The Belletower

Normally the Sorceress didn’t talk to him much.  There were orders and directions, and mild verbal reprimands when he misinterpreted either of those, but Noemi had yet to see her have any kind of one-sided conversation with him at all.  No good mornings, or inquiries as to his feelings on things.  Even when her absent prattling wandered into rhetorical territory, Merek seemed to understand that none if it actually warranted or required a response.  If not for his full-throated ‘ah-choos’, in fact, Noemi could have easily believed he was mute.

But she talked to him now… in a fashion.

“That’s right, head back, hold it just like that.”  She took the wheat from between her lips.

Noemi watched, looking back and forth between them.

“You, um.  You said you won him?”

“Mm,” Leeda grunted.  “That’s right.”

“Like.  Forever?”

“Hm?”  She looked over, abashed, then back to her work, bending slightly nearer to Merek’s face.  “No no no.  Three years, that was the wager.”  She paused, wheat in hand, to calculate something.  “This time next year, he’ll be a free man again.  And thank the stars for that.  Have I mentioned that he eats like a horse?”

She held the head of the wheat stalk to Merek’s nose, as if offering it to smell, then stopped.  Looked back at Noemi.

“Actually, you can help after all.  Go get me the handkerchiefs from his nightstand drawer.”

Noemi responded as if she too were under her Mistress’s thrall, fetching a neat stack of white cotton handkerchiefs from the drawer, each monogrammed with an embroidered, “M.R.”, and one with the curious black silhouette of a crow.  Leeda took them with another small grunt, this one gratified, and set them nearby as she put the wheat back to Merek’s nose.

No, not to it.  Noemi resumed her seat, and from that angle saw she was poking it directly into his nostril.

“That, uh….  that isn’t hurting him?”

“No, not if I’m careful.  Anyway, he’s tougher than he looks.”

Merek didn’t seem to lack the ability to feel pain, and to Leeda’s credit indicated no distress.  Well, that wasn’t exactly true.  The longer Leeda worked the little strand of wheat—turning it in her fingertips as she dipped it in and out—higher into his nose and then lower, without ever fully removing it—the more he seemed uncomfortably aware of what was being done to him.  The flexible whiskers aggravated his nose like the barbs of a feather, strands tickling into the deepest recess, giving him no reprieve.

His mouth hung open, throat clicking audibly as he swallowed, and both nostrils yawned into an epic, irritated flare.

Noemi would have been diving for cover, but Leeda stood her ground and teased and teased and teased the whiskers deeper, as if fishing for a trigger, a point of no return.

Merek moaned—just once, involuntarily, and his tongue curled as if to make an “H” sound from the back of his throat.  The fingers at rest on his knees began to tremble, delicate and spastic.

“There we are,” Leeda encouraged, taking back the strand of wheat and removing herself from the V of his knees.

But he just teetered there, sniveling softly, head back and eyes welled shut with want to sneeze.

Impatient, Leeda reached out and stroked thumb and forefinger softly over the little space of skin between the top rims of his nostrils and the tip of his nose.  That did it.

“HRSCH'SSSSCHIEW!”

His sneeze fogged the air with aerosol, twin rivulets left streaming from his nose as he sat back with a single, deep, heaving sigh of relief.  Noemi didn’t like the way his nostrils were twitching with little spasms, but she had a job to do; she stole from her seat, snatching one of the handkerchiefs and gently wiping his nose.

“Stars—he needed that, then?”

But Leeda was only biding her time, tapping the strand of wheat absently on her forearm as Noemi did her part.

“He needs a lot more than that.  And we’ll get him there.  It’s just a question of jump-starting things.”

Noemi looked at her. “There’s more?”

“He’s like a rain gutter, when the hay fever kicks in,” she said.  “He needs clearing out.”

Noemi sat back again and Leeda resumed her place, fixing Merek’s head the way she wanted.  “He doesn’t seem to know when he’s got an itch to scratch, or know when he needs to blow his nose.  It’s a nuisance, frankly.  I may just release him a little early, next year, so I don’t have to deal with this again…”

And, to Merek, as she moved the wheat into position, “Eyes on me.”

Noemi leaned in a little more, curious.

“I know I keep asking the same questions but… you just won him?”

“I guess it’s more accurate to say I won stewardship over him for three years. In retrospect, I don’t think he knew what the word stewardship meant, and especially not how I intended to use it, but he was too embarrassed to ask.  Anyway, not my problem.  He’ll only remember as much as he needs to, when this is all over.  And a bet is a bet.  Hopefully he’ll have learned a lesson.”

The wheat tucked into Merek’s nose, and he drew a deeply shivering breath as his eyelashes wildly fluttered.  Leeda rolled the stalk back and forth in her fingers, whiskers tickling with an efficiency that made his jaw drop open and his nostrils double wider, like they were trying to recoil from the sensation.

“Better,” she encouraged.  “Don’t fight it.”

Incredibly, his head trembled in the tiniest ‘no’ as he sawed for breath.

“Are you almost there?”

Another tiny tremble of his head, this one a ‘yes’.  Leeda didn’t relent, although she did give herself ample room to move aside.

“HHH—!”  A sudden, deep, snagging breath.  His eyes shut, head leaning back, nostrils red like a warning. “--HHH—!”

She took back the wheat, and the whole house thundered as he sneezed.

“HAZZSCHSSCHIEW!”  Merek doubled with the strength of it, white-knuckling the chair’s arms like an exorcism.  No sooner was it out that he leaned back, sucking in air, then sneezed again, “HAZZSSCHEW!”

And again. “--HAZZSSCHEW!”

And once more, an exhausted, “HAZZSSCHEW!” that abruptly unblocked him like a rain gutter.

Both he and Noemi needed a moment.

Merek sat back—slumped back—like the chair was barely enough to hold him.  Noemi fumbled the handkerchief in both hands, placing herself into the now sagging V of his knees, and held his chin in one hand while the other carefully wiped his nose.  His breath pulsed hot on her skin, posture correcting as his composure slowly came back.

“Bless you,” she blurted.

To her shock he answered, exhausted, “Thanks.”

Remembering Leeda’s earlier instructions, she switched the spent handkerchief out for a fresh one, and shaped it neatly around his nose.

“Blow,” she ordered.  On command he filled his lungs again—this time slowly, controlled—then grimaced for all he was worth, forcing out enough fresh congestion that Noemi wondered if there wasn’t some magical, bottomless component to his sinuses.

Leeda had been watching all this while, but finally asked, “Feeling better?”

Merek nodded, eyes switching to Noemi just briefly as she reached in for one final, careful wipe.

“Good.  Then you might as well get washed up.  Noemi and I will start on dinner.”

The big man stood slowly, chair creaking as it was relieved of his weight, and lumbered off for the wash room.  Noemi watched him go, swallowing.

“Shouldn’t you… put him back the way he was?” she asked.  Leeda returned to the chair to the table, raising a brow to her question.

“How do you mean?”

“He’s still taking orders from both of us, isn’t he?  Instead of just you?”

“Hm.  Well, so he is.”  She gave her apprentice’s shoulder a pat as she turned for the kitchen.  “Maybe I’ll just leave him that way for a little while.  In case there’s anything you need from him overnight.”

Leeda cackled to herself as Noemi goggled, frozen in place like a deer to the glint of an oncoming arrow.

Noemi hadn’t known what to expect of her apprenticeship, nor her teacher.  She simply accepted her assignment, went where she was told, and showed up at the woodland cottage with suitcases in hand.  Mistress Leedra—small, solid, and with enviably confident self-possession—answered the knock at her door, looked Noemi up and down, then scooped the air to urge her inside.

“Alright, you must be the fresh blood. Let’s get on with it.  But first we’ll have some cake.”

