On the sixth night, in the most brutal of his fevered dreams, Romulus heard his mother.
"Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey.
A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay."
Perhaps it was a memory, that of a child of not yet two years, a time so early in his life that all he remembered were images, washed over like a soggy painting, once clear but now distorted, elongated in the colors, and all the while still beautiful. The other senses pitched in as well. There was the smell, salt of the sea and the sweat on the brow and across the body of the woman that held him. There was the sound, that of the crashing waves, beating against a wooden hull, the terrible, terrifying crack of lightning somewhere overhead, leaves flashes of light that blinded his young eyes. His owns screams echoed in his skull, the pitiful mewling of a helpless child.
"See how the rain has washed away
The tears that you were crying?
Though the darkness calls me down
You know we all are dying."
She sang to him, and her voice cut through the chaos with ease. He buried his head against the base of her neck, clutching her with his little hands. When he focused hard enough, he could hear only that voice, that sweet, soothing voice, and there was nothing else to be afraid of.
"Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey.
A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay."
The words, they meant nothing to him, neither then nor now, for his mind in either place was too scattered, too pained to comprehend. He just needed to focus on her voice, and the rain, the thunder, the storm and shouts of men and women outside would be washed away. That voice was sad, it was scared and perhaps even hopeless, but this was not something he knew how to recognize, or knew how to deal with. It was his mother's voice, and that was all that mattered. He would not let it go.
"Birds reel across the endless sky, above a house upon the plain.
In memory she sings to him of a time before the rain.
Sweet Andraste, hear our song
For his road will be ours too.
Before darkness claims our souls
Let us see that shred of blue."
A door was kicked open somewhere above, and suddenly the rain became too loud, the shouting, the screams, not his own. His mother whispered something directly into his ear, her voice becoming his entire existence, but Romulus could not hear, not over the echoing of the words of the song, repeating endlessly in his mind.
"Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey.
A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay."
The dream faded, at the insistent shaking of a hand upon his shoulder. He felt a tear on his cheek. His mother's? No, his own. Or perhaps it was sweat. He was drenched, but freezing. Shivering, but burning alive. His eyes shot open, saw the night sky, a wall of jagged rock blocking half of the stars from view. It was a clear night, cold and crisp as always, but for once they found a place to stop without snow on the ground.
Khari and Romulus had descended as best they could from the mountains, heading for the Hinterlands, where they hoped to find refuge and some news of the state of things. For days the only people they'd come across were Venatori, hunting for them after one of their patrols vanished, leaving no trace other than a small amount of bloodshed from the brief conflict that had ensued before Romulus had forcibly pulled their bodies into a rift spawned from his own hand. Only delirious need to keep Khari alive had somehow triggered the ability of his mark. He had not been able to replicate the act.
Then the fever had set in, an unfortunate turn of events despite Khari's best efforts to keep his injuries cleaned. They had to move too often, their meager supplies were stretched too thin, and acquiring more meant conflicting with the Venatori patrols, and thus drawing more attention to themselves. Romulus had to believe the Venatori did not know who it was they hunted, else the entire army would be searching for them. He tried each time Khari left to make her stay, but he had not the power to stop her.
And he did not want to die.
âHey.â Khariâs tone was quiet, bereft of the usual level of projection it normally had, something that had been true for the majority of their time out here. It only made senseâthere was always a chance that more Venatori would find them, and most nights, theyâd not even been able to risk a fire. From the pile of brush and small branches slowly growing into a conflagration behind her, however, sheâd elected to build one this time.
Over the last near-week, sheâd left him almost nightly, presumably to carry out one-person raids or scouting endeavors of some kind, and a few times, sheâd returned with useful items: a small pot made of iron, actual bandages, a utility knife, some metal wiring, and a pair of blankets. The wiring had apparently gone into the improvisation of a snare, because theyâd had a couple of rabbits over the course of their time, food at least being something that they werenât immediately in danger of lacking.
It had taken two days, but after a few failed attempts, sheâd also managed to carve a needle out of one of the decorations on the end of her sword, and had unraveled more of her cloak for thread. Too late to prevent his fever, but soon enough, it seemed, to stitch herself back together so she could range from camp in search of more supplies.
She knelt beside where he lay, pressing a chilly palm against his head, grimacing and drawing it away a moment after. âI got potions, but I donât know which ones do what.â Reaching down to her waist, she untied a small satchel at her belt, laying out the vials inside within his range of vision. âI got one of everythingâif you can tell me which one you need, Iâll know to look for it next time.â
Khari shifted, then winced. A new gash was clotting on her temple; it probably wasnât the only one sheâd acquired today.
