Rayner vs Hono

It had been a long time since Rayner had come to the Firebrand.

He knew it emptied out for these occasions, very wisely; but even keeping in mind that Rage was a few cards shy of a deck, he wasn't sure why the guy kept putting this place up for the tournament. He had heard the news about rounds here, the familiar name tended to catch his ear. And they never sounded like the round had gone well for the old bar. It certainly looked like it had been remodeled a few... dozen times.

Still it felt odd knowing the bar and inn was empty- enough so that he caught himself glancing at the stairwell.

Owle wasn't going to come down them though.

She was long gone. And while he might have moved on in some sense, he owed her his life, and a large part of who he was today. You didn't forget a friend like that. He took two little glasses and set them on the bar, rounding back to the stools with his hands full. A few cubes of ice to fill each, and he poured bourbon over his, leaving the other glass empty. Not everyone drank spirits; and his wife had been able to tell him at least to be expecting a woman. He figured that cut the chances of her wanting bourbon a bit too.

The glass went to his lips.

Whoever came in next was almost certain to be his opponent, but he didn't feel the need to go guns'a'blazin', especially not this soon in the tournament. There wouldn't be any doubt he was there for the fight though, between the facial scars, the spatha, the brigandine belted over his duster, and steel on his hands and feet. Once he would have felt silly dressed like this.

He'd learned to accept it.

His eyes snapped to the door before his head started to turn, ready to assess the threat and take a first impression on his competition, much as he'd been cautioned to take it a little easier for the preliminaries. He got as far as the color of her hair and that she was a little thing before the woman bounded up onto the bar and started pouring herself a drink.

That was about when he got the second part of his assessment; she appeared to be going to drink the vodka straight, and was dressed for effect. Not the same effect as he was dressed for.

"Never," he smiled, pushing the brooding off his face and out of his eyes. He'd seen how unbecoming it was first hand on more than enough faces, but it was something he indulged in from time to time all the same. Like flirting. He might have had a ring hidden under his glove, but he was allowed innocent play. Supposing no introductions were needed, he propped an elbow on the bar and raised his glass.

"But I'm 'fraid I don't know 'bout any gentlemen here, darlin'."

And awarded that little clack of glass on glass, he'd toss the rest of the bourbon back, and slide the remaining ice aside.

"Hah!" he barked, a little spark of genuine amusement coming to his eye. That was a fun sort of attitude, and despite that he'd been about to give up on the drink, he reached out and hauled it back, letter her fill one up for him again. He knew it'd be strong enough to touch him, but with his tolerance for the stuff it wouldn't inhibit him any. It wasn't like his judgement was awe inspiring to begin with.

"And how exactly does one go about convincing one of that?" he chortled. A potentially very fun conversation regardless of what kind of answer came.

Rayner put the bourbon to his lips and slowly started to drain it, eyes out across the bar, until he had to stop and sniff.

Fact was, he could smell it too.

"Huhm. Some of the staff here are probably still dwarves. The stuff they'd cook worried me sometimes. I'm not sure they all knew how to cook..." not to mention it had to be easy to forget you'd left something on the counter until it started smelling when some of the counter tops were competing with your eyes for superior altitude.

"Would'a smelled better sometimes if all they cooked was rocks," he quipped, and finally decided that he couldn't do with being too off for the fight, and drained the rest of his cup, going so far as to let an ice cube into his mouth, sucking it clean of the residual bourbon before spitting it back into the glass and sliding that toward the far end of the bar.

"Also'd avoid their special brew, f'was you. Not sure it doesn't literally put hair on y'er chest."

And it was always a shame to ruin a good chest.

But today, today wasn't such a day for draping. Celeste didn't always seem to mind the idea, but she had a fight of her own today, and from what he'd gathered she was also fighting a woman. Which meant Rayner was estimating his odds 50/50 on whether she came back peppy and in high spirits from a bout of flirting and fighting, or cranky from the pain and growling about how she wanted a second round so she could finish sorting out the such-and-such.

