Belenos, Rhûn Darkmoon, and AelKennyr Rhiano
Eilif rises from where she had been kneeling and moves to sit on the edge of Fafnir's pallet, careful not to jostle him as she does so. She places a hand gently on his forearm to restrain further efforts at movement and takes care to keep her voice brisk and reassuring. "Take it easy, Fafnir. Don't try and move just yet, or you'll upset the dressing I have on your back. Give yourself time to wake. The herbs will make you feel a bit groggy, so just lie quiet and take your time."
Her voice comes as from a great distance away, and Fafnir squints his eyes as she rest her hand on his forearm, his vision narrowing to focus on the wide hand, the squarish, close trim nails, the creases in the skin at the each joint. He exhales and watches as the breath stirs the hair along his own arm. He draws in a breath and stirs again. This time the gasp that escapes him is loud, ending in a hiss as searing pain rips across his shoulder blades and upper back. "Damn the forge of the Maker," he tries to curse, but his tongue is thick, and his mouth dry, and the words spill out in a mumble of vowels and consonants. He shifts a bit, and the pain flows through his body like a wild fire. Fire. Maker! Fire. "Nasi," he mumbles. "Nasi," he says louder.
Nasi's eyes are liquid pools of anguish as he sees Fafnir's pain and hears it in his voice. Again he attempts to move closer, to go to him, and again the room tilts alarmingly, forcing him to fall back against the pillow. "I am here," he whispers, "I am here, Fafnir."
Eilif tightens her touch on Fafnir's arm as he tries to move again, and her voice is gruff as she admonishes. "Now there, I said to take it easy. Your handsome one is right here," she pause to shoot a disapproving frown at Nasi as he collapses back against the pillows,"although no better behaved either."
She turns again to Fafnir. "Now, if you wish to live to enjoy his company, I suggest you do as I say, or it won't be your wounds you'll be needing to worry about. I'm not giving my time nursing you both, heroes or not, only to have you waste it all by doing what you should not. Now, lie still, and let me look at your back."
With that, Eilif turns to gently lift the dressing from Fafnir's back. Now that her face is averted from the others, she lets a small smile play around her lips, touched by the concern each is showing for the other.
"I am here, Fafnir." Those words. Those wonderful words. Those Fafnir hears clearly, and he relaxes back on the bed, as Elif's voice floats about his thoughts. He feels the cloth lift and bites his bottom lip to keep back a curse. The blisters along his shoulder area bite and throb, His hand curls into a fist, and he swallows several times before he croaks out, "What does a hero have to do get a spot of ale besides sweeten Adelsteinn's ear? " He chokes out the last words as he coughs, and then roars out a curse he learned from drinking swill little better than swamp water with toughened miners as they crowd into the kitchens to sup and drink and wench.
Nasi feels torn as he has never felt in his life before. His world has consisted of a simple life of work and routine. Without really understanding why, he has kept himself uninvolved and distant from others. What they did or did not do has not mattered to him. So the feelings washing through him now are alien and new. Now as he sits and watches Eilif minister to Fafnir's wounds the shy stonemason of few words finds them tumbling from his lips unbidden. "By the Maker, am I to sit here like a helpless babe while he suffers?" he blurts.
Eilif does not blush at Fafnir's cursing. She has heard worse in her life. Dwarves, after all, are not known for their gentle tongues. Nor can it be anything but excruciating for him as she lifts the dressing from his back. The fabric clings wetly and must drag and pull on the raw flesh underneath. Let him curse if it helps. She does not take her eyes from her task, though, as she snaps at Nasi. "Yes, you are! Do you think it would help him if I must stop what I am doing to pick you up from the floor? Nor would I, for I would let you lie there for your foolishness. Now be still, and if you do as I say, IF you do, then I will help you move closer once I am done here. Now be quiet and let me help him."