Romulus regarded the gash with obvious concern. Khari wasn't suited for this sort of thing, and she was the first to admit it. Hiding, stealing, evading enemies rather than going through them. She'd obviously looted the potions rather than stealing them cleanly, judging by the injury. Whatever Venatori she'd taken them from were dead now, but not before they'd gotten some hits in on her, as they often seemed to. One of these times she'd come back so badly injured she wouldn't be able to save herself, let alone him.
But not if he could beat this first. He blinked, trying to focus, lolling his head to the side where Khari had set down the potions. He grabbed the first, his fingers almost constantly shaking, from weakness or cold or a combination of both. Holding it up in front of his eyes, he frowned, before setting it aside apart from the others. "Lyrium..." The world barely escaped his throat, and he cleared it.
The second was contained in a yellow glass, the color of the liquid inside unclear, but dark. Romulus carefully pulled the small cork from it, holding it somewhat close to his nose and sniffing. He replaced the stopper. "Strength tonic," he murmured, disapprovingly. "Temporary, and weak."
The third was more orange than yellow, and the potion inside had a more obvious red color to it, lighter than blood by several shades. "Healing. This will partly mend the injuries at least. Help me sit." There was a wall nearby he could put his back to, at least, and though it was made of rock and not soft at all, it would do.
She nodded, shifting herself around with a suppressed grunt and wedging a hand beneath his upper back. Her other went to his shoulder, steadying him as much as she could, and some combination of effort on their parts got him into a sitting positon with his back against the stone. She looked like she wanted to collapse next to him herself, but instead she pushed into a stand and threw a bigger log on the fire, which burned steadily by this point, and dragged the spare blanket over, though she didnât do anything with it quite yet.
Romulus drank the potion slowly, hoping it would stay down. He'd eaten what he could, but it hadn't amounted to much, and he believed Khari was in far greater need of it, with how much more physical work she was doing. It was wasted on him anyway if it just came back up. He let his head fall back against the rock, scratching briefly at the stubble lining his neck and face. They were fairly filthy, both of them, surviving in the woods like this, like savages. Honestly, if the sickness and the injuries and the Venatori would just go away... it wouldn't be so bad at times. Ferelden was beautiful when it wasn't miserably wet, and he imagined that at some point, constant exposure to the cold would render him more resisting of it.
"Here," he said, holding out the half-drank potion. "Take the rest. You need it." They'd done a similar dance a few times already. Romulus was not willing to budge on it. If she didn't drink it, neither of them would.
"Trade for that tonic there, at least." He pointed to a clear vial with an orange potion inside. "It might help with the fever a bit. At the least, it'll help me survive if I get hit by a fireball."
She sighed, another familiar component of the exchange, and accepted what was left, knocking it back in a couple of swallows. Setting the empty vial down carefully, she picked up the one containing the orange liquid and took the cork out with her teeth, handing it over to him before setting about the process of cleaning the other one out. At this point, they wasted absolutely nothing. She contemplated the other two, clearly trying to decide whether they were more valuable to her empty or full, but in the end she just picked up the strength tonic and rolled it around between her fingers for a moment.
âMight be enough to get me through my next run-in with the Venatori, eh?â Khari huffed, apparently finding some humor in that, dark though it was, and the vial disappeared into a pocket. She picked her way the short distance to the fire and took up the pot, disappearing for a few moments, after which she returned, the object now filled with snow. This, too, was familiar. By now, he had two sets of makeshift bandages, and she rotated him between them, boiling the others clean before she changed them, and using the hot water to keep their wounds as clean as possible as well, though it was far too much effort to spend on the rest of them. Her face had enough dirt on it that her tattoos were hard to make out, most of the time, and her clothes were far worse off.
âIf that fever doesnât break soon, weâre gonna have to try sweating it out.â She fixed him with a measuring look from where she crouched next to the fire. âMight need more blanketsâŠâ Wrapping her arms around her legs, she tucked her chin between her knees and moved her eyes to the flames.
Romulus stared at the fire for a while as well, and for a bit, the shaking seemed to subside, just a bit. It seemed cruel to die now, of some sickness, after being cast aside by a creature that spoke of himself as a god, after somehow escaping being buried by an avalanche, and after evading bloodthirsty zealots for days. He'd accepted the fact that what had occurred to him might lead to his end, ever since the day in the temple, but with how remarkable all of it was, he thought that his end would have to be something more meaningful than dying in the wilderness.
