Page 29 of Thief of Roses
His Tormentor left.He had surprised it and it had gone away.His hand lowered and he turned to look at Rivani, to study her as she studied him.After a long moment, he asked, trying not to be accusatory, slipping into his old language.
“Am Y thy pet?”
“Baró!”Rivani’s hand slid down to rest on his shoulder.She leaned forward to maintain eye contact.
“Y mean not to thee affront.Y know not where thou art at, between begrudgyng cyvylytie and kyndness.Y am an anymal and ‘twolde be natural.Y wolde understand.And,”he added lest she thought that his inquiry would affect his feelings,“Y wolde styll be grateful for thy attentionnes.”
“You are not my pet.You are my Baró.I am your Rivani.We are friends.”She stroked his shoulder and back, squeezing his arm where her hand came to rest.
Friends.That statement should have filled him with elation.Someday she would regret thinking of him so dearly, but for now, he would hold onto that and hope.
He deluded himselfif he thought he had quieted Her when She retreated.The quiet had been a matter of tactics, not surrender.In the morning after the visitation, he destroyed himself with uncertainty.Did he present himself to Rivani or stay out of her way for a few days to lick his wounds in private?Eventually, he went down to the kitchens to begin the fire and await Rivani’s arrival.Amplifying his anxieties, he had again changed during the night.
“Good morning, Baró.”
Rivani had not yet braided or bound her hair and though dressed and ready to start the day, Baró imagined a vague morning haze around her inspired by the loose cascade of her hair and the sleepiness lingering in the corners of her eyes.He had the desire to curl up with her somewhere like contented cats.He regretted that he would be cause for that endearing morning languor to flee.He stood from the bench like a naughty child and held out the bruised wrists and cut arms.
“Y need thy assystance.”He added in Rivanic since he had slipped back into Varnasian, “Please.”
“Oh dear gods.”She let a breath escape as she found his eyes.“Baró, what has tormented you again?”She took him in, all the changes of him, and he bowed his head under the study.“More gifts, I see too.”She crossed the room to extract her jars.
He stayed silent, resuming his seat after she surveyed him.
She brought the jars to the table and sat beside him on the bench, her legs tucked up under her as she opened her concoctions.She dipped her fingers into the boarberry salve and began applying it to his new wounds.
“Baró,” she said as she worked the balm into his fur and flesh, “what does this to you?I could understand scratches from your claws but....”She brushed her fingers over the bruised wrists and up his neck, bruised too.
Baró did not know how to explain.The Magic had told him to tell Rivani about Her, knowing he would sound unhinged and dangerous.
“The Magic here.”He kept silent for a moment, waiting, listening, before he continued.“I would believe it only my nighttime fancy if I did not have such tokens in the morning.”
“Even if you dreamed such things and then harmed yourself in sleeping, it would not alter your shape.”
His hair that she had just so recently discovered the courage to touch no longer grew like hair.Still curly and black, instead of hanging, it adhered to his head, neck, and back, framing his face in a way that only made him look more predatory.It traveled down his shoulders and back like sprawling vegetation.His back had changed also, humped now, not altering his posture, but expanding the breadth of the musculature in his neck and shoulders, accentuating the hair, now fur, that tapered into the tufted mane along his spine.
“I am driving myself mad with worry and fear over what harms the one I look to for protection.”
Her admission caused him a moment of gratitude and pride, both sensations fading just as abruptly.With his size and appearance, she would view him as a guard dog, a mythical guardian the creatures of the forest respected and fled in the expectation of his arrival.The Rivani even elevated him to a god in their stories.
“You need have no fear or worry for yourself.The Magic has no ill intent toward you.”
“Why does the Magic have ill intent at all?”Rivani applied the julica to the bruise forming on his chin.
“I earned this,” he admitted, the confession of a weary creature who had long embraced the consequences.
“You must have done something dreadful.”
“Yes.”He bowed his head.“And I did not do some things.Passivity itself can be an act of cruelty.”
She bit her lip.“One day, will you tell me?”
“One day, I will have to.”His mouth grew tight, the muzzle pulled in as if assaulted by an unpleasant smell.He put his hands out before him, palms up.“May I?”
She had already touched him multiple times.She had stroked his shoulders and back and played with his hair, but she hesitated at the offer of his hands.She grazed the callused pads of his hands with her fingertips and then nodded.
“I am leaving again, soon.”Baró enfolded her hands and brushed his thumbs over the backs of them with reverence.He kept his gaze on them and not at her.
“It is not my time yet.”
