Fíli looked at Orsimer with wide eyes. "C-cannibal!" he accused, wavering between him and the corpse on the ground.
For his credit, Orsimer blinked owlishly for a moment before letting out a startled bark of laughter. "Not the bandits, for Malacath's sake! I caught a stag in the woods. He's just beyond the treeline."
Despite himself, Fíli let his shoulders fall in relief. He regretted it almost immediately when the pain from his injuries jabbed at him with a vengeance. "Urrk..!"
"Where are you hurt, Whelp?" Orsimer looked him over with a heavy dose of concern in his posture. "Let's get you fixed up. Dinner can wait."
Fíli leaned heavily on his master as he ushered him into the house, giving one last glance towards the bloodied ruin of the yard. Venrukaan stood casually in the middle of the mess, chewing at a patch of grass that had been left mostly undisturbed in the fighting. The young dwarf shivered. So many mysteries surrounded the hermitic blacksmith that taught him. Would a day come when he would be the one bleeding out in the yard, trampled by an overgrown horse?
Ahkmar glanced back at her diminutive apprentice, taking in his stiff posture. Some of it might be from pain, sure, but he was obviously shaken by the bandit attack. "I'm sorry, Whelp." She gently pushed him down to sit on a wooden stool before walking to the nearby woodstove to boil a pot of water. "It's been so long since the last attack that I've gotten lax. I should have at least left Ven behind." The last part she muttered to herself.
Washing her hands of grime with some of the hot water and a bar of soap, she turned to her patient. "Can you handle taking off your tunic, or do I have to cut it off of you?"
"I think I can remove it, if ye help me get it around me arm." Fíli answered, motioning towards the dead limb attached to his right shoulder.
Ahkmar nodded, untying the strings that tightened the garment over his upper chest. Slowly, they worked together to take the dwarf's top off. Fíli cringed at odd intervals. It was painful to watch, and she silently vowed to do a better job of protecting the childlike dwarf.
For a young fellow, Fíli had quite the hairy chest. In another situation, Ahkmar might have laughed at the absurdity of it. As it was, the wetly matted hair just below his ribs made her humor lodge uncomfortably at the back of her throat. The orsimer bustled over to the stove, dipping a clean rag into the impatiently boiling water. When she returned to her charge's side, she looked into his eyes. The pupils were dilated, but not unevenly so. She nodded, no sign of concussion. "This might hurt a bit. I have to clean your wound to see what it looks like."
Fair warning given, she began delicately dabbing and wiping at the coagulated blood. She glanced at Fíli's face a few times, but although his eyes were clenched shut he did not appear at risk of passing out anytime soon. When most of the blood was removed, Ahkmar frowned. The thick, straw-colored hair around the gash was obscuring her view. "One moment." She murmured, rising.
The orsimer returned with a small, sharp dagger and a needle and thread. Seating herself on another stool, she went to work shaving away the hair around the wound with the dagger, whetting it with a small bowl of hot water. Once she was satisfied, she cleaned the new bald patch and, with a quick apology to Fíli, gingerly spread it open to peer at his insides.
As Fíli cried out in pain, she sighed in relief. The slice was long but shallow, and nothing vital had been punctured. The orsimer sterilized the needle and threaded it with the strong, black thread that she had purchased for this reason. "Take a good swig of this." Ahkmar handed Fíli a flask, which he sniffed, then threw back. She busied herself with rubbing the area around the edge of his wound with a numbing salve. With no warning, she stuck the needle into his skin, stitching the edges of the wound together. He choked at the pain, then drank in earnest, fingers white against the metal flask.
Ahkmar tied off the last stitch, looking cautiously into Fíli's face. His eyes were even more dilated now, but his face was relaxed. She scowled, but couldn't really bring herself to be mad. "You've gone and gotten yourself drunk, now have you?"
A vacant smile spread across the blond dwarf's cheeks.
"Let's have a look at that arm of yours, then." Ahkmar grunted, grasping at his right side. Perhaps a little rougher than was strictly called for, but he only blinked owlishly at the pain. Feeling at the bones in his wrist and arm, she felt her lips turn up in a small smile. This kid looked pretty beat up, but he was actually rather lucky. No breaks or fractures, just some good bruises that would fade over the next few weeks. But why couldn't he move…? "Aha!" Ahkmar's finger sank a little too deeply into a pocket in his shoulder joint. "Dislocated. Give me one moment." She rotated the limb carefully, feeling for the right position. Then pop, crack!
"Auggh!" The pain must have gotten through to even his brandy-addled brain. He clutched clumsily at his shoulder with his left hand, a few tears squeezing out of clenched eyelids as he sobered up slightly.
"There, good as new. Now for the leg." Ahkmar helped Fíli out of his leggings, leaving him to sit on the wooden stool in only a loincloth. She looked over both of his legs with a clinical interest. On his right leg, there was only minor bruising. That would probably yellow in a day or two. The other leg, though, had direr symptoms. His foot was turned at an odd angle, and there was a good deal of localized swelling about a hand span below his knee. The green-skinned womer whistled lowly. "Looks like you did a number on that."
