Liora's cries wrenched against the strings of Noah's heart. How freely she was letting all her emotions out even more so than after she got the news of her imminent eviction from her husbands home.
It physically hurt Noah to hear her like this. Lifting his hand to her door he gave it sever soft knocks just loud enough that hopefully Liora could hear it over her cries, though in the end it seemed as if all she could hear was herself.
"Liora, can I come in?" his voice rose hoping that words may get to her but just as the knocks, all that came from beyond the door was Liora's piercing wails.
'I can't leave her like this.'
"I'm coming in, okay?" a pointless question to ask when his hand was already twisting the bronze door handle and pushed the door open into her room. Immediately finding himself recoiling back from the pungent fruity alcoholic stench bursting out of the room and up his nostrils alongside the banshee like cries of Liora.
Covering his nose, Noah looked around the room. The dozens upon dozens of empty wine bottles strewn about the floor, the stains where wine had leaked out of the bottles onto the floor, even a few dark splotches on the lower portions of the wall.
And at the centre of it all was Liora, surrounded by a minefield dirty green glass. Fallen to her knees on the ground just besides her bed with her head facing the sky as if to scream to the gods above pleading for them to end her horrible life.
"Liora…" he could only mutter at her pitiable appearance, her eyes puffy and her hair frazzled and a mess, her nightgown hanging half off her shoulder coming to show off one of her breasts. A sight Noah may have found himself intently focused on were it any other moment.
But now was not the time.
Pushing his way through the field of glass bottles, Noah slid his feet across the ground not risking the possibility that he may step on something and find himself making a swift and likely deadly meeting with the floor.
Arriving before her, Noah's eyes sharpened noticing a brighter red splotch running down Liora's right arm, blending in with the pungent liquor and a golden fluid that had accumulated into a puddle around her.
Lowering himself onto one knee he ignored the feeling of his pants leg soaking up those blended fluids and reached out to Liora's arm. Gently lifting her arm rotating it enough to let him see the torn bit of fabric running down from her elbow down to her wrist.
"Shit," he grit his teeth, he didn't need a medical degree to know what she'd tried to do with that broken and bloodied wine bottle laying on the ground by her other hand. Even if her pressed his hand over her wound he'd barely be able to cover half the cut.
Though luckily for him it looked like she didn't get very deep, certainly not deep enough to cut the vein. "Good, good, I can work with this," didn't mean she wasn't loosing a lot of blood. But it did mean he could help her.
Looking around the room for anything, Noah frowned. This place is too dirty he needed her out of here and to the bathroom to clean and dress the wound.
"Liora," he pressed his hand over her bloodied wrist trying to get her attention by lightly shaking her body. "I need to get you out of here, okay?" all she did was keep weeping. "Come on, let me help you up okay?" he hooked an arm around her waist, giving her little options but to let him lift her to her bloodloss and alcohol induced wobbly legs.
"Leeefv meh alhone," she bawled to him, "lhet mhe dhai."
"I'm not going to do that." It was slow going as he walked through the mess of her room and into the hallway hearing only slurred grumbles of wanting it to just end and missing her husband.
As he hobbled down the hall to the bathroom a trickle of red drops followed behind him, some, often most of the dripping onto his moving legs dying his own feet and pants in the crimson ichor.
"Nearly there." He muttered moving his hand—still holding Liora's wrist to the changing room door handle.
"Nhooo lhe m ghooo." She drunkenly slurred.
"Still not going to do that. I'd only join you and drag you back to the land of the living." He hooked his finger onto the sliding door and threw it open, finally getting Liora into the humid, stone floored room. Helping her up to the tub before lowering her down besides it, her head coming to slump weakly against the tub resting on her hip.
Noah slowly lifted his hand off her wrist, telling her, "I need to get a better look at the cut so I'm going to lift your sleeve up, okay?" she didn't say anything but sniffles and whimpers.
Slowly rolling the bloodied and torn sleeve up her arm, Noah winced getting a proper look at the cut. The line was jagged and hesitant. A signifier to her fear of doing the unforgivable. The only bit of relief he got was that it indeed looked only skin deep, maybe even piercing deeper in a few spots where she may have put in more force.
"Oh, Liora," he shook his head. Finally separating the laceration from his view to search the bathroom for whatever it was that filled the bath with water earlier, but finding nothing at a first glance.
"Don't have time for this. Liora, where did you get the water from?" he asked.
Liora's hazy eyes shifted lazily to him, her eyelids showing a sign of flickering shut. "Nnn… vhatr sthene…"
Drunken slurs were one thing to puzzle through, though Noah had more than enough experience with it to guess she said something about a water stone. "Okay, a stone. Magic world. Of course water comes from stones. Where is it?" he mumbled to himself, raising his voice to ask her at the end.
"Ihn bafvvv…"
"In the bath?"
"Nnn…"
Placing a hand on the side of the tub, Noah pushed himself up just enough to peer into the half filled bath. 'theres already water?' he thought eyes roaming the clear liquid stopping on a blue ball buried halfway in the bottom of the wooden tub.
'Didn't see that earlier,' he thought. Wasting little time he lowered his hand into the water, the blood that covered it coming off his hand turning to a red cloud in the water.
When his hand pressed against the orb, Noah scowled. It wasn't budging even a little. He'd have to deal with this old water to clean her. A risk he didn't want to take but would have to anyways.
