Of Crows and Songbirds (Part 2)

He dipped his head. "I'll add it to the list of questions to ask Aleth."

Ky cringed again and nodded. “Yes sir.”

Things were going to get nasty if Ash started trying to force Aleth to spill his secrets. Aleth, as he said, was in the business of collecting secrets not sharing them. She didn’t want to think about what was going to happen. It was… going to be gruesome, she was sure of it.

"May I ask how much resistance I should expect from him?"

“… a lot, sir,” Ky said quietly. “…it will be quite the feat to get anything out of him, sir.” She didn’t want to say she’d be surprised — that seemed like the sort of thing that would offend him — but. Well. She’d be surprised.

"Do you know how high his pain tolerance is?"

Ky looked at him in alarm. What sort of a question was that? Why would she know that? Had… had Aleth put him up to this? Was this some sort of a test? It didn’t seem like something she should be talking about. Thinking about. “… no sir. He took his beating after me and I… didn’t really notice much. No idea how well he held up, sir.”

"I suppose we'll find out." He shrugged. "At least we have the fact that men have lower pain tolerance than women going for us, hm?"

Ky really and truly didn’t have the foggiest idea of what the right answer here was. She’d rather die than disagree with him, even though she was highly doubtful of his claims. Tadaaki stayed standing far, far longer than she ever could. And remained stoic throughout it all. Meanwhile she passed out if she got more than a few strikes in a row.

But she also couldn’t agree with a man, that men were weaker. Because. Well. That was obviously offensive. Bait, perhaps?

She turned even redder and inclined her head.

"You're not to harm him for another week," Sera reminded Gaius. "He's still fragile."
"I know." He nodded. "I had blankets and food sent down; he'll keep until he's strong enough to be interrogated without dying."

Ky felt ill. They both did. And so they sat very, very still and kept their expressions carefully neutral so as to not draw any attention to themselves. To pretend that wasn’t a positively savage thing to do: nurse him back to health with the express purpose of taking him back to the brink. Gods.

Sera dipped her head and rose. "Glad to hear it. I'll be getting back to the infirmary now, if you're finished, Gaius?"
Gaius nodded and stood as well. "Indeed. You three feel free to continue with your meals; the food will remain on the table for another hour or so."

Ky and Tadaaki both stood respectfully when Gaius did, having to fight their instincts to do it as fast as humanly possible. That was, apparently, upsetting to Gaius. Being respected as much as he deserved. So they both were making an attempt to break the habit of racing him to his feet.

Aleth always wanted that. He always wanted them to their feet by the time he made it to his, not belatedly after. Even when he didn’t give clues that he was about to stand up. Oh no. The moment you saw his weight begin to shift upward from the chair, you had to spring up fast enough to be on your feet before he finished standing.

“Yessir.” They both dipped their heads to him. “Thank you, sir.”

He eyed them standing there, then limped toward the door. Emery had remained seated, and Sera was leaving as well.

Ky and Tadaaki watched them go, then sat back down and glanced over at Emery to gauge what to do next.

He looked back at them and smiled. "I just finished. But I'll keep you company! The food's great, isn't it?"