...yeah, better to forget about it for today unless Cel went and started getting ideas herself.

He sighed, though he wore a smile for it, and stood from his stool, putting himself more on level with the elevated woman, and brushed off his pants and coat, as if there was enough dust in the bar to pick up.

"So what's a pretty 'lady' like yer'self lookin' for in a game like this?"

Rayner kept (the vast majority of) his mental commentary to himself, and laughed along with the comments, carefully placed emphasis, and tones. Not in a derisive, or dismissive way. He had long since gotten familiar with this particular little game- or perhaps pre-game- though he still enjoyed it. That much was funny though- a few years ago he'd have been stumbling over himself and in pieces over such blatant, unabashed flirtation.

"Grown" might not have necessarily been the right word, but he'd changed a lot in such a short time.

Rayner lifted and eyebrow as she sprawled out, and chuckled under his breath. He couldn't stop grinning, but got to stretching despite himself, idly loosening his shoulders and legs. There were such nicer things to do with women than hitting them, but he wasn't in the tournament just for fun or his own paranoia this year. He couldn't entirely forget the business at hand.

"I'll bet you do," chortling again as he stepped away, turning his back and rolling his neck, stretching his fingers and back. "My wife's just the same. But we get a little carried away sometimes," he turned around and split his lips, lopsided grin showing off the point of a canine.

"A gentle hand might do her some good after a match."

Rayner did not interpret Hono's last line the way it was meant. He did not interpret it correctly at all.

"Time enough for all the 'bove later," he said, taking a good look up and down to try and assess her for little threats. She was small, but that didn't even mean that she wasn't strong; about all it meant was that he had the advantage if it came to a question of mass. Probably. He didn't know how you'd tell if someone's bones and muscles were secretly made of a hellish living stone that weighed hundreds of pounds, but he suspected she wasn't that sort.

He'd met them before. They weren't usually this pleasant.

"'spose this is gettin' to the part where it gets rough, then."

More and more teeth started showing through. If he'd been wearing his hat, he'd have tipped it.

Rayner opened his mouth to speak, unhooking his thumbs from his pockets and-

...was that cola?

Coughing, he stumbled backwards, lifting a hand to ward the stream off, until he'd outranged the spout of soda. Blinking and spitting, he looked up at the woman, rather non-plussed.

Spitting, and with a snort of something like amusement, he gave his hair one good shake to get the sticky liquid out, and moved into reach again- at a sprint. Rayner could have hung out and found things to lob about at each other, or made a food fight of it, but as much as Celeste had asked him to take it a little easy on Hono, and he didn't especially like hurting women, the whole mess was serious for him this year. They didn't need to win the whole shebang. But no way he was going out in the preliminaries because he'd been too busy joking around to do what they were really there for.

With a forearm up to shield his eyes, the swordsman crossed the space between himself and the bar in a little over nothing flat and clapped a palm on it's lower, somewhat more dwarf-friendly surface. Leaping from the ground, he let his momentum sling his body forward, using his right arm something like the pole in a pole-vault. Except instead of going high he was mostly just going forward, armored plates on his boots scraping the surface of the bar as he came over heel's first.

It'd either give Hono a good, hearty wallop in the stomach and stop him atop the bar top, or send him stumbling a little further over into the entranceway to the kitchen if she got out of the way.

[1]

Despite the armor, Rayner felt a great sense of relief that the bartop was fairly smooth as his body slipped right on over, momentum carrying him over it without the body to transfer that force into. A little shot of panicked adrenaline, too, as the woman and flash of something steely came toward the space his head was rapidly replacing his body in.

The relief came when his feet hit the floor again and before the thud came down behind him. He hadn't gotten a chance to see what that metal was in mid slide, and he wasn't going to see it again until after he'd already finished turning around. But that was a whole half-second of waiting.

In that time he'd already blindly grabbed the nearest bottle, slinging it at her center of mass all as part of the motion of turning around.

