"Morgan. "
Adhémar spluttered. He swore. He cursed Miach in five different languages and laid upon him spells that would have left him crawling in a garden in the form of an earthworm if he'd had the power for it.
Miach regarded him with his arms folded over his chest. "Are you finished?"
"Hardly," Adhémar spat. "Have you gone mad?"
"Hardly," Miach returned. "Aren't you at all curious?"
"Nay," Adhémar said shortly. "You've lost all wits and I'm uninterested in where they went." He paused. "But then again, just out of curiosity, why do you think she might be the one?"
"I can't say."
Adhémar growled and launched himself at Miach. Of course, having grown up in a hall with five brothers left Miach expecting something like it, but he was weary and didn't move quickly enough. He went down with a thump. There was a sickening crunch as something smacked against stone. Miach realized that that something had been his head. He waited a minute until his vision cleared and he was certain he wouldn't become senseless, then he changed himself into a man-sized scorpion.
"Arrgh!" Adhémar exclaimed, leaping up and backing away in revulsion. "Cowardly whelp," he spat. "Can you not fight me in the form of a man?"
Miach returned to his manly form with a smile.
"I daresay you won't have the guts to remain as you are," Adhémar muttered.
Miach crawled to his feet, looked at Adhémar for a moment in silence, then happily lived up to his brother's low expectations.
He was not at his best, which hampered his creativity, but he did manage several shapes that left Adhémar very unhappy. Miach almost took his brother's head off in the form of a great bear with glistening claws, tripped him and sent him sprawling thanks to a brief stint as a darting snake, and made him back up a pace involuntarily as he put on the trappings of an enormous, misshapen troll. He grabbed his brother and heaved him up high over his misshapen, drooling head.
Perhaps the last wasn't all that fair. Miach had come face to face with just such a creature at Chagailt and hadn't been able to stop his own recoiling. He started to say, or gurgle rather, that he had perhaps stepped over the line of gallant behavior, when he heard the unmistakable and unwelcome sound of Morgan's voice. He saw her standing at the edge of the little courtyard.
He hardly had the time to register that she'd told Adhémar to prepare to fall, and that such would happen because she had a dagger in her hand, before she was in process of flinging it with all her strength toward Miach's heart.
He managed to turn himself into nighttime dew and waft to the side before the blade struck, but just barely.
He had the feeling that when he managed to gather himself back to himself, he would find he had not escaped harm altogether.
He watched damply as Adhémar picked himself up, cursing loudly and vigorously. Adhémar drew his sword and sliced though all the air around him. Miach would have clucked his tongue if he'd had a tongue to cluck. Since he did not, he cast himself onto the first available breeze and floated well away from the farmer's barn.
It was tempting to continue to laze along, but he feared he was so weary that he might forget himself as he lay upon the hard crust of held, turn into frost before he knew it, and be crushed under the hooves of wandering cattle. Or his own Angesand steed. The irony of that would have done him in?if the hooves wouldn't have.
He resumed his proper form and stared in consternation at the bloody gash in his arm, visible through the rent in his cloak. Well, at least it wasn't a gash in his chest. He cursed nonetheless as he clutched his arm. Why was it he couldn't weave a spell of binding on his own self? It would have made things so much easier.
He trudged off with another curse toward the barn. Surely someone in the company would have a needle and some thread and some small bit of skill with both.
He walked into the circle of firelight and endured the gaping stare of Fletcher and the manly looks of comradely pity from Camid and Paien. Glines, however, jumped to his feet immediately.
"What did you do. "
"I cut myself," Miach said through gritted teeth.
"Got too close to someone else's sword, eh, lad?" Paien boomed.
"Something like that," Miach muttered. He looked at Glines. "Have you a needle?"
"The question is, do you want him to ply it?" Camid asked, getting to his feet. "And the answer is nay. Come sit over here, lad. I'll see to you."
Miach looked at him. "Do you have any skill with a needle?"
"Oh, aye," Camid said with a grin. "Haven't you seen me darning my socks?"
"I haven't and I don't want to, but I'll trust you anyway," Miach said, sitting down heavily. "Be gentle; I might scream."