Eilif deftly lifts the cloth clear of Fafnir's back at last, stifling a gasp as the full extent of his injuries are revealed again. Balling the dressing carefully so the residual balm of honey and herbs does not leak onto the bedding, she puts it to the side and inspects the burn, nodding in satisfaction. It was clean, and there was no sign of the red angry flesh and suppuration that sometimes happens with wounds. With luck he would heal. Pleased with how the wound looks, she turns her attention to his other needs. "Here," she says gently, "I need to help you rise a little so you can drink. It's going to hurt as though you've spent the night sleeping in the Maker's forge, but it has to be done."
Fafnir grits his teeth as she takes off the bandage. It feels for all the world as though it is flesh she is removing and not linen. His words, directed at Nasi come from clinched jaws. "You...could..." He pauses, sucking in a sharp breath..." turn just....a little....Damn me, woman, what have I ever done to you to be peeling me like a grape?" He shudders from the pain and pants, uncurling his fist and reaching out to pat at her awkwardly, "Sorry, sweetling, sorry." He draws in a breath and holds it until she is finished. "As I was saying, Handsome, " He cranes his head up to look over at Nasi. "You could turn around a little more this way, Handsome, and show off that splendid chest of yours. Bare as a babe in a bath, but not nearly as innocent."
He does not wait for an answer from Nasi, but with a grunt, he slides both arms under him and heaves with a mighty effort, managing to rolls slightly to one side. There he pauses, panting, his brow damp with sweat from the effort. Then he struggles to pull himself up into a sitting position.
Nasi feels his face flush hotly but finds himself smiling for the first time since the attack. He struggles for a moment with the urge to reach for the bedding and cover himself, but instead, his face growing hotter by the moment, he carefully eases his body around so he faces where Fafnir lies. He tries to think of something witty and glib to say, but his tongue threatens to cleave to the roof of his mouth. His body itches to move closer, to help, as he watches Fafnir struggle to rise. His hands stay folded in his lap when they burn to support him as he finally manages to sit upright. In the end, all he manages to do is watch and wait, as Eilif commanded, and risk a shy smile at the other dwarf.
Eilif gives a small satisfied nod as she watches Fafnir struggle to sit up. Yes, he has grit, this one, although she suspects few see it. It had taken courage to stand as she had seen him stand by Nasi as together they faced the dragon. It takes courage now for him to fight the pain she knows is flowing through him; courage and determination. She casts a glance over at Nasi as she bends to lift a cup to Fafnir's lips and again feels a small smile curving her lips for she knew who inspires that determination at the moment. "Drink," she encourages Fafnir softly, helping to hold the cup steady. "It will ease the pain and help you heal." She pauses and smiles before adding, "But it does not have the sleeping herb in it, so you'll be able to talk to the handsome one for a little while at least."
Fafnir sniffs at the cup offered him by Eilif. Eyes the color of amber look up in hers, and he manages a wry grin, the edges of it a little ragged for the pain lacing his back. He slowly gives a wink, but then a grimace follows hard on its heels. So he lowers his head, wraps a hand around her wrist and downs the drink offered him, greedily sucking it down. He then releases her wrist and waits for the potion to numb the pain. "Ease the pain is good," he says, but then the humor drains from his voice. "We three survived. What of the others?" His voice grows softer as he sees all the empty beds. "I remember these filled."
Nasi feels the smile slip from his face as he follows Fafnir's glance around the room. He vaguely remembers some shadowy faces as he was placed on a litter and brought inside. What of the Elder, the old jeweler and the newcomer and her babe? He has yet to see them. Had he been too late? By the Maker, why hadn't he done something sooner instead of hiding like a coward in the forest? The shame in his thoughts echoes in his voice as he looks to Eilif for answers, "I.. I have not seen any others. Did anyone else survive? By Aule's anvil, please tell me I was not too late?"
