Girl!Kairn AU - Part 1
Blueberry Yogurt #3. A Secret, Pineapple #22. If You Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em,
& Soft Serve 1/50 : Pear #17. Better or Worse
with Whipped Cream, Hot Fudge, Cookie Crumbs, Chopped Nuts, Malt,
and a Brownie
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : R - maybe? some violence, some implied sex, nothing terribly graphic
Timeframe : 1230's-40's
Word Count : 5105
Malt Prompt : Dare from Falootin - AU in which Kairn is, and always has been a girl
Malt Prompt : Pfah - better or worse : Sethan - If you want it to be good, girl, get yourself a bad boy
When I got this dare I had no clue what to do with it and figured it was going to sit on my pile of malts forever... and then it got a twist and a plot and a deranged life of its own. A good deal of the canon still works pretty much as is. You'll see why.
A knapsack slung over his shoulder with the handful of clothes that were his only possessions, Sethan opened the door to his new room only to find it occupied.
Whipping around to face him, the girl let out a scream. She was perhaps his own age, a bony little thing with short mop of wild, black hair, wide-eyed and flushed red, and stripped bare from the waist down. She had a pair of the thin, brown pants they’d all been issued in hand and she clutched it to her front, but not quickly enough.
She stood there, blushing and shaking and clinging to the pants as if she hoped she might disappear completely behind them, while the door snapped shut. Sethan merely raised a brow as he tossed the knapsack down in a corner.
The girl’s eyes darted from the pants hung at her waist to her own pack on the bed to Sethan and back, and she swore. “Well, I-I guess that didn’t last long.”
“What?” said Sethan. “Sneaking into the wrong room?”
“N-no! This…this is my room. I mean, they put here.” A fresh blush bloomed across her thin cheeks. “They, uh, they thought I was a boy. I’m, uh” - she started to pry a hand from the garment as if to offer it to shake but just as quickly rescinded it - “I’m Kairn.”
“Sethan,” he said, making no motion to greet her. “They thought you were a boy? Why would they think you were a boy?”
“Is it that hard to believe? I mean, they thought you were a boy.”
“I am a boy.”
The girl’s eyes settled on the thick, dark curls that fell across Sethan’s shoulders and her lips pursed into a dubious frown. Sethan rolled his eyes and gave a nod to the groin she was still nervously defending. “You want to put those on or what?”
“W-would, uh, would you turn around?”
With another roll of his eyes, Sethan turned his back to the girl. “So, what’s your real name?” he asked her over the rustle of fabric.
“Huh?”
“Kairn’s a boy’s name.”
“Oh,” she said. “You, uh, you can turn around again.”
Fully clothed, she looked much like any of the other emaciated little brats Berwyk seemed determined to gather in as great a number as he could. She wasn’t shaking anymore, just standing there alongside the bed, with her hands thrust in her pockets, watching him warily with those wide, deep-set eyes.
“They thought you were a boy because you wanted them to.” He slipped past her and up the rungs to the top bunk.
“I, uh…” She bit her lip, bowed her head. “They were only taking boys.”
Sethan settled back on the pillows with a sniff. “You’re going to have to be more careful if you want to keep it up,” he said. “Learning to make use of locks for one thing.”
She was staring at him again, her jaw wide in shock. “So, you’re…you’re not going to tell anyone?”
Sethan shrugged. “I don’t see why I should bother.”
With a weak little half smile, the girl settled into the bunk beneath him. The bed lurched and creaked with the added weight, but Sethan heard her softly say, “It’s Karin, by the way.”
“Kairn?” Master Berwyk called, reading from his ledger as he strolled about the classroom.
Crouched on the floor among the sprawling chalk outlines, Sethan shot Karin a look. When she kept sketching without so much as looking up, he gave her a swift, subtle kick in the shin. “That’s you,” he hissed.
The girl jumped. “Right,” she said, a blush swiftly spreading and fading from her cheeks. “Yes?” She raised her head and caught the teacher’s eye.
Berwyk shuffled over. Tablet clutched against his chest, he studied her work in silence for a moment and shook his head. “This is…interesting,” he said at last. Snickers passed among a few of the nearby boys.
The old man stooped and pointed. “Where is your third arc? This is a water base.”
Karin flushed again as she looked up at the board. “Oh,” she said. “Here.”
Berwyk nodded stiffly as she hastily added the missing line. “Much better.”
“Do you want to make this work, or what?” Sethan whispered, edging closer to her once the master had moved on.
“I do! I want to stay.”
“Then you should probably try to remember your name, don’t you think?” She nearly dropped her chalk as her cheeks flared yet again. “Getting your forms right won’t hurt either.” He slipped the chalk from her shaking hands and neatly corrected one of her lines.
“Why are you helping me anyway?”
Sethan shrugged. “I felt like it.” He pressed the chalk back into her palm with a grin. “Of course, now you owe me.”
The worst part of being a boy, Karin soon learned, was being a small boy. Aldo, Kinu, and the rest of the older crowd seemed to be of the opinion that small boys made good punching bags.
It was one morning that she found herself in the all too familiar position of being ground into the dirt under Kinu’s boot that she decided to fight back.
“Get off me!” she hollered. This only earned her another swift kick in the ribs from Kinu and a round of hearty laughter from the crowd.
Karin tucked her head and rolled, once, twice through the dust, uncurling then to take a swipe at the foot descending on her again. Kinu’s boot shot past her flailing arms and towards her face and she ducked to the side at the last moment, rolling in a ball again.
She unwound and staggered to her feet again, surrounded by the hulking forms of the older boys. Kinu was closest still, and she launched herself at him with a scream. She swiped at his face with both hands. His knee caught her hard between the legs, but she kept swinging. Her hands caught in his hair, tearing clumps of it from his head.
Then Kinu’s fist caught her across the nose with a sickening crunch and she went flying. She landed on her back, in the dirt, with a yelp, and threw her hands to her face.
Kinu glared at her as he ground the discarded wad of his hair into the dust with his boot. “You fight like a girl.”
Karin was too busy clutching her bleeding nose to respond. Kinu spit and Karin flinched as it hit the ground near her ear.
“Not worth my time,” Kinu said.
Over his shoulder, she caught Aldo’s sneer. “He won’t be trying that again.”
Kinu laughed, and she got one last jab in the ribs from his boot before the lot of them stalked off. She lay there in the dust with her hand to her face, trying not to whimper, until their footsteps faded away.
“You do, you know,” was all Sethan said, as Karin staggered towards him. He didn’t even bother to look up from the forms he was scrawling in the earth.
