... nein

[Camulous Smithson]

"Yes, of course." He said without hesitation. Being pummelled by a troll was as good a reason as any for some time off. "He can take it up with Seventri if he needs more."

Seventri, being the lead doctor at fort Omenbryn, handled medical leaves for all the men. He was also a very hard man to get extra time off from, so three was surely all Theo was going to get.

Pursuing the troll who'd just run down the street was on Camulous' mind. He was hard pressed not to do so and handle the takedown and arrest of the creature personally, but her question kept him where he was. Technically it was a legal issue that was just as important as hunting down a troll, even if it had less immediate consequences. It was excuse enough to justify staying with her.

"I've handled it. He's being disciplined pretty hard for what he did, but I can't take him off the guard..."

[Metarie]

Metarie shook her head. "Oh no, I was not going to ask for that. It's just..." Metarie looked around the ER, "Do you mind. I can talk as I work." After confirming Cam would walk with her, she moved toward the next person needing help. Metarie smiled at the man. "Hello, you've done well to take care of that cut so far, but you look like you are in a little pain. We're going to give you something for the pain. Are you allergic to anything we should know about?"

The man shook his head. "Well, we will monitor you for a little while after that just in case, alright?" He nodded his consent again. She directed her attention to the assistant. "Is his documentation complete? I need goldenseal number 2"

"Yes, Doctor Sehkhara. Right away." The assistant moved off as Metarie reached for the man's arm. "May I see please?" Metarie deftly put her hands at the crux of the man's arm. The wound had already been cleaned. "Do you want standard or magic healing?"

The man paled slightly. "Standard, please." Metarie smiled in understanding and nodded. The attendant returned carrying a vial. "Alright then, you will need to drink this for me. Then I will stitch the wound closed. You may feel tugging, but there should be no pain. Should you feel pain, you need to let me know immediately." The man nodded again.

"Yes, doctor." The man drank the contents of the vial. "I will count to ten... 1, 2, 3..." By the time Metarie had reached the count of 10, the man's eye lids had drooped slightly and he smiled in a besotted sort of way. Before beginning Metarie washed her hands in a basin of clean water and antiseptic the attendant provided. "Here, we go..." Metarie began to suture the cut closed.

As she stitched, she started to talk to Cam once again. "It's just that he was not wholly at fault. I did push his behaviour. It was obvious that he thought women and especially elvish women to be nothing more than ... well, you know." Each stitch was neat and tight. The scar would be minimal. "I had intended to leave the house to retrive ... my guest's things and see if I could draw out the person who was ... looking for her." Metaire ran her thumb over the stiching to confirm it was smooth and straight as it should be. The attendant cut the suture material after she knotted it off. "This is why my hair was so red." Metarie took a tube of salve proferred by the attendant. A line was drawn with the tube's content on either side of the stiching. Metarie carefully merged the two lines over the wound.

"Thank you, you are always right where I need you, Marcus." Metarie smiled at the man. "You need to finish your studies, so you can become a doctor here as well. Will you please wrap this in a light gauze? He will need to wait for the effects to wear off or have someone come take him home."

"Yes, Dr. Sehkhara. Thank you."

Metarie stood and moved to the next bed. The ER worked on the concept of Triage. The other scheduled on-duty doctors were working on the more desperate cases, so Metarie worked on reducing their workload by helping those at the next level of injury down from dire. The attendants were well trained, much of the prelimary cleaning, interviews, and pain relief had been handled.

"I suppose the point of my rambling story is that he thought he would get some sort of favor from me mainly because I did not choose to disabuse him of the notion. I took advantage of it." Metarie did not want to tell Cam that the man left the house to retrieve Lanya's things unless he already knew. Cam probably did of course, but she certainly would not bring it up unless he did.

