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Jade allowed this contact, though he did not entirely like it. Being weak just wasn't his schtick.
"You're making a big deal of nothing," he said quietly, shifting away slightly as he returned his attention to the stew, bringing the bowl to his lips more slowly and sipping at it more conservatively. |
"I see someone that I think needs help," Ayame replied just as quietly, leaning against the wall as Jade ate. She hugged her knees to her chest. "But if you don't need or want my help or my company, I'll leave you in the morning and you'll never see me again."
Don't get sad, girl. We've been run off before. Nothing new here. |
Jade rolled his eyes, lowering the soup and swallowing.
"Don't dramatize, girl. I am the king of overdone emotions, and you most certainly are not the queen. I am not discounting your attempt to help me, I am merely stating that several parts of it are unnecessary. If I didn't want you here, I assure you...you would not be here." Pretty articulate for a wounded fox, but Jade was already starting to regain his strength, if slowly. |
Ayame winced, more from a pang of hunger than from his words. At a loss for what to say, she pulled a slightly squishy strawberry from the shirt still tied to her wrist and popped it in her mouth.
After chewing over both her words and the berry, she turned to Jade. "I'm used to people pushing me away after I've offered my abilities. I've never worked on demons before, and I can see now that you really don't need me, but you neither run me out nor take advantage of my abilities. I've never been more confused in my life." She rested her chin on her knees. "If you don't need me to heal you, then what do you need me for, if you indeed need me at all?" she muttered, more to herself than to him. Why did I untie him from that log anyways? What, other than the smell of blood, drew me so to this obviously powerful male? Am I really that lonely for contact that I run off with the first demon I see? This could all be a trap. He could be spinning an illusion. I could die tonight. What if he-- Ayame shook her head. She stood up and stretched, raising her arms high over her head, groaning a little louder than necessary to mask the sudden roaring in her stomach. She didn't want to rush the fox, but dammit, she was starting to get more than a little peckish, and she wanted her bowl back. |
Jade got the idea--his ears were pretty good, after all--and finished of the stew quickly, before handing the bowl over. He seemed to think to himself for a moment before responding to Ayame.
"I don't care if you leave. I'm used to a solitary existence," he began. "I do not wish to keep you here, nor am I going to force you away. Now go eat, and give me some of those strawberries." He shifted slightly, wincing. His back was going to be killing him forever... |
Ayame took the bowl, taking note of how much Jade had been wincing.
"Here," she untied the strawberries from her wrist and set the shirt in Jade's lap. "Try not to eat them too fast." She scooped up the rest of the stew in the bowl and settled back in her spot. "Your back, is it bothering you that badly? Is there anything at all that I can do?" she asked after taking a few swallows. |
"Everything's bothering me, to be honest. Take a look at these," Jade said, smirking sardonically as he raised both arms and revealed the criss-crossing slashes all over them. "But yeah, the back's pretty bad. I'm not sure you could do anything. Bandaging would be a fool move the bandages would stick to so many large open wounds."
He shifted back into the position he'd been in before, wincing again. The pain wasn't unbearable, but it was enough to make him feel ill... |
"That taijiya did quite a number on you," Ayame muttered, rage seeping into her voice unexpectedly. "I can't stand senseless violence such as this." She angrily downed the rest of the steaming soup, ignoring the searing liquid burning her throat quite badly. She coughed once, wiping away the blood that came with it with the back of her hand, then proceeded to clean up the dishes. She gathered up the cooking pot and her bowl and spoon.
"I'm going to wash these out. I'll be back shortly. I'll bring back some water for you." |
Jade raised an eyebrow at that. never had he gotten such a reaction. Not on his behalf. And now that he thought about it, while he was at fault for having provoked the humans into action, he had also not threatened them so badly as to warrant such reactions.
That village...they had hired a taijiya, but the taijiya was to kill demons, not leave them tied to logs and leave them to be slaughtered. That in and of itself should have been strange, but he hadn't considered it. Now though...he wondered at what had caused such strange behavior...? |
Ayame wasted no time in getting to the stream. She rinsed out the dishes, then plunged her head under the water and scrubbed her face.
It would be nice to take a bath, but I need to get back to Jade. I'll bathe in the morning. She pulled her head back out of the water, pausing to drink briefly. She winced as the cold water hit her burned throat, but toughed through it. She pulled an empty jar out of her tail and filled it with water, then turned and ran back to the hut. "Here," she said, handing the jar out to Jade. |
Jade motioned for her to set the jar down.
"Thank you," he said quietly. He was not ungrateful, but neither was he thirsty at the moment. He simply wanted to close his eyes and sleep, which was made all the more simple now that he had eaten and been tended to. |
Ayame set the jar on the floor next to Jade.
"Are you comfortable?" she asked. "Do you need anything?" |
"Other than sleep? No, I am fine," Jade assured her. "Worry about yourself more, you have done enough for me tonight."
Closing his eyes, he sighed. "You did a lot more for me today than most people have done for me in their whole lives, you know," he commented offhandedly. |
Ayame curled up on the floor. "Really?" she asked, propping her head up on one arm to look at him. "Actually, since I got run out of my village, you're the first person to put up with me for so long. Any other person would have chased me away or tried to kill me or something."
|
Jade chuckled a little at that.
