After making it back to the cave all the motion stopped, I was tired enough that I almost thought I could fall asleep right there.

“Try not to move while I dig the teeth out, if your muscles tighten up it will just cause more damage.”

‘Teeth?’ “What are you—” My eyes widened a bit as I looked down at my leg to see several barbs sticking out as if I has walked through a bunch of burs, only the difference was that they were poking deep through my boot and into my leg. “What kind of freaking bird has teeth!” I yelled.

Carefully looking at each one, he began pulling them out with one of his strange lockpicking tools, using them like pliers. “What kind of girl drop-kicks a bird in the face…” He said slowly, focusing completely on his task.

“Well, it worked didn’t it…” I grumbled, but he didn’t respond.

After locking the tool onto one of them he lifted his eyes to mine, tilting his head. “Oh I know everything about this monster, I read about it in a book one time…” He said mocking me.

“Hey! It was—” My words got cut short by the pain of him yanking an especially large tooth out with a grin. Instead of yelling I just closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cave wall.

“What you have to know about these bird's teeth, is the sides are bladed too. So you have to keep your mind off the pain while removing them. Otherwise, you might tense up and shred more of your muscle as it contracts. The easiest way to do this is if you’re treating someone else… Is to piss them off. It especially doesn’t help that they have a weak that literally just causes more pain.”

“Can’t you just shut up and finish already…” I whined, my voice sounding weak and fragile” ‘I guess I know why it hurts so much at least…’

“R-right… Sorry.”

It was only a brief moment, but for some reason he became flustered.

After taking out all the teeth he took my boot off and rolled up my pant leg to my knee. “It’s not bad, so you should be fine, just hold on a minute while I bandage it and use the medicine.”

I slid myself back a bit away from him before he could do anything. “Hold up a second, you don’t need to do that.”

He slowly lowered the medicine glancing to the side. Again slightly flustered, but barely showing it. “I just pulled teeth out of your leg… We should at least disinfect it. Are you afraid of medicine or something?”

“I’m not a child!” I yelled, quickly shutting my mouth at how much I sounded like one… “I just… UGH. I can use magic to do all that, and I can do it myself.”

He put the medicine away and gestured toward me. “Sure, that works too.” He said bluntly, staring so intently it started to make me nervous.

‘It’s… Not even that hard… I just…’ I used “disinfect” to clean the wound and then manipulated water to wash it, using another spell to make sure it wouldn’t get infected on top of that. “See…” I muttered. “You don’t need to waste supplies on me, and this way I don’t owe you either.”

He let out a sigh as he pulled the medicine back out and walked toward me, grabbing my leg and pouring it over the wounds, making me try to jerk my leg back, but ultimately failing. Still feeling the injury in my hip and quickly giving up on jerking free.

The medicine stung so bad it felt like my entire leg all the way up to my hip broke out into a sweat and I reflexively tried to punch him. “Gah!” He dodged out of the way of my first punch, and I didn’t see a need to throw a second, calming down.

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“First of all, that spell you use only gets rid of what’s there, it doesn’t stop new infections from forming. Second, This medicine is free, it’s from the white light guild, so you don’t owe me, and you don’t owe them any more than you did for fixing you up the last time. And thirdly…”

He paused staring down at me, making me feel like a stubborn child. “Thridly?” I timidly mumbled, waiting for him to finish.

He bashfully turned away. “Well, really there’s just those two… Three points just sound so natural you know… Anyway, I’m going to wrap your leg now if that’s alright.”

“Fine…”

“What was that?”

“I said fine! Geeze. Just do it already, or give it to me and I’ll do it myself.”

As he slid one of his hands up my calf and behind my knee it felt so cold I let out a yelp. I expected him to apologize, but instead, he gave me a funny look that gave me the hiccups, all of it just serving to make me feel embarrassed again… And suddenly I was the one that was flustered…

“There. You’re ankles swollen up pretty badly. I can wrap it for support, but I wouldn’t recommend walking on it.”