Mistress Leedra did not live alone, which Noemi found only a little surprising.  More surprising was the fact that she couldn’t—even days into her apprenticeship—figure out who the hell the other person even was.  Or what he was to the sorceress.  Or what he was supposed to be to her.

A big fellow, he stood nearly to the admittedly low ceiling of Leedra’s cottage, and was obliged to duck under every single doorway, not to mention the pot rack and the hanging bouquets of dried flowers and herbs.  He spent about half his time dutifully stooping under something as he did standing fully upright.

“That’s Merek,” Leedra informed her straightaway.  “Don’t mind him.”

And so Noemi didn’t.  Or, anyway, she tried not to.

It was an awfully small cottage, and he was an awfully large man.  It wasn’t that he got in the way, but he was obtrusive by nature, like an oversized wardrobe that Leedra couldn’t bear to part with, even though it didn’t fit her space.

But he asked no questions, and he gave her no troubles.  In fact, he never said anything at all to either of them, though Leedra often breezily prattled at him while she was working, or directed him to fetch her this, carry that, or handle some other small task she didn’t care to deal with.  And he did, always without comment or complaint.  He had a simple bed and dresser in a corner of the cottage’s main room, but nothing about it was otherwise personalized. No little portraits nearby, no retired sword or shield hung the wall, not even a book to keep him occupied when he wasn’t needed.

Neither did Leedra kiss him, or hold his hand, or treat him as anything but kind of Unseen Servant that was actually quite plainly visible at all times.

Noemi wanted to ask—badly—but there was never an opportunity to do so.  Even if she could have figured out a polite way to ask.

Just once, when Leedra was wholly distracted, did she try engaging with him directly.

“Good morning, Merek!” she chimed as he stood at the cottage sink, washing their breakfast dishes.  He stopped immediately, craning her an impassive look.  Not questioning, not annoyed, not primed to respond.  Just… staring plainly, as if awaiting further instructions.

Noemi smiled uncomfortably with her whole face before throwing off a weak wave.

“...Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Still he stared, waiting, not at all inclined to opine on the day’s beauty or lack thereof.  God this was so weird.

Before Noemi could come up with anything else to say, Leedra returned from her bedroom, cinching shut her little drawstring coin purse.

“Come on,” she announced, scooping the air at Noemi to follow. “Let’s—Merek, what are you doing? Finish those so we can get going.”

And that was the end of it, with no further fuss.  His attention returned to the sink, slotting the last of the dishes into the drain rack and wiping the suds from his hands.  Noemi was prepared for him to glare at her for getting him in trouble, but he simply walked right by her to the cottage door, opening for them as he always did.

The day, beautiful though it was, ended up being a little different from the norm.

Leeda had depleted her herbal reserves far faster than anticipated, with Noemi at her elbow, and the fair weather was a good excuse to hitch their dray to the wagon and visit the nearby market.  Merek tacked up the horse while they waited, climbing behind the reins while the women sat just behind him, baskets at their feet.

Since there was little else to do, while they rode, Noemi decided this was as good a chance as any.

“Have you, ah… known him long?”

Leeda muttered a distracted ‘hm?’ and looked at her.

“Who?  The horse?  I won him in a card game a few years ago.  He’s alright.  Gets out of his paddock a fair bit too often for my liking.”

“No, uh, I mean… him?”  She pointed at Merek’s wide back.  Leeda followed her indication, as if needing to be sure.  This was somehow an even less expected question.

“Oh.  Well.  It’s been about two years, now.  He’s certainly convenient to have around, although he eats nearly as much of the horse.”

“I see.”  Her fingers laced together delicately in the lap of her dress.  “How… did you meet?”

A pause.  “Won him in a card game.”  She faced forward again, adding after a moment, “...different one.”

Once they’d arrived, and horse and carriage were safely hitched, Leeda gestured both companions to follow her lead through the bustling crowds.  Noemi held the list, checking off items as they were gathered from this stall or that booth, and passing everything back to Merek to carry.  Dutifully he took each box, bundle, parcel and floursack, transferring them to the wickered withe baskets slung on his forearms, unbothered by the weight.

Midway through their list, Noemi detected a sound she couldn’t immediately identify—simultaneously wispy and stiff, dry and gurgling, repetitive but random enough that she couldn’t pin it down.  It was a fortuitously timed glance back that revealed Merek to be the source, his lips pursed and twisted to one side as his nostrils snarled with a sudden, audibly wet SNHLFF!

“Oh. Uh—Mistress?”

“Hm?”  Leeda gestured a hand at them to stop, distracted by a particularly robust display of sourdough pretzels.

“I think there’s something—”

“I’ll take three,” Leeda waved for the clerk’s attention, pointing to one of the stacks of pretzels. “You there. Give me three of those.” “Mistress?”  Noemi tugged gently on her sleeve, transfixed by Merek’s nose as he squirmed it itchily, eyes welling like a levee.  Leeda too was transfixed, but by the far more pressing business of pretzels.

“Just a minute, just a minute. I want to be sure he doesn’t give us any of the skimpy ones.”

Things were developing far more quickly than the clerk could serve them, however.  Before Noemi’s eyes, Merek gave up the battle against whatever was happening inside his nose, expression slack and tense in equal measure, though with the latter rapidly gaining ground.

“...heh—”  It was the first noise she’d ever heard him make.

“Mistress,” Noemi repeated, this time with an urgency that finally made the older woman turn with a sigh.

Then she saw it too, and blurted a hasty, “Shit,” as she dragged her apprentice sharply out of the line of fire.

“--Huh-RSCH'SSSSCHIEW!”

Leeda’s quick reflexes, and some perhaps instinctive reflex in Merek to turn his head, gave them both a wide berth from the volcanic blast radius of the big man’s sneeze.  Some passers-by weren’t so lucky, reeling back in dismay and revulsion as an aerosol cloud erupted in their paths.  Leeda waved dismissively at their cursing, snatching a handkerchief from her decolletage as she rounded on her servant.  Or lover. Or… whatever he was, in addition to being abruptly relieved.

Noemi watched her tug him into a half-stoop so she could wipe his nose, her technique more efficient than it was tender.  Not that Merek minded, or even noticed.

“Is he… is he alright?  It seems like he’s maybe coming down with something.”

“No, it’s just his stupid hay fever,” she said, standing back to admire her handiwork.  “I forgot it was that time of year already.”  She looked back at her. “You’re on nose duty until we get back home.”

“I don’t know what that is, but I feel like I’m probably ill-equipped to handle it…”

“Well, too bad.  I need my hands free for more important things.”  She shoved the handkerchief into Noemi’s hand, then went to collect their waiting pretzels.  “It’s easy.”

“Is it?” Noemi’s voice cracked.  Merek had since straightened up, the nose in question well beyond her reach.

“Just keep it clean.  He’ll blow if you tell him to.”

“He’ll do what now?”

“Well, actually…”  Leeda returned, tucking each of the three wax-papered pretzels into the baskets hanging from the man’s arms.  “Merek?  Until I say otherwise, do everything Noemi tells you.”

Leeda studied him.  Studied Noemi.  Nodded in satisfaction.

“That ought to do it.”

“W-what exactly do I need to—”

“Come on!  I want to get out of here before the drunkards start stumbling into the crowd and making things difficult.  I don’t wanna do it, but I will frog a bitch if I have to.”

Merek sneezed liberally for the remainder of their shopping trip, and all the way back to the carriage.  Sometimes with slow, huffing, softly moaning preamble, and sometimes completely out of the blue, with enough earth-shaking strength to stagger him in place.  She’d never heard of hay fever before, but it seemed like a kind of grave and unfortunate nasal affliction, whatever had caused it.

