With one last look over at Alistair's group – relieved to see that the ogre was down and they'd started attacking the hurlocks from the rear – I c...hanged direction and headed towards Duncan. I cried out as I watched him sprout two arrows, one in the shoulder and one in the flank; he didn't react, other than to stagger at the momentum. As I closed the distance, I began to hear the screams pouring forth from his mouth.I reached his side just as Sereda did; I carefully pulled Duncan down to sit,. The late afternoon sun was shining brightly through the trees, and everything was illuminated in a bright wintery sparkle. She could vaguely make out the snow covered shapes of boulders, small bushes, and fallen logs as flashes of brown, green and grey breaking through the white landscape. The tree branches glittered with ice. It was so quiet the crunching of her feet on the snow was the only sound. She began taking pictures, letting the branches form architectural patters against the blue. Even when she guessed what had probably happened, she kept her head. She'd seen her share of life-threatening emergencies while on research expeditions, but this was her daughter, and still she kept a cool head even though her guts had to be in the same icy knots as his own.He'd certainly seen his share of children in pain, but this was Alyson, his Pixie, and her cries for him to stop the pain were shredding his soul. You'd think years of medical school and pediatric practice would inure him. “I realize it’s not my place, but don’t you think you should… let her know she can’t talk to you that way? You’ve only been trying to help, she shouldn’t talk to you that way.”“Well, clearly, my brand of helping her isn’t what she needs. Or at least what she wants.” he rebutted. “If it’s only hurting her, then yeah, I don’t have to feel guilty knowing my intentions were pure, but at a certain point, intention doesn’t matter when someone wants to see the bad in you. Or when she trusts people so.