From Ashes and Snow

Blush

Unedited. 

Chapter Thirty-One: Blush

"Mornin," The bench groaned as Gwen slid onto at breakfast, elbows planted on the wood. She stared at me unashamedly as I looked up to her, rubbing the tiredness from my eyes.

Asha'da - a woman spends weeks chained to the wall, beaten and starved and yet, she still has to read through the reports she missed. The Captain only did it to taunt me – I know he did.

The injustice of it all.

"Shiny, you really have Asha'da's power in your palms?" Gwen reached for the food eagerly, heaping it onto her plate. Her had bound back her curling hair, exposing a thick jaw and sharp cheekbones. She was beautiful, in a rough way. Like a storm – wild.

"Yes, but my name is Aviana Birchwood. Not Shiny."

Gwen ripped into the meat, tearing through it with easy. Slightly queasy, I tried not to focus on it. "Yer a Half-Blood, aren't ya? What's it like living with people who hate yer kind?"

At her boldness, I nearly spluttered out my tea. No one had asked it so boldly before. Everyone knew that most people disliked me solely because I was only a Half-blood, but no one had confronted it so obviously.

I decided right then that Gwendolyn Feldspar would be a brilliant addition to our numbers.

"It was difficult at the start," I began reluctantly. "Humans have demonized my kind for centuries. I was wary of them and they were wary of me, but we work well together. Despite our differences."

"Good," Another pull of meat from the bone, effortlessly done. "I am not working for some whiny lady. Now, you going to tell me how you got those marks on your hands or are we just going to sit and shit for the rest of the day?"

"Sit and ..." Laughing, I set down the reports. Scribbled in a scout's bad hand-writing. Cadel always gave me a headache to read. I preferred Elven: reading Cadel made me feel like a girl again, learning the big words. "The tablet was held in Dratlan, which was my home. It was broken during the ...attack and the power infused within me. I was given the power to read Ekini, the language of the Divide..."

"I prefer calling it the Abyss," Gwen grumbled, "But go ahead."

Lips twitching, I continued, "And sometimes my palms burn. And I shine."

"And it's given you those markings on the palm? The Joining of Worlds?"

"Yes."

Gwen grinned ferociously, blocky teeth and meat stained tusks on full display. "Stones! Rock and magic mixed together. Gets me more excited than when I see soldiers train without tunics."

At my perplexed expression, she had to explain. "Have you ever seen a dwarven male with no shirt? The chest hair. Of course, I would crush them like a bug, but a woman can dream. There are soldiers here. Try and spy on them shirtless and sweaty. Oh...Captain Bryant. I bet his chest is one that begs to be stared at."

Cheeks reddening, I spluttered nervously as the Captain appeared at the doorway. His hair was rumpled from sleep, his under-eye darkened and the neck of his tunic was unlaced, giving the both of us a nice view of the beginning of a speckle of hair.

Humans were so hairy.

Straightening in the chair, I watched as he went first to Lieutenant Hoyarn, his expression creased and serious. Asha'da, did that man ever smile?

"I bet he has chest hair." Gwen rested her chin on her palm and stared shamelessly at him. "Nothing compared to a dwarf's, but I wouldn't crush him."