a/n; hi. there are 5 billion other things i should be doing right now, but there is a distinct lack of therion/h'aanit fic out there that needs to be filled. unless that's because i'm the only one who is sailing on that ship. if so, JOKES ON ME. if anyone else is out there, happy reading!
hunted.
There she is.
The lighting in the tavern is dim and groggy, the orange and yellows mixing into a sluggish prescription of feeling.
H'aanit's back is turned, so she doesn't see him enter. She's too busy staking out the men surrounding the corner table, hidden in the shadows nearest the bar. He has a mind to equate her to a lion, prowling in the tall grasses and hunting down her prey.
He should have known it would come to this, though he didn't think she'd do something so dramatic—but hindsight is always 20/20.
He sighs, unconsciously rubbing his side. He takes a few discreet steps into the tavern and perches into the chair opposite her. He notices she has taken the effort to buy a glass of mead, sitting untouched and unwanted and placed in front of her crossed arms on the table. It's a disguise to fit in to the atmosphere and the ruckus of the tavern. He's only seen her take a drink of the stuff once, and that was at the behest of himself and Alfyn, urging her and destroying her strong-willed opposition. He absently wonders what a drunk H'aanit might look like.
She'd probably fill conversation with too many thees and thous.
"H'aanit," Therion coos, placing his hands on the table. "Fancy meeting you here."
She jolts, her eyes widening. She looks like an exclamation point—lips parted, her oval face a perfect description of surprise.
"Therion," she hisses, and her eyes flutter along him, as if trying to find an injury. "What aren thou doing here?"
He nearly rolls his eyes. "Oh, I don't know, keeping you from throwing yourself into danger? Never one for much foresight, are you?"
She tenses up, her back straightening. "Why did Alfyn not keepen you on bed rest?"
"C'mon, H'aanit, would anyone be able to keep me on bed rest?"
She ponders the point, coming to the same conclusion and shaking her head. "You shoulden not be here in thoust condition. I do not caren if you acten like you are fine."
Therion smiles. "But here I am. What are you going to do? Send me home when I've come so far?"
Her eyes narrow. "Do not looken at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Liken you already knowe what I shall say."
He leans forward. "Well, on my count, there are three big, burly men sitting around that table. By their voices, they're already deep into their cups. It might be easy for a hunter like yourself to take them out, but it would be even easier for you to slip out the door with them none the wiser." He pauses. "Don't worry. I'll follow you." He winks.
He winks. Winks. He never winks.
It's H'aanit. She's making me crazy.
That fact alone is the one thing that started this whole fiasco in the first place. Completely oblivious H'aanit, churning his psyche into a mess of insanity.
It's so cliché. Of course, his nearly flawless execution of a plan is crumbling to dust. Not because of a wound that placed him at the brink of death, or because of an evil villain wanting to kill him off because said evil villain noticed a stolen trinket—though, Therion digresses, those are secondary acts to the equation—but the main culprit, the one thing that made this slight conflict of interest into a terrible, inward calamity…
Was a woman.
It's a funny story. It's funny because Therion can tell the story in five minutes. It's not a long-winded, inner reflection of how he became the man he is—that story has already been told.
This is a story where Therion botched a job. It should have been an easy job. He's done this same type of job over a dozen times, and he prides himself on being one of the best in his vocation.
Yet, he botched it. He was caught, and he was stabbed quite meanly in the side of his abdomen with an infected dagger, though he has no room to complain. The other man had a far worse fate than he.
So there he was, stumbling around the trails between Victor's Hollow and S'warkii, seeing hallucinations and visions of whatever the infection wanted him to see. Then, he remembers, spinning around a tree, and there was H'aanit, standing in all of her thunderous glory, and turning her arrow on him like the professional hunter. He was so close to her that the tip of the arrow almost kissed his nose.
He remembers laughing, saying something about irony or serendipity or other nonsense, and he remembers nothing else.
That's the story of how. The story of why, however…
That story will take a bit longer to explain.
When Therion woke up two weeks later on an unfamiliar bed, Alfyn was the first person he saw. Weakness was the first thing he felt. Stiffness was a close second. Confusion was an immediate third.
"What the hell happened?" he asked, trying to sit up, quickly becoming dizzy, and then lying back down. "I can't remember a damn thing."
Alfyn stirred at something in a glass jar, the mixture resembling swamp sludge. "You were stabbed with a pretty nasty dagger. The poison was hefty and potent. Had the dagger been stuck in you thirty seconds longer, I reckon you'd be six feet under, Therion. Count yourself lucky we were able to treat you in time," Alfyn had said. "Boy, I'm sure glad I was in the area. Talk about coincidence."
Therion is sure he made some apathetic comment about his well-being, before asking sometime later, "Where's H'aanit?"
