The Princess and the Blade

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon twitched on the ground, consciousness returning to him like a bad dream. He swore at the numbness in his chest and limbs, and looked around him for signs of Tenara. How could he black out at a time like this?

Then he heard it - the sound of struggle from outside. He felt a flash of heat go through him, and knew instantly that she was using her magic. That meant she was in trouble. His vision took on color again, the vibrancy that meant he was part of the world, not just a spectator in it.

He half-stumbled to the exit of the shelter she'd found, and took in the scene outside.

"Don't try that witchy shit on me," the hunter was saying. "Where the fuck is he?"

The man was on top of her, pinning her down. The sight sprouted fresh fury in Havitharon's bleary mind. He couldn't fight properly with his body in this condition. Neither could she. But if he could get inside her mind, like he had before, he could show her what to do. Maybe even help her do what her body told her it couldn't. He concentrated hard on the sword in her hands, slicing into her thumb. He made his presence slice into her mind the same way and find purchase there. He could feel the attacker's weight on her, the sense of futility that came from being pinned. *I'm here,* he assured her firmly. *You have him.* He let his insight and experience flow into her, showed her what she needed to do. He didn't let himself dwell on how badly it would hurt her hand to fight back. There was no perfect way out of this.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara felt Havitharon come into her mind, sharp and vivid. The light in her eyes dimmed and she relaxed in the feel of his knowing. His certainty. I’m here. You have him. The man above her smiled at what he assumed was a surrender to her fate.

“That’s a good lass,” he said. “Now, tell me where he is, and I’ll be good to you.” He released her hand, pinched her chin, and dragged his thumb over her lips.

“Behind you,” Tenara breathed. The Hunter’s eyes grew wild and he reared up, just enough. She drove her bandaged hand into his throat. Once. Twice.

He choked, stumbled up to his feet, holding his neck with one hand and his sword with the other. Tenara rolled up to stand, a quick acrobatic move she had never practiced before, but she moved into it with a terrifying ease. She drew the sword with her, and was on him.

He wasn’t an unskilled fighter. He was trained, and efficient, but she was different. She was a phantom thread of silver beneath the moon. She was Havitharon’s countless years of battle and survival and bitterness.

And in a fight she surely should have lost, she ended it with the Hunter impaled on her sword. Gasping. Begging. Dead.

Tenara watched him buckle and slip off her sword, and she stood over him a second longer, ready to fight if he sprung up again. He didn’t. She drew ragged breaths into her lungs and uncoiled her injured hand from the hilt, curling over it, quietly sobbing. It was a strange sensation—being filled with agony and relief.

Tenara trudged to Havitharon, knowing they had to go, had to hide. He needed to be healed. She wanted to be held.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon leaned against the log for support as he returned to his own mind. The strange, naive girl he'd been traveling with was trudging toward him, crying. Trusting him, someone she barely know, when she was weakest. Blood had stained her silver hair, and her clothes were ruined. And despite her injuries, she was holding his sword tight at her side.

She was beautiful. He wanted to belong to her. Yurivis.

He shook his head, just lucid enough to be startled by the thought, but not enough to withdraw from her. When she was close enough, he staggered forward and caught her in his arms, supporting her against his chest. "You did well," he said.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara pressed her wet cheek to his chest, looped an arm around his back and held onto him. She could see the angry wound, remembering the visceral fear she'd held when she saw the glint of the dagger plung out of his shirt. She placed her hand on his chest, beside the wound, carefully inspecting.

Guilt was a heavy stone in her chest, a hard lump in her throat. Her eyes burned and the tears fell harder.

He was hurt because of her. He almost died because of her.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn't have helped them. I shouldn't have brought them into our home." She tried to banish the tears with her fingers, wiping them away, only for them to return. She silently swore off ever helping strangers in need again.

She'd been told her heart was too soft, and now it had harmed someone she cared for.

"I'll try to mend it," she said, nodding and placing her hand back on him.