Khari would have a much easier time of it if he died, it occurred to him. Physically, at least. But for whatever reason, despite his body's attempts to make him leave, one way or another, he found himself remaining. Trapped here, unable to go, even if he wanted to. And he no longer wanted to.
"I dreamed of my mother," he said, somewhat suddenly. "Might've just been the fever conjuring things in my mind, but it felt like her." He smiled to himself, an expression tinged with sadness.
That drew her attention back in his direction, and she paused in the task of adding red fabric strips to the now-boiling pot of water on the fire, her brows knitting over her eyes, the unfaded brightness of their color a stark contrast to what layers of dirt had done to the rest of her. âIt probably was, then.â The words were slow, and something about her cadence was unsteady, lurching. âNobody else in the world like your mother⊠no matter⊠well.â She shrugged, clearly having either lost the thread of thought she was following or consciously deciding not to say anything else.
âYou, uh⊠you donât know who they are, right? Your parents?â She moved the bandages around in the water with the knife, careful not to damage them.
"No," he stated, unable to keep the downtrodden note from his tone. "Tevinter marines found me on the deck of a Rivaini trading vessel. I was around two. There was damage to the ship, blood, but no bodies. Probably at the bottom of the strait." It certainly wasn't worthwhile for the soldiers to investigate, and by the time Romulus was old enough to care about it, he was sold into slavery, and any evidence or clues were undoubtedly long gone.
"I've thought a lot about it, why I was on the ship, why I didn't die. If my parents were traders, or worked on a ship, pirates could've attacked them, or Qunari maybe. A ship is no place for a young child, though. Makes me think I was there for some special reason, but... how am I supposed to know?" The question wasn't meant to be answered, for it didn't have one. He couldn't know why he was there, why he wasn't dead, why he still existed at all. But he had always believed there was some reason, something slightly more than chance. Being marked as he had only increased the strength of that belief. Even if he would never find out. Not until he passed on, anyway.
"What about yours? Seems like something I should know about you by now." She'd hinted at it every now and then. Her Dalish descent was obvious, as was her departure from it, so he had to assume her youth was anything but idyllic with the elves.
âEnania and Hawen Istimaethoriel, of clan Genardalia, of the Dales.â Her expression was caught somewhere between amused and annoyed, and she shook her head. âMy fatherâs the Keeper, which is like⊠kind of the leader, I guess youâd say. Theyâre the ones that do the magic, and keep the memories of what the Dalish used to be.â She moved the pot off the fire by its handle, fishing the first of the bandages out with the flat of the knife and wringing it of the excess water before laying it carefully out on a nearby mostly-flat stone.
âMy motherâs a craftsperson. She shapes ironbark and hide, mostly. I canât do that, either, as it turns out.â Her tone was hard to read, but from the excessive intensity with which she was focusing on her task, it wasnât the easiest thing for her to talk about. âShe gave up on me pretty early in life. Dad stuck it out a while longer, but then he got a real apprentice and didnât have the time to bother, so I pretty much just did whatever the hell I wanted.â She grinned, but it was comparatively lackluster.
Gathering up the bandages, she returned to where he sat, lowering herself to her knees and sitting back on her legs. âYou know the drill. We get through this, then I can make food.â That, at least, she sounded somewhat enthusiastic about.
Romulus began the work of getting out of his shirt so the bandage around his torso could be changed. It was the more annoying of the two. "Listen," he said, somewhat softly. "If I survive, I wanted you to know I've changed my mind. About going back." He'd had his mind made up for a while, but for some reason couldn't get the words out until now. It was strangely difficult to admit, that he was willing to just take the chance, despite all the reasons he'd thrown at her why it was not a wise idea.
Shrugging off his shirt, he lowered the blanket over him and shuddered from the cold. The sweat covering his skin didn't help much, and indeed, the bandage was just as damp with that as it was blood over the still healing wound. "I figured I have enough enemies at this point that my time's probably short anyway. And if that's the case... I'd rather spend it here, with whatever we have left."
That seemed to surprise her, and for a moment, she only blinked at him, but then she smiled, just half of one, a quirk of the lip and a narrowing of the eyes. âHave you, now?â She ducked her head to get to work on cleaning and rebandaging the wound, but the smile remained as she loosened the ones already present and pulled them carefully away.
