New World Sasanaichs

Five

April, 1744

Nearly six months passed before the Weather finally Began to warm enough to allow the Snow that’d fallen fairly steadily over the Winter to melt and run off as liquid Water. By that Time, those who’d been crammed together in the hastily-constructed shack’d been forced to resort to somewhat exploiting the Elves who’d fairly decent Control and their magick. Without a handful of spells, they’d have undoubtedly frozen to Death since their shelter was so drafty and didn’t hold in heat very well, which meant burning through their supply of firewood faster than they’d anticipated.

        During any Time he wasn’t working on plans for a home of his own, or helping with tasks like hunting so everybody–even the Murrays–would have food through the Winter, Jamie got to ken their resident Healer far better. There was far more to her than just being an Elf–who was also a bit of an oddity among Elves, what with her fiery hair that easily matched his own–that kent a thing or five about Healing and gardening.

        Róisín was a Wealth of Knowledge when it came to plants–both those typically found in a domestic Garden and those found in the Wild–but on many other subjects, as well. He’d been surprised when she’d insisted on donning her kilt and bootsta join the menfolk on a hunt, which she’d gotten their group home safely from simply by reading the Stars. She hadn’t even seemed to care that full Darkness’d fallen and the humans with her couldn’t see a damn thing–she’d just tied a rope around her own waist, and keeping the sections between each person relatively short, led them all back to their lil homestead. It wasn’t till after they’d gotten home that she Revealed that Elves were able to see in near pitch-blackness, although the Drow were certainly better at it than even she was due to their imprisonment underground.

        But for all that he’d steadily been getting to ken her even better, the ginger lad still couldn’t help his wariness of the fact that she was a magick-wielding Elf who could best him at swordplay and then some. The entirety of his Life’d been spent in a Catholic family, so there was a part of him that Feared that–no matter what assurances she tried to offer him–she’d use her magick against him in a negative way. It was most likely an unfounded Fear on his part, but one thing remained true, either way–that Fear’d him at War with himself in regardsta the attraction he felt to her. Nothing could convince him that whether appropriate or not, giving in to his baser urges could possibly result in anything good–and that internal War proved to be quite the distraction for him.

        “Ifrinn!” Jamie yelped one afternoon, startled by the sudden pain just above his knee that was both piercing and burning at the same Time.

        “What’s amiss, lad?”

        Grunting as he chopped at the ground with his dirk, he almost didn’t hear Murtagh’s question. “Damned viper!”

        Drawing closer, his godfather saw that he’d just chopped the head off a snake. “It didna get ye, did it?”

        “Mac an diabhuil damn weel did, Murtagh,” the ginger lad groaned, managing to settle so that he sat on the ground with his back against a Tree trunk.

        Murtagh immediately knelt down, helping him rip apart the stocking he’d worn under his hunting kilt so they could inspect the damage. “This isna good, Jamie.”

        “Ye think I dinna ken that?” he snapped, unable to help a groan from even the slightest movement of his leg.

        “Dinna be snapping at me like that, bhalaich,” the older man warned him. “I dinna care how much it does or doesna hurt.”

        Jamie grumbled under his breath, scrunching his eyes shut when he pulled out his own dirk.

        “Bite down on this, ’cuz I’ve no choice but to slice it open and suck out the venom,” he warned him as he handed over his belt moments later.

        “Do what ye must,” the ginger lad said, biting down on the leather.

        Nodding, Murtagh set to work with slicing open the puncture wounds before restoring his dirk to its scabbard, deftly ignoring his pained groans.