“What’ve you done!?” She dropped to her knees with a cry and peeled the stranger's fingers away but quickly stopped when the blood started running again. “Oh my god.” Yahiro clenched her eyes shut and forced the nausea back down her throat.
“I killed him,” the strange alien answered her, his voice dead. She glanced up to see his features no longer painted in wild aggression. They were now numb and zombielike. “It’s my fault.” He briefly looked at her, shadows and light danced across his somber features before he huddled back over her alien.
Her heart was in her throat and fear clogged her head.He can’t die. Quist promised. You promised!She tore off her necklace and the stone attached and placed it on his chest, hoping for something, anything to happen. Nothing did. Helplessly, she wiped the blood off her hands over the moss, pausing when she felt a stray feather beneath her fingers. She lifted it between them and clenched it into her fist.
“You’re not dying on me. Not now!”
She turned away, stumbling over herself and got to work picking up all the loose feathers she could find. Her hands were filled within seconds. Her eyes landed on the fallen broadsword and with gritted teeth and pain, lifted and dragged it away. The other alien didn’t even notice.
“Help me!” she screeched in frustration, unable to watch Quist die, unable to look directly at him for fear she’d be too late.
Somehow the new alien heard her and straightened, his fingertips dripping with blood, his shadowy gold eyes piercing through her soul. “There’s nothing we can do!”
Yahiro quickly turned away and lowered her feathers into the water, drenching them. “We can save him if we hurry!” she said it more for herself than for him. She returned to Quist’s side and laid his feathers in and over his wound, hoping they would help him like they had helped her. Immediately the blood stopped flowing and her heart skipped a beat.
Please, please, please! Please work.“I need a-a knife, a dagger?” she stumbled over her request as she cleaned Quist’s wounds, hating that her alien showed no sign of life. “I can’t lose you now, I’ve lost so much...”
The other alien produced a skinny curved blade and handed it to her. He remained silent, but watchful. Her adrenaline pumped through every fiber of her being while her heart cracked like glass with each passing second.
She removed the feathers and checked the wound, disgusted by how deep it was, but moved on quickly. Her hands shook as she worked. First, she pulled the thread from Quist’s hair and had the new alien rinse it in the water; while he did that, she shaved the frills off of one of Quist’s shorter feathers and made a shabby needle out of its stem. Her eyes brimmed with tears, looking at her handiwork with shame, but threaded it anyway.
“What are you doing?”
Yahiro pinched the bloody-again skin together and sucked in a breath. She had been trained for emergencies but she only had second hand knowledge of sewing wounds back together.
“I fucking miss Earth,” she hissed as she poked the feather stem through Quist’s skin, and with many mishaps, proceeded to sew his wound together.
Time passed with numerous curses, choking retches, and the other alien sitting on the other side of her constantly cleaning and changing the feathers she gathered. No matter what he did or didn’t do, she didn’t think she could forgive him.
When her makeshift needle broke, he prepared another one for her. Neither of them checked Quist’s pulse, neither one wanting to know if their effort was for nothing. She told herself it was better off not knowing, not yet at least, not until she had done everything she possibly could to save him.
It seemed like hours had gone by before she finished stitching his skin.
Finger joints aching, Yahiro rubbed her nose over her sleeve and sat back, eyeing her work for any gaps that she may have missed but found none, only red and swollen skin. She startled when an arm nudged her to the side and the other alien, so alike Quist yet not, took over.
With his hand filled with freshly wet feathers, he tenderly placed them over the wound until it was fully covered, and she reached forward to use the others to clean off the rest of his golden skin.His beautifully honed skin...Her eyes fell upon it, the piercings, the star shapes, and the silken hair that haloed his head. She took him in, remembering the feel of it all over her not an evening past. Her own skin grew cold from the thought of never being warmed by his again.
Yahiro pressed a hand over her heart, wishing the ache would stop. None of it made sense to her. None of it. Only that she had bonded to Quist so suddenly, so absolutely it was like Cupid himself using Apollo’s bow and arrows shooting her straight to soul. She sniffled and pulled her knees to her chest while hovering over his face, brushing her fingers over his brow, and losing them in his hair. She leaned down and kissed his unresponsive lips and nuzzled his face.Please.
With her breath against his cheek, she murmured, “Please, Lusheenn.” The grey and gold blending of early dawn flowed now throughout the glen.
“Who are you?”
Yahiro looked up to see the other alien staring at her intensely. She wiped her tears.
“Yahiro of Quist,” she breathed.
His face softened into shock before it was quickly gone and he nodded, keeping his eyes on her. His gaze was heavy and made her feel small.He makes me feel like a butterfly next to an eagle.She did her best to keep her courage in place. But the longer they looked at each other, the more she saw the resemblance to Quist in him.
Major differences aside, being this new valos had no wings and was in a full suit of gilded armor, their build and shape were the same. Even the color and length of their long hair were the same. But for some reason, she had the notion this one was a lot older and it wasn’t for his rugged, hard appearance... He had an air about him that intimidated her into a puddle of mush. Where Quist was pierced by metal, this one had no piercings whatsoever.
She tore her gaze from his and ran it over his armor. He looked like a medieval knight, straight from the Templars, or from some alternate fantastical world where paladins existed and they embodied righteousness. He screamed authority without opening his mouth.
Yahiro looked back at Quist’s wound. The feathers were unblemished with blood but it didn’t make her feel better.
The paladin cleared his throat and it made her heart skip a beat.
“Where are you from?” his voice was razor-sharp with demand. She frowned, hating the way it made her feel.
