Kimba hardly waited for Tallo to re-lock the door before she shoved the toppled chair into a proper stance for her to melt into it. Her deep breaths trembled. When she dumped the contents of the small sewing bag onto the table, thimbles and spools rolled onto the floor--minus a few she managed to stop when she slapped her shaking, bloody hand on top of them. Gingerly, she pulled her arm out of her traveling cloak and flinched at the heavy scent of rust in the air.

“What can I do?” Tallo finally asked. Kimba didn’t even look up to him, just clenched her jaw. She pulled out a needle and began to unroll a spool of blue string, the wound still hid behind her tunic sleeve. As brave as she was, her threads trembled, weak and afraid of what she’ll see next. Just as much of her focus on her breathing was spent keeping her face clear of any lines, ensuring there was absolutely no way anyone could know she was in pain.

“A-alcohol,” she said through her teeth. “The strongest thing here. Not any of that ale or mead shit. Something clear.”

“Seriously?”

“You going to get it or not?” And while she sat there, struggling to breathe in an even enough manner so that she could steady her hand enough to thread a needle, Tallo spent a good few minutes opening every drawer and cabinet in the house until he came back with an unlabeled jar of clear liquid. When he unscrewed the lid, he coughed, and handed it to her. She could smell it before he even put it on the table. The sharp, crisp bite of homemade moonshine so strong that it could burn nose hairs.

“I’ll get that,” he said through a sigh as he grabbed for the needle and thread. She didn’t thank him, and instead slowly managed to peel back the sleeve of her tunic. The wound, still leaking, gave the sleeve an uncomfortable weight as she piled it back to her elbow. The sting of exposing her cut to the cold, morning air was enough to make me recoil. This feeling, this sharp ache and worry, rang so loud that it was difficult for me to feel where hers started and my empathy ended. Worse still, I couldn’t even focus on anything other than her trembling, bloody hand reaching for the moonshine.

“This’ll do,” she said to Tallo instead of “thanks.” Though she looked as if she didn’t want to, Kimba threw back two full mouthfuls of the stuff. She didn’t enjoy the taste, with how it felt like drinking fire that died in her throat, but she nodded to its purity, then poured just a bit onto her wounded arm.

I flinched with her; while her threads, bright and taut and strong, thrummed in throbbing pain, the alcohol on her wound left fibers of crimson dripping onto the floor, brighter than before. The way she clenched her teeth together so tight, they could have cracked and she wouldn’t have noticed compared to what she just subjected herself to.

She bit her lips together and only let out a small, compressed groan, hardly above the sound of a whisper. Tallo’s eyes went wide as he watched how she set the jar on the table in the most controlled manner, the glass almost silent against the wood. She breathed slowly, methodically, and clenched her fist so hard that her knuckles blanched. The entire time, Tallo watched her just as intensely, seemed to wince with her, and maybe feel as much of her pain as I did. I could feel how the moonshine felt like acid, or a cold fire onto her wound, but all the liquid did was turn the crimson almost pink as it spread.

“Okay,” she murmured through her teeth as she attempted to relax. “Gimme that.” But she didn’t open her eyes yet.

“I’ll do it.” That got them to open. And while she tried to look at him, try to figure out his thoughts or intentions, he avoided her gaze and grasped her arm without any hesitation that he showed on his face. The shock that nearly overcame him just a minute ago was long gone; his brows laced together, hands steady.

“W-wait,” she clasped her own wrist in anticipation of holding her arm down. “You ever stitch someone up before?” I knew she wasn’t asking for aesthetic reasons. Tallo bit his lip in response; bursts of vibrating, blue anxiety tampering with hers at the same time. But his anxiety seemed linked with something other than his medical prowess, something I couldn’t see as hard as I looked.

“I read of a technique,” he started carefully without looking up, “that will make it so it doesn’t hurt as much. It hurts a lot for a moment, though.”

“…how much?”

“The most you can imagine.” He still didn’t look at her. And as I felt Kimba’s deceit in the fight, I felt a similar thrum from his intentions. Hopefully his deceit actually worked out in their favor, that he moved fast enough for his plans to follow through.

“But only a moment?”

