Inspired by October 2012's prompt from 52_flavours on LiveJournal: 22. surely there is none who will speak a pitying word. August 2011's prompt, This Place Called Absence, by Lydia Kwa. Nailah and Rafiel, pre-game; takes place after about two weeks of Rafiel's arrival in Hatari. Charming babies are below.
.
in front of me, a stranger talks
.
Rafiel shivered on the bed at the exposure of his back. Nailah was quiet. Her hands were cold, the salve smelling of odd herbs reeking in the brightly lit room. After the healer had come in with the treatment and Rafiel had managed to shiver himself to the floor with fever, she'd ushered the strangely marked man out of the room with biting words. There was a shared look and a snarl, Volug was there to take him away, and somehow she'd ended up smelling like medicine. You don't mind the calloused hands of this wolf, do you? she'd asked. He only closed his eyes in response with a murmur of consent. The pain wreaked havoc between the shoulders blades of his back. The skin ached from torn and battered wings. He felt immobile. Worse yet, he was flightless, he was defenseless—he was speaking in a tongue he hadn't used in years.
What is that?
It's sometimes called the Lily of the Desert, she'd replied. It wasn't familiar.
"Will the treatment work?" He couldn't resist. He was burning.
"That remains up to your body. You're a heron. This medicine is meant for wolves—and we are far sturdier than you."
She was a contradiction; sharp edges, soft undertones. He hadn't expected that type of behavior, but he was in no position to refuse.
"It's terrible looking, I presume?" he murmured. Nailah tapped his hand, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him. Her foot bumped a wing every once in a while, and he wasn't sure if it was her intentionally keeping him from passing out or his own heightened sensitivity to those around him. It seemed being locked in a room could do that.
He knotted his fingers and tried not to think.
"Not too terrible, but I'm not a healer. I've certainly seen worse. Some soldiers never come home at all. This should significantly help in relieving the pain, however."
He bit his lip, unfazed. "I am fortunate to have been found, then."
"You are fortunate Volug is clever," she snapped. He wasn't sure if it was rage or concern that made her wild—but he flinched. She didn't know his story. "Don't presume to think this means you're out of the picture, though. Your wounds will heal and then the pain will be gone. Recovery will come quickly with bed-rest and good foods."
He swallowed the bile in the back of his throat, shifting his head in his arms. He didn't want to look at her when she was fearsome and he was not. "And my wings—what about them? Will I... be able to use them again?"
Nailah was quiet. The wolf queen, blunt and opinionated and daunting, brought to silence. Brought to her knees; she was helpless and he was foolish and this was pointless.
The birds fluttered in the window.
"I'm hopelessly optimistic," he said, watching illuminated grains of dust across the room. "I've always been. Lilia used to always say I was like a cloud. Father thought that I simply thought too much. I don't know what I am. Only what I am not."
She made a small noise, carefully pulling her hands away and pulling the blanket up to rest below his ribs; a heated thought voiced with a sound. It sounded nice in his head. Articulative. She was the cleverest of all the wolves, that much was clear.
"No," she replied quiescently, "you are not. You're a heron and you are wise—unless you've been misleading me." She wiped her hands on her legs, uncaring. "And surely," she added as an afterthought, "there is none who will speak a pitying word."
Light-flooded leaves weaved shadows on the floor. Rafiel tucked his head further into his arms, strands of hair caught beneath his burdensome body and the air held tight in his throat.
She was relentless.