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The dragon moved its massive head and settled it on the ground next to Nikki and Gunter while tucking its wings against its giant body. In fact, Dimitri had positioned himself so his dragon body was between them and the flames rabidly chewing away at the building. “The least I can do for the dragon who saved my life.” He paused while Nikki helped Gunter to his feet. “Besides, I’ve learned not to argue with a dragon’s mate.”
Oh, Nikki sooooooo wanted to explore that idea, but right now, their focus needed to be getting Gunter home and then getting him help.
Nikki hated, hated, hated Gunter being injured. But along with that emotion came true worry about Gunter’s health. He hadn’t been feeling all that well to begin with, and here he was injured on top of it all. Nikki didn’t have much experience with wounds or bandages so wasn’t sure how to gauge Gunter’s injury.
But they didn’t think just slapping a field dressing over it was sufficient. Nikki had many words for Gunter about that field dressing. None of them were clean. And they kept thinking those words even as they put a plan of action together.
The child in Nikki still didn’t trust mages all that much or want to do anything with them, despite the Burkhard mages’ efforts in showing them wrong. But right now, Nikki needed to trust them because they had no clue what to do to help Gunter.
Finally reaching Lisette’s workroom, they knocked urgently on the door.
“Enter!”
Nikki put a hand on the knob and pushed strongly, ready for a fight, words poised on the tip of their tongue if even one person gave them trouble. Nikki was here for Gunter. And they wouldn’t back down until they got the help they needed. Not that they expected trouble, it was more Nikki getting the request out.
It wasn’t just Lisette in the room. Sora stood at the table as well, and the two mages were conferring over a book laid out between them. They paused at Nikki’s entrance, Sora looking intrigued, Lisette both delighted and surprised.
Alright, fine, Nikki had made no secret of the fact they didn’t like mages. But still, their reactions were rather insulting, like they’d never in a million years expected Nikki to come to this room.
And screw them.
“Gunter’s hurt. He won’t do more than put gauze on it, but it’s still bleeding and I…someone needs to look at it.”
“Sounds like I’m up.” Sora immediately turned from the table, heading toward them. “I’ll fetch my black bag and be there in a moment. Where is Gunter? Dungeon?”
“No, his rooms.”
“Where’s he hurt?”
“Back, shoulder, and upper arm. He keeps saying it’s just bad road rash, but I don’t know what that means.”
“Ah.” A funny sort of smile crossed over Sora’s mouth. “Well, road rash isn’t serious in and of itself. But I’m glad you fetched me. Just putting gauze over it is not sufficient, you’re right on that.”
Nikki felt vindicated. See! They’d known they were right.
Sora’s workroom was across from Lisette’s, so it took only a moment of effort for him to fetch a black bag that looked suspiciously like the one old timey doctors used to use. Nikki recognized the type from the old black-and-white movies. Odd choice for a modern doctor, but whatever. Nikki really didn’t care at the moment.
Sora’s pace was quick, no doubt because of his long legs, leaving both Nikki and Lisette powerwalking behind him. Nikki didn’t complain; they wanted that kind of speed right now.
Gunter, however, had all the complaints when Sora entered his room.
“Nikki,” he groaned, flopping dramatically about in his armchair. “I told you this wasn’t serious.”
Nikki glared at him. Stubborn, disobedient dragon. He was supposed to be in bed, not sitting in front of his computer!
“I think Nikki’s justified in being worried if you just slapped a Band-Aid over it and didn’t clean anything out right,” Sora retorted mildly.
Gunter’s ice-blue eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “I took a shower. With soap. It’s fine.”
“Not if you’re still bleeding, it isn’t. And I can see the blood dotting your arm bandage from here. Take the shirt off, Gunter.”
“Surely an Abe doctor has better things to do with his time than to deal with my boo-boos.” Gunter did take his shirt off, though.
Nikki came in closer, darting around Sora in order to help. Gunter wouldn’t say it, but he’d tweaked his shoulder somehow, too, and it was obviously painful to lift up his arm very far. Gunter accepted the help, at least; he wasn’t being stubborn about that.
Lisette took one look at the road rash that spread from his shoulder to his elbow and hissed. “That looks so painful. You idiot, you could have stopped by Sora’s workroom and gotten a proper salve, at least.”
“I’ve got a salve,” Gunter grumbled.
“That you clearly didn’t use. Tell me, how was the salve supposed to be helpful if it wasn’t applied? Through wishful thinking?”
