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“Damnit.” Frey hissed carefully as she clutched at her bruised ribs. Pain and exhaustion weighed her down like a leaden cloak, even as the remaining one of her dual blades drooped in her limp grip. Before her in a shimmering display of ephemeral traces flitting back to the forest of beginnings, the carnivorous gaze of the shadow panther flickered and was gone, as if it meant to memorize her likeness to hunt her down upon its eventual reincarnation.
She sheathed the blade and limped to where the other had fallen, wincing and gasping with pain as she bent to pick it up and replace it in its own sheath. Then, nothing so inviting as the earth beneath her feet suddenly, Frey sat down and leaned her back gingerly against a boulder jutting out of the ground. That had been the fight of her life and she felt it. Her soft panting was all that stirred the quiet stillness of the night, everything around her frosted with silvery moonlight.
What would he say if he could see her now? She wondered glumly, her eyes stinging at the thought of the person she wanted most but couldn’t have.
Probably something like ‘Jeeze, Frey… what’s a guy gotta do to keep you from working so hard, huh?’ she smiled in spite of herself as she imagined the line in his deep voice. He’d shake his head and frown at her, concern visible in the lines of his face.
“Tch.” She snipped spitefully out of reflex as a recurring thought crawled across her mind. Just why should the lines around his mouth and eyes mean she couldn’t be with him, anyway? Who were they to say she couldn’t want him, just because he was a few years older than they liked to see with a woman her age? She spat on the ground and regretted it instantly as the intercostal muscles of her ribs spasmed painfully.
Frey sighed slowly and carefully as she finally succeeded in compartmentalizing the pain and began to relax again. No use dwelling on that now, anyway. There wasn’t anything she could do about it for the moment.
Right now she had to get home. She steadied her breathing and sat upright as she began to string together the return spell in her mind. Gods she was so tired. ‘Focus, Frey…’ She chastised herself in her mind. ‘Picture home…’ Her brow furrowed as she formed a mental image of her room at the castle. Her fingers and toes tingled as she worked the spell, wrapping it around herself so the magic could bring her back to her home and her bed where she could rest…
Divine dragons, it was getting cold! Yeah it was after sunset but this felt like after-midnight chill. Could it be after midnight? Suddenly Frey couldn’t remember how much time had passed since she had come out this way. The darkness on the road to obsidian mansion was absolute, save for the thin starlight and moonlight winking down on her from between the tree branches above. She thought of the cold, drafty rooms of the castle with their high vaulted stone ceilings and shivered. Her posture slipped into an exhausted curve. Gods and dragons it would be so nice if she didn’t have to go back to her cold room and her empty bed alone… Her throat tightened and her eyes burned. If someone could just wrap his big arms around her and murmur something in her ear, his beard brushing against her cheek…
Everything hurt between the numbness of the cold. Her head drooped and she slipped into the uncertain territory between dreaming and waking, sure she was still preparing the spell as she should.
“Return…” She murmured in a whispered sigh, thinking she had barked the spell out loud like a command into the pitch dark night. The magic wrapped around her and she was gone in a flash of greenish-white light.
“OOF!”
A deep-voiced exhalation of sleepy surprise sounded in the cluttered living quarters of Selphia’s dwarven blacksmith. Something had just landed on top of him. Had he piled the odds and ends he hadn’t managed to fit in the store too high again? Maybe a pile of boxes had toppled over onto him…
“Hrmmm…” A soft feminine voice whined quietly in the dark, ending on a fairly pathetic sigh. The something on top of him shifted and he suddenly recognized the sensation of a person’s weight sprawled atop him. Bado’s eyes snapped open in the dark and he looked down and swallowed a yelp of surprise.
There wasn’t more than a wan shaft of moonlight falling in through the drapes of his window to illuminate the space but he had good enough night vision to recognize Selphia’s acting princess by her long hair pinned up in butterfly bows.
‘What the flying hell??’ his inner voice barked incredulously. He lay there frozen for a long moment, blinking stupidly as his sleep-addled brain tried to catch up to current events.
“Frey?” He whispered hoarsely, still unable to accept this strange reality just yet. She stirred and whimpered, rousing just enough to shiver as she spoke in a small, sad voice.
“Everything h-hurts… ‘m so t-tired…” Bado’s heart twisted painfully in his chest. You just couldn’t fake that kind of misery. He had no idea what kind of trouble she’d run into or why it’d landed her here of all places, but his conscience tugged at him to help, somehow. Well… his conscience and another set of feelings, too…
Damnit, why was this happening? How could this tiny young woman possibly be intruding in his bed on top of how she was always appearing in his dreams? Bado’s head flopped back onto the pillow and he groaned very quietly in a frustrated combination of emotions. He couldn’t let her stay here like this.
