I giggled. "No, you have a wound. I had surgery. It's like..." I grunted, realizing there was an easy way to explain, so I drew a line across my scar, but over my clothes. "I had a cut that long, which went all the way in so they could get the baby. It took time to heal all the way, but I'm doing well now. You will be up and moving in a few weeks."
"It's a gut wound," he reminded me.
"Mine too."
"But..."
"Medicine," I said. "Not just healing, but actual medicine, Sylis. It's everything we hoped - " The door cracked open, proving Lessa was back. "- for," I finished.
"I have clothes and medicine," Lessa said. "Sylis? That's your name?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Lessa," she corrected. "Those terms you Moles use are only in fairy tales and feel weird." But she waved that off. "We're going to the bathroom. You can walk or someone can carry you. I'll even let you pick who. Your options are me, Drozel, or Omden."
"I can walk," he hurried to say, pushing himself to his feet.
She held her arm out to steady him, but her eyes were on me. "Droz has the water heater going. If you'd like to start the tub?"
"Be nice," I told her, then hurried down the hall to the bathroom while she gave him his pills and got him here.
A flick of the faucet made the water come out warm. The stopper allowed it to fill the tub, but not too much. Sylis couldn't submerge his wound, which would make this hard, but Omdenhad done this with me. This time, I'd be able to do the same for Sylis.
Getting him into the bathroom was easy. Convincing him to take off most of his clothes was not. Lessa allowed him to keep his underwear, saying it would keep both him and me from being embarrassed, but it only helped so much. The moment Sylis removed his shirt, my cheeks started burning.
I'd seen men's chests before. After all, I'd been married. Plus, most of the Dragons went without a shirt every chance they could get. Drozel was the worst by far! But it was different with Sylis.
His skin was either blindingly pale or nearly blistered from the sun. The line between the two was impressive, and I hadn't expected that, but his body? He was thin. No, it was more than that, but I wasn't sure if skinny was enough either. I could count every one of his ribs, and while he had defined muscles in his arms, belly, and legs, they weren't like the men around here.
"Oh, little man," Lessa soothed as she helped him sit in the hip-high water. "We're going to need to give you a few good meals. What sort of food do you like?"
"No," I groaned. "He doesn't know such things. Meat, tubers, fungus, and vegetables. That's it."
"I won't eat meat," Sylis said. "I know what it is, and eating Dragons is disgusting, but our own hunters?"
"Not our meat," I hurried to explain. "We have pigs, deer, birds, rabbits, and more. There are types of plants too. The food here is strange but good, and with more flavors than I ever knew could exist." Then I looked at Lessa. "He won't know if he'll like it, but he should still try it."
"We do have the venison," she pointed out. "We'll cook that tonight. It should be enough for all..." Her eyes darted to the wall, and she laughed once. "Five of us."
"We can do that while the men bathe," I agreed.
"They're using my house," she said.
Sylis's brow creased. "Your..."
"Next door," I said, pointing in the proper direction, even though it didn't help. "Lessa has her own place. She's our friend, so she spends a lot of time here. Mostly to help me while the men were gone."
"Your men?" he asked.
Making a face, I shook my head and reached for the soap. "My friends. Sylis, everything is different. The things you thought of as right and wrong? Forget them. They're lies. Instead, try to be good, kind, and understanding. Dragons are all the people here - with or without tails - and their rules are not about 'proper' and 'allowed.' They're about right and wrong."
"Drozel and Omden told me some," he admitted. "But I don't know what to believe. I know they don't trust me, and I don't know that I trust them, but I want to. I don't want to go back. I don't want to marry a woman and dothatwith her. I - "
"Want to kiss a man?" Lessa asked.
He flinched hard.
She simply smoothed down his hair like she would with a child. "We have words for the options. And thereareoptions. People are supposed to fall in love, Sylis, not be forced to have children! Many couples can't have their own babies, and others have babies they didn't plan for. Dragons realized the solution is easy. Those who want children raise them, even if they didn't produce them - or if they did. And relationships?" She turned to smile at me. "Those are only to make us happy. Not because someone else says we have to be in one."