"Are you not half-demon?" he asked, not sneering. Merely asking matter-of-factly. "It stands to reason that you would not be accepted by either humans nor demons. Humans would chase you away. Demons would attempt to kill you." He sighed softly, his shoulders slumping. "I have no business judging you, and even if I did, I would have no right to judge you negatively." |
"I was raised by humans," Ayame replied equally matter-of-factly. "I guess you could say that I was raised as a human, despite my ears and tail, and the fact that I can transform and stuff. Before the accident, the humans of my village treated me as their own, as one of them. I can't shake that mindset, no matter how much I try to convince myself that I'm not human. I was raised to treat everyone equally. I just want to help people. What I'm half of or not half of shouldn't make a difference."
Ayame rolled over onto her belly and propped her head up on both hands, looking squarely at Jade. "What about you? I can tell there's something dark about you. Why are you so alone? What are you trying to do?" |
Jade smirked.
"Must I live for some set purpose?" he asked. "I don't currently have any other purpose than to exist, and that's not exactly the easiest thing to do with my race and personality. I have rather...interesting compulsions, none of which I'm sure that you've had to deal with. You seem more or less rather human." He paused. "That is, you have very human tendencies. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but it is interesting." |
Ayame looked at the male. "I only act how I was brought up. I guess I would behave more like a demon if I had been raised by my birth parents. I really haven't had to deal with many hardships, except...."
She looked off to the side. "Well, let's just say that I've had my fair share of rough times." |
"Oh, don't worry. I won't be that nosy," Jade said, raising one gashed up arm to scratch behind his not-tattered ear. "Mm...I do hope the other will heal fully. Damn villagers sliced my ear to ribbons, and it hurt like hell."
If there was one thing that Jade absolutely hated, it was when anyone messed with his ears. They were highly sensitive, and thus hypersensitive to touch and obviously pain. More than anything, it'd hurt when they slashed his ear. Pretty sad when you got down to it. |
Ayame sat up.
"May I have a look?" she asked. "I promise to be careful." |
Jade paused to observe Ayame, then turned his head slightly, proffering the shredded ear.
"Just don't touch it," he warned. "I really would rather you didn't." It was pretty obvious why. It was cut to about three different pieces, and part of the bottom was completely missing. Needless to say, that ear couldn't stand erect anymore. |
Ayame rose to her feet and made her way over to Jade. She leaned down and peered at the tattered ear, gently brushing his hair away so she could get a closer look at the base. After observing the appendage for a few seconds, she straightened up to give her diagnosis.
"If what you say about your healing attributes is true, and speaking from my own experiences, you should be fine in a day or so. I fell out of a tree once and caught my ear on a knot on the way down. It only caught the last few inches, but it tore the top of my ear in half. I thought I was going to have to have my mother stitch it back together, but by the next morning it mended itself." She looked at the ear again. "You've had a great deal more damage done to this, though, so it's going to take longer, of course. Obviously, that chunk isn't going to grow back, but if you flip your hair to the side you'll hardly notice it." |
"Mm...you are probably right," Jade said, agreeing. "Many of these injuries may heal by tomorrow, if I'm lucky."
He yawned loudly, though he didn't stretch as he might have any other time. "Now then. If you don't mind, I would like to sleep. No one says you have to, but I'm exhausted," he said, and he definitely looked the part. Then again,who wouldn't be exhausted by beatings and starvation and thirst? |
Ayame stifled her own yawn with the back of her hand.
"I'll keep watch, then, if you want to get some sleep," she offered. She had been chased by a bear, almost chased by villagers, and had done a whole lot of running around, but there was no way she was going to settle down and sleep now, despite how tired she was. She had someone to watch over. No way was she going to fall asleep. "Actually, I'll be back in one minute." She went outside and stomped out what was left of the embers of her fire, then kicked the surrounding dirt into the ashes and covered up any signs of fire in the area. Upon her return to the hut, Ayame shut the door tightly and leaned against it, testing how much weight she could put on it. For good measure, she yanked a few strands of hair from her tail and tied a firecracker to the doorjamb, placing it just so that, in case she fell asleep and the door was opened, it would explode and wake them up. Once she was sure she had her security set up, she sat facing Jade and leaned against the wall, taking out her mortar and pestle so she could grind up some of her dried herbs. |
Jade was, impressively enough, completely asleep before Ayame returned. He really was exhausted, to the point where his normal level of sleep awareness was completely gone. His eyebrows were relaxed, ears lowered, and body completely and totally limp.
Even if he felt unsafe, what could he do about it? He knew this would be his death when he fell asleep, but there were no choices here... **** By the next morning, Jade was far better. He still woke up several hours after midday, but he probably needed the rest. When he first awoke, he was unsure of where he was. Once he figured it out though, it mostly came back. He remembered why he was here, just not anything in between. The kitsune started to push away from the wall, but it hurt quite a bit and he was forced to stop. "Ngh..." |
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