Because he remembered the silver glint from her arrow, the crackling thunder in her eyes. How she looked under the hallucinogenic poison. Therion blinked, his head suddenly consumed with a dizziness once more.
Alfyn's cheeks turned red then—a telltale precursor to a lie or his embarrassment. He cleared his throat and explained that she went to go hunt down the culprits.
"What in the godsdamned earth…" Therion muttered, his mind going back to the man he stole from, of his brutality, of his selfish rancor bred from enabled narcissism and highborn superiority.
Sure, H'aanit could take care of herself. Therion had no doubt about that. But one woman against a herd of followers and gang members from a men's "social club" that specialized in taking advantage of women?
She needed at least one more set of hands.
"You realize that, Alfyn?" he had asked.
Alfyn glared. "O' course. I told her to recruit Olberic, but he's too far away for her liking, and you know H'aanit. She's too ready for action and never ready for waitin'. I guess it didn't help matters that I told her I wasn't sure how long it would take your body to stabilize after the poison. You were septic for a stint, Therion." Alfyn's face softened a bit at that. "We were both very worried. I wasn't sure if my skills were up to par with the poison you had in you."
Therion rolled his eyes. "I'm touched, Alfyn, but stop playing the humble card. You knew exactly what you were doing. Now, about H'aanit…"
Alfyn groaned. "Not you, too. You've only just recovered, and who knows what the residual side effects are gonna be."
Which led Therion to sneaking out in the middle of the night, snatching a large batch of vials of the swamp sludge potion Alfyn was feeding him every eight hours, the wraps he would reapply, and left a note saying drinks were on him when he got back. He chose to follow the trail to Stillsnow, where the men's social club headquarters (funny, that, taking over the old Obsidian palace) was located and the only place Therion could think H'aanit would figure to go. With at least a week leg up on him, he had absolutely no time to waste on silly things like recuperating and recovery.
Now, here he is, staring at H'aanit, and remembering the way she looked at him in the forest—though it was more than likely fictional or amplified by the poison—and he's not sure why the image won't leave him. How everything else had left him—his memory of his fight, how he even got to the trail to S'warkii—and yet her face is so clear and perfect in that hazy moment in his mind.
"No," H'aanit says.
Therion blinks.
"No…you don't want me to follow?"
"No, I am not going to leaven," she states, tone hard as steel. Her eyes narrow. "These men usen women. I understanden why thou chosen them to steal from."
Therion watches her. Her right hand is in a fist, her knuckles turning white under the stress. It seems she has taken on a mission of her own in the weeks he'd been sleeping.
"H'aanit…" he begins, pondering his words carefully. "They've ruled this area for a while, now, after the whole Obsidian fiasco. Beating up a few of their minions won't do anything except poke the bear."
The muscle in her jaw jumps. She eyes the men in the corner with a heady disdain, and he sees the judgment scales weighing in her pupils. The storm in her approaches and recedes.
"Wouldst thou join me in… 'poking the bear'?" she asks, her eyes focusing on him once more. "It may ben possible for the six others to joinen us, as well."
"Feeling a bit nostalgic, H'aanit?" he grins. "I admit it's tempting…but I've already done what I've set out to do. The women of this trade don't do this because they're forced. They do it because they have no other choice."
"Is that not onen and the same?" H'aanit asks.
Therion sighs. "I think you're becoming too attached to the cause."
H'aanit looks down at her hands. "It is not only that. They hurten one of our own."
It takes Therion a moment to realize she's talking about him.
"Tch. H'aanit, it doesn't matter. I hid the treasure before they caught me. They didn't find it. I won," Therion says. "The case is closed unless they find out I survived."
H'aanit eyes the corner. Their volume rises and sways, like a torrential ocean. They laugh occasionally in a drunken stupor.
"Aren any of them your attackers?"
"No," Therion says, bringing her untouched glass of mead to his vicinity. He takes a pull from it. "Even if any of them were, they wouldn't know who I was. They are too under the influence."
H'aanit pauses for a moment. "They aren glancing at this table."
"Ignore them."
She tenses. H'aanit is not subtle, and her eyes keep flicking towards the back of the room. Therion sighs when he hears the scrape of a chair underneath the clamor of the men, and large, heavy footsteps approaching.
"They probably think you're interested," he mutters.
"…Interested?" she asks.
A shadow covers Therion in a matter of seconds. He grimaces into his glass.
"Aye, m'lady. Yer a fine one, ain't ye? Saw ye lookin' my way, I did."
He slams his elbow onto the table an inch away from where Therion grips the mug. The man's stale stench wafts into his space, and Therion sneers. The man is close enough for Therion to easily notice his rumpled tunic, loosened in the front and showing a chest covered in thick, curly black hair. Darkened sweat stains line his armpits and the shadow of his belly. His scraggly beard, his yellowed teeth, and his swimming, cloudy eyes all make Therion wonder why on earth he requires coercion for girls to spend time with him.
