Renevere Mars: Part Three

Episode 32: Normal

Somehow completely by accident, Ren ended up avoiding Heath for weeks. She even saw him once in a training room practicing sword swings with another warrior, and she averted her gaze and hurried off before he could spot her. So, maybe it wasn't completely by accident...

In her defense, things with Duren had felt so extremely good that it was hard to notice anything else. Stolen nights at each other's apartments, cooking together, just being around each other in ways she'd always wanted to but never could. They'd even gone on a proper date, or as close to one as was possible. A meal between Master and pupil wasn't anything to raise a brow at, so long as they strictly avoided PDA. Turned out it wasn't so difficult, since they had been on the edge of their strength trying not to jump each other's bones for practically years, so they had plenty of practice at pretending to be nothing more than Master and pupil.

Having Sam and Cara around had felt incredibly new at first too, though not to the two of them. They picked right back up where they'd left off, training together, running exercises, and eventually starting off with some Echo ranked missions that Sam loudly protested the entire time. After the series of life threatening situations Ren had endured over the past several months, she welcomed the Echo missions happily. Eventually it started to feel like nothing had changed at all.

But it had. And Heath was the evidence to that change, which is, in truth, the real reason she was avoiding him.

"Sam!" Cara exclaimed. "Hold! Still!"

Sam was wiggling around in the over-thick coat which they used to train throwing needles, itching his lower back below the coat with difficulty while Cara attempted to extract all the needles she'd thrown at him without accidently cutting him on the way out. They stood in one of the larger training rooms, though their scheduled time was running short. Space to train was in high demand on account of the recent snowfall they'd had in Ossilith. Everyone would rather be training indoors.

"Why am I always the one who's got to be your pin cushion?" he demanded in a characteristically Sam kind of way.

"1-2-3, not it!" Ren called over her shoulder where she was attempting to draw a rune in blood on a piece of paper. She wasn't getting very far though, because the tiny cut she'd made on the tip of her finger was running out of blood.

"Your cut's not deep enough," Duren said after standing over her shoulder to witness her struggle for a moment. They were both ignoring Sam and Cara interrupt each other regarding why or why not Sam made the perfect pin cushion.

She let out a huff in response to his critique, craning her neck to look up at him. "I know. But it hurts," she complained, laughing a little at how silly it sounded. She'd endured far worse. But she still had such a hard time making herself do it. He cocked a brow at her as response. "I know I could do it in the heat of the moment, easily. It's just here, when there's no need..."

He crouched down beside where she sat on the floor and took her hand in his. He took the knife out of her hand too and said, "The resistance is all in your head." He isolated her first finger with care and held the knife over it, poised, looking at her first as though for permission. Ren marveled that these were the same hands that had cut off several of Trish's fingers. She could still see them, rolling as they hit the floor like dropped carrots.

She didn't so much give him permission as she did grimace before he poked the tip of her finger, deep enough to draw a fat drop of blood to the surface almost immediately. It had been quick, a pinch and now a dull ach, but nothing more.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," she pondered, staring at the blood as it dribbled down her finger, hand still held in his. He gave her hand an affectionate caress with his thumb, a minute gesture no one would see, drawing her gaze with a fond smile on her face. He returned the look. Sam and Cara were too entrenched in bickering to notice.