Eilif cannot help but let her eyes flick to the empty pallets that line the room. For a moment her face is grim as she takes in their neatly made emptiness, but despair is not what these two need. She carefully rearranges her expression and tucks her own worries away until something practical can be done about them. "It is never too late to kill one of those loathsome creatures, Nasi. Never. There are others who survived, those who helped me bring you both inside, and I think you will find more will find their way back soon. I suspect a second attack would have driven most to run and hide as far away and deep as they could, but hunger and thirst will bring them back soon enough." She gives him a half smile and a wink. "Besides, you saved this one, didn't you?" Lightly she nudges Fafnir's arm. "How can you be too late if you managed that? Now then, as you've been patient, let me help you move."
The draught spreads through him, and the pain dulls, though it does not leave. Fafnir takes in a deeper breath into his lungs and lets it out slowly. His belly becomes warm from the inside out as he looks from Nasi to Eilif and back again, following the conversation, noting what she did not say and how carefully she did not say it. Now that pain has taken its seat at a distance instead of at his elbow, Fafrnir pushes himself into a sitting position. "Where is Aidelsteinn, Eilif? Drunk amongst his casks, or tucked away inside one, his bowels as watery as his drink? And what about the little mother who seems to forget a child does not like to stew in its own offal." From some dark place deep inside, anger and resentment rose like twin specters, and the words that pour from him feel like they come from someone else. "Perhaps the jeweler took his cousin, and they left for...for..." he swallows and pushes the words out. "We have to go. Now. We cannot remain here. Not now, especially."
He looks over at where Nasi sits, Nasi with two injured hands and bandaged head. "Thought we were going to join our ancestors, but we didn't, Handsome. And I do not know if that is a blessing or a curse. But those who are left have you to thank for their lives such as it is." He pulls his knees up and locks his hand around his legs, pulling in his anger, hard, and the pain, hard too. " We all owe you our lives." He looks pointedly at Nasi's hands and back up.
Nasi is silent as Eilif comes to help him move, thinking on the words both she and Fafnir have spoken as he rides the wave of nausea and dizziness that washes over him, despite how carefully he moves. Here was Eilif, her face so grievously wounded and her arm broken, yet still she unstintingly reaches out to help. As he settles next to Fafnir with a relieved grunt that his vision has stopped spinning, he looks at him thoughtfully. Bravery comes in many guises, he thinks. He lifts a bandaged hand and lays it lightly atop Fafnir's arm, grateful that his palms at least could bear the pressure of touch. "Do not be harsh with them, my brave Fafnir."
Nasi pauses a moment, feeling his face grow hot at his audacity, the endearment feeling strange upon his tongue, "A creature such as that would turn the bowels of the bravest to water, and what is a mother with a babe to do but hide them both, nor could an old fellow like the jeweler do much against such a creature. No, be gentle with them, for they did not have you standing at their shoulder, giving them heart, as did I." Gingerly, even this small movement pulling the bandages against his wounds, he gives Fafnir's arm a gentle squeeze. "You are right, though, we must leave, or soon there will be no one left to leave."
"You, you called me 'brave,'" Fafnir says carefully, looking at the bandaged hand on his arm. Careless, he thinks, I'm careless. The draught has me saying anything, everything. He purses his lips, knowing his thoughts spill into words right now without measuring them, their effect, without forethought, afterthought...without thought. Tomorrow, I'll think, Fafnir promises himself. Tomorrow, the pain can come back. He reaches out and as carefully as touching spun glass, he touches the side of Nasi's neck, resting his hand there. "If I were brave," Fafnir whispers huskily, "I would do this."
He pulls Nasi's face towards his own, and his lips finds the stonemason's, finds them and captures them in a long, hard kiss, his other hand resting on the mattress between them, arm trembling. A small tremor runs through his body, and a sound that was loss, need, want, pain, fear starts in his throat and rumbles up. He kisses, and releases only to kiss again, finally breaking the kiss, to bow his head and rest his brow against Nasi's shoulder. From deep inside him a broken cry rises up, then another, and another, and heedless of his injured back, he leans against Nasi's shoulder. "If we stay here, we will become cattle, not dwarves," he says, " But for tonight, let two bulls rest together. In the morn, we can be grumpy and malcontented dwarves, but tonight...tonight," he rests his head against Nasi's shoulder and sags, as the pain thuds dully, "tonight, let the cattle low and rest. Rest."