Even as his thoughts began to race she shivered violently again and his hand automatically rose to the small of her back to steady her.
Gods, she was cold. His brows knitted together with concern and he shifted carefully until he was sitting half-upright leaning on his headboard. With his big hands he tilted her head so he could see her face and winced. Between the scratches, bruises and smudged dirt there were shimmering tear tracks down her cheeks. Her eyelids slowly opened the tiniest bit, and he could see a sliver of her completely dilated eyes beneath them. They closed once more and tension left her as she went limp again in his hands.
He sighed, fretfully, looking around as if hoping to find some kind of help… as if he were not sleeping alone in his home when this battered little princess suddenly appeared in his lap. Resigning himself, he swallowed and pressed his lips together as he concentrated on gingerly trying to roll her over so at least she’d be next to him rather than on top of him. As her upper body twisted she suddenly tensed with a sharp hissing intake of breath and cried out in pain. He froze, alarm shooting up his spine at the sound. She clutched at her ribs with her slender fingers and shuddered.
“Owwww… hurrtsssss” She murmured. He recognized the signs of injured ribs and set his jaw as he remembered the sensation of having broken his own ribs long ago in sudden sympathy with her pain.
“Frey…” He whispered. “What happened to you?” She didn’t answer, still drifting in semi-conscious delirium. He sighed again, staring unhappily down at his unexpected guest. Well… they might crucify him for it… but what on earth could he do? Gradually he moved his other hand, stroking her hair with a gentle caress as he swallowed around his dry mouth.
“Ba…do…” She sighed. Dragons! Did she know where she was, after all? Did she come here on purpose? Obviously he’d get no answers to such a question any time soon, but a part of him leapt excitedly at the thought that this particular young woman had wished to come to him in a moment of vulnerability and need. He pushed away the thought, trying not to move too much for fear of causing her pain. “Hold me…” she murmured, a little more coherently. His ears twitched in surprise. “Please…” her little voice exhaled, full of pleading, exhausted desperation, “Please… Bado…”
Gods, there was no help for it now… He’d just have to do his best and hope Forte didn’t skewer him for it tomorrow.
“Hey, hey…” He breathed gently, stroking her slow and soft over her disheveled, dirty field gear. “I gotcha, Frey. Don’t worry.” Bit by bit, he removed the light armor she wore over her clothing, knowing it would not help her rest easy, especially if she’d taken bruises or other damage to her ribs tonight. He dropped each piece carefully into a pile on the ground, even managing to untie and pull off her shoes thanks to her small stature and his long reach.
He rummaged in the bedside table drawer with his right arm as he held her to him with his left, pulling out a squat jar with a screw-top lid. The blacksmith had been no stranger to injury during his time in the Noradian Knighthood. The balm he’d learned to make back then was something he’d always been sure to have on hand, whether to help soothe and repair his calloused hands from using his hammer at the forge, or helping care for Forte whenever she got hurt in the course of her duties as Selphia’s dragon knight.
He swallowed again, mouth shut tightly as he carefully removed her torn and sweat-soaked shirt and thought very determinedly about a new scheme for making money on the next town festival, instead of how lovely her skin looked in the dim moonlight…
‘Nononononooooo…’ he chastised himself, eyes shut as he gently applied the balm to her ribs and back, rubbing it in until he could feel the chill in her skin begin to warm and feel her strained muscles relax. Just as he began to breathe again she stirred and his hand brushed against the soft contour of her breast.
‘Fuck—‘ He bit his lip, holding in a gasp or a groan or any sound at all. He couldn’t trust his voice just now, at any rate.
Thanking himself for being lazy and careless about housekeeping, he plucked a clean black undershirt from the corner post of his bedframe, a common place to store clean laundry in his home, and carefully coaxed the semi-conscious princess into the garment. She wasn’t shuddering or tensing with pain anymore, even when he moved her, but the goosebumps on her arms and legs and the slight trembling she was doing told him she was still cold.
Normally he slept without a blanket over himself except in winter since he ran hot in a very literal sense, but he kept a patched old quilt crumpled at the foot of the bed so he could conveniently toss it over the rumpled bedding in the morning in lieu of actually making the bed with any kind of care. Now, it came in handy as he cuddled her close and pulled the sheet and blanket over them both, still smoothing his hand over her back in a slow, steady rhythm.
She made another small sound, more contented than before and wriggled closer, pressing as much of herself against his warmth as she could and curling her fingers into a grip on his shirt as she nuzzled her face against his chest.
“Thank you…” She whispered into him as he pressed his mouth to her hair and savored the feeling of being wanted, needed by her. Sure, there’d probably be hell to pay in the morning but in this moment she was here with him, and for right now at least, where she wanted to be.
