Everyone ready for another round with Gawain and Kirra? I decided, in celebration of Thanksgiving, to post two chapters. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. Have a great holiday and eat plenty of turkey and pie! And please, by all means, REVIEW!!!

#4 On Her Own

Once Gawain had slipped back into unconsciousness, Kirra turned to Niara, "I am really worried about that … mess … on his side. Are you sure we shouldn't get a hold of a real doctor or something?"

"No dear, trust me on this, it is better for him that you tend to him and in this way, then if he went to a hospital and had a doctor do it." Kirra looked at her skeptically. "I will explain it further to the both of you later, when he is feeling better."

"Okay," Kirra said still a bit unsure. "Let me finish his shoulder then we'll move on."

The two women worked long into the night. They first had to get all of Gawain's dirty, wet and bloody clothing off and wash him up a bit before they continued with the rest of his wounds. Upon removing his clothes they had found an additional wound in his calf.

It appeared that he had been hit with an arrow but he had either ripped it out, Kirra's stomach rolled at the thought, or it had been torn out at some point before he had fallen at Kirra's feet. At any rate it was no tidy little wound. Kirra slowed the bleeding and turned to finish his shoulder. After stitching and bandaging Gawain's shoulder she began to work on his side.

Niara helped with the washing, which took a long time and when they were finished the flesh was almost white. Kirra used water that had dill and marigold infused into it, but she strengthened it the way that Niara had taught her.

Niara's methods were ancient; she had been taught by – well, Kirra wasn't quite sure who had taught her, Niara had never told her that, but whoever it had been had known what they were doing. She had taught Kirra to strengthen water that had been infused with several herbs by placing a bit of the blood person to be healed in the water. There was a song that was then sung over the bowl.

When all was said and done the water took on a silvery glow and strangely enough it stayed warm and clean until it was replaced Niara said it was a bit of the moon that was called down to help when the song was sung. Kirra wasn't sure about that, but it worked, so she did it.

She was interrupted once as she prepared the water by a fierce burning in the inside of her left wrist. Looking down she saw what looked like a heavily inked tattoo. A small perfectly round circle was suspended between the two points of a crescent that pointed inward, toward her heart. There was a matching burn on her shoulder. Niara glanced over at her small gasp.

"You are fine, Kirra." She said softly after examining the mark. "It is merely a sign of power. We will find you something to cover it with during the day. No doubt it will burn a little each time you use your powers to heal. It helps to channel them."

"My parents won't be too happy about it," Kirra commented looking down at the small mark.

In fact, they probably wouldn't be too happy about a lot of things that would transpire on this particular night. They would probably wish that they had an ordinary daughter, one who got in trouble having parties when her parents were out of town not spending the time stitching up strange men with strange and deadly wounds using strange and mystical ways.

"They will be fine with it," Niara said in reassuring tones, though it was likely that Kirra's parents would never know about the marking the goddess chose to give their adopted daughter. "Please continue, Kirra. We cannot leave him in the dark for too long."

Kirra nodded and sang as she stirred the water in her bowl with a bloody finger, figuring that if anyone was in need of a little extra strengthening tonight, it was Gawain. She frowned slightly, the only problem with the water was that it burned like fire when placed on a wound and it foamed -- which could be a scary sight, but when that foam had been wiped away, the wounds were always more then half healed and there were no problems with infection, either.

Niara had made Kirra perform this on all the hurt animals that she had ever brought over and once she had done it to Kirra, so that she would know how it felt. But this was the first time that Kirra, herself, had ever done it to a human.

Because of the way the water made one feel, Kirra was very glad that Gawain had chosen to go back to sleep. She would have hated to see the look in his eyes as she poured it over his side. In fact, she highly doubted that he could have even retained consciousness. If he did, she was sure he would have really tried to kill her; she would have, had she been in his place.

She wished that Niara would have done the stitching and said so, but Niara just waved her off and told her that her eyes were better and her stitches smaller. Kirra's stomach started rolling again the moment she stuck the needle in Gawain's skin. She tried to convince herself that she was simply mending some torn clothes, but found that didn't really work when the "cloth" was always warm and pink and, well, attached to a human. She went as fast as she possibly could and still do her best. Eternities later, when she was finally finished, Kirra found she was shaking and drenched in sweat.

As the night wore on, things got worse. It seemed that the arrowhead in Gawain's thigh had lodged in the bone and would not budge, no matter how hard Kirra pulled on it. He had been lucky, though, in that it had managed to miss any major arteries or veins, had it hit something, he would have bled to death long before Kirra could have gotten him to Niara.

After a few more fruitless tugs on the arrow, Kirra knew she had to do what she had been trying to avoid. Taking a small silver knife of Niara's, Kirra cut deep into the flesh of Gawain's leg. She had to wedge the thin blade of the little knife between the heavy thigh bone and the tip of the head. It was a bloody task and when it was at last free, Kirra had blood up to her wrists.

