SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer

[wwiii]

Training. Studying in Kaeleeran Court protocols, poring over any information that he could get his hands on regarding sanitary setups for new settlements in untamed territories, digging around for maps that could help Warren get a better idea as to where they were, and where they were trying to get... It was fairly safe to say that, when Warren wasn't busy running himself ragged in Kaeleer, trying to get budgets to balance and to work out supply options that weren't going to explode in his face, he was spending practically every waking hour training.

His teeth ground together as a stick whipped around, smacking him in the ribs with an audible crack.

Some types of training were easier than others, especially when he was running himself to the ground. He was tired, and it was starting to show. That wouldn't be so bad, if the person that was seeing it at the moment wasn't a sadistic Eyrien with a stick.

With a wince and a ruffle of feathers as he gasped to get his breath back, Warren straightened up and raised his stick again.

[For them what are in Kaeleer!]

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[wwiii]

Warren's hand was now bloody, too, because he'd bitten down on the meat at the base of the thumb while Lucivar had fiddled with his bones. It was the other hand that he reached up with to stubbornly wipe at his eyes. His thumb was better already, but there was a little trail of blood running the length of his arm to his elbow, by that point.

"Just hold it," he murmured, staring down at the ground while the pain in his wing dulled somewhat. "Just for a couple of minutes. Please? It's okay. This was my fault, I moved into it stupidly, I know better..."

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Lucivar was staring in disbelief at the the wing under his hand. The skin was so thin there, he could feel the the bones shifting, smoothing out beneath his fingers. "What?"

His eyes flickered down to the spreading scarlet stain on Warren's forearm. Blood, from no visible wound.

Warren never had visible wounds. Or bruises, even when Lucivar whacked him hard enough to make one blossom. Or even red marks. Hell's fire, Saetan had taken him aside and asked if maybe he wasn't going too lightly on the lad.

"Talk to me," he said. "Why aren't we yelling for the Healers, boyo?"

[wwiii]

"Because there's no point in wasting their time." He wiped his hand off on his pant leg, not looking up just yet. Talking about this sort of thing was... awkward, at best. "By the time someone gets here, it won't be an issue anymore."

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That pretty much lined up with what Lucivar was feeling here. And if it took just a few minutes for a snapped wing strut to mend, bruises and muscle strain would Heal in what...seconds?

"You're a Healer," Lucivar said flatly.

[wwiii]

"I'm a mutant," Warren replied, glancing over his shoulder for a moment. "This isn't craft or anything. I don't even have control over it. It just... It just kind of is."

He didn't seem so thrilled about that, for whatever reason.

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Lucivar's gaze turned thoughtful. "So you can't Heal anyone else?" he asked.

[wwiii]

"I... I don't..." Warren's gaze dropped to the ground as he remembered Karla's back, crisscrossed with claw marks. And then healed clean, as though there hadn't been an injury there at all.

His voice was very quiet as he replied, this time.

"I might be able to. Something in my blood. But I haven't really tested it to be sure."

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Lucivar finally took his hand away, bringing it up to stroke his chin. "That puts an interesting spin on things, doesn't it?" he mused. "Do you know how much you can Heal from? Is there an upper limit?"

Morbid questions, sure, but important.

[wwiii]

Very important, indeed. Warren stretched his wing, gingerly, testing to be certain that everything had healed straight. So far, so good.

"A hook to the guts, I've healed from. And a fall from a pretty crazy height that broke... most of my bones, actually. There was one thing that I wasn't sure I was going to make it through, but Raven stepped in and healed me before I could find out either way."

He was not in any hurry to revisit the whole evisceration ordeal, Lucivar.

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"So you can take almost-fatal injuries and walk them off eventually, you're saying." Lucivar finally noticed his stick on the ground and picked it up, leaning on it slightly at he regarded Warren. "Do you know about how long it takes you to recover?"

Let's be clear. Lucivar had no intention of murdering you in your sleep, Warren.

...Helene would bitch about the damage to the sheets.

[wwiii]

"It depends on the injury," Warren replied, not looking up just yet. "Tissue damage is easy. Bones take a bit longer. It's okay to fly on, but it's still going to be sore for a bit."

He was probably going to have to stand up again eventually. But this grilling alone was taking more out of him than being smacked half to death with a stick would have. Wings, he'd gotten used to. He lived with them for every waking moment of the day. His healing factor, on the other hand, he could generally just forget about. It didn't stare him down, so he didn't have to acknowledge it all of the time.

"I've grown limbs back, too."

That part was very quiet.

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"Mother Night!" Surprised Lucivar was surprised. "How do you--"

He looked at Warren and shut his mouth, leaving the rest of the question unasked.

"You know it's possible that you'll have to do so again?" he asked instead, voice just as quiet. "People might not target you because they'll underestimate you...but you're just as likely to have people after you because they don't think you'll put up much of a fight. In either scenario, by the laws of our land, your first duty is to get back up and protect her."

[wwiii]

"I know," Warren replied, furrowing his brow a little. That was one of the things in a long, long list of duties and protocols that Saetan had already covered with him. And yet... "Even if it wasn't a law, I would. She's everything to me. I wasn't just saying that because Saetan was threatening to burn a hole through me with his eyes, you know."

