CHP48

“—see what happens,” Dee said as Seneya took a deep breath and mentally prepared. Kael watched with a crooked smile, and Sael slid the cold brush over her skin with a fluid gliding motion.

The sting came first, a prickle over her skin, a simmering over her flesh. Her entire body shivered before she laid her head over her knees and hid her face through tense breaths.

“Wow. Nothing?” Dee nodded with respect as Seneya’s ragged breaths shuddered, harsh things bucking her chest one by one as Sael tickled the brush around her bicep.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sael muttered, pulling away to eye his work.

Seneya lifted her head, eyes glassine and hair askew as he pulled back. Her starry green eyes lit from within, and her lips twisted into a scowl. A single tear escaped one of her eyes.

“Uh… Sael. Are you sure that’s tatsuli?” Dee’s upper lip curled a little.

“Yep. She’s just special like this,” Sael laughed as he slipped back in to add small details to her band.

“Feel good?” Sael asked before bringing a hand to her face to turn her gaze towards him.

“Y-yeah,” She huffed as he moved down to her wrist and repeated the banding there, two swift rings, matching dots like in her upper bands.

“I think I should probably stop,” Sael said, teasing the brush over her other arm, starting a single strange band over her shoulder.

“N-no…” Seneya hissed, the heat rising up in her cheeks again.

“On it,” Kael said, shaking his head as Dee watched with stricken horror.

“This is a rare sight, Dee. She’s a healer that loves pain, so it means she’s not going to be relegated to that sad fate.” Sael huffed a laugh as he tickled the brush over her arm more, swathing broad sweeping strokes over her shoulder, onto her scar, shaping the mass of black into something more feminine and soft.

Kael returned and leaned down, pushing another bottle into Seneya’s hands, and she heaved a ragged sigh before pulling the top free with her teeth and tilting it back. She didn’t even check the label but drank heavily, expecting the acrid taste of ammesta. Instead, she received the cloying solvent oaken taste of whiskey burning its way over her tongue and down into her belly, half the bottle bubbling away before she pulled it free of her lips with a wet pop and sighed happily.

“Oh, fuck yes… You know the way to my heart, Ka’ah,” She chuckled. Her eyes’ green glow intensified, and Sael pulled away, leaning back as she sprawled out in the grass, eyes wide. “Crow.”

“Ka’ah?” Dee said before she sat down and dug through her backpack for a small flat bottle. “I can’t put it away like you lot, but I’ll try,” She laughed and took a swig with a grimace.

“She called me a crow.” Kael’s blue-eyed gaze went cold. “Starling,” he said like a command. She blinked the fire from her eyes and glanced from Kael to the bottle.

“This isn’t medicine. It’s booze!” She smacked her mouth lazily.

The rest of the night slipped away in a haze, Seneya’s bottle emptying as another fell into her hands and the start of a third.

“I haven’t had this much fun in years,” Seneya said, her accent slurred and shifting, a chuckle caught in her throat.

Sael drew the brush over her leg as he drank, making lilting shapes like a band and dripping lines off of it. She laughed at the silly design.

“An’ now yer stuck with it for… for a while,” Sael laughed, pausing to reach up and flick her ear.

Seneya just laid back, shivering from all the ink running through her veins. She relaxed, swimming with warm alcohol, the stinging pleasure of tatsuli and Dee’s soft fingers weaving through her hair, braiding at her long strands with a laugh. Then, a gentle pressure found its way over her belly. Seneya flinched, and every alarm lit up in her mind only to warm and settle as she saw Sael’s head using her abdomen as a pillow, face pointed towards the sky.

“I’m not going to remember a bit of this come morning,” Sael laughed.

“I will. I never forgot.” Seneya sighed and closed her eyes, lost in the cool night air, gentle sweat, pleasant touches, and the comfort of having the first real family she’d ever had.

Something in Sael’s pale blue eyes went dark and possessive, and in Seneya’s sleep, she writhed, a nightmare flickering in her mind of a moment like this, pleasant in all the same ways, but filled with dread and sadness.