ELRED VALKALIN IS ON THE RUN. After narrowly escaping the Synketros prison, she finds herself in the scent trail of two notorious communities miles below the island's surface. When she stumbles upon a hidden gathering of fairies from different races...
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2412, Xavem 21, Jyda
Elred hissed, her bloodied nails digging against the back of the wooden stool Savel had her perch on while he worked on her back. With nothing but a flap of spare fabric separating them and the rest of the renegade camp, she felt a bit conscious of how she had the rest of her tattered dress pressed against her chest with her bare back out to her husband. Someone might come and swipe the makeshift divider away, walking in on them at the most shameful time.
The metallic snip of the scissors came with the sharp stab of pain up her neck. A curse flew out of her mouth, loud enough to startle their son awake. "Nothing to see here, darling. Go back to sleep," Savel turned to Reza who mumbled something before plopping back to the lumpy mattress afforded them. He turned back to Elred. "Keep it down. He hasn't had any proper sleep since we came here. He misses the main camp. You know how he is with new spaces."
Elred bit her lip and gave her husband a brief nod. "When did you learn how to do these kinds of things?" she asked as another snip sent a jolt up her body. "Be gentle, for Crintine's sake."
"It's not my fault your nerves have been dangling like twine out of you," he sighed and rummaged around the crude tools he borrowed from a pixie worksman upon seeing Elred's condition. "What happened?"
She scoffed. "Answer my question first, and maybe I'll tell you."
Savel responded with snipping another exposed nerve, making Elred writhe in pain, her forehead smacking against the stool's top rail. "You did that on purpose!" she hissed-whispered, glancing at their son who remained motionless, lost in whatever dreamscape he conjured for himself.
"When did you start not trusting me, Elred?" he snapped. Then, his breath softened as he poked the needle straight into her stumps to tie the wound off. Compared to the nerve-snipping, the needle was a gentler torture. "I've had a hand in a ton of wing-related surgeries during my time in the Garde. It's still hard to swallow I'm now patching up my very wife with the same injury."
He still called her his wife. What a relief. "So, I need to know what happened," Savel leaned over when she turned around for a second just to see his face. "The truth, this time."
Elred swiveled back and let him continue his work. "You're going to be up all night, then," she said in a placid tone.
A chuckle from behind. "You have enough wing nerves."
That's an answer then.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself for a barrage of memories and the past she's about to uncover. And then, it all poured out. Starting from the beginning. Savel listened without a sound, interrupting only to clarify something, or when her sentences got clipped due to her keeping her pained screams down. By the time she got to the part where their story coincided, she swallowed against the growing hoarseness in her throat.
"I returned home that time because I had to prepare for the Sovereign's onslaught," she said. "You weren't meant to find out. And then you did, and..."
She draped her elbows against the top rail and rested her chin on it. Her shoulders felt stiff and the pain had become a friend so much so that she didn't mind the snips anymore. How many nerves did he cut while she was talking? Which wing was he on now?