Blades. Okay,

He hadn't been hoping for it to go that route so quickly, but as long as she was going to draw steel Rayner went right ahead and reached for his short sword, keeping his left hand raised as if in a fist-fighting guard, as he weighted the pros and cons of trying to fight her off the bar versus making her come after him toward, or into, the kitchen.

[2]

The bottle deflected off, and he took a note- quick reflexes, a watchful guard. He was probably going to need to mix tricks and direct force to get a solid lead on this one. It occurred to the logical part of his brain that it also would have been brighter to make her chase him than to get pulled into this tight little area, but it could shut up with that. Now that he was here he was simply going to have to make-

Pay attention, numbskull!

His guarding gauntlet rose and rotated, shoulders turning to make sure it wouldn't catch him full in the face if it came off wrong. The problem was that the damned thing was open, and it splashed little droplets all across his face, and a good dousing on the tail of his coat and pant leg. Or rather, that very apparently became the problem as a jolt of flame followed after it. In panic Rayner twisted that guarding arm and shoulder full behind him, heat reddening his face even as it sailed past and the man lunged without hesitation, turning his defensive rotation into an offensive thrust of the sword's two foot blade after her hip in a single smooth motion.

He wasn't a trained fencer like his wife, but he'd hard-earned his sense of balance and keen taste for opportunism, and--

-FFWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMPH!-

Rayner didn't turn around and look. Had he not been devoted to his attack, there would have been no time- he had been close to more fireballs, bursts of flame, and minor explosions in his time than he had any interest in recalling. But you never did get used to the way your ears popped, and how damn fast it happened.

A quick burst of flame lit up the room behind him, setting off spills and leaked gas in a burst of pressure and heat out of the mouth of the kitchen, and over the two fighters, whipping his hair and duster's tail forward, the droplets of alcohol on his cheeks hissing and burning painful, tiny black marks as the tongues of flame washed over them for all of a second. The cracking-boom sound and violent ringing in his ears followed fractions of a second after.

None of this changed his thrust.

It simply lead to a "" and his left eye watering and squeezing shut in it's aftermath, as a little sarcastic voice in the back of his head noted, with far too much snark, that the fireball she'd thrown had not been that big. Or that much alcohol, which meant something hadn't been right in the room behind him.

Thanks Rage, thanks dwarves!

A burning building. Grand.

The Firebrand's stone walls looked upon the fire with disdain- but most of it's furnishings seemed to be far more accommodating.

[3]

His face stung, and the left side of his vision was watery. His point didn't get the mark, but he flicked the blade around, drawing a faint line of blood and readying to do so again as something caught his eye, by her hand at the last moment.

He tried to turn out of the way, defensively. Not quickly enough.

"Hnnghff-"

A small sound as two small forces struck him, both right on the mark.

Neither shuriken, however, had the kind of mass it would take to drive a thrown weapon through all three layers of the brigandine covering his torso.

Note to self; lots of small sharp things.

Raven would be able to hop off the bar, and with that tiny distance and moment bought, Rayner wasted no time in jolting to his right and throwing himself at the bar, shoulder first making contact as he tucked and rolled over, landing in a crouch on the other side and just raising his guard.

Rayner had bought himself a little distance from the slowly spreading tails of fire, now following old spills of what must have been cooking oil, or quickly streaking across the fresh spilled alcohol, across the bar area- second note, that'll end badly- and now he had a moment to protect himself from an issue that was likely to be bigger than the flames in a minute or two, jerking the collar of his duster up past the armor and buttoning it, jerking it tight across the lower front of his face, over mouth and nose.

Only then did a retort really come to him.

"Told'ya I'm no gentleman," muffled by the jacket.

With a quick toss he'd normally of chided himself for the recklessness of, he transfered the spatha to his left hand and whipped it outward- before swinging it across the top of the bar flat-forward, slinging that broken glass in the general direction of her face. Not hard to ward off, but he was just looking for a trick to by himself a second's time to close in again, right falling to guard as he surged forward, looking to try and land a punch, landing with the crossguard if successful, on her jaw.