âHappy to hear it.â She met his eyes for just a second. âReally.â
"Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey.
A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay."
Perhaps it was a memory, that of a child of not yet two years, a time so early in his life that all he remembered were images, washed over like a soggy painting, once clear but now distorted, elongated in the colors, and all the while still beautiful. The other senses pitched in as well. There was the smell, salt of the sea and the sweat on the brow and across the body of the woman that held him. There was the sound, that of the crashing waves, beating against a wooden hull, the terrible, terrifying crack of lightning somewhere overhead, leaves flashes of light that blinded his young eyes. His owns screams echoed in his skull, the pitiful mewling of a helpless child.
"See how the rain has washed away
The tears that you were crying?
Though the darkness calls me down
You know we all are dying."
She sang to him, and her voice cut through the chaos with ease. He buried his head against the base of her neck, clutching her with his little hands. When he focused hard enough, he could hear only that voice, that sweet, soothing voice, and there was nothing else to be afraid of.
"Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey.
A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay."
The words, they meant nothing to him, neither then nor now, for his mind in either place was too scattered, too pained to comprehend. He just needed to focus on her voice, and the rain, the thunder, the storm and shouts of men and women outside would be washed away. That voice was sad, it was scared and perhaps even hopeless, but this was not something he knew how to recognize, or knew how to deal with. It was his mother's voice, and that was all that mattered. He would not let it go.
"Birds reel across the endless sky, above a house upon the plain.
In memory she sings to him of a time before the rain.
Sweet Andraste, hear our song
For his road will be ours too.
Before darkness claims our souls
Let us see that shred of blue."
A door was kicked open somewhere above, and suddenly the rain became too loud, the shouting, the screams, not his own. His mother whispered something directly into his ear, her voice becoming his entire existence, but Romulus could not hear, not over the echoing of the words of the song, repeating endlessly in his mind.
"Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey.
A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay."
The dream faded, at the insistent shaking of a hand upon his shoulder. He felt a tear on his cheek. His mother's? No, his own. Or perhaps it was sweat. He was drenched, but freezing. Shivering, but burning alive. His eyes shot open, saw the night sky, a wall of jagged rock blocking half of the stars from view. It was a clear night, cold and crisp as always, but for once they found a place to stop without snow on the ground.
Khari and Romulus had descended as best they could from the mountains, heading for the Hinterlands, where they hoped to find refuge and some news of the state of things. For days the only people they'd come across were Venatori, hunting for them after one of their patrols vanished, leaving no trace other than a small amount of bloodshed from the brief conflict that had ensued before Romulus had forcibly pulled their bodies into a rift spawned from his own hand. Only delirious need to keep Khari alive had somehow triggered the ability of his mark. He had not been able to replicate the act.
Then the fever had set in, an unfortunate turn of events despite Khari's best efforts to keep his injuries cleaned. They had to move too often, their meager supplies were stretched too thin, and acquiring more meant conflicting with the Venatori patrols, and thus drawing more attention to themselves. Romulus had to believe the Venatori did not know who it was they hunted, else the entire army would be searching for them. He tried each time Khari left to make her stay, but he had not the power to stop her.
And he did not want to die.
âHey.â Khariâs tone was quiet, bereft of the usual level of projection it normally had, something that had been true for the majority of their time out here. It only made senseâthere was always a chance that more Venatori would find them, and most nights, theyâd not even been able to risk a fire. From the pile of brush and small branches slowly growing into a conflagration behind her, however, sheâd elected to build one this time.
Over the last near-week, sheâd left him almost nightly, presumably to carry out one-person raids or scouting endeavors of some kind, and a few times, sheâd returned with useful items: a small pot made of iron, actual bandages, a utility knife, some metal wiring, and a pair of blankets. The wiring had apparently gone into the improvisation of a snare, because theyâd had a couple of rabbits over the course of their time, food at least being something that they werenât immediately in danger of lacking.
It had taken two days, but after a few failed attempts, sheâd also managed to carve a needle out of one of the decorations on the end of her sword, and had unraveled more of her cloak for thread. Too late to prevent his fever, but soon enough, it seemed, to stitch herself back together so she could range from camp in search of more supplies.
She knelt beside where he lay, pressing a chilly palm against his head, grimacing and drawing it away a moment after. âI got potions, but I donât know which ones do what.â Reaching down to her waist, she untied a small satchel at her belt, laying out the vials inside within his range of vision. âI got one of everythingâif you can tell me which one you need, Iâll know to look for it next time.â
Khari shifted, then winced. A new gash was clotting on her temple; it probably wasnât the only one sheâd acquired today.
