A Rock and a Heart Place (gxg)

Chapter 27

"Inez!" Medya cried out, rushing to the fallen woman, and sliding down to her knees next to her. "What happened?"

"It's just a burn, it hurt a lot more than I thought it would!" Inez complained, tears in her eyes.

"A burn? Hold on, you can't use a dry cloth!" Medya carefully lifted the cloth from Inez's hip, noticing it stuck a little to the mark and hearing Inez whimper as it pulled loose. "I'll be right back!" She ran into the attached bathroom and dampened the cloth in the washbasin, then ran right back to Inez, who hadn't moved in the meantime. Taking the cloth, she gently dabbed it on the scorched skin. "Here, you keep doing this and I'll be right back, okay?"

Inez nodded gratefully, happy to feel the cooler dampness of the cloth against her skin while Medya darted out of her room. Moments later, Medya was back, backpack in hand and she was rifling through it only to pull out the case with her potions. She checked each of them in turn until she found what she wanted. "Perfect!" She pulled out a bottle of a thicker liquid and then lifted Inez's hand and cloth from her bare hip. Pouring a little of the viscous purple liquid onto her hip, she gently spread it over the wound with her fingers while carefully not touching the skin itself.

"Alright, let that salve do its job while you rest," Medya instructed, trying not to pay attention to the fact that Inez's pants and underwear were down around her knees to expose the hip. How the hell had she burned herself like that?

Inez sighed as soon as the salve touched her skin, the pain fading as Medya's gentle fingers spread it to cover all the oddly shaped burned skin. "I'm glad you had that; it feels much better. Thank you,"

"Most of these are healing potions, but that one is mostly for burns. Sorry it took so long to find it," Medya apologized.

Inez looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "How many healing potions do you have in there?"

Medya shrugged. "I haven't looked through the inventory, but maybe a dozen or so still after using the ones earlier."

"And would those potions work on say, an arrow wound?" Inez asked in a low growl.

Medya opened her mouth to answer but knew that this would lead to another fight. So, with a sigh she simply nodded.

"What you're saying then, is that when you were shot in the shoulder, you could have healed yourself in minutes. But even now, you're still in pain and recovering?" Inez clarified.

Medya hung her head sadly. She knew this would go badly, and now she'd disappointed the woman she loved yet again. The tears from her eyes were the only answer that Inez got.

Inez clumsily got to her knees, trying to avoid her burn hitting and kicking her pants and underwear off so she didn't fall right over. She reached out and pulled Medya to her, since the smaller woman was still on her knees next to her. "Medya, please tell me why you didn't heal yourself?"

Medya sank into Inez's embrace, trying to ignore the fact that Inez was pant less and that their bare legs were pressed against one another. The heat from the fire was warming her, but not as much as the feel of Inez's body pressed against hers. The scent of her hair and skin reminded her of better times, and she couldn't help but relax within her arms. "We were going into battle, I didn't know if you'd get hurt or not, so I saved them all. I wanted to make sure I had enough to take care of you."

Inez sighed into Medya's hair. She knew that was going to be the answer, but it distressed her all the same. "Medya, you're the most selfless person I know, always putting others before yourself. But sometimes you need to be selfish, you need to make sure that you're living the life you want to live so you can be happy too. You rescued Katja from a horrible life and have given her freedom and the chance to find love. You rescued me and instead of leaving when you realized that the treasure wasn't real you stuck with me all the way till now. You saved us in Nahmia's shop, helped plan the invasion to save so many other oppressed people and have given so much of yourself to everyone else. So why would you not have taken even one potion for yourself? Aren't you worth it?" Inez asked fervently.