Heirot

He reached out and supported her wrist, long fingers manipulating the angle of her hand so he could inspect it. It was one of the worse burns he'd seen in his life, and he'd beheld many. But without any ointment, the wrapping would hurt even worse. "Is there any Irsu here," he asked warily. Partly because he had no idea if they had it here, and partly because he wasn't sure he wanted to put her through the side effects while they were alone together. "A silver colored gel?" he tried.

Tenara shook her head, admiring how small and fragile her wrist looked in his grasp. It was not the first time she was thankful he was not whatever villain Edan had hoped to conjure. “I don’t think we have that,” she said. “We have pain killers but I don’t think these people would have been able to afford them. There might be some herbs in the woods, but I wouldn’t know poison from poultice.”

He wasn't surprised. "Right." He looked at her hand for a bit longer, deliberating. It wouldn't do to wrap it without numbing it somehow. It couldn't be helped. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, where his venom sac was, and squeezed it there until he could taste the numbing tang. He raised her hand in a light grip to his lips, and ran his warm tongue as lightly as possible over the wound.

Tenara sucked in a breath, a body bracing for pain. A shouting protest swelled in her chest, and then… relief. It did hurt, a lashing instant pain that fizzled to cool relief almost as quickly as it began.

She exhaled slowly, melting. “What… is that?” Her gaze darted from her hand to his lips, his tongue, his eyes…

His gold eyes looked up at her as his tongue laved over her palm, and briefly slid between each of her fingers. She was looking at him strangely. With a pang of frustration, he wondered if they even did this for the wounded here. If not, then between his behavior, the angle, and the eye contact, it would be easy to confuse the act as seduction. He drew his head back and conveniently turned his attention to the bandage. "Excuse me. I'm sure it's a bit barbaric, but since there was nothing else..." He hoped his embarrassment at least served as a suitable distraction as he wound the bandage with a light, experienced hand. "It won't help you heal, but it should stay numb long enough to get used to the wrappings, at least." He continued to look away, still unconsciously holding her hand.

Tenara watched him, feeling heat in her cheeks. Again. This time, it had nothing to do with her magic. “Thank you… That was very kind. It is the worst pain. I don’t even know how to describe it. But it barely registers as discomfort now. Is your tongue always so… I mean to say, is that common where you come from? To lick wounds. Like a cat.”

He let go of her hand. "It's a numbing venom anyone can produce, but other treatments have better healing properties. Also, blocking pain will be considered a sign of weakness, and exploited, so the treatment is rarely used. But, it's still sometimes used by the very poor, or when children are injured and are too young to produce their own venom or to be treated with Ilsu."

He sat back on the floor next to her chair and leaned against the doorframe. He wasn't used to talking so much. "The numbing is strong because I have not expressed the venom in a long time, but it will wear off in a few minutes. I can treat you again when it does, but the effect will be diluted each time. It takes a few weeks for the potency to replenish."

He dragged a hand through his hair, vaguely displeased by the tangles he encountered. Between repairing the damaged front door and various other security projects, he hadn't paid much care to his appearance the last few days. He began thoughtlessly working out a knot with his fingers as he spoke. "Are those objects common? Your... grandfather's?"

Tenara watched him pick at the tangles in his hair and drifted away from the table, back into the wash area, and grabbed a wood-handled brush.

He seemed confused about her explanation earlier. Maybe she should explain better, and all of it. He deserved to know the rules of their world.

“There may be many gods, I don’t know. Our world has four. Had four,” she said as she handed him the brush. “Thar, the God of Light and Life; Attara, Goddess of Nature and Healing; Verin, the god of Darkness and Monsters, and Salaros, the God of Death.”

She sat on the floor across from him. “Verin, the god of Darkness is my grandfather—on my fathers’ side. My grandmother on my mother’s side—my true one—is the Goddess Attara.” Tenara sighed. It was more complicated than that. Her entire existence was a complicated, chaotic web. “She was imprisoned in a mortal form when she had my mother, so my mother’s only inherited abilities are of the healing variety.”

