Healed clans

The girl (Linya)

"Lydia?" I ask, and my voice comes out weak and unsteady. I try again, adding a few elven phrases to confuse Cherion. As far as I'm concerned he hasn't been speaking any Quenya. She answers me back in Quenya too. 

"Welcome back, commander! I've been watching over you." She points a finger over her shoulder towards Cherion, "and him, I guess." Questions flow through my mind and try to grab my attention. How did my seco... The youngest of our squad get inside of my hut and stay inside without anyone noticing? Lydia, who'd as far as I'm concerned only been placed in our group because the head commander thought it funny that we had such similar names, was only placed with us this year and so far, she'd been a rowdy one, playing pranks on the older warriors and running around unsupervised, even though she was well above the age for pranks, if the rumors from back home were anything to go by. It never crossed my mind before that in order to achieve the kind of mischevious freedom she has, one has to be sneaky as well. I'd always thought it was simply because she was small enough to hide almost anywhere. 

"I take it you two know each other already," Cherion remarks from the doorway and I startle, having forgotten his presence while in my thoughts. He's still speaking the common language, though. "Maybe you can tell me why you've been tasked with watching over your commander?" Did he know that beforehand, or did he gather that information from our conversation?

"You know my name now," Lydia says, "and you know your clan is at war with the northern elves." Cherion flinches, as if surprised, or almost... hurt? "You know the dwarves by our mountains are our allies, yet you have no idea how your clan has stayed strong enough to fight an entire army of elves and dwarves, when they can't communicate or stay friendly long enough to gather allies." At this, I smile. The snarky little elf knows less than me, after all. Lydia turns her attention to me again. "The rest is up to my commander." 

Smiling, I reach for Lydia and giver her a side hug. It hurts a little, and I try, really try, not to wince, but it's like Cherion senses it anyways. Before I can react he gently pushes back Lydia and sits down at my bedside. His long, white hair is tangled into a half knot on his head, and I suddenly wonder when the last time was someone took care of him for a change. "You shouldn't be sitting up," he mutters bruskly. The sudden surge of sympathy disappears like a cloud of smoke. "And you shouldn't be the healer of a  Centari clan," I tell him back. His grip on my duvet hardens and I realize for the first time what a horrible idea it is to yell at the only person in this place who's treating me with some kind of respect. 

"Look at youself." Cherion gestures at my body, which is half covered by the duvet and half out for him to inspect my wounds. I notice I'm still wearing my clothes, except for the places he had to rip them apart in order to get to my wounds. "I know you don't like being here, hell, you must even hate me, but I grew up here, okay?" He pauses to retie a fresh strip of cloth around my midriff. Rough hands run across my body and towards my ankles, feeling for injuries, presumably. "The only reason I'm still alive is because I stayed useful, and yet most of the clan still wants to see me strung up on a pole. But I'd be dead if I left camp and even if I could, I no longer know if I would. You may call me a traitor, spit on me or whatever it is you elves do. Frankly, I don't know, because you're the first elf I've seen in a century," he growls now. 

I can't answer him. Don't know how to when he looks like a wrong move could get him to implode. When the pain and hurt and fear is forming a deadly pool of mixed emotions, so many emotions I don't think he'd be able to name half of them. Staying quiet, I let him do whatever it is he feels he needs to do, until the quiet around us seems unbearable and I realize what he's told me isn't enough.