within him- he might live through the night... through many nights actually.

Finally, the angel stopped shouting. Geis wondered where the other one- the one that smelled like a lupine and yet was not- but decided that if she was busy it was for a good reason. He would have to manage this on his own.

"You should be glad you're asleep," he told the prone and sleeping figure. "Cause' if you were awake this would hurt. A lot."

With nothing more at his disposal he began making preparations to sear the big wounds closed with fire.

The angel wept in his sleep, even in unconsciousness he could not rest. The voices were screaming in his mind begging for justice. His fists tightened, his teeth clenched, his back arched. Even from the outside it was clear that sleep was no respite for him. Mental agony is the worst of all.

The shadow quickened, racing through the halls, so quickly that Ara rushed for breath, and he turned so abruptly she found herself inches from the wall. She turned sharply as well. The hall had no escape. The shadow grinned, then dissapeared as if it had never existed, as if she had imagined it all herself out of rage and anger. Perhaps this was the restlessness she found others whispering about. She turnedon her heels, running abruptly for the main of the inn, which was now deserted, not even the innkeepers remained. She gasped as she saw a puddle of blood seeping from the door. She opened it slowly, fearing what she might find, or worse, not find. The lupine stood over the body, moaning in agony, then screaming suddenly as if finding themselves vistim of a bad dream so real it is able to be tasted, then dissolving so we find ourselves alone where the nightmere haunts us. The truth, she thought, was the real nightmere today. The whispers of the wraith, the fear of him entering, was none compared to the flesh being ripped from oneself, from seing such creature standing at the bedside, tormenting the soul.

Ara walked towards the bed slowly, and as she saw Naois, now unconcious, she held back tears of mourn, empathy, and disgust.

Blood dried over his eyes and cheeks, smeared from each movement he had taken since cut. His hair was now even more scruffy, and no longer silver but a dull gray color. The eyes were open and dull, as if the life had flowed from his body like the blood. His mouth was frozen in horror, and he was gasping for each breath, pain flooding him as his lungs involuntarily expanded at his breath, and this pain would continue as long as he was alive and healing, the expanding of his chest opening newly closed wounds. His neck looked as if wrung by strong hands, it was blackened from lack of breath and had markings of two bloody hands, which at their tips, pierced into either side of his neck. His chest was worse, sporting 3/4 of the wounds. Long scratches covering the whole of his torso were ripped across him, and shorter cuts were so deep that she care naught to look into the holes. Blood spewed from the deep wounds, making him appear as if he had entered a bath of blood. His leggings were crimson as well as his shirt, ripped open for a better attack. His arms lay limp from his arched back, and they too were covered in the foul liquid. She realized that the blood of an angel was darker than most human blood, and it shone strangely when reflecting light. His body looked like a carcass, already torn by lions and other predators. Naois was the prey, and there was maybe no cure for the wounds he now bore.

What a monster would bring about such suffering. Death might be better, at this moment, than life. And that might be the very point.