"We played a game of cards. He tried to call piglet on me. I called it on him first. He did not know I knew of the game. Since I had given him ale, he was not in full control of his faculties. He is wrong to treat women in that mannner, Cam." Metarie fixed Camulous with a hard look. "But, I was wrong to use it for my own purposes as well. I did not think it fair if you did not know the full story." As she finished talking, she had worked on two additional patients.

For the moment at least, the chaos was stilled.

[Camulous Smithson]

The captain let Metarie go through her duties unabated. He knew how things worked in the hospital, more or less, and the importance of what she was doing. The place was similar to the smaller version they had in the headquarters, except that here they allowed magical treatment. And here they treated anyone, even criminals, without asking questions. As long as they were citizens.

It was obvious that he thought women and especially elvish women to be nothing more than ... well, you know.

He grunted. "I know how he thinks. That doesn't make it any less his fault."

Various patrons exchanged glances with him while he stood there. Most of them were friendly, some were not. A few of the less friendly ones he recognized, and thought very little of them.

Following her to the next bed, he listened with only half interest to what she was saying. She was blaming herself, something he's known women to do, when the blame for attacking her rested squarely on Idonir's shoulders. Anything short of a fantastical story wasn't going to absolve him of that. When she fixed her serious gaze on Camulous, she could see that he was doubtful.

"Attacking a woman in her own home is inexcusable. He has a job to do, and part of that is controlling himself. If he can't do that, he needs to be disciplined."

[Metarie]

Metarie nodded. She had said as much.

"Agreed. But, I needed to tell you my perspective and actions." She could tell he thought she was making excuses and taking the blame. But, after 13 years, did he really not understand the motivation for most of her actions? Her personal ethics would allow her to do no less.

A rueful look crossed her face. Excluding the night before, of course. The motivations there were complex, more complex than she could even begin to explain. Metarie looked up at Camulous and gave him another smile.

"Now, you are not hurt. Was there something you needed from me?" The look in Metarie's eyes held a hint of mischieviousness. She had a good guess as to why he had come to the hospital.

[Camulous Smithson]

"I'll be sure to make it clear to him you didn't press charges while he's busy peeling potatoes." The captain said with a perfectly straight face. The truth was that Idonir was getting a fair bit worse than potato peeling as punishment. Lashes had already been given, as was their custom. It wouldn't be Idonir's first time, either.

Her smile eventually infected him and he returned it in a way that softened his features. The corner of his mouth pulled back an inch. He was glad to see her smile after everything that had happened to her in the past two days.

"Yes, actually. I believe I left my hat at your house, and I was wondering if I could get that back from you."

[Metarie]

Around them the ER functioned as efficiently as it always did; information, healing, all taken in stride. The only thing that was different was them. Camuolous’ features changed, softened and suddenly he was more approacheable looking. These moments were so few; when he let his guard down and was just himself. Despite what happened the previous night, she could not deny the way something flip-flopped inside of her. Years of friendship, respect, and… it was his gentleness that always undid her resolve.

He could be hard and inflexible, sometimes infuriating, but Metarie knew there was more to him than a stony, cold demeanor. Anyone looking at them then had to be blind not to see what she felt. Her mischievious, playful look changed as the feeling in her chest constricted then expanded. Affection, caring, something more shone from her gaze and the soft, open smile on her lips. When it came to Camulous Smithson, Metarie Sehkhara wore her heart on her sleeve, and everyone but he seemed to know it.

Metarie looked down at the chart she held in an attempt to regain her composure. His question helped immensely. Looking up, Metarie studied Camulous gravely as she considered his request. She pursed her lips, her brows drew together, and she slowly shook her head side to side. She fixed Camulous with a gimlet stare as she replied.

"No," she said thoughtfully. "I like it." She did not take her eyes off of Camulous.

[Camulous Smithson]

The captain raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment of her response. His recent exchanges with her have been suggesting something to the often unresponsive emotional parts of his mind. It wasn't unusual for Metarie to make a joking tease, but it was for him to interpret it as flirtatious.