Grabbing the wooden bowl, Noah filled it with the water, catching just a little of the pink cloud of blood circulating through it. Holding it over her arm, Noah said, "this might sting," and slowly tilted it down letting water pour down in a stream, running down her arm collecting her lifeblood before trickling to the ground. Slowly but surely revealing a cleaner picture of the wound.
While he didn't have sutures to stitch the wound up, he did have b=plenty of fabric, dirty or not, it would have to do for now. Gripping the bottom of his shirt, he pulled it off his body, tearing it into small strips.
He'd have to bind it tight to help halt the flow of blood. It'd be uncomfortable but it was necessary to help her, at least until he could get a proper doctor to treat her.
Placing the beginning of the green strip of fabric on her wrist, Noah kept it pressed down with his thumb. Letting the fabric fall over her wrist before grabbing it from the bottom, lifting it up and throwing it over just a bit further up the cut.
Continuing to bind it in a silence between the two. Only sounds being the sniffles and small coughs from Liora. "You didn't have to go this far Liora."
She didn't respond, not even reacting as he tugged on the makeshift bandage to tighten it even further. Though her eyes did remain open, if just barely.
"I know you feel the world is against you. But doing this would just remove something beautiful from the world. No matter what you think. No matter if it feels like the sky is falling around you. This isn't the way to go. What if your daughter came home and learned you died like this? What would she think?" his voice though soft was still passionate.
"I may have known you for just a few hours, but you deserve so much more." Bringing the bandage around one final time, Noah tightened it pushing the last bit under the previous wrap, pulling it through between the gap and pushed it through once again in a very poor, but hopefully effective way to keep it from coming undone, at least until he could scour through the building for anything better.
"Haa…" he sighed exhaustedly looking down at Liora's weak body. Blood and other fluids causing the bottoms of her nightgown to stick to her body. "need to clean you up," checking the bandage to make sure it wasn't loose. He pushed himself to his feet, quickly backtracking to the changing room to grab a few of the clean towels he'd seen in the drawers
When he returned to her side, Liora's head bobbed in his direction, "Harf…" an anaemic smile came to her lips, "yhu lhuk sho yhang." She reached trembling hands out to Noah who took her hands in his and lowered them down to her lap.
Forcing a smile to his face he told her, "I'm going to take your clothes off."
"Nnn… bh ghenthl," she bobbed her head in something he could liken to a 'go ahead' gesture, even if she was hallucinating him as her husband and not, well, him.
'Don't think naughty thought, she's drunk and hurt,' Noah had to reason to himself as he pulled the hem of her nightgown up but getting stuck as it got caught against the wall she was leaned against. Noah pulled her onto him letting him pull the rest of the gown of her body, bunching up around her neck.
When he laid her back, Noah involuntarily gulped at the sight of her plump breasts that flopped to the sides. 'Nope, no, out with the thoughts.' He shook his head bringing reason to his hormonal body.
Noah didn't want to lift up her arm for fear of loosening or making her wound worse. So instead he went for the second-best option, tearing her thin gown from her arm with a single sweeping motion before lifting up her uninjured arm to finally pull the gown off her completely, leaving her for all intents and purposes naked before him. No underwear, just a thick forest of red fur hiding her lady bits.
With her now naked, Noah did his best to keep his running amok emotions in check as he dunked the cloth into the bath water, Noah to preoccupied to notice that it had risen higher up the sides of the bath.
Noah brought the wettened cloth out of the water and wringing out most of the water before beginning to slowly rub it up and down the more noticeable patches of red on the right side of her body. Often dipping the cloth back into the water to clean it just a little before continuing to clean her.
Then came the part he was most nervous of, her lower extremities. "This is so wrong for a man to be doing," he grumbled placing a palm against Liora's inner thigh.
"Mnn…"
Quickly pulling it away when she let out a drunken moan. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Please don't moan," he whined but pushed through his reddened cheeks, returning his hand to her inner thigh, forcing her legs apart with little effort.
Finding himself pausing when he caught clear sight of the matte red forest gone stringy from when she'd wetted herself. Beneath the forest he could see the faint heartshaped outline of her lower lips.
He wasn't a trained doctor, nor was he a pure individual. So seeing a woman naked in a pose like this certainly drew out a reaction from him. Though acting on it would definitely not be warranted.
"God," Noah began to pray, "I may not be religious. But forgive me for this." Bringing the hand with a clean, non blood covered towel down to her groin. Starting just beneath her belly button and moving in downwards strokes towards her crotch.
"Hnn…"
Throughout the initial process drawn soft whines from the mature woman.
'I'm going to hell after this.' He could only reason as he stroked the towel through her pubes, feeling and ominous and hard bulge against his fingers.
"Ahn!" A shiver coursed through Liora and Noah nearly pulled his hand away. But kept it there wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"Haa, haa, nhaa. Nhoooo, stahp theashing mheee~"
If Noah's heart was beating any faster, blood may have started pouring from his nose.
"Mnn~ ohhh~"
'Nearly done, nearly done, nearly done,' he chanted again and again, the only thing keeping him sane enough to stop stroking her downstairs and begin wiping her legs down after washing the cloth.
"Nhoooo, dhon shtaappp~"
"Sorry, but I'm done," he let out a relieved sigh, tossing the towel to the side with the other one. Flinching as he remembered he'd have to dry her off as well.
"Fuck."