[Soran Nightblade]

He placed a hand over hers and drew it away from his wound. "No. Any more, and you won't be able to move. It will be sufficient to hold back the bleeding." His left arm had gone completely numb, but his right still worked fine. He grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped through the fabric with his long black nails, tearing it open. The right half clung, drenched, against his muscled torso. The left half was still dry and fairly clean. It might still be useful for some sort of bandage.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara nodded. He wasn’t wrong, and she hated it. She wanted to fix him, to rid him of the harm done by her kind heart. Instead, she stabbed the sword into the earth and took his shirt, peeling it from him. She tore the dry fabric away. It was harder than it should have been, given her injured hand was a ruin. She wondered if there was a threshold where something could hurt so badly it eventually stopped. She felt near it. Tenara took the cloth and tied strips together until she had something large enough to call itself a bandage. Then, she wound it over his chest and under his arm, then around his neck and under his arm, over and under and around until the wound was covered and she tugged it tight. She winced, knowing it had to hurt.

Tenara drew the sword and looped her arm around his, guiding him into the forest. “I promise to give the sword a bath when we’re safe.”

They found a small dirt cave, barely wide enough for them both, but deep enough that Havitharon’s legs wouldn’t stick out. Tenara wasn’t certain how long they would have to hide, how long the bounty hunters would hunt for them—after all, they weren’t their targets—but both of them needed the rest.

She crawled in, pushing back her fear of what creature or insect lurked inside. Their options were precious few, and she thought that having to sleep curled against Havitharon with a nest of centipedes was better than being in the bounty hunter’s camp.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon stopped outside the cave, grimacing. Whatever sedative had been on that dagger was already wearing off, and his body was feeling more responsive. However, that also meannt that the numbing he'd received as a bonus side effect had run its course as well. He agreed with her; this was the right place to hide. If they pushed further, they'd be too tired to fight if it came to it. They had to hope the hunters had lost them or moved on. But when he thought of the way their leader had addressed him... he had a bad feeling that she, at least, had noticed more about Tenara than she let on.

He knelt and crawled in after her, trying to ignore the ripping sensation in his chest. By the time he reached her side, he was looking and feeling very pale. There was so little space.
He was still only 2/3 of the way in when his vision blurred and his balance wavered. His muscles were too slow to adjust, and he collapsed with his upper half sprawled over her legs and waist and his lower half on the ground next to her. A grunt of pain he'd been holding silent punctuated his fall. He took an uneven breath, trying to rally himself to get off of her, while her warm softness threatened to suck him outcold.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara wearily patted his shoulder as he came to rest across her legs and belly. “It’s alright,” she said, tired enough not to feel awkward about the position. “Rest.” It was only a second later that she, herself, was out.

[Soran Nightblade]

Rest. Was it really okay to rest like this? He bent his knees so he could drag his legs fully out of sight from outside. He knew he shouldn't sleep. He needed to check her for injuries, to plan options for guarding this hole, to get a sense of their location so they could make a move at dawn.

She was so soft. He lay his head on her abdomen and shuddered. He was lying injured in another world with no protection, and yet she was so warm. "Only for a minute," he whispered, trying to stay awake even though his words betrayed him. He took a deep breath into her clothes, and the darkness claimed him.

[Emora Deen]

When Tenara woke next, she wasn’t certain of the time of day. The cave was too small and dim for her to see the threads of light, but the glow of day did cut through enough for her to see the outline of Havitharon’s form lying on her.

Her eyes were heavy, and she drifted in and out of sleep. Every so often, anxiety would grip her, and she would think she heard someone outside the cave and jerk awake, only to listen and hear nothing, not even the wind.

When she woke more, she pressed her hand to Havitharon’s upper back, feeling his chest rise and fall. She felt his breath, hot against her ruined dress.

It felt nice, she thought, to have him there. She felt safe. Comfortable. Perhaps he did too, because he had chosen to use her as a pillow rather than give himself distance. Maybe he was warming to her. He had saved her again, and held her afterwards.