[4]

He could feel the pressure from the blow on his wrist, but there was no jolt to report the carry through earning him that perfect, sharp finish that not only hurt but could break things or toss the brain about like a pinball. In one way, it was a bit of a relief she hadn't let him manage that powerful of a blow. But her lightening of the blow wasn't the thing that set an alarm off in his head.

The only thing that saved him the use of his arm was that he had switched his sword to his left before the assault. The knife came up quick, but coming across her body while his own retracted following the blow meant he had just enough time to catch a visual and react in panic. His right hand came forward, meaning to clap against the wrist and offer a stab to the torso or throat enough resistance to save him the worst. And her knife went above and past it instead, following his arm to where it had been going to c**k for a second blow. Another reflex, in panic, he flared the elbow up, ruining the chance for a second blow, and the point of the dagger tore into the duster, eliciting a muffled sound from under his coat--

The point came out the other end bloody. But not deep enough to have impaled his bicep.

What Rayner did next was, in most ways, a very bad idea.

The sword fell from his fingers as his elbow bent, hooking it around the dagger while his left hand clasped her forearm, limiting the power and range of motion of the dagger- which had it's blade resting between hardened leather and flesh. All she'd have to do was press or saw hard enough to weaken his grip, and as soon as his hand came off she'd be set to do some very nasty things there.

Which was why he didn't intend to give her the chance, or strength.

Lacking a target, Rayner's hand grabbed a handful of tunic at groping-level on Hono's chest and shoved against her bosom with it.

There were a million and one comments to be made, right there. But Rayner was too busy rotating on the ball of his left foot to comment- in one violent twist from the toe to the hip, Rayner's right knee slammed into her ribs the only way he knew how to throw a blow- hard.

"Kyeeup!"

With her body twisted to stab at his other arm with the dagger and the hand against her chest, Hono's body would have little give to lessen the destructive force of the impact; not nearly so bad as if she'd had her other side against a wall, but bad enough all the same. The cost, on Rayner's part, was sawing that blade a hair deeper against his arm, eliciting little droplets of blood down onto its handle.

Exhaling hard, he'd bite down on the pain and rotate his hip back, meaning to tap his right toe to the floor where it had first lifted from and repeat the blow. Hono was going to have to act quickly-

Rayner had every intention of repeating the blow until she'd give out over his knee and he could haul them both out of the burning building.

[5]

One solid blow, and somehow he'd managed to make her release the knife it seemed, as a jolt of pain jolted along his arm out from the elbow, and then faded to a colder ache, followed with a little clatter. The sounds were starting to get swallowed, though, as the fire trailed out further on spills and wooden flooring and furniture, consuming the coating and beginning to eat in.

One supposed that's what you got for using dwarves as janitors in anyplace that wasn't made entirely of stone.

And as his leg pivoted back to ready another knee the woman leaned- drawing a growl from him as she unexpected tugged on his injured arm of her own volition- and a foot swept up. At this range, Rayner couldn't have done anything about it if he'd seen it coming except try and take the hit better.

"Uggh-ck," fortunately, the brigandine was there to do it for him.

Rocking back, the offensive foot planted flat to keep his balance, and Rayner's eyes grimaced as the breath left him and came back only hesitantly. The greatest dangers had been negated by the armor, but a blow to the sternum meant issues no matter what, and he fell back to his basics- solid footing and a death grip. Even as the effort and jolt elicited a fresh pattering of blood from his elbow to the floor, only Rayner's hand on her chest was forced off, with a small handful of fabric in it.

Dammit. Go down so we can get the hell out of this deathtrap-

Down. That was the key.

Rayner abandoned all of the striking he'd been taking to thus far- he had a grip of her wrist with his weakening arm, and his other was beneath it. Body dipping, knees bending to lower his center of gravity, the swordsman's right arm wrapped up around Hono's and grabbed the captured wrist as well while his torso turned- forcing the elbow to straighten painfully close to hyperextension as his shoulder pressed against it from beneath.