She admired his bandaging skills and laughed softly. “I am trying to think of a way to explain that isn’t confusing and I can’t.” She met his eyes, and decided to tell him in the same way she’d read the old couple’s books to him at night. She told him the story of how the Dark God Verin became obsessed with the daughter of Attara, and how the god’s creation banded together with the god’s son to save her. How they used a spell that fused their souls and turned themselves into a god, and killed Verin. How they fell in love, and lived happily ever after.

“My father, my true father, is the god they made together—Knight. So, I have three fathers, in a way, and all of them are born of Verin, and all of them are subject to the rules of our world. Anything holy, anything of Thar, is harmful. The world is full of it. There are whole temples built of it. People carry talismans in their pockets. You can turn a floor or a dirt road, or a plank of wood into a weapon with a symbol carved by a nail. There are sects of Thar’s church called Gold Clerics, dedicated to eradicating Verin’s children and monsters. At least once a month someone tries to assassinate my father, but as you saw, he’s hard to kill. No one has tried to harm me like that, probably a benefit to pretending I had no magic my whole life. And, I don’t look very threatening.” She laughed, lifting her gaze to him. “They would likely try to kill you, too. They will probably assume you are a demon of Verin’s. But…” Tenara’s eyes widened, only now realizing she’d seen Havitharon pick up the medallion. The pain in her hand had been so bad, she’d barely been able to focus on anything. She reached quickly for his hand and drew it into her lap. “You’re not hurt…”

Havitharon twitched. It wasn't just the sudden contact that startled him. He'd been knee-deep in his head trying to understand what she was talking about, and then her attention had shifted from her explanation to his safety on a dime. It didn't seem like she was faking her concern, either. Why did she care this much?

"No, I'm fine," he answered her warily. He glanced at her hands holding his, but didn't pull away. He liked her hands.

He liked her hands?

So frustrating. "You are foolish," he accused, shaking his head. "If you are being hunted by assassins, there are too many chinks in your armor. You are too trusting, and you wear your emotional weaknesses like trophies on display. Your swordsmanship is awful. Yet you keep shaping me into the form in which I am most comfortable." He reversed her grip, squeezing her uninjured hand meaningfully. "This is the truth: If I am inanimate, I can't overpower you. If I am injured, it is your advantage."

Tenara blinked at him, glancing down at his hand right around hers. Her gaze fluttered back up to his. “Would you overpower me?” she asked. “Why would you even want to?” She twisted her hand lightly in his grip, testing. He had told her once that being bound with him would be unpleasant… “And I don’t need the advantage of your injuries.” It might have been true, if she had any idea how to control her magic efficiently.

He held her gaze, trying not to look like her questions were frying his brain. Why was he even getting so frustrated with her? Just because she was naive? Didn't that work out in his favor? His hand loosened, freeing her to move as she chose. His eyes finally dipped down to the brush she'd handed him. "You are the strangest woman I've ever met," he sighed.

Tenara sighed, smiling pleasantly to herself. She rose, straightening the hem of her slip. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, stepping outside to collect some food from the garden.

Towards the end of the day, the pain returned with a vicious vengeance. She tried very hard to ignore it, and did her best not to complain. She made it all the way to night time, when she was lying in bed with the book she’d previously been reading aloud to Havitharon, and her hand trembled violently with each turn of the page.

"Tenara," Havitharon called a bit louder. Again, she didn't respond to his voice. He rose and walked to her chair and placed a hand on the large book. "Tenara," he said, now that he'd forced her to look at him. He took a closer look at her trembling hand. "That's enough," he said quietly. "You seem like you need rest."

Tenara grimaced, but nodded. She would need to go hunting for herbs tomorrow to help with the pain. She nodded, slipping down beneath the covers and resting her head on her pillow. She rested her hand above the covers, across her chest, and even still it shook. Sleep, though. If she slept then she wouldn’t feel it.

“Tomorrow, do you want to be a sword, or do you want to be a man?” She knew he didn’t enjoy what she did to him, so she would at least give him the choice.

He sat next to her, his back to the headboard. He watched the way she shuddered in pain. How had that simple object wounded her this gravely? "If I transform... don't try to bring me out. We'll talk in the morning."