She was still lying there in the same position I had left her. I reached down and brushed away a piece of sodden hair from her cheek. Her skin was ice cold.
I swore and put my hands on my head. How could I have been so stupid? Of course she was going to be freezing, she had been at the mercy of the sea for at least a few days and, I paused, she was freezing and she hadn’t moved yet. I swore again “Stupid freak, why didn’t you check to see if she was still alive?” I went to check for a pulse, but then realized I didn’t know how, so I closed my eyes and opened my mind. I didn’t do that very often as it left a gap for Me to slip out through. I found her, a small, shaky, freezing cold presence in front of me. She was still alive.
I sighed with relief, right, now what should I do, I had to keep her warm and I had never learnt any warming spells, so I dried her using a strong blast of wind, then took off the leather jerkin and lay gingerly down beside her. I folded my arms in front of me so as to keep a barrier between us and then wrapped my wings around her. She still didn’t stir so I relaxed and quietly clapped my hands before re-creating the barrier. The sphere sprung up around us and using it I made us invisible. Then I pulled another rag on top of my bare torso and fell asleep.
I woke up as someone slapped me across my face. For a second, I thought she had woken up and got the wrong idea. In fact, she had turned over and hit me in the face with her arm as she did so. I could feel her breath against my wing and I smiled. Good, she had regained conscience and she was warming up.
I put down the sphere and stood up. I covered her with another rag and left to go and make sure I could keep an eye on her tomorrow. As I came out of the storeroom I began coughing uncontrollably. Some of the crew gathered around me as I collapsed on the floor coughing. The Captain strolled across the deck towards me.
“What the ‘ell is wrong with you?”
I struggled to speak through the coughing, “I…think the…store…storeroom…is infected…sir…”
“Infected ‘ey, aye I think yur right there lad. No one is ta go in that there storeroom until tis clear!”
An agreeing grumble passed through the crew.
“Oh, except you there lad,” he was talking to me, “You can stay in there till tis clear. You hear me lad? Get in there!” He pulled me up roughly by the arm and threw me back into the store, slamming the door behind me. I heard him order the crew to bar the door and waited for the thud of the thick wooden barricade going across the door. I coughed a few more times, to make sure no one would get suspicious if they were listening.
I walked back over to the crate and sat down leaning back against the wall of the crate I watched her sleeping and, putting up a sphere so as not to hit her by accident, practiced my spells.
After a while, I stopped and studied her. She had long brown wavy hair and her skin was lightly tanned. I wondered what colour her eyes
were; her eyes had been closed the whole time so I hadn’t seen them.
I leaned back against the wall and wondered how I was going to make her better. She needed to be kept warm, dry and she needed food. Keeping her warm and dry wasn’t difficult, I could do that myself, but I needed to somehow feed her. I could roast a few seagulls which flew past but that wouldn’t do her very much good. I guessed that I would be given the usual mess of some sort of fish and potatoes. The joys. Oh well, that would have to do for now.
~SishBee~
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