“Do what?” said Karin, dabbing the blood dribbling over her lips with the end of her shirt.
“Fight like a girl.”
She settled beside him with a loud huff. “Don’t ask if I’m all right or anything.”
Sethan straightened himself and turned to regard her, slowly quirking one dark brow. “Are you all right?” he said, dryly, his gaze settling on her bloody nose.
“It’s not broken,” she said, blotting it again. “At least, I think it’s not.”
Sethan turned back to his work with a shrug. Karin picked a pebble from the dust and hurled it into the grass.
“I held my own,” she said. Sethan sniffed. “How would you do it, then?”
Sethan swept a hand through the air over his forms. Karin thought she could pick out both fire and wind among the bases. “I don’t need to fight.”
“Right. So show me some forms to scare them with. What? I could do scary magic!”
Sethan gave her a sad shake of his head. “Next time perhaps you should aim for kicking them in the balls instead.”
“Oh,” said Karin, her cheeks flooding.
“And for future reference, when they kick you in yours, it hurts.”
“Here,” said Sethan, his hand curling over Karin’s, cold and firm. “The first line goes across the top.”
She opened her mouth to protest but let him push her hand, and the chalk, across the floor without a word. Her eyes followed his hand as it slipped away, her own still resting where the stroke met the perimeter of the form.
“And the second is on the right, perpendicular to the first, so it separates out a third of the circle.”
“How do you make it look so easy?”
“I have my own sort of help,” he said, tapping a finger against his temple with a smirk.
“Hmph.” She followed his directions, and a somewhat less straight line joined the first on the slate. “Is this right?”
Sethan’s lips twitched and it seemed he had to force them flat. “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s closer.”
“Oh,” said Karin, crestfallen.
Sethan sighed. She flushed as he leaned across her to grind the mark out with the heel of his hand. “Here.” Hand over hand again, they set the line right.
Karin jerked her hand back just as Sethan was releasing it anyway, earning her a look of confusion. “I-I always feel so clumsy,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap. “What would I do without you?”
“Plenty of things, I’m sure,” said Sethan. “Just…not magic.”
“What the hell is that?” Karin shrank back against the wall where Sethan was hastily copying sigils. Across the room, the withered husk of what vaguely appeared to once have been human threw back its vacant skull with an earsplitting scream.
“Berwyk’s wife,” said Sethan, without so much as a glance up from his work.
“But- but that’s a demon!” The monster paced frantic circles across the floor, withered bones clacking and scraping over the boards. “I-I know Berwyk’s creepy as hell, but who marries a demon?”
“I expect she wasn’t always a demon.”
“What the- You’re saying he did that? To his wife? Why would anyone…?” Try as she might, she couldn’t pry her eyes from the writhing skeletal form.
Sethan shrugged. “Sometimes people do strange things for love.”
“Seth, she’s looking at us.”
“So throw her another bone.”
“They’re huge!” she wailed.
Sethan was settled among a sprawl of open books on Karin’s bunk. He didn’t need to look to know she was still fixated on the mirror she’d propped on the desk; she’d been there nearly an hour now. “They’re barely noticeable,” he said, flipping a page.
“If they’re noticeable at all they’re more than big enough! What am I going to do?”
Sethan flipped another page before giving up with a sigh. “You never plan ahead for anything, do you?” he said, picking his way out of the maze of books.
Karin snapped around to glare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a girl,” he said, coming to stand behind her. “These were inevitable.” And really, they were only noticeable if one was looking for them, but to listen to her it would seem the world was ending.
“I know! I know!” she said, twisting out of the way as Sethan reached past her for a drawer. “I just thought maybe I’d have a bit more time than-” She followed his hand nervously as it procured a thick roll of bandages from the desk. “What’s that for?”
“We’re going to tie them down.”
“What do you think?” Karin dangled her freshly inked page in front of Sethan’s nose.
Her chest tightened as he frowned at it thoughtfully for a moment. Sethan snatched it out of her hand and she held her breath as he studied it some more.
His eyes darted up over the top of the page to meet hers and he pursed his lips. “It’s…improving,” he said.
Karin sighed. “You mean you think it’s awful,” she said, taking it back.
“What do you care what I think?”
Karin folded the paper in half, firmly creased it and then did it again. “You know what Berwyk does when he looks at my work? He shakes his head and moves on. You tell me how to fix it. Besides,” she said, and she found she was sheepishly bowing her head to hide her blush, “is there something wrong with me caring what you think… about anything?”
Sethan laughed. “Give it here. You know, there’s really not all that much wrong with it.”
“Really?”
Karin held her breath as Sethan dragged the paint stick in a slow circle over her collarbone. Neck stretched high, she strained to catch a glimpse of her own chest as he placed the rest of the lines. She’d gotten used to strapping her small but growing bosom down, but as the boys’ voices began to crack and drop, they’d realized that was no longer going to be disguise enough.
Thick, wet strokes gave way to the gentle press of Sethan’s fingers beneath her throat. A swift, heavy pulse flowed from his hands into her and she gulped for air.
“Did it work?” Her voice had dropped an octave and she threw a hand to her mouth at the alien sound.
Sethan just laughed. “You tell me.”
“Alright,” she said. “So it…” She had to pause to laugh as well. “It works. Just tell me I’m not going to have to get one to make me grow hair too.”
Master Berwyk had flipped open the text and was fingering a page. “The seed of the hand that defies Death, the child that will bring the Wrath of the One upon the world. By his hand will gates barred centuries be opened and one world flood the next.”
As omens of death and destruction rolled off the old man’s tongue, Karin found herself, like the rest of the crowd gathered on the lawn, gaping at Sethan. Completely unfazed, he was yawning and stretching.
The words slipped in and out of focus, little more registering with her than the tone, until she heard him say, “To every girl in this manor, this young man is off limits. Any of you observed so much as kissing him will be punished severely, and the penalty for sharing his bed will be death.”
“That’s nothing?” Karin hissed.
Not bothering to look up, Sethan shrugged. “Like I want to have kids,” he said.
The crowd started buzzing again, but Aldo cut in with a yell of, “He’ll just have to make do with Kairn.”
That got everyone laughing. Everyone but Karin.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” Sethan snapped.
She wasn’t sure if she felt more terrified or relieved, but confessing that whether she might ever kiss him was something she’d actually considered was not something she was about to do. “N-nothing,” she sputtered, her cheeks flaring.
Hands tucked behind her head and staring into the mirror, Karin couldn’t bring herself to force her mouth shut.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as Sethan slid the roll of bandages under her arm.