Nose Duty, as Noemi came to understand it, involved a lot of apologizing to other people who fell afoul of Mere’s sneezing, then chasing after him and ordering him to stop so she could wipe his nose.  It couldn’t have been any less exhausting for him than it was for her, but he was a man without the need or ability to complain, and to Leeda’s credit he let her minister to him with unwavering obedience.  She actually wondered what else he’d do, if she just ordered it, but wasn’t quite brave enough to experiment.  Leastwise not in public.

Happily, the sneezing stopped abruptly once they’d mounted the carriage and started back along the road into the woods.  Merek silently chewed his pretzel in the front seat, reins held loosely in his other fist, and every so often Noemi leaned over his shoulder from behind to carefully swipe-swipe under his nose.

Leeda remained conservative and cautious, watching his back as she tore off bits of pretzel and brushed salt from her lap.

“That doesn’t bode well,” she remarked.

Noemi sat back, confused.  “Why not?  He’s getting better, isn’t he?  Maybe the air is doing him good.”

Leeda pointed a finger. “The air is the opposite of good for him.  See how he’s breathing through his mouth, like that?”

She leaned to have a better look at him.  Sat back again.

“I guess?”

“Hm. Well. If it doesn’t resolve itself by the time we’re back, I’m going to have to sort him out the old fashioned way.”

This all sounded ominous to Noemi, who obsessed over it worriedly all the long ride back.  Whatever resolution Leeda had in mind, they arrived back at the cottage with no further fuss or trouble, and Merek paddocked the horse while the Sorceress and her apprentice proceeded inside.

When everything from market was unloaded and away, and night finally, gently, beginning to settle, Leeda picked up a chair from the little table by the window and turned it to face the room.

“Merek,” she announced, gesturing the big man nearer from where he’d settled on his bed.  She patted the seat of the chair.  “Come. Sit.”

And, to Noemi, “Go pick me a strand of wheat from the back garden.”

Oh, this sounded like magic.

“Just one strand?”

“That’s right.  A short one, not too green and not too dry, with the whiskers still on it.”

Definitely magic.  She knew the fixings of a spell when she heard it.

But by the time she’d scoured the little kitchen garden, finding just the right strand of wheat—no longer green and pliant, but neither too dry and brittle, bristling at its head with long, soft whiskers—and returned to the cottage, Leeda was still preoccupied with Merek and getting him comfortably seated in the chair.  No cauldron boiling in the hearth, no candles or piles of herbs carefully arranged.

She plucked the wheat from Noemi’s hand with a grunt of approval, then shooed her away.

“It’s fine, I’ve got this.”

“Er.  You don’t want help?”

“It’s generally a one-woman operation, but you can ogle if you like.  He won’t care.”

Still intent on learning something, Noemi uncertainly took a seat nearby.

It took the man on the far side a few seconds to process the exchange, after which he pounded the door again, a little more assertively than the first time.  She was all the way back at the hearth by then, nearly tucked under her nice warm lap quilt, fingertips just a few precious inches from the handle of her coffee mug.  Her hand clenched into a trembling fist as she threw the blanket aside, storming back to the door.

Back went the peephole cover.

“I don’t want any,” she said.

“But—”

Her arm thrust all the way through the peephole, angling down awkwardly so she could point point point a forefinger at the crude sign below it.

NO SOLICITATION.

“See?”

He saw it.  Whether or not he could read it was another matter, his lips shaping silently, awkwardly, around the letters as he tried.  When her arm snaked back inside he looked at her in frustration.

“I don’t know what that word means.”

“It means I don’t want any.  Whatever it is you’re selling—talismans, or oils, or enchanted birds, or real estate on the swamp—I don’t need it, or I already have it.”

Rack-slide.  Pause.  She inched it open again, just enough for one eye.

“...if it’s enchanted birds, though, that actually sounds pretty interesting, I’d like to see that.”

“I’m not selling anything.”

“Oh! well! That makes it much easier, then. Whatever it is you want, I don’t have any.”

Rack-slide.

This time she had her mug well in hand before he thundered the door, and it took every ounce of her will not to march back, open the peephole, and douse her coffee right into his stupid polished-lapis-with-gold-inclusion eyes.

Total waste of good coffee.  It was hard to come by all the way out here in the ass-end of the woods.

But return she did, this time double-checking the chain on her door before she opened it a few crucial inches.  She was shorter than him by a foot, but filled the gap like impatient, trembling rage personified.

“Can’t you take a hint?  It’s not even a hint at this point, I’ve out-and-out stated, in very small and direct words, that whatever idiotic reason it is you’ve come out here to harass me and bang on my door, I’m not interested.”

Harsh, perhaps.  She didn’t have to be so testy.  The look on his face in the aftermath—bewildered, hazy about the eyes, fearful even—immediately gave her the tiniest pause of regret.

Oh, but… wait.  Was that actually fear?

He twisted from her, a hard twist from the waist that put the full barrel of his chest in admirable profile, one hand raised like a man poised to bellow for some beast companion.  It wasn’t a bellow that came out of him, but.  Near enough.

“HUHZ-ZZSSSSCCHHHH!”

It didn’t crack like thunder, precisely, but Estielle felt the cabin’s floorboards trembling under her, the flare of his nostrils evicting an aerosol like a dandelion losing all its fluff in one sudden, explosive wish.  She couldn’t see it, but somewhere past the house, downwind of that thunderous sneeze, something wooden clattered and tumbled and loudly collapsed.

He stood, staring after it in dismal, blinking exhaustion, then swiped his forearm under his nose three times in weepy succession.

“...I’ll… uh… fix that.”

Well, she had to see this for herself.

Estielle fumbled wildly with the chain and rushed to have a look.  Her winter woodpile lay in absolute shambles some twenty yards away, the neat, alternating rows of logs obliterated like a tantruming child’s toy blocks.  If she hadn’t gone to fetch fresh kindling not even fifteen minute before his arrival, she wouldn’t have believed it.

He sniffled, liquid, and fumbled both hands over the pockets of his jerkin in search of a handkerchief.

“...least that was a small one.”

She turned on him, goggling. “It was a what now?”

“I tried to tell you—”

“You might have lead with that!  She gestured at the remains of the woodpile, then took stock of him as he took full and lusty advantage of his handkerchief.

A big boy. Trim at the waist but broad everywhere else.  The words ‘as a tree trunk’ described the circumference of seemingly every part of him.  He wasn’t town, that much was certain, but apart from the clothes on his back he carried very little.  A war axe slung across his back showed enough wear to be threatening, but Estielle doubted she was any good to him in pieces.  And she was pretty good at dodging.

“It’s not—”  SNNCCCHHHFFFFFF.  “--exactly easy to—” SNNCCCHHHFFFFFF. “Summarize.”

“Oh, that word you seem to know just fine.”

She let him finish blowing, pretending not to notice when he sheepishly checked inside the handkerchief before grimacing and folding it away.

“So there’s a story here, obviously.” She gestured him up and down.

“Yes’m.”

“And you’ve come to me for some kind of resolution to your plainly self-evident problem.”

“Also yes.”

She turned with a sigh, glancing back inside, then motioned him to follow.

“Alright, well.  Let’s hash it out.  Assuming I have a chair that will hold you…”

He started to follow her, head ducking under the doorframe, then withdrew nervously.  Estielle was still casting about for a suitable chair when she noticed he hadn’t yet joined her, and sent him a curious look.

“Well?  You wanted to come in so badly.”

“It’s a terrible idea, me going in there,” he tried to explain.  “A cottage won’t come back together half so easily as a wood pile.”

She ‘ahh’ed in understanding and had another look around, then crooked him closer with a forefinger.

“Not to worry. I think I’ve got a stopgap until we figure out a better solution.”

His name was Iwen, and he was even bigger up close.