H'aanit remains silent, her eyes unflinchingly severe. Were the man in his right mind, he would probably be too intimidated to say anything further.
"Come now, darlin'," the man continues, brandishing an arm. "The nights're cold, the days're short...but I can keep you warm and make your days run long, I can."
Therion smirks into his mug, chugging the rest of it in one go. He slams it purposefully onto the table, and the man, for possibly the first time all night, notices Therion's presence.
"How long did it take you to come up with that line, old man?"
The man jerks so hard, he nearly swerves out of his skin.
"Oi, what in the hells!" he exclaims, and then his eyes rake over Therion and he laughs with complete and utter abandon. "You're such a scrawny twig, I nearly took ye for a wooden panel in the walls!"
Therion's eyebrow twitches. "And here I thought I wasn't being discreet enough," he mutters, and he catches H'aanit trying not to smile.
"Listen pal," Therion says, turning fully towards the man. "I suggest you scuttle back to your little corner before you get humiliated in front of this entire tavern."
The man surprisingly has enough wits about him to look affronted.
"Humili'ted?" He blinks. "You threatenin' me?"
Therion shrugs. "Depends. Do you feel threatened by the possibility of being humiliated?"
The man blinks again, the cogwheels making slow turns behind his eyes. His eyebrows pinch in confusion, and his confusion immediately turns into anger.
"You dare threaten me, you lily-livered swine?" he spats, forgetting all about H'aanit in the face of insulted pride.
"It's only a dare if you're dumb enough to think it. Didn't you say I was a scrawny twig? Why would a sloppy drunkard like you be threatened by a twig like me?"
The man's already rosy face burns into a deeper shade of red. Therion gives him a shit-eating grin, because it's much too fun getting under this man's skin. Mostly because it's too easy, taking no skill at all, but also because Therion admits that, yes, he is a little offended by being called a scrawny twig. Just because he wears loose clothing and isn't as broad shouldered does not mean he can't hold his own.
Moron.
But then, what the man doesn't know will hurt him.
The man puffs several times before finally blubbering, "Ya cream-faced whoreson!"
Three things happen then.
One, the man heaves his whole body forward and shouts loudly in an attempt to tackle Therion to the ground.
Two, due to the man's lackluster and clumsy attempt, Therion sees it all a mile away, and he's already in the process of dodging and weaving.
Three, H'aanit merely rolls her eyes.
The man misses, slamming his belly into the table. It rocks and tips, but it doesn't tumble over, and the man, with a surprisingly dexterous move, grabs the ale mug and swings wildly back around. Therion jerks his neck back and avoids the hit by an inch. The man swings with his other arm, and Therion ducks, swiftly punching his defenseless gut. The man hunches with a huff, the air knocked out of him, and Therion takes the opening and kicks him in the side of the head.
The man stumbles to the ground with shaky legs and heavy breathing, a gash of blood dripping down his temple. He has the wits about him to glare up at Therion, spit, and say, "I'mma crumple you up like a dried leaf, gut you like trout…" The man raises his mug and shatters it against the tavern floor, a sharpened shard remaining attached to the handle. The man stands, roars, and runs a wobbly run toward Therion, cutting the air like a lunatic. With each arc, Therion steps back and back, the rush of air from the cuts hitting him like a deadly kiss.
Therion waits for an opening. There's no use in pulling out his dagger on this man—it's a harmless tavern brawl. He only needs to knock the man unconscious and scare away his other friends.
The opening comes when Therion's heel hits the wall of the tavern. He goes to punch the man's jaw—
"Therion!"
—and he feels his body flying through the air. His side hits the corner of a table, and white hot pain streaks up into his shoulder and dashes into his brain. He momentarily sees stars, and he feels the warmth of his open wound.
"Gods damn it," he breathes, blinking away the daze. When his vision's cleared, he looks around and sees the man on the ground—his lights out from the angle of his body—and he sees H'aanit standing in the middle of the rowdy men. They had finally left their table, it seems, and Therion eyes the man that he thinks may have been the one to throw him across the room. He glares. The man glares back.
H'aanit has one of her hatchets up against a man's throat. Her back is concrete, her arms stiff and steady as a board. Her chest heaves as she says, "Standest down, men. This fight is over."
Her tone brokers no argument, though some try with drunken, directionless words. Therion wants to laugh at them, but his pain limits him to a pitiful wheeze.
"Well," spats the man with H'aanit's hatchet at his neck. "I, for one, ain't let me self be put down by a woman." The bobbing of his neck against the hatchet cuts his skin, and a line of blood trickles to his collarbone. "Aye, men?" he shouts. "Are we not to be trifled with? An' by a woman no less! This the true test ain't it? Let's put her down!"
The three men left become revived by the man's words, and they shout their acquiescence. Therion notices the patrons who hadn't let themselves out before scurry through the door as unnoticeably as they can.