“Helping,” he said, pinning one end of the heavy gauze to her shoulder blade with his thumb and slowly unwinding the roll. “Like I do every morning.”
“You just touched one.”
Sethan rolled his eyes, but she noticed his fingers stayed well out of the way as he brought the bandage around her front. “I’m tying them down for you; it stands to reason that I’m going to brush one now and then.”
“That was no brush.” Her cheeks warmed as she considered the notion of his hands sweeping over her front. “You touched one.”
“Nonsense,” said Sethan. “If I wanted to touch one, I’d do this.” And then the bandages were tumbling to the floor and Sethan had a whole hand pressed over one of her breasts, and Karin could do nothing but sputter at the sight of it in the mirror, her whole face flooding with crimson.
“A-are you groping me now?”
Sethan just smirked and gave her a squeeze, and she wasn’t sure if she ought to slap his hand away or lean into his touch. “Maybe.”
“Well-” Her breath hitched as he squeezed again. “You, uh, you’ve made your point. You can stop now.”
“I could,” said Sethan. “Or I could do this.” Before she could fit another word in he’d spun her around and pressed his lips firmly to hers. She didn’t need so much as a moment to consider before she leaned in and kissed him back.
“That was…interesting.”
Karin followed his hand as it slid over the rise of her bare hip and then she let her gaze creep down to the tangled mass of their legs. “That’s a good word for it,” she said. Sethan tensed against her. She lifted her head to find him staring expectantly at her. “Well, i-it was a bit short to be much of anything else.”
“Thanks,” said Sethan, sourly.
Karin sighed and raised a hand to brush a sweat-dampened curl from Sethan’s brow. “We could always try again.”
It was hard enough getting forms right without any distractions. With Sethan literally breathing down her neck it was damned near impossible. At the press of his lips just beneath her ear, she jumped.
The chalk flew from her hands, and she scrambled to catch it, missing it with one hand and then the other before it tumbled to the floor between her knees. She turned to face Sethan with a glare, only to find him smirking at her.
“Did you just kiss me?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Seth, we’re in public,” Karin hissed, snatching the chalk back up. “You remember what Berwyk said. Anyone you so much as kiss-“
“Ah, ah, ah.” He pressed a finger to her lips and she quickly sputtered into silence. “Any girl I so much as kiss. And last I checked…” His eyes dipped to her flattened chest and Karin flushed.
“E-everyone is looking!”
“Let them. We don’t need to hide.” He slid a hand up around her cheek and pulled her in to kiss her full on the lips, and the chalk clattered to the floor again.
Karin was racing through the yard, her lungs burning and legs aching with every step. She could hear the thundering of the older boys’ feet behind her, but she didn’t dare spare so much as a second to glance behind her to see how closely they were following.
Ril was waving an old pink gown like some sort of banner, its fat, lace-trimmed ruffles bouncing lightly on the breeze behind him.
“Kairn, we have something for you,” Aldo called.
“A pretty lady needs a pretty dress!” Kinu chimed in.
“I’m not a lady!” she called over her shoulder, her voice as deep and gruff as any of theirs.
“That’s not what Sethan says!” someone yelled. The lot of them hooted with laughter. How they could find air for laughter she wasn’t sure; she was barely hanging onto enough breath to keep her moving forward.
Her toe caught a rock, and she stumbled a few steps. The laughter grew. Their footsteps were loud, but they weren’t all that swift, and still the distance between them was closing. They were toying with her. She closed her eyes and gulped at the air and kept pushing ahead.
“You do want to be pretty, don’t you?”
“It’d be a shame if Sethan found a new piece of ass to replace your ugly one, wouldn’t it?”
“Leave me alone!” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she raced on. Where was Sethan? She tried to lead them out into the open, to the middle of the yard. Someone had to see, not that any of the Masters would care. Where the hell was Sethan?
“Got you.” A massive hand clamped over her arm and Karin screamed.
“Let me go! Let me go!” She flailed and kicked as Kinu hauled her off her feet and pinned her up against his chest. “Put me down!”
She found herself ringed by the whole lot of them, a dozen or so burly boys all leering at her as she bobbed and squirmed in Kinu’s grasp. Ril thrust the gown in her face and she kicked at his hands, but Aldo caught her legs and forced them still.
“Feisty little bitch,” said Aldo.
“Maybe Sethan likes a fight.”
“Maybe he just knows how to treat her like a lady.” Dayl grabbed her cheek in a violent pinch and she spit in his face.
Aldo laughed, and Dayl shot him a scowl. “Clearly, you don’t know how to treat a lady.”
“Just put the damned dress on her already,” Kinu snapped as Karin continued to writhe in his grasp.
“Let’s get her out of those clothes,” said Aldo.
“What?” Karin squeaked. A hand caught her collar, and another caught the hem of her shirt. “No!” She jerked her legs out of Aldo’s grip, and thrashed blindly at anything she could reach. Someone cried out in pain, someone else caught her across the face with the flat of his hand.
“Put him down,” she heard Sethan’s voice.
The hands all retracted and Kinu threw Karin over his shoulder as he whirled to face Sethan. “Oh, look.” Karin squirmed and wriggled for a position that might get her a glimpse around the bulk of his chest. This only earned her a tighter squeeze.
“Well, well,” said Aldo, slowly striding to the front of the group, thick arms crossed over his chest. “If it isn’t the dashing hero, come to rescue his damsel in distress.”
“Sethan!” Karin yelped.
Kinu laughed and easily shifted her along his shoulder so her squirming was even less effective. “That’s a good damsel.”
Karin eyed the dress still dangling from Ril’s outstretched fists and renewed her efforts. “Sethan! Please!” she wailed, when Kinu’s arm still wouldn’t budge.
“Put him down if you don’t want to get hurt.”
The boys erupted into laughter all around, and Karin pounded her fists against Kinu’s back to no avail.
“This is how you thank us?” Aldo said, and the laughter quickly dissipated. “We’re providing you with a service here. Fixing her up for you.”
Karin wished she could see Sethan. She was sure he must be standing there, quietly poised in the face of Aldo’s provocation, secretly working up a spell.
“We figured it’s a shame a scraggly little ass like this is all you get to lay hands on,” Aldo continued. Suddenly, there was a hand on her rear, and Karin screamed as Aldo yanked the waist of her pants down in back. She scrabbled to pull her hands free to make sure her front was still covered, but Kinu had her pinned tight. “A few ribbons, some frills.”
Ril waved the dress and Karin shuddered.
Kinu waved a hand over her rear and made a grab for his nose. “A little soap.”
