Laslo cursed as he felt Louis' finger slip just out of reach and pulled back his arm before any of the flames could get a grip on his hard leather arm guards. His mounting worry for his vice captain caused him to become more reckless, and he began to cut deeper into the flock, drawing more of their attention to him and away from his injured comrad.
In one particularily successful stroke, his sword parted three ravens bodies at once, but in doing so he left his extended side open for assault - out of the corner of his eye he could see one raven coming dangerously close to his face and he braced himself for impact. Only - it never came. Just as Laslo was sure he was going to have to be picking out eyepatches at the next port, the raven snapped backwards mid-dive, half of its skull opened up by pistol shot. Relieved,
Laslo quickly glanced behind himself, seeing Felix lowering his gun before continuing to fight the ravens around him.
At this same moment, Laslo became aware of an unusually rhythmic vibration underfoot. He couldn't quite hear what it was over the noise of battle, but it was growing steadily fainter and seemed to radiate from the point on deck where he reckoned Louis to be. Realising that time was getting short to save his vice captain, Laslo sheathed his sword an commenced to perform an action that was equal parts brave and stupid - he barreled headlong into the firey inferno.

He tried his best to shield his head with one leatherclad arm whilst doubling over and scooping his other arm towards the ground, hoping that the momentum of his charge would be enough to carry both men through to the other side of the birds. His hand snagged onto something stiff -perhaps a coat collar- and he almost stumbled, but his hand gripped down like a vice and he managed to keep going, hopefully dragging Louis along with him. He could only have been inside the firey collumn for a few seconds, but emerging into the fresh night air on the other side felt like heaven to the already scorched areas of the captain's skin.
Laslo's momentum carried him a few more paces before he finally tumbled onto the deck, his hand finally releasing the stiff cloth. The smell of burning fabric and a persisting heat told the young captain that some part of him still likely still on fire, and so he hastily rolled over the deck, snuffing the flames that had managed to catch onto his jacket and trousers. As he felt the flames die, he shifted his roll up into a crouch, right hand fumbling for his sword hilt as he tried to steady himself with his left and turned to face the birds.
He was expecting an immediate retaliation but, they were flying away from him?


The fight raging on deck had started to swing in favor of the Dusk Bringer and her crew. All across the deck the smaller skirmishes between crew and flaming ravens were ending with the crew victorious, and the barrage of ranged fire was taking its toll on the larger bird.
Its form had begun to waver, as its internal supply of birds was being depleted, and it let out a strangled scream, the noise causing the birds already on deck to whirl around and follow the fresh stream the beast was firing directly at the ranged fighters. A white area was beginning to show in the giant raven's chest, right over where the heart should be, although the swirling nature of the monster's form made it still quite a hard spot to aim for.

Louis continued banging on the deck. Lights were flickering through his vision, everything was on fire and he had to focus hard to actually hold on to the blade. All of a sudden he felt something tugging at what remained of his coat. Something pulled him out of the flames. Louis felt some relief coming over him, as he closed his eyes and let himself be dragged out of the bonfire.

Louis was more dead than alive when his captain dragged him out of the fire.
Most of the vice captain's hair and clothing had given way to the fire. His leather coat was the only thing that hadn't caught fire, yet it was riddled with clawmarks. Every piece of skin exposed was coalblack riddled with red marks where beak and claw had met bare skin.

Louis collapsed on the floor as his captain let him go. He watched blankly while Laslo was busy dousing his own flames. It was only when the captain turned back to meet his gaze that Louis' seemed to liven up. He still couldn't speak, or do anything for that matter, but the look of gratefulness on his face spoke volumes.

Kira hit the ground with a loud thud. She grimaced in pain when her elbows were the first thing that hit the floor. Still, she held on to the writhing package in her hands and she pressed it down tightly with her arms. She was struggling with the birds when a thought came to mind. Now what? The fabric would soon give way to the onslaught of beaks and talons. Phoenix would be of little use, since she could hardly stand up.

Luckily, help came barging in as the young deckhand. He didn't seem to know what to do, but quickly responded to Phoenix's orders. The pan came down with a loud bang, crunching feathers, bone and all sorts of nasty things underneath it. The coat soon turned deep red, as the ravens were reduced to mulch by the repeated beating of the pan. Kira turned her face away in hopes of not getting splatters of raven on her face. There, she let the deckhand go on for a while before stopping his hand. "That's enough, i think they're dead now." she said as she turned her head to look at the mushy pile of crow feathers, blood and fabric. That coat was a lost case now. Kira sighed, got up and turned to Phoenix. "Allright chef, let's get you to the infirmary. Could you get me a hand, mister Connor?"

