Blackfeather Woods She wears me down to bones in bed

Atli doesn’t believe her as Potema replies that she is fine. It shows in the terse line of his lips, the flicker of his velveteen ears as they partially slick back to rest at half mast atop his skull. He avoids looking at the pile of sick on the earthen floor and subtly tries to hold his breath. When he can no longer take the burn in his lungs, the beg of release and draw of air he lets it out and breathes in slowly. It is still rancid and pungent this way but it helps, some. He follows behind her a few steps as she moves to get a drink and he is glad, nevertheless, that she is trying to hydrate herself. He plays it over in his head, thinking that it’s possible she just has a bug, that her stomach is just unwell from something that she’d eaten but …she was a medic. She had herbs and medicines to fix that, to soothe her stomach.

He wonders if it is possible for her to be pregnant. Atli is no expert when it comes to women or their biological clocks…so, naturally it remains just a fleeting suspicion in his mind; but the suspicion regardless of how fleeting drags with it a sharp flare of jealousy; which was ridiculous because he knew that night that he’d not been her first, nor her last. But, he is ready to argue with himself, that was different. A donation of his seed with no expectation of anything other than a pleasurable night. Things were …different now. Or they could be. She remains an enigma to the berserker, yes, but here he is and here she is and they’ve been sharing a bed den.

He does not focus upon these things for long figuring that he …they have plenty of time to figure things out. If there was even anything to figure out. “Potema,” He croons her name, hesitating for a moment. He does not want to pry because it’s not really any of his business but at the same time he wants to be here for her. To be a shoulder she could lean on if she needed…if she wanted; but as he does not know how to communicate such verbally he does not even try. He leaves it unsaid upon the fading croon of her name, a promise and a plea.