H'aanit's hand has not moved. Therion remains kneeling, palming the dagger in his boot. So much for avoiding major injury.
"If that is thou decision, then far ben it for thy to argue," H'aanit says calmly. Deadly. Therion eyes the men and determines which one he thinks is the most dangerous drunkard. His fist tightens on the dagger handle.
"Oi, it is my decision, and I'll make you squeal like the bitch you are!" he shouts, jerking his neck backward and swinging his arm up in a wide arc. H'aanit moves swiftly, jamming the handle of her hatchet in the middle of his gut, and kneeing him in the head when he keels forward.
Therion throws the dagger at the man closest to the tavern wall, clipping his vest and nailing him to the wall. Oblivious to the dagger, he runs forward, slips backward from the jerk of the knife, and awkwardly dangles while he tries to maintain his balance. His war cry is strangled into a confused snarl, and he sloppily attempts to pull the knife from the wall.
H'aanit is already dodging another man's swinging punches, and Therion intervenes with the last one, blocking his path to H'aanit. Therion swivels around a few punches before the man's face puckers and he says, "Aye, don't I know ya?"
He looks different under the haze of the tavern lights, but Therion will be honest—all henchmen look the same after a while. This man was probably in the bunch that was sent to track him down two weeks ago. Therion doesn't answer immediately, punching at the man's throat, and is shocked when his punch misses. The drunkard had the capacity to dodge.
"In your dreams, maybe," he says, punching again. This time he hits the man's jaw. The man stumbles backward, but his cheeks turn rosy with heightened anger. He grabs the back of a tavern stool behind him.
"I reckon yer one of those thieves. Yeah, that sounds 'bout right, ain't it? So many thieves lately, plunderin' all our wealth." He heaves the stool up and around, and Therion jumps back to avoid the length of it. So far as he knows, Therion is the only thief to have stolen from them most recently. The man is confusing one significant adversity of his group into several. He can just imagine what the man sounds like, telling his stories around a campfire, embellishing every detail.
"You don't seem so wealthy to me," Therion remarks, rolling out of the way of another swing. He comes up close after the swing, rendering the stool's long range ineffective. He sends a hook to his cheek, and the man stumbles back again. The man ends up swinging the stool anyway, and the damn wooden leg hits Therion in the side again, right on the opening wound.
"Hells bells," he mutters, losing his wind. The man sends a wild punch, and it lands on Therion's chin. He falls backward, but rolls quickly out of the way of the stool. The man slams it onto the ground, and splinters of the wood fly all over the floor. Then Therion hears a muffled grunt and a thud, and the man's passed out on the floor in front of him with H'aanit's stout shadow covering them both.
"The huntress strikes again," Therion smirks. "I knew it'd end up in a bar fight, one way or another."
H'aanit sighs and looks over him, assessing him. "Thou did not fighten well."
Therion scowls. "Just because I missed a dodge doesn't mean—"
"It is unlike thou. You aren still ill."
His frown deepens. "I am not ill, H'aanit." He goes to stand, and the dizziness makes him wobble on his feet. He blinks it away and attempts to hide it, crossing his arms. "Give it a rest. Alfyn is a cure all."
Her eyes lock onto his side, narrowing as she takes a step closer to him. He nearly groans, stepping away from her. He forgot to hide the bleeding.
"Dost wound. It is open and bleeding."
"Your concern flatters me."
"Do not jest, Therion!" she says, reaching a hand out to touch the growing spot on his shirt. Her fingers graze the cloth, but she does not touch his side. He can almost feel the warmth of her hand, pressed against him.
He blinks. An odd thought.
Her eyes find his face. "Thou aren pale. Thou eyes aren tired. Thou musten rest, Therion."
"I did not come here to be lectured, so stop acting like my keeper, H'aanit," he states, not trying to hide his annoyance.
She drops her hand, and she looks momentarily taken aback by his words. Then she hides it as quickly as it came, her face becoming steely. "Didst Alfyn send the potion and supplies with you?"
Therion smirks. "Of course he did. What kind of apothecary would he be if he didn't?"
"A poor one." She nods. "Goode then."
They stare at each other for a moment. Therion's wound blisters under her stare, like a throb of a heart. He sees the tip of her arrow in his mind's eye, kissing his nose, her eyes wild and thunderous and raising the hairs on his arms like the swell of static. He's not sure what's happening to him. Normal wounds never feel like this—and they never have poison induced memories attached to them, either.
The tavern door slams open, and it breaks Therion out of his thoughts. A manic laugh fills the space.
"Ahahahahahahahahahahaha," cries Susanna, filling the doorway. "Word certainly travels fast, and they weren't lying! H'aanit! I didn't think you'd be in the middle of this kerfuffle! And Therion, ah, yes, I am not surprised by you."
