He felt warm, wrapped in a shell of comforting heat that eased the ache of his body. There was the soreness of the wounds dealt to him by the Woads, but also a deep thrum that radiated its own distinct discomfort. Tristan longed to remain in the shelter of blankets, eyes closed and in denial of anything around him. But he knew that the blankets were too soft and too sweet smelling. The itch in his shoulder was not only the arrow wound but also the tight wrappings around it. Not to mention that there was someone breathing to his right.
Someone had tended to his injuries, and instinct told Tristan that he was not safe.
The scout opened his eyes, bleary from his extended state of unconsciousness, and slowly he sat up. The simple action hurt, pain striking hot up his arms and through the tensing muscles around his gut. He breathed deeply, in once and out once, before taking in his surroundings. His first cursory glance told him that the room was tidy and clean, a case of books facing him and he knew who ever lived here was educated.
Turning his head to the right, he discovered that what he'd initially thought was a person, was in truth a dog. Though Tristan thought it looked more wolf than dog, staring at him from the over-large seat, mismatched eyes taking in every movement he made. The knight wondered if the wolf-dog would attack him. He didn't have anything to defend himself with. Tristan was acutely aware of his bare torso and current injuries. He didn't think he'd be able to win a wrestling match if it came down to it.
The beast let out a bark, rough and tapering off into a growl.
The sound of feet from nearby registered in Tristan's ear and he threw off the soft blanket, freeing himself, and jumping back to the wall in a crouch. The taste of blood was warm and mildly nauseating as he bit his tongue to suppress a groan of pain. In a short moment his eyes fell on another wolf-dog of different coloring, who had leapt up over the back of the seat to join its friend. And then the person standing behind the animals. Out of habit, Tristan glared.
With but a single look at the woman before him, Tristan knew something was very wrong.
She was not a Woad, posture too sloppy for their warrior peoples. Most definitely no Saxon, hair far too dark and features too slim. He could find no Roman resemblance in her face and she was not of his Sarmatian homeland. Neither tall nor short. A single smooth cover of skin over each eyelid. Hair smooth and straight as the flat of his sword. She resembled nothing he'd ever seen before.
It vexed him.
He couldn't place where she was from. Which subsequently led to his inability to know where he was.
"Where am I, woman?" he demanded harshly, finding his voice to be more a low grumble than the shout he'd wanted. Still, she flinched, and Tristan was satisfied that at the very least she feared him. He had some advantage.
The dogs growled at him, and he met them with a scowl before returning his sights to the woman.
"Answer me."
Though there was fear etched over her fair face, new lines formed between thin eyebrows, and he recognized confusion.
"Where am I?" he asked, his words slower and voice a sliver softer.
Her mouth moved, sounds tumbling out in a cadence and rhythm unfamiliar to him. Her words held no meaning, and seemed to flow from her lips like a steady stream of murky water. The measure shifted, the sound changing, and still he could not find sense in her tongue. He muttered a curse. The woman sighed, coming to the same conclusion about their communication ability. Of course someone so different would speak another language.
She was trying to keep calm, and Tristan wasn't certain if it was to keep him from causing her bodily harm or for her own mental state. As it was, she'd quieted and her expression was lost between exasperation and tiredness. The woman moved to sit on the arm of the seat, moving slowly the entire way, and Tristan wished that he could laugh. He was being treated like some scared forest creature that was ready to attack or run in an instant.
Neither tried to waste more words in useless languages, and they simply stared at each other for a time—observing, studying, learning. He watched as she played with the sleeve of her thick shirt. It was of fine quality, though he could see that it was worn often, from the hems that were showing signs of fraying. Her legs were not hidden in the fabric of a skirt, but in blue trousers that did not hide her form. Such an odd color. There were no weapons that he could see on her, though he imagined there might be a knife hidden up one of the loose green sleeves.
Tristan remembered that he still wasn't wearing a shirt, and looked down at the gift the Woad had left him. The gash was closed with a long line of stitches, but they were not covered. He must have been too heavy for her to keep upright and also bandage properly.
The dark haired woman stood, and Tristan noticed for the first time as she walked back to the room she'd come in from, that she limped. She favored the right leg, and Tristan wondered how she'd gotten him into the house.
She brought him back a shirt, hardly showing signs of ever having been worn before. Tristan gave her a nod, not quite a thank you. The woman smiled briefly, leaving once more, though this time only to the other end of the room where a heavy wooden table stood. Past that there were a number of fixtures that he did not recognize.
