“Hey, let me try, all right?”
Lan stared at her student with a frown. Then, she turned her back to him, drawing her long hair away from her shoulders. He’d managed to cut her good just across there - she could feel it burning. “Very well,” she said stonily.
She could feel him healing her, little pricks of pain as the wound sealed up, skin meeting skin and torn muscle fusing back together. Right at the end, though, she gasped in pain as Minrust knotted something wrong. She heard him swear and felt him begin to undo his mistake.
“Fuck! Sorry,” he said, “sorry…”
Lan began to tell him it was all right; that mistakes happened, that he was fixing it - but then she felt his lips there, right where he’d undone the knot. Cold lips. Very cold. Frosty.
She whirled to smack him but he was hopping away, laughing. Despite the flash of initial fury, Lan found herself smiling, too. She picked up her sword. “So you want another go?” she asked.
Minrust nodded. “Bring it, Lanny.”