Two days after the Incident and Tiz doesn't know what to do anymore.

He's barely slept, eaten only when the Proprietress sat him down in a chair and watched him until his plate was empty (even when she kept spooning vegetables on it!) and hasn't even had a chance to bathe, much to Edea's annoyance. He's just too busy. Too worried.

Ringabel is not getting any better.

Sometime during the first night after they found him, the blond man had come down with a raging fever and it now threatens to cook him alive. They have tried everything, but they cannot get it to break, and Tiz and Agnes rotate shifts of keeping his fever from reaching a level that will cause irreparable damage. Agnes has repeatedly tried magic to lower his fever which works, but they know it cannot be used as a long-term solution; it drains it too quickly and wears off even quicker.

Edea had broken three glasses before Tiz very gently asked her not to try to help anymore. She is still too angry, still too shocked, still too hurt to control herself, and while she is good at running errands for them, her patience does not extend to the sleeping man. Tiz knows she'd never hurt him, especially after his fall, but he wonders if she wouldn't beat him with a pillow every time he cries out in pain in his sleep before they're able to calm him.

Tiz has cooked up concoction after concoction using his combined knowledge of Salve Maker and Spiritmaster, but nothing seems to work in the face of Ringabel's injuries and fever. Now, all he can do is sit there, staring over at Ringabel, watching the other man toss slightly in his sleep while Agnes delivers another dose of healing magic. When the Vestal finishes and Ringabel settles with a sigh, she attempts to walk back to her chair only to stumble.

Wordlessly, Tiz pulls her against him instead, and she leans for a moment. He's a bit worried about how much more any of them can take.

But they are not alone. Datz and Zatz have moved them away from the Flor Region - no one wants to be there any longer - and they've instead sailed over Harena. The men, as well as the Proprietress, are taking turns being with them, so that none of them are ever alone with the broken blond, and while Datz had been trying to teach Tiz a new card game, he sets the deck aside now.

"Everything alright, Lady Vestal?" The older man asks. "You've been doing too much lately." He takes her arm and carefully guides her until she's seated on the bed between Tiz and himself.

Agnes rubs at her eyes. "It's alright. I will be fine. We will be fine," she repeats, more to herself than to the men. But she can't stop her limbs from shaking, no matter how tightly she clutches herself.

Datz, bigger and stronger than Tiz by far, easily picks her up in his arms. "Why don't you get some more rest? I think I heard Edea stomping around the other room." The noise is hard to miss.

It is telling that Agnes is too tired to protest beyond a cursory struggle before she settles into the man's arms, and Tiz keeps a soft smile on his face as she is carried out of the room, a smile that drops as he glances back over at the sleeping man on the other bed.

"He's dying, isn't he?" His heart nearly leaps out of his chest and he snaps his head toward the door, where Edea is standing, Datz right behind her.

"Edea, what-"

"Agnes is sleeping," Edea replies, and comes into the room so that she can sit next to Tiz, drawing her knees up to her chest. "She needs the rest, so I kicked myself out." She gives him a rueful smile, and he hesitantly reaches for her hand with his own.

"Thanks," Tiz tells her, and the older man who settles back into his chair, picking up the deck and cards and reshuffling so he can deal out for three people instead of two.

"It's not looking good," Datz says to them both after he's told Edea the basic rules. "I've seen this before, wounds that just fester. White magic only goes so far without real healers. He needs proper treatment."

Edea stares down at her deck of cards. "If we could get him to Eternia…" They haven't yet encountered this world's Victor, so there is a good chance he is still alive. Perhaps he will be willing to heal Ringabel in the White Magic Chamber, especially if she begs her father to save one of his otherworldly sons. But they've already talked about how to get to Eternia…. that they can't.

The peaks are too high for just anyone to pilot Grandship over them. Airy has time and again insisted that Ringabel can't be the only one - that he isn't the only who can pilot the behemoth airship, but no one has ever seen anyone else do it. Ringabel had once joked that they only kept him around for his piloting skills. That wasn't true, Edea had told him then, we keep you around for your fighting skills too. But there is no one else with the skills and knowledge to fly Grandship safely over Eternia's mountains. They realize now they've relied on him too much.

"We'll do what we can," Tiz argues. "Maybe one of the cities can help. Eternia isn't the only place in the world with healers and doctors."

"… No, we're not." Edea replies quiet, not wanting to argue or raise her voice when Ringabel is so fragile and so sensitive to sound. "But can you really think of anyone else who might be able to help? He's dying, Tiz. He's dying." She blinks her eyes rapidly at her cards, willing them to stay in focus, to stop blurring. But her mouth plows on. "All that talk of protecting us and now we can't even protect him."

Not for the first time, anger and sadness rise up within her. She still doesn't understand how someone can be laughing and joking one evening and nearly dead the next morning, by his own hand. She can't understand why he'd be so selfish as to hurt himself so deliberately. Or so stupid, if it was an accident. She wants to shake him awake and demand explanations, but Ringabel's damaged state is something she knows she can't confront with force. It won't help; it will even hurt him further. She can't use brute force and she hates it. She hates him.

She's pulled out of her thoughts by Tiz's warm, calloused hand over hers…. she hadn't even realized her cards had been shaking along with getting blurry.

"We'll… fix him," he says quietly, vehemently.

It's that which makes her break down, and tears begin to roll back down her cheeks. The idea of fixing Ringabel, as though there was any way for them to fix such a broken man. He had always been fractured, obvious through his loss of memory and his social inappropriateness, but this was beyond just a little damage. This is something that needs care and dedication. Healing. Deep healing. Edea doesn't know if anyone can even do it. How had they never seen that before? She blames herself, again.

