Run. Just run. He told you to run. Don't look back.
Branches tore at her arms and legs, her lungs felt like they would burst and her injured leg screamed in pain but Tanaruz limped as fast as she could.
Her heart leapt when she finally saw the river reflecting the moonlight. She took deep breaths and tried to clear her head.
I'm safe. I made it to the river. But what about Ivar? He might still be grappling with that monster this moment. He could even be dead. No. No. No. Don't think that. I've seen how he can fight. But there is no way he's making it out of that unscathed.
She remembered the packet of supplies she had been stockpiling and thanked god she had had the foresight to pack medical supplies in case she got hurt on the run. She scrambled over to the log she had hidden it in, and grabbed her forgotten buckets from earlier and moved toward the river. She was just kneeling down when Ivar and his chariot came crashing through the trees. She dropped everything and ran to him as a flood of relief coursed though her body.
He's alive.
Her relief was short lived as she approached him and before she could reach the chariot he fell out of the seat. He was clutching his chest with a bloody hand. He leaned on her support as she helped him from the chariot and she helped him into a sitting position as gracefully as she could. She knelt down next to him and asked him a series of rapid fire questions?
"ARE YOU HURT BADLY? HOW DID YOU KNOW TO COME HELP ME? WHY DID YOU COME TO HELP ME? IS THAT MAN…THAT.. THAT HORRIBLE MAN DEAD?
Ivar looked up at her with a puzzled expression. Tanaruz first thought he was so badly hurt he must be in shock and therefore confused by her many questions when it dawned on her.
So many questions. So many questions asked in complete sentences. He knows.
"It seems you learn quickly Tanaruz." He said, somehow finding humor in his weakened state. She took some more deep breaths.
Alright so he knows I was feigning ignorance but this is the least of my worries right now. I have to get us both patched up.
She looked around at their surroundings in dismay. She knew enough about healing to know that a dirty and dark river bank did not make for the best conditions.
"The house." Ivar said as if reading her thoughts, "There is a house hidden over there, its mine and my brothers." He pointed across from where they were sitting to the house Tanaruz had catalogued in her mind as a hideaway home.
That will work much better than this dirt ground, but how to get us there.
The river thinned into a slow and shallow stream and she saw a small raft tethered to a nearby tree.
She brought it up from the water and over to Ivar. He slid his body onto it and she dragged it over into the water. He floated across alone and once he made it to the other side he hoisted himself up onto the bank and tossed the rope over to her. She pulled the raft back over and placed the bucket and her medical supplies on with her.
The pair operated in companionable silence, focused and working in perfect unison. They made it through the door of the house and Ivar broke the silence,
"Fill the buckets with water, I'll light a fire."
They both moved to start their tasks and Tanaruz limped to the water. As she filled the buckets she had her first moments to clearly think since she arrived in the village that night.
He saved me. He attacked that monster. And that monster hurt him back. Yes, he was partaking in tonight's barbarous ritual like the rest of the savages but I have to help him now. I have to repay him for what he has done for me tonight.
She carried the two buckets, full to the brim with water, into the house and shut the door and the rest of the world closed.
The house was really only one large room and it was about the size of the front room of Helga and Floki's house. It had a hearth set up against the far back wall and in the center of the room a mattress set on the floor. Around the perimeter there was a shelf with blankets, pots and food, along with a large wooden tub. It certainly was not a grand home but now it was illuminated with a roaring fire that gave the small space a comfortable and cavelike presence.
Tanaruz turned her attention back to Ivar who was struggling to take his leather vest off with his injured hand. She mustered all of her bravery and knelt down next to him. He looked up at her in surprise but put up no protest when she started to gingerly remove his clothes.
She started with his arm braces, unbuckling them to reveal a deep gash on his left palm. She had to move a bit closer and so she straddled his outstretched legs but did not sit on them and knelt directly in front of him. She started to unlace his vest. He gazed at her face the whole time and it distracted her to the point where she struggled with the many laces of his vest.
His rough, bloodstained hands covered hers and stilled them. She looked up into his eyes.
"I know you want to say something. And I know you understand enough to know what I'm saying and how to answer me."
She hesitated a moment longer, but after going so long with constant monitoring of her behavior and speech the words seemed to flow out of her,
"He hurt you. He hurt you because you helped me. Because you saved me." she said all at once, "Thank you"
He looked at her, with those eyes like the clearest ocean, and said, "It was the least I could do for the woman that gave me my wings."
"Wings?"
"The carriage you invented. It will bring me to many places. It's what brought me to you tonight."
They stayed in this moment for a few heartbeats. His large hands atop hers that were resting on his chest. When she could feel the blood seeping through the leather and onto her hands she broke the moment and started unlacing him again, and Ivar settled his hands down on either side of her knees.
She removed the vest and uncovered a cut that ran from the top of his left shoulder to the center of his chest. All that was on the top part of his body now was his his cotton tunic shirt and suddenly all of her bravery left her as she realized she would have to undress him.
As if reading her thoughts again, Ivar lifted his hands to the bottom hem of his shirt and lifted it off of his torso, not breaking eye contact with Tanaruz. She tried to avert her eyes from the naked expanse of his chest and busied herself with dipping one of the rags she had in her supply bag, into the bucket of water set to the side of Ivar. As she turned sideways to go about this, she could feel his breath on her exposed neck and her chest tightened even more.
