SGE His Guarded Heart (Prequel to His Darkened Heart)

Chapter 19 Hope After All

Chapter 19 Hope After All

There was something strange about cleaning up beside a person once looked at as an enemy. Krushem thought this exact thing as he used a wet rag to scrub at his face and wipe the blood off his hands.

Just a few feet away through the open doorway, Krushem glimpsed Elaine sorting through a pile of herbs. He watched her for a few seconds before his attention snapped down to his arms. His wrists had been bandaged again by Elaine as well as his stitches fixed given a few of them had become undone during their quarrel with Big Jones earlier.

Krushem and Elaine had headed away from Foxwood and reached the edge of Nottingham, quickly finding an inn that was vacant of guests as if this particular inn didn't see visitors often. That seemed to be the case given the clerk at the front desk stared at Elaine and Krushem in awe as soon as they stepped up and asked for a room.

But nevertheless, the clerk hastily handed Krushem the room key and that's how Elaine and Krushem found themselves in this room, Elaine in the main bedroom and Krushem currently occupying the bathroom.

Krushem dropped the rag into the porcelain sink and raised his gaze to the mirror hanging right in front of him. In the glass, his reflection stared back at him, green gaze dull and face ashen. His brown hair was swept to one side, a matted, tangled mess. He didn't know when the last time was that he had showered, and he was sure he smelt as terrible as he looked.

The weight of his own gaze was too heavy for him to bear, and he quickly looked away. He found the rag again, swiping it in his trembling hands before he wet it again and set to work cleaning the rest of his body off, stripping his shirt off to make the job easier and scrubbing at the places he could reach.

Using a wet rag would have to do for now. Besides, he knew wetting his stitches wouldn't be approved of by Elaine. The very conviction in her voice when she'd told him that no times would ever be enough to not save him was telling of what she might do if he ended up carelessly wetting his stitches.

So Krushem was stuck wiping at his naked chest in an attempt to at least get a bit clean, and when the action of using his arms to maneuver the rag around his body had become too much, he dumped the rag back in the sink once more and winced at the stinging sensation in his wrists.

Then, he walked out of the bathroom and as he approached Elaine sitting on the edge of one of the small twin sized beds occupying the room, the witch swiveled her head up, ruby gaze snapping to him.

Krushem didn't know what to say. A sense of awkwardness hung in the air like a blanket covering both of them, and yet while Elaine seemed to be unable to come up with what to say either, her composure appeared calm and collected.

Her gaze shifted from Krushem's face to his chest, and it was then that Krushem realized he'd forgotten to put his shirt back on. Awkwardly, he darted back into the bathroom to retrieve his discarded shirt and slip it back on and then he was back in front of Elaine.

Elaine's head dropped as she focused upon the herbs in her lap, and Krushem watched her wrap them up in bundles using delicate string before she stuffed them into the folds of her cloak.

"Hello, Krushem," Elaine said at last, greeting him as if they were old friends reunited for the first time in a long while. Unlike many of the other times they would unexpectedly see each other with Elaine popping up out of nowhere every so often in the past, her voice was soft as if sentimental, as if accepting even like she was still coming to terms with this change in herself just as much as Krushem was coming to terms with it.

Usually, Elaine's tone would be impassive or just plain cold, as would her actions be. Usually, she would refer to Krushem as "Usmere", not by his name but by a title of a position he no longer held and hadn't held for months now. Perhaps calling him "Usmere" was just a habit she'd adopted, and even that calling Krushem found he was accustomed to.