[Maaike]

It still looked as though the spy was going to be stubborn. He sniffled, an odd whistling sound that shafted through his half-formed beak and practically came out of his ears as frustrated steam, and turned his head up and away so he could dodge Ellery's piercing stare.

Maaike left her grandparents to it, still too numb to really get on board the torture ship or do much more than soothe her hands over Aiden's shoulders and through hair that was straggly from being caught mid-shift to fur. She watched Dioghna's fangs drip blood-pink drool into the leaves crunching under her paws, watched the tension swing and sway through the muscles in Ellery's sooty, sweaty back, but it was with a sense of distance and greyness as if her eyes were just as reluctant to recover from the Apali's light as her brain was reluctant to jolt back to its normal speed.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Ellery flung up his hands in despair and aggravation when the spy still refused to look at him or give up whatever he knew. The way he pressed his lips together suggested he was being mutinous and stubborn just for the sake of being stubborn and mutinous, now.

Someone limped by with a bladder of water. It took Maaike a second to realise it was hovering in front of her face or that the girl was offering it to her, and Maaike winced as her arm came up -- slow and stiff from seized muscles even though she hadn't been caught by the 'bane -- to take it, staring at it dumbly for a second before taking a swig and then pressing it gently to Aiden's mouth. It took her another second for her to realise the girl was saying something -- “Well, no, actually I meant for your burn... You know what, never mind.” -- and Maaike huffed a half-laugh despite herself, shaking her head a little at her own stupidity. The girl trotted off, carrying another bladder to someone else. Maaike took another drink, offered it to Aiden again in the hope that the water would help wash the 'bane out quicker, then set about pouring sweet, cooling relief over her arm to clean it.

Dioghna sat back on her haunches and whuffed. It sounded like there might be a little snarl in there, too, but she'd given up on convincing the spy by "gentle" means and prodded her snout into Ellery's thigh in silent communication. Ellery huffed and squared his shoulders, flapping a hand at one of the larger clansmen who hadn't been caught 'shifting.

“Fine. Fine. Since you're so useless to us, you Xanth-damned traitor, you can feed the kumo instead.”

Maaike sat up straighter, a little of the grey sinking out of her vision when the clansman started forward, big and menacing in a way Aiden couldn't manage because his baby-faced ruined the menacing part, and the spy started blubbering.

“No! no! Don't—I don't like—you can't!” The clansman -- Maaike couldn't remember his name, what was his name, she knew his face -- grabbed him by the ankle and heaved him across leaves and twigs and blood-soaked detritus, turning his back to hide the half-smug smirk. “Please! You can't, you can't, please! I'll do—I'll do anything, I'll tell you, censored, I'll te--”

Ellery scoffed and shook himself, much like the wolves the Sullivan clan favoured, in disgust. “You are truly a paragon of family values.”

If the spy heard the sarcasm or Dioghna's own wolfish scoff, he was too busy begging and clawing at the ground -- even though the big guy had stopped dragging him -- to acknowledge it.

OOC: Maaike's being a numb whiny baby right now so I'm not sure how to do the clawed gut thing. We may have to skip that part, or throw it in later?

[Aiden]

Leaning against Maaike's leg, Aiden watched with disquiet as Ellery and Dioghna tried to coax and frighten the spy into sharing more secrets. There was nothing else to do but wait out the effects of the 'bane. Aiden felt so useless in half-form---his body shook in weak tremors, and from the way his vision blurred, he was pretty sure his eyes were mismatched. With leathery palms and no opposable thumbs, he couldn't even hold the pouch of water when Maaike offered it to him. Not that he wanted it anyway. His organs felt like a nausea-inducing mess inside his ribcage, so he tilted the opposite direction whenever Maaike tried to press the water toward his lips.

She was skilled at interrogations and should have been first in line, but instead of shouting and wringing information out of the spy, Maaike was unnaturally still. Her grip on the empty water pouch was so tight that her knuckles shook. Recognizing her listless expression, Aiden pressed his shoulder against her leg as an offer of support. It seemed like both of them needed to recover...

