-Loyalty-
Written by Kate Walton
Story takes place at Mary's in mid-May of 2006

* * *

BEE throws herself to the ground as a series of shots whistle overhead. "Dammit," she swears under her breath. "He's good." She scans the trees, looking in vain for any sign of movement. The shots had come from a stand of trees off to her right, so she carefully eases to her hands and knees and starts edging to her left. In answer, another flurry of shots whip through the underbrush.

"Thirteen-fourteen-fifteen," BEE counts quietly. He'd given himself away when he shot at her, and on top of that he now had to reload. She frowns and takes careful aim.

Thraxx ducks reflexively as the leaves next to his head explode. Damn, she's good, he thinks. He laughs aloud as he slides a new clip home."Very good," he calls out, not bothering to hide the mocking appreciation in his voice. "But not good enough."

"Give it up, Thraxx," BEE replies curtly. She crouches on one knee, half-hidden behind a bush, with the trees lined up in her sights.

"No quarter, Eleanor, you know that," he tosses back. "I mean to see this through to the end."

You and me both, she thinks. She catches sight of movement on the left side of the trees and squeezes off a shot. Even as the gun recoils, Thraxx is moving, however, erupting from the right side in a flurry of gunfire. BEE rolls to one side, landing on her stomach in a firing position, but Thraxx has already disappeared.

He can't have gotten far, she thinks, calculating his position as she scans the available cover. If he cut away from--

"BEE?"

She looks up in a panic. "Jain, get down!" she hisses, motioning urgently.

"What's going--" He's interrupted by the crack of a gunshot as something heavy thumps into his back, over his kidney. BEE watches as Jain reaches behind him, bringing back a hand covered in something red and sticky. A flicker of rage sparks in his eyes as he turns around--

--Just in time to find Thraxx bearing down on him, a determined smirk on his face. Before he can react, Thraxx slams his left shoulder into Jain's chest, sending the two of them flying as he unloads the rest of his clip into BEE. The two knights tumble to the ground, but Thraxx rolls out of it and takes off running.

Laughing, he glances over his shoulder at his fallen comrades--and turns back around just as a tree branch slams into his face. A furious Claire holds the other end of it, and as Thraxx hits the ground she breaks it over his ribs. His reflexes kick in before his brain does, and he rolls out of the way before he realizes that the flash of silver the sluagh is driving down towards him is a knife.

Thraxx staggers to his feet unsteadily, his ears ringing from the blow to the head. He gasps for air, trying to draw in enough to talk, to make Claire understand. "Wait," he rasps, holding a hand out, palm down.

Jain slams into him like a pile driver, bowling the two of them over once more. Before Thraxx can get his hands up, Jain slams a fist into his face, then another, and another. Flailing blindly, Thraxx is finally able to shove a hand up, twisting Jain's face away to buy a moment's respite. It's enough.

"Jain! STOP!" BEE's voice breaks through Jain's roaring anger, and he pauses long enough for two pairs of hands--Claire's and BEE's--to grab him and pull him off of Thraxx. Jain turns towards his liege, confused and enraged.

BEE is covered in blood from Thraxx's shots, but she still stands regally, drawn to her full height. Jain looks in confusion from her to Thraxx and back again, shaking with adrenaline. "What--he was--"

Thraxx starts laughing painfully, even louder this time, the sound of it harsh through his already swelling face.

"We were playing paintball," BEE responds simply.

Jain blinks. "Paintball?" He looks at BEE more closely, and realizes that although she is spattered with what looks to be blood, she has no wounds. He reaches around to touch his back again, and finds nothing but a spot of wet paint. His rage melts away, only to be replaced with embarassment. "I thought--it looked like he was trying to kill you."

BEE shrugs. "To be fair, that's pretty much what he was trying to do."

"And what kind of asshole uses red paint, anyway?" Jain explodes in frustration, wheeling around to Thraxx, who's still sprawled on the ground.

"This kind," Thraxx says, raising a hand weakly.

BEE frowns, crossing over to Thraxx. She bends down next to him. "Are you okay?"

"Revelling in my victory," he replies, the words slurring together.

