THE APPLE OF SNAKES

xiv. ache

Nerluce's entire body hurt.

He let out a small cry of pain as he lifted a shovel full of well... horseshit and hay into the wheelbarrow. It felt as if he'd run down the mountain and back up again and now he was being forced to do chores. Nerluce was normally fine with it! He liked the horses and he didn't mind the additional muscle strain. Normally.

But today was normal. Today was the first time he'd used magick. Well, not the first time, but the first time he'd used it for longer than a moment or two. He'd actually managed to shrink the flame. He had to take lots of breaks, still, but he managed to do it more than once which was an improvement. Nerluce was actually getting better. He had never gotten better at magick before! It was... it was insane.

It had only taken him four lessons in physical magick too! Which was about a month, but Nerluce tried not to let that dampen his spirits. He was improving and that was what mattered. He was improving and it was making him very, very sore.

"Stop slacking," a cool voice said as Aristide approached from behind.

"I'm not slacking, I'm in pain," Nerluce whined, rubbing his back. "Maybe you don't remember what it feels like to begin using magick but it hurts."

Taayir said it was because he was spending the magick from his inner pool faster than his body was used to replenishing it. Nerluce thought it was him aging exponentially overnight. It hurt and he'd complained about it all day but at least he'd been able to get out of bed in the morning, unlike a certain yellow-haired denizen of Dumore when his magick awoke.

That brought the tiniest of smiles to Nerluce's face.

A smile that didn't last long at all as he tried scooping another pile of horse shit up only to have his back wail in protest. He groaned, leaning against the side of the stall. Eden let out a sympathetic whiny - or a whiny that Nerluce took as sympathetic. Maybe Eden was laughing at him. In which case, he was very rude. However, Nerluce offered the hopefully sympathetic stallion a smile.

"It's alright, boy," he cooed. "My body just feels like it's on the verge of collapse and Angel is too scared to come into your stall." Nerluce lifted his voice so that he was certain that Aristide could hear him as he brought the shovel and horse shit out.

Aristide let out a soft huff.

It wasn't as if Aristide was standing around, though. Nerluce would complain to no end if he was. Aristide just had his morning task in the stables and between the two of them, they took care of all the horses on the western half. The disciple who did Aristide's work in the evening was Hamelin and he didn't exactly do much talking so Nerluce figured he ought to milk his company for all its worth.

Not that Aristide was a particularly talkative companion. In fact, he seemed to very much desire they worked in silence. But, like all things, Nerluce was very, very bad at being quiet. He was always talking or humming or just making noise for noise's sake.

Aristide lifted a bucket of feed and poured it into the trough on the next stall over as Nerluce carried out the last shovel full of shit from Eden's stall. The horse next to Eden was a large black mare, almost as large as Eden himself. Eden was a mean and unfriendly horse and the only horse that wasn't utterly terrified of him was this black mare who was just as mean and unfriendly.

To everyone except Aristide.

"What's her name?" Nerluce asked, despite himself. He'd been trying to befriend the mare since she'd been moved next to Eden and she was slowly warming up to him, but only when he had treats.

Since Nerluce was currently treatless, he knew better than to try and get close to her.

Aristide glanced up and then back at the mare. And then, softly, almost as if he didn't want to admit it, he said, "Lilith."