“You can rest your head, you know.”

He nearly turns to her, then. The chiding familiarity of her voice catches him off guard enough for a smile to touch his lips (but not take), words forming suddenly like skeins of silk waiting to be woven into speech. If he were bolder, he would surely reply, Then, miss healer, allow me use of your shoulder.

But it is not a matter of boldness. Perhaps it will make me well again. It is a matter of making, and the truth, when he sees it, is simple: Caine was never made for this. To weave skeins of silk into words. To tease when he is only ever serious. (To be anything but militantly impassive.)

He closes his eyes and reminds himself that there is nothing, at all, if you are nothing, at all. 

The silk unrolls before it can be spun.

Caine's head scrapes back against bark, and yarrow fills his nose like wildflowers in deep summer. He doesn't realize how dry his throat is, how many days he has gone without a drink (the kind that blurs the world into watercolor), until his gaze drifts again to the lake and the water and the river stones as smooth as scales.

He exhales in a plume of silvery breath. “If I rest my head it will turn to sleep, and then I will not wake until the winter,” he says pragmatically, before angling to survey her progress. She is done; the yarrow is smoothed, the bandage knotted. Caine flexes his wings slowly as she steps away, marveling at how easily the wings and joints obey him. Perhaps they would heal better this time, leave behind less of a scar.

His expression flickers, as it is wont to do when he is reminded that his skin can now be scarred. Raum's parting gift. The only one, Caine thinks dryly, he has ever received.

The healer trails behind him, her blue eyes watchful, as he sinks into the cool waters of the pond and begins to work at the blood in his hair. Red plumes like warpaint around him; he watches it fade, silt sucking at his ankles, with a frown so mild it is almost serene. Nightingales croon softly above him in the deepening dusk. A hare with white spotted fur slips from the bracken to ease onto its haunches, watching him as he puts his damp hair into braids, his eyes moon-pale and weary.

“My name is not so easily earned.” He turns to her; the mild frown deepens, before it is thrown away entirely. “You do not need to give it if you do not wish to,” he says after a pause. As an afterthought, he adds, as if a student in dispassionate recitation, “Names have power. Spells, hexes, curses. None of them work without the true name, the one you carry with you from birth, unless —” he stops, thinking of Agenor and black magic and the taste of his blood in his mouth. “— you are creative.”

Water streams from him like raindrops when he wades out of the pond, his black hair in two trailing braids. When she steps up to him again he does not move; merely lowers his chin enough to meet her eyes. “My name is Caine.” A fleeting smile. “It is the least I owe you.”

But she is determined for him to owe her more. He stifles a sigh when she insists upon accompanying him, though with a glance towards the star-filling sky he knows it now too dark for a girl to walk alone through the forest anyway. There is still an hour's journey to the ivory gates of Terrastella, and though he would scoff if anyone called him mannerly — Caine is not that kind of inconsiderate. 

Not when he knows too well the creatures that lurk the night.

He arranges his wings so that there is a space besides him for her as they begin the long walk back. He nods along as she tells him about her daughter, careful to keep the interest from showing on his face. A mother. Has he ever met one, like this? He knew of their existence of course, saw them on the streets herding children around their skirts, but to him they had always retained a near fable-like quality. He never knew his own; he forgot he even had one, often, though Agenor had assured him that he had been birthed naturally, and merely left behind to die.

It is also not wise to dwell on the subject of mothers, when one is (was) so often sent to slip a knife between the ribs of their sons and daughters. 

“Good,” he says, when she tells him about the ward. “And I suppose when you get back, you will at least have a story to tell her.” A grin flashes across his mouth when he halts to sweep a low branch out of their way. “Have I made it an exciting one?” If it wasn't, he still had time. Under the soft glow of the moon, one could almost swear that Caine's silver eyes flashed a ghostly red, for the barest of moments.

“Now you know of my daughter, perhaps you should tell me of why your blood was spilled, did someone do this to you?” Branches break beneath their hooves as the dirt track becomes a blanket of pine needles. His shrug is noncommittal. “Someone did, a long time ago. Sometimes, I think I deserved it.” The months since had passed like years. His grin grows tight; there is only so much he can reveal, before she starts filling in what he leaves out. The whole affair had unfortunately spread through the papers like fire.

“I merely tore open the scars, trying to fly. Relearning it is difficult, but walking — ” Caine gestures loosely to the thickening trees, “ — is such a hassle. I can barely tell where I am going.”