She turned back to his naked chest and tried to focus on his cut. She lightly wiped away the blood to get a better look at the wound and instead uncovered rippling muscles and she stared in awe of his well built torso.
From years of relying on his arms to do everything for him his arms and chest were sculpted by muscles that Tanaruz's fingertips glided over. Tanaruz had never realized how different male and female bodies were. Where her body was soft and curved, his was rigid and broad. Where her body had flat smooth panes, his had ridges and contours of muscle. She was so caught up in her curious and awestruck observation of his body that when she finally looked up into his face she saw her own nervous and excited expression reflected in his.
Ivar cleared his throat to relieve the tension and looked down from her eyes.
He jolted in shock underneath her and asked, "What is this?! Why did you not tell me you were hurt as well?!"
She looked down to see that he had noticed the stab wound on the back of her upper right leg.
Oh goodness. So much has happened tonight I almost forgot to tend to my own wounds.
She looked back at him and tried her best to adopt a calm tone, "It is fine. I will take care of it my self aft—"
Before she could finish he sentence Ivar had wrapped one of his arms around her waist and pushed the upper part of her body down until it was parallel to the floor, while her pelvis and the tops of her thighs laid across his lap.
"What are you doing?!" She asked when she recovered from her shock and she made a move to get back up but his powerful arms reached out to press down on the small of her back and pinned her down effortlessly.
"Let me take care of this first. A stab is more serious than a few scratches."
"Bu-"
"You can not help me at all if you bleed too much and faint"
The logic of his statement clicked in her mind and the effects of this wild night were starting to tire her out. She looked at him and finally nodded.
"See? I knew you were clever." He said grinning at his own joke. Suddenly his face got serious again and he nervously looked down at her legs that were covered by her blood-soaked dress.
"I have to lift up your dress to get to the wound, but do not be afraid, Tanaruz."
Her lugs contracted and her heart leapt and she was not sure if it was the prospect of Ivar lifting her dress or the way he had said her name. Either way she was in no state to try and make sounds come out of her mouth so she nodded again.
Ivar turned his attention back to her legs that were lying across his and with slow caution he took the hem of her dress into his hands and started to push the fabric up.
The fabric gathered in the wake of his hands as he moved slowly past her calves, the sensitive backs of her knees and he slowed his pace even more when he reached her thighs. He moved even more tentatively now and she shivered as she felt his fingertips slide over the back of her thighs until he he stopped right where her thighs met her buttocks. There he let the bunched up length of her dress rest as he assessed her injury.
He took another bundle of clean rags from her bag and soaked it in the water. Carefully he started to clean around the wound just as she had done with him. He came too close to it though and she flinched a little at the pain. He stopped and looked at her again
"It is alright. Everything will be alright."
She settled at little at his comforting words and they both looked at her wound.
It was located at the midway point between the top and bottom of her thigh and veered toward the outer side of her thigh so one could see it if they were looking at her profile. It was about an inch in length but felt much deeper.
Now that he knew what he was working with, Ivar fetched the sewing needle and thread from her pack. Before starting he looked at her again and placed a warm hand on the small of her back again in silent reassurance.
"I'll try to be quick"
And with that she felt the needle pierce the edges of the cut and she cried out and bit back the pain.
She gripped the rug beneath her and tried to focus on anything other than the sharp jabs of pain. She focused on his one free hand that was resting on her thigh in the space above her knee, the warmth and weight of it; she focused on the thin bones of his useless legs beneath her own but she found the best distraction was observing his profile.
From her spot on the floor she could look up and see his face with the same focused and intent expression she had seen him use when he was training in the forest.
His brow was furrowed in concentration and fingers moving with deft precision. She knew she should feel more afraid at this moment while there was a fierce Northman princeling attending to her wounds, but if she was being honest with herself she was more nervous about the fact that no man had ever seen past her ankles since she was a child. And yet there they were. Her legs, plain as day and laid out across his lap for his clear blue eyes to look upon all he wanted.
But he isn't doing anything untoward. In fact he could be working on an old man's wrist right now for all he knew.
She woke from her daze as he finished the last stitch. He reached into the bag and rifled around until he pulled out a small jar of the salve Helga used on Floki's many cuts he got from his carpentry.
With gentle and warm fingers he applied a generous amount of the salve over her cut and the skin surrounding it before covering the whole thing with a patch of fabric.
"Almost finished." He said.
Finally he grabbed more strips of cloth from the bag and all of the air left the room when he gripped the soft flesh of her injured thigh lifted it just enough to slide the strip underneath. As his large and rough hands glided over the inner side of her thighs and between them, Tanaruz felt a rush of heat flood her pelvis and her breathing became shallow.
Just when she though she could not handle the rush of emotions in her heart and heat in her entire body, he finally tied off the bandage in a knot and admired his work. He turned to her and extended his hand to help her back up to her previous position.
"Do you feel alright?"
Her eyes came level to his and she nodded.
"Thank you." she said staring into his eyes that were pleasantly illuminated by the roaring fire.
Now he was the speechless one and she spared them both the awkwardness and looked at the cuts on his chest and hand.
"Now let me help you."
"Ivar"
"What?"
My, name. You've never said it."
"…..Let me help you…Ivar."
A.N. THANK YOU ALL FOR THE KIND REVIEWS! Hope I did not keep you guys waiting too long. I was going to wrap up this particular night between Ivar and Tana but it was already so long I felt I had to split it up so this will continue in the next chapter that you can expect this weekend. Thanks again!
