Written by Leify on Ao3
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It really is just a scratch.
That’s the part that baffles Lumine.
Sure, the Kairagi had driven the tip of his sword towards her chest, but she’d seen it in time and deflected the strike with her left arm. The sword had glanced uselessly off the gauntlet covering her forearm as she twisted out of the way.
And okay, the blade did slice through the side of her bicep, but she’s honestly more pissed about needing to mend her sleeve than about the long, shallow gash now adorning her arm.
The Wanderer, on the other hand, is out of his mind with panic.
“Where the hell is it?” he demands, rummaging through her pack with all the grace and composure of a wild boar.
“I told you, it’s at the bottom,” she says. “Here, let me–”
She makes to stand up, and he whirls around so forcefully that his hat falls off his head. “Sit down,” he snaps, with such venom that she drops back to the rock automatically. He turns back to her bag, not bothering to pick up his hat, and returns to flinging her supplies to the ground. “Why would you put your first aid kit at the bottom of your pack? Are you stupid?”
“I rarely need it,” she protests. “I don’t get hurt often.”
He finds the first aid kit and wrenches it from the pack. “So you pick today to get hurt? With no healer on your team, just a stupid pixie and yours fucking truly?”
“Paimon’s not stupid!” Paimon scolds as the Wanderer storms over, slamming the kit down next to Lumine.
Lumine shakes her head at the pixie. “He’s not worth arguing with,” she says, and Paimon huffs and disappears into her pocket of space-time with a poof of stardust, the Paimon equivalent of stomping into your room and slamming the door.
Lumine turns to the Wanderer, who has dropped to his knees in front of her and fumbled the box open. “It’s just a scratch!” she exclaims as he tears through the contents. “What has gotten into you?”
“It’s just a scratch,” he mocks, pitching his voice high, tossing vials haphazardly to the ground. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive if you treat your body like this.”
She rolls her eyes as he finds the bandages. “My body is fine, thanks for worrying.”
The Wanderer uncaps his waterskin and pours water into his cupped hand, scrubbing the dirt from his palms. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? But human flesh is so frail,” he says, and his usual derision sounds ill-fitting in his mouth. “Not like puppets. One scrape is all it takes to do you in; infection will handle the rest.”
“Good thing I’m not human, then,” she says. “And I’m not quite that easy to kill — as I believe you learned not too long ago.”
He barks a laugh, upper lip pulling back to reveal a flash of sharp teeth. “Well, I can’t have some nobody succeeding where I failed, can I?” He pours more water into his hands and rinses the cut, sluicing the blood off her arm. The fingers that brush over her skin are surprisingly gentle.
Then he uncaps the bottle of rubbing alcohol and she starts shaking her head. “No,” she says. “That’s so unnecessary.”
“Hold still,” he says, rising to his feet to bend over her, pouring the liquid onto a pad of cotton.
“It will hurt,” she complains, trying to scoot away.
“Good.” He offers her a vicious grin. “I hope it does.”
He grasps her bicep firmly to keep her from wriggling and rubs the cotton pad roughly over the gash, forcing the alcohol into exposed tissue. She hisses at the sting and scrunches up her face.