Maybe it was just the size of the cottage by comparison that did it.  Estielle had a little dollhouse, as a girl, but never a complete set of dolls to occupy it.  This led to a complicated but strategic barter with all the other children in her village, and culminated in a miniaturized boarding house of clothespin dolls, and tin soldiers, and those little white china figurines of supposedly frozen women.

Iwen reminded her of a particularly oversized tin soldier, though he explained—in-between desperately, perilously averted sneezes—that he was actually a mercenary.

“Or was,” he mumbled.

Estielle sat across from him at the fire, coffee clasped in both hands, elbows on knees, absolutely rapt with his tale.  There wasn’t anything in the house that could safely hold him, but he’d taken a seat on the rug in a knees-up, cross-legged pose that didn’t seem too uncomfortable. She’d taken all his soiled handkerchiefs—and by the Gods there were a lot of them—and deposited them into a pot simmering on the fire.  In exchange, he now wore a glove on one hand made from a combination of worn leather and a chainmail so delicate and fine that it passed for fabric.

Every now and then the urge to sneeze came on him, chopping and hesitating his narrative, trying to wrest its way out of him like a parasite finally ready to emerge.  He had to hasten the glove to his face in some way to keep it in check: laying a forefinger under his beleaguered nose; holding the tip of thumb and middle finger like plugs to his nostrils; cupping his nose under his palm with a look of vague but genuine fear.

He wasn’t the only one afraid.  Estielle hadn’t thoroughly vetted that particular magical glove when she initially traded it for a handful of ensorcelled beans.  Sure, the colleague in question told her that it acted like a bulwark against sudden surges of magic, but… well. She also told him the beans were ensorcelled.

A love of solitude wasn’t the only reason she lived in a hidden cottage in the woods.

With the glove’s help, however, he’d managed to keep himself firmly under control until now, although not without quite a lot of entertaining showmanship.  Lord but did he want to sneeze.  It was almost criminal, dragging it out like this, but she wanted the full story.

“And so this partner of yours,” she said, circling a hand at him to continue.  “She wasn’t a fan of of you turning over a new leaf—”

“That’s right.”

“And this was her way of getting back at you.”

“I didn’t think much of it, at first,” Iwen defended.  “On account of she’d always sort of… had it under control.  I’m a big guy, you might’ve noticed—”

“It crossed my mind.”

“--and most of the time, just lookin’ at me was enough to sort of… sway things in our favor, if you get my meaning.  And if that wasn’t enough, well, I had my axe, and she had her spells.”

“M-hm…”

“And if that wasn’t enough…”

Estielle set her mug aside, pausing his story with another staying motion of one hand.

“Just a moment, just a moment. I want to make sure I fully understand this.  You say she used some sort of spellwork to… amplify the, ah, brute force of your sneeze.”  She thumbed toward the door.  “If I’m to understand, even magnitudes greater than your earlier display.”

Misery.  “Yeah, that’s right.”

“And so, if your… victim?...didn’t capitulate—”  Nope, he didn’t know that word either.  She detoured. “If they didn’t surrender—”

“Right, right, surrender.”

“You’d just.”  She had no choice but to say the words.  It was fucking ridiculous, she coudln’t bellieve it had come to this, but what else could she do? This was the life she’d chosen.  “...you’d sneeze them into submission?”

His big hands passed over each other, head turning slightly as he uncomfortably digested her description.

“Mm… more like… in their direction.  The submission came after.”

“And that worked?”

“Not usually the first time,” he clarified.  “What I mean is… you know… nobody believed it, at first.  To say it out loud, it sounds made up.  We got laughed at a lot.  A lot.  But after the first sneeze…”

Estielle sat back, palms together, forefingers resting against her lips. “Rrrrright…”

“Usually we didn’t need a second one.”

She was silent for a long, long moment before placing her hands on her knees.

“How did she do it?  What I mean is, she didn’t just snap her fingers and you’d sneeze, right?”  Seeing his hesitance to answer, she explained, “If there’s magic here that needs undoing, I’m going to have to understand how it works.”

Iwen sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well…”

“Come on.  You’ve come all this way, no sense in being bashful now.”

“It weren’t anything special.  She had this big feather that worked pretty good, most of the time.  I started to get a bit desensitized to it, after awhile, but she hadn’t yet come up with a better idea when we… had our falling out.  I told her I wanted to walk a different path and… she didn’t agree.”

“And so that’s when she made this a… permanent fixture?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, unwilling.  “Like a lamp she turned on and just never turned off again.  I didn’t think too much of it, honestly.  I guess I’m not a big sneezer, on the regular.  But.  Then yesterday I woke up, and my nose got to running.”  As if with the memory he tilted his head back, nostrils flaring dramatically as he SNHHHLFFFFF’ed at the oozing congestion, then sighed it out again.  “...that’s a cold coming on, for sure.”

“Huh…”

“And I don’t… I-I don’t…”

Oof, there he went again.  The focus drained from his eyes, the cheek to one side of his nose twitching spastically as his breath pitched slowly but steadily deeper.

“I… hhh…I—”

“Uh, the glove,” she reminded him urgently, grabbing the arms of her chair.  She was good at dodging, but only in a much narrower blast radius.

It was hard fighting something he so desperately wanted, even knowing the consequences of dropping his guard.  With equal parts relief and frustrated resignation he put a leather-clad finger up under his nose, tamping the urge back down.  But just barely.

A big breath shuddered out of him, oversized nostrils giving a single, dissatisfied flex-and-relax

“...I don’t do colds by half-measures.”

Lordy.

Estielle passed her palms up and down the tops of her thighs, really thinking.

“Alright. Well.  We’re losing daylight.  And I suspect your cold is eventually going to outpace the efficacy of that glove.”

He looked on with absolute befuddlement.

“The veracity,” she explained.

Nope, still nothing.  This boy was all cage, no canary.

Estielle stood in place.

“I think it’s only going to work for so much longer.”

“Oh,” he sighed, dismayed.

“But, not to worry.  Let me grab my bag of tricks, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Iwen continued to sit, watching her and itching groggily at his nose as she gathered a patchwork satchel, a patchwork cloak, a slightly slouching alewife hat with a turkey feather in its band.  When she made it to the door she looked back at him, once again in confusion as to why he hadn’t moved.

“Well?”  She gestured out.  “Are we going, or are we going?”

“I uh… don’t have much to pay you with,” he admitted, though he did slowly start to rise.  Little by little he unfolded to his full height, dwarfing the cottage interior.  “Not enchanted birds, or anything else.  She took all my gold, when she left.”

“A hair pin.” She had to repeat it to be sure she understood.  “Like a bobby pin?”

“That what they’re called?”  He pinched the air with a gloved thumb and forefinger, bracketing the shape of something invisible and small.  A few inches from end to end.  “Straight side. Wavy side.”

“Bobby pin,” she agreed.  “Sure.  Got a good dozen on me right now, else my hair would be in worse shape than it already is.”

His eyes were cut glass, shards of a cobalt bottle somebody set on a windowsill to catch the light.  Maybe it was the dark scruff of beard that really set them off, or the stormcloud brows, or the black Stetson he wore low over the windblock of his coat collar.  He was all shadow, but for those eyes.  He didn’t often look straight at her, but when he did, she felt it.

“Part with one?”

Prairie almost echoed him a second time.  Had to stop herself and relisten to the question in her own head to be sure she got it right.  She clicked her tongue and let the reins hang loose on the pommel, feeling over her hair until her cold-numb fingertips encountered the protrusion of a little metal nub.

He stretched a hand out between their horses and she dropped the pin into his glove.  He took it, fiddling with it a moment.

“Don’t need it back?”

“Lord, no.  Got more than I know what to do with, and I end up losing half of them besides.”

He grunted, pleased, and tucked it into his coat pocket.

“Much obliged.”