“And the relief should last hours, maybe until tomorrow.” Now his gaze fluttered up at her, timid. Kimba squinted.

“Enough to let me focus on getting us out of here,” she said definitively, her suspicion wavering.

He didn’t hesitate when he said, “Yes.”

“Do it.”

“Okay.” I took a closer look to the way he held the needle and thread, the way she grasped her own wrist as if it would move away on its own accord, how he took breaths to relax and she tensed up. After he first touched her wound, he said, “Maybe shut your eyes. It’s going to….” She did. But he didn’t stab her with the needle like I expected; instead, he grasped her forearm, thumb on either side of the gash, and shut his eyes just as tightly.

My reaction was too strong. My gasp, my surprise at what I saw, bled through to Kimba. I watched the harsh reds of the strings that pulled her wound apart turn stark white, then a cold blue, then in just the same instant, a dull and subtle gray. The anger from the pain before floated away, leaving…nothing. Her pain was gone just as fast as she noticed it.

“What—!” It had only been a moment since they shut their eyes, but Kimba already ripped her arm away from him. “What—?” The chair groaned against the floor as she backed away, holding herself as if she’d been stabbed again. “What the fuck—” Although she could not feel the pain, she could absolutely feel the blood gush from her wound as she now held it, willing it to feel like it did before. But she felt nothing, as if the arm no longer existed. She felt the sticky wetness of her blood, not the searing siren from the gash.

“I’m not done,” Tallo said calmly. I could tell from the slight tremble in his voice that Kimba fulfilled a fearful prophecy he’d concocted in his mind. The mighty mercenary that killed two men in less than thirty seconds looked at him in horror. “Please.”

“Why—why—you said it would hurt, and it—” He gestured for her, but she remained a good few feet away, recoiling still while teetering on the back legs of her chair.

“It’s—” Tallo glanced to the moonshine. “It’s a, um, it’s called acupressure. I’m confusing your body into thinking it isn’t in pain.” It was clear from Kimba’s confusion that she didn’t buy his deceit, but more out of ignorance than any wisdom.

“What?”

“I’ll explain later. There’s no time.” Tallo reached for her arm, but a full moment passed before she made any motion at all. First she glanced to the door, then scooted forward in her chair and gave her arm back to him. Kimba watched him with the needle, now, and wiped her hand on her trousers.

“We have to hurry. Don’t worry about making it pretty, just get it closed.” Tallo didn’t question her, but instead jabbed at her skin without any hesitance, without any of the anxious knots in his stomach from before. He poked through her skin quickly, and her only reaction was to watch with wide eyes.

I knew she didn’t feel a thing as certainly as I didn’t. But my urge to part my lips and gasp bled through to her; I watched her react the way I felt, move with the same tense trembles I felt.

“I don’t—I don’t feel anything,” she whispered as he started on his next stitch. She and I both watched Tallo like a hawk, struggling to figure out how he did it. Her thoughts danced around the word “acupressure” while I focused on the changing threads. It was as if he weaved the story, just as my Weft. And Kimba, with the way she reacted the way I did—is this the consequence of watching a story before it was finished? Were these actions and reactions inauthentic mirrors?

“That’s the point, to not feel anything.” Her follow-up, one-worded questions fell on deaf ears. One stitch, the next second, the next one. He worked quickly, and in complete silence as if mending a shirt.

Kimba paid more attention to the lack of sound than the vague tugging of her flesh getting sewn together. I watched in fascination as Tallo pulled two sets of skin together, each of which were vibrant in color and blood, but brought together into the dull and quiet strings he’d deactivated from her pain.

I may have not created this world, but I created countless others. I could sense when a natural wonder was exposed to one creature and not another, the otherworldly mysteries these sentient beings kept from one another. But this was not one of those secrets. This was not a valuable medicine or time-honored tradition. This trick Tallo had done was so heinous he would not even think of it as he worked on Kimba’s stitches. His thoughts felt like a ticking clock, with how practiced they were. Not a stray image made its way into that steel barrier that focused solely on how the needle and thread went in and out of Kimba’s skin.

This secret of Tallo’s…. I had a distinct, disgusted feeling that this was a mistake of my Weft’s poor weaving, and not a plot device.