> Next
Her voice comes as from a great distance away, and Fafnir squints his eyes as she rest her hand on his forearm, his vision narrowing to focus on the wide hand, the squarish, close trim nails, the creases in the skin at the each joint. He exhales and watches as the breath stirs the hair along his own arm. He draws in a breath and stirs again. This time the gasp that escapes him is loud, ending in a hiss as searing pain rips across his shoulder blades and upper back. "Damn the forge of the Maker," he tries to curse, but his tongue is thick, and his mouth dry, and the words spill out in a mumble of vowels and consonants. He shifts a bit, and the pain flows through his body like a wild fire. Fire. Maker! Fire. "Nasi," he mumbles. "Nasi," he says louder.
Nasi's eyes are liquid pools of anguish as he sees Fafnir's pain and hears it in his voice. Again he attempts to move closer, to go to him, and again the room tilts alarmingly, forcing him to fall back against the pillow. "I am here," he whispers, "I am here, Fafnir."
Eilif tightens her touch on Fafnir's arm as he tries to move again, and her voice is gruff as she admonishes. "Now there, I said to take it easy. Your handsome one is right here," she pause to shoot a disapproving frown at Nasi as he collapses back against the pillows,"although no better behaved either."
She turns again to Fafnir. "Now, if you wish to live to enjoy his company, I suggest you do as I say, or it won't be your wounds you'll be needing to worry about. I'm not giving my time nursing you both, heroes or not, only to have you waste it all by doing what you should not. Now, lie still, and let me look at your back."
With that, Eilif turns to gently lift the dressing from Fafnir's back. Now that her face is averted from the others, she lets a small smile play around her lips, touched by the concern each is showing for the other.
"I am here, Fafnir." Those words. Those wonderful words. Those Fafnir hears clearly, and he relaxes back on the bed, as Elif's voice floats about his thoughts. He feels the cloth lift and bites his bottom lip to keep back a curse. The blisters along his shoulder area bite and throb, His hand curls into a fist, and he swallows several times before he croaks out, "What does a hero have to do get a spot of ale besides sweeten Adelsteinn's ear? " He chokes out the last words as he coughs, and then roars out a curse he learned from drinking swill little better than swamp water with toughened miners as they crowd into the kitchens to sup and drink and wench.
Nasi feels torn as he has never felt in his life before. His world has consisted of a simple life of work and routine. Without really understanding why, he has kept himself uninvolved and distant from others. What they did or did not do has not mattered to him. So the feelings washing through him now are alien and new. Now as he sits and watches Eilif minister to Fafnir's wounds the shy stonemason of few words finds them tumbling from his lips unbidden. "By the Maker, am I to sit here like a helpless babe while he suffers?" he blurts.Eilif does not blush at Fafnir's cursing. She has heard worse in her life. Dwarves, after all, are not known for their gentle tongues. Nor can it be anything but excruciating for him as she lifts the dressing from his back. The fabric clings wetly and must drag and pull on the raw flesh underneath. Let him curse if it helps. She does not take her eyes from her task, though, as she snaps at Nasi. "Yes, you are! Do you think it would help him if I must stop what I am doing to pick you up from the floor? Nor would I, for I would let you lie there for your foolishness. Now be still, and if you do as I say, IF you do, then I will help you move closer once I am done here. Now be quiet and let me help him."
Eilif deftly lifts the cloth clear of Fafnir's back at last, stifling a gasp as the full extent of his injuries are revealed again. Balling the dressing carefully so the residual balm of honey and herbs does not leak onto the bedding, she puts it to the side and inspects the burn, nodding in satisfaction. It was clean, and there was no sign of the red angry flesh and suppuration that sometimes happens with wounds. With luck he would heal. Pleased with how the wound looks, she turns her attention to his other needs. "Here," she says gently, "I need to help you rise a little so you can drink. It's going to hurt as though you've spent the night sleeping in the Maker's forge, but it has to be done."