That got another round of laughter. Karin went rigid as the ground behind Kinu cracked ever so slightly and a small tendril of green snaked its way up into the air.
Aldo gave her exposed flesh a slap and Karin yelped. “It’ll be like you’ve actually got a real girl to fuck instead.”
The dainty little vine thickened to the width of a rope, and then an arm, and swung its end out at Kinu’s leg. “The hell?” he grumbled, as it coiled itself around his calf. “Uh…Aldo…” Kinu turned to his leader with a nervous gesture at the vine swiftly climbing his leg.
Karin swung around with him. She caught a conspiratorial smirk from Sethan, and a look of horror from Aldo as his eyes settled on Kinu’s leg. It was then, just as Aldo’s jaw hit bottom, that a few dozen more of the plants ripped their way out of the ground and made for the boys’ legs.
“Why you-“ Aldo whirled to face Sethan, but two more vines snapped up and caught him by the knees before he could take a step.
“I warned you,” Sethan said quietly.
“Get ‘em off me!” Kinu yelled. He shook his leg as hard as he could, but the vine held tight.
“I’m warning you, Sethan,” Aldo said, but the vines had him all the way up to his waist now and there was little more he could do than shake his fists.
“Oh, are you?” said Sethan.
“Put him down already!” someone yelled, and Kinu shot him a rude gesture with his free hand.
Ril was batting at his own vines with the dress. Billowing sheets of lacy pink ruffles snapped in the air.
“How do we get them off?” Aldo was panicking now, tearing at the vines with his fists as they multiplied and wound around his middle.
“Let Kairn go for starters.”
Without further argument, Kinu hoisted her over his head. She grabbed for her pants as she went sailing through the air and found her modesty still intact. She landed with a painful thump at Sethan’s feet and the whole crowd shot them both a glare.
“Now what?” Aldo snapped.
Sethan sneered at him. “Now you stay there until they get tired.”
“We- until what?”
Sethan shrugged. “It should only be a few hours.” He hooked a hand under Karin’s arm and hauled her to her feet. The boys raised their fists and their voices in impotent fury.
Sethan calmly brushed the dust off of Karin and planted a kiss on her forehead. She mounted a protest that never made it beyond an incoherent sputter, her cheeks burning red from ear to ear. He slung an arm across her shoulders and turned both their backs to the screaming mob
As they walked away, Sethan turned to her to ask, beneath the roar of the bullies’ cries, “Are you all right?”
Karin nodded meekly. “I-I’m fine,” she said. “A little sore maybe, but the only thing really hurt is my dignity.”
“I was scared for a minute there.” The hand on her shoulder squeezed her closer.
Chilled at even the thought that something could scare Sethan, Karin shuddered. “M-me too. They…they tried to take my shirt off.”
“I think you’d better stick close to me from now on.”
“And maybe you shouldn’t kiss me in public.”
“Nonsense,” said Sethan, and he pulled her in again and kissed her full on the mouth.
There came a muffled “I love you” from the lips pressed to Karin’s neck.
On her back beneath him, Karin looked herself over, the neck of her shirt unlaced, tight bandages forcing her breasts flat, the top of the still active sigil peeking out from the top of their folds, and laughed. “Which one of us?”
“All of you,” said Sethan. His lips wove a path up her throat, while he wormed a finger between bandage and ribs. Heaving himself up on all fours, he kissed her square on the lips until they both pulled away, laughing and gasping. Then his eyes drifted past her, to the dresser, and he frowned. “What’s this?” he said, reaching for a round little jar of bright blue tonic.
Karin blushed. “Precautions,” she said, meekly.
Sethan shook his head and gave the bottle a shove towards the back of the dresser. “Always the practical one, aren’t you?”
She laughed again as he slid a hand under her back to feel about for the seam in her bindings. “One of us has to be.”
“What’s Master Berwyk need you to get his laundry for?” Karin asked.
“He doesn’t,” Sethan muttered.
“But you told the girls-“
Sethan arched a brow. “You want to tell them you’re the one that needs a half dozen rolls of bandages washed?”
Karin blushed and swallowed hard. “N-no. No, I don’t suppose I do. Thank you,” she added hastily.
“Sethan?” A girl emerged from behind the nearest line strung with sheets with a shallow basket in hand. “Your laundry.” She flashed Sethan a smile that made Karin’s skin crawl.
Karin shoved between them, making a point of brushing against Sethan as she snatched the basket herself with a muttered “thanks.”
The girl’s face fell as she handed over the laundry. “Hi, Kairn,” she said. Then she called past her to Sethan, “You come back again soon.”
“What’s with the girls?” Karin grumbled as they made their way back down the hill. A couple more of them were peering at them from behind the sheets, blushing and tittering to each other when Sethan glanced their way.
Sethan shrugged. “They just want what they can’t have. It’s human nature, I suppose.”
“Oh?” said Karin. “And if it wasn’t forbidden? If they were throwing themselves at you like that and Berwyk wouldn’t have their heads if you acted on it? Would you?”
Sethan glowered at her. “Where is this coming from?”
“I just…well, sometimes I feel like I’m rather…convenient.”
Sethan laughed. “Yes, of course that’s what I see in you. Convenience.”
“So, what, you like this?” Lacking a free hand, she gestured to her bound breasts with the laundry basket.
Sethan rolled his eyes.
“Kairn! Kairn, wait!”
The two spun around to find another girl following them. A tiny thing, smaller than Karin even, with thick blonde curls and rosy cheeks, she was jogging to meet them with another of Karin’s bandages wadded in her hand.
“You dropped this,” she said, holding it out as she drew to a halt before them.
“Thanks,” said Karin, plucking the bandage from her fingers.
She stood there, blushing and beaming and batting her thick lashes, like the other girl had at Sethan. After a moment, it seemed she caught herself, and she ran a hand through her hair with a giggle. “You’re, uh, you’re welcome,” she said. “You should, er, come by more often.”
“Uh, sure,” said Karin, staring, bewildered, at the bandage in her hand. Sethan cleared his throat loudly and the girl jumped.
“Oh!” she said. “I…uh, I should get back to work.” With that she turned and bounded back up the hill and disappeared among the curtains of sheets.
“What about you?” Sethan asked with a smirk. “Feel like acting on any offers?”
“Huh?” she said, then it hit her. “Oh!” Heat spread through her cheeks. “You mean she was…? N-no, I’m, uh, I’m happy.” She stuffed the bandage in the basket, put the basket on her hip, and slid her hand into his. “Perfectly happy.”