This time the difference was with him. He did pick up on it. Something in him was receptive to it, even drew him to play along for reasons other than formal social graces. For a moment, the way she smiled at him drew him in to play.

When he played, though, there was very little to suggest it was a game. His dry sense of humour left everything he did, even in jest, with the stoic facade of an entirely serious man.

"It is a very nice hat. I've had it for years. I would hate to have to arrest you over it."

[Metarie]

Metarie's eyebrows lifted only slightly, in that school marm, mother knows best expression she took with many patients.

"You have no grounds. Obviously, you meant it to be a present for me or you would not have left it so obviously on my table." Metarie turned back to the clipboard and made a final notation. She handed off the clipboard to the waiting assistant and stood up.

"Besides," she said. When she stood, it brought them almost, almost against each other, close enough to be outside the boundaries of polite company. A little smile curved her lips and she titled her head so that she looked up at him from the corner of her eye. "I already wore it."

After that, Metarie moved to slip away from him, hand skimming across his lightly.

[Camulous Smithson]

Camulous played right along, subtly backing down to her role of the matronly authority. Hers was one social role that could leave a guardsman like Camulous completely disarmed. Even if he was being serious, it would be quite difficult for him to enforce any authority on a woman in her position. She could go so far as to chide him, and he'd have no choice but to bow his head in shame.

He was about to protest in jest when she stood and brought herself up close. The move silenced him as quickly as slap. He was at a loss for words, which was emotionally quite different from his usually self imposed silence. Camulous wanted to say something, but could not come up with a thing. So distracted was he by the suggestiveness of her behaviour and how it managed to entice him that he was completely disarmed.

They had known for years and exchanged a few jokes, but not like this. Was she being serious? What made this time different? She walked away, brushing against him, and he gathered himself enough to speak.

"A gift? You wore my hat?" He followed her, speaking in a voice that was not his usual. It sounded almost pathetic, like he was lost and subservient. Not at all normal.

[Metarie]

Metarie smiled to herself. Her ability to be a woman had always been there and had sometimes come out. But, apparently awareness of her as a physical being had not been high on Camulous' list of things to notice about Metarie Sehkhara.

Now, though, perhaps because he knew one of his men had wanted to have physical relations with her and he knew she had at least one physical relation with a man (not the guardsman), she was suddenly more than a friend, a mind, an equal... she was a woman - flesh and blood, warm, soft skin and subtle scents... or maybe it was just because she had his hat and was being playful about it. In any case, when she stood close and looked at him, there was awareness and it was unexpected.

So unexpected in fact, that for the first time since they met, he was flummoxed. He just repeated her words to her and that made her want to continue this teasing charade.

"Mmhm," she replied. "Yes, you meant to leave it there. As compensation." Metarie turned and looked at him and found him looking at her with a lost, bewildered, little blue-eyed boy look.

"You wore my hat?" A mystified and tremulous query, the question begged for further teasing. Metarie slowly smiled at Camulous as she picked up her things.

"Yes, while I did my gardening." Metarie bit her lip and turned on her heel, heading out the door. "I think I should finish that gardening now..." Metarie exited the building and headed down the street, back toward her home.

[Camulous Smithson]

The discombobulated Camulous' spell of stupefaction passed quickly. It was only a few seconds seconds until he put himself together again and returned to his confident, stone-faced self, as though what she had just witnessed was nothing but the flare of a shooting star that would never be seen again. He covered it up well - the man wasn't going to miss another step.

"A gift and compensation are two different things in the eyes of the law. You'd better decide which before we see a judge about this." The tone of his voice and the dry candour of his humour were back to normal. He wasn't smiling, and might as well have been threatening her.

"I hope you didn't get any dirt on it," he added, despite the obvious fact that the hat had been dirtied plenty of times and might as well be as old as Camulous was.

Following her casually, under the pretext of needing his hat, he proceeded down the road at her side. "Excellent, this will give me an opportunity to get it back. I'm not in the habit of giving gifts to mysterious women who beat up my men."

