-1Thank you if you read my rewrite to chapter 4! R n R would be much appreciated on it. I got fed up with the stupidity and immaturity of the original. And yeah, I know, I completely rewrote it. So sue me. xD

I'm on a short holiday so it gives me more time to write and concentrate on art work I need to get done. Which is always a good thing.

On a less good note I've a nasty suspicion that I've managed to damage a nerve in my first finger of my right hand. I'll have to see if it gets worse and maybe see someone about it, because it sure as hell doesn't feel right and I can't type with it. I'm ambidextrous but I still object to losing the full use of my right hand.

And the 'Hinder' album is becoming addictive. I think I may end up writing some slashy little song fics to these songs… hmm. -author muses- Also borrowed a 'The Used' album from a friend, which I'm growing around to liking more and more. And got some 'Serj Tankien' songs from my brother, which are frankly bizarre but annoyingly catchy... My favourite is the song 'sky is over', a strange mixture of weird vocals and thumpy melody. Am looking forward to getting some new Sonata Arctica albums sometime next week though, so look out for SA inspired fics!

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Chapter 5:

Murtagh soon regretted spending so long exerting himself, and resorted to lying in self-pitying melancholy solitude in the thick blankets, listening to the sounds of the palace life continuing with no notice of the fact that he was confined to bed, his back too stiff to move without serious discomfort. He wound the edge of a rough coverlet around his hands vaguely, pulling it close to his body as if it would provide some form of solace, burying his nose in it so that his dark brown eyes stared out lifelessly with listless weariness. The sun was setting, the glaring orange hues disturbing his eyes as he struggled to sleep to forget about the aching that streaked mercilessly through the scarred line on his back.

It was by no means the first time that he had spent an evening cooped up like a caged bird, feeling restlessly agitated by it all and at the same time so tired that he could sleep any minute, if only the pain would allow for it. Annette had become used to it, sometimes coming to visit him in his lonely hiding when he did not make any appearance at meal times, usually with restrained but evident concern. On more than a single occasion she had smuggled food up to him, but Murtagh was rarely in the mood and wanted nothing save to be granted the release of sleep, which she noted with obvious annoyance but never complained, having far too good a heart behind all of her devilish rebellion. He wondered muzzily whether perhaps dinner had finished, which could result in a visit, but he reserved very little hope of it. Annette was busier than ever, and he doubted she would have time to waste on his anti-social flail at self-pity. It was almost dark, he could see outside the window, and suddenly realised foolishly that he had never closed the shutters. Groaning, Murtagh decided to gather up as much energy as possible for the daunting task of making it all of the way to the window and back. Just the seemingly simple task of removing his shirt had been a drawn out tedious process. He could not even begin to imagine how it might be possible to get to the window, and neither did he particularly want to worsen his outlook by bothering to contemplate it.

An hour or more trickled by, with no change to the scene other than the sky darkening to an oblivion of star-speckled black. With the shutters thrown so wildly open and Murtagh in no fit state to close them, the room was slowly growing frigid. Shivering, Murtagh pulled the blanket tighter around him, burying his face in it to ignore all of the unpleasant sensations tickling at his spine. The night was slowly becoming more and more uncomfortable, and still sleep had not bothered to grace him with its salvatory presence. Drowning in his own miserable little hell, Murtagh started to wander whether or not his father would be laughing if he could see now what his stupid drunken act had resulted in. He wandered vaguely whether he would have hit him before now for the way he would no doubt have found his son's pain amusing.

He was entrapped in these pointless wanderings when there was a shy tap at the door, followed by the calling of his name in a glorious accent he knew only one person could possibly possess, an accent that was tinged with a charming amount of worry. There was sympathy in his tone quite alien to Murtagh, who had rarely been the subject of any meagre act of compassion let alone true caring. He had grown to become satisfied with pretending that he was, and so the lack of attention was no longer quite as troubling as it might have been. Murtagh heard his name called again, the tapping becoming just a little more frantic. Whether a moment of insanity or inspiration, Murtagh called back. There was a moment of confused silence. Tornac knocked again, clearly bewildered as to why Murtagh was not opening the door.

Curiosity soon got the better of his trainer, who found the door to be unlocked, and pushed it open with a child-like fascination of one who feels that he should not really be doing what he is. There was the soft pad of his footsteps across the floor.