“So am I.” Sethan gave her hand a squeeze.
& Soft Serve 1/50 : Pear #17. Better or Worse
with Whipped Cream, Hot Fudge, Cookie Crumbs, Chopped Nuts, Malt,
and a Brownie
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : R - maybe? some violence, some implied sex, nothing terribly graphic
Timeframe : 1230's-40's
Word Count : 5105
Malt Prompt : Dare from Falootin - AU in which Kairn is, and always has been a girl
Malt Prompt : Pfah - better or worse : Sethan - If you want it to be good, girl, get yourself a bad boy
When I got this dare I had no clue what to do with it and figured it was going to sit on my pile of malts forever... and then it got a twist and a plot and a deranged life of its own. A good deal of the canon still works pretty much as is. You'll see why.
A knapsack slung over his shoulder with the handful of clothes that were his only possessions, Sethan opened the door to his new room only to find it occupied.
Whipping around to face him, the girl let out a scream. She was perhaps his own age, a bony little thing with short mop of wild, black hair, wide-eyed and flushed red, and stripped bare from the waist down. She had a pair of the thin, brown pants they’d all been issued in hand and she clutched it to her front, but not quickly enough.
She stood there, blushing and shaking and clinging to the pants as if she hoped she might disappear completely behind them, while the door snapped shut. Sethan merely raised a brow as he tossed the knapsack down in a corner.
The girl’s eyes darted from the pants hung at her waist to her own pack on the bed to Sethan and back, and she swore. “Well, I-I guess that didn’t last long.”
“What?” said Sethan. “Sneaking into the wrong room?”
“N-no! This…this is my room. I mean, they put here.” A fresh blush bloomed across her thin cheeks. “They, uh, they thought I was a boy. I’m, uh” - she started to pry a hand from the garment as if to offer it to shake but just as quickly rescinded it - “I’m Kairn.”
“Sethan,” he said, making no motion to greet her. “They thought you were a boy? Why would they think you were a boy?”
“Is it that hard to believe? I mean, they thought you were a boy.”
“I am a boy.”
The girl’s eyes settled on the thick, dark curls that fell across Sethan’s shoulders and her lips pursed into a dubious frown. Sethan rolled his eyes and gave a nod to the groin she was still nervously defending. “You want to put those on or what?”
“W-would, uh, would you turn around?”
With another roll of his eyes, Sethan turned his back to the girl. “So, what’s your real name?” he asked her over the rustle of fabric.
“Huh?”
“Kairn’s a boy’s name.”
“Oh,” she said. “You, uh, you can turn around again.”
Fully clothed, she looked much like any of the other emaciated little brats Berwyk seemed determined to gather in as great a number as he could. She wasn’t shaking anymore, just standing there alongside the bed, with her hands thrust in her pockets, watching him warily with those wide, deep-set eyes.
“They thought you were a boy because you wanted them to.” He slipped past her and up the rungs to the top bunk.
“I, uh…” She bit her lip, bowed her head. “They were only taking boys.”
Sethan settled back on the pillows with a sniff. “You’re going to have to be more careful if you want to keep it up,” he said. “Learning to make use of locks for one thing.”
She was staring at him again, her jaw wide in shock. “So, you’re…you’re not going to tell anyone?”
Sethan shrugged. “I don’t see why I should bother.”
With a weak little half smile, the girl settled into the bunk beneath him. The bed lurched and creaked with the added weight, but Sethan heard her softly say, “It’s Karin, by the way.”
“Kairn?” Master Berwyk called, reading from his ledger as he strolled about the classroom.
Crouched on the floor among the sprawling chalk outlines, Sethan shot Karin a look. When she kept sketching without so much as looking up, he gave her a swift, subtle kick in the shin. “That’s you,” he hissed.
The girl jumped. “Right,” she said, a blush swiftly spreading and fading from her cheeks. “Yes?” She raised her head and caught the teacher’s eye.
Berwyk shuffled over. Tablet clutched against his chest, he studied her work in silence for a moment and shook his head. “This is…interesting,” he said at last. Snickers passed among a few of the nearby boys.
The old man stooped and pointed. “Where is your third arc? This is a water base.”
Karin flushed again as she looked up at the board. “Oh,” she said. “Here.”
Berwyk nodded stiffly as she hastily added the missing line. “Much better.”
“Do you want to make this work, or what?” Sethan whispered, edging closer to her once the master had moved on.
“I do! I want to stay.”
“Then you should probably try to remember your name, don’t you think?” She nearly dropped her chalk as her cheeks flared yet again. “Getting your forms right won’t hurt either.” He slipped the chalk from her shaking hands and neatly corrected one of her lines.
“Why are you helping me anyway?”
Sethan shrugged. “I felt like it.” He pressed the chalk back into her palm with a grin. “Of course, now you owe me.”
The worst part of being a boy, Karin soon learned, was being a small boy. Aldo, Kinu, and the rest of the older crowd seemed to be of the opinion that small boys made good punching bags.
It was one morning that she found herself in the all too familiar position of being ground into the dirt under Kinu’s boot that she decided to fight back.
“Get off me!” she hollered. This only earned her another swift kick in the ribs from Kinu and a round of hearty laughter from the crowd.
Karin tucked her head and rolled, once, twice through the dust, uncurling then to take a swipe at the foot descending on her again. Kinu’s boot shot past her flailing arms and towards her face and she ducked to the side at the last moment, rolling in a ball again.
She unwound and staggered to her feet again, surrounded by the hulking forms of the older boys. Kinu was closest still, and she launched herself at him with a scream. She swiped at his face with both hands. His knee caught her hard between the legs, but she kept swinging. Her hands caught in his hair, tearing clumps of it from his head.
Then Kinu’s fist caught her across the nose with a sickening crunch and she went flying. She landed on her back, in the dirt, with a yelp, and threw her hands to her face.
Kinu glared at her as he ground the discarded wad of his hair into the dust with his boot. “You fight like a girl.”
Karin was too busy clutching her bleeding nose to respond. Kinu spit and Karin flinched as it hit the ground near her ear.
“Not worth my time,” Kinu said.
Over his shoulder, she caught Aldo’s sneer. “He won’t be trying that again.”
Kinu laughed, and she got one last jab in the ribs from his boot before the lot of them stalked off. She lay there in the dust with her hand to her face, trying not to whimper, until their footsteps faded away.
“You do, you know,” was all Sethan said, as Karin staggered towards him. He didn’t even bother to look up from the forms he was scrawling in the earth.
“Do what?” said Karin, dabbing the blood dribbling over her lips with the end of her shirt.
