If I Had a Heart

"I have nothing to say to him," Morrick repeated.
"Holding a man's scent against him is no way to be," Elias sniffed. "I just fell in a bloody lake!" He couldn't possibly smell of anything other than that...could he? He always washed after a surgery; it was his rule.

“I also fell in the lake,” Aumrauth countered. “And he clearly has no issue with me.”

Nikolai coughed awkwardly. "Well, we could build something that would carry all this stuff so we could keep our hands free. You know, like... a sleigh."

He had to sound ridiculous right now, he was sure.

"It's not all that unreasonable," he added quickly before Raptor could comment. "Since building a actual sleigh would be hard, if we just take the wood and make it a flat wooden platform with rails, it'd still do the trick as long as we can pull it along behind us."

Raptor straightened.

"That's a great idea-" he started to say, only to be interrupted by the ax clattering as it fell to the ground. Not for the first time, Raptor was grateful he didn't have skin right now and that his face was hidden. Even without skin, his cheeks felt warm.

He quickly leaned down and picked the axe back up.

"That's a great idea," he repeated, sounding a little flustered.

Nikolai picked up on his embarrassment and knew better than to laugh. Now they were both feeling awkward.

"Thanks," he said timidly, hesitant to accept the compliment. "Well, I guess it's time to put that axe to use, then?"

Mel didn't really know what person Morrick could be referring to, but why would they be trusting a blind man to describe a person? She was far more occupied with the comments that Elias smelled bad.

"Doc, you just smell bad 'cause you smell bad," she said casually, stifling a laugh.

"It is," Raptor quickly agreed.

Bony cheeks still burning with embarrassment, Raptor turned to the chest and readied the ax. He hadn't done a lot of manual labor before all of this, but it couldn't be that hard to cut the trunk into smaller pieces, right? He just had to carefully swing it.

After a minute of fumbling with his ax, he successfully cut apart the chest.

"You went into that lake willingly," Aumrauth objected. "Don't deny it."

While Raptor broke up the chest, Nikolai took the wood pieces as they came and started putting them together, using the built-in nails to fasten them. Although art skills had felt quite familiar to him the moment he'd seen his notebook, it turned out that his pre-amnesia self did not have any woodworking talents. As a result, his creation was rather unimpressive.

But it did have a platform large enough for Aeshan and their belongings (although the edges were uneven), rails to slide on the cave floor, and something vaguely bar-like in the front that they could use to pull it along behind them.

"I made a mess of this," Nikolai admitted as he looked at the sleigh. "I guess I'm not a carpenter."

Raptor looked the sled over.

"It's..." He struggled to find a good word that wouldn't accidentally offend Nikolai. "...rough."

Resting the ax on his shoulder, he walked a little closer and grabbed onto the bar in the front. He tugged on the sled. It moved easily without anything on it, but there was a loud screech as the metal ran against the floor.

Raptor winced.

"It does work," he said, trying to salvage Nikolai's confidence and his comments on Nikolai's creation.

Ainsley stifled a laugh. He appreciated the group's lighthearted bickering, even if it was at the expense of Elias's ego. Aumrauth's observation did stick out to him, though.

He was right; both of them had fallen into the lake, but Morrick only commented on Elias. However, he didn't want to throw a fit just for the blind man to be wrong, especially in front of Elias. Ainsley would have to talk to Morrick about it more alone, if given the chance.

Nikolai chuckled a little. “Don’t worry about upsetting me. I know this isn’t great, and I didn’t have great expectations for it anyway.”

That metal screech was painfully loud though, and they might not be the only ones who could hear it. Who knew what the sound might drive off— or bring to them. It probably wasn’t a great idea to announce their presence to everything within a hundred feet as they moved through dangerous caverns.

“Maybe there’s something we could wrap around the metal rails?” he suggested. “It might move ever so slightly less smoothly, but it could at least cover up the sound.”

Raptor looked around the room.

He could sacrifice his cloak, but he wasn't ready to take it off yet. With his luck, they'd run into the other group as soon as he removed it. Alternatively, they could sacrifice one of the blankets. He was sure Nikolai would object to Raptor giving up the one he had been planning on using, but he did have his cloak.

"We could use one of the blankets," he suggested. "If we're lucky, we'll escape from here before we'd need them. If not, I'll just use my cloak as one."

Nikolai frowned, looking skeptical. “Are you sure?” he asked. Sure, maybe being cold wasn’t that big a deal for Raptor, but couldn’t he still get uncomfortable or something? If so, then he’d be much happier with a blanket than just a cloak. Especially when you were sleeping in armor. That kind of outfit was like the opposite of a mattress.

Maybe Raptor would consider taking off his helmet for that time, so that the pillow might do some good? They’d already seen him, but… Nikolai wasn’t sure what he might choose. He wasn’t sure he should ask, either, so he decided to save it for later.

“There’s still other blankets in this chest we could use,” he suggested. “That way you wouldn’t have to give yours up. All we’d have to do is take one of the unused blankets, cut it in half, and then wrap each part around a rail.”

...He had completely forgotten about those blankets.

"That works, too," he said, nonexistent skin on his bony cheeks burning again. He looked away. He hated how little he had acted like a magician in the past few minutes. Nikolai and Aeshan probably didn't know a thing about magicians, but Raptor very much did. A good magician wouldn't have dropped his only weapon. That same good magician also wouldn't have forgotten about a valuable resource that could be used later.

It was good that Dresden wasn't here; the other magician would have been quick to mock him. And Bartimaeus would have, too, but that was Bartimaeus was an opportunistic demon who preyed on the weaknesses of his summoners.

He went over to the chest and grabbed one of the blankets. With a swift strike of the axe, the blanket was cut in two.

He turned back to Nikolai with the split blanket and his axe in tow.