Lived unbruised,
we are friends; and I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Sigh no more.

Everything about the moment was warm. Ashamin lowered himself to the earth as she asked him to, but even as he did it felt strange. It felt wrong. He was filled with energy, he needed to stand. He needed to run, to do something he didn't know how to, for he was nothing but bruised and everything but weak. He was stronger now than he had ever been, and he had triumphed.

The injury that had come to Rexanna had not been so powerfully intended. There had been no malice in the blows. But now that they were over, now... Ashamin struggled to put together the pieces of why their spar had ended how it had. Why it had even begun.

What exactly had made him suggest they step out into the cold winds to fight? They lay there now, exposed and alone. Lochan had slipped away, sensing somehow that this was not a moment in which he should take part.

Rexanna had come to Ashamin for advice. Advice on how to deal with all those she loved, all those other than he. And he had listened with a hollow heart, doling out formulaic advice for her benefit, her sake. But now he wanted to crush that version of him, the one who had lied so readily, so much, without even realizing.

Their bodies were so close that Ashamin could feel her heartbeat even without the aid of his magic. They were pressed together, but for a different reason that combat tactics. There was something about being close to the mare that the haruspex needed, then.

Something about it that he'd wanted, in her and others, for a very long time.

The part of him that should have apologized for the hurt he had caused her assumed she knew, assumed that such care went without saying. When she coughed his moved his face to press his nose to hers, to nudge carefully the bloody stain on her chest and breathe in the scent. He did not enjoy the blood, he did not enjoy the hurt. But under that, there was the pure smell of Rexanna, and a smell more deep and feral than he had ever before noticed.

His skin prickled with a strange excitement. This was what he wanted. Closeness. Ashamin had denied himself that pleasure, had assumed it was not something he deserved, not something it was within his rights to ask for. But he knew, now, that he could ask. He was strong. He had won. He had proven himself.

Ashamin placed his own heartbeat in Rexanna's chest, its skittering tempo breaking and cresting in uneven jumps as his breath caught over and over. Every time he breathed her in, every time he moved his face against her, he felt it and wondered if she did too.

"Rexanna..." Ashamin breathed her name, his voice wavering. Was this nervousness, or something else?

"...let me help. I can--" he paused, reconsidered. "We can..."

What? What, exactly, could they do? And was it, oh God was it, anything like what he wanted?

"Rexanna, I want you to get up."

His voice was gentle but firm--guiding, as if he were not the one who needed to be led. He knew what he wanted, but he didn't know how or even, exactly, why. Was it that she was beautiful, that she was strong? Or was it that she was weak, that she needed him now in a real, passionate and connected way that she hadn't when she'd come to him before their spar? Or was it that the moment he had first seen Rexanna, in his very first day in the Aurora Basin, his own body had reacted in a way so visceral and violent--so like this spar--that he could not forget its instinct?

"As the mare approached from the distance, Ashamin felt his heart lurch." That was how his understanding of Rexanna had begun, and perhaps he had forced his heart into something steady, something quiet that would leave his mind to rest when she came to him with problems of love and care for so many others in ways Ashamin had given up hope on ever being thought of. Yes, perhaps that was it. So long thinking he was not worth her, Ashamin had forgotten the lurching and made Rexanna live in the shadows of his heart.

He nosed her gently, his magic unconsciously reaching out to slow her heart with power he did not yet know he had and perhaps numbing the pain. "Rexanna, come closer," he begged in a whisper.

But they were already as close as he knew how to be.

""