“Fight like a girl.”
She settled beside him with a loud huff. “Don’t ask if I’m all right or anything.”
Sethan straightened himself and turned to regard her, slowly quirking one dark brow. “Are you all right?” he said, dryly, his gaze settling on her bloody nose.
“It’s not broken,” she said, blotting it again. “At least, I think it’s not.”
Sethan turned back to his work with a shrug. Karin picked a pebble from the dust and hurled it into the grass.
“I held my own,” she said. Sethan sniffed. “How would you do it, then?”
Sethan swept a hand through the air over his forms. Karin thought she could pick out both fire and wind among the bases. “I don’t need to fight.”
“Right. So show me some forms to scare them with. What? I could do scary magic!”
Sethan gave her a sad shake of his head. “Next time perhaps you should aim for kicking them in the balls instead.”
“Oh,” said Karin, her cheeks flooding.
“And for future reference, when they kick you in yours, it hurts.”
“Here,” said Sethan, his hand curling over Karin’s, cold and firm. “The first line goes across the top.”
She opened her mouth to protest but let him push her hand, and the chalk, across the floor without a word. Her eyes followed his hand as it slipped away, her own still resting where the stroke met the perimeter of the form.
“And the second is on the right, perpendicular to the first, so it separates out a third of the circle.”
“How do you make it look so easy?”
“I have my own sort of help,” he said, tapping a finger against his temple with a smirk.
“Hmph.” She followed his directions, and a somewhat less straight line joined the first on the slate. “Is this right?”
Sethan’s lips twitched and it seemed he had to force them flat. “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s closer.”
“Oh,” said Karin, crestfallen.
Sethan sighed. She flushed as he leaned across her to grind the mark out with the heel of his hand. “Here.” Hand over hand again, they set the line right.
Karin jerked her hand back just as Sethan was releasing it anyway, earning her a look of confusion. “I-I always feel so clumsy,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap. “What would I do without you?”
“Plenty of things, I’m sure,” said Sethan. “Just…not magic.”
“What the hell is that?” Karin shrank back against the wall where Sethan was hastily copying sigils. Across the room, the withered husk of what vaguely appeared to once have been human threw back its vacant skull with an earsplitting scream.
“Berwyk’s wife,” said Sethan, without so much as a glance up from his work.
“But- but that’s a demon!” The monster paced frantic circles across the floor, withered bones clacking and scraping over the boards. “I-I know Berwyk’s creepy as hell, but who marries a demon?”
“I expect she wasn’t always a demon.”
“What the- You’re saying he did that? To his wife? Why would anyone…?” Try as she might, she couldn’t pry her eyes from the writhing skeletal form.
Sethan shrugged. “Sometimes people do strange things for love.”
“Seth, she’s looking at us.”
“So throw her another bone.”
“They’re huge!” she wailed.
Sethan was settled among a sprawl of open books on Karin’s bunk. He didn’t need to look to know she was still fixated on the mirror she’d propped on the desk; she’d been there nearly an hour now. “They’re barely noticeable,” he said, flipping a page.
“If they’re noticeable at all they’re more than big enough! What am I going to do?”
Sethan flipped another page before giving up with a sigh. “You never plan ahead for anything, do you?” he said, picking his way out of the maze of books.
Karin snapped around to glare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a girl,” he said, coming to stand behind her. “These were inevitable.” And really, they were only noticeable if one was looking for them, but to listen to her it would seem the world was ending.
“I know! I know!” she said, twisting out of the way as Sethan reached past her for a drawer. “I just thought maybe I’d have a bit more time than-” She followed his hand nervously as it procured a thick roll of bandages from the desk. “What’s that for?”
“We’re going to tie them down.”
“What do you think?” Karin dangled her freshly inked page in front of Sethan’s nose.
Her chest tightened as he frowned at it thoughtfully for a moment. Sethan snatched it out of her hand and she held her breath as he studied it some more.
His eyes darted up over the top of the page to meet hers and he pursed his lips. “It’s…improving,” he said.
Karin sighed. “You mean you think it’s awful,” she said, taking it back.
“What do you care what I think?”
Karin folded the paper in half, firmly creased it and then did it again. “You know what Berwyk does when he looks at my work? He shakes his head and moves on. You tell me how to fix it. Besides,” she said, and she found she was sheepishly bowing her head to hide her blush, “is there something wrong with me caring what you think… about anything?”
Sethan laughed. “Give it here. You know, there’s really not all that much wrong with it.”
“Really?”
Karin held her breath as Sethan dragged the paint stick in a slow circle over her collarbone. Neck stretched high, she strained to catch a glimpse of her own chest as he placed the rest of the lines. She’d gotten used to strapping her small but growing bosom down, but as the boys’ voices began to crack and drop, they’d realized that was no longer going to be disguise enough.
Thick, wet strokes gave way to the gentle press of Sethan’s fingers beneath her throat. A swift, heavy pulse flowed from his hands into her and she gulped for air.
“Did it work?” Her voice had dropped an octave and she threw a hand to her mouth at the alien sound.
Sethan just laughed. “You tell me.”
“Alright,” she said. “So it…” She had to pause to laugh as well. “It works. Just tell me I’m not going to have to get one to make me grow hair too.”
Master Berwyk had flipped open the text and was fingering a page. “The seed of the hand that defies Death, the child that will bring the Wrath of the One upon the world. By his hand will gates barred centuries be opened and one world flood the next.”
As omens of death and destruction rolled off the old man’s tongue, Karin found herself, like the rest of the crowd gathered on the lawn, gaping at Sethan. Completely unfazed, he was yawning and stretching.
The words slipped in and out of focus, little more registering with her than the tone, until she heard him say, “To every girl in this manor, this young man is off limits. Any of you observed so much as kissing him will be punished severely, and the penalty for sharing his bed will be death.”
“That’s nothing?” Karin hissed.
Not bothering to look up, Sethan shrugged. “Like I want to have kids,” he said.
The crowd started buzzing again, but Aldo cut in with a yell of, “He’ll just have to make do with Kairn.”
That got everyone laughing. Everyone but Karin.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” Sethan snapped.
She wasn’t sure if she felt more terrified or relieved, but confessing that whether she might ever kiss him was something she’d actually considered was not something she was about to do. “N-nothing,” she sputtered, her cheeks flaring.
Hands tucked behind her head and staring into the mirror, Karin couldn’t bring herself to force her mouth shut.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as Sethan slid the roll of bandages under her arm.