The larger clansman was intimidating enough for the spy, who shrieked and scrabbled against his captor's grip. At first, the spy's babbles were long-winded and vague. When it soon became clear that the spy was merely stalling for time, the clansman beat clarity into the answers. A 'vari by the name of Marius had gathered the attack team just last week. Before that, the spy hadn't met any of those men before. Marius was also the one who'd handed Neuria's hair to the spy as a warning from Thanatos. In under two weeks, the spy was forced to meet Marius five times at an alley near the eastern crystal cavern entrance. He first saw Graeme at a warehouse in the marina docks. The spy would have taken Sammy to that same place for further directions, but he didn't know if the apalos had different instructions.

During the interrogation, the remaining clanmembers busily tended to the wounded in the clearing. The bane-affected were gathered into a section for their humanoid brethren to tend injuries. By the time it seemed as if the spy had been exhausted of information, the sky was already turning sunset-orange. Aiden's spine began to tingle. Awareness clapped the fogginess from his mind, and Aiden felt as if the locks on his muscles had been set loose. His legs regained their normal angle, his vision cleared, and his fingers unknotted themselves. Human again.

[Maaike]

Maaike had lost some time while she was sitting there in the muck and the leaves with Aiden's furball head in her lap. She wasn't concussed or anything, though maybe a tiny little bit from her wild dive to escape the Apali's fire. It just seemed easier to couch herself in white noise than to fret and worry about her baby boy, or about Aiden being permanently damaged, or about the clanmembers and friends they'd lost, or about the fact that all of it, all of this, was her fault.

It wasn't until Aiden moved that Maaike's brain began to retain the information her eyes and ears were giving it, and make some semblance of order out of the spy's whimpers and screams and the unnamed big guy's efforts to crack the information out of him. (Why couldn't she remember his name?)

Maaike took one look at Aiden's human face and grinned through tears of relief, cupping his cheeks and smooshing his face with a peal of almost hysterical laughter. “Baby cakes!” She shook her head, her smile pulling to one side and collapsing under the weight of too much fear. “Welcome back. How much — How much do you remember?” She tipped her head in the spy's direction to indicate the intel he'd given, rather than a general question of how sentient Aiden had been while trapped. Maaike wasn't sure she wanted to know if he remembered everything he'd felt while in that half-none-form. Bad enough to be influenced by an empath or his charms, but to have her control stripped away like that and remember?

Please, Xanth, let him forget.

Fingers curled around Maaike's shoulder, the nails digging in a little too hard. Maaike glanced up to find her mom pressing close, peering at Aiden with the same sort of caution he'd swept away during his time with them. “One of the scouts is back. They lost track of the Apali over the lake, but they split up. Someone's heading for the portal, the rest to the cardinals.”

Maaike nodded, lips pressing together in a mutinous seal as she narrowed her eyes at the way Niamh was practically glaring at Aiden again. Like it was his fault, like he'd betrayed them. She kept her voice soft, just enough for Niamh to hear the steal in it without embarassing the Nymph in front of the rest of the clan. “Don't. Just. Don't.” If Niamh should be blaming anyone for this, it should be Maaike, not Aiden. All he'd ever done was help, at great cost to himself. Niamh had no business treating him like crap for that.

Niamh blanched, fingernails curling even tighter and pinching enough that she might as well have had claws. Maaike didn't flinch, didn't let herself wince or try to pull away, just kept her narrow-eyed stare fixed on her mother's until the Nereid blinked and pouted and eventually, slowly, inclined her head to Aiden in the only apology he'd ever get. Maaike let Niamh pull her to her feet, then, grateful for the assistance. She shook out the kinks and the stiffness, turned around to offer Aiden a hand up in turn, and sucked in a deep breath to steady her nerves and kickstart her brain.

Before she could start asking questions or making suggestions on where they could go from here, the spy — who had been doing a pretty good job of acting like a weasel despite his half-bird shape — caught a glimpse of Aiden free of the 'bane and hunched up with a cry that was half relief and half glee. Maaike was on him before her brain could keep up with the reflex, burying her claws into the spy's belly and pinning him to a tree trunk before he could fully change. She saw his face scrunch up in confusion and flinched away from the blood that spluttered out of his mouth when he whimpered, “B-but my fabily...”

