Chapter Twenty-Six #3
He continued, “The great thing about the body is that it always wants to be well. It will do what healing it can on its own, and really, we’re just enhancing that, making it go faster and in some cases, sort of… smoothing out something that didn’t heal right.”
“How do you convince the body to do anything, though?” Perian asked.
“Much the way you already have,” Trill said with a shrug.
“You imagine it the way you want it to be, and then you give it the energy to do it. Like I said, it’s more like we’re giving it a boost to do what it wants to do anyway, so it’s not like we need to understand every detail of how the body works. ”
Perian looked very relieved. “Yeah, that’s, uh, definitely not something I know.”
“But you want people to be well. You want to make them better.”
“Of course,” Perian said immediately.
“Exactly. And that’s why I’m confident that even if you and I don’t see or do things exactly the same way, it’s close enough to work.” He flashed Perian a smile. “Now comes the fun part: time to touch Molun.”
Molun grinned a huge smile, and Perian laughed.
“Touch him where?”
“I have suggestions,” Molun said brightly.
“It doesn’t actually matter,” Trill said, trying to stay focused but unable to suppress a grin. “No matter what Molun is about to tell you.”
“I have some very receptive areas,” Molun tried to tell them with a serious-sounding voice.
“Uh huh,” Perian said with a roll of his eyes but a very fond expression. Looking to Trill, he asked, “It really doesn’t work better if you touch the injury?”
Trill tilted his head back and forth. “Well, yes and no. It’s maybe a little bit faster, like there’s less far for the energy to travel? But the whole body is connected, so the energy would get there regardless. And, I mean, some injuries are inside.”
Perian made a face. “Oh, yes, it’s so much better when Molun’s insides stay inside him. I don’t know how the doctor did it.”
He’d gone a little pale, and Trill realized that hadn’t been very useful, and he hastened to move the topic on.
“I usually imagine it like threads of energy that flow from me to the other person. And then I just imagine where I want it to go and what I want it to do.”
“I thought you said I didn’t have to know what it needs to do?”
“Not specifically, but you don’t just want to push energy at someone, although their body might still figure out what to do with it.
The more you can focus it, the better. Let’s say you want to heal Molun’s leg, but you can’t heal everything in one go—because you don’t have enough energy or you don’t want to make people suspicious and get caught and killed, for example—then you probably want to be a little more specific.
So maybe you want to reduce the pain or make movement easier.
Or you want to heal it a little more than it was healed before.
” Trill shrugged. “For me, the energy seems to respond to specific ideas like that.”
Perian was nodding, expression making clear that he was thinking about everything Trill had said.
“Do you get to touch me now?” Molun asked hopefully.
Trill laughed and leaned in to press a kiss to Molun’s lips. Molun, of course, grabbed his face and made it a much deeper kiss than Trill had originally intended, but he did let him up eventually.
Then he waggled his eyebrows at Perian. “Your turn!”
Perian leaned in and pressed a kiss to Molun’s forehead. Molun was just starting to pout when Perian leaned his forehead against Molun’s.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” he whispered.
The teasing fell away, and Molun wrapped his arms around Perian as best he could given that Perian was leaning over his chair.
“I’m so all right. I promise,” Molun told him, and then he huffed a breath. “And you’re clearly fine at this, because it doesn’t ache at all anymore.”
Perian pulled back. “Really? Because I remember some less-than-accurate descriptions from your letters.”
“I didn’t want to worry you when there was nothing that you could do about it,” Molun admitted, a little bit shamefaced. “Especially when you’d already done so much for me.”
“I can never do too much for you,” Perian told him.
“That’s because you’re very sweet,” Molun said with an affectionate smile.
“Shall we try together?” Trill asked.
Perian nodded. “Oh, yes, let’s.”
Molun held out both his hands, and they each took one.
“No aches and pains,” Trill said.
Perian nodded. “Everything mended back to the way it’s supposed to be: bone, blood, muscle, skin, all of it.”
Trill wasn’t sure if he could actually feel Perian’s energy, but he could certainly feel his concentration and focus.
“He wants to dance again,” Trill added.
Perian’s eyes had fallen closed, but he nodded. “He loves to dance.”
Trill felt something that was… almost like a tug, like his own energy was being pulled in by something—or someone Trill assumed. He let it go.
Trill offered. “And run up the stairs.”
“And run to dinner.”
“And run for cover after he’s dumped water on someone.”
Perian was smiling, even as a furrow of concentration marred his brow.
“And get on all fours for Arvus. I assume he has twice as many reasons now.”
Trill let out a laugh, and a slightly breathless Molun agreed, “I sure do.”
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Perian’s face.
Brannal had apparently been watching like a hawk because he said, “Could we consider this an adequate first lesson?”
“Of course,” Trill agreed.
He pulled back immediately, but it was equally clear that Perian hadn’t stopped. Trill wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it felt like the other man went… deeper than he did.
He laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and gave a little tug on his energy.