"*Your* victory?" she asks, a note of amusement in her voice.

"I hit you. Six times."

BEE looks down at her "injuries"--an arm, a shoulder, both legs. "None of them critical," she replies. "Unlike yours."

"Wha?" Thraxx raises his head from the ground, wincing, and looks down. BEE puts one finger in the middle of the bright splatter of pink centered on his chest. "Gotcha," she says.

Thraxx lets his head fall back with a groan. "That's very funny."

"Can you get up?"

He nods, then after a moment holds out a hand. BEE motions to Jain, and the two of them pull him to a sitting position. "Claire," BEE says over her shoulder, "please ask Matilda to meet us in the kitchen." Claire takes off running towards the house as BEE and Jain pull Thraxx to his feet. They sling his arms over their shoulders and start walking, Thraxx lurching and stumbling between them.

"Jain," Thraxx mumbles after a moment, "if you don't marry that girl Ii'll kick your ass."

Jain chuckles. "I'm pretty sure if i don't *she'll* kick my ass."

"She's pretty good with a treebranch."

"Yeah, i noticed. Look," Jain says, "I'm sorry--"

"DON'T," Thraxx cuts him off sharply. His voice softens a little."Next time, just...ask first."

Jain nods. "Would you have?"

Thraxx shakes his head, and stumbles at the movement. "No."

Matilda meets them at the kitchen door, bags of frozen vegetables at the ready, Claire peeking out from behind her. When she catches sight of Thraxx's bloody, bruising face, Claire bites her lip. "I want to apologize," she says to Thraxx as Matilda slaps a bag of peas over his left eye.

Thraxx waves her words away as BEE and Jain set him down in a chair at the kitchen table. He shrugs, elbows on the table, head in his hands."If i had a nickel for every time i got blindsided by a sluagh..."

Matilda marches over with a pot of warm water and some washcloths."You," she points at Thraxx. "Take your shirt off."

As Jain reaches over to help, Claire grabs his arm. "Come on, honey, let's go get you cleaned up. In your quarters." Jain looks at BEE, who nods. "We'll be fine here. And i'm glad to see you can fix bruises, Claire."

"Lots of practice," the sluagh shrugs. Then she winks at Matilda and BEE as she leads Jain out of the kitchen.

"Oh, no you don't," Matilda exclaims as she rounds back to Thraxx, who has put his head down on the table to sleep. "BEE, keep him awake."

As the couple leaves, BEE pulls a chair up next to her battered knight. "Thraxx, honey, i need you to sit up." She guides him to a sitting position, where he blinks at her. "Dizzy," he says quietly.

"I know. Here, just for a moment longer. Help me get your shirt off." He raises his arms as she pulls his black sweater over his head, revealing an angry, red, branch-sized welt across his ribs, a tattoo of the sacred heart, outlined in blue flame, in the center of his chest, and a gold chain with a small Celtic cross on it around his neck. In the center of the tattoo, just above the barbed wire, is a circular scar. The skin around the scar is raised in a welt from BEE's paintball.

As the shirt comes away Thraxx leans forward and buries his head in his hands, revealing a shimmering, silver dragon tattoo covering his back from neck to waist. The dragon's head rests between his shoulder blades. As Matilda gently pushes Thraxx back against the chair, BEE gets the unsettling impression that the dragon is watching her until it disappears from sight.

Matilda hands BEE a warm, wet washcloth. "Clean him up," she says. As BEE begins to wipe away the blood, Matilda probes Thraxx's injuries with her fingers. Thraxx closes his eyes and leans his head back against the chair.

"Thraxx," Matilda says warningly. He opens his eyes to look at her, then closes them again. "Keep him awake," she repeats to BEE.

"Thraxx, i like your tattoo," BEE says, reaching for a new washcloth."Tell me about it. What does it mean?"

He cracks one eye open. "Which one?"

"This one, on your chest."

"Oh." His head falls back again. "It's Jadael's," he mumbles.

"Jadael had this tattoo?"

Lazily, he waves one limp hand at nothing. "It's Jadael's heart."

"When did you get it?" BEE asks curiously.

"When he died."