Therion rolls his eyes. "Thanks."
H'aanit is surprised into a small smile. "Susanna!"
Alaic takes his place by Susanna, eyes peering over the room, sternly examining everyone on the ground. His eyes flicker over H'aanit briefly, and then he everts his eyes again. He nearly blushes with the action alone.
Ah, Alaic. The tall, dark, and silent protector of H'aanit's pseudo-grandmother, who has a crush the size of Jupiter, and of which H'aanit is completely oblivious. The clichés don't stop. It just gets better and better.
Therion realizes he's grimacing at the audacity of it all, before a cleared throat breaks up the reunion.
"Er, excuse me, but…can you clean up this mess?" The tavernkeeper peeks his head above the counter. "I'd like to have a few more customers, if you'd be so kind…"
Therion sighs. "Yeah. Sure. Not like I have anything better to do than shove these guys into the snow."
The tavernkeeper misses the sarcasm, or acts like he misses the sarcasm, and grins. "Appreciate it."
While Therion goes to drag bodies out of the tavern, all the while trying to ignore his wound and avoid movements that would open it further, Alaic offers his service, as he is the stoic and silent helper who is strong, loyal, and altruistic. H'aanit moves to help as well, but Susanna keeps her busy with animated conversation.
"Well, Alaic would never admit to this, but when we heard you might be in a scuffle at this tavern, he nearly jumped out of his skin to come make sure you were alright. He is actually quite sweet under that rocky exterior, wouldn't you say, Alaic? Ahahahahaha."
Alaic blushes lightly, him and Therion both carrying the last man out of the tavern. Therion grunts as they throw him toward the side of the building. He tunes out the rest of Susanna's tittering as he goes to restore their reputation with the town. He's pleasantly satisfied by receiving a discount for it after cleaning up their mess.
Susanna hooks her arm into H'aanit's and takes her outside as Therion finishes up the transaction at the front of the tavern. Alaic follows immediately after, and the tavernkeeper says unceremoniously, "She worth all the fuss?"
Therion blinks, taking an uncharacteristic moment to piece together the man's meaning. "Pardon me?"
The tavernkeeper nods to the door. "The S'warkii lady. I've just witnessed you try fight one of the men taking interest in her, and I just overheard Alaic wanted to protect her, so I reckon she must be someone special for all that attention."
Therion pauses, truly pondering the question. He sees H'aanit in his mind's eye summoning Draefendi's Rage and piercing through multitudes of fiends.
"She protects herself," he says, and it's the truth.
She's never needed anyone in that regard.
His side pulsates, and he pushes his palm against the wound. He makes his way to leave. "Thanks for the discount."
The tavernkeeper smiles knowingly. "You bring that lady back, and I'll give you drinks on the house."
A tempting offer. The tavernkeeper's smile offsets him, though. Is he so transparent? Has he been, and never knew it?
He steps outside into the bitter cold chill of Stillsnow, and H'aanit, Susanna, and Alaic are a few feet from the entrance of the tavern. Susanna is offering her to come to the house and drink some tea and have some dinner. H'aanit is giving them both a beautiful smile. Alaic watches both of them, eyes glancing back and forth and occasionally lingering on H'aanit. He reminds Therion of a watchdog, and he wonders if Linde might be interested.
Therion scowls. This wound has made him meaner than usual, but he doesn't much care. He just needs his salve and potion and a bed.
"That sounden lovely, Susanna. I thanke thee for the offer, but—"
She turns to Therion as he joins the group. He glances at her and then to Susanna and Alaic.
"It was a pleasure to see you both, again, but I must take my leave to the inn," he says.
"Will you not join us, Therion? A friend of H'aanit's is always a friend of ours," Susanna says.
Therion looks at Alaic, but he is very good at hiding every and any expression. He doesn't give anything away, and Therion is impressed. He plays the stoic, apathetic card almost as well as Therion himself.
"A tempting offer, but I must leave early in the morning. I would gladly like to stay next time I visit," he answers with a casual lie.
"Aren thou sure?" H'aanit asks him, and her eyes scrutinize him. "I can changen thou's bandages—Alfyn taughten me how. And Susanna can maken a mean stew. It will helpen thou feele better."
Therion can't hide his surprise at this revelation. Alfyn taught her how to change his bandages while he was unconscious? He thinks about how close her fingers were to his shirt, wondering if his body was remembering the pads of her fingertips when his mind couldn't. He feels very warm, suddenly.
Flustered at the abrupt feeling, Therion says, "No. I'll stick to my original plan. But I do appreciate the offer."
H'aanit looks torn. Susanna must see this, because she says, "Oh, such a shame, but I understand. H'aanit, we'll head over to the house. Join us whenever you would like." She winks at her before turning to Alaic. "Come, Alaic. Now we must set the table for our guest."
