The Pain that Made Her Beautiful

PMHB ch20 (Pic of Apollo)

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Nayeli watched as Avel ran his fingers through his hair and stood. He began to take off his toga for bathing. The sash was untied, he had unraveled his short toga to reveal well-defined muscles and tanned and scarred skin. His back had slashing scars across it. They were the only mar on his fantastical beauty, however. His muscles rippled and shone with perfection under his bronzed skin that gleamed with sweat, accentuating each ripple with shining brilliance.

The scars were corded and resistant to any and every movement that, from what Nayeli could see from her low vantage point, Avel made because they pulled so hard on the unmarked skin around them. Avel seemed to almost be in pain from the effort of simply undressing himself for a bath. Nayeli’s heart went soft for a split second when she was rather moved by his pain and discomfort and wished to ease his hurting. The scars stuck from his back and were greatly uneven and, no matter the amount of sun his back had received, Avel’s scars would remain chalk white, highly visible against his dark undertones.

When Nayeli’s heart went out to Avel for that split moment, it had softened her and had created in her an affection for him, not for romance, but of kinship. She was having compassion for his pain, why would she ever do a silly thing like that? After all, it was he and all the other German soldiers that were now, in a way, responsible for Nayeli’s current pain and torment---it was they who kidnapped her in the first place. It was they who had taken her from everything that Nayeli cherished most they were responsible for it all, for everything, for what had happened to her---and yet, Nayeli could not help but feel compassion toward the man who had done nothing but what he had been ordered to do: to protect and guard Nayeli from any and all threats that may cause her bodily harm, or effectually take her life.

Avel was now getting ready to bathe in the warm waters and oils in the washtub when Nayeli rustled in her bed. With cat-like reflexes, Avel whipped his head around to see what the noise had come from. When Avel saw Nayeli lying in her bed just simply looking at him, he dashed around and found a blanket from his sleeping pad, swiftly concealing his nakedness.

“What’re you doing here?” Avel asked, astonished.

“What am I doing, when I wake up to you trying to seduce my best friend?” Nayeli asked rhetorically.

“You may have a point,” Avel said, “but I asked first. What’re you doing here?”

“Well, if you really don’t remember, I am recovering from my run in with fate.”

“While we are on that subject,” Avel said in a matter-of-fact way, “the doctor was here maybe an hour ago. He said that you are well on your way to recovery. He said that he had put some special herb in this last salve that is used commonly to speed the healing process in many of the eastern cultures of the Roman Empire and your body took to it very well indeed. All possibility of infection are almost eliminated and you are looking very healthy.”

Looking healthy, he says, what kind of things did he try on me while I was unconscious? Nayeli thought spitefully. As soon as she had, Nayeli felt a pit of guilty at the bottom of her stomach.