[Metarie]

The dangerous thing was this: deep in the depths of those almond-shaped, green-gold eyes was awareness; awareness that she could, in fact, affect him. Something hidden was now revealed – on both their parts. Possibilities were made available. Doors that had been closed were now open, but unfortunately, all this was discovered in the aftermath of Idonir and Lucian. Why couldn’t this have been before that? Was she really so different now?

"A gift and compensation are two different things in the eyes of the law. You'd better decide which before we see a judge about this."

Camulous’ question slipped into her thoughts, so she glanced at him from the corner of her eye once more. As they exited the hosptial, a passerby actually changed sides of the street. He recognized both of them. Even without his armor, Camulous was well-known. Hearing Camulous’ words his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open slightly. He and his companion murmurmed, glancing toward Metarie and Camulous, once safely away from the pair,

“I am glad he’s the Captain, but I wouldn’t want to be him”

“I can’t imagine Dr. Sehkhara has ever done anything where she’d have to go before a judge.”

“Wow… I wonder what she did…”

“Doesn’t he ever stop working?”

“She didn’t look like she was worried; actually, she was looking at him like…” Two heads turned to look at Metarie and Camulous, each holding the same curiosity.

Carried on by the spontenaeity of the exchange, Metarie slipped her arm through Camulous’ and let her fingers curl around his bicep. A soft press of her anatomy against his arm was made to emphasize any point she made.

Speculative gazes followed the pair. Were they an item? Who would have thought the Captain would date an elf? Who would have thought the Doctor would date him?

“That is a very good point, Captain. It was a gift, obviously.” This was said while looking forward, but she looked up to see his face. Metarie kept her gaze on his face for the span of one heartbeat, before looking away once more. From here she could see the roof of her house. He apparently could as well.

"Excellent, this will give me an opportunity to get it back. I'm not in the habit of giving gifts to mysterious women who beat up my men."

Metarie laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She threw back her head and laughed. Leaning into Camulous for support, she looked up at him again. Merriment flushed her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes.

“Oh Cam…” Metarie hugged his arm a little, “Of course I will give back your hat.” She moved as if to disengage from holding onto him.

“I did wash it, though.”

A grey-shadow padded a few steps behind them as Kona lifted his head and sniffed in the pair’s direction. Kona huffed and increased the pace of his lope, moving to Camulous’ side. A head-butt against Camulous’ hand resulted in the man’s free hand being knocked onto Kona’s head. It would seem that the dog approved.

[Camulous Smithson]

Keeping a leisurely pace with her, he remained oblivious to the stares and gossiping of others. Normally, he would notice but not care. Presently, he didn't even notice.

Her arm wrapped around his in a way that was more than a formal display of friendship. It wasn't the bubbly, clingy grip of another Marnian girl infatuated with hanging onto the Captain of the Marn City Guard because of his status and what her friends would think, nor was it the practised, dainty hold of yet another prostitute, paid to show that he claimed her that day. Both of those he'd had many times before. This was completely different. He felt her press lightly up against him, and he smiled unwittingly.

"I suppose I can forgive you for washing my hat. You probably know how to do that without ruining it. The last time I tried that, I ended up with an unwearable mess of crinkles." He looked over at her. "I'll leave any damages out of my complaint..."

Just then something big and furry pushed up against his hand. It was Kona, Metarie's faithful dog. A big, friendly beast that Camulous long ago decided was a pet worth having.

"Evening, Kona," he said, and scratched the dog's head obediently. So much affection directed toward Camulous was completely out of the ordinary. Sandwiched between Metarie and Kona, he started to feel strange. The softness of it all was so foreign. It was like being with family.

A familiar face appeared on the street ahead. It was Lurus, an elf and a guardsman. His sharp, angular features were partially hidden behind his helmet, and his thin frame was filled out by the armour he wore, but Camulous recognized him easily, even at a distance. If Metarie and Kona felt like family to him, the guardsmen were still his brothers. He knew them better than anyone. In many ways he knew Lurus better than Metarie.