He tucked his head, and in one clean sweep tried to haul her bodily over his person and slam her head and shoulders first into the floor on the other side of him. If he could accomplish that, he could finally let go with the bloodied arm and let it rest, at least a moment, and attempt to follow up and finish it with a right elbow against the back of the head, into the floor. That kind of a one two was practically a positive knock out on anything human, but who knew if she was. With her tricks and dexterity so far? He didn't think that was all, and Rayner's pessimistic mind was already grasping for where a hitch would come into the plan.

His most obvious advantages here were mass and brute force. Time to use them.

[6]

Rayner would hardly notice the fan going away- he knew it was a threat, but he was devoting to this anyway, as his most immediate and direct path to taking care of a lot more danger than one sharp object likely among many. There had been a small chance of her latching onto something or pulling some special trick to keep herself grounded, as much as he couldn't think of any way that was possible without causing her elbow to snap the wrong direction.

Those concerns were assuaged as she left the ground.

Rayner had to fight women far more often than he liked in the least, and generally hated to leave them any lasting injuries worse than bruises or sprains if he could help it- but every year they left him less and less choice and he felt more and more jaded.

In this case, he was settling for continuing to sling her around, on a course to catch her weight on the floor somewhere between her head and upper spine. It was no pile driver, but at the moment it might be the next best thing, and he was ready to fall to a knee to make sure she landed with it, even if she got a grip on him in mid-air.

The proximity would make the unpleasant follow up battery to the back of her head, and hopefully end of this, that much easier.

...essentially, things seemed to be going as planned, so he continued as planned.

[7]

She came down, and the impact-

...the impact...

...what.

Under normal circumstances, Rayner might have reacted better. He'd seen people generate everything from that shuriken earlier to pillars of fire shaped like unseemly things in his time, right out of their asses like it wasn't no thing at all. Never before, however, had he seen someone whip out a pillow in the midst of battle.

He was a little busy drawing the world's longest ellipses in his mind when the leg came up, and it was all he could do to get his shoulder partially in the way. It'd slow, and thus weaken, the blow a little, but it still glanced off right against his head. It knocked the floor, teeth rattling against teeth- and rolled off and away, moving quickly to all fours and backward further to his feet- and stopping backing up to glance at a wave of heat behind himself, and stomp out embers starting to light up his pant leg. This place was starting to get bad, and now he was out of space.

A distance again. Enough to anticipate and act defensively, while he nursed his head, left arm hanging not-quite limp at his side. What the hell was with the pillow? She was making things, and yet hadn't gone for any of the most vicious openings he could have thought for that kind of skill. It was confusion, and begged the question if he needed a new approach...

...or if he was still trying too hard to be nice and human about this.

For Sera, he could only afford so much of that.

But all else in question, he knew he had one advantage set up. The bar was burning after all. Even skirting carefully away from the flames thus far, it would be filling with smoke now, stinging the eyes, and worse, making any breathing twice as hard and a little bit dangerous. If she was coming to her feet again, she'd have to deal with it just like he did, and it was only getting steadily worse. Of course, Rayner had wrapped his face earlier to get himself a filter; not perfect, but good enough to keep him from coughing just from breathing enough to fight.

Now, the question was if she'd try and stop to find her own filter, or try and contain the hacking through it?

[8]

He had about a second to wonder just what kind of magic he should be expecting this time, raising his right as though she might be conjuring an object to sling at him and-

-no, not one object-- tch!

Baring and gritting his teeth, Rayner backed up quickly under the force of wind, shielding his eyes and throat as he was buffeted not only by the force, but tiny flashes of heat and impact against his flesh, leaving tiny nicks and streaks of ash across his face- a splinter of something struck his leg and stung sharply, wet. But he'd only have to eat the first second or so of barrage before his legs hit a surface and Rayner threw himself over it with the wind's own aid; grabbing onto the bar table with his right hand and overturning it, banging himself against chairs in the process, into an impromptu shield from the wind. Behind it, Rayner twisted slightly against the floor, ignoring pained, bloody protests from his left elbow-

And when that wind ended, Raven was going to find the trick turned on it's head.

