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“You can’t seriously mean to keep me in bed all day, Koana,” Wuk Lamat says, her voice plaintive and her eyes wide. A dirty trick, perhaps, but one that has always proven effective when it comes to softening her elder brother.
“After the state you returned home in?” Koana gives her a stern look from beneath his glasses. “I can and I will.”
“You are worse than the healers,” she groans in dismay, flopping back against the pillows. “Really! I appreciate your concern for me, but they did an excellent job. My wounds barely hurt at all!”
“…Which is to say that you still hurt, no?”
“…No?” Wuk Lamat tries.
Koana shakes his head with a sigh, and in that moment he looks so pitiful where he sits at the side of her bed that Wuk Lamat cannot resist reaching out and taking his hand in her own — wounds be damned. He frowns, but he doesn’t pull away. His fingers slowly trace the bandages wrapping across her palm.
“Please, Lamaty’i,” Koana insists. “You need to rest.”
“I’ve been resting. Being stuck in bed, doing nothing… it’s enough to drive me mad!”
“The healers —”
“— Have cleared me to stand, if nothing more exciting,” Wuk Lamat cuts him off. “Listen… Koana, I know you must’ve been worried about me. But I promise you, I am fine. I won’t be leaving you to rule Tuliyollal on your own anytime soon.”
He colors slightly, and then looks away with a frown. “I know that, of course.”
“Of course,” she agrees, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. Then she throws him a toothy grin, her eyes already sparkling in a way that does not bode well for him.“And you also know I am not the type to lay around for days on end! So… if you were hoping to keep me safely in my bed, I might need to be persuaded. Perhaps if you were to stay a while longer and keep me company…?”