“Of course, Frey…” He exhaled into her hair, and squeezed her gently. He had no idea how long he kept himself barely awake, savoring the strange, serendipitous moment while it lasted, but eventually the big man dozed off, his arms still wrapped gently around the little woman curled against him in his bed.
“Wha?!” A shrill exclamation of shock startled Bado awake and blinking dazedly into a pair of big, green eyes mere inches from his own gray-blue ones. Frey’s face turned a drastic shade of pink as she blushed furiously and scrambled backward.
“Wait, hold o—“ Bado tried to warn her, reaching out with his right hand to catch at her but it was too late, she’d flailed her way over the other side and tumbled into the narrow space between the wall and his bed. He sighed, rubbed at his eyes briefly and crawled over to the edge of the bed, looking down into the nook where she’d fallen with a wince.
“Owwww…” She groaned.
“You okay, little lady?” He offered sheepishly, reaching a hand down to pull her up and out of the crevice. “Sorry if I startled you.”
Once she was back up on the beds’ surface he looked her over and was pleased to see she didn’t seem pained or miserable anymore.
“I-I’m really, really, really sorry, Bado…” She stammered, looking down at her knees rather than making eye contact as she blushed even redder. “I was k-kinda out of it and I-I guess I sorta wound up here.” He chuckled.
“You’re tellin’ me.” He said with a warm smile, resigned to whatever fate he’d signed up for by accepting his late-night visitor already, and therefore calm in the face of it all. He gently tugged under her chin to coax her into looking at him. “After the initial shock of you droppin’ in on me like that, though, I didn’t mind. So, don’t worry about it, Frey.” She stared at him, wide-eyed and red faced.
“Y-you’re… not… I dunno, mad?” She squeaked, flinching as if she expected him to bark at her. A warm rush went through him suddenly. Far from being angry or indignant, she’d worried what he thought of her turning up in his bedroom in the dead of night. Didn’t that mean she did want to be here after all, only she’d been too afraid to admit it? He’d insisted so forcefully to himself that she could not possibly have wanted him up until now, the sudden reversal of his conviction left him a little giddy and light-headed. He grinned at her, lines creasing around the corners of his mouth and into his beard, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes joining in the smile.
“Far from it. You can bet I wasn’t expecting this visit but I ain’t disappointed, Frey.” He leaned forward on a sudden inspiration and kissed the top of her head, daring to show his affection at least this much now that they’d ended up waking together. She blinked at him with a dazed but happy expression, unable to believe it, herself. He chuckled at her look and reached over to brush her bangs to the side, the better to see those big, emerald eyes.
She glanced down and her eyes grew wide, her fingers plucking at the black cotton of the undershirt she was wearing… his shirt. Her gaze snapped up to his in half-horrified shock and all at once it was his turn to flush beet-red.
“Whoa, hey now. Don’t worry. Nothing happened.” He hurried to calm her, gesturing disarmingly with his palms toward her. “You turned up in this mess—” He reached down and plucked up a piece of her dirty field gear from beside the bed, “—and I tried to make you comfortable, since you were, well, begging me and all…” He swallowed nervously and waited for her reaction. She blinked rapidly and looked down again at the shirt, up at him, and over at the window. Then, with a look of realization, she clutched at her ribs experimentally.
“They don’t hurt nearly as much, anymore…” She mumbled in amazement. He grabbed the jar of balm and showed it to her by way of explanation.
“It’s good stuff, ain’t it?” He ventured in a careful voice, implying the part he didn’t quite want to say aloud, that he had applied it to her unrobed skin himself. Her eyes darted back and forth as she put two and two together and flushed crimson once more. He fidgeted and looked away, clearing his throat slightly.
“I, um…” She squeaked after a few awkward moments. “Th-thank you, Bado… I am sorry.” He looked back up into her eyes.
“Don’t be.” He said, offering a small smile he hoped would be reassuring.
“You’re really okay with me being here… l-like this?” she asked in a shaking voice, gesturing to herself. He swallowed and tried not to think about the way the oversized shirt was hanging on her curvy, feminine frame.
“If you’re okay with it, then… yeah.” He said earnestly, shrugging with another ‘what can I say?’ smile. She looked at him a long moment, then returned the smile, the nervous curve of her brow not wholly gone.
“Well, this isn’t how I imagined it at all, but… um… I’m not disappointed either.” She finished laughing nervously and fidgeting with her hair with her slender fingers. Gods she was so cute. He beamed at her. “And, um… if you don’t mind… I think I’d like a little more cuddling… now that I’m conscious and all.” Bado laughed aloud, seized her in his arms and rolled onto his back with the little woman once more sprawled atop him.
“Sure thing.” He hummed happily as she grinned back at him. Whatever might happen from here, he’d worry about that later. Right now, all that mattered was Frey.