Maric had still been there when Dara had woken up again, ready to help him drink and to get more food into him.
It was evening now, though, and Maric was gone. He had said he had some business to attend to and had left Dara under Brayan's care.
Or perhaps it was Brayan who had been left under Dara's care. He was particularly quiet and pensive. He had been polite enough to ask how Dara was feeling when he'd first arrived, but soon after Maric had left he had set his focus on the task of very thoroughly polishing Maric's formal boots and hadn't said a word since. Dara was fairly sure that wasn't even one of his duties.
Dara sat cross legged on the bed and watched him. "Are you upset about Bug?"
Brayan glanced up for a second before returning his eyes to his work. "I hardly knew him."
"You're quieter than usual."
"I'm thinking."
"What are you thinking about?"
"Well... yes, about Bug," Brayan admitted. "But not because I'm upset."
"Okay," Dara said, though he wasn't sure he entirely believed that. There was an undeniable melancholy to Brayan's demeanour.
"You're Eth. Perhaps you understand all this better than me."
"Understand what?"
"Bug had certain visions that weren't under his control. Visions that seemed to guide him in very deliberate ways. And these visions led to him telling us that you had been hurt."
"Yes, Maric told me about that. I'm very grateful to him for his help."
"But that's the thing. He didn't really help. Not in any meaningful way. I appreciate being alerted to the situation sooner, but either way we would have found out before long and you would have survived."
"Probably," Dara admitted. "But I still appreciate it."
Brayan shook his head and switched his polishing attention to the other boot. "Of course. My point is that it didn't help us very much, and it certainly didn't help him, so what was the purpose of it? Why was it so important that he be involved?"
"I don't know."
"That's where I'm at. I thought maybe we were supposed to help him, but I tried and I failed. I don't know if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to or if I just don't understand."
"Well, the way I see it, either that mysterious force guiding him through visions is fallible or it isn't. If it's fallible, then perhaps the fact that this situation didn't really work to anyone's benefit was simply an accident. If it isn't fallible, then surely you don't need to search for what you're supposed to do. It ought to have set the situation up correctly so that what you're supposed to do will simply be what you will do when faced with whatever happens."
Brayan stopped polishing the boots for a few seconds as he thought. Finally, he nodded. "That sounds reasonable. Do you know much about seers?"
"Oh, no. Probably less than you at this point, since you've spent some time with Bug. I was a child when I became a slave. I might have knowledge on some Eth things you do not, but in general I'm no expert."
Brayan nodded slowly. "What was it like, being an Eth in Ticia? Were you treated well?"
"Hmm." Dara stretched out his arms. "We were outsiders, I suppose. We lived outside of the cities, travelled a lot. People would trade with us, but they wouldn't let their children play with Eth children. For the most part, though, we were respected. Nobody knows what an Eth might be capable of, and nobody wants to find out."
"That's how we justify enslaving you. You might be dangerous. Yet we don't just enslave those of you already within our borders. We take Eth as prisoners from Ticia for the purposes of enslavement at every opportunity."
"Because we're useful."
"Yes. Or because some rich old man wants a pretty young girl — or boy — to have sex with."
"True."
"I'm not above it," Brayan mused. "Or... I wasn't. I don't know. I would have had sex with you if Maric had allowed it."
"I know."
"I've had sex with slaves before. So has Maric. Do you think it's wrong to have sex with a slave?"
"It depends how the slave feels."
"Ah, well, who can truly say how a slave feels."
"Certainly not the slave."
Brayan smiled — not happy, just satisfied with the response. "Bug attempted to... initiate something with me last night."
"Attempted to?"
"I started to go along with it, but I put a stop to things before they went too far."
"Why?"
"Having sex with slaves is illegal here. Having sex with someone else's slave without their permission is illegal everywhere."
Dara lifted his knees up and rested his arms across them. "Yet you brought this up as part of a conversation about morality, not legality."
"Yes. I don't really know where I'm going with any of this."
"Why do you think he tried to have sex with you?"
Brayan shrugged. "He said he just wanted to. I was sceptical, but I think that was likely the truth. He was just lonely and looking for some companionship."
"That doesn't sound immoral to me."