“You planning on fixing yourself up real pretty?”

He looked at her again.  Wry, but not cold.  Still not companionable, either.  She brushed it off with a shrug as she picked up the reins.

“Thought you might be considering a new style.”

“With one hairpin,” he countered.

“Well, that’s how it starts.  A hairpin here, a braid there. Before you know it, you’re asking me if I’ve got any spare petticoats.”

She had him, that time.  His head turned.

“A what now?”

“Petticoat?”

But they were inscrutable, those eyes.  Blue as sun-struck cobalt and confused as hell.

“You know,” she insisted.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s like a skirt you put on underneath your other skirts, to fill them out.  Keeps you from being indecent, I guess.  Sometimes they’ve got legs built into them.  Sometimes even a bustle.”

“Why the hell’s it called a coat?’

Prairie shrugged, giving a meaningful glance down to where her own legs—clad in denim and riding boots, thankyouverymuch—hung astride the saddle.

“Do I look like I know?  I could’ve learned about shooting and riding horses, or the history of petticoats.  I picked the one I thought was most practical.  As you might have noticed, there’s not much crossover.”

He grunted, passing her legs a look that was either conciliatory or admiring.  He was a hard man to read.

“Lucky for me you showed up for the hairpin lesson, I suppose.”

It was the longest conversation they’d ever had, and she still didn’t know why he needed the pin.

Theirs was the last patrol of the day.  Night came on cold and clear as they ambled back to the guardhouse, the sky glittering with quarter-carat stars.  They dispatched the next patrol on their rounds, stabled and fed and watered their horses in silence, then fed and watered themselves at the guard-house supper table in much the same way.  She sat by the fire to oil her boots while he rolled cigarettes, then went outside, presumably to smoke one.  She barely noticed when he stepped outside, but for the smack of the screen door.  He didn’t notice at all when she stepped out to join him.

The oil lamp was dark, and it took her a moment to even make him out on the old wooden rocker.  A big black inkblot, relieved of his ranchers coat but still with his hat pulled low.

Prairie thought for a second he was lighting a cigarette: head bent forward, one hand at his face, the other cupped around it, as guarding a match flame from the wind.  But there was no wind, and no acrid wisp of rising smoke.  He just sat there, worrying something delicately behind the cover of his hand that wasn’t a match.

She leaned on the porch post and watched, arms sliding into a fold, transfixed by the mysterious, surgical precision, the little furrow of his brows in concentration.

What the hell was he—

But then he grunted deep in his throat, and his hands dropped away.  No match, no cigarette, just the little hairpin still pinched between thumb and forefinger, and a swift, gathering look on his face she knew immediately.

Colt held it for a second, letting the sensation crest, then thundered out a positively biblical sneeze.

“hWRRRSSZCCCH!”

Prairie stood agog, straightening up from the porch post, but he was too preoccupied to see her in his far periphery.  He sighed, orgasmic with satisfaction.  Wiped his nose liberally with the backs of his fingers.  Then stooped forward, elbows-on-knees, and cupped both hands near his face.  Not shielding a match flame, she realized, but disguising the careful, surgical manipulation of her hairpin inside his nose.

It took longer, the second time.  It didn’t want to come.  He stopped and started—once in sniffling, nose-wiping aggravation, then a second time to teeter dramatically, breathily, on the precipice of a sneeze that ultimately refused to come.  But it didn’t discourage him.  He’d done this before, and he knew the frustration was ultimately worth the payoff.

Or such was Prairie’s observation.

Third time was the charm.  He started to catch his breath and gasp noisily when he realized it was coming, one hand slumping to his knee as the other continued trembling the pin, worrying it so far up his nostril that she was tempted to warn him to be careful.  But then he would have lost it again, surely, and neither of them wanted that.

Colt  made a noise like a man on the verge of grief.  Or relief.  Or climax.  And then it hit him.

“heah——HWRRRSSZZZCCHH!”

Not even a shred of restraint was built into that sneeze, just pure, bellowing, tectonic relief.  Relief, and a whole cloud of quarter-carat droplets glittering in the moonlight.

They both sighed at the same time, and that’s when he realized she was there.

Oh, those eyes.  They really were extra blue when they were popped wide.

“Gods above, boy,” Prairie said.  “You needed that.”

“Ssssshhit,” he knuckled and wristed his nose, grimly flustered, then patted himself down for his handkerchief.  He found a black bandana instead, tucking his nose into it as Prairie strode across the porch with slow, clunking steps.

“Gesundheit doesn’t feel like it’ll cover it.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he growled, but there was no heat in the flint and gravel of his voice.

“That’s what you needed the hairpin for, then?”

Colt sighed and stood, looking for a way out, but she had him hemmed in on this side of the porch.  He bought himself a moment’s respite with another rough of his nose with the bandana.

“I did ask if you needed it back.”

“Just curious, is all. Don’t mean to put you in a spot.”  She stood aside, offering a way past her, but in such a way that invited him to linger, as well.  He cut her a look, assessing it like a silent treaty.  Prairie added, “Never saw anybody do that before.”

It was an invitation to either make an escape or explain himself, and although she would have preferred the latter, she was fully braced for the former.  He surprised them both by settling slowly back into his chair, rockers creaking the porch planks, opting for cautious, grudging candor.

“Old habit. Maybe call it a trick I picked up.  Felt a cold coming on this morning, and they like to do it good and slow.  Damn near drives me nuts, in the beginning, feeling like I need to sneeze for hours at a time.  If I bring it on, it goes away again for a stretch.”

Prairie side-stepped to the railing, leaning her weight against it carefully, arms folded.

“You telling me you’re in for another week of this?”

“No,” he dismissed. “Once it digs its heels in, there’ll be no end of sneezing, it’s just when it’s first coming on.”  He sniffed, swiping at his nose with disciplinary annoyance.  “Goddamned nuisance.”

“Well,” she reasoned.  “Least the hairpin worked out alright.  How the /hell/ did you not hurt yourself?”

He thought long and hard before answering, with a cautious sidelong look, “Practice.”

“Hm.”

He removed the pin from his pocket, holding it up thoughtfully to the moonlight.

“Ain’t saying the technique can’t use some finessing, but it’s a damn sight better than some of the other things I’ve tried.”

She wanted to ask—oh, how she wanted to ask—but Prairie suspected she was already stretching her luck very thin.  She shifted uncomfortably on the railing, creaking the old wood beneath her, and he eased her a curious, guarded look. Out with it.

“Listen. If you’re…feeling poorly—”

“I’ll be fine,” Colt headed her off like an unruly steer, stopping her in her tracks.  Not curtly, but not gently either.  “Don’t need to tell you I spent years riding fences with things a hell of a lot worse than a damn head cold.”

“The clap, hm?”  Her head shook disapprovingly.  “Didn’t figure you for the type.  Hope you got that sorted.”

Oh no, he didn’t like that.  Or maybe he liked it too goddamned much.  Collt stood up tall, eyes flint-bright, and fixed to his mouth to hide either a smirk or a snarl.  Probably better to cut out before she found out which.

“Guess I’m turning in, then,” Prairie said, straightening from the porch rail and rapping her knuckles on the post.  “No rest for the wicked.”

“See you at sunup,” he agreed, the ridgeline of his shoulders slowly relaxing.

It was all just such a wonderful spectacle, and she couldn’t help herself.  If ever he complained or seemed truly miserable she doubted she’d like it quite so much.  She didn’t relish him being sick, just… all the qualities that went along with him being sick.  

And he didn’t complain.  Oh, he opined sometimes, or provided calm, thoughtless, almost monologuing commentary that made her hang on every word while simultaneously trying to be so casual, but he went through it all like it was just another minor inconvenience.  A log in the road he could simply sling his leg over and get past.  Which was also calm and thoughtless, considering how goddamned big he was.

