Belenos, Rhûn Darkmoon, and AelKennyr Rhiano
Eilif sighs heavily. The movement makes the healing wound on her face pull tight against her cheek and she lifts a hand to finger it lightly. The scab felt hard and crusty, the skin next to it cool and healthy. It was healing well. The thought leads her eyes to the two who lie nearby. Healing. Would they heal? She looks over at Nasi, where he lies, his hands wrapped in bandages and curled protectively against his chest. His head too, is swathed in bandages. The wound there is not deep, although it had bled profusely at the start as scalp wounds often do.Eilif turns her gaze to the other form nearby. Fafnir. He lies so still and has not stirred for some time. "Our unlikely hero,' she whispers softly as she watches him from where she sits at the end of his pallet. His back is draped in a clean linen dressing. The wound beneath it stretches almost shoulder to shoulder and half way down his back, but it is clean and anointed with a herbal balm. How long had it been since her frantic calls had brought a few pitiful survivors from this latest attack to help bring them here? She did not know. What of the others? The Elder, the newcomer with the babe, and the old Jeweler? She had not seen them. She gives a small impatient shake of her head. There was no use worrying about things she could not know or help. But these two, these two she could help, if it was the Maker's will. She sighs again as she continues her anxious vigil.
Nasi moans a little as he begins to stir from a sleep troubled by dark dreams. The dragon had returned. Again it had attacked what remained of Gamilfûn, merciless in its search for quarry. Only this time he had been outside with Fafnir, and had somehow fallen and hit his head. He frowns a little at the thought, for his head ached as though he had slept next to the very Maker's Anvil. He lifts a hand to touch it, the movement drawing a gasp from his lips and his spring wide open. The hand before his face is bandaged and throbs painfully from his movement. Fully awake now, he realises it was no dream
Nasi blinks rapidly, trying to clear his head as jumbled memory comes rushing back. The dragon had returned and he and Fafnir had been outside and Nasi had stepped out of cover in an impetuous act of folly, intent on attacking the dragon with his hunting bow. The loathsome beast had fallen but in its death throes had cast one last jet of fire breath. Fire breath that had come straight at where Fafnir and he had stood, for against his urging, Fafnir had followed Nasi from the safety of the forest and stood by him in his act of folly. Fafnir had seen the danger of that last gust of fiery death and had leapt to save him, placing himself between Nasi and danger. Fafnir had..'FAFNIR!' Nasi tries to sit up to look for him, but collapses down on the pillow with a moan as his head spins viciously from the sudden movement.
Down, down, down the flapping sound follows him into blackness, into nothingness. His unconsciousness is a deep, black well, and he tumbles, rolls, spins down the shaft, the beating of large, leathery wings, following him as he descends. High above him, far away, the soft drone of voices, but the words are muffled, like the buzzing of bees on a hot, lazy day. His mind chases random memories as they present themselves. There...Fafnir's mother, presenting a squirrel pie, carrots, turnips, hard crust bread and watered ale. and another memory..a young Fafnir being chased by boys stockier and heavier, waving their child size mason hammers, yelling taunts, calling him half breed, and man-get because he was too tall, too lanky and lean. And yet another memory, of a nightmare in flight, the wings spanning the whole of the his line of sight , fire spewing from its maw, One blind eyes affixing his baleful stare, not on the transfixed Fafnir...not, not him.
There are days in this dwarf's life he would not have bothered to move, to avoid that which belonged to those wings, but welcomed the destruction. No, not Fafnir....
Nasi. Nasi who was shy around him bashful. Nasi who was impossibly handsome, strong, brave, capable, skilled, all that a dwarf should be. Nasi, who grabbed him and kissed him.
Nasi.
Eilif hurries forward to kneel next to Nasi and gently lays a hand on his shoulder, "Steady now," she murmurs, all too familiar with the effect of moving fast after a blow to the head. "Take it slow, our brave young mason, and your head will not spin so badly. Fafnir is here, on the pallet right next to you. All you need do is turn your head slowly and you will see him."