Once they are out of earshot, Therion sighs at her. "H'aanit, go enjoy your grandmother and her trusted companion. Our work here is done."
"Yes, but…why did thou comen here when still healing? Thou hast not spoken much to me, and yet thou travelen many miles to comen here," she says. "I doe not understanden."
Therion presses his palm harder into his side. It rocks him, and he struggles with a wave of lightheadedness. It passes in an instant, but her question lingers in the wound, like a physical rock shoved inside his stomach.
"Why do you think, H'aanit?" he says, and he knows he's being a little shit about this. He can't figure it out, himself. He can't truly tell her it was the poison, messing up his mind and emotions, intertwining them into a twisted, incomprehensible lump of feeling and, dare he think it, desire. It doesn't make sense, and she wouldn't understand it, anyway.
Besides, she doesn't even drink. The free drink in the tavern would be wasted.
She shifts her weight, her face puckered and stern. "I doe not knowen."
She looks concerned, and it weighs on him uncomfortably. He doesn't like these kinds of emotions—of being nice and empathetic. He's still getting used to it after years of rendering them obsolete.
Then he thinks about him finding his way down the path to S'warkii, knowing, deep down, she was a safe haven. She would take him in. He trusted her with helping him, and the trust was not as difficult to bestow as he first believed.
Then he imagines her changing his bandages.
He swallows thickly. He growls with frustration. "H'aanit, it doesn't make any sense."
"I will try to understanden," she says, nodding.
She's so serious. He wants to laugh, but the gnawing pain takes the humor out of it.
"There's nothing to understand," he says, and with a stroke of carelessness brought on by the cold and the nauseating pain in his side, he reaches up with his hand to rest his fingers on her cheek. He realizes she has a bruise forming there. Must have been from the fight right before, and he missed it completely.
She blinks. He can tell she wants to jerk away, but she remains as stiff as a board. "Therion…"
His eyes fall to her lips for a moment, wondering about them and fascinated by the unknown. He's always been logical and pragmatic, creating plans and every possible way they can break down, having multiple escape plans and sub-plans, always ready for anything he could imagine. It's worked the majority of the time for thievery. With touching H'aanit's cheek and seriously contemplating kissing her—this is not a plan. It was never a plan.
It's directionless. Therion can't remember a time where he can't see the after of an action. He sees nothing after a kiss shared with H'aanit. He can't know how she'll react. He can't see if there will be a consequence, and if there is—well, what would it be? He doesn't know if that should mean anything.
He is ready to blame it on the poison and the wound, if H'aanit avoids him after. He's not in his right mind, and that's certainly the truth. He's in this position right now because he's breaking his way into insanity.
So he says, "I'm losing my mind." And he dips his head to steal a kiss. She doesn't move. Her lips are warm and inviting, just like he wondered if they might be, but her body is stiff and frozen, and she doesn't react. She merely lets it happen, and Therion is glad, because he thinks his mind would be well and truly lost if she kissed him back.
Her inaction is normalcy, and he begins to feel a bit grounded again.
He backs away from her, dropping his hand from her bruised cheek. "You should have dodged," he says, eyeing the discoloration.
H'aanit reaches up to her cheek, and he's not sure if it's because he touched her, or she's also just now noticing the bruise. "I…must haven been distracted."
Her cheeks are rosy. She seems miffed, but that'll pass. Her eyes still hold that beautiful thunder in them, and the pain gnaws stronger in his stomach.
"I've got to go," he says. "Give Alaic my regards, won't you?" He smirks at her, and he almost feels normal again, after attempting to get the crazy out.
He turns before he lets himself do anything more rash or regrettable, and he carries himself to the inn. He nearly collapses onto the bed when he makes it to his room.
After he drinks his potion and sloppily reapplies his bandages, he tongues his lips and he can taste a hint of static.
He lies down, imagines H'aanit kissing him back—just for laughs—and falls right into the hole of sleep.
He's awoken from his slumber by knocks on his door. He groans, rolls over, and ignores it.
The knocks come again. And again. Grunting louder and filled with sleepy annoyance, Therion flings off the blanket, his feet padding angrily toward the door, and opens it without decorum.
H'aanit stands before him, fresh snow still glistening in her braid. He blinks, mouth open halfway to spit out, "What do you want?" All he actually says is, "What…" before the words stop coming out.
"Hello," she states. She looks over him quickly, and he realizes he never did up his shirt after the bandaging, his torso laid bare. He'd be embarrassed, but he doesn't let himself be embarrassed on principle of embarrassment being a waste of time.
"May I comen in?" she asks, and her voice is low and quiet, as if the mere question is taboo.
"Why aren't you at Susanna's?" he asks instead. "She has beds there."
She looks down to the floor. "Yes. She does. May I still comen in?"