For a second, Maaike could only stare at him in the sharp shock of confusion because this was a guy who'd let his mate and kids be killed and only started spilling the beans when it was his own life on the line, and it was that knowledge that made her lean in close to his ear and murmur, “Don't worry about your family.” She yanked her claws free of his flesh and let him stagger back against the trunk, still peering at her as if she'd betrayed him. Her voice was trembling but venomous. “I'll treat them the same way you've treated mine.” His wide-eyed horror would have to be enough because he was slumping into the decaying leaves before she could say anything more.

[Aiden]

Turning back into a human should've been as simple as walking, but this time, Aiden struggled as much as a child still learning the steps. Gradually, muscles tore and re-knit themselves over tendons that connected to bone...when his bones finally crunched back into place, he gasped and looked at Maaike with eyes that were finally unclouded. Xanth it was good to see her clearly again. He didn't even protest as Maaike grabbed his face. With a wheezy laugh, he wrapped a still-achy hand around Maaike's, eyes flickering briefly toward his fingers with disbelief at their existence. He had been so terrified of being trapped in that half-form through the night, but now that he was whole and useful again, he could help rescue Sammy.

Sensing movement behind Maaike, Aiden's smile faded as he saw the Nereid. Hair dishevelled and with thin scrapes on her left cheekbone, Niamh's voice was taut with worry as she reported the search's progress. As the nymph glared down at Aiden over her daughter's shoulder, frustration and accusation rolled through her expression, and Aiden's throat rumbled with an involuntarily snarl in response to Niamh's challenge. Face hot, Aiden shoved himself into a seated position and glowered back at the nymph. He'd never be good enough to Niamh. She was projecting her anger at him, and that was dashiri poop.

“Don't. Just. Don't.” If Maaike hadn't been there to nip the argument, Aiden would have said something he'd probably regret. Sighing, he nodded back at Niamh and loosened his jaw. He'd just emerged from the grips of wolfsbane, and Niamh had returned from a fruitless chase after her grandson's kidnapper. The clan had been attacked today, so everyone was feeling raw and volatile. Still, that wasn't a good reason for them to vent on each other.

Hours of being in half-form had traumatized his body, and needles of pain shot through his knee as he placed weight onto it. As Aiden took an experimental step, he stumbled upon hearing the screech that wrenched all attention toward the spy. Wits recovered, Maaike attacked the traitor with lightning speed, and the force of her blow knocked the spy's back against the tree trunk. “Maaike, don't!---” But her dark claws were already inches deep in the spy's gut. Lurching forward, Aiden brushed Niamh's arm aside as the nereid attempted to block his path. The way Maaike spoke to the spy---so cold and vengeful---brought a dismayed hiss to Aiden's lips. For a disoriented moment, he almost believed those words. This wasn't her though. She wouldn't be as heartless as the spy had been to the Sullivans. They couldn't punish the family for the spy's sins.

Brows furrowing as he kneeled over the injured therian, Aiden grit his teeth as he surveyed the damage. Bright red blood pumped out of the wounds with each heartbeat, and the spy gaped soundlessly. One of Maaike's claws must have punctured an artery. Even if Aiden attempted first aid, without the rarest of healing potions, the spy would only have a few minutes to live. When the spy's eyes rolled back into merciful unconsciousness, Aiden stood and stepped away.

Thanatos had forced this unnamed stranger into this position. The spy had betrayed another clan to protect his own family and had died thinking that his family was equally condemned. Aiden understood that with the wolfsbane gone, the spy would have been a threat to the clan again. They would have had to eliminate the threat eventually, and the spy had already rejected the chance to join their side. The sonofakelpie had stolen Sammy. This felt different than when they fought the slavers and bandits though. This was an execution.

Regardless of his objections, they didn't have time for a discussion. Pulling his gaze from the corpse, Aiden looked toward Maaike and spoke more clearly. “If the Apalos changes route, our guy at the portal will need more support. Just in case, some should go through to New Alexandria. Look for Marius' warehouse at the docks and watch the eastern cavern.” By now, most of the affected clansmen had already recovered from wolfsbane, and they'd need to leave as soon as possible. “Rest of us should spread out. Are we close to any nymph's demesne?”