Edric shakes his head slowly. "I don't know any of them. I don't even know you. I just saw your image once when I was trying to help Megara find someone. I never forget a face, but you're the only one of these here that I know." He motions to the man with the once-broken leg. "He appears to be the only one who survived. Go see if you know him. Whether or not you do, though, take him back to Enche with you and look after him, please?" Edric scans the area briefly, surveying the damage. "We must continue on the other direction, assuming our oxen are okay. If you know anything about animals, I'm sure Greenleaf would appreciate your assistance with them." Edric hops over to Punchy, cleaning him off with his magic and helping him to his feet. "Let's try to clean up some of this mess, shall we?"

"The oxen have been poisoned. These two do not have long," the ranger announces. The ranger stoops between the two oxen and begins massaging the oxen. He periodically stops to presses down hard in an awkward embrace. I've got to prevent their bodies from going numb. Got to keep them feeling.

The archer walks over to Greenleaf and, after watching a moment, begins to copy what he's doing, helping him. It stabilizes the oxen for the moment. The other two appear to be perking up a little; they probably got smaller doses that their magic-bred constitutions are able to overcome.

Zaljan quickly checks Yala's aura for any instabilities. If she's not about to die or go crazy, he'll go help out the poisoned oxen.

She's physically weaker than normal, but extremely stable and in no immediate danger.

Edric frowns down at his leg, finally taking time to notice the arrow sticking out of it. He motions Punchy over to him. "Hey Punchy, do you remember how this is supposed to work?"

Punchy jogs over, grinning. "Sure do, ya big galoot. Ye gotta push et through tha sem wae et came in."

Edric winces at the thought. "Ugh, with the feathers and everything?"

"No, ye eediot. Ye break off da fethas fahrst!"

"Oh. Ugh." Edric shudders, grabbing his leg and the arrow, and breaking off the back of it. He winces in pain, but manages to avoid crying and screaming, since he saw this coming. Punchy grabs onto the head of the arrow, and pulls it quickly the rest of the way through.

Edric was not prepared for that. "Ow!" He hops back, forgetting about his weakened leg and landing fully on it. He screams out again, tumbling to the ground. Punchy just laughs. Edric lays on the ground, squeezing his leg to try to stop the bleeding, barely managing to hold back the tears.

Punchy shakes his head at Edric.

"What a galoot. When yer finished blubbering conjure me some water fer a wash up."

Taddeo stares at Zaljan's back as he walks away then back at the girl, then back at the witch doctor who had just walked away without saying anything. He returns his attention to the girl, sighs and takes a seat.

"You've been acting really strange, Yala."

Yala appears to think about his statement for some time. She shoves a sweaty lock of hair out of her eyes and squints at Taddeo in the silvery moonlight. "Does it hurt to die?"

"To die? Yes. Dying is very painful, for the most part we don't want to let go of life and our bodies make every effort to hold on."

He squints at the girl.

"Why this talk of dying?"

"I was thinking about how you fight people all the time," Yala explains. "Aren't you afraid you will die?"

Taddeo shrugs, a slight grin on his face.

"I'm too good to die."

The grin fades as he notes Yala's dissatisfaction with his glib throwaway.

"It's something that I think of afterward sometimes, or when I can't sleep some nights. However, in the moment, no. I am very good at what I do, but there is always someone better, or someone with an edge but if you let yourself dwell on that thought . . ."

He spreads his hands, then wipes them on his trousers.

"Yala, every person makes a choice in everything that they do. I made the choice to accept this job, but I'm glad I did. Even if you don't like me sometimes, I like you. You are smart, you are kind and you do the unexpected."

He grins.

"I never had a sister, but I expect if she had been like you I would have liked to have one."

Yala smiles back. A bit unsteadily, she crawls out of her bedroll and over to sit next to him, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her head against Taddeo's arm. "Who do you have in your family?"

"I stayed with my mother, and she always has a lot of interesting people as friends. I remember that when I was growing up there were always poets, and composers around as well as dancers and philosophers. She delighted in having interesting people around her, and it didn't matter to her if you were famous, or rich as long as you were interesting."

He smiles down at the girl, hoping to keep her attention on him, instead of the messy business of cleaning up outside.

"My father is Giovanni of the Grigorus family. He would visit me, and was always interested in how I was doing with my fencing teachers. He was a very charming man, though not very good looking. He was shorter than my mother, and his hair was thinning when he was a young man. However, when he entered a room,"

Taddeo gestures as he speaks.

"He claimed the attention of everyone. He was a very intense, powerful man but he was always kind to me. It was a side of him I don't think many people saw."

He tilts his head as he watches Yala's reaction to his story.

"How about you?"

"Your mother sounds very nice." Yala gives a tired little shrug. "It was always just me and Papa, always. Well, and Sister Hildreth sometimes." She snorts derisively. "But always the two of us. Why did your father visit you instead of living with you?"