Fíli shivered slightly in the cool of the dimming afternoon. His eyes were starting to dilate again as the pain faded and the moment of soberness was pushed away with the high alcohol content in his bloodstream. "Whaadyeh meeen?" He slurred, the words thickly dripping past his lips like molasses.
"You broke your minor shinbone, Whelp." She felt around the swelled lump with cool hands. "It's not as bad as it could be, though. A few pinched nerves, of course. Some swelling and internal bleeding. But it feels like a clean break, far as I can tell." She peered at the lad's pained face through black lashes. Licking her lips, she muttered "Laas… Yah Nir". The red haze of life overlapped Fíli's form. This close, she could make out the darker, bricklike lines of his skeleton beneath the familiar scarlet hue. "Aye, it's clean alright, if not a bit twisted." She muttered.
Standing once again, she picked out a few strong sticks from the firewood pile. Hurrying back to Fíli, she bit her lip in a silent apology before maneuvering his leg back into place. He whimpered in pain, but did not move overmuch. Something to be thankful for, she supposed, as she wrapped the splint with bandages, making sure to wrap loosely around the thickest part in anticipation of the increased swelling he would be experiencing in the next few days. His ankle, she wrapped as well. It was sprained, but unbroken. Something she was quick to confirm with a cursory inspection under the influence of her Shout.
After cleaning his stomach of the numbing salve, she smeared it with a strong-smelling antibacterial poultice and wrapped it with clean bandages.
By this point, the lad was struggling to keep himself upright. She sighed. "Time to get you to bed, Whelp." Placing her hands on his ribs, she picked him up as easily as a child would a doll, leaning his weight against her taller and broader form. Taking care with his splinted leg, she carried him down the hall to his room, before stopping with a frown. The damn mattress was still outside. "I suppose you can use mine for now." She muttered, backtracking to her own door. She laid him down on the bed, noting that he was drifting in and out of consciousness at this point. "Go to sleep, you'll be fine." She soothed him, smoothing away a few stray hairs that had matted across his forehead in a cold sweat.
As an afterthought, she piled some furs beneath his leg. Keeping it above his heart would hopefully prevent the swelling from becoming overly severe.
With one last look at her bandaged apprentice, she retreated to the kitchen, pulling off her breastplate and tunic on the way. After rubbing a generous dose of bruise balm onto the black-red-purple bruise that took up most of her side, she wriggled back into her tunic and, with Venrukaan's help, hauled the deer's carcass inside. Leaving it on the long table, she retreated to the stables to give Venrukaan a much-needed rub down. Thankfully, of the three of them Ven had the least amount of injuries. Just a few nicks and scratches that would heal up on their own. Exhausted, she didn't bother with worrying about Fíli's mattress. Instead, the orc burrowed herself into a pile of straw, feeling the welcome heat of her mount as he laid down next to her.
Though he was more than a little inebriated, under the influence of strong pain and even stronger brandy, Fíli's mind groggily processed what had been going on around him. In the process of healing his wounds, Master Orsimer had removed his gloves. Strangely, Fíli didn't recall ever seeing even a scrap of skin on the elusive smith, so his eyes had greedily taken in the sight. Maybe it was the dim lighting of the room, but instead of the pale, tan, or even brown skin tone that he had expected of a tall human male, his hands looked… green?
Thu'um
Laas Yah Nir – Life Seek Hunt (Aura Whisper Shout)
I believe that there has been some confusion. Fíli and Ahkmar will not – I repeat, WILL NOT be paired together. Their relationship, while strong, will never go beyond master and student. There are many reasons for this, chiefly of which is Ahkmar considers him as more of a child than anything and she is not attracted to children. If there is romance, which may or may not happen (I'm leaning more towards the 'may not' at this point in time) it would probably be with one of the older dwarves. Most likely Dwalin, though with his age and hatred of orcs, it would be hard to convincingly write him in as a love interest. And romantic stories tend to get a little boring and cheesy, so if there is any romance it will be very very minor, and will not have much impact on the plot of the story. Which begs the question; if it has little impact on the plot, why include it in the first place?
As always, thank you for reading and reviewing, and thank you for all your wonderful suggestions of scenes that I could include. It seems that a lot of you are impatient about Ahkmar's revealing of race and gender. As it is, I'm impatient as well, considering I've already written it up in at least two different ways in the last few months. But although we haven't gotten there yet, I've dropped a few subliminal hints here and there. (Isn't it strange how Fíli refers to Ahkmar as male, but always compares her to his mother instead of Thorin?) But you'll have to be patient for just a little longer. We have some more trust to build up before Fíli takes the hint. Probably. Don't want him to murder her in his shock, do we? That would make for a very short story.
PS: I have posted a companion story to this called Being Green. It will be updated sporadically with little parody drabbles. Mostly humorous things that I want to include, but won't because they'd ruin the mood of the story. So if you want a good little laugh, take a look!
Cheers,
Kohlii