Romulus regarded the gash with obvious concern. Khari wasn't suited for this sort of thing, and she was the first to admit it. Hiding, stealing, evading enemies rather than going through them. She'd obviously looted the potions rather than stealing them cleanly, judging by the injury. Whatever Venatori she'd taken them from were dead now, but not before they'd gotten some hits in on her, as they often seemed to. One of these times she'd come back so badly injured she wouldn't be able to save herself, let alone him.
But not if he could beat this first. He blinked, trying to focus, lolling his head to the side where Khari had set down the potions. He grabbed the first, his fingers almost constantly shaking, from weakness or cold or a combination of both. Holding it up in front of his eyes, he frowned, before setting it aside apart from the others. "Lyrium..." The world barely escaped his throat, and he cleared it.
The second was contained in a yellow glass, the color of the liquid inside unclear, but dark. Romulus carefully pulled the small cork from it, holding it somewhat close to his nose and sniffing. He replaced the stopper. "Strength tonic," he murmured, disapprovingly. "Temporary, and weak."
The third was more orange than yellow, and the potion inside had a more obvious red color to it, lighter than blood by several shades. "Healing. This will partly mend the injuries at least. Help me sit." There was a wall nearby he could put his back to, at least, and though it was made of rock and not soft at all, it would do.
She nodded, shifting herself around with a suppressed grunt and wedging a hand beneath his upper back. Her other went to his shoulder, steadying him as much as she could, and some combination of effort on their parts got him into a sitting positon with his back against the stone. She looked like she wanted to collapse next to him herself, but instead she pushed into a stand and threw a bigger log on the fire, which burned steadily by this point, and dragged the spare blanket over, though she didnât do anything with it quite yet.
Romulus drank the potion slowly, hoping it would stay down. He'd eaten what he could, but it hadn't amounted to much, and he believed Khari was in far greater need of it, with how much more physical work she was doing. It was wasted on him anyway if it just came back up. He let his head fall back against the rock, scratching briefly at the stubble lining his neck and face. They were fairly filthy, both of them, surviving in the woods like this, like savages. Honestly, if the sickness and the injuries and the Venatori would just go away... it wouldn't be so bad at times. Ferelden was beautiful when it wasn't miserably wet, and he imagined that at some point, constant exposure to the cold would render him more resisting of it.
"Here," he said, holding out the half-drank potion. "Take the rest. You need it." They'd done a similar dance a few times already. Romulus was not willing to budge on it. If she didn't drink it, neither of them would.
"Trade for that tonic there, at least." He pointed to a clear vial with an orange potion inside. "It might help with the fever a bit. At the least, it'll help me survive if I get hit by a fireball."
She sighed, another familiar component of the exchange, and accepted what was left, knocking it back in a couple of swallows. Setting the empty vial down carefully, she picked up the one containing the orange liquid and took the cork out with her teeth, handing it over to him before setting about the process of cleaning the other one out. At this point, they wasted absolutely nothing. She contemplated the other two, clearly trying to decide whether they were more valuable to her empty or full, but in the end she just picked up the strength tonic and rolled it around between her fingers for a moment.
âMight be enough to get me through my next run-in with the Venatori, eh?â Khari huffed, apparently finding some humor in that, dark though it was, and the vial disappeared into a pocket. She picked her way the short distance to the fire and took up the pot, disappearing for a few moments, after which she returned, the object now filled with snow. This, too, was familiar. By now, he had two sets of makeshift bandages, and she rotated him between them, boiling the others clean before she changed them, and using the hot water to keep their wounds as clean as possible as well, though it was far too much effort to spend on the rest of them. Her face had enough dirt on it that her tattoos were hard to make out, most of the time, and her clothes were far worse off.
âIf that fever doesnât break soon, weâre gonna have to try sweating it out.â She fixed him with a measuring look from where she crouched next to the fire. âMight need more blanketsâŠâ Wrapping her arms around her legs, she tucked her chin between her knees and moved her eyes to the flames.
Romulus stared at the fire for a while as well, and for a bit, the shaking seemed to subside, just a bit. It seemed cruel to die now, of some sickness, after being cast aside by a creature that spoke of himself as a god, after somehow escaping being buried by an avalanche, and after evading bloodthirsty zealots for days. He'd accepted the fact that what had occurred to him might lead to his end, ever since the day in the temple, but with how remarkable all of it was, he thought that his end would have to be something more meaningful than dying in the wilderness.
