8. Chapter Eight #3
Rafi also wasn’t sure if that was a reprimand.
Part of him suspected it might have been if Viau’s name hadn’t been involved.
But he didn’t mind the extra work, and amazingly, he didn’t lose control.
The whole thing made him feel like an instructor, or perhaps like an older sibling, if that was how older siblings felt.
Rafi had two younger siblings, but they’d been too young for him to teach them anything before he’d left, and he probably wouldn’t know them now if he laid eyes on them. He doubted they’d remember him.
The only downside was how surprisingly exhausting it was to don padding and chase first-and-second years around.
He tried to eat more, retire early, but summer had begun, and Rafi tossed and turned on his bed more than he slept, irritated with Cambray for snuggling under his blanket as if he didn’t feel the change in the weather.
He paused his healer exercises with his aer, generally dissatisfied with everything and then annoyed with himself, and then annoyed at himself for being annoyed.
He supposed it was his quieter days with his friends gone, and had been grateful when Katoh and Laure reappeared at their usual table for meals, even if they were both too tired to offer much conversation.
Since Rafi now knew exactly why they were always so subdued when they emerged after Katoh’s aedis time, he was content to sit quietly with them, though silence gave him space to worry.
He had not forgotten his next aedis, but he had put off thinking of it or speaking to Viau about it.
He didn’t believe Viau would say no or feel obligated to say yes, but watching Laure fetch food for Katoh and fawn over her, he did wish that he didn’t have to ask.
That it could be assumed, or that he wouldn’t need words and he could coo or whine to bring Viau closer.
As if Rafi were that sort of miná or nex—or particular kind of miné—to do that.
That was the sort of thing done by the charming, who knew they’d get an answer. It would help to be exceptionally lovely as well, or as bounteously attractive as the courtesans and bedworkers in the capital, who used calculated soft noises along with their looks to draw clients to them.
Viau was not even a friend. At least, he was not a friend like Katoh.
He was something else. He was polite—except for when he was cutting to get Rafi to attack him—and courteous.
But Rafi hadn’t made him rumble again, and Viau still had to stop Rafi from taking all the aer near him.
Twice, since their first spar he’d had to stop Rafi.
He’d waved away Rafi’s apologies each time.
Once, he’d sighed, faint but Rafi had heard it.
Which at least kept Rafi from getting any notions above himself when anyone else approached him because they thought he was friends with Viau.
Or with Viau, as a sometimes occupant of his bed or perhaps even a lover.
Which was more embarrassing, as it was obviously not… well, it was mostly untrue. He and Viau were friends, at least for now, for the time Rafi might need him. Beyond that, Rafi couldn’t say.
Rafi’s body said otherwise, that Viau had been his lover and should return to be his lover again.
Rafi had had passionate dreams when he’d been younger, like anyone, and had enjoyed the freedom at the academy to explore with others, friendly hands and mouths, even his first kiss although that miné now had a placement in the south.
But dreams of being bedded and experiencing casual pleasure while drinking in the capital were nothing like what his aedis had apparently woken in him.
Desire lived in Rafi’s blood now and had grown intense with Viau gone.
Viau occupied more of his thoughts. Rafi thought of him when he looked around the Arms Room, and when he tried to sleep at night, and then in his sleep, and then in the bath. He missed the scent of him, and there were no more spring flowers to compensate.
The ceribud was frail and starting to dry. Rafi ought to throw it out, but there it stayed with his comb and scant collection of hair ties, losing more of its scent each day.
He didn’t think the problem was as he had first been told. Rafi wasn’t at all certain that finding anyone to go to bed with would help, but when he couldn’t sleep or wake without aching, he went to the healers again anyway, to speak to a real healer this time.
Chief Healer Emma herself peered at him, listened to his heart, and asked him straightforward questions he appreciated, even while he blushed and sweated in answering them.
“Surely, it’s not normal to think of it all the time.
” Of Viau all the time. To lie sleepless and frustrated on his bed at the memory of stumbling on soft ground and Viau catching him instead of pressing his advantage, and how his nose had been at Viau’s neck, behind his ear, in his hair, and it had felt as if Viau had held himself still to let Rafi breathe him in.
Something in his lower body twinged, and Rafi rubbed his cheek as though he was again fresh out of aedis and had stubble burn around his mouth and his nipples and all over his thighs. Then he pulled in a long breath so he wouldn’t make a mess or a fool of himself in the chief healer’s office.
Emma, older than Rafi’s parents, with a stern red face and kind dark eyes, sat down across from him and put her hands together.
“It’s something to do with how delayed my aedis was,” Rafi guessed when she didn’t speak. “Maybe my body is trying to catch up.”
“Or maybe you have feelings for this person,” Emma’s tone said she had heard the rumors and knew exactly who that person was although Rafi hadn’t said, and Rafi was left to flush even hotter, “and you enjoyed having them touch you, and you’d like to do it again.”
Rafi did not squirm or fidget. But he did worry. “So the delay means nothing?”
“Oh, it could mean several things, but none of them especially terrible.” Emma gave him an impatient sort of smile.
“Some bodies are pickier. Some bodies are slower. Some bodies only want someone for aedis or perforis and then want no one the rest of the time. Some seem to imprint like a duckling on one person early on, but don’t worry about that, either.
Those situations have a way of resolving themselves.
But if you need a solution to your immediate problem, I’d recommend asking this person to help you when you are not in aedis.
Although, of course, your body is readying for your next aedis right now.
Drink more water,” she added, then stood up.
“But it’s only been two months. Almost three,” Rafi corrected almost immediately, standing up but not moving to be hurried out the door. “Aedis is once or twice a year. Three at most.”
“When settled. Never the first year. Especially not when,” the chief healer stopped to look up at the ceiling and sigh, “when you are very compatible with your partner or partners and the body decides it would like more of that.” She met Rafi’s eyes again.
“Talk to him. Or find another partner outside aedis to teach your body what feeling satisfied is like.”
“Feeling satisfied?” Rafi echoed blankly. “But I was satisfied.” Even with the memories often vague, he was certain of that.
“One meal to a starving nex will not do anything but remind their stomach what food is.” Chief Healer Emma gave him a short, sympathetic smile as she nonetheless shooed him out of her office. “If you don’t know what true satisfaction feels like, you’re going to have to learn.”