Private Tales Tous les Mêmes

[Kilien Basmarc]

"What, this?" Kilien said through a wince as Nurse Joilene roughly tended to his knee, "It's just a scratch. Nothin compared to-" he gestured to Marci and then gestured to his face, "you know. That."

Though he suspected Marcia wouldn't have to wait long for even her face to heal up. Now that she'd been stitched, the Nurses would be administering a healing potion at some point to take care of the rest. It would probably scar, though he guessed that Marcia wouldn't care.

She probably thought scars were sexy.

"It looks like you split your kneecap," the Nurse intoned, "you shouldn't have walked here on it."

"Ehh..." Kilien made a strangled sort of noise and leaned back onto his hands, "I've been through worse."

"Yes," Joi stood with a scowl and turned away to storm off to the storage room, muttering something about every single month.

"You like scars?" Kil looked over at Mar, seemingly enjoying all the fuss despite his protests, and lifted a hand to trace over his face where a scar would likely be on hers, "that's going to look pretty badass."

 

[Marcia]

"Do I like scars?" Marcia repeated back at him, letting the question hang above her as she continued laying on the bed while nurse Joilene puttered around, tending to Kilien's fucked knee. "It's not something I've put much thought into."

Scars were expected; she'd already gathered a small collection from sparring, missions, and, well... arseholes. The one that ran over her eye was a vindictive present from D'Amour in a duel that had, rather predictably, turned nasty. She'd just been glad she'd not lost the eye, never worrying about how it looked.

Until now, under the malaise of a bloodless head.

"Badass is good." After all, Harkenov looked fucking badass, and she looked like she'd tried to kiss an entire pack of werewolves. "It's hard to be intimidating when you're..."

Saying it out loud was gross, Marcia's expression withering and stress testing the stitches before finishing the sentence.

"...short."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

"Hm," a grunt of a chuckle sounded in response, "clearly you've never stared down the gullet of a roaring, charging boar in the Falwood. Those things are terrifying."

And tasty, but probably more trouble than they were worth for the meal. Maybe. Definitely while human - debatable while wolfed out. Very filling when he managed to take one down.

His knee twinged and tingled. The split skin nearly finished stitching itself back together again.

"I wager you look about the same coming at someone with your shield. All those spikes and everything..." he wouldn't know, but he had a pretty good imagination. "They do the same kind of damage as a boar tusk, anyway."

 

[Marcia]

Marcia blinked.

"Did you just compare me to a fucking pig?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

The Nurse just happened to walk back over right as she spoke those words.

Kilien hadn't thought about it that way, he was more focused on the horrifying vision of a boar in all its rageful glory coming at him with its many dastardly, gleaming tusks. It was about enough to make a grown man piss his pants - wouldn't she like to have that kind of effect on-

"WHAT-" Nurse Joi was on him with a hot towel and began to smack at him with it, "IS-"
WHAP
"WRONG"
WHUP
"WITH"
SWAK
"YOU!"

"Ahhhh-ow-gah-" Kilien fell back, arms and hands lifted to protect himself, "it was - AH - a compliment!"

His hand grabbed at the towel as she swung again, catching it in the air, "They're scary!"

SMACK - Nurse Joi hit him right on the injured knee.

Kilien's jaw dropped in a pinched and withered cry of hurt.

 

[Marcia]

Well, it saved her from getting up.

Marcia watched in equal parts satisfaction and amusement as nurse Joilene set about thrashing Kilien with a hot towel. At a military Academy for the magical youth of Vel Anir and her territories, you could expect to see many strange things. She didn't have this one on her bingo card.

Under duress, the girl believed he meant it in a complimentary fashion; it was unfortunate that she had come to the snap conclusion that he was being unkind first—a drawback of being bullied.

"Here I'd heard that you were a smooth talker," Marcia remarked as one of the other nurses, not currently occupied with smacking bannister-polishing boys, approached with a poultice and a cloth and began applying it to the stitched wounds to accelerate healing and reduce any inflammation.

"Do you compare all the girls to wild beasts?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Joilene relented but did make one last fake-out move at him just for good measure before she walked away (after throwing a roll of gauze and bandaging at him).

"Do your own bandages, Mr. Basmarc. You should be able to manage that."

Kilien flinched at the flying medicaments, letting them hit and bounce off him as he watched her strut away with a wolfish grin. A heavy sigh rolled his shoulders as he sat up and looked around at the mess Joilene he'd made. Goodness, what had come over him? He slowly began to pick the various items up.

"Mm-" he didn't deny her question, "I speak on what I know. Probably talk to more beasts than I do girls, if I'm honest." He chuckled, self-deprecating-like. Though his eyes did narrow at her, "Who says I'm a smooth talker?"

 

[Marcia]

Well-accustomed to the rigmarole of applying healing salves, Marcia helpfully took over from the nurse, holding the cloth to her own face, the peculiar earthy stench of the poultice a familiar one. The wounds were tender and throbbed in protest, but that, too, was a sensation the girl was well-acquainted with.

It did force her to sit up and look at him, and as the fog cleared, her eyes became more focused, and her stare settled firmly back into the place of judgment.

"Come off it, Basmarc. Most of the Academy have seen you traipsing around with Larrainth."

She hadn't put much thought into it; it seemed surplus to things that actually warranted her energy, but since Vittoria was direct competition and her fucking nemesis Marcia had put some thought in. Mostly, how it seemed so wrong, especially now, in the knowledge of how nice he was.

"You can't speak pig worth a fucking damn, but you can obviously speak dragon."

"Language, Marcia."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

If her demeanor had changed over the last few minutes he hadn't really noticed. For the most part, Kilien didn't subscribe to reading between every line or thinking too hard on what people said. Mostly because that took far more effort and energy than he cared to use for something that had little to no value in his day. People said lots of things, mostly bullshit he'd found. What use was there getting caught up in it?

"That so?" he said in return to the alleged rumors about he and Vittoria. It was true, they hadn't really been keeping whatever-it-was between them a secret. They'd meet in the halls between classes, walk to shared sessions together. Arrive early sometimes and use the quiet before the Proctor showed up to chat.

Or kanoodle. There was a bit of that, too. A dopey sort of smile crossed his face as he thought about this and he made no attempt to hide that either.

He was attempting to re-roll the bandage that had taken a little journey down the length of his bed and off the end, but the effort there was minimal at best and mostly he was succeeding in making a wadded knot. Kilien had no intention of actually wrapping his knee, being fairly convinced it would be perfectly fine to walk on by the time they were done here.

"Yeah," his brows arched as he looked at the wad in his hands and made one last effort to tuck the tail of the roll into itself, the way he saw the nurses do when they cleaned up. A child could have done a better job, but he set it aside, looking convinced of a job well-done, and clapped his hands together in his lap. A side-eyed look exposed the whites of his eyes as he spied Joilene farther down the Infirmary checking in on another patient he couldn't see.

Anticipation.

Kilien glanced over at Marcia, a shift of concerned confusion for the sudden wall of disgust he was suddenly getting from her, "Have I done something wrong?" With her? With Vittoria? With his entire life? It was the wad, wasn't it.