Perian’s eyes popped open, and he released Molun’s hand. He blinked at Trill in surprise, then looked to Brannal, who was now on his feet.
“Oh, oops,” Perian said, smiling apologetically. “Uh, at least I didn’t pass out?”
Brannal didn’t look particularly reassured.
“We can work on it,” Trill assured him. “Remember, you’re coming at this from trying to instinctively help people you care about.
I think it’s perfectly normal that you’re getting a little lost in it.
I found out what I could do and then learned how to do it, and it was only later that I found people I cared about that I really wanted to help. You see?”
Perian smiled at him. “That actually makes a lot of sense. You’re really good at that.”
Trill beamed. “Thank you. Not to alarm you, but this is actually the first time I’ve ever tried to teach anyone.”
Perian was shaking his head. “No, no, it’s amazing. I mean, everything that I’ve figured out up to this point has been on my own, and I’d much rather have someone with suggestions.”
“It’s really nice to have someone to talk about it all with,” Trill agreed.
Perian nodded emphatically.
Trill looked at Molun. “How do you feel?”
“Good,” Molun agreed. “No ache at all.”
Trill could see that Brannal was still looking a little antsy next to Perian.
“You know the best thing you can do after you’ve healed someone?”
“No, what?” Perian asked.
Trill waggled his eyebrows and gave Perian his best leer. He burst into laughter.
“Really?”
“Of course,” Trill said. “How do you get all your energy?”
Perian seized Brannal’s hand. “In that case, everyone, amuse yourselves for a while, all right?”
He tugged Brannal out of the room without waiting for them to respond. Molun was laughing, and Trill grinned at him.
“Totally essential that they have sex right away, huh?” Molun asked.
Trill shrugged. “Well, it’s not a bad practice, and it certainly won’t do any harm.”
Arvus was shaking his head, but he looked amused. “I think it will definitely make Brannal feel better.”
“How could it not?” Molun asked. “Speaking of, Perian wasn’t the only one who was doing some healing, now was he?”
“Oh, do I look like I need an energy boost?” Trill asked coyly.
“You look like you’d like to have all the sex. You want to have all the sex, don’t you?” Molun asked hopefully.
Trill could only smile at him. “There is absolutely no time that I don’t want to have all the sex.”
Molun beamed. “Excellent. Let’s go.”
They’d already established a rule that no one would have sex in the study in order to avoid anyone potentially seeing something they didn’t want to, so they headed upstairs.
Molun took them nearly at his normal gait, but it wasn’t until they got naked that they realized what a difference the healing had made, not just to how it felt but to how it looked.
The injury wasn’t completely healed, but the scars had not only become less noticeable, Trill was quite sure that in some spots, they’d disappeared entirely.
“Fire and water,” Molun breathed.
Perian was clearly powerful—which shouldn’t really come as a surprise given what Trill had heard he’d done for the Prince, but it was still different to have the evidence in front of them.
“Wow,” Trill said.
Molun looked at him with an expression that was a little uncertain, which confused him until he said, “You know I’m happy about everything that you do for me, right?”
Trill laughed and leaned in to kiss him. “The happier and more pain-free you are, the happier I am. I don’t care one bit who does the healing.”
Trill could do more now that it wasn’t a secret. He still doubted he could match Perian—but it truly didn’t matter to him. All he cared about was the healing happening.
He must have adequately got that across, because Molun looked relieved, and then he tugged Trill so that he’d settle on top of him.
“C’mere,” Molun said, voice full of affection. “I haven’t thanked you for being amazing today.”
They spent a wonderful afternoon in bed with Molun doing exactly that (and Arvus, not to be left out, demonstrating his thanks very thoroughly, too). Trill was gloriously spoiled.
Really, the time on Perian’s estate felt like the most amazing holiday.
Trill didn’t have to worry about money or food or Yannoma.
Molun and Arvus didn’t have to work; they even left off their Mage Warrior armor most of the time and wandered around in trousers and shirts.
Trill had another child of two worlds he could talk to and compare notes with.
Trill had never seen Cormal so relaxed, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders; he and the Prince got to spend more time together than they usually would at the castle.
Everyone was having lots of sex, and while there were still the occasional awkward moments, mostly it was days of laughter and sex and camaraderie.
Trill wasn’t sure how long they could keep this up, though.
The Prince’s sister couldn’t cover for him indefinitely.
Delana was the only one left in charge of the Mage Warriors—assuming she’d gotten back—and while hopefully nothing bad was happening, it wasn’t fair to leave her covering everything, either.
But Trill didn’t want to be the one to suggest any changes. They were waiting to see if Yannoma responded, of course, and she would probably write to tell Trill no, but what if she didn’t? They’d have to talk about it eventually, but he had to admit that he wasn’t particularly eager to do so.
It was like a step out of reality where they all got to enjoy one another. Even if things hadn’t been completely fixed between Cormal and Brannal, they were vastly improved.
The last thing Trill expected was for a knock on the door to herald the arrival of the cloaked and hooded figure of—
“Yannoma!” he exclaimed.
She’d actually come.