Nasi lies still for a moment, eyes closed, as he waits for the pounding in his head to settle a little and the room to stop tilting. At last he swallows down the slight nausea that had risen and opens his eyes again, gazing up at Eilif as she leans over him, her dark eyes filled with concern. 'He is here?' he whispers, his voice slightly hoarse, Slowly, as instructed he turns his head. His heart lifts as he recognises Fafnir lying nearby, but his brow creases with concern. 'What happened to him? Is he wounded? What happened to his hair? Why is he lying so, with that dressing on his back? Why isn't he awake?' The questions tumble from him and anxiously he moves to sit upright, unthinkingly pushing with his hands against the bedding, only to fall back again with a small cry of pain. 'My.. my hands, what has happened to them?' Bewildered, he looks to Eilif for answers to a world that suddenly seems to be all wrong.
Eilif leans forward to support his shoulders to ease Nasi upright as she answer his questions, careful to keep her tone light, "Oh now don't you go worrying about yon lanky one. He's tougher than he looks, you know. When I found you, he was lying atop of you. He had shielded you from the dragon breath and his back had taken some of the fire. Your hands, where you held him, got some too. You know from before, when you got that burn on your ribs, that it will be painful for a while, but it will heal." She pulls the pillow up behind him so he can lean back against it, knowing the effort it must be taking him to sit upright. "His hair got caught by the fire too, so I had to cut it off. It's not the tidiest of styles, but," she pauses and looks down at her broken arm ruefully, "It is at least off his back and out of his wound. He sleeps now because I gave him a herbal draught to help ease his discomfort, and I'm not telling you a word more until you drink too." She lifts a cup that stands next to the bed and offers it to Nasi with an expression that clearly indicates she will brook no arguments.
Nasi, Nasi, Nasi with soft gaze, the gentle eyes, the shy smile. Nasi with the strong hands and sweet lips. Fafnir remembers now, the fire, the last, vicious act of the horrible creature, sweeping across the flat entrance to the settlement, burning their last fresh produce, burning their trees, and burning...oh, Maker...it was rushing for him, for them both. He remembers, and the darkness turns a soft grey in his dream state. He claws, he scrabbles, he fights his way to the surface of consciousness, swimming through a drug-induced mire of images, memories, feelings, pushing his way to the waking world...
....and to Nasi.
Nasi leans on his elbows rather than his hands as Eilif helps him to sit upright. His head throbs and pounds but nothing will stop him in his determination to sit up so he can see Fafnir better. Gratefully though, he settles back against the pillow she drags up behind but his eyes are on Fafnir as he swallows obediently while his mind takes in Eilif's reply. When the cup is lowered he stares thoughtfully at his bandaged hands. 'So.. so he lies there because of me? If I had stayed hidden with him in the forest, the dragon would have left and he would have been unharmed. But I didn't. I had to play the hero and try to fight it. He followed. By the Maker why didn't he stay under cover? But he followed and.. and now because of me, he.. because of me.' His voice trails off into silence and his throat works painfully as he struggles with his sense of responsibility for the other's injuries.
Eilif's dark eyes are soft with compassion as she watches the dark dwarf struggle with his guilt but she lifts her chin and her voice is brisk as she replies, "You are quite right. Because of you, he is here, alive. You do not know that the dragon might not have razed the entire forest, had you not killed it. I was watching from inside. I could see what it was doing. It.. it didn't seem to just be hunting, you know. It seemed intent on destroying everything just because it could. You would have both died in the forest had it gone up in flames as I am sure it would have. But you, you killed it. By your bravery, you stopped it. Not only that, but," she stops and smiles a little, her voice softening, "I think your clumsiness also saved him and you both. I saw you grab him and then fall. If you had run before the flames, you would have both surely perished, but in falling and taking him with you, you saved him, you know. He lives because of you, and you live because of him, because he shielded you. I was there. I saw it."
Eilif turns at the rustle of bedding behind her, flashing one of her rare smiles at the stonemason as she does so, 'See, he lives. He's starting to wake, I think.'
The waking comes slow for Fafnir. First there is the smell of clean linen, the captured smell of warm sunlight and pine trees, the stony smell of the boulders the female...Aztryd?, yes, Aztryd...uses to stretch out the washed, wet bedclothes for drying. He moves his head just enough to brush his cheek against the scratchiness that comes with sun drying, and shift his body. Pain! The fogginess clears suddenly as a blaze of pain sweeps across his back between his shoulder blades, and his muscles clench in response, causing a moan to spill from his lips, dry, cracked lips. He runs a tongue over them that feels thick. Slowly, he opens his eyes, his vision blurry at first, but then, over several moments clears so that that he can see the back of Eilif, her dark braids. He tries to raise up, and bites off a curse at the resulting pain and slumps back down, panting his way through the burning ache.
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