medically approved topical treatment for your wound, and I wouldn’t want to awe the brains right out of your skull.” He curls his lips up and spits on me. Again. Then he pins me with a brows-raised look of impressive impassivity. “Better?”
“A touch heavy on the sarcasm, but I can run with this if you can. Thanks.” I try to take my limb back, but he doesn’t let it go.
He completely ignores that I’m wiggling my arm trying to struggle free from him. He adds two more clawtips on top of my skin as if to lightly steady me as he examines it.
When he reaches for a length of buttery soft leather that was sitting on the table, he holds it up to my hand… and I stop fighting him.
It’s a glove.
It has dark tan stitching in small, neat rows. Bash lets me go and takes a seat—and when he does, I have to dodge because at this height, and at the way he sits angled to the table and me, his horn almost clocks me in the face. Bash mutters, “Apologies.” Then he’s focused on the leathercraft. He begins making adjustments to his creation, even sewing more stitches onto his project.
Bash, holding a thick needle between his big thumb and finger pads, his talons touching on their sides as he pinches the metal and precisely threads the material together...
Bash. Sewing.
It was one thing to imagine that he might know how to do it, and another thing entirely to see how absorbed he is in doing it with serious skill. He… he looks like he might be enjoying such a domestic-looking task. You couldn’t surprise me more if Martha Stewart showed up in the quarry to ask Bash to help her fold dinner napkins. Or if this towering monster suddenly turned into one of Cinderella’s cute little seamstress mice.
“You made this?” I ask Bash in wonder. “It’s sized for my hand. You made me a custom glove.” Didn’t he tell me that hobs do textile work? Clearly Bash knows how. He also said that female Rakhii work with ceremonial garb; maybe he learned how from his mom. As I examine the fine workmanship, I’m blown away at how talented he is.
Bash doesn’t acknowledge what he’s done. He doesn’t say anything as he takes up another bit of leather from the table, and suddenly he’s turning (careful to keep his horn from swinging at me this time) and sliding a leather sock over my short arm.
Then he pulls the long glove over my hand and tugs it up until it passes the bend of my elbow, where it folds back to form a sort of sleeve.
I stand there, too stunned to move, and meanwhile Bash is looking me over with a tailor’s eye. And maybe a tailor’s quiet pride. No smile graces his scaled face, but his gaze is warm, even pleased as he declares, “This will protect your skin as you reach for stone.” He taps the glove. “And now you can use your short wing for grasping like you do, and the leather will make it so that your skin does not tear it up when you do it.”
My short wing.
My eyes are starting to prickle. The gratitude is that overwhelming. “You… Bash! This is so thoughtful! Oh my goodness...”
Bash glances up from his work fitted over my arms, takes a look at my face—and thumps his feet to the ground, shoving himself to tower over me. He takes a step back. “Nhnnrr,” he growls.
“That wasn’t even a word,” I tell him, my voice all watery as I try not to cry. “Stop looking all stiff and mean! This is… this is so nice of you!”
“Rrrr.”
He’s not even trying to say anything now; he’s just looking everywhere except at me, making uncomfortable growly noises like me displaying emotion is too disturbing for him to bear. Too bad. “Bubashuu...”
He twitches, I think from me using his full name. But he pretends to peer off, like stuff in the quarry is so much more interesting than meeting my watering eyes.
“You may not have said the words,” I poke him, which makes him jump and scowl, “but you were sorry you hurt my feelings. You care. We’re on the fast track to besties now, aren’t we?” Air sweeps over my wet face as I smile huge and hold up my gloves, making sock puppet faces with my hand. “You really can make a good friend.”