Kira listened carefully and with growing concern. What had happened in the kitchen was only a taste of what was actually going on. Nelya's remarks about what she saw helped out a lot. Considering the kind of burns on Phoenix's arms it, they only had gotten to her for a second, the damage on deck would be multiple times worse. She was going to need more bandages.

"Thank you Nelya, your report helps me a great deal. Now i need you to get back upstairs and see if you can get the people with the worst wounds down here. Take whoever you need" she nodded towards Mitchell "and go save some people. You can hold on to the bottle, there may be someone out there to who could need it." She stressed the words an extra amount by putting it back in Nelya's hands and holding both of her hands tight.

"what happened to Phoenix? Was she upstairs?"

"Phoenix got at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was on my way to the kitchen when i heard the ravens. No clue how they got in the kitchen. She got pretty beat up though" With those words, she remembered Phoenix hadn't responded since a while. No groans in pain, no sound of creaking leather whenever she might shift her posture. Kira turned around to see that Phoenix was still in the chair. She seemed more relaxed though. Actually,
she had literally collapsed on the chair. Her arms hung off down the sides of the chair and her head had fallen to the side, partially resting on her shoulder. Why didn't she check for signs of shock yet? Kira rushed towards Phoenix to hastily check for vitals.
Heartbeat was erratic, but still there.
breathing, superficial.
skin colour, pale, yet not deathly.
Eyes, still responding to light differences and didn't roll back.

"Allright Nelya, get out the infirmary, take Mitchell with you. I'll take care of Phoenix." She said this all while still checking Phoenix's vitals. This was going to take time. Stabilizing was top priority right now

((I'll add a little treatment sequence, but i'm going to need to get some reading done before i get to that))

Kira took a moment to catch her senses. The symptoms were treatable, but where did they come from? It was time to act, so she quickly dismissed the thoughts and began searching in one of the many cupboards. A small box was procured, and she brought it back to Phoenix. A short checkup proved that the girl's heatbeat was still erratic. Kira took some salve out of the jar and rubbed it on her hands and phoenixes chest area. It soon started working, as Kira's palms began to feel a soft glowing sensation. She placed her hands on Phoenix's chest and began to apply pressure.
The gel on Phoenix's chest responded with an even warmer glow as both area's made contact. Kira could feel the erratic heartbeat beneath the palm of her hand. For a while she followed the Rhythm of the heart with gentle bursts of pressure. She gradually slowed down after that, and kept going until the heart rate was normal and Phoenix began taking deeper breaths.
Kira allowed herself a little moment of relief. Phoenix wasn't conscious yet, but she was stable now. She would make it. It probably wasn't just the wounds that caused her to go into shock in the first place. Phoenix was young and had probably never been in a situation like this one. The combination of stressful events and the sight of her terrible wounds could easily cause psychological shock.
Kira gently removed her hands. The salve had dried up and left behind a handshaped mark on Phoenix her chest. Kira left it there and went off to wash her hands and finish the bandages she had left to soak for Phoenix. The bandages weren't made of regular fabric. Instead, she picked up some patches of fish scales out of the sanitizing oils. She grabbed some more oil and dry patches to soak. She was probably going to need a lot more.
A new batch of scales was slowly soaking in the oils when Kira turned back to Phoenix. She seemed to be sleeping now, and Kira carefully started to apply the patches of scales. one layer was enough to keep anything bad out of the wound, yet the oils and the skin's natural properties allowed new skin to grow underneath it. Plus, no one would need to replace the bandages, something that had to happen daily with regular cloth bandages. With a little bit of luck, no scars would be visible to remind Phoenix of this terrible encounter.

((Kira is a kind of person to forget everything around her when she's busy treating people, so feel free have your character walk in as Kira is busy treating the wounds))

Barnes left the fighting to the other crew members and hoisted Minny up into his arms, quickly carrying her over to a more sheltered part of the deck. He carefully propped her up against some water barrels and crouched down in front of her.
"Minny?"
No response came from the girl other than her her lolling limply to one side, orange bangs strewn messily against her damp forehead.
"Minny!"
Barnes began to panic, having no medical knowledge to check her vitals, he focused on trying to wake her up - raising his voice louder and louder, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her violently. There was a loud clunk as he inadvertently caused her head to hit the barrel behind her.