The shirt was comfortable, unfamiliar. The fabric felt soft against his skin, incredibly so, and Tristan could not recall ever having worn something so forgiving over his scarred body. He didn't know if this was her own shirt, but her smaller frame certainly would not have fit his own and would account for how it fit. It was tight, not so much that it clung to him with its own grip, but it was more fitted than his usual clothing. The scout tested his range of motion, glad and perplexed by the stretch the shirt allowed. Though he was displeased with how it went up and exposed his abdomen when he attempted putting his arms above his head. He stopped short when his shoulder protested with anger.
Despite having covered his upper body, Tristan felt a chill run through him. He shifted closer to the fire, placing himself in its warmth and wishing he had his own clothes. A part of him believed that he'd continue to feel cold even with more layers in a way beyond the imagined frost of the air.
There was not much for him to do. He wasn't sure if he was a prisoner here, but he had little strength and would have to wait and recover before doing anything drastic. Tristan hoped that such circumstances would not come to pass.
Though his brother knights would surely note his absence, Tristan was not as confident their ability to find him. This place was unknown, with an unfamiliar person who at best was caring for him, but at worst was deceiving him with kindness to serve some malicious purpose.
For the time being, he decided he would go along with everything, so long as there was nothing more threatening than what had been presented thus far. No physical danger and at face value, the woman did not seem inclined to cause him harm.
Tristan would keep his guard up, but he decided to keep any active defense at bay, lest it unduly become offensive. There was still much of his predicament that was wholly unknown, and Tristan was not eager to make any rash decisions. Patience was the key that would serve him well, if he could keep hold of it.
. . .
Mitsuko was wary. She'd hoped with the man's return to consciousness there would be answers – explanations for his presence, the arrow wounds, the sword, him.
As it was, Mitsuko wasn't sure what to do. The man seemed dangerous, unfriendly at the very least. Her mind was splitting its focus between being cautious of him and being kind. In the three days he'd spent unconscious, Mitsuko had debated the possible courses of action available to her. Several musings had involved sending him back outside and locking her doors. Another line of thought contemplated tying or locking him up in the basement, should he prove to be violent when awake and aware. Mitsuko had plenty of time to decide. In the meantime she'd done what she could to clean the blood from his clothing and sword, and then had hidden them away in the basement.
Her end decision was perhaps not the best for her personal safety, but it was the one that left her with no moral guilt.
"Innocent until proven guilty, hey?" she'd said to Caes, and she thought the husky seemed to approve.
She'd thought it would have been a safe play, but she hadn't expected the complication of a language barrier. Multilingual she might have been, but it wasn't doing her a drop of good. Mitsuko knew she was more than a bit in over her head.
There wasn't much to do in the little cabin forest, most days being filled with relaxing activities that were more for her own state of mind than essential to the upkeep of basic living. Setting herself to the task of doodling or reading felt wrong in some way, as if instinct were telling her to do something meaningful or at least useful at the moment. Mitsuko knew that it had everything to do with the stranger's presence.
He watched her from by the fire, and though she never saw his gaze stray from the window, there was no doubt in her mind that she was being carefully monitored.
The man sat comfortably, uncaring of how hard the floor must have been and the pain that certainly accompanied his injuries. He'd been unsteady when moving earlier, which Mitsuko attributed to stiffness after unconsciousness and discovery of unpleasant wounds. She doubted that he was like that normally, that he was any less than the image of perfect grace.
Then she noted a particular stiffness in him, a tension in his muscles that was slight and unassuming, but unquestionably familiar to her. He was cold. Despite the flaming heat at his back, he was cold and for some reason unwilling to wrap himself in the numerous blankets on the floor in front of him. She didn't know if it was pride or a sense of reluctance to find help from a stranger that inhibited him, but Mitsuko figured it would take something more direct to sway his stoicism.
In the kitchen, Mitsuko rummaged about the fridge, searching for foods that could be made into something hot and filling. Finding only the leftovers of assorted vegetables, she settled for making soup and hoping that the man wasn't a picky eater.
How the situation would proceed, she didn't know. Everything about him was unknown, and it reeked of the danger that her family and teachers had always warned her about as a child.
"Don't trust strangers," they had said.
"What the hell was I supposed to do?" she muttered to herself, chopping the carrots with more force than necessary. She paused, relaxing her tight grip of the knife handle, before resuming at a calmer pace.
The woman let herself focus on the process of cooking, reluctant to think any further or deeper into the abnormality of her house guest. Perhaps food would at least get the man to stop glaring.
Mitsuko couldn't help wondering if this would be the beginning of an adventure story or a murder mystery.