Khari would have a much easier time of it if he died, it occurred to him. Physically, at least. But for whatever reason, despite his body's attempts to make him leave, one way or another, he found himself remaining. Trapped here, unable to go, even if he wanted to. And he no longer wanted to.
"I dreamed of my mother," he said, somewhat suddenly. "Might've just been the fever conjuring things in my mind, but it felt like her." He smiled to himself, an expression tinged with sadness.
That drew her attention back in his direction, and she paused in the task of adding red fabric strips to the now-boiling pot of water on the fire, her brows knitting over her eyes, the unfaded brightness of their color a stark contrast to what layers of dirt had done to the rest of her. âIt probably was, then.â The words were slow, and something about her cadence was unsteady, lurching. âNobody else in the world like your mother⊠no matter⊠well.â She shrugged, clearly having either lost the thread of thought she was following or consciously deciding not to say anything else.
âYou, uh⊠you donât know who they are, right? Your parents?â She moved the bandages around in the water with the knife, careful not to damage them.
"No," he stated, unable to keep the downtrodden note from his tone. "Tevinter marines found me on the deck of a Rivaini trading vessel. I was around two. There was damage to the ship, blood, but no bodies. Probably at the bottom of the strait." It certainly wasn't worthwhile for the soldiers to investigate, and by the time Romulus was old enough to care about it, he was sold into slavery, and any evidence or clues were undoubtedly long gone.
"I've thought a lot about it, why I was on the ship, why I didn't die. If my parents were traders, or worked on a ship, pirates could've attacked them, or Qunari maybe. A ship is no place for a young child, though. Makes me think I was there for some special reason, but... how am I supposed to know?" The question wasn't meant to be answered, for it didn't have one. He couldn't know why he was there, why he wasn't dead, why he still existed at all. But he had always believed there was some reason, something slightly more than chance. Being marked as he had only increased the strength of that belief. Even if he would never find out. Not until he passed on, anyway.
"What about yours? Seems like something I should know about you by now." She'd hinted at it every now and then. Her Dalish descent was obvious, as was her departure from it, so he had to assume her youth was anything but idyllic with the elves.
âEnania and Hawen Istimaethoriel, of clan Genardalia, of the Dales.â Her expression was caught somewhere between amused and annoyed, and she shook her head. âMy fatherâs the Keeper, which is like⊠kind of the leader, I guess youâd say. Theyâre the ones that do the magic, and keep the memories of what the Dalish used to be.â She moved the pot off the fire by its handle, fishing the first of the bandages out with the flat of the knife and wringing it of the excess water before laying it carefully out on a nearby mostly-flat stone.
âMy motherâs a craftsperson. She shapes ironbark and hide, mostly. I canât do that, either, as it turns out.â Her tone was hard to read, but from the excessive intensity with which she was focusing on her task, it wasnât the easiest thing for her to talk about. âShe gave up on me pretty early in life. Dad stuck it out a while longer, but then he got a real apprentice and didnât have the time to bother, so I pretty much just did whatever the hell I wanted.â She grinned, but it was comparatively lackluster.
Gathering up the bandages, she returned to where he sat, lowering herself to her knees and sitting back on her legs. âYou know the drill. We get through this, then I can make food.â That, at least, she sounded somewhat enthusiastic about.
Romulus began the work of getting out of his shirt so the bandage around his torso could be changed. It was the more annoying of the two. "Listen," he said, somewhat softly. "If I survive, I wanted you to know I've changed my mind. About going back." He'd had his mind made up for a while, but for some reason couldn't get the words out until now. It was strangely difficult to admit, that he was willing to just take the chance, despite all the reasons he'd thrown at her why it was not a wise idea.
Shrugging off his shirt, he lowered the blanket over him and shuddered from the cold. The sweat covering his skin didn't help much, and indeed, the bandage was just as damp with that as it was blood over the still healing wound. "I figured I have enough enemies at this point that my time's probably short anyway. And if that's the case... I'd rather spend it here, with whatever we have left."
That seemed to surprise her, and for a moment, she only blinked at him, but then she smiled, just half of one, a quirk of the lip and a narrowing of the eyes. âHave you, now?â She ducked her head to get to work on cleaning and rebandaging the wound, but the smile remained as she loosened the ones already present and pulled them carefully away.
âHappy to hear it.â She met his eyes for just a second. âReally.â