Her mouth twitches, almost a smile. Almost. "Three."
"Closer to five, from how you're holding yourself." I set the jar down, pull out the bitter tea she also hasn't been drinking. "This helps with sleep. You'd know that if you'd tried it."
"I don't like tea."
"You don't like admitting you need help." I meet her gaze directly, no softening. She responds better to blunt honesty than coddling—I figured that out within the first week of treatment. "Staying locked in this cabin, reliving everything that happened, not sleeping, not treating your injuries properly—that's not healing. That's just slower deterioration."
Her arms tighten around herself. "I'm fine."
"You keep saying that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."
This time the almost-smile makes it a fraction further before dying. She moves to one of the chairs, sits with the careful precision of someone whose ribs still hurt more than she's admitting. Looks at her hands instead of me.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing. I want you to use the damn salves." I pull the yarrow-mint paste from my bag, the fresh jar I made this morning. Set it on the table between us. "This one's better for general muscle aches. The other's specifically for shoulder stiffness. You need both, used consistently, not gathering dust on a shelf."
She picks up the jar, turns it over in her hands. "Why do you keep coming here?"
"Someone has to."
"Saela visits."
"Saela coddles you. I don't." I lean against the wall, arms crossed. "And you respond better to not being coddled."
Her lips press together, but she doesn't argue. Can't, probably, because we both know it's true. Saela brings comfort and reassurance and gentle encouragement. I bring blunt assessments and medicinal supplies and refusal to pretend things are fine when they're clearly not.
Ressa needs both. But she only tolerates me.
I should leave it there. Make my assessment, deliver my supplies, go. But the thought from earlier resurfaces, insistent, and apparently I'm enough of an idiot to voice it.
"There's a festival coming. Week-long thing. St. Padraig's Week."
Her whole body goes rigid. Small movement, barely noticeable, but I've spent enough time reading her reactions to catch it.
"I heard," she says, voice carefully neutral.
"Drogath's making it mandatory for most of the clan. Partnerships, bonding exercises, trials." I keep my tone factual, clinical. "Seven days of activities designed to promote cooperation and prosperity or whatever interpretation he's pulled from those old texts."
"Sounds..." She trails off, doesn't finish.
"Ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous." I shift my weight, watching her carefully. "But he'll drag everyone into it regardless. Including me, if I don't find a partner first."
Her gaze snaps up, sharp and wary. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I don't have a partner yet."
The silence that follows carries weight, understanding dawning across her features with something that looks like panic. She stands abruptly, pain flashing across her face from the sudden movement.
"No."
"You haven't heard what I'm suggesting."
"I don't need to. No." She backs up two steps, puts the chair between us like a barrier. "Absolutely not."
"You need to get out of this cabin."
"I go out."
