Airie

When Dusan woke up again, there was no pain. He lay still for a while, staring at the black ceiling, breathing in the fresh night air. Breathing came easier now, and his head was clearer. Still, he remembered all too well that the infected wound in his side was ready to assault him with unimaginable pain the moment he moved. He wasn’t sure why he was granted this temporary reprieve from pain, but he was in no hurry to end the blessed break.

Then he remembered the dream he’d had—of Reijo coming to visit him, removing his bandages, lying next to him. Slowly, cautiously, he felt for his bandages with his hand. His fingers found the smooth skin of his abdomen, felt the pulsing of blood underneath it, and the thin film of sweat. He shivered—a reaction to the night chill, not the sickening shivers of a fever.

There were no bandages.

There was no fever, too.

He blinked, then moved his fingers to the wound on his side, wincing in anticipation of pain. He found an irregularity on his skin that hurt when he touched it, but only a fraction of pain he’d expected. He didn’t feel any swelling around it, and the pain was more like that from a healing scar than from a fresh, festering wound.

Had Reijo really been here and done this?

Slowly, he turned his head and looked.

Reijo lay on his back next to him, their shoulders touching. His face was pale in the diffused moonlight, his features sharp, his eyes closed. Shadows from his eyelashes lay on his cheeks. His chest was going up and down under his tunic in slow, calm breaths. He looked very human now, and asleep.

Dusan eyed him for a while. This was crazy—having an airie sleeping in his bed. Airies normally wouldn’t even come within a knife-throwing distance from humans. This must have taken quite a lot of trust for Reijo to just fall asleep like that, here.

He could feel the heat emanating from the body next to him. Mindlessly, he reached out and touched Reijo’s cheek, then paused, surprised. When he had grabbed Reijo’s wrist in the cave, it hadn’t felt particularly hot; now, his skin was burning.

Disturbed by his touch, Reijo shifted and sighed; then, his eyelashes flattered open, and he sat up abruptly.

“Wait,” Dusan said, rising both palms, still mildly surprised by the lack of pain from the movement. “I’m not doing anything. Don’t go.”

“You touched my face.”

“You felt hot,” Dusan said. “Do you have fever?” He hesitated. “Is it… my fever? Did you… take it upon yourself, somehow?”

“Maybe,” said Reijo, looking around.

“You won’t die of it, right?” Dusan said, suddenly worried.

“Of fever? No!” Reijo let out a short laugher, then drew his knees up, hugging them to his chest. “It’ll dissipate. We’re not as fragile as you are.”

Dusan could argue with that—the prospect of losing one’s magic abilities from a single wound sounded pretty fragile to him—but he kept it to himself.

“Thank you,” he said instead. “For saving my life.”

“Yes,” Reijo glanced at him with a smile. “Now, you owe me one.”

“Do we have to continue keeping score?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t we just be friends, and help each other when we can?”

“Friends?” Reijo snorted. “You must still be delirious to say something like that.”

“I don’t see why not.”

He meant it, too. Right now, Reijo didn’t feel like a dangerous enemy. He had saved Dusan’s life—twice. Dusan had always relied on his gut feeling, and it was telling him now that Reijo could be trusted.

“Why would I want to be your friend?” Reijo said. “That’s a lousy bargain for me. There’re many ways in which I could help you, and nothing you can offer me in return.”

“I could offer my company. That was why you approached me in the first place, wasn’t it? You felt lonely.”

“Why would I seek a company of a human?” Reijo snorted. “You’re a wild, dangerous bunch.”

“I’m not dangerous to you. I’ll never try to hurt you.”

“Oh?” Reijo glanced at him, a flicker of mischief in his eyes. “No matter what I do?”

“I’d appreciate it if you promised to never hurt me, too,” Dusan added hurriedly.

“I wouldn’t tie my hands with that kind of promise… yet I might be willing to promise that I won’t hurt you unnecessarily.”

“What does that mean?”

“Simply put, don’t give me a reason to hurt you, and I won’t. Sounds fair?”

“I guess,” said Dusan, not completely comfortable with the arrangement, but willing to take risks to keep Reijo around. He could have an airie for a friend—how many people have ever boasted that? “So… could we meet sometimes, and talk?”

“Possibly. Yet don’t expect me to take care of every little fever that you get.”

“I don’t.” Dusan chuckled. “By the way, how did you do that? Was it that magic pleasure touch you’ve been talking about?”

“No, this one is more like healing touch.”

“Aha,” said Dusan. “So, you have all kinds of touches? Now that I’ve tried the healing one, can I have a taste of the pleasure one?”

Reijo snorted again. “You’ve had your chance, and you blew it.”

“Yes, but that allowed me to later make you get rid of that pirate ship, so it was worth it.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Reijo murmured. “For your stupid village, yes, but you have missed an experience of a lifetime.” He sighed, and then, in a light-quick move, was suddenly out of the bed, standing in the middle of the room. “I’ll be going now.”

“Stay some more.”

“Why would I?”

“Why would you leave? You said no one is waiting for you.”

“I’m just tired of your chattering,” Reijo said. “If I knew you’d be so talkative once the fever is gone, I’d have left you a bit of it.”

“So, you’ll be going home? Is there a kind of a… village where you live?”

“Village? No. I have no neighbors.” Reijo walked over to the window, glanced out, then turned to Dusan again, his shoulders blocking the moonlight. “Nor any family, for that matter.”

Dusan frowned. He could imagine someone living alone—not just airies, some people liked to keep to themselves, too—yet there were always some neighbors, some relatives, some kind of community. No one was ever completely alone. This couldn’t be right for any creature.

“How come?” Dusan said. “Where are they?”

“Well, your kind has hunted mine for ages.” With Reijo’s face now in shadows, Dusan could only see him shrug. “How many do you think could have survive that centuries-long slaughter?”

“Are you saying… there’re no more airies left but you?”

Reijo hummed. “In this forest, I believe I’m the last one, yes.”

“But… outside of it?”

“There probably are,” Reijo said, and then he was silent for a moment, and then he added, hesitantly, “I mean, there’ve got to be others, right?”

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