“Stop moving.”
“Okay.”
“Your arm.”
“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay and moving anyway.”
Amberle bites her lip, trying not to meet Eretria's gaze. Now that she's tugged her arm away from Eretria's grasp several times in a row, Amberle can't help imagining what reaching the ends of Eretria's patience with her would be like. Might hurt much more than a gaping cut, going by the unimpressed scowl on the rover's face. She keeps still.
Eretria finally relents. “Good. Keep the arm up.”
Whatever jagged rock cut her stuck its edges deep into muscle. As Amberle lifts her arm and tries to keep it suspended, the sharp pain of flesh-wound meets throbbing ache of torn tendon, the little piece that straps upper arm into shoulder socket. She grinds her teeth together as the water goes by.
“Stop moving,” Eretria spits. “Would it really hurt to keep still for a minute longer?”
Amberle's mouth falls open, but she snaps it shut again, squeezing her eyes tight against the forthcoming rush of words that must want to come out squeaky and tender.
“What is it now?”
Amberle lets her tongue flit out to touch the dry skin of her bottom lip. “I'm scared, okay?”
Eretria's gaze dips down. She increases pressure on the area surrounding the gash. She tries her best to ignore Amberle's shout and fist tightening on her jacket. She feels her stomach go taut at a fresh curse that emerges from Amberle's lips, braces herself for a smile. Amberle hasn't moved her arm at all.
“Is it over?”
“What do royal physicians do when princesses fall down? Knock them out to put on the bandages in peace?” Eretria snaps, but her tone is more amused and jovial than acerbic as she attempts to distract the princess from the coarse cloth going over raw flesh.
Amberle nearly hisses. “We have numbing agents.”
Eretria shrugs. Her gaze skirts the red receding into the puckering mouth of the wound.
“Sorry we don't have those now,” Eretria mumbles. “Now close your eyes and hold on tight, princess, this one's going to hurt like a bitch.”
Without saying much more, Eretria grips Amberle's free wrist in her hand and loops the uninjured arm around her own neck. Amberle, though startled, readies herself for pain and tightens her hold on the rover's shoulders. Eretria doesn't let her see the silver glinting under a shallow stream of light as she draws needle from her belt.
Eretria forces herself to look as needle punctures bright white skin. Focus and precision, she chants in her head as she feels Amberle's teeth sink into her shoulder. She doesn't register the pain. Swiftly, swiftly, Eretria repeats as if recalling a lullaby, swiftly does it. The little beads of red don't faze her at all; anything better than the dark, mottled colours surfacing under Amberle's leather garb just minutes ago.
“Oh, demons in hell,” Eretria groans. “Let me go.”
It takes ten whole seconds for Amberle to respond. When she does, she comes away with her teeth and lips white. It's like perfect canvas for paint, or for one or two spots of Eretria's blood. Blood for blood, Eretria thinks. She shakes her head.
“Is it done?” Amberle asks, eyes wide.
“Not quite.”
“What?”
Eretria frowns. “The hard part's over. I just need to knot the thread. Would be nice if we had some alcohol for the dressing.”
As Amberle holds out her arm in shut-eyed silence, Eretria goes against all rover know-how and loops the thread some millimetres from the exit channel. Even tightens it gently, doesn't tug so it doesn't hurt at all. She hopes it doesn't get snagged on anything and then prays against the knot coming loose.
“We're done.”
The needle disappears into her jacket as quickly as it appeared. As Amberle reels from heady shock and blood loss, Eretria wipes her bloodied hands on her thighs. The deserted bunker has strips of cloth hanging from the ceiling, but none of them look sanitary enough for an over-wound bandage. Eretria ignores the urge to rip off some fabric from her sleeve.
When she turns again, Amberle is waiting and looking at her as if there is all the time in the world and the elf-hunters aren't overhead and Wil isn't nowhere to be found (maybe at the bottom of the flowing river, a rotting carcass). A caustic remark almost trudges its way into her throat, but she swallows it, opting to look back at Amberle, awaiting some sort of reply or explanation.
When Amberle doesn't say anything at all, Eretria does. “Are you over-thinking things again?”
Eretria watches Amberle bite back her thoughts. “Your shoulder is bleeding.”
“Yes, it's because you bit into it.”
“I'm sorry. Let me help.”
Eretria's eyebrows shoot upwards. “I believe we've established that you're not the go-to girl for all-purpose healing. Don't worry about it. You made two cuts. They'll scab over in an hour, which we should be using to escape.”
