#bearach

“Fucking – Goddess, Neasa, what the hell were you thinking, running off – ” Bearach stopped mid-lecture to stare at Neasa, hands and side slippery with blood, the corpse of the Omnan she’d chased down sprawled out beside her. “I stand corrected. Can you stand?”

“Hypothetically.” Neasa felt dizzy, hot and cold all over, and she couldn’t quite feel the tips of her fingers.

“Right. Okay. Fine. Why not?” Bearach dropped to his knees and rustled through his healer’s bag, pulling out a tiny knife and a roll of linen. He slide the blade up the side of Neasa’s shirt, cutting the thick fabric away from the wound[BD1]  as he pulled Neasa’s leather jerkin off. “Yell for help next time. Makes my job easier, right?”

“Didn’t want to give my position away,” Neasa rasped, watching Bearach wipe the blood away and assess the damage.

“Right, because sitting on the ground with your back to a tree is such a tactically sound spot,” Bearach replied, acid in his voice. “I swear, soldiers get more and more stupid with each generation.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one stuck with us,” Neasa said with a beatific smile – one that broke as soon as Bearach smeared a white ointment over the gash, one that glowed faintly even under the midday sun.

“Makes me the bigger dumbass, does it?” Bearach muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath and pressed a cool, callused palm to her side. Neasa was very suddenly self-conscious of the scars covering her skin like a patchwork quilt, the too-prominent jut of her hips and lines of her ribs. She’d lost weight while she’d been away, she knew, but knowing it and looking at it were two vastly different things. A rustle of movement came to her left and Neasa’s head snapped up.

“Fuck off,” Neasa barked at Tig, who looked pale but triumphant. His expression faltered and broke at the look on Neasa’s face; he turned tail and ran.

“That wasn’t nice,” Bearach murmured, who looked like he was contemplating fulfilling his promise to give her a good whack on the head.

“I’m not a nice person.”

“A compelling argument.” Bearach pressed down with his hand and Neasa choked on a gasp as a searing heat scorched along her side, making her vision go black and white. She bit out a curse and sagged back against the tree as Bearach moved his hand away and made a satisfied noise. “At ease, soldier. You can put your grimace away and stop trying to give local wildlife a heart attack. You know, if looks could kill, you’d been an even better assassin than Fourteenth.”

“Sure.” Neasa watched Bearach press a linen pad to her side and start winding bandaging around her torso, finishing with a strip wrapped over her shoulder for an anchor point and tucking the ends away neatly. “The Omnans.”

“Fucked,” Bearach replied, almost sounding happy. “Got their asses whipped. You were the only casualty.”

“Well, thank Goddess for small blessings,” Neasa muttered under her breath.

“You make me look cheerful,” Bearach told her. He offered her a hand up; Neasa ignored it, instead opting to heave herself up by way of clawing at the tree trunk and dubious balancing. She still felt lightheaded. A wave of vertigo broke over her as she stood and Neasa closed her eyes for a moment, trying not to feel as if her head were about to fly off. “I love pines during the winter. The verdure makes me positively giddy.” Bearach said, voice deadpan. He kept talking as Neasa stalled, one palm pressed against the tree, the other against her side. His voice, deep and hollow, was almost soothing. It eased the jagged ache in Neasa’s head and side until she could breathe properly and actually open her eyes, glancing at Bearach. He was busy packing his supplies away again and picking up her tunic, dusting a few pine needles off it before holding it out for her. Sometime in the past few minutes he must have mended it; it didn’t look like it had been ever cut open to begin with. Now he was saying something else, something about how Neasa –

“Wait.” Neasa shrugged her tunic on, frowning at Bearach, who seemed nonplussed.

“What?”

“Back up a bit. What did you just say?”

“That I was once banged by a 7-foot knight from the Kiiriten Isles?”

“No. After that.” Neasa frowned at that though, distracted. “Were you really?”

“I said you were brave to push Tig like that. And yes, I was. Best lay I’ve ever had, objectively speaking.”

Neasa blinked at that. Huh. “And subjectively speaking?”