“You are sacred,” he offered lamely, looking at her in the hopes that perhaps, without any additional words needed, she could glean his position.
But she merely frowned, glancing toward the lantern settled close beside them. Still strong, its flame glowing brighter as the day turned to night. “The flame is sacred,” she intoned, her voice dry, as if giving a recitation memorised long ago.
“And you are its keeper,” he explained, already knowing she would dislike his reticence. She wanted ease between them, wanted to be his friend, not treated as the treasure that she was. It had been simple when he was teaching her of survival, of the little details that had been clearly overlooked by the sages, but this was going too far.
Penryn sighed, shaking her head. “And that means I must not touch you?”
Grimult swallowed, his hand coming to a fist before he counted to five and released it again slowly. A build of tension, a thoughtful release, and the rest of his body would follow.
“It means that I must not use you.”
Penryn opened her mouth before closing it again with an audible click of her teeth, and she said nothing for a time. He dared not move, and she made no attempt to do so either, so they stood, him looking at her, Penryn’s attention stationed on the small span of earth between them.
“It is hardly using a person when they offer help freely,” she said at last, her words far softer than he expected. He could see the effort there to keep her irritation at bay, yet he was still sorry it was there at all. “You have not been doing any wrong here, Grimult. I hope you know that.”
He gave a shrug. He was certain the instructors would disagree. That the sages would be horrified.
Penryn stood a little taller. “Would it help you if I made it a command?”
He blinked once, slowly. “A command?”
“That is the way you were taught, yes? If I am sacred?” There was no mistaking her derisive tone, but she pressed on before he could amend his statement. “That, to a point, I am to be obeyed?” He was even sorrier that this topic had returned, as it was meant to be settled between them. The natural order set aside and something new forged in its place.
Yet he had made her return to it, sad though she seemed to do it. “If I am the Lightkeep and you are my Guardian, then I do not want you in pain. And if there is means for help to be given to you, even by my hand, then I wish it to be done.”
Protests died at his lips. She should do as she pleased, within reason. She was not asking to disappear into the wood on her own. She was not demanding that he return prematurely to the clans.
Only that he hand over the pot of salve so she might soothe any abraded skin and tend to feathers crumpled by an errant strap and buckle.
He hung his head. She sought to absolve him of guilt by exerting authority over him, to make the decision solely her own. It should not have been necessary.
He handed the pouch over to her and stood awkwardly beside his bedroll, waiting for her to begin her ministrations.
She took it with what might have been a sigh or perhaps a huff of irritation, and he did not want that.
“I have been foolish,” he declared, knowing it to be true. As she said, this was hardly a seduction. He would have to prove a careful guard over his own thoughts and mind, but he could not spurn the knowledge that times would come when touches would need to be exchanged. It did not make him a degenerate, and it made her no less to have been tended by him.
“Yes, you have,” Penryn agreed, coming to stand behind him. It should have been a familiar thing to have another positioned there, for the subtle awareness on his skin and feathers, anticipating a touch to soon come.
But the air felt different when it was her. There was a clenching in his gut that was unknown and not entirely comfortable, and he shifted slightly, hoping she would work quickly so he could master whatever ailed him.
He looked over his shoulder and saw her take out one of the wooden tools, the amount of salve she decided on more than he would have liked to have used, but he said nothing. He had caused enough problems without scolding her for being overly generous with him.
Perhaps it looked worse than it felt.
Belatedly he realised that she had poor access to the sight at all as he felt fingers fumbling at the buttons at his shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to reach. His fingers made quick work of it, releasing the placket that allowed his wings to pass through. It was the left that was troublesome and evidently his feathers were in such disarray that she knew it to be so without being told.
He had experienced enough embarrassment for one day, so he told himself it was all right. They would be fixed soon, and it was simple vanity that made him want to hide from her, and there was no place for that here.
She had been correct, the salve far colder on such a delicate area than it had been to his fingertips. He managed it well enough, her fingers delicate and careful, though they grew more confident the longer she took to see that every reddened area received attention.
He could feel a cautious digit move upward to the joint of the wing itself. Salve would not help there, only the tedious repositioning of feathers crushed against a pack that had been too hastily donned.
“I... I do not know what to do for the rest,” she murmured apologetically, and Grimult felt entirely stupid.
Of course she wouldn’t. No sage would ask her to preen, and she was lacking