She wipes awkwardly at her face, laughing to herself, and quietly accepting the hanky that Tiz passes over. "All the King's horses, and all the King's men…"

The three of them share a bit of a laugh as they glance over at the man. "Shall we try to take him to Caldisla, then?" Datz says, tapping his fingers on the table. "We can get Grandship off the land and we're rather experienced in docking outside of Caldisla, you know."

Edea shakes her head, still blotting at her face and feeling ashamed for it. "We could make him comfortable…" It saddens her for a moment, thinking that Karl did not know them in this world. "But the Sky Knights - even if they were to allow us access to their Eschalot, or we were to steal it, I don't think she has the capabilities of getting into Eternia. She's too slow." They will need either Grandship, or a ship specially designed. Master has one. Alternis has one. Victor has one… she imagines that others…

That others in the council do as well.

She goes still, thinking, eyes wide.

"Tiz, how far are we from the Yulyana Woods?"

It takes them the better half of a day to move Grandship the long way over the continents to the Yulyana Woods and the lake nearby. Edea's practically bouncing off the walls of the airship, wishing she had paid closer attention to Alternis' private airship lessons when she was younger. Maybe then they wouldn't be in this situation at all. Maybe then…

There is no time for maybes.

"Ah, hello," Sage Yulyana says to them as the group of three - three, instead of four - approach his cottage. He is as warm and grandfatherly as ever. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"It has been," Agnes replies, and looks to Edea. On the short walk to his cottage from the lake, they had decided that the Templar's daughter had best doing the talking. They have left Ringabel in the hands of Datz and Zatz, but every moment counts now. Ringabel's survival depends on it.

"Sage," Edea starts. "We know you're a member of the Council of Six, along with my Father. Other versions of yourself have told us."

He straightens up and holds his staff tighter as he looks over the three teenagers. "Oh? Have they now? Then you are…"

She nods. "From other worlds. There's other things, of course, and we must talk at length later, but we're here now because we need to get into Eternia, and I know you can do it. You did it before, to help us. Please help us now."

"And why should I do that?" he asks, cautiously but not unkindly. "If what you say is true, then you know I had my reasons for helping you before. What would be my reasons now?"

"There's a man on our airship who is dying," Edea says, and she has to swallow hard before she can continue. "A man who, in another world, is Alternis Dim. We need to get him to Eternia for medical treatment before it's too late. Please. Please."

"Please, Sage!" Agnes chimes in, grasping her hands together. "We need your help to save his life."

He's silent for a moment, a long moment during which their stomachs all twist in on themselves. Then, he gives them a smile. "Why didn't you say so? How badly is he injured?"

"It's bad," Tiz replies, feeling relief and the tiniest bit of hope. "He… he fell from our airship. There are internal injuries and broken bones despite our white magic. He's had a fever for days now."

"If he's that badly injured, then I shouldn't use magic to transport him. The teleportation spells could jar his body too much," Yulyana muses. "No, we'll have to take my old airship. You're in the lake, I assume? I'll meet you there in short order."

Yulyana's airship is an older model, Edea recognizes, but he assures her that it isn't so old it can't take the trip to Eternia easily, and fast. The group loads Ringabel onto it carefully, with Tiz and Zatz carrying him on a stretcher, and Yulyana spends a few minutes looking at him, poking him with the end of his staff and muttering to himself over the shattered state of the man's body. He gives them herbs to grind up and infuse into some water to help bring down his fever while they make the trip to Eternia, then heads to the bridge to pilot.

Zatz and Datz stay behind on the Grandship, along with the Proprietress. "We'll move her to Caldisla," Datz says to them, reassuring them. "It's closer to Eternia than here, and once Ringabel's better, you'll find us there."

Tiz nods. "We'll see you soon. Thank you. I'm sure we'll be able to send messages with updates as he progresses."

As he progresses, because the alternative is too painful to think of.

Yulyana's airship is fast despite its age, and the journey to Eternia takes only a day. Edea spends that day in the bed with Ringabel, lying beside him and holding his hand. Agnes is taking the time to rest, so it's Edea's job to use white magic now, even though it's not her strong point. Anything is good enough to keep his fever from roasting him alive, and Tiz keeps an eye on them, just in case he needs to step in. The herbs that Yulyana gives them helps, and she feels hope stir in her chest as he wakes long enough to painfully drink a glass of water before falling back asleep.

Edea is determined to get answers from him, once Ringabel fully awakens. To that end, she'll do anything to keep him alive.

They dock at the back end of Central Command, and Yulyana asks that they give him some time to find Braev Lee and explain.

"I'll return soon," he promises Tiz and Agnes, who meet him on the bridge. "In the meantime, get him ready to be moved. I think… that given the seriousness of his wounds, he might need to be placed in the White Magic chamber that the Spiritermaster developed."

"He's been in it before," Tiz says. The first time Ringabel had spent an extended amount of time in the White Magic chamber, it had been to heal horrific burns and internal poisoning. Would this time be better or worse?

"We will wait," Agnes says to the Sage. Edea is still keeping her watch on Ringabel, but she knows Edea won't mind waiting a little longer. "Please hurry."

He nods, and teleports away, and the two of them stare silently at where he had been before turning to go under the deck, where the rooms are. When they enter the one that Ringabel is sleeping in, they find Edea with her head nestled against his shoulder, her fingers intertwined with his. She's spellcasting, and they wait until she's done before approaching.

"I think his breathing is getting worse," Edea whispers. The herbs that Yulyana had given them have worn off by now, and his skin is pale and clammy, his lips nearly white. "He doesn't have much longer."

"The Sage will return soon," Agnes says to her, reaching over to pull back some of Edea's listless hair from her face. "Ringabel will be fine."

"Ringabel will be fine," Edea repeats to herself. How she wishes it will turn out to be true.