So this was fine.  Everything about this was completely normal and fine.

“HIVSCCHH!”

He sneezed with bullish strength, turning his head just enough to aim it for the fire, and the whole thing guttered like a birthday candle.  Planting his nose onto the crook of his arm, he dragged it all the way down his forearm,  elbow to wrist, snuffling loudly the entire way.

Her voice sounded very small in comparison.

“Bless.”

SNRLFF.  “Thanks, luv.”

Oh no.  This wasn’t fine.  Everything about this was abnormal and completely wong in every way.  God fucking help her.

Of course it didn’t start with the sneezing, that was just the unavoidable conclusion.  The wonderful, positively enthralling conclusion.  No, it all went in stages.

He seemed to skip the sore throat stage altogether, which was a bonus, for it would be no fun at all to see him in any pain.  Rather, his colds led in with an itchy nose, somewhere buried deep up in his sinuses, where no amount of rubbing it against his fist, or his shoulder, or pinching his septum between thick fingers and snorting aggressively could get to it.  Not that she didn’t enjoy that, nor the commentary that always went with it.

“Damn nose is itching up a storm,” he’d say.

Or, “Feels like something’s in my nose.  Hope it ain’t allergies.”

Or, her personal favorite, “This keeps up, this tickle’s gonna make me sneeze.”

Like, holy shit.

She wasn’t sure if the itch then subsided, or if it was simply overridden by the eventual problem of developing a runny nose.  Then that went on for awhile.

It started simply enough.  Quick, deep, mindless little sniffs as they walked along, or forged a new path through the woods.  Then they’d come across a felled tree too big for her to clamber over, and he’d reach down and offer her his hand like a man asking for a dance, giving her just enough lift to clear it as his big nostrils snarled up wide and SNRFLF.

There was less monologuing at this point, so sometimes she had to gently, subtly seed it like a garden.

“You alright there, big guy?”

“Yeh.  Just a sniffle.  Little chilly out, innit?”

Or a grunt, coupled with, “Running like a damn faucet today.”

Or, eventually, when he’d had no choice but to whip out his handkerchief and begin filling it with longer and increasingly messy blows, “Giving this thing a workout today.”

That was near the end of all semblance of self-denial, if in fact he was denying it, and not just kinda super dumb sometimes, which was also a possibility.

Eventually she would be seated across the evening fire from him, watching him nurse a cup of coffee as he itched his nose, and sniffled, and the reality of it all slowly dawned on him.  Then, finally, he’d sit back with that bewildered, half-focused, seeing-stars disclarity to his eyes.  No longer rubbing his nose, just letting it squirm, nostrils flaring, like a thing possessed that had no need for his input.

“Everything OK?” she’d ask, knowing everything was not OK.  His nostrils would flare open wide and relax, like a butterfly slowly opening and closing its wings, and he’d blink and struggle, and half-curl a callused finger just underneath.  His upper lip would twitch, briefly revealing the white edge of his teeth.

“...think I… hh… think I’m gonna sneeze…”

She’d start to reach for her handkerchief, but she wouldn't take her eyes off of him.

He never really fought it or tried to stifle it, the finger he sometimes poised under his nose more like a warning flag, or perhaps a comfort reflex, than an actual attempt to arrest the sneeze.  There was no shyness or modesty or attempt to be anything but an absolute beast, as if there was unchecked satisfaction in letting it out like a cannon blast.

“Hh…hheh—”  The breaths small at first, his eyes eventually closing as he tipped his head back, loosely fingering his nose as if towards orgasm, chest heaving for breath, and then—

“HEVVSCCHH-UE!”

Never at her, somehow.  He possessed just enough self-control to always turn his head at the last possible second, directing the sneeze at the flames—or whatever else was unlucky enough to be in the line of fire—with wrenching, knee-jerking, muscle-clenching, obliterating force.

It took him so long to recover that, by the time he reopened his eyes, she was there with her handkerchief, putting it over his nose to mop up his streaming nostrils.  He was still blitzed from having been the vessel for such a sneeze, giving no indication that he minded her attentions.

There were moments in their long relationship when she wished he showed a bit more ambition and motivation, but this wasn’t one of them.  This was when she appreciated how absolutely pliant, and compliant, he could be.

“Goodness.  Bless you!”

“Hhh… s’cuse me, luv.  Felt that one coming for a good minute, didn’t I?”

She stopped herself just shy of agreeing that, yes, she might have noticed that, too.  A final wipe to his nose and she settled alongside him on the log, watching him SNRRFFL and long-arm his nose, elbow-to-wrist, to put himself back to rights.

Sometimes she suggested to him, “I think you’re catching a cold,” and he reluctantly—really thinking about it, now—agreed.  Sometimes, if she let him stew on it long enough, he’d come around to that conclusion on his own.

“I might be coming down with something.”

Then she would agree, and finally the cold would really start to have its way with him, as if the gates were thrown wide.

The first day or two was rampant, unchecked sneezing.  Rampant and unchecked.  He wasn’t usually a chain sneezer, even when his hay fever kicked up, but something about the early days of a cold kept him locking up like an old motor and sneezing three, four, five times in a row, with the same wrenching, knockout strength.

She’d wake early to catch him stumbling out of his tent, stuffed up and sniffling, sniffling, sniffling, like he’d forgotten he could blow his nose.  He staggered to the morning fire for coffee, hesitated as steam from the first sip infiltrated his nose, then put it quickly aside as that curled finger tucked like a security blanket under his nose.

“Huh!  Huh!”  Louder, deeper, further back, until finally it hit.

““HEVVSCCHH-UE!”  And again.

““HEVVSCCHH-UE!”  Again…

“Huh!---HEVVSCCHH-UE!”  And almost once more…

“HUH—!”

Nope. Oh, he wanted it, but there wasn’t quite enough steam in him for a fourth.  He deflated with audible disappointment, giving his nose a big wrinkle-and-relax, as if to coax it the final mile.  No joy.  Probably just as well — that third sneeze had put him right on the precipice of disaster.  So much so that he went fumbling for his handkerchief, emptying both barrels into it with a sluicing nasal SSSCCHHHHLLFFFFF.

When his eyes reopened, he was surprised to find her so near.

“Sorry, luv,” he muffled, peeling it away from his face.  “You know once I feel ‘em coming, there’s no stopping them.”

“Wouldn’t even want you to try,” she dismissed, and offered out another handkerchief.  Funny how she always had an ample supply… almost as if she stockpiled them for such occasions.  “That cold’s settled in nice and good, hasn’t it.”

“Hmn,” he grunted, rueful, and jammed the first handkerchief into a pocket so he could accept the fresh one.  “That’s the truth.  Set up in my nose like it owns the place.”  SNRFF.  “Don’t worry. I won’t let it slow us down.”

“Actually,” she said, planting a hand flat at his chest, stopping him in place.  He blinked down at her, surprised.  “I don’t think it’s wise to risk getting back on the road.  The weather will be against us, and I don’t want you getting any worse.  We’ve got a good spot here — private, level ground, nice buffer from the wind, and a creek close by.  We’ve got supplies enough to last us until you’re feeling better.  It’s a better idea to stay put.”

As if they didn’t have this conversation every single time he was sick, he blinked off into the distance like a man stunned by her acumen.  After in-depth consideration he scratched his fingers over the rough bristle of his jaw and grunted again in agreement.

“Pretty smart, that.  Can’t say as I was looking forward to packing up all our gear anyway.”

“That settles it, then.”  She was so good at this. She had it down to a science.  “Now.  Let’s get some breakfast in you.”

Even sick, he wasn’t the sort to lay about unless he really had no option. There was still wood to be gathered and cut for the fire, fish to be caught, water to be fetched from the creek, and maintenance of the equipment they depended on in their travels.  She kept busy as well, but stuck conspicuously near to him, attuned to the frequent, incriminating, “--Hh!” from wherever he’d gotten to.