Though, in all fairness, he had been pretty scared.

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"It's just--" Lucivar rubbed his face, trying to figure out how to explain this without alienating Warren further. "It's not about not trusting you or something. We're raised from the cradle with the idea that we serve and protect. It's bred into us, blood and bone. There's a bond between a Blood male and a Queen that you can't feel--just like I can't feel the bond between you and Karla. Does that make sense? We stress this because we know we're alien to you."

[wwiii]

"It makes sense," Warren sighed, lifting his hand and turning it over in inspect the blood smears along his arm. He was going to have to make a mad dash to the shower, if he wanted to get there before Karla spotted him looking like he'd stuck his hand under a lawnmower. "It's new to me, but I don't think it's about as impossible to explain as trying to get a blind person to understand the color blue. Blood males have a need to protect their Queen. I'd just do the same because she's Karla. The ends are the same, even if the means aren't quite, Lucivar. Honest."

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"We're getting that," Lucivar said, running a hand through his hair. "I think we've been focusing a lot more on all the ways you're different instead of seeing the ways you're not." He shrugged. "This is new on both sides. This is the first time in fifty thousand years Saetan's had to teach someone who doesn't know anything about Blood culture, history, and Protocol."

Even landens had picked up the basics, after living under Blood rule for millennia.

"It's not you, is all I'm trying to say. Or any lack of faith in you."

[wwiii]

"That... that's reassuring," Warren admitted, after a moment's silence, mulling that over. "Would it help to just think of it as a blank slate, or something? I mean, I have my own cultural biases, I'll admit that. But for the most part, I'm not so great at being from where I'm from, either."

He looked up, finally, letting his hand fall to his side before he started to pull himself to his feet.

"How do Blood children learn? Is it just something they're constantly immersed in, so it becomes intuitive?"

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"Pretty much," Lucivar said with a shrug. "Saetan believes that we carry some kind of...ancestral memory or something, a bit of knowledge that comes by virtue of being Blood. If you look at all the Blood races across the Realms, from the unicorns to the horses to the satyrs and the centaurs, we all have societies that are set up basically the same way. What few fragmented records we have of the great dragons who made us suggest they were the same way. It's something we absorbed along with their power."

[wwiii]

Made by dragons. Warren couldn't help that wry smile that crept onto his lips at that. Yeah, he was definitely not descended from the handiwork of dragons.

"I just need time and the opportunity to learn," he settled on, finally. "It isn't preprogrammed into me or anything, but I can form habits. I can pick up facts and I can memorize things and I can do things the way they're supposed to be done until they come naturally to me. I know I look ridiculous now. I kind of feel like a little kid who's always lagging a half-step behind, and I can only imagine that I look the same way to people who have been doing it right their entire lives. But I've just started. I won't always be this awkward."

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The handiwork? Oh, no, boyo. They were descended from the dragons directly.

...Ish.

"When it comes to a lot of the Court stuff, you're not so bad." From Lucivar, that decent praise. "I mean, standing on the right side of the dominant Blood and the precise degree to bow--that's going to take time."

And could be ignored at need.

"It's the other stuff to worry about. Like not pissing off a Warlord Prince by not knowing the warning signs of his killing edge for example. But no one here who doubts your willingness to learn. Or your ability to do so. You know that, right?"

He was even winning the servants to his side, with his soft-spoken manners and his obvious trying.

[wwiii]

No one? There was a bit of a stunned silence there that probably illustrated just how aware of that fact Warren had been.

So used to selling himself short and assuming that he was making the worst impression possible, no matter how hard he tried. Apparently he could stop beating himself up so hard about it.

It was sheer force of will that kept him from saying, 'Really?'

"I guess... sometimes it's good to hear," he settled on, instead. It said more or less the same thing, without making him feel like a complete idiot.

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Lucivar was just going to laugh at Warren's expression. "Why would we? We like you, boyo. You keep Karla from being quite as obnoxious."

He was her best friend's big brother. He totally got to say things like that.

"You love the witchling and can stomach her cooking. That says a lot about your strength of character. Hell's fire, half of the under servants don't even realize you're a landen. They figure you're from a weird race of Blood and you're just too weak to wear a Jewel."

[wwiii]

And that was news to Warren, too. Not bad news, by any means. But definitely news.

"It sounds like they got the weird part right, at least," he offered. "I'd be lying if I said the healing thing didn't have something to do with my still being alive after eating her cookies, though."

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Hearing the brave and slightly tragic tale of how Warren had eaten a batch of pickle cookies to protect the vulnerable newbies had won Mrs. Beale to his cause almost immediately. She'd waved a handkerchief and cried out, "That brave boy!"

Honest and true.

"I knew it had to be some kind of strong magic," Lucivar muttered. "I knew love wasn't enough to make those things palatable. And you don't seem suicidal."

[wwiii]

Warren could only wrinkle his nose at that.

"Just keep in mind, they didn't taste any different. I mean, people generally start losing their tastebuds as they get older. If anything, I tasted it more strongly than most people would."

His, after all, grew back.