Tenara’s hand slipped from his back and stroked into his blue-black hair. Soft, she thought, though a bit tangled again. She brushed fingers through, careful not to tug on the tangles, and admired how his horns stretched from the crown of his head, though the threads of black. How they looked against the morning light filling the space ever so slowly.

She traced the tip of one horn, feather light and lazy, down to his hair, feeling the texture of it beneath the pad of her finger. She traced back up, and back down. It was soothing, like tracing circles on his back.

When he was awake, she should heal him. If she tried right now… the effects would make their already usual awkward morning encounters more so.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon's mind was extremely slow to rouse. He could feel someone touching his hair, but in the midst of his dreams, he mistook it for the wind. Just the wind, teasing small tendrils of hair around his horns, making them sensitive. Only a child entering maturity would get sensitive from such minor stimulation, so in his half-awake state, Havi knew he was dreaming. Embarassment sparked up in him, and he found himself wondering if he was being watched. If maybe one of his sister's spies would spot him, "windswept". The whole court would have a blast with that one - the infamous prince who refused a Yurivis for too long and was finally mad enough to be seduced by a light breeze.

But a breeze had its own gusty rhythm, a ebbing and flowing of pressure. This wind was wrong, tickling up and down in rhythmic circles. So maddeningly light. In the mindscape of his dream, he tested his surroundings and found himself purely alone. The need was so subtle at first that he underestimated what it could become, and let his curiosity get the better of him. What could be so wrong with leaning into that pressure just a little bit. No one needed to know he was aroused, and it wasn't as though it would build to anything.

It was only the wind, brushing up and down him like a feather brush. He leaned his chin forward, as if to press further into the gentle sensation. Even if he wanted to increase the stimulation, it would do no good. The wind was the wind.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara smiled as he tilted into her touch. It was a little like how Stalker bent towards her hand when she scratched at his ears, which usually meant he wanted more scratches. She wondered if that was similar for Havitharon's horns. She brushed his horn with two fingers, adding a bit more pressure than the light testing exploration of earlier. There was nothing sensuous to it in Tenara's mind. It was pleasant. Relaxing. Innocent.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon twitched the second the pressure grew stronger. It was impossible, but then again, he was dreaming. Of course he was. The wind couldn't caress him like that. Why would he dream such a thing? His thoughts grew restless, circling towards consciousness but not quite there. His concentration kept drifting back to the sensation, the growing need to be touched, to be taken by the horns and...

His train of thought wasn't helping his situation. His breathing grew uneven, and his fingers curled involuntarily against Tenara's thighs.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara swallowed at the feel of his fingers curling against her thighs. Her fingers paused their tracing touch for a half a second, her mind whirling. She hadn't even cast her spells, called her magic, drawn out desire and need like threads from her soul, and yet she felt a warmth spread through her. Part of her thought she should stop, but she didn't see the connection. He was sleeping, enjoying her gentle, soothing touch. Like when someone scratched your back or brushed your hair or massaged your feet.

She curled her hand around one of his horns, testing, touching it. Stroking. She blushed. Alright, that did feel a bit more sensual than the other way. She switched back to running her fingers across it instead.

She wondered if she should heal him while he slept. He would just refuse her when he was awake...

[Soran Nightblade]

At once, the wind died. He was shocked to find himself desperate for it back. He'd indulged the hunger for a bit too long, fed it until it was no longer a gentle curiosity but a gnawing need. It wasn't like him to get this way. That was what finally pulled him up from the current, back into reality. He sucked in a slow breath still saturated with sensations, and opened his eyes to the silence of the cave they'd found last night. He remembered where he was, and why. This heat underneath him was...

Why on earth had he fallen asleep on top of her? The throb of pain resurfacing through his back and chest reminded him of precisely why. He lay very still and tried to decide what was happening. He shouldn't wake her up by moving suddenly. And he had a feeling his dream had left him in a state he'd rather not show her right now.

Not like it was anything she hadn't seen before, he thought sourly.