Quite a tongue. A wry sense of humor, too. Oliver couldn't help the snort that issued from him when she retorted. At least even in the face of death, the young woman still had the strength (and the nerve!) to be sarcastic. He didn't know if he should be happy about that fact or not. It was obviously at his expense. But then again, he couldn't really blame her. He shot her after all. But then again on another thought, what was she doing all alone in a dangerous forest such as this one? Perhaps they were both to blame for this rather unfortunate circumstance. Oliver would like to think it was a shared culpability. Yes, he convinced himself that that thought would help him sleep better at night.
“Not getting too squeamish are we?”
Was she really concerned or was she mocking him yet again? Oliver resisted rolling his eyes. If only he could let Sir Sigfried do the slicing...but he couldn't. He would never let anybody else clean up his own mess. At least that was one thing he could be proud of about himself. He got himself into this predicament, he was going to get himself out of it.
Even as she thrashed, Sir Sigfried had held her down quite firmly that Oliver was able to slice through her skin with as much skill as he could possibly muster. He had ignored her screams, focusing all his mind towards the task at hand. It was like going for the kill when hunting, nothing around him mattered as soon as he had put himself into the zone. And he was in the zone at that moment. It was just him and that arrow.
As he heaved a long and relieved sigh at having retrieved the arrow, he emerged out of his zone. And that was when he heard the most god-awful cursing he had every heard in all his 25 years on the planet. He sat there looking at her, shocked, not really knowing what to do. His mind tried to make sense out of the foreign language that had issued from her lips. The lips he had earlier thought was ripe for kissing. How totally wrong he was!
Did she really just curse him to hell? L'infern. That was the only word that seemed a tad bit familiar to him. L'infern. Inferno. Hell. Right? But instead of getting pissed off however, Oliver could feel a weird sense of amusement bubbling from within him. And in a matter of minutes, he couldn't help the laughter that burst out from his own lips. His friends were looking at him oddly, but Oliver only seemed amused by their faces and at the thought that a woman just cursed him to hell, that he laughed even harder, sinking to the ground as he did.
"Lot, I completely forgot we had some whiskey," he told his servant when he recovered himself, and handed him the bloody arrow. Lot, still looking all confused at the prince's sudden outburst, simply nodded and retrieved the cask of wine from his bag, and handed it to Oliver, who opened the small bottle, and brought it to the young woman. "Here. Wash your mouth," he said as he cradled her head yet again. Obviously, he was just kidding her, but he knew she needed to drink something strong to numb the pain down.
"What's next?" he asked ready to proceed to the next step. At least, for him, the worst part was over.
Finally she could feel the arrow slipping out of the wound. Not as smooth as she would have liked, but the cutting had been done very successfully nevertheless. Either this man knew his tools very well, or he had done this before. Well, his apparent helplessness and need for guidance suggested the former rather than the latter. It was no much use pondering over it anyway, as a huge part of Yassia’s mind was still occupied with dealing with pain.
As soon as both the knife and the arrow were away from her skin, the piercing pain died down to a bearable, though still prominent dull throbbing. What came now was the smell. The sickening, overwhelming smell of burnt flesh that was almost as threatening to her senses than the pain had been. The knowledge that it was her own skin having been charred and cauterized didn’t make this any better. But no, Yassia would not embarrass herself with emptying her stomach contents now! Sje clenched her teeth and forced the lump in her throat back down.
Apparently she had embarrassed herself enough already, anyway, with running her mouth with those nasty curses. Only after her mind started to function again and she could focus on other things, as her breath was not coming in too ragged gasps anymore and she started to trace back what she had said, it occurred to her. And then he started laughing. It startled Yassia quite a bit, and she looked up at him in confusion. He could not have understood that, right? She had been speaking her native tongue, and so far she had not witnessed too many similarities between both, even though she was speaking both nearly fluently. And why was he so amused? She would have rather imagined him to be angry…
His comment about the whiskey made her blush bright crimson. There it was, the clear indication that he knew at least partly that her words had been offensive and not meant to come out of a woman’s mouth. After all he had done already, touching her at the waist, seeing at least part of her upper body half naked, this was what made her blush ultimately, feeling so very embarrassed.
“You… you didn’t get what I was saying, right?” she asked with a rather sheepish expression. It might not be good to dig into this further as it could only mean more embarrassment, but Yassia had to be sure. The uncertainty would kill her even more. “I didn’t mean it… nothing of it… and I’m sorry. That was inexcuseable.”
Well, maybe she had not meant ALL of it, but it might not be good pointing that out now. The least she could do to at least regain a little of her dignity was apologizing for this inexcusable slip. A woman in general didn’t curse, a noble lady even less, but a princess and future queen? Unthinkable!
The whiskey running down her throat made her cough quite sharply with its stinging taste and caused another spasm of pain to flame up in her shoulder. Breathing heavily she leaned her head back and already felt a slight airiness taking over her head. She was by no means used to strong liquids. “Sweet stars… I never understood the soldier’s needs to curse when they’re injured”, she panted. “But I think now I get them very well.”
Now she had to focus on the next steps. They were gladly far less painful and more or less routine. “Next you please hand me the weird pouch you see at my belt, the intact hide of a marten. It contains some more things I need”, she explained, her voice still a little raspy. “We now need to dress the wound and I need some herbs for that. Comfrey for one, there’s nothing better to heal torn flesh.”
