send me a 🔥 and i'll tell you one thing my muse finds attractive about yours
it's not the time she's gone that gives her away when her audience with the priestess passes briefly &, for them milling about the goblin camp, uneventfully. rather, it's the subtle wince, the dull throb of her swelling, bruising wrist sharpening on the press of a heavy door that betrays her to them, at least.
were she back home, or wormless, she'd have eagerly offered the wound for inspection, & a professional opinion; now, alara relents only after he insists he can help, & with the mistrustful reluctance of a bird with a torn wing, or a doe with a limp, keenly aware that too grave an injury means excommunication from the safety the flock, or the herd, provides. like stepping deliberately into an opened saw-toothed trap, she takes a wary seat across the splintered barrel that doubles as his table & surrenders her arm.
their fingers are as long & slender as the rest of him, & incredibly gentle as they roll up the silk shred of her sleeve & turn her hand over in theirs, lightly pressing the area to test the damage. the bands of their many gold rings cool the warmth of the injury, soothing until they aren't, when he deftly finds the source – with a skill she'd ordinarily appreciate far better, without the stars flaring at the edge of her vision – & hisses.
they're apologetic, the crease from their concentration smoothing away as their eyes meet hers, & to stay upright, she studies the shift from green to brown.
❝ dislocated at quite an odd angle, ❞ he pronounces at last, absolutely correct in his assessment. popped loose against the horizontal line of an iron shackle, & relocated inexpertly, though she doesn't volunteer the details. though, neither do they press for them, finding them in the examination & likely piecing together the rest. bones don't lie.
they talk through the process, tell her about the realignment, the apparent stress to her ligaments – she can empathise – & as he conducts the sickly green of his magic, which dives under the skin for the damage like some spectral needle, she barely hears, more entranced by the discovery that he, too, has freckles, paler & fewer in number than her own, but up close, unmistakably there. they've always been the first thing she'd remove, blemishes to her beauty but, as they go about their work, she decides she likes them on him, & observes constellations in them.
then, all too soon he's done.
time speeds up to the present, the lively sounds of the gruesome party thud in her ears, &.... wouldn't you know it, everything is normal again, her wrist included. she turns it this way & that, wiggles her fingers to test, but the sensation of pins & needles has disappeared, as has the pain. even her discerning eye cannot find any fault. it's perfect.
❝ didn't know you doubled as a doctor. ❞ for, perhaps, the first time ever, she's somewhat inclined to discuss his awful corpse magic, & raises it of her own accord, ❝ here i thought the whole point of necromancy was to let people die. ❞