Amberle doesn't say anything in return. Instead, she stretches out an open hand. All demons be damned if Eretria doesn't feel an undeniable tug in her gut that makes her place her hand into Amberle's open, waiting palm. Her chest heaves; she wonders what Amberle wants now. If not to show sympathy over a legion of dead men, perhaps to suggest they stay overnight.
“As a princess,” Amberle begins tentatively, “I was given many tutorials on the history of the world. A lot on the Age of Man, what humans were like when it was their culture and customs that reigned supreme. This is the setting of a party.”
“A party,” Eretria repeats.
“A coming-of-age celebration of sorts,” Amberle continues. “Much like the one you and I would have. Like a coronation.”
“I've been to a few of those,” Eretria smirks. To her credit, Amberle smiles knowingly immediately, as if imagining Eretria as a young stooge hidden beneath a royal's chair at a feast or tucked away into the central chamber of a chandelier, waiting to slip away with silver.
“Do you know what they do at those things?
“Eat a lot,” Eretria says, remembering only hunger and mild irritation at the wastage of food at such events.
Amberle nods, almost patronisingly. “Do you know what else they do?”
At this, Amberle bridges the awkward distance between the both of them and Eretria realises her arm has been aching dully from keeping it up for a whole minute of talking. Bringing Amberle's hand to her side, their hands clasped, feels foreign, but not repulsive by any stretch of the imagination.
“They dance,” Amberle finally says.
“Oh,” Eretria says, dumb.
“My arm's kind of messed up,” Amberle whispers. “Will you lead?”
Eretria doesn't quite realise the frivolous nature of their speech, focuses on the embarassment welling up inside her. Nothing about the word “dance” means this sort of proximity or this sort of lulling, dreamy atmosphere.
“My sort of dancing is a bit more lively,” Eretria admits. “We have tambourines.”
Amberle isn't quite listening. She pulls Eretria into a spin. Eretria obliges that with grace, then stills from Amberle's frame falling into her embrace. When Amberle leans her head on her shoulder, Eretria lets her hands free-fall to Amberle's waist, fingers dusting the indent of the small of her back.
Dancing isn't too hard at all, Eretria realises. It's just side-step swaying and a lot of leaning and supporting. Most of all, Amberle's body is warm and frail and good to touch. Eretria's head wades through every fuzzy memory of dance and every white-veiled memory of lovers touching. The images meet now, as if learning to dance together, themselves.
Eretria lets out a muffled groan when Amberle's lips touch the swelling spot where Amberle's teeth once were. Her grip on Amberle's waist tightens. She doesn't quite want to let go. If she wants to dig her fingertips into Amberle's stomach and punish her for such an intimate action, she doesn't go through with that action. She settles for nudging Amberle's chin up and pushing their mouths together.
Rhythm is always important in dance. Amberle is used to something keeping time with a string quartet. Eretria has always been a little unpredictable kicking her heels around on dirt and much more impatient. And yet, it's Amberle who leads and Eretria who shies away from the potential fruits of spontaneity and lets herself be led.
Amberle is soft. She tastes like iron and warmth. Eretria hums into the kiss as they pretend they don't need to breathe.
There is a speckled haze hanging over the bunker's stale air. As they kiss, Eretria wonders if there must always be a sort of film over the lens of her encounters with lovers. The kind of film that pulls the wool over the eyes of those who would not have loved her otherwise. Amberle leans further into the kiss, dragging Eretria's hand up to her shoulder to feel the rough terrain of the sewn-up cut. She flinches at the self-imposed contact. Eretria doesn't know why Amberle does it, but it gives her some re-assurance of Amberle's clarity.
“I underestimated you, princess,” Eretria says, out of breath.
Amberle nods, biting her lip. “You tend to do that.”
Eretria kisses her again, but only for a second. “Did you mind that?”
Amberle pauses. “No.”
Eretria does it twice more before she wrenches herself away from the encirclement of Amberle's arms. She collapses onto what seem like raised benches and tucks her knees in. Amberle can hear the weight of her breaths.
“Daylight's leaving us,” Amberle concludes. “We should settle in.”
For once, Eretria's glad she isn't the one making all the decisions. “We should.”
Eretria wills herself not to think about Amberle's mouth on her neck as she falls asleep. She fails, and then an hour later she sits up watching Amberle sleep well for the first time in a while, free from nightmares and recurrent visions of their quest. Eretria leans down an hour before morning and kisses the last speck of blood off Amberle's mouth, later standing to survey the surroundings of the underground chamber that must now lock away another one of those unbidden loves that are never to be.
AN: I haven't had much time to write recently, but I felt the need, and so I wrote this thing. Thanks for reading!