moonshadows

The longer he holds her, the more she can see him struggle with himself. Tiny flecks of irritation scurry about, agitating previously-calm structures that he then wrestles back into place. This makes him even more irritated with himself, and the process begins again. She can see an angular shape rattling behind sturdy barricade walls, increasingly restless as the struggle for calm gets more difficult. One insectoid limb composed of razor-sharp blades reaches over the top of the barricade, battering a corner that looks chewed on, and she suddenly realizes that she is looking at his rage. Those blades she has seen before, whirling at high speed around his mind.

She needs to distract him before it gets loose.

"Should I get the oil?"

The hesitant question effectively sidetracks him. "Yes," he says after a minute, releasing her reluctantly and taking a seat while she fetches oil and cloth.

The tension starts draining out of his posture as the soft cloth slides up his horns, helped by the anesthetic foam she lavishes on his penned-up rage. The flecks of irritation are not as easy to deal with. After the first attempts to gel them in place miss completely, she gives in to her own irritation and sprays foam until they all stop scurrying. He sighs and relaxes even further, thoughts drifting contentedly. Time to get to work. Some of the damage she's repairing looks familiar, and she starts marking the ends as she reconnects them. If the same structures break in the same way, she might be able to fashion some kind of elastic tether or collar with which to either prevent the damage, or help him repair it without her aid. When the newer damage has been undone, she pokes at the warped bits she marked. Some of them have started un-warping, reaching for the pieces they used to connect to, and some haven't – but they are all exactly where she left them tied. Good progress, and encouraging. She ignores everything behind walls or barricades, and eyes the piles of shards and scraps that are scattered about like dead leaves. Fitting together two halves of a broken whole is one thing; returning these to their proper places is going to be like solving several half-done puzzles whose pieces have all been mixed together.

Puzzles...

She switches from the machine-oriented visualization that got her some of the best grades in her Reconstruction classes, seeing his mind instead in a more artistic visualization. Her disembodied presence solidifies into an avatar of herself. The barricades become buildings of a foreign design, locked and barred. Some of the unrepaired structures become buildings in severe disrepair, while others resemble sickly trees of an unidentified species, and a few loom as battered statues.

Well, that makes it easier. Now, which to repair first?

Buildings would be easy enough to fix; trees, not so much. One of the statues, though, looks familiar and she has just decided to start with that one when she hears little feet scuff the dead leaves and debris. Her avatar turns around to look, and she bites back a cry of dismay. It's a child, one very badly beaten and wounded. Festering sores, infected puncture wounds, and superficial scratches cover his light-purple skin. His blue hair is tangled and matted with dried blood, one arm hangs in a crude sling, and dirty bandages bind both feet. A folded cloth has been tied over one eye; the other one is lambent gold and stares at her in despair and faint hope.

For a long moment, all she can do is stare back. This child has just become her first priority, but where to begin?

"What hurts most?" she asks softly.

The child whimpers and scratches at an open wound with his good hand. This visualization is more intuitive than the other; she concentrates on the end rather than the means, and manifests a pot of healing salve and clean bandages. The child stands obediently still as she dabs salve into his cuts and sores and ties the clean bandages into place over each one. When that is done she reaches towards the pad over his eye, but he claps his good hand over it and runs off into one of the decrepit buildings. With a sigh, she banishes what's left of the salve and cloth and begins threading the choked path that leads out of his mind.

"Illidan?"

The gentle voice pulls him out of the pain-free haze he'd been blissfully lost in. Awareness of the world fades back in. "Hn?"

"What did you look like before..." her voice trails off awkwardly, but the rhythmic motion of her hands does not falter. "...before you got such nice horns?"

"Mostly the same," he says absently, grateful for the relaxing motion that keeps the memories free of any sting. "No horns, of course. No wings. I had feet instead of hooves, and my hands weren't...clawed."

"What about your skin, and your hair?"

"My skin...was the same, but not marred by these fel scars. My hair was...” It's been so long, he's almost forgotten. “…blue..."

"And your eyes?"

"They were gold." The pain is still gloriously absent, leaving a dry bitterness. "It was supposed to be an omen, a sign of great destiny. Now it is my brother whose eyes are gold, while mine-"

"-are much more attractive," she interrupts firmly. Her hands leave his horns.

Startled, he opens the eyes in question and stares at her. She stares defiantly back, despite the blush climbing her cheeks.

"I'm a demon," she says matter-of-factly, with a toss of her head that falls just short of being insolent. "Things are different for me."

Somehow, hearing it like that allows the words to sidestep the festering tangle of shattered hopes and cruel experience. Or perhaps whatever it is that she does to him is responsible for allowing him to think past the fears that hound him. He doesn't particularly care which it is; he cares that right now, he has a chance to build something with a girl for whom everything he is and does is not a reason to shun him. He stands slowly, smiling faintly when she backs up a step, her breath catching and hero-worship shining from her face. Things are different here. No one outside of this room knows his past to judge him on it, and there are none of his people here to judge him on his current actions. He moves to the couch and sits as though it were a throne, wings draped over the back, and with one hand he beckons. In a flash, she is seated demurely next to him. He does not miss the way her hands are clasped, as though they were holding her hopes and fears in check, and she has been careful to keep just enough distance between them.

This will never do. She is his Champion, he will not have her less than comfortable in his presence. Besides, he is greedy for the feel of her skin against his. Nothing inappropriate, because she is a child – just the innocent physical contact that other people enjoy. One arm reaches out and pulls her closer. At first, she seems frozen in shock, but it doesn’t take her long to nestle against him like a tiger cub snuggling up to its mother.

“Indeed.” His tone is more purr than the growl he’d intended. “So tell me, my Champion, exactly how different things are.”

He can almost feel the look of adoration, warm against the barren wasteland of his heart.

“As you wish, my Kal’shan.”