Dealing with the Arrow

As Elmo held the blanket up and Elin could be sure that Samantha's privacy was ensured, she tore open the front of her dress to get a good look at where the arrow hit her chest.

She'd used her Minor Heal spell to keep Samantha from getting worse while she waited for Elmo, although she had to admit that she hadn't really expected him to get back with something so soon.

She'd already determined that she couldn't push the arrow through because it would have to go through the side of her heart to do so and the only reason it hadn't pierced her heart already was that it had been miraculously stopped by a rib, not to say that it wasn't a close call. Then to complicate it more, the head of the arrow was barbed, so pulling it out would cause more damage. Yet, that was really the only good option other than leaving the arrowhead in her chest, which Elin didn't like the thought of.

So, she did her best to explain to Samantha what would happen while she had sent Elmo for a covering. Not that she really expected the girl to understand her, with how she wasn't sure she fully understood herself. Yet, she had a feeling that Samantha would accept whatever happened, even if she didn't like it.

Elin first tried to work the arrow out slowly, but even just touching it would cause Samantha to at least whimper in pain. When she tried to apply a small amount of pressure on the arrow, to pull it out, the girl would try to bite back sounds of pain, but Elin doubted it would get any easier.

She couldn't say exactly how bad it would be, but she couldn't think of a better method than just tearing it out. She knew she could heal the extra damage with her system, but she didn't like the idea of causing more pain to the girl. Yet, the circumstances wouldn't let her do anything else.

So, without pausing to give Samantha any warning, hoping to lessen the pain as much as possible, even though she knew it still wasn't going to be enough, as she placed a hand around the arrow and the other on the girl's chest, she yanked the arrow as hard as she could, making Samantha scream in pain, her eyes bulging. However, the arrow didn't come out. It was caught on something and Elin could only imagine that it was the rib that had originally stopped it from killing the girl instantly.

"What're you doing?!" Elin heard Lance scream at her.

"I'm getting the arrow out. This isn't going to be easy either," Elin explained, as she waited for the girl to calm down before she tried again. "Once I have it out I can get her out of danger, but until then, she's going to have to endure more pain."

Elin could hear Lance mumbling something under his breath, but she ignored it. While she didn't have any siblings that she'd known when she was growing up, she imagined that the relationship Lance had with his sister was similar to the one that she had with her father. While not the same, it at least gave her an idea of how he probably was feeling at the moment.

As Samantha's breathing returned to normal, Elin put her hand on Samantha's chest again and gripped the arrow. A glance at Samantha's face showed her eyes glistening with flowing tears, but a resolve that told Elin she was ready for more pain in order to get this over with.

Elin looked back at the arrow in the girl's chest and closed her eyes. She pushed down on the girl's chest as she pulled with all her strength to tear the arrow out of Samantha, drawing out another scream from the young girl.

This time the arrow did pull free, drawing an arc of blood that hung in the air for a brief moment before it went flying with the inertia into the curtain that shielded Samantha from view.

Elin then began using her Minor Heal spell, wishing she'd taken the time to build it up in hopes that she'd have been able to get a stronger healing spell as a result. Yet, those thoughts wouldn't help her in this situation, especially since she the healing spell she had was effective enough. She just had to use it multiple times.

When she'd finally healed Samantha, the next problem was cleaning the girl up. She'd had blood gushing out of her chest when the arrow had been pulled out of her, and while the blood wasn't flowing now, that didn't mean the blood she'd lost before wouldn't still be congealing on her.

Elin glanced at her own hands and was surprised at how much of a bloody mess they were. Not that it didn't make sense. Elin just hadn't noticed it until now.

"Is everything alright?" Lance's voice snapped from the other side of the curtain.

"She's fine," Elin said, looking at the girl, who she could only assume had passed out from the pain. "I think she's resting right now."

"Let me see her."

Elin suddenly thought of the girl's torn dress. No matter what healing spells she used on the girl, that wouldn't fix the dress. Which meant she needed to think of something to do or it would really have been pointless to have sent Elmo to get the curtain in the first place.

"Hold on, give me a minute," Elin said, trying to wrack her brain to come up with something. As she looked up from Samantha, she saw the curtain, and suddenly realized she had her answer.

"Lower the curtain on her and I'll fix it so she can maintain her modesty," Elin said, confident that Lance wouldn't argue with that.

As the curtain started to lower, Elin suddenly realized that it would lower over her too, which she couldn't believe she hadn't realized. She couldn't help but assume that she hadn't realized it because she was getting tired from all that had happened.

Before disaster struck the party, she'd been up all day, first healing the young nobles who had been up to mischief the night before, then she had been enjoying herself with trying on dresses and then coming to the party, and lastly, she'd been dancing. Now she'd been healing Samantha and she couldn't help but wonder if her stamina was about depleted.

Shaking her head, trying to clear it, she found an end of the curtain and began to carefully wrap it around Samantha, making sure to bind her torn dress so that nothing would show that would be indecent. Even if it was just her brother seeing it.

When she was done, she looked at Lance who cupped his sister's cheek in his hand. "She'll be alright, right?" he asked, his voice mixed with relief, concern, desperation, and gratitude.

"I think she'll need some sleep, but otherwise she should be fine," Elin said, feeling like she needed some sleep too.

However, as she felt herself begin to fall, even though she was practically in a sitting position on her knees already, she felt like something caught her. At first she thought it had to be Kim, but then realized the person didn't smell like Kim.

Opening her eyes, she saw Lance cradling Samantha in his arms as he lifted her up in a princess carry. Then Elin looked to see who caught her and saw Elmo. She felt a wave of gratitude towards him flow over her knowing that he was the one who'd caught her.

"I'll help you out," Elmo said, shifting Elin so that he could throw one of her arms around his shoulders and holding it in place with his right hand, while his left hand reached under her other arm and used that to help support her as he stood them both up and the began moving towards the door.

Elin was sure that Kim would have opened the way for them, but couldn't be sure that there weren't any delays. All she could tell at the moment was that she'd saved the girl's life and now she was ready to sleep. Part of her didn't care about anything else. She couldn't even register the fires anymore, even though she knew intellectually that they were still burning.

She was also aware of others moving with them to exit the room, though she had a feeling that there really should be more moving with them, but she couldn't be sure if any hadn't left before they had, but if not, she couldn't think of why they wouldn't have started leaving as soon as the door was open.

Not that she had the energy at the moment to consider such things. Instead, she was barely clinging to consciousness at all. Even as Elmo helped her move along, she felt that her feet were dragging more than they were moving. It was like everything was moving so much faster around her than she could even keep up with.

She couldn't help but wonder what was happening to her? Would she be alright or did she push herself too much this time? Then, the last thing she knew before darkness descended unexpectedly was the sound of metal clanging against metal. Was there a fight nearby?