The sounds of fighting, even tapering off into frenetic, clanging retreat, finds them on the darkened outskirts of the Venatori camp where Abby has set Ellis down.

It's not quiet, but it is removed enough from the close pressure of combat and blood-spattered earth and the heat of fire that Ellis can find some traction. He can claw back into himself, forcibly wrestle with the scraped-raw mess of his reaction. The lingering impression of Richard's fingers around his wrists is enough to keep Ellis' hands from returning to his own throat in the moment, and instead laboriously wrench his breathing back under control. Compress everything, wind it in and in and in until he can shunt it off and away from himself where the events of this stretch of time can exist at some remove in his awareness.

The straps on his armor have been cut. Ellis' shirt is soaked in blood. He turns it in his hands, considering whether or not to put it on. Here too is a distant awareness of his own bared skin, the rattling after-shocks of the day's events, how far outside his control both have ranged. Ink-lines of tattoo on his chest, old scars spidering along one side, over ribs, down his waist. Dirt and dried blood clinging to his shoulders. Breath still labored, if steadier now.

"What happened?" is ragged, scraped out a little hoarsely in spite of how incongruously measured Ellis' tone is.