Fafnir grits his teeth as she takes off the bandage. It feels for all the world as though it is flesh she is removing and not linen. His words, directed at Nasi come from clinched jaws. "You...could..." He pauses, sucking in a sharp breath..." turn just....a little....Damn me, woman, what have I ever done to you to be peeling me like a grape?" He shudders from the pain and pants, uncurling his fist and reaching out to pat at her awkwardly, "Sorry, sweetling, sorry." He draws in a breath and holds it until she is finished. "As I was saying, Handsome, " He cranes his head up to look over at Nasi. "You could turn around a little more this way, Handsome, and show off that splendid chest of yours. Bare as a babe in a bath, but not nearly as innocent."
He does not wait for an answer from Nasi, but with a grunt, he slides both arms under him and heaves with a mighty effort, managing to rolls slightly to one side. There he pauses, panting, his brow damp with sweat from the effort. Then he struggles to pull himself up into a sitting position.
Nasi feels his face flush hotly but finds himself smiling for the first time since the attack. He struggles for a moment with the urge to reach for the bedding and cover himself, but instead, his face growing hotter by the moment, he carefully eases his body around so he faces where Fafnir lies. He tries to think of something witty and glib to say, but his tongue threatens to cleave to the roof of his mouth. His body itches to move closer, to help, as he watches Fafnir struggle to rise. His hands stay folded in his lap when they burn to support him as he finally manages to sit upright. In the end, all he manages to do is watch and wait, as Eilif commanded, and risk a shy smile at the other dwarf.
Eilif gives a small satisfied nod as she watches Fafnir struggle to sit up. Yes, he has grit, this one, although she suspects few see it. It had taken courage to stand as she had seen him stand by Nasi as together they faced the dragon. It takes courage now for him to fight the pain she knows is flowing through him; courage and determination. She casts a glance over at Nasi as she bends to lift a cup to Fafnir's lips and again feels a small smile curving her lips for she knew who inspires that determination at the moment. "Drink," she encourages Fafnir softly, helping to hold the cup steady. "It will ease the pain and help you heal." She pauses and smiles before adding, "But it does not have the sleeping herb in it, so you'll be able to talk to the handsome one for a little while at least."Fafnir sniffs at the cup offered him by Eilif. Eyes the color of amber look up in hers, and he manages a wry grin, the edges of it a little ragged for the pain lacing his back. He slowly gives a wink, but then a grimace follows hard on its heels. So he lowers his head, wraps a hand around her wrist and downs the drink offered him, greedily sucking it down. He then releases her wrist and waits for the potion to numb the pain. "Ease the pain is good," he says, but then the humor drains from his voice. "We three survived. What of the others?" His voice grows softer as he sees all the empty beds. "I remember these filled."
Nasi feels the smile slip from his face as he follows Fafnir's glance around the room. He vaguely remembers some shadowy faces as he was placed on a litter and brought inside. What of the Elder, the old jeweler and the newcomer and her babe? He has yet to see them. Had he been too late? By the Maker, why hadn't he done something sooner instead of hiding like a coward in the forest? The shame in his thoughts echoes in his voice as he looks to Eilif for answers, "I.. I have not seen any others. Did anyone else survive? By Aule's anvil, please tell me I was not too late?"
Eilif cannot help but let her eyes flick to the empty pallets that line the room. For a moment her face is grim as she takes in their neatly made emptiness, but despair is not what these two need. She carefully rearranges her expression and tucks her own worries away until something practical can be done about them. "It is never too late to kill one of those loathsome creatures, Nasi. Never. There are others who survived, those who helped me bring you both inside, and I think you will find more will find their way back soon. I suspect a second attack would have driven most to run and hide as far away and deep as they could, but hunger and thirst will bring them back soon enough." She gives him a half smile and a wink. "Besides, you saved this one, didn't you?" Lightly she nudges Fafnir's arm. "How can you be too late if you managed that? Now then, as you've been patient, let me help you move."