Kirra turned to Niara, bloodied hands held in front of her face, the shock and horror stark in her eyes had caused them to darken. Sweat had trickled down her face and mingled with the tears that had come sometime during the ordeal. For her or for the man she worked on, Kirra couldn't be sure.

All she knew was she wasn't supposed to know how to do this and she certainly wasn't supposed to let anyone go through this. There were hospitals and doctors and lots of pain killing drugs for this kind of thing. What had Niara been thinking when she gave her this task? The old woman's face was sympathetic but she only patted Kirra's cheek and told her that she must finish; that she just couldn't very well leave Gawain lying there with a bloody gash in his leg.

"This is what you were born for child. You have the strength and the power to do what must be done, if you do not, no one will."

Kirra had no idea what Niara was talking about. Her mind was numb. She slowly turned back to Gawain and covered the gash she had made in his leg with her hand. Stuttering she whispered a few words, the blood dried to a trickle almost immediately.

She reached for a silver needle and began the laborious process of stitching the remaining cut up. Her hand shook and sweat burned her eyes, but at last she was finished. She spread a thick layer of the garlic paste Niara had made across the stitching and wrapped it. She sat back, numb and wiped her hands off. When she looked at Niara, her eyes were blank.

Niara gripped her shoulder and told her to go and prepare some water for tea. They would all need some. While Kirra was gone, Niara finished with the last wound and covered Gawain with an old blanket; he was shivering again from the loss of blood. But she waited for Kirra to return and awaken him. He would need to drink some of the tea to prevent infection and fever before he could be moved to a bed so that he could rest more comfortably than on a too short sofa.

Kirra came in a short while later, dark circles under her eyes and face pink from the scrubbing she had given it to remove her tears. "Niara, I am so sorry. I just couldn't go on. I … there was so much blood … and I …"

"Kirra, dear, it is all right. I finished. You did wonderfully, much better then I did my first time. You are different then even I. Times are different. It is a lot to ask of one so young and a lot to expect of you, but you will do fine."

"What will I do fine with, Niara?" Kirra wanted to know. She was tired of all the evasive answers and thought that after what she had just done she deserved an explanation. "And how is it that you speak Latin and know him?"

"I told you, I will explain everything; but for now, be patient and help me finish. I have to go and find a few more things, please wake him and get him to drink a bit of the tea. You did sweeten it, didn't you?"

Kirra nodded. She had dumped in about half a jar of honey. It was a powerful but bitter brew and definitely not something that you would want to drink while feeling bad anyway.

Niara left the room and Kirra placed her hand once again on Gawain's forehead. She called softly for him to wake up. His eyes opened groggily.

"I had the strangest dream," He said softly, surprising Kirra.

She placed the mug in his hand, "Well, if you drink this, I'll let you tell me about it."

Now fully awake, Gawain eyed it suspiciously.

"It is just a tea. Really, I don't think that I would try to poison you after all that I have done to keep you alive tonight." Kirra took it from him and sipped a bit to prove that it wasn't going to kill him. She struggled to keep her face composed, it still needed more honey. Repressing a shudder, she handed it back and slipped her hand beneath his head to help him.

He resisted and took the mug from her. "I am not a child; I can do it on my own."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Kirra moved to curl in Niara's chair. She slumped, head on knees, suddenly exhausted. The night was catching up to her. She watched as Gawain took a heroic sized drink of the bitter tea, his face twisted in revulsion and he spat it out. A bit dribbled into his beard.

He sputtered, "You are certain you are not trying to kill me?"

Kirra surprised herself by throwing her head back and howling with laughter and relishing the feeling, "Did I mention that it tastes horrible? Sorry." She tossed a clean scrap of cloth at him, "Here you go, big boy, you have tea dripping off your chin."

Gawain picked it up, grimacing as he moved his shoulder and smiled ruefully, "Thank you."

Niara came back into the room with an armful of clothes. Upon seeing Kirra across the room from Gawain still laughing and Gawain wiping tea from his face, she asked, "Now what have you two done?"

Kirra spoke first, "Well, he is not a child, Niara. I think that he can drink a mug of tea by himself." She was giggling a little longer and more hysterically then the situation called for. It must have been her body's way of releasing tension.

Gawain looked at Niara and raised an eyebrow, "'Tis true -- under most circumstances." He muttered, eyeing the amber liquid in his cup.

"Well, since you are feeling well enough to joke about, you will have to help us get you dressed and back into bed." Niara left no room for argument.

Gawain blinked and looked down at himself and then over at Kirra, realizing that he was just covered in a blanket; his pale face flushed red, causing Kirra to just about fall out of her chair, laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Kirra, you are not helping matters." Niara's voice was firm.

