((I see my art giveaway has made it to this circle goodgood))

bodran:

 

For the first time, it occurred to Bodran that she did not want to be touched by him. It was one thing to want to go untouched by anyone, but to loathe his touch in particular was an especially painful revelation for the Dunmer.  It was also a pain and a hurt that he did not want to wear so obviously on his face.  Gaining composure, he dutifully withdrew and stood up.

Avoiding her gaze (so full of loathing it unsettled him), he cleared his throat, “I’ll, ah, draw you a bath.”  The sound of his boots against the wood floor as Bodran prepared a bath echoed in a way that seemed completely foreign.  He felt a stranger in a house in which he used to feel so at home.  ’I just need to rest’, she had said.  She didn’t tell him to leave the house; she didn’t tell him that she never wanted to see his face again.  There was, in Bodran’s mind, a flicker of hope in this.

His pained expression, though momentary and though Velanna thought the injury was deserved, brought a splinter of guilt into her mind. But, preferring not to facing this remorse that had needled its way into her thoughts, she focused on sitting up—and hopefully standing. There was a tautness in her body and yet simultaneously a feeling that her muscles were simply puddling around her bones; this coupling of rigidity and weakness was punctuated with a bolt of pain as she began to move. Velanna winced and hissed a breath through clenched teeth as she shakily raised herself off the floor.

A soft, magical light flickered in her left hand. Hoping the soothe her legs and thus ease standing, Velanna began to apply the small healing spell to her bruised thighs.

bodran:

Bodran rushed to the foetal figure on the floor; if he had ever had thoughts about Velanna’s current distaste for his very person in the first place, then he would have forgotten them by now.  But as Bodran was notorious for his selective memory regarding other people’s opinions of him, he dropped to his knees beside the wounded Altmer, completely oblivious to the fact that he was in all likelihood the last person she wanted to see.

“Velanna!”  Cradling her in his arms, he put a gentle hand to her face.  Thoughts of melodramatic menstruation had shifted to a significantly darker one with which Bodran was not altogether comfortable.  Already furious and afraid of her answer, he asked nevertheless: “What did they do to you?”  This question would, in time, be followed up with ‘Where did they go?’ and ‘Can I borrow your meat cleaver?’ 

“Bodran? What—No.”

Velanna pushed away his hand from her face. The tenderness of her body and her residual anger at the Dunmer solidified her unwillingness to be touched. She wanted to stand up, move away from him, get dressed, and tend to her aches privately. Through pained and feeble movements she was able to distance herself from him slightly.

“It’s…Bodran, no, you may not. I—no one did this to me. I just need to rest.”