Therion stands a bit straighter, opening the door wider for her to enter. When she does, Therion feels a shift in the atmosphere—he thinks it's because there's suddenly a woman in his room, without anyone else there to monitor anything—and then he thinks he's acting like he's just hit puberty. When he closes the door, he feels the slight gnawing come back into his side, though he belatedly realizes it isn't from the wound, but from anxiety.
"Listen, H'aanit," he starts, turning around. She stands right behind him, and he almost jerks away from how close they are.
"Your wound," she states, glancing over the bandage with a calculating stare. "Thou bandaged it?"
He scoffs. "I'm not completely useless, if that's what you're trying to say."
She shakes her head. "No, it is not that. I did not thinken thou would knowen how, that is all."
"I've picked up on a few things in the years before I met you, H'aanit."
She stares at the bandage for a second longer, then turns her head up to look at his. They are almost the same height, and it's unsettling with her being so near, so soon. His mind hasn't had the chance to recover from the insanity. It's still swimming in it, with his dreamlike thoughts of kissing still fresh in his mind. It doesn't help matters in the slightest.
"Go back to Susanna's," he says, out of a strange desperation. He's not used to the feeling, and it lies on top of him like an oddly uncomfortable and heavy blanket.
"I do not liken how you have placed thoust bandage," she states, looking back down to it and ignoring him. "Alfyn taughten me a better way. Letten thy fix it."
Her tone is settled. He has no choice but to let her do as she will. He inwardly sighs, walking carefully around her to sit on the bed. "Whatever you say, your highness."
She rolls her eyes at him, though she tries to hide a smile. He tries to shake off the burden of the blanket as he watches her grab the extra bandages he left on the bedside table. As she brings a chair in front of him and settles in, he tries to lightly say, "I'm not sure you should do this."
"Why?" she asks.
"Because it'll make Alaic jealous. I know you don't want that."
She pauses in unfurling a cloth of bandage. She furrows her brows at him. "What do thoust mean?"
He gives her a look. "C'mon, H'aanit, you know exactly what I mean."
She shakes her head. "He can barely looken me in thine eyes. I do not thinken he is interested in that way, Therion."
"Trust me," he says, smirking. "That action alone means he is very interested."
She frowns, still skeptical, and reaches to pull the bandages he placed on not hours ago. He recoils a bit, and she gives him a stern look. He tries to relax, to prepare for the feeling of her hands—
They land on him, and they aren't as bad as he imagined. He's hyperaware, and that makes him more sensitive, but her hands are cold and dry, deft and sure. He watches them do their work, and he tries not to think about how they might feel elsewhere.
"How woulden you knowe?" she asks, pulling off the last bandage.
"I'm a guy. Alaic is a guy. It's just one of those things."
"That is not a goode answer."
"Alright, then it's what you don't see. It's how he looks at you when you aren't looking," he says. She glances up at him after he says it, and he wonders how he looks at her when she's not looking.
Eh. Probably the same as always.
"That is unfair," she states. "I cannot judge what I cannot see."
Therion half-shrugs. "Life isn't fair, H'aanit."
She dredges the bandages in the antiseptic container filled with salve he also left on the table. She goes to place it across his wound, and he hardly breathes when she does.
"No, perhaps not," she says. "Especially not when a friend kissen another without preamble or reason."
Therion blinks. Her palms are pressing against his torso, wrapping the bandage onto him. He has a hard time concentrating, let alone formulate a response.
"The poison damaged my brain," he says, trying to laugh. "Really. Everything seems…fuzzy."
That's true.
Somewhat.
What he doesn't tell her is that she's the clearest thing in his mind—everything else has a hazy glowing halo around it, like a cloud of a dream.
She presses another cloth of bandage against him, with more pressure than the first. He winces.
"I haven a hard time to understanden thou, Therion," she says.
"H'aanit," he says, and she looks up at him—he's not sure why he wanted her to look at him, or what he thought he'd say. It must be habit. He's usually good at coming up with things to say on the spot—that hasn't been hard for him in many moons. But everything is different, now. He stares into her thunderous eyes for a moment too long, and she looks away, back down to her hands and the bandages. Her cheeks turn pink.
He's not sure what else to say except to mumble, "Forget about it."
She shakes her head. "I cannot."
"You will."
She finishes the bandages, and the sensations scuttling along his skin disappear. He breathes fully again.
"Thou wanten me to forget?"
No. He shuts his eyes.
"Like I said, H'aanit. My mind is all out of sorts from the poison. I don't know what it did to me, but I—" I promise it won't happen again.
That's what he wants to say. What he knows he should say.
But he never says it because while he has his eyes closed, H'aanit leans forward to kiss him. Bright stars flash behind his eyes like he's been punched, and his eyes dart open in surprise—but also in unadulterated, blissful agony, because never has he felt so good and so bad at the same time.
It ends too quickly. She sits back into her chair, eyeing the bandages she just secured around his torso.