"No, I suppose not. But it is illegal, and I probably won't see him again, so it doesn't really matter."
"Mm."
Brayan polished the boots in silence for another few minutes, and Dara assumed the conversation was over, but suddenly he spoke up again. "How did the Eth come to have magic? Do you know?"
Dara smiled. "That's a big question. You're doing a lot of thinking, aren't you?"
Brayan finally set the boots aside and looked at Dara properly. "I generally do. But about this, today, yes. So, do you know?"
"What do you think?"
"I've heard various things," Brayan said. "The original belief, of course, was that there was some hidden spring of power or something that had been dug out of the ground. Something of value in the land itself. That was the reason for the war. Now I think most people would say that it's something that runs in the Eth bloodline, though I can't say I really know where that comes from."
"Yes, it is inherited," Dara confirmed. "Yet the war persists."
"Well, the war isn't really about the Eth anymore. Before the war, the Eth controlled the mountain ranges. Nobody else wanted that land, and it was a comfortable buffer between two more powerful kingdoms. Now, without that neutral buffer, neither side can back down without the other creeping too close for comfort."
"Well, we're happy to take our land back any time."
Brayan grimaced. "I do wish it were that simple."
Dara lifted the blanket up and wrapped it around his shoulders. He had recovered quite well, but his body was still struggling with little things like regulating its own temperature. He really needed to go at least a week before nearly getting killed again next time if he was to have a chance to fully recover in a timely fashion. "Would you like to hear the story of how the Eth got their magic?"
Brayan watched Dara with interest. "Yes, I would."
"Keep in mind that this is just a story, and that it's what I remember from when I was little, so don't take this as a factual account."
"Noted."
"Okay, so there were these two travellers who arrived one day at a small Eth settlement, a man and a woman. Now, Eth are travellers ourselves, but these two came from faraway lands, from places unknown. They spoke our language perfectly, but they weren't familiar with our customs or the lay of the land."
"Magic, I assume?"
Dara nodded. "I don't remember when or how they revealed that part, but it was magic of course. Anyway, the woman was pregnant and not long after they arrived she had a child — a son. They wanted to keep travelling, but if they did they wouldn't be able to bring their son with them. For magical reasons, I think. I don't remember."
"Magical reasons seem like a safe assumption."
"Mm," Dara agreed. "So they stayed, and they raised their son, and they shared some of their knowledge with us. I don't know the whole of it, but Mathers would have been taught from the medical book they wrote. All good doctors are."
Brayan inclined his head in confirmation. "He still has it. I've read it myself. I always assumed it was written by healers. Who else could know that disease and infection can be caused by tiny, invisible creatures?"
"I don't think they were healers. And, honestly, that's not quite something I could have intuited myself from being a healer. The way I do what I do is a bit more abstract."
"Well, magic, anyway. If it's magic, it makes sense. Or rather it makes wildly less sense, but I no longer expect it to, so I don't have to worry about it."
Dara smiled. "Yes. I find it's easier that way."
"So then what happened? The man and the woman, did they just stay forever?"
"I don't think so, but their son did. He had many children with many women, and some of them inherited strange powers. And now, many generations later, it's just something that pops up from time to time among the Eth."
"Ah. The only thing that runs in my family is this weird thing where some of our joints bend further than usual." Brayan demonstrated by using his other hand to casually bend his thumb so far back that it nearly touched his wrist. It looked like it ought to hurt, but he was experiencing no pain. He released it again. "Magic is more impressive, but nobody has ever tried to enslave me for my weird thumb thing."
"Well, maybe your time will come. It is quite peculiar looking."
"It would be no more unjust."
Dara watched Brayan curiously. It hadn't been long since Brayan had sat him down and taught him proper behaviour, had thought of him as nothing more than an annoyance or perhaps an opportunity for some momentary pleasure.
But now... things were different now, and not just between the two of them as Dara had assumed. This change in him wasn't just because he now knew Dara was a healer. The short time he'd spent with Bug had left a lasting mark on him.
"Brayan... it's okay to be sad about Bug, you know."
"Mm," was all Brayan said as he picked one of the boots back up and returned to polishing it.