The dream was always the same.
The left side of his face was on fire. Pain radiated from his eye socket, blood wept down his cheek following the clawed furrows in his flesh. He wailed in anguish, but it couldn't be heard above the triumphant howls of the neophytes who clustered around the alter. They splashed and splattered the blood in the grooves that led down from the high basin on each other, screaming in ecstasy. He was held by four jahi, their priestly robes black enough to conceal the wet, fresh stains from the ceremony. They constrained his writhing limbs, by the arms, by the collar around his neck and it's chain, by his feet. The stone was warm, too warm, beneath him. The basin, too full of blood beside him.
The Jairo raised her hand in triumph, displaying the perfect orb with it's golden iris to her inder, the focus of her worship. She cries out for blessing, and laughs as her offering bursts into flame. She laughs, her eyes on the flame, on what the inder offers his high priestess, his saint. She never sees the boy behind her, reaching beseechingly for her as the jahi tear his shredded clothes from his body. She never hears him when he cries out to her.
Mother.
He sat up, blinking against the dark. The movement was too abrupt, and his body drowned with sensation, none of it good. Slowly, he dragged the sheet away from his legs, and slung them with care over the side of the bed. Pounding ran along the line of his ribs, his calf burned where it had been bitten. Damn. He was weaker than a newborn colt. The chamber room, a modern convenience that he'd been surprised this wretched place boasted, seemed miles beyond his capability. It could have been on the other side of the kjell-damned inn, instead of right across the room. Ten steps, he thought to himself. It's only ten steps. Shifting forward, he placed his weight on his feet, then grunted. Distantly, he noted that his feet were bandaged. It was the second observation, the first being that they hurt like seven kinds of bloody hell. But he'd committed himself to getting up, and as he pitched forward, he knew the further commitment he had was to kissing the ground. He cursed.
"It's a bit too early for you to be up, and you know it." The gentle, womanly voice scolded him. His reply was succinct, and illegal in five countries. Rather than becoming offended by the anatomically impossible, she laughed. "Your temper would be better if you knew your limits." She suggested.
"You know I hate that form." He gritted from behind clenched teeth. She held him upright, but every part of his body was urging him to become horizontal. Every part except his bladder. The hand bracing his chest became larger. The shoulders his arm was slung across became wider and taller. There was less weight on his stinging feet, and he found himself practically lifted across to the door that led to the chamber room, named after the chamber pots usually found within. He groaned. "I look that bad, huh?" He waited as his carrier opened the door. "When you start listening to my bitching, it makes me scared."
"I don't mind indulging you when you're weak like this." The male said in a sweet tone. "Even if your requests are unreasonable. You know, you're kinda cute when you look like shredded yak jerky."
"Screw you." The comment lacked his usual energy.
"You already tried that, remember?" The large male lowered him onto the seat. Then he stood there, grinning and waiting.
"Get out." The injured man growled. "I can take a piss by myself, thank you very much."
"That's a first." The large male raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "The thanks, not the pissing. You have far too much piss left in you, for one nearly dead." He huffed in false indignation, then ducked into the bed chamber. The injured man cursed. He was reduced to sitting like a woman. The humiliation was simply the added sauce to his situation.
He'd never hurt this much before. Well, perhaps once or twice, but past hurts and wounds faded from memory, and couldn't compare to the current ones. At any pace, it was time he found another line of work. His partner might be mad at him, but he'd probably stick around. He had to. The injured man wondered if he could convince his partner to be useful. He snorted, then finished his business in the pot and wobbled to his feet. His partner despised anything that was of any use. That's why they never rode horses, or owned any other beasts of burden. That's why they usually had to travel everywhere by walking. Or, in some special circumstances, running.
He let out an explosive huff, then staggered a couple of steps before his partner caught him again. His partner noted the scowl.
"You've relieved your bowels, you're on your way back to bed, and there's a very handsome gentleman tending your wounds. Why are you so grim? Most people would kill to be tended by me."
"I only had to nearly die for the privilege." He sniped. "I just realized that I'm going to have to re-build the calluses on my feet." His partner was unsympathetic.
"That's what you get when most of the skin is flayed off of them." He lowered the injured man to the bed more abruptly than he should have.
"Ow."
"Don't glare at me. I've told you, over and over again. You have to be more careful with yourself. You're only human, after all." His partner glared back. "It's dangerous enough without your suicidal recklessness!"
For once, he didn't argue. He laid back, then put a bandaged arm over his eye. The silence lasted a few minutes as he thought. He felt the bed shift slightly as something small dropped onto it. It padded up the blankets to his shoulder. Then it nudged his cheek with a triangular, furry face and curled into a supine position on the pillow next to his head.
"What would you say if I did something else for a while?" He asked. The animal lifted his head, then cocked is triangular ears.
"I'd say there's no way I'm going to be a plow-horse." As usual, his partner was right on target. Sometimes, he wondered exactly how much his partner knew...
He moved his arm and caressed the small, furry head.
"I should have enough money to buy one." He said. His partner purred, then went to sleep.