Accepting Consequences

[Sören]

Sören brooded over the business card. Ephraim Haart. Inwardly he ticked over the offer, smothering his surprise with a frown. "This Ephraim. He knows what you can do if he gave you this."
Which meant he was network. Sören's expression hardened, a dark possession growing stormy in the glare he angled down at the card. Morven was his discovery and he did not relish the idea of another sniffing around her talents. It had been an inevitable eventuality of course; such was the nature of the network, its very purpose. But it did not mean he had to like it.

Morven tilted her head, blessedly silent. He was aware that she walked away, heard her shuffling about in the room, vaguely aware as she picked up the phone, the cadence of her voice. A moment later she loomed close again, lips pursed in that permanent aggravation she wore. "I've ordered room service. If you still want that healing, you'll be glad of the fuel."


It seemed a paltry compromise, but he assented more from curiosity than need. Her hands braced his head, and his skin prickled a second before the runes slid into his skin. She'd said she would not douse a candle with a bucket of ice water, but it was exactly what it felt like. He flinched, and her fingers gripped tighter to his scalp. When she let go her shoulders sagged, and she retreated to flop on the bed without a word.

Once the tingling faded, Sören was aware of a marked difference. Aches so ingrained he'd barely acknowledged their existence vanished. In reponse, tense muscles eased into the comfort of the chair beneath him. Such a shame he could see nothing of what she did, nor how she did it. Little use asking, probably.

"There's something else,"
he said, but quietened when he saw the weary exasperation of her expression. Thanks did not quite pass his lips, but acknowledgement at least of her service and the lengths she had gone to accommodate him. "It can wait, I suppose, until after we've eaten."