♟:Patching up a wound
Rilienus frowns at the gash on her arm. The skin is broken and bleeding, sliced cleanly through, but it’s shallow and looks far worse than it is. He cleans her wound carefully with a washcloth and warm water, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “You should have been more careful,” he admonishes vaguely, to which she makes a scoffing sort of sound and refuses to meet his eyes.
But there’s something more. More than her usual caustic behavior, more than the defensive set of her jaw, more than the irritation of having been wounded and subsequently looked after like a child. There’s vulnerability in the tension of her shoulders and in the eyes that flicker back and forth anxiously, the strong, slender fingers that curl into impatient little fists.
It isn’t being wounded, it isn’t being cared for. It’s him. She doesn’t want to be assailable to him. And he understands this, knowing full well what an occupation like hers entails. She has never trusted anyone, never been given reason to, as volatile and as tightly-wound as a nerve for as long as she could remember.
She deserves respite. She, who has fought all her life, who has protected herself where no one else would. She deserves surety and safe-keeping. She deserves sanctuary from her own demons. And he wants nothing more than the authority and the right to be the one who grants it.
As gently as he’s able, he gathers her into his arm and pulls her into his lap, nosing affectionately at her dark hair. “Aminta,” he murmurs, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Let me make you whole.”