The draught spreads through him, and the pain dulls, though it does not leave. Fafnir takes in a deeper breath into his lungs and lets it out slowly. His belly becomes warm from the inside out as he looks from Nasi to Eilif and back again, following the conversation, noting what she did not say and how carefully she did not say it. Now that pain has taken its seat at a distance instead of at his elbow, Fafrnir pushes himself into a sitting position. "Where is Aidelsteinn, Eilif? Drunk amongst his casks, or tucked away inside one, his bowels as watery as his drink? And what about the little mother who seems to forget a child does not like to stew in its own offal." From some dark place deep inside, anger and resentment rose like twin specters, and the words that pour from him feel like they come from someone else. "Perhaps the jeweler took his cousin, and they left for...for..." he swallows and pushes the words out. "We have to go. Now. We cannot remain here. Not now, especially."
He looks over at where Nasi sits, Nasi with two injured hands and bandaged head. "Thought we were going to join our ancestors, but we didn't, Handsome. And I do not know if that is a blessing or a curse. But those who are left have you to thank for their lives such as it is." He pulls his knees up and locks his hand around his legs, pulling in his anger, hard, and the pain, hard too. " We all owe you our lives." He looks pointedly at Nasi's hands and back up.
Nasi is silent as Eilif comes to help him move, thinking on the words both she and Fafnir have spoken as he rides the wave of nausea and dizziness that washes over him, despite how carefully he moves. Here was Eilif, her face so grievously wounded and her arm broken, yet still she unstintingly reaches out to help. As he settles next to Fafnir with a relieved grunt that his vision has stopped spinning, he looks at him thoughtfully. Bravery comes in many guises, he thinks. He lifts a bandaged hand and lays it lightly atop Fafnir's arm, grateful that his palms at least could bear the pressure of touch. "Do not be harsh with them, my brave Fafnir."
Nasi pauses a moment, feeling his face grow hot at his audacity, the endearment feeling strange upon his tongue, "A creature such as that would turn the bowels of the bravest to water, and what is a mother with a babe to do but hide them both, nor could an old fellow like the jeweler do much against such a creature. No, be gentle with them, for they did not have you standing at their shoulder, giving them heart, as did I." Gingerly, even this small movement pulling the bandages against his wounds, he gives Fafnir's arm a gentle squeeze. "You are right, though, we must leave, or soon there will be no one left to leave."
"You, you called me 'brave,'" Fafnir says carefully, looking at the bandaged hand on his arm. Careless, he thinks, I'm careless. The draught has me saying anything, everything. He purses his lips, knowing his thoughts spill into words right now without measuring them, their effect, without forethought, afterthought...without thought. Tomorrow, I'll think, Fafnir promises himself. Tomorrow, the pain can come back. He reaches out and as carefully as touching spun glass, he touches the side of Nasi's neck, resting his hand there. "If I were brave," Fafnir whispers huskily, "I would do this."
He pulls Nasi's face towards his own, and his lips finds the stonemason's, finds them and captures them in a long, hard kiss, his other hand resting on the mattress between them, arm trembling. A small tremor runs through his body, and a sound that was loss, need, want, pain, fear starts in his throat and rumbles up. He kisses, and releases only to kiss again, finally breaking the kiss, to bow his head and rest his brow against Nasi's shoulder. From deep inside him a broken cry rises up, then another, and another, and heedless of his injured back, he leans against Nasi's shoulder. "If we stay here, we will become cattle, not dwarves," he says, " But for tonight, let two bulls rest together. In the morn, we can be grumpy and malcontented dwarves, but tonight...tonight," he rests his head against Nasi's shoulder and sags, as the pain thuds dully, "tonight, let the cattle low and rest. Rest."
> Next