I spray the joint with numbing frost and wrap it in an elastic bandage, anchoring it with a strip of adhesive.
When I look up, she is watching my hands the way people watch knives—the way they watch a surgeon’s hands when the decision is already made.
“You’ve done this,” she says softly. “A lot.”
“Yes.”
“For humans.”
“And my own.” I pull the boot back on, loose. “Pain is not picky about species.”
Something loosens in her face. It changes the shape of her mouth and the angle of her eyes. She is very young in this light—and old in the set of her shoulders.
“I’m Lina,” she says after a moment, like a bridge she chooses to build. “Lina Carter. CRENA courier.” Her fingers touch the hollow at her collarbone where the tag lies dark now. “Was.”
“Rygnar,” I answer. She already knows my name, but names have weight when you give them; it matters that I do. “No longer a soldier. Miner. Medic, sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” she repeats.
Her mouth learns my name without saying it—lips shaping the consonants, teeth catching the unfamiliar sharp in the middle. There is no fear in the mimicry. Only curiosity.
It is a good sign.
Outside, the wind changes key—lower, wetter. The seam behind us draws a damp breath. The storm will arrive before full dark.
“Eat,” I say.
I pull dried meat and hard bread from the pack, break both into smaller pieces, and put them in her hands so she does not have to ask.
She eats like a person who has remembered she should.
I force myself to do the same.
Fuel now. Questions later.
When we are done, I lower the lantern and set a heat canister between us. It throws a small circle of warmth that smells faintly of resin.
The human wraps her arms around herself—then stops, embarrassed at being cold in front of a stranger.
I unsling the outer scarf from my kit and offer it across the heat.
She blinks. “You’ll—?”
“I do not get cold as you do,” I say.
That is true enough.
She takes it. Her fingers brush mine accidentally.
Reflex sets my spine like a bowstring—old controls snapping into place: do not crowd, do not startle, do not move fast.
She notices. Of course she does.
Her gaze flickers to my throat.
She has good instincts.
“Back there,” she says after a while, voice small in the dim, “you told me where to aim. If I had to.”