"It's cold in here!" Tornac remarked with worry, "You must be freezing. Why don't you close the shutters? Dear me Murtagh, even less sense than I'd thought of you!"

"I would have done that hours ago if I could." Murtagh growled tiredly, foreseeing a fractured misunderstanding mirroring that he usually received from a well-meaning but nevertheless unknowing Annette. The surprised silence that radiated from his trainer seemed to confirm his suspicions. But instead of a bewildered conversation, there was the sound of more pattering footsteps and Murtagh looked up to see Tornac diligently pulling the shutters closed, latching them with meticulous care that Murtagh himself would not have seen it fit to bother with. When he was quite satisfied that they were tight, he padded to the other side of the room, out of Murtagh's pitifully small impaired field of vision. Murtagh frowned in confusion at the sounds of Tornac moving something around, and instantly tried to crane to see what he was doing. He looked just in time to see the flicker of flames as Tornac lit the fire and fed it with the loving attention of one caring for a beloved pet. Excitedly, he poked wood into it, watching with pride as the flames started to flare.

"Thank you." Murtagh felt himself flush with surprise that somebody cared enough as to try and keep him warm. The room quickly started to warm a little, and Murtagh closed his eyes in the hope that sleep would come sooner in this new heated climate. He opened them again in surprise when the bed shifted slightly as Tornac sat on it next to him, his knees tucked under him neatly, his hands folded over one another precisely on his lap. Tornac, it was quickly becoming evident, was fastidious about everything nearly as much as he insisted on being over his personal appearance - save for his hair, which still remained gracefully casual. He eyed Murtagh with critical judgementalism.

"You weren't at dinner." he remarked in quiet accusation as though this were nearly as unforgivable as to commit murder. "Are you sick?" Murtagh peered up, and felt his breath hitch in his throat to realise that two perfect silver eyes were fixed on him, two perfectly beautiful silver eyes. Beautiful was the only word that came to his mind. He wanted to write whole songs, with all of the flauntiest vocabulary he could produce, just to describe how wonderful they were, but doubted that even then he would have served the justice, and if nothing else Murtagh knew he would make a rather terrible poet.

"My back's stiff."

"I told you that you didn't know when enough was good for you!" Tornac scolded playfully. "I would have stopped if you'd told me you were going to be like this."

"I didn't exactly plan for it." Murtagh muttered, aware that he was staring and turning to try and face Tornac better. His back protested and he yelped uncomfortably, wincing, and ended up lying in a daze of pain, feeling awkward on his stomach. With a tired growl of irritation at himself, Murtagh pressed his face into a pillow wearily to try and bury the ache and rest. Somehow Tornac's presence was solace in itself, he didn't need to be able to see him.

"Sounds painful." Tornac remarked, voice unreadable, silver eyes never once leaving Murtagh, his jet black hair falling over his shoulders casually.

"It is." Murtagh whined.

"I'll rub your back for you. Ah, it seems I am forced into nurse maid duties! Because, Murtagh, from what I have seen you aren't capable of taking care of yourself. And as your trainer I consider it my duty to keep you in condition to spar." He tensed in wonderful, pleasurable shock as Tornac's warm fingers started to stroke along the tops of his shoulder blades softly, not bothering to wait for an answer. Unfamiliar with the luxury of attention being spent on him, Murtagh froze in surprise, attentive to the feeling of inexperienced unexpected contact. This was something completely new and unexplored to him, and Murtagh decided simply that whatever it was, he liked it. When there was no protest, Tornac gently rubbed his hands over Murtagh's shoulders, a pleasant sensation of delicate concerned care that started to press into Murtagh's mind demandingly.

"Your friend is charming." Tornac told him conversationally. "I've never met a more lovely young lady. It's a shame you aren't as sensible as she is."

"Who, Annette?" Murtagh ignored all attempt at provoking, mind running amok as pleasure started to fuzz away at the edges of his frozen cold thoughts, Tornac's personal fire burning away at the numbing ice.

"mmm." Tornac dropped his taunting reluctantly. Murtagh liked the concentration of pressure along his spine, and tiredly told Tornac so, to another of his little laughs, this one proud at the compliment.