“Helping,” he said, pinning one end of the heavy gauze to her shoulder blade with his thumb and slowly unwinding the roll. “Like I do every morning.”
“You just touched one.”
Sethan rolled his eyes, but she noticed his fingers stayed well out of the way as he brought the bandage around her front. “I’m tying them down for you; it stands to reason that I’m going to brush one now and then.”
“That was no brush.” Her cheeks warmed as she considered the notion of his hands sweeping over her front. “You touched one.”
“Nonsense,” said Sethan. “If I wanted to touch one, I’d do this.” And then the bandages were tumbling to the floor and Sethan had a whole hand pressed over one of her breasts, and Karin could do nothing but sputter at the sight of it in the mirror, her whole face flooding with crimson.
“A-are you groping me now?”
Sethan just smirked and gave her a squeeze, and she wasn’t sure if she ought to slap his hand away or lean into his touch. “Maybe.”
“Well-” Her breath hitched as he squeezed again. “You, uh, you’ve made your point. You can stop now.”
“I could,” said Sethan. “Or I could do this.” Before she could fit another word in he’d spun her around and pressed his lips firmly to hers. She didn’t need so much as a moment to consider before she leaned in and kissed him back.
“That was…interesting.”
Karin followed his hand as it slid over the rise of her bare hip and then she let her gaze creep down to the tangled mass of their legs. “That’s a good word for it,” she said. Sethan tensed against her. She lifted her head to find him staring expectantly at her. “Well, i-it was a bit short to be much of anything else.”
“Thanks,” said Sethan, sourly.
Karin sighed and raised a hand to brush a sweat-dampened curl from Sethan’s brow. “We could always try again.”
It was hard enough getting forms right without any distractions. With Sethan literally breathing down her neck it was damned near impossible. At the press of his lips just beneath her ear, she jumped.
The chalk flew from her hands, and she scrambled to catch it, missing it with one hand and then the other before it tumbled to the floor between her knees. She turned to face Sethan with a glare, only to find him smirking at her.
“Did you just kiss me?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Seth, we’re in public,” Karin hissed, snatching the chalk back up. “You remember what Berwyk said. Anyone you so much as kiss-“
“Ah, ah, ah.” He pressed a finger to her lips and she quickly sputtered into silence. “Any girl I so much as kiss. And last I checked…” His eyes dipped to her flattened chest and Karin flushed.
“E-everyone is looking!”
“Let them. We don’t need to hide.” He slid a hand up around her cheek and pulled her in to kiss her full on the lips, and the chalk clattered to the floor again.
Karin was racing through the yard, her lungs burning and legs aching with every step. She could hear the thundering of the older boys’ feet behind her, but she didn’t dare spare so much as a second to glance behind her to see how closely they were following.
Ril was waving an old pink gown like some sort of banner, its fat, lace-trimmed ruffles bouncing lightly on the breeze behind him.
“Kairn, we have something for you,” Aldo called.
“A pretty lady needs a pretty dress!” Kinu chimed in.
“I’m not a lady!” she called over her shoulder, her voice as deep and gruff as any of theirs.
“That’s not what Sethan says!” someone yelled. The lot of them hooted with laughter. How they could find air for laughter she wasn’t sure; she was barely hanging onto enough breath to keep her moving forward.
Her toe caught a rock, and she stumbled a few steps. The laughter grew. Their footsteps were loud, but they weren’t all that swift, and still the distance between them was closing. They were toying with her. She closed her eyes and gulped at the air and kept pushing ahead.
“You do want to be pretty, don’t you?”
“It’d be a shame if Sethan found a new piece of ass to replace your ugly one, wouldn’t it?”
“Leave me alone!” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she raced on. Where was Sethan? She tried to lead them out into the open, to the middle of the yard. Someone had to see, not that any of the Masters would care. Where the hell was Sethan?
“Got you.” A massive hand clamped over her arm and Karin screamed.
“Let me go! Let me go!” She flailed and kicked as Kinu hauled her off her feet and pinned her up against his chest. “Put me down!”
She found herself ringed by the whole lot of them, a dozen or so burly boys all leering at her as she bobbed and squirmed in Kinu’s grasp. Ril thrust the gown in her face and she kicked at his hands, but Aldo caught her legs and forced them still.
“Feisty little bitch,” said Aldo.
“Maybe Sethan likes a fight.”
“Maybe he just knows how to treat her like a lady.” Dayl grabbed her cheek in a violent pinch and she spit in his face.
Aldo laughed, and Dayl shot him a scowl. “Clearly, you don’t know how to treat a lady.”
“Just put the damned dress on her already,” Kinu snapped as Karin continued to writhe in his grasp.
“Let’s get her out of those clothes,” said Aldo.
“What?” Karin squeaked. A hand caught her collar, and another caught the hem of her shirt. “No!” She jerked her legs out of Aldo’s grip, and thrashed blindly at anything she could reach. Someone cried out in pain, someone else caught her across the face with the flat of his hand.
“Put him down,” she heard Sethan’s voice.
The hands all retracted and Kinu threw Karin over his shoulder as he whirled to face Sethan. “Oh, look.” Karin squirmed and wriggled for a position that might get her a glimpse around the bulk of his chest. This only earned her a tighter squeeze.
“Well, well,” said Aldo, slowly striding to the front of the group, thick arms crossed over his chest. “If it isn’t the dashing hero, come to rescue his damsel in distress.”
“Sethan!” Karin yelped.
Kinu laughed and easily shifted her along his shoulder so her squirming was even less effective. “That’s a good damsel.”
Karin eyed the dress still dangling from Ril’s outstretched fists and renewed her efforts. “Sethan! Please!” she wailed, when Kinu’s arm still wouldn’t budge.
“Put him down if you don’t want to get hurt.”
The boys erupted into laughter all around, and Karin pounded her fists against Kinu’s back to no avail.
“This is how you thank us?” Aldo said, and the laughter quickly dissipated. “We’re providing you with a service here. Fixing her up for you.”
Karin wished she could see Sethan. She was sure he must be standing there, quietly poised in the face of Aldo’s provocation, secretly working up a spell.
“We figured it’s a shame a scraggly little ass like this is all you get to lay hands on,” Aldo continued. Suddenly, there was a hand on her rear, and Karin screamed as Aldo yanked the waist of her pants down in back. She scrabbled to pull her hands free to make sure her front was still covered, but Kinu had her pinned tight. “A few ribbons, some frills.”
Ril waved the dress and Karin shuddered.
Kinu waved a hand over her rear and made a grab for his nose. “A little soap.”