Spreading his arms and shoulders across the floor for a strong support, Rayner's body from the stomach down all fired off at once with a grunt of exertion, ending in two boots braced against what had moments ago been the top of the table.

The now catching-flame furnishing flew legs first toward Hono.

In it's wake he spring boarded a second time, wincing and coughing as he came to his feet, and dashed quickly in behind it, looking to find an opening it might have left- and make something of it.

[9]

Not quite as satisfying as seeing the table slug her against the wall would have been, but Rayner gritted his teeth and dealt with it. His left arm worked, but not well, and his leg wasn't so badly hurt that he couldn't walk on it just fine- it just ached more and more the longer he did it. That was a b***h of a splinter he'd have to yank out of his leg later, but he knew very well how big or deep something had to be to slow him down, and that was neither.

He had far too much experience with just how his body dealt with injury.

Which is why he flinched when the knife came out, only to stop- it flew for his chest, and Rayner walked right into it. Knives were hard to throw at moving targets and still get them to land blade-first, but more the matter was that he was wearing armor quite ideal for handling sharp things without significant penetrating power behind them. The blade struck the brigandine cleanly, parted the upper layer, showing off the series of linked plates beneath, and fell right into Rayner's hand as he stormed up to Hono.

He had to give her credit. She was agile, and fast as all get out with the sharp things.

She had also just disarmed herself of one of the collection right in time for him to reach that melee range again. Rayner didn't even waste a second in closing and bending over, knife in his left half raised- only to snap a quick right fist, palm up, into the front of her gut. Just to wind the woman and fold her over a moment. Looking to buy time for himself to bend over, wheezing, and none-too-gently haul her over his good right shoulder- which shouldn't help the recovery of breath any as Rayner began pointedly walking for something, through thick smoke. Fire licked up around them, and behind he could already hear that ceiling beam- or ******** rafter or whatever unnecessary wooden log they'd hefted up above everyone's heads- creaking dangerously. His pants started to get dangerously close to lighting if they weren't already, and while his boots and armor might have been amazing to save him the worst of burns, he could feel himself starting to boil inside of it, as he pointedly made his way toward a wall, jouncing Hono violently as if to try and keep her disoriented just as long as possible until he could-

The creaking turned to a groan, and scream, and with a curse Rayner lifted his heel, kicking the door wide open, and emerged coughing out of the bar with the woman across his shoulder.

Double ring out?

Seemed to be the case. She could go back into the collapsing, burning bar if she wanted and see if she roasted, suffocated on smoke, or got crushed by debris first. But she'd have to get by him. Rayner paced out far enough to find a patch of sand that shouldn't be close enough to eat debris of the wreck behind them before bending over as if to set the mage down gently- and dropped her the rest of the way into the sand.

He wasn't really expecting any thank you's anyway.

[Finis.]

Rayner looked at her a bit, and with the little knives showing up through the sleeve, he couldn't help but chuckle. Go figure. The woman did like her sharp things- and who was he to disagree?

But aside from cradling his left arm carefully, while Rayner may have looked a mess none of the wounds seemed to affect him much now. Not beyond making faces at the bruises he was sure were coming and wincing a little as he sat. Tiny bits of burn and scrape everywhere, but almost all superficial. Except- with a face, he reached down at the bit of broken wood embedded in his leg, and grabbed the oversized splinter between two fingers before carefully wiggling it out, finally hissing out an unhappy breath when it finished. He wiped at his face, making small smears of the little bit of blood there.

"'pends on what it entails. For the moment I wanna stiff drink before I walk too far," eying the burning Firebrand.

Yeah. Not happening.

Oh, the "M" word.