"I used to do healing work before I decided to train egocentric irritating people like you to wave swords around."

"Why change?"

"I don't like blood." Tornac laughed in embarrassment. "Hate it in fact, it makes me feel quite faint. That is not a quality one looks for in a healer, as you can imagine. And I wasn't quite as good with care and bandages as I am with violence and swords."

There was a little pause of surprise and upset when Tornac's fingers found the smooth line of scar tissue. Cautiously, he traced along it, the raw feelings thrilling to Murtagh's mind. He reached the point where blanket was pulled around the bottom of Murtagh's shoulder blades, and looked to him in askance. Murtagh gave him a look of permission and, electrifyingly slowly, Tornac explored along it, appalled at how long it stretched out for. "How did you get this?" he whispered, the shock evident under the control in his tone.

"My father wasn't particularly fond of children." Murtagh muttered with tired light sarcasm, and the gasped softly as Tornac's hands pressed against him.

"Sorry! Too hard?" Tornac took his hands away in a timid apology.

"No, it's just… your hands are very warm." Murtagh murmured, a shy smile starting to find its way onto his face. "It's nice actually. Just… unexpected."

"I'm not surprised, you're so cold!" Tornac laughed, reintroducing his hands to Murtagh's back gently. "Keeping the window open was rather silly, but I must say I expected no less of you." His laughter was soft, a childishly sweet sound that pleasantly tickled in Murtagh's ears. It suddenly occurred to Murtagh just how innocently young Tornac seemed, even though he must have been some years older than himself. The beautiful sparking moments of immaturity were nothing short of adorable, and Murtagh willingly fell prey to the charms of Tornac's touch against him.

It was soothingly reassuring, and yet enticingly sensual all at once. Murtagh let out a little mewling purr of comfort, which Tornac regarded as encouragement and continued to caress the younger's back, easing away the stiffness from every inch of it. There was a blissful silence, the only slight sounds those of the howling wind behind his shutters and the slight gentle sound of Tornac's bare skin rubbing against his. It was a moment of heavenly perfect in Murtagh's world, a wonderful passionate contentment, the like of which he had never felt before. It was making him feel so comfortingly sleepy that he closed his eyes and relaxed against Tornac, loving the firm reassurance of his hands, and the slight whispering tickle of the lace at his cuffs. Tornac was so warm, and the care he was giving to Murtagh was welcomely appreciated. Murtagh couldn't recall being this comfortable with human contact before, even with Annette, feeling awkward and embarrassed in company. But here was a wonderful spark of friendship that he readily accepted. The fact that it was his trainer that was showing affection was a meaningless detail. Murtagh lost all trail of logical thought to a dozy haze of sleep that Tornac's hands tenderly coaxed him into.

"Better?" He felt Tornac's hands move away from his back and felt the bed shift as he shuffled his position.

"Yes thank you."

"Ah, learned some manners have we? Very good. A notable improvement." Murtagh was too tired to argue and just mumbled an inaudible response. "It's late, get some rest, you need it. You won't be any fun to defeat if you're too tired." he teased. "I'd better put the fire out for you in case you forget and burn the room down. I wouldn't mind but my room, I will remind you, is just feet away and if it's not too much trouble I would prefer not to roast to death tonight." With a little almost inaudible laugh, Tornac slipped off the bed and went to tend to the fire.

Murtagh's last sleepy acknowledgement was of the door closing softly behind Tornac as he went out.

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I think my finger's got worse. I really must get this checked out… maybe I'll just ask Tornac to do it because he's such a sweetie. ' Ah, I wish I wouldn't fall so desperately in love with fictional characters. I just want to kiss him bless him.

Anyway, there was chapter 5. Painstakingly typed with only three of the fingers on my right hand. Ah, what I put myself through for slash eh? What can I say, I'm a slashaholic.

Written to a varied soundtrack, my mind concocting ideas for songfics all the while. I really do recommend 'Hinder' for inspiration, I've used them often in my non internet writings as well as a lot of Murtagh fiction, most of which is just stashed away on some unknown drive of my old computer...

In short, PLEASE review and cheer me up, I have loads of work, my finger is crippled, and I can't marry a guy because he's fictional! The woes of a European goth girl, eh? =