That got another round of laughter. Karin went rigid as the ground behind Kinu cracked ever so slightly and a small tendril of green snaked its way up into the air.
Aldo gave her exposed flesh a slap and Karin yelped. “It’ll be like you’ve actually got a real girl to fuck instead.”
The dainty little vine thickened to the width of a rope, and then an arm, and swung its end out at Kinu’s leg. “The hell?” he grumbled, as it coiled itself around his calf. “Uh…Aldo…” Kinu turned to his leader with a nervous gesture at the vine swiftly climbing his leg.
Karin swung around with him. She caught a conspiratorial smirk from Sethan, and a look of horror from Aldo as his eyes settled on Kinu’s leg. It was then, just as Aldo’s jaw hit bottom, that a few dozen more of the plants ripped their way out of the ground and made for the boys’ legs.
“Why you-“ Aldo whirled to face Sethan, but two more vines snapped up and caught him by the knees before he could take a step.
“I warned you,” Sethan said quietly.
“Get ‘em off me!” Kinu yelled. He shook his leg as hard as he could, but the vine held tight.
“I’m warning you, Sethan,” Aldo said, but the vines had him all the way up to his waist now and there was little more he could do than shake his fists.
“Oh, are you?” said Sethan.
“Put him down already!” someone yelled, and Kinu shot him a rude gesture with his free hand.
Ril was batting at his own vines with the dress. Billowing sheets of lacy pink ruffles snapped in the air.
“How do we get them off?” Aldo was panicking now, tearing at the vines with his fists as they multiplied and wound around his middle.
“Let Kairn go for starters.”
Without further argument, Kinu hoisted her over his head. She grabbed for her pants as she went sailing through the air and found her modesty still intact. She landed with a painful thump at Sethan’s feet and the whole crowd shot them both a glare.
“Now what?” Aldo snapped.
Sethan sneered at him. “Now you stay there until they get tired.”
“We- until what?”
Sethan shrugged. “It should only be a few hours.” He hooked a hand under Karin’s arm and hauled her to her feet. The boys raised their fists and their voices in impotent fury.
Sethan calmly brushed the dust off of Karin and planted a kiss on her forehead. She mounted a protest that never made it beyond an incoherent sputter, her cheeks burning red from ear to ear. He slung an arm across her shoulders and turned both their backs to the screaming mob
As they walked away, Sethan turned to her to ask, beneath the roar of the bullies’ cries, “Are you all right?”
Karin nodded meekly. “I-I’m fine,” she said. “A little sore maybe, but the only thing really hurt is my dignity.”
“I was scared for a minute there.” The hand on her shoulder squeezed her closer.
Chilled at even the thought that something could scare Sethan, Karin shuddered. “M-me too. They…they tried to take my shirt off.”
“I think you’d better stick close to me from now on.”
“And maybe you shouldn’t kiss me in public.”
“Nonsense,” said Sethan, and he pulled her in again and kissed her full on the mouth.
There came a muffled “I love you” from the lips pressed to Karin’s neck.
On her back beneath him, Karin looked herself over, the neck of her shirt unlaced, tight bandages forcing her breasts flat, the top of the still active sigil peeking out from the top of their folds, and laughed. “Which one of us?”
“All of you,” said Sethan. His lips wove a path up her throat, while he wormed a finger between bandage and ribs. Heaving himself up on all fours, he kissed her square on the lips until they both pulled away, laughing and gasping. Then his eyes drifted past her, to the dresser, and he frowned. “What’s this?” he said, reaching for a round little jar of bright blue tonic.
Karin blushed. “Precautions,” she said, meekly.
Sethan shook his head and gave the bottle a shove towards the back of the dresser. “Always the practical one, aren’t you?”
She laughed again as he slid a hand under her back to feel about for the seam in her bindings. “One of us has to be.”
“What’s Master Berwyk need you to get his laundry for?” Karin asked.
“He doesn’t,” Sethan muttered.
“But you told the girls-“
Sethan arched a brow. “You want to tell them you’re the one that needs a half dozen rolls of bandages washed?”
Karin blushed and swallowed hard. “N-no. No, I don’t suppose I do. Thank you,” she added hastily.
“Sethan?” A girl emerged from behind the nearest line strung with sheets with a shallow basket in hand. “Your laundry.” She flashed Sethan a smile that made Karin’s skin crawl.
Karin shoved between them, making a point of brushing against Sethan as she snatched the basket herself with a muttered “thanks.”
The girl’s face fell as she handed over the laundry. “Hi, Kairn,” she said. Then she called past her to Sethan, “You come back again soon.”
“What’s with the girls?” Karin grumbled as they made their way back down the hill. A couple more of them were peering at them from behind the sheets, blushing and tittering to each other when Sethan glanced their way.
Sethan shrugged. “They just want what they can’t have. It’s human nature, I suppose.”
“Oh?” said Karin. “And if it wasn’t forbidden? If they were throwing themselves at you like that and Berwyk wouldn’t have their heads if you acted on it? Would you?”
Sethan glowered at her. “Where is this coming from?”
“I just…well, sometimes I feel like I’m rather…convenient.”
Sethan laughed. “Yes, of course that’s what I see in you. Convenience.”
“So, what, you like this?” Lacking a free hand, she gestured to her bound breasts with the laundry basket.
Sethan rolled his eyes.
“Kairn! Kairn, wait!”
The two spun around to find another girl following them. A tiny thing, smaller than Karin even, with thick blonde curls and rosy cheeks, she was jogging to meet them with another of Karin’s bandages wadded in her hand.
“You dropped this,” she said, holding it out as she drew to a halt before them.
“Thanks,” said Karin, plucking the bandage from her fingers.
She stood there, blushing and beaming and batting her thick lashes, like the other girl had at Sethan. After a moment, it seemed she caught herself, and she ran a hand through her hair with a giggle. “You’re, uh, you’re welcome,” she said. “You should, er, come by more often.”
“Uh, sure,” said Karin, staring, bewildered, at the bandage in her hand. Sethan cleared his throat loudly and the girl jumped.
“Oh!” she said. “I…uh, I should get back to work.” With that she turned and bounded back up the hill and disappeared among the curtains of sheets.
“What about you?” Sethan asked with a smirk. “Feel like acting on any offers?”
“Huh?” she said, then it hit her. “Oh!” Heat spread through her cheeks. “You mean she was…? N-no, I’m, uh, I’m happy.” She stuffed the bandage in the basket, put the basket on her hip, and slid her hand into his. “Perfectly happy.”
“So am I.” Sethan gave her hand a squeeze.