Two-Step
"Would you spare me fifteen minutes?" a man asked behind her. Darjah's muscles wound tight at the sound of his voice. She stood from the tub of wash, wet up to her elbows, and turned stiffly to look at Marse.
He was still tall, still handsome. Dusky skin with ink black hair and green eyes, he stood in his well kept red coat and fine boots. The breadth of his shoulders and length of his legs still sent butterflies into her stomach but she steeled herself against such familiarity.
"You have two," she replied, disgusted she was so weak as to even give him one second of her time. Marse smiled and pulled the buttons of his coat loose. As he removed it she spotted the injury to his sword arm, the left, instantly. It was deep but not lethal, nor would it cause permanent damage by its placement. The healer in her instantly left the wash and the concern of old love hurried her into the clinic. Marse followed, his boots clicking on the stone floor. He sat down on one of the beds and pulled his shirt off as she took his arm and began cleaning the injury.
"What have you done now?" she demanded as the smell of him filled her nose. It nearly choked her with emotions she hurriedly forced down.
"Just work," he replied, his eyes fixed on the floor somewhere.
"I thought I told you to leave your cutthroat gangs," she accused without pity.
"You did. I won't," he looked up into her face. She uncorked an antibacterial mixture and let it fizzle in his wound, knowing it would burn. His face remained impassive. "You're still wearing these ugly things?" he asked instead tugging on her boyish pants.
"It's much easier to move about on call when I can run," she replied. "Particularly since thugs like you blow things up and hack each other to bits all over the Hydra," she added.
"Hmm," he answered noncommittally, pulling her towards him by the small of her back. He pressed his face into her stomach seeming to relish the touch as her knees almost went weak.
"If you won't let me work then get out," she practically snarled. He spun her around and set her on his knee, offering his injured arm.
"You can work just fine like this," he replied staring directly into her eyes. She made no further objections as she began to stitch him up. He tucked his face into the side of her neck, closing his eyes and resting. She could tell he was tired as he relaxed, the familiar weight of him against her a painful memory of happier days.
"You're done," she whispered after a moment. She pulled from his grip abruptly, angry she had been under his spell for so long. "And don't come back until you've left that life."
"I'll be back either way," he replied leaving without further action. She let out a hissed breath of relief and returned to her wash.
"I hate it when he's injured," she conceded to herself in a grumble scrubbing the sheets even more fiercely.
"I saw Marse go by. He looked cheerful," Matthew said with a whimsical smile, suddenly appearing beside her.
"Undertaker, don't try my patience," she brandished a soapy finger at him.
"The same old two step," he smiled, propping his head on one hand. "I am planning to cook for two tonight. Will you be my dinner guest?"
"I hardly need comforting," she scoffed.
"My eyes are bigger than my stomach, I just know it, but they think they're in cahoots. I really just need saving from myself, Darjah," he lied plain as day, and Darjah couldn't help but suddenly laugh.
"If it is an excuse we can both accept, then I suppose I will be your dinner guest," she sighed feeling better for the much needed levity.
"Not to rain on your parade again but I have heard interesting news from the butcher. You know his son is a Lieutenant, don't you?"
"How could I not know? It's all the man talks about," Darjah sighed heaving sodden laundry up and dumping it into a bucket of clean water.
"There is talk of war with Zaibach again," Matthew scowled. Darjah stopped washing and looked up at him.
"What?"
"Whispers in the army of Aston's greed pushing into Zaibach's borders."
"Won't that old pig just die already?" Darjah turned away, thinking of riding away from Mink just as she and her brother had ridden away from their parents. "How loud are these whispers?"
"Loud for a lieutenant to have heard them," Matthew sighed. "I have a sneaking suspicion a commission will be offered to me, and that the Knights of Caelie will find themselves once more at the forefront of strife." Darjah stopped scrubbing as thoughts of battle and the smell of death filled her. She could hear the keening wail of mourners; feel the ice of dead flesh and the tears building silently in her chest.
"How soon?"
"If I was any judge, before winter," Matthew smiled bitterly. Darjah sighed and wondered if she could get away with slaying the king. She figured that even if she were wily enough to slide past the court her family would suffer.
"Even Pallas will bleed to death if pushed too far," she sighed, resuming her wash. "She has only so many young men she can give to Aston's selfish greed."
"Would you go?" Matthew asked, surprising her.
"Where Feyhaln goes I will too. My brother will not march into Hell again without me beside him," she replied. "Neither will you." Matthew hopped the fence spryly, collecting her wash as she finished with it.
"I would have no other to battle," he smiled. "Ask your brother what he has heard. Time for preparation is never out of style."