Sometimes it was followed by the most desperate, needy, hitching breaths, and sometimes he sneezed immediately.  Almost every time, there was some level of adjacent calamity.

When he went to fill the kettle for tea, a trio of sudden, punctuating, thunderous sneezes sent an entire flock of birds into chaotic flight.

The urge hit him again as he raked a whetstone down his broadsword’s blade, four sneezes in a row without even a single pause for breath.  He’d blown his nose afterwards like he’d finally unclogged a stubborn drain.

Another trio hit him while he carried an armful of kindling nearer from the edge of the clearing, readying the first sneeze as he went, not even breaking his stride.  She got a remarkable view of him as she sat fletching arrows: his head back, nostrils flared, mouth grimaced open.

“Huh—!  HUH—!”  He finally stopped in his tracks, agonized, and sneezed with what looked like his whole body.

 “HEVV’ISCCHH-UE!”  One knee jerked to his chest as he wrenched forward over the armful of wood, sneezing out two thick slugs of mucus.  He let the entire load clatter to the ground, whisking his curled finger under his nose.

“Huh—-HEVV’ISCCHH-UE!”

The force of it evacuated more congestion, thick ropes across the backs of his knuckles, and he still wasn’t done.  She readied another handkerchief as his head went back again, as if she’d been waiting for this.

“Huh—HUH!--”  A big grimace, the butterfly flare of nostrils, and he sneezed out the balance of the afternoon’s snuffled-back mucus.  “HEVV’ISCCHH-UE-AH!”

It echoed up through the encircling trees, chased by more distant bird-squawks.  He just stood there for a dizzy second, blinking himself back into focus and savoring a moment of post-sneeze relief.  She got up quickly, hastening to him with the handkerchief.

“Bless you!”  She capped his nose with it, mopping his nostrils of the evidence of the last sneeze.  He stood patiently, ox-like and calm, more grateful than bothered.  When she was done she handed over the handkerchief so he could clean his hands, as well.

“Beggin’ pardon.  Tried to hold those off, but no such luck.”  He made another elbow-to-wrist pass with his forearm, his nose distorted by the pressure applied.  “Felt awful good coming out, though.”

“I think they needed out,” she agreed, deciding she could listen to him talk about such things for hours.

That was the last of the chain-sneezing, to his evident relief, though it continued in a more leisurely one-and-done fashion for a time.  The build-ups also became more protracted, which led him to be more careless and leisurely when it came to keeping track of his handkerchief availability. He’d add a spent one to the laundering bag and forget to pick up a replacement, or use it for a single, careless wipe to his nose, set it down somewhere, and then immediately forget about it until he suddenly, desperately, urgently, really needed it.

This was an entirely new spectator sport.  He’d be crouched down, stoking the fire in preparation for supper, and the first itchy, flinching, “Huh…” would hit him out of nowhere, sparking alarm.  She read the terrible revelation in his face as he dropped the poker and stood, finger tucked under his nose, sniveling and snagging urgent breaths, fumbling his way across the campsite from tent, to rucksack, to makeshift kitchen, to woodpile — where did I leave it? — his hitching progressing to a desperate, audible, “gh’iggh… hieh… h-heh—”

Sometimes he got to it in time, buckling into the folds of the handkerchief with a finish-line, “HEVVFWSSCCHH!”

Sometimes he had to give up, big hands clamshelling around nose and mouth as his head tipped back, his nostrils butterflied, and he sneezed messily into the cup of his palms.

After a few days steady of this abuse, his nose always showed wear.  He didn’t treat it tenderly, although it it certainly looked that way.  Most nights ended with him utterly spent, hunkered down on a log by the fire, sinuses slowly landsliding congestion until it leaked to the edges of his nostrils.  Then he snuffled it all back inside noisily, or blew it all out into a waiting hanky, or she took pity on him and perched alongside, wiping it for him while he blinked at her in muzzy thanks.

Then the sneezing stopped, almost abruptly.

It should have heralded some relief, but without regular TNT explosions to clear out his nose, he grew stuffy and groggy. It also accompanied the onset of fever.  Never so high that she worried about them being miles from another living soul, but enough that he gave up trying to carry on with his regular chores, and spent more time by the fire, quiet and a little glassy-eyed, as if he didn’t quite understand where all his energy went.

She was not overly cuddly with him, as a general rule—not for any other reason than that she assumed he preferred a professional distance between them—but they both cast that to the wind when he was that sick.  She sat alongside him at the fire, hip-to-hip, rubbing his back, and watching his bold profile almost obsessively as he tiredly whittled or sipped a coffee.  Now and again he got the faint, promising hint of a coming sneeze, and almost looked hopeful about the prospect, but no matter how he rolled his eyes up at the moon, or gave his nose that soft, repetitive, stroking stimulation with thumb and forefinger, it always died without progressing.  His disappointed sighs were heartbreaking.

Eventually it was more than even she could take.  Then it was time to progress to the inevitable final stage, much as she wished he could happily linger in some earlier phase of his colds forever.

She reached up—and it was a stretch—to lay a hand across his brow.  He regarded her sleepily, as if unfamiliar with the gesture, though he softened at the worried look on her face.

“I think you’re running a temperature,” she said.

Utter novelty.  But didn’t she just make the most sense, sometimes?

“Hmn.  Maybe so.  Certainly feels like something ain’t quite right.”

“I think you ought to head to bed, big guy.  Try to sleep this off.  Why don’t I tamp down the fire so you can get some rest?”

Rest being the operative suggestion.  He sat up taller and tried to sniffle, but was too stuffed up to make any headway.

“Guess that’s a good idea…”

He stood, pocketing his knife, and poured out the dregs of his coffee.  He got a few heavy steps away from the fire before the neurons finally sparked and fired in his brain, and he remembered something from the last half-dozen times they’d been through this.  One hand sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as he snuck her a look.

“Say, uh.  Don’t suppose you have that… feather, still.  The one from your fletching kit?”  His head turned a little further, for the first time looking sheepish.

But of course she still fucking had it.  Or one exactly like it, selected with a curator’s discerning eye.  She kept it lovingly enshrined in a special box tucked into her rucksack, preserved for just such special occasions.  Er… emergencies.

“I think I do,” she agreed.  “Do you think that would help?”

His relief was described by the relaxed slump of his wide shoulders.

“Only if you don’t mind, luv.”  He tried again to sniffle, more aggressively this time, so that she might hear and understand his woe.  “M’awful stuffed up.”

“Go get comfortable,” she encouraged, standing.  “I’ll get things sorted for the night, and be right over.”

He shuffled off, already feeling much better, and she hurried through the usual evening tasks: safely tamping the fire for the evening, pulleying their provisions into a high tree branch, changing into something more appropriate for sleep, and equipping herself with the feather and a few tinctures.  And as many handkerchiefs as she still had left.

The interior of his tent was dim but not entirely dark by the time she joined him, the low light of the fire through the waxed duck walls just enough to make out the supine sprawl of him in his bedroll: one arm casually at rest on his bare stomach, the other thrown back across his brow.  His eyes were soft, comfortably anticipatory of relief.

“See you got the feather.  Did you bring, uh…”

“This?”  She showed him one of the little vials nestled in her palm as she kneel-walked alongside him, into the gap he made for her.  He heaved out a sigh of relief.

“That’s the good stuff.”

She uncorked it and inverted it, loading the pad of her thumb with a softly camphor-smelling oil.  She swiped it slowly and deliberately across his upper lip, just beneath his nostrils, and he inhaled deeply.  Or tried to, anyway.  It took a few seconds, and a few really hard sniffs, before they became anything approaching deep.  Again he sighed, squirming his nose enough to suggest the scent was working in other ways, as well.