A year or so ago, that probably would have been the end of that discussion right there, but as Hono explained the perks of having her on a team to him Rayner instead nodded and grunted non-noncommittally. Surprised? Not entirely. The juju was not his cup of tea, but it got the job done, and he'd been forced to deal with it often enough that he could take a little light healing, long as he could pretend it wasn't happening. In an emergency, a bit more.

Then she mentioned teleporting.

....wha... no. Okay, no.

It took him about a second flat to move from panic to getting out of that one (hopefully).

"'fraid I came here on my wheels, so I'm gonna need to take 'em with me."

Who knew, maybe she could warp the old truck over with them; he wasn't going to ask and risk getting a yes.

"Patching up 'd be appreciated, I s'pose. After that, you can hitch a ride back if you like. Ain't luxury but it's clean, comfy, and the radio works."

Old, rugged, and reliable was roughly the model for the truck, with his own repairs and fix-ups to help keep it that way. He was no master of the art, but he'd spent long enough making a living repairing cars to handle all the common problems, and his recent access to funds had made it all the more possible... as well as his truck's noticeably out of place satellite radio and quality speaker system.

After all, what was a drive without music?

"Err..."

His eyes turned back toward the oversized campfire behind them, presently beginning to spout smoke while the Heaven or Hell crews cleared out and started giving permissions for fire crews to handle the issue now that the competition they'd gotten the right to subject the place to had come to an apparent close. Usually there was some post-fight nonsense to deal with, even if not much, that Rayner had usually preferred to deal with himself, being a very 'hands on' sort of guy.

Now he had the money to do otherwise though, and despite himself he trusted Cel's lawyer to take care of all that like he would never have done with a proper manager- as long as he discussed it with her eventually.

"Well. I'll let 'em know what we're looking for when they clean up. My swords in there some'ere too. If they don't have any luck, I can probably replace it," unless it was some kind of magic thing, money for a knife was not an issue. If she insisted on hand-forged, time might be, but he had some experience with finding good blades on demand.

He somehow didn't expect a magic weapon could be ruined by a burning building, or lost for too long, anyway.

"So."

This was the part he didn't like.

Rayner reached up and carefully undid each gauntlet before removing them; though beneath his hands were still covered by another, very thin glove meant to help prevent chaffing from the leather. That done, he took his time about removing the brigandine, folding it, and in similar slow deliberation born half of care for his gear and half, half of slight reluctance to be a "subject" to magic doctoring, and in true Gaian fashion a third half of pain from his wounded arm. The duster came off more quickly, but with more wincing, finally giving a good look at the wounded arm.

Not high up from the bicep, he had not so much a slash or stab, but a furrow cut into the arm from the injury he'd not-quite-managed to stop. Apparently deep enough that he didn't care to hold that arm up for display without the aid of the other.

It also exposed what his slightly-too-small black muscle shirt didn't hide, including the obvious as well as a neat collection of scars.

"Let's jus' worry about this one for now."

The other on his thigh was not as bad, and the scars and minor scrapes and nicks he could care less about. Besides. It'd take more than offering "free heals" to get him out of his pants.

"You could'a said so," he drawled dryly, but judging by his face he didn't take it too hard at all.

She touched his finger and he quirked and eyebrow- before almost pulling away. This part always felt bizarre. Most times there was an anesthetic effect, numbing him and making it seem less real, tingling or pins and needles, and he always disliked it. Despite his affair with painkillers before his marriage, that had always unsettled him, and still did. When it came from magic, it wasn't just a chemical. That was control someone else's. And he had issues with that from other things that he'd never quite gotten past.

Rayner started to pull away, but stopped himself, letting her go through the healing.

If there was anything unusual about it, he probably didn't notice, tense as he was. It didn't need to be particularly unusual to unsettle him.

But when she was done, he'd ask "'s'all it takes?" and check himself over, as though curious just how well healed they'd be so soon, if it took time or just effort, and as if just uncertain something about his body wouldn't have wound up a way it wasn't supposed to, despite the benign intent of the magic.