"Better," she says. "That is—the bandages. I—they aren better."
Therion feels himself begin to smile. To watch the well-versed H'aanit struggle with words is one of his favorite things.
She glares. "Stopen that."
"Stop what?"
She crosses her arms. "Smiling."
"Impossible. Especially after—" His eyes dart to her lips. It's odd to even think about saying after you kissed me.
"Wanna do that again?" he says, instead, because his brain is fried and she did, in fact, kiss him all on her own, and now, he is quite sure he's coming down with a fever.
She blinks, her arms folding tighter across her chest. She glances at his lips then away toward the bed. Then her cheeks pinken again, and she changes her gaze to the ceiling. Therion grins.
"It's just a kiss, H'aanit. I'm not going to take you to bed."
She stutters. "I—I doe not…I was not—"
He laughs. "Relax. I'm just messing with you."
She grumbles. "You acten as if I would want to kissen you again."
He scoots forward on the bed, making the distance between them smaller. "I don't think it would be a bad idea."
She looks over him for a moment, and it seems as if she is seriously contemplating his words. He begins to lean forward a little more, but before he can get any closer, she sits up straighter. She clears her throat.
"I musten get back to Susanna's," she states hurriedly.
Therion instantly thinks of Alaic. A flare runs up his back, and he pinches his shoulder blades together to fend off the feeling.
"So soon?"
"Thou wanted me to leaven, did thou not?"
Yeah, before you kissed me.
She stands, turning towards the door.
The desperation he felt before was uncomfortable, sure, but the strange panic he feels now is nearly unbearable. He wants to physically push it out of his system.
"I never told you why I came here to find you," he says.
"I guessed it was because of the group. Thy weren concerned I mighten get thyself in trouble."
Therion frowns. "Partially. But I knew you could take care of yourself. You're a hunter, after all. You're vigilant and smart."
She pauses at the door and sighs. "Will you given me an answer, then?"
He runs a hand through his hair and stands. He did this to himself. Might as well bite the bullet.
"I was…concerned," he says, coming up behind her. "Worried, actually. It didn't matter how strong I knew you were. I wanted to be sure you didn't bite off more than you could chew, because I know you do that without thinking half the time."
She turns around and narrows her eyes at him. "Fine. You given me an answer, and I accepten it."
He shakes his head. He reaches up and touches her bruised cheek again, very slightly with only the barest pad of his fingertips. "Not only that, unfortunately. You've been…on my mind a lot lately. I botched the job because—"
Gods, this is harder to admit than he thought it would be.
"Because I…wasn't as cautious. I was distracted by nothing more than thinking about going to see you. Then I got stabbed. Then I ran into you in the woods because I knew you'd help me, and I'd get to see you." He feels ridiculous, but it somehow makes him feel lighter, finally admitting this fact that he had been trying to deny for weeks. H'aanit is still standing before him, letting him touch her cheek, and that's a bit encouraging, too.
She looks like she did in the forest, with her eyes severe and glowing with the morning dew of the woods.
"I dide not taken you for the sentimental type, Therion," she says softly.
He scoffs, dropping his hand. "Tch. I'm not. This is why it's so weird."
She begins to smile—no, smirk. H'aanit is smirking. It looks devious on her.
"You comen here just because you wanted to see me," she says.
He clenches his jaw, shrugging nonchalantly.
"And because you wanted to kissen me."
He everts his eyes. "Look, I didn't realize how much I wanted to until I saw you in that damn bar, hunting down those idiot drunkards."
Still smirking, she looks down and touches his bandages. His stomach clenches, and he reaches with his hand to touch her own. Strange. He can't remember a time he touched a person this many times in the span of an evening.
"You want to kiss me again, yet?" he says, half-serious, half-teasing.
She thinks for a moment, looking at their hands. Her fingers fall inside his palm. "Perhaps..."
"That's not a very sure sounding answer, H'aanit."
She laughs and touches his torso with her other hand. "Yes, I doe."
He needs no more than that. He leans forward and kisses her soundly, pushing her back against the door to his room. He barricades her face in his hands, and the fever he felt before blooms into a wild fire underneath his skin. One of his hands finds her hip, and her hands reach his shoulders, then his neck, leaving a scorched trail in their wake.
It's when she makes a noise. That's when his mind truly turns to rubble and mush.
Several minutes later, when they're still breathing heavily into each other, Therion gathers his mind again. He grins widely at her, hair wild and eyes still glazed over with kissing.
"Would you like to join me for a drink at the tavern?"
"…now?" she asks.
He keeps grinning. "I've got to show the tavernkeeper I got the girl."
The tavernkeeper keeps up his end of the bargain, and H'aanit, for once, indulges in a mug of ale. She hiccups after a few gulps of the stuff, and Therion teases her endlessly.
It isn't wasted on her at all.