"Uuurrgh... Sto-o-o-op."
Minny spluttered as she awoke to pain and nauseating motion. She was aware of rough hands leaving her shoulders and blearily opened her eyes to see her uncle's relieved face inches away from her.

"Ya bloody idiot! What were you thinking?" His voice was rough with anger, but he still pulled his startled niece into a fierce hug, continuing to mutter under his breath, "I'll ruddy skin you alive if you do anything like this again."
Breaking the hug as quickly as he had initiated it, Barnes rose up to his feet and extended a hand down to Minny, "Let's get you below deck."



Laslo surveyed the battle situation with a mixture of pride for his crew and trepidation for the beast's latest attack - he hoped that no-one had been too badly injured. This thought snapped his attention back to the man that he had just pulled from the flames, he was shocked to see that the man was in a worse condition than he had feared. His worried eyes met Louis' grateful ones, at least he was still concious. The captain hurried over, Louis' health now his first priority.

From his limited knowledge of first-aid, Laslo could tell that the burnt man was in a dangerous condition, but he didn't know the first thing about how best to help him - he needed to get him to Kira.
"Do you think you can stand?"
Without waiting for an answer, Laslo awkwardly lifted the taller man to his feet, supporting all of his weight with his shoulder and began to half carry his injured shipmate towards some stairs leading below deck.

As they rounded a stack of barrels, they almost bumped into Minny and Barnes. Laslo noted grimly that Barnes had definitely seen better days, with various burns and claws marks decorating his arms and clothing, but at least the girl looked mostly unharmed, if a little pale.
"You two! Help me with Louis."
Minny seemed alarmed by Louis' state, but Basrnes quickly moved forwards to help, wrapping a strong arm around Louis' waist, as his short stature stopped him from positiong his shoulder under the man's armpit, as Laslo had.
The battle torn trio reached the stairs in no time, with Minny anxiously tailing behind.
"Thanks. You guys get him to Kira, I'm going to help the fight up here." Laslo ordered, helping Minny to take some of the vice captain's weight from him. "And make sure you get yourself seen to aswell Barnes. That's an order."
He didn't bother listening to Barnes' grumbled response, relying on Minny's bossy attitude to make sure that the engine master got adequate medical attention and didn't try to rejoin the fray. His long legs taking him off toward the ranged attackers and back in to the literal heat of the battle.



The ravens streamed towards the ranged fighters, many from the column plummeting to the deck as they were hit with pistol shot and arrows, but their numbers were so great that it hardly seemed to matter. As their ranks smashed into the crew around Felix, the larger monster roard and took off from the side of the ship, rocking it once more.

Its great wings raked the air as it gained height, positioning itself over Felix and the ranged fighters and preparing to divebomb the already occupied crew members.

Louis was perfectly fine with the idea of laying perfectly still as he was. Movement caused his parched and burnt skin to tear and chafe, so he rather didn't. "Do you think you can stand?" Louis wasn't sure. Actually, he would rather remain exactly where he was. His hazy trail of thoughts was rudely interrupted by a tug at his arm. He let out a cry of sudden amazement and pain. It caused him to double over. Louis would have fallen to the ground if it weren't for Laslo's shoulder propped up underneath his armpit. Guess we're doing this then, he thought.

The walk seemed to last forever, and the constant chafing of the captain's shoulder wasn't very comfortable either. Louis didn't complain though, he didn't let out a single sound. There only was a muffled grunt when they suddenly paused and came across Minny and Barnes. He sent them a quick gaze as a greeting and turned his attention inward again. Ignoring the pain cost him almost all of his concentration. Barnes' firm grip around is waist was a welcome change from chafing Laslo's epaulettes. They quickly went on their way. The stairs proved particularly difficult, since Louis' sense of balance was thrown off because he had been without air for quite some time. He leaned heavily on Barnes and held the railing tightly with his spare hand for extra balance. They were just about to go down the stairs as two familiar faces popped up around the corner. They were Mitchell and Nelya.

((I took the liberty of giving the captain epaulettes, since it was traditional wear for captains for ages, let me know if you have something against it Reht, so i can edit the post ;) For those who don't know what epaulettes are, they are the golden shoulderpads that you see on the uniform of army officials))