#prestadir

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Prestadír tries, without hope.

“I don’t mind being bothered,” Mandan punctuates each emphasis with another object slammed down onto his kitchen table. “I mind finding unconscious idiots on my porch getting blood everywhere.” A bowl of steaming water sloshes over a bit with Mandan’s vigor, splashing onto the tabletop.

He wasn’t unconscious, Prestadír wants to argue. Would, if his breath would come back. He was able to knock and only fell over when his support (the door) was yanked out from under him. After that was dimmer, a haze of pain and occasional sound as Mandan swore and patched him together.

“We’re getting up now,” Mandan warns him a second before they do and doesn’t wait for Prestadír to assent or protest. “Onto your side. Don’t get blood on the table, I eat on that.”

Mandan does most of the work wrangling Prestadír onto his side. Even the thought of trying to sit up under his own power makes his side throb under its new bandage. Immediately his breathing eases.

“Better? Good. Don’t move.” Mandan takes the mortar and pestle from the table and attacks it, grinding down whatever the green and blue contents are with a vengeance. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Last night. Late. I set it, but then I moved wrong and couldn’t breathe...” In the wake of panic Prestadír feels only heavy and tired and a little like falling unconscious again. Mandan might really kill him if he does that. He tries to keep his eyes open.

“The time to find a healer is while you are still breathing,” Mandan says. “You should remember that, it’s good advice.”

It probably is. Prestadír can’t really concentrate on it, though.

“I also mind idiots falling unconscious on me,” Mandan says. Then: “Oh, why do I bother?”