As Lurus approached, he met Camulous' gaze with a nod and a single word of greeting that carried with it the weight of everything that Camulous' having a woman, and an elf, on his arm suggested.

"Captain." He said, and then greeted Metarie in the more eloquent Elven tongue, using her last name. Like all the elves in Marn, he knew her last name, and enough about her family's history to write a book.

Camulous responded with a wink. There was no reason to try and hide anything about the situation from Lurus. The fact was that the men would find out one way or another, and he'd have to deal with their jabs the next time they got drunk together.

"That'll give them something to gossip about..." the captain muttered to Metarie after Lurus had passed. He kept the mutter so quiet that if she were human she wouldn't hear it over the breeze and the sounds of the city.

[Metarie]

Kona’s tale wagged slowly back and forth, indicating his happiness at the attention. A shaggy brow lifted as the dog glanced up at Camulous and looked away. Home was near. Kona’s gaze sharpened some and he sniffed in the direction of the armored man who approached. This armored person was not the same as the one that wanted to hurt his Person, so therefore, was watched curiously.

Metarie, still smiling up at Camulous, did not notice Lurus’ approach at first. She gave Cam’s arm one more slight hug before letting go. Another soft laugh left her at his reply.

“Oh, good, then the scald mark from the iron would not be considered.”

Lurus had been able to see the pair for quite sometime. He did not miss the unmistakeably feminine way in which the Sehkhara laughed and looked upon his Captain. Lurus was a guardsman through and through, but he was also an elf. As an elf, he should not approve if one of the Children of the First, the Tolael os si Thos, stepped outside of their rank and race, but the Captain of the Guard was Marnian through and through. This bore some thought. It also might explain the degree of lashing Idonir received for doing something gotten away with many times before. Lurus was not the only member of the guard glad to see Idonir get lashing for that.

One the plus side, the situation deserved some serious ribbing. Yes, to see a woman on the Captain’s arm, would have normally led to drunken teasing of a more ribald sort. BUT…Lurus had seen the Captain smile back at the Sehkhara. Keeping any semblance of smirk from his face, Lurus let his greeting to the captain say it all.

“Captain.” Lurus nodded his head to complete the greeting. Camulous’ wink in reply was to be expected. He knew.

To the Sehkhara, Lurus was certainly more formal.

“Quel andune, Taerasai Maendasae. Aa' menealle nauva calen ar' malta.” Pausing in their walk, Metarie gave a slight bow with her upper body, indicating respect to Lurus for his station as a Guard. Lurus returned the bow as was proper and expected.

Metarie smiled at Lurus, “Quel andune, Lurus Beriadan. Lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva.” After Lurus had passed, Metarie resumed the amiable walk she and Camulous shared. Lurus' greeting to Camulous gave her pause. She heard something different in the greeting. She heard possible censure, knowing as she did the unspoken rules of elvish familial matchmaking. Hierarchary, formality, and that peculiar elvish ridgidity all had a factor to play.

“That'll give them something to gossip about..." Metarie looked up at Camulous, a little surprised that he might have the same thought. "Probably..."

In the meantime, Kona veered off, loping quietly toward the smithy.

[Camulous Smithson]

The ironing comment was surely a joke... Surely. If she'd burned his favourite hat, there would be hell to pay. Hell in the form of a slightly disgruntled Camulous.

He couldn't understand all of the exchange between Lurus and Metarie, although he recognized several of the words. Living in Marn made every human at least partially familiar with the elven tongue, if they didn't outright learn to speak the befuddlingly complex language. He didn't catch any words that struck him as interesting. It was all formalities, as was their way.

For lack of conversation, he decided to ask anyway. "What did he say?"

Just as he posited the question, the great dog turned off and headed in a random direction. It said something about the animal that it could wander the streets alone and be safe. It also said something about Marn.