I tried my best to suppress my hiccups, turning away slightly so I wouldn’t have to look at him for fear of just getting more embarrassed. “It’s fine… Just wrap it and let’s get going… Unless… You have a better idea…”

He put the supplies back in his bag. “Well, there are no monsters between here and camp, and I wouldn’t be walking through deep snow, so I could carry you back fairly easily.”

I slowly poked at the wounds on my leg. ‘They're not even deep so why does it sting so much…’ “You sure you’re strong enough? I’m short, but I’m heavier than I look…”

He shrugged. “Even if I only get halfway back that’s halfway you don’t have to walk.”

I slowly put my boot back on and stood up to test it. ‘I mean. I could walk on this if I had to… But there's no point if I don’t right?’ “Sure… Go for it.”

I took my sword belt off and sent it to storage and next thing I knew I was swept up in his arms, frozen stiff like a possum playing dead in the road.

“If I carry you on my back it would add pressure on your ribs, so we’ll do it like this.”

Even with my armor on his arms were surprisingly steady, giving me at least a basic confidence he wouldn’t drop me. ‘I know this is called a princess carry… But I bet we look ridiculous right now…’

“Since your hands are full I’ll take care of lighting the tunnel this time,” I said softly, staring off into the darkness and lighting the way, my voice finally starting to return to normal.

“My hands aren’t really full, I could still use light spells if you’d rather use recovery to heal faster or something.”

I turned my head back to him. “What do you mean, your hands are literally full.”

“Full of what?”

‘Is he messing with me right now?’ “Full of me… Your hands are literally full with me.”

After meeting my eyes his face turned slightly red and he quickly snapped them back to the path we were walking. “That’s not true, I’m just carrying you.”

I scoffed. “Really, that’s what makes you embarrassed, of all the things. You know, that really pisses me off.”

“Sorry.” He said bluntly his stride unchanging as any hint of embarrassment slowly vanished. “You seriously need to be more careful with your words though.”

“Don’t apologize, now I feel like I’m the bad guy.”

Without looking down he raised an eyebrow in deep contemplation. “I’m… Not… Sorry.”

“Well don’t take it back!”

He chuckled. “You know, even without getting a good look at your face, I bet I would have figured out you're a girl.”

“WHAT!” I paused, my shout making my voice suddenly come to a screeching halt as if it had hit a brick wall, and my next words were all just being muffled through it as my voice once again became soft and squeaky. “Wha-what’s that supposed to mean…”

“Take a guess, then figure out the opposite, that’s how girls usually find out what I’m trying to say, then again you aren’t like most, so it’s probably whatever you think it means.”

“Or… You could just tell me…”

“Awe, but what’s the fun in that.”

I rested my head against his shoulder. “Posy hits you a lot doesn’t she…”

“Yes, but that’s totally unrelated.”

‘That was a surprisingly quick answer.’

“To be honest, I’m surprised being carried doesn’t bother you, I would have thought for sure you would have been the stubborn type that refused to be helped.”

I didn’t even bother opening my eyes, shooting another magic light into the air. “You kidding? This is the best. My feet hurt anyway. There’s no shame in accepting help when you don’t need it, well as long as you didn’t ask for it.”

“And what about when you do?”

“Definitely, definitely shameful. I mean, you still take the help, because you need it so duh, but you should still be ashamed you needed saving.”

“And which one is happening right now?”

I finally opened my eyes, looking back up at him. “For the record, I could have totally walked back on my own, and even if I couldn’t have, I would have made it back there by hopping eventually, this is much appreciated but it’s not necessary…”

He chuckled again, laughing at my seriousness, making me once again feel like a child. “Well, at least it’s appreciated.” He said with a smile.

From that moment on he never managed to shake that stupid grin off his face, as if would stay on even if he died. ‘I feel like I understand people even less than when I didn’t talk to them…’