"S-s-sorry," Kirra stuttered, regaining her self-control. She glanced over at Gawain's pleading eyes and grinned at the old woman. "Niara, he is a grown man, I think that our stitches will hold if he is allowed to dress himself. Although," she paused and shot a glance out of the corner of her eye at Gawain, "I don't know why he would need to be embarrassed, as we were the ones who removed his clothing in the first place."

Gawain felt his face grow even hotter and couldn't remember the last time someone had said something to cause him to redden. He wasn't sure why either, it wasn't as if a woman had never seen him naked before. It was just because of that familiar grey-eyed young woman. He wasn't sure that he wanted her, of all people to see him unclothed. The young woman in question was again howling in laughter at his discomfort, making him feel worse. Even the old woman had an amused smile on her face.

"Alright, Kirra stop that," Niara placed the clothes on the table next to Gawain. "You get dressed and we will go and make up your bed."

Kirra left the room, giggling and Niara leaned down to Gawain, "Don't worry about Kirra; she just needed a good laugh. Tonight was harder on her then you will ever know."

Gawain looked up at the old woman as if to say, hard on her?

Niara continued, ignoring the look, "Now, these are a bit different then you are used to," She motioned to the pile of clothing. "The shirt is on top, then the undergarment, and then the pants -- and yes, they are supposed to be that short. I was not sure how tall you would be, so I thought that would be the safest bet. Good luck and call me if you need help." Niara smiled and patted his cheek in a grandmotherly sort of way before leaving the room.

Gawain lay there for a moment bewildered. What had she been talking about? Who was that old woman? She had called him by name before he had ever given it, acted like she knew him, yet he couldn't recall ever meeting anyone like her. He painfully pulled himself upright and placed his feet on the floor. His head swam and for a moment he saw stars, but he was surprised that he didn't feel as bad as he though he should.

He still felt extremely weak and had some throbbing aches, but he could not remember the time when he had felt this good after being injured so bad. He was actually surprised he was alive, given what he remembered of his injuries, he should be dead.

His side was beginning to itch terribly and after nearly ripping his skin away by removing the bandages that covered his side -- they were sticky, Gawain inspected Kirra's handiwork as well as he could.

The gash was quite a bit more extensive then he remembered it being, he couldn't see where it ended, and had been stitched up and looked pretty good. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, though. What kind of paste had that she used? Deciding that it looked as if the girl had known what she was doing, he re-attached the bandages and smirked; Dag would have loved a few of those.

Picking up the pile of clothing that the old one had left, Gawain examined them as closely as he had his bound wound. They were strange, too soft and flimsy. He pulled out the shirt. It didn't really look all that different, whatever, he pulled it on. The undergarments were strange, strange, and strange -- wonderfully comfortable, he decided, but strange.

Exhaustion hit him then and with it a type of melancholy that comes with being badly injured and unable to remember all the moments between the times the injuries were sustained until the present. Where was he? What had happened that caused him to be here? It was all so fuzzy and his head hurt to recall it. He slumped against the back of the … cot … he was on and winced as the stitches in his side pulled. He was starting to feel tired, muddled even, when Kirra came around the corner and stopped short.

"Um, okay, I am standing right here and I see half the clothes still on the table, so I am going to assume that they are not on you, so I am just going to stay right here."

Gawain sat up cursing silently at his pulling stitches, and threw the blanket over his lap. He immediately slumped back as Kirra came and sat by him after carefully covering the bloodied stain with a folded towel. She looked pale and worn.

"You look like I feel," -- Gawain glowered at her -- "okay, maybe you look worse then I feel and probably feel worse then I feel. I don't know what is going on here either, if it makes you feel any better."

He noticed that the sleeves of her shirt were stained with blood; he assumed correctly that it was his, "It does not."

In the silence that followed, Kirra fidgeted and turned to face him, "Sorry, all I can say is that I trust Niara completely. She seems to know you and she seems to know more about what is going on then the two of us put together.

"She said that she will explain all of this to us both once you are feeling better, and she is stubborn enough to make us wait until then. So, I guess what I am saying is that you just need to trust her and do what she says and all of this will work out."

The girl looked at Gawain from under a few tendrils of hair that had fallen over her eyes and it hit him. He knew exactly who she looked like. The resemblance was suddenly quite striking. He must have been hurt worse then he had originally thought not to have seen it before.

It was that realization that stopped him from pushing the tendrils behind her ear. He sighed, bewildered, "I told you that I would trust you. If you trust her, then I will also until she gives me reason not to." He noticed the livid bruises on her wrist, "I am sorry about your wrist. I didn't mean to hurt you -- you startled me."

She glanced at her wrist, "No, I am pretty sure that you meant it, but that's fine. I startled myself too. Sorry about popping into your head." Her face cracked into a grim smile at his expression and she nudged him with her knee, "Finished getting dressed and go to bed. You look like death." Then she got up and left Gawain feeling fuzzy and perplexed.