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Hand in Hand
Chapter Five: Some Distant Knowledge
He was sitting at the bed, his armor and tunic removed, only his pants and boots adorning his body. He looked around at the inn's room that he and Deedlit had rented for the next two days.
He winced slightly as Deedlit began unwrapping the bandages around his left shoulder. Her touch stilled. "Sorry," she said softly, but continued on, determined in her decision to help heal Parn.
The two had run into a band of dark elves trying to find a ship to smuggle them out of the docks of Port Rood to Marmo yesterday. Parn and Deedlit had them running through alleys after confronting them and though the pair had easily proven their might over the band, in a single moment when Parn lowered his sword and his vigilance to glance at Deed parrying a sword from the remaining elf, it all changed. The elf Parn had just slashed across the stomach reached into his cloak as he slumped to the ground and dug into Parn's left shoulder, dragging the blade down with him as the weight of his dying body felt to the dirt at their feet. Parn's howl of pain caught Deed's attention instantly and she dispatched the remaining elf with a slice across his throat, suddenly at Parn's side before the elf could fall to his knees, dead.
There was no point in trying to travel as he was, Deedlit argued. So they had paid for a room at the local inn and tavern, waiting his recovery out until they could ride comfortably back to Kannon.
And so he sat on the bed, his chest bare and bandages bleeding red at his shoulder as Deedlit stood before him, her armor removed as well, wearing her simple green tunic and slowly peeling the gauze from his shoulder. On the bed beside Parn were wraps for more bandages and an herbal salve that Deedlit always cared with her for advanced healing. On the night stand beside the bed rested a bowl of cool, clean water and a clean towel draped over the side of the bin.
Parn sighed as he let Deedlit continue her work. "I don't even remember the last time I slipped up like that."
"It happens," Deedlit answered absentmindedly, her attentions still on his wounded shoulder.
"Not to me," he breathed, looking at his hands dangling over his knees. He was suddenly struck by the sight of the stretched and sun-worn skin, the veins and roughness of calluses lining his palms and fingers. These were hands much older than he remembered. He picked his head up and glanced at his image in the mirror across the room from them. Even from here he could see the gray lining his dark beard, the stretch of wrinkles running from the corners of his eyes, the skin of his chest no longer brilliant and taut beneath the Lodoss sun but hard and scar-ridden, the deep tan of the constant sun only proving the age of his skin.
How old was he? He couldn't remember the last time he tracked his birth year. He told time by moments with Deedlit. Counted seasons by the growth of his family and friends. Neese had recently given birth to her first child. Slayn was a grandfather, and Leylia had passed nearly fifteen years ago. Kashue stepped down from his throne only a few seasons ago, and Etoh and Fianna's daughter recently claimed the title. This all meant what exactly? When had he first met Deedlit?
At the thought he turned his gaze to her face and for the first time, realized how she had completely escaped the ravages of time. It had to have been thirty-five years since they met and still, her eyes sparkled with a gleam he remembers first catching the day he met her.
He dropped his head once more. He knew. He knew this would happen. But he didn't expect it so soon. Didn't expect to have anything less than a lifetime with Deedlit. He caught sight of her bare leg as it brushed against his knee, her hair spilling over his back as she leaned forward to gently rub the salve into the back of his shoulder. He noticed the smooth pale skin of her thigh and unconsciously ran his hand up the back, stopping to hold the soft warmth of her leg in his hand.
She started with the sudden contact, glancing down at him and giggling. "Parn! What are you doing? I'm not finished yet." She smiled brilliantly, devilishly almost.
He ran a thumb across the yielding skin of her thigh and suddenly pulled her to him, holding her body against him as she stumbled slightly in his arms, his face coming to bury itself in her stomach, her hands falling lightly upon his shoulder and head.
"Parn?" She was breathless as he held her there.
"I want you to do something for me." His voice was low and raspy, a certain desperateness in it she hadn't heard since that night they stood atop the snowy hill overlooking Leylia's funeral.
She nodded mutely, running her fingers through his grey-peppered hair.
"When it is time, when I can no longer fight…" Parn stopped for a moment, his arms coming from around her lightly to grasp her hips and hold her in front of him as he looked up into her face. "I need you to go. I need you to leave me."
Deedlit's brows furrowed momentarily. "What are you saying, Parn?" The soft hurt in her voice almost broke him then.
He rubbed his thumbs along her skin in a soothing motion, the bandages and salve laying forgotten on the sheets beside them. "I don't want you to see me grow old. I don't want you to have to take care of me."
She looked at him, perplexed for a moment, and then her eyes widened slightly and she broke into a light giggle, holding a hand to her mouth in a nonchalant manner that had him stumped for a second, his hands ceasing their motion as he looked at her in confusion.
"Oh Parn," she sighed, in a manner that said she had explained this many times over before, her smile still gracing her supple features. "You're not going to grow old." She said it as though it had always been thus.
He simply stared at her.
She put one hand to his uninjured shoulder and cupped his cheek with the other. "The only thing you know is the fight. You know how to live in it. And you will learn how to die in it. There is no other way. Could you see yourself dying in any other way than some glorious legendary battle? Dying for the same principles you lived by. That is how it will end for you, Parn."
Parn's brows furrowed in pain, his hand coming up to grasp at hers on his cheek. "If that is truly how you believe I will go, then I don't want you to be there to see it. I know yours is an eternal life Deed, and I don't want you to see me die and live with that."
She chuckled once more, and pulled her hands from his to pick the towel with the salve back up, leaning forward once more to dab at his wound. "I won't live with it. I am going with you."
Parn's breath caught in his throat and he reached to grab her hand and stop its movements at his shoulder. "What?" He barely breathed the word.
"Where you go I go. I'm dying in battle with you."
"But Deed –" His voice was frantic.
"It has already been decided. Before I knew you, before you were even born. I knew I would die beside a mortal. And it would be alright, because I had been loved. Because I had loved. Once you are gone, there is no other journey that I can go on that can teach me such. So I will go with you." Her voice was soft and soothing, her fingers tender on his skin as she pulled his face forward and placed her lips upon his. Just the slightest of pressure, the hint of warmth and then his wonder at the sudden loss when her lips were gone. "It has already been decided," she breathed into his mouth.
When she pulled away and turned her attention back to treating his wound, there was a finality to her features that reminded him of that night atop the castle at Valis, just before the War of Heroes where King Fahn was slain. Her adamant assurance that she would be at his back, would always be at his back, and her final nod that ended the conversation, as though he never had a say with her to begin with. That smile of some distant knowledge he had yet to learn.
He couldn't take his eyes from her.