“That’s better already,” he mumbled.

“Still want this?” she offered, twirling the feather in her fingertips.  He breathed out once, hard, borderline eager.

“Yes, please.”

One hand starfished open at the center of his chest.  She spent a second or two irritating his nose with the cat-tail switch of the feather to the outside of his nostrils, just until he started to snort and squirm it around.  He reached up to itch it and she pushed his hand back down with an admonishing tsk.

“Let me work.”

“Tickles, is all, ” he explained.

“That’s good to know.”

Then the feather went directly into his nose, favoring the right side, with the kind of care and precision that suggested she’d already mentally mapped out the interior anatomy of his nose.  The tip stopped just shy of his sinus, just shy of too immediate a reflex reaction.  She turned it slowly in place, enough to send him into a fugue state of disconnected, sneezy desire.

His eyes hooded but for thin slivers, pupils fixed inward slightly, as if he’d gone to some place in his own head.  His nose tried to escape the irritation, squirming left, squirming right, wrinkling, stretching, but she adjusted the feather to keep him firmly fixed in that persistent, irritated state.

His hands lifted, fingers curled as with want to cover his nose, and his chest ballooned under her palm as he inhaled, noisy.

She backed the feather out again, refusing him relief, and after a few seconds he let all the air out again, disappointed.

“Ugh… nearly had it…”, he muttered.  Instinctively he reached again to rub his nose, and again she redirected his hand back down to his side.  He grunted.

“Sorry.  Just want to give it a good itch.”

“I know.  Not yet.”

The feather slipped back into his nose, this time on the left, and a tiny electric jolt twitched his body.  His face snarled up with a fearsome grimace, hands lifting, fingers poised like tremulous claws as he let out a helpless, declarative, “--Huh!”

Too much too soon?  No, she didn’t want to keep him hanging forever.  She trembled the feather like the world’s tiniest earthquake, the tip just barely teasing the edge of his sinus.

“--HEVVFSCCHH-UE!”

He curled in on himself as he sneezed violently, the entire bedroll lifting as his knees jerked towards his forehead.  He collapsed back just as abruptly, the feather still poking from his nose, though her hand was no longer holding it.  She plucked it out quickly, smoothing the wet barbs in her fingertips, then reached for a handkerchief.

“Bless you!”

“Hhhhhh, thanks, luv…”  He lay limply, watching her as she wiped his nose, though there was hardly anything to clean away.  She closed her cloaked hand around his nose, as if it was being hugged by a sheeted ghost.

“Deep breath…”

His chest bellowsed deeply, the small of his back arched from the tent floor.

“Good.  Blow.”

His features gathered into a strenuous scrunch as he blew, the resulting SCCHHHHLLLFFFF of congestion turning the fabric piping hot in her palm.  She cleaned it away neatly, tucking it into his laundry bag, then reached again for her little vial.

“Grand finale, then?” she offered.  He was breathing easier now, so relieved as to seem half-drunk, but relaxed back onto his pillow and nodded in satisfaction.

“Gonna be ugly,” he advised.  “M’real stuffed up…”

With her thumb she applied another little stripe of oil under his nose, the whiff of camphor and peppermint making his nostrils open up wide with relief as he inhaled.  She gave him a few seconds to breathe it in, waiting until his nose squirmed with the irritating tickle of congestion inside, then reached for her feather.

Back to the right side.  The feather slid in neatly, directly, back to that spot just shy of his sinus.  His body tensed up in anticipation, eyes hooding nearly shut as he slipped back into that disconnected fugue state.

“Huh,” he grunted.

“Good.”  She turned the feather slowly, velvet-soft barbs caressing his nasal passage like the turn of a waterwheel.

“Huh.”  He reached for his nose with both hands, remembered her admonition, then clenched the fabric of his bedroll in both hands to keep them still.  His hips squirmed with want for something to happen. “...HUH…”

Another slow turn.  His upper lip kept snarling and relaxing, revealing little white glimpses of teeth, the rise and fall of his chest under her free hand so deep and intense as to feel almost anguished.  A tear escaped the corner of one eye, following the creases of his skin.

“Sn…” he tried to get out a warning.  “HUH…need t… to sn…”

“Don’t fight it,” she reminded him.  “

But he wasn’t, at least not consciously.  She tsk’ed again, more tenderly this time, and pushed the feather’s tip just a hair more, until the finest barbs teased the deepest niche of his nose.

“Tickle, tickle….”

That’s all it took.

“--HEVV’ISCCHH-UE-AH!”

The feather went flying, and she snatched her hand back to avoid the fistclench curl of his body, knees kicking up with force as he sneezed out two thick landslides of mucus.  He leaned back with a shuddering inhale, already open-mouthed, and—

“HEVVSCCHH-UE!”

His hands flew to cup his nose, catching the mess as it erupted.  His brows gathered helplessly, breath shuddering in, and his head went back in preparation for one more.

“HUH—”  He barked it weakly, nostrils quivering so wildly that he felt them fluttering against his fingers.  When he finally sneezed, the eruption from both nostrils was a floodgate release from somewhere deep in his nose.

“HEVV’ISZCCHH-UE!”

She had a handkerchief ready for him as he collapsed back onto the pillow, both hands still clamped tight around nose and mouth, vision prickling with black-and-white static.

“Don’t sniffle!” she warned him, peeling his hands away finger by finger, scooping the handkerchief under and up, until she held his nose in the cradle of cotton.  He went tired and limp, letting her mop at his nose, his upper lip, taking her time.  Afterwards she cleaned both of their hands with a fragrant witch-hazel tincture.

When he reopened his eyes she was done, the insides of his nose stinging like a freshly-scratched mosquito bite.

She leaned down into his line of sight so he wouldn’t need to lift his head. A finger stroked under his chin.

“God bless you.”

One side of his mouth curled up crookedly, a logy smile of gratitude.

“Thanks, luv.  Can’t tell you how much better that feels.”

“Ohhhhh, I might have an idea.”

She gathered the edge of his blanket, drawing it up over his chest, and allowed herself a brief, indulgent, affectionate ruffle of his hair.

“I think that took everything out of you. Mm… literally.  I’ll let you get some sleep.”

She turned to go, surprised when his hand cinched around her wrist, anchoring her in place.  She looked back, but he towed her nearer to him, so abruptly that she lost her balance and half-sprawled on his chest.  She was about to apologize when he gently cupped her jaw in his big palm, the skin still smelling softly of witch hazel.

“You don’t always have to go, do you, luv?”

She stared at him with saucered eyes, heart thudding in a way it hadn’t before.  He could almost certainly feel it through his chest.

“I… what?”

“This is the part where you tell me to get some sleep, and then you crawl off to bed.  First I get sick, then you look after me, then you do the thing with the feather, and then you leave.  On account of you liking the first three parts so much, I guess I don’t understand why you don’t just stick around?”

“Who…”  She swallowed.  “Who says I like the first three parts so much?”  Her voice withered and cracked at the end.

“I’m not the brightest,” he reminded her.  “But I ain’t blind.”

He sniffled, taking back both hands, and used one to lift the side of his blanket.

“Still got that temperature.  Just saying.  We might both feel better, if you stayed.”

She almost pinched herself.

“Well… maybe… just until you’re feeling better?”

He held the blanket higher.

She set her things aside, crawling carefully beneath, and he swallowed her up in the yoke of one muscled arm. His bare skin smelled good, familiar.  He radiated animal heat.  Her hand skated over his bare ribs to the summit of his chest, and felt the nice skip of his heart beneath.  He sniffled, itch-itching his nose with the curl of a forefinger.

“I do hope you feel better soon,” she said, feeling a little twinge of guilt.