BEE nods. "And what's the scar from?"

Thraxx's eyes open slowly, but they reveal a smouldering, if half-focused, gaze. "I got stabbed."

"Who stabbed you?" BEE asks, meeting his eyes.

"Jadael." He closes his eyes and moves to lay his head back on the table. Matilda and BEE pull him back upright with no small effort.

"Thraxx," BEE tries again, trying to keep her voice level, "why did he stab you?"

"I told you," Thraxx says, wincing as Matilda prods at his cheekbone,"it's Jadael's heart."

Matilda leans back. "Broken ribs, broken nose, possibly a couple of bones broken in his face." She peels up one of Thraxx's eyelids, then lets it drop. "Definitely a concussion." She leans back. "Jain and Claire did all this?"

BEE nods. "They did. They thought they were protecting me."

Matilda shakes her head. "I sure hope Thraxx remembers that." She hops down off of her chair and starts rummaging through a cabinet.

"Can you heal him?" BEE asks as Thraxx tries to lay his head down again. As she once again pulls him back into a sitting position, Matilda returns with a steaming kettle and a teacup, inside of which are what look to be dried green flakes, black specks, and white powder.

"If i can fix his concussion and the bones in his face, he should be fine," Matilda replies. "The rest will heal with time."  She pours the steaming water into the teacup, then sets the kettle down and jumps up and down three times, spinning widdershins in a complete circle each time. Finally, she picks up one of the bloody washcloths and squeezes it out into the cup. "Don't let him spit it out," she tells BEE as she holds the cup up to his lips.

"Thraxx, i need you to drink this," she says. When he opens his mouth to answer, she deftly tips the contents of the cup in.

Thraxx sits up straight, his eyes wide open. BEE claps her hand over his mouth and stares him down. "Swallow. That is an ORDER," she commands. He gives her a disgusted look, then rolls his eyes and swallows.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh," he exclaims when BEE removes her hand. He leans forward, coughing violently. When he can speak again, he looks up at Matilda. "What the hell--"

"Feeling better?" she asks mildly.

He stops short as BEE snickers. "Yeah," he says a bit sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. "Thank you."

"Do you remember what happened?" Matilda asks, a serious look on her face.

"We were playing paintball," Thraxx replies. "And Jain and Claire didn't realize it was a game."

Matilda leans in, deadly serious. "Is it true that Jain and Claire beat the crap out of you?"

"Shut up," Thraxx mutters. He looks away, a small smile creeping across his lips despite himself as BEE giggles and Matilda sits back, a satisfied smile on her face. "They caught me by surprise." He shivers then, realizing that he's shirtless. Half-consciously, he reaches a hand up to the scar on his chest.

Matilda probes at the bone under his eye, then prods his ribs with her fingertips. "Does anything hurt?"

"No."

"Are you lying?" BEE asks.

"A little." He shrugs. "It's much better than it was."

Matilda nods. "You'll probably have some beautiful bruises on your face and ribs in the morning."

He shrugs. "Wouldn't be the first time." He stands up and stretches."Can i sleep?"

"Are you dizzy? Nauseous?" Matilda asks.

"No."

She nods. "Then you should be fine."

Thraxx bends down and looks her in the eye. "Thank you," he says sincerely. "I appreciate it." He picks up his sweater and looks at the paint splattered across the chest. "Pink," he says in mock disgust. "I may never wear this shirt again."

"Does this mean you're done with paintball?" BEE asks as Thraxx heads for the door.

He pauses in the doorway and looks back, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Next time let's make sure to put it on the calendar first."

"Thraxx--" BEE starts as he turns away, a question on her lips. He waits, his back to her, and she finds herself being stared down by his dragon tattoo. She takes a deep breath and plunges ahead anyway. "Why would Jadael stab you?"

He turns then, the half-smile on his lips belied by the warning look in his eyes. "For the same reason Jain just beat the crap out of me."

"Why," Matilda asks dryly, "because you let him?"

He regards her curiously, one eyebrow raised. "I was going to say loyalty." He inclines his head towards Eleanor. "My lady," he says quietly, and then turns around and leaves.