Closed Steam Makes All the Difference (Chemar)

[Kovac]

Something about being outside of Wind Reach must have done something to them. Chemar had become nothing short of randy, and Kovac felt compelled to confess that he indeed was capable of a desire deeper than the cursory satisfaction of his libido. The combination of the man and the woman was always a volatile mix, and when Kovac encountered Chemar, he was never sure whether they would end up in each other's arms, on opposite sides of the room sulking, or even one of them dead. One thing was certain, predictability was not something of which the two of them could be accused. Maybe that is what fueled Kovac's excitement for the woman.

Chemar's response to Kovac's bared soul was carnal, her hands coating his, guiding them from her firm belly up to the fullness of her breasts, forcing his hand to clutch at the soft flesh over her heart, the synchronous organ that seemed the centerpiece of their tangled non-relationship. He felt his nails dig into the ivory skin, and he pulled Chemar closer, his arousal pressed against hre more firmly. She still managed to spin in his grasp with such speed that the Avora staggered, only anchored by her as she lashed slim arms around his neck, pulling him to her with surprising force. Hungry mouths clashed, slick lips and tongues tangled in an impassioned devouring of one another. She breathed husky words into his mouth as they tasted one another.

"You can handle me... " Was that a vote of confidence in his amorous ability, or a confession of submission? The thought of either bolstered Kovac's already brimming masculine bravado. Her cool hand now pressed against his chiseled torso, over his heart, and as her nails dug into his olive-hued flesh, Kovac wondered if she would pluck his heart from his chest as she had in their first dreamwalk. Her lips, plump now from the ruthless kiss, lingered just beyond his reach, leaving Kovac desperate for them.

"What know you of real need Kovac?"

Pleasure pain seared his skin as Chemar dragged her claws down across the ridges of his abdomen. Kovac's head began to swim, reveling in this new Chemar, the seductress who's touch was rough and who's words were laced with dark mystery. Her slender hand slipped over the fabric of his bryda, and as the press of her palm was felt against him, and long fingers wrapped around his length in a firm grip through the garment, an involuntary moan slipped past his lips. Knees grew weak and he steadied himself with a grip on her hips.

"You are a willing slave to this need....A slave."

Wine-flavored lips brushed against Kovac's and his body was consumed with a heat that made his head swim. Gods, yes. He was a slave to it. At that moment, he would have killed an innocent man to have Chemar in completion, he would have done anything to consume her in every way, to melt together with her and lose himself. He was tasting her, throbbing beneath her touch.

Then the scintilating grasp upon him was released, and hands that, for a moment, seemed unsteady, entwined fingers with his. Electricity lingered between them for a breath, and the press of lips released, and her gaze lowered to peer at the joined hands. Even though Chemar was concealed behind crimson locks that fell about her face, Kovac sensed her countenance fall. Something was wrong.

"I'm sorry. You really have no idea..."

The dreamwalker's eyes averted the mans' in a troubled silence. Then they lifted again, green eyes all but consumed by amber rings in an eerie glance, accompanied by a distressed expulsion of a breath. Limp hands slipped from Kovac's as all spirit fled the Chemar's demeanor.

"I..."

The woman who had just a moment ago had been a seductress of great power, now stood before him a frail creature, as beautiful in her weakness as she was in her fiery lust. Kovac wondered if he had crossed a line, but it was the dreamwalker who had moved so boldly in their passion. The man was perplexed by Chemar, a condition he experienced often in the presence of the complex woman. What was lingering on her lips, that she hesitated to reveal? He had told her his heart, a great task for such a man as Kovac. What was she unwilling to share in kind? Was Chemar concealing some greater flaw, some dark secret she feared would chase him away?

Was this woman worth it? Kovac asked himself as he looked down at her. Was Shayth worth it? Was Kalle worth it? Chemar was neither of those women. She was a force, a torrent of power and weakness, demand and submit. The dreamwalker expected more from him than he thought he was, yet she proved he was more. Petch. Whether she was worth it or not, the Avora cared. He had confessed how he wanted her. Now, that desire was tempered into compassion. Words failed him just as readily, and he simply gave Chemar a moment to gather herself.

"I'm sorry. Kiss me, please."

A hand raised to her face, forefinger and thumb taking her chin, gently lifting her face to his. Kovac leaned in and pressed his lips to her, still tingling from the force of their earlier oral embrace. It was a tender kiss, uncharacteristically so for the abrasive half-breed.

"You don't have to tell me, Chemar, not now."

Strong hands reached out, tips of calloused fingers brushing lightly against the soft pads of Chemar's. Another kiss was pressed to the woman's plush red lips.

[Chemar Tisserand]

One look into Kovac's eyes was enough to tell Chemar a world about the man, and even through the disintegrating fabric or her addicted mind she could read compassion. It was as foreign an emotion when viewed through Kovac as was love, and it added another layer of disarray to the already tenuous grasp Chemar had on her reality.

Pity is it? This is what I have been reduced to? Something to be pitied?

Every nuance of this trip seemed destined for distortion and had she been clear headed, Chemar would have been pleased that Kovac had reached outside the scope of his own life to consider someone else. But she was not clearheaded.

She had asked for a kiss, and on the tail of the affront of his pity, Kovac provided her one and like a long draw of the mountains air she absorbed it, its sweet softness, and the precious care his lips seemed to take. He was trying to confuse her. But instead of confusion, all she felt was hunger.

You don't have to tell me, Chemar, not now.

In that one whispered phrase, he'd given her permission to lie, no, omit, to omit the truth. To make him believe that all that was happening was due simply to their proximity and the nature of the situation and not due to her weakness, to the flaws that were mow woven throughout the dreamwalker.
He had given her a respite, however brief, from the impending deluge.

And she took it.

The kiss and gentle touches that followed was received without reluctance, the dreamwalker melted into the halfblood like a second skin. The effects of the growing need were filled by Kovac, at least for the moment, and she wicked away everything he offered in her game of omission. With the tips of her nails she peeled the vest from his shoulders, discarding it on the ground at their feet, needing to feel the mesh of his skin with hers. Not close enough. Her inner voice drove her to capture his wrists and drag his arms to encircle her until they were crushed together. She breathed his name into the kiss, spurring him on while speaking her need.

You don't have to tell me, Chemar, not now.

The words would not leave her thoughts, and as though she could drown them out by filling her senses with the Avora, she became ravenous, speaking a truth she had tried to dismiss.

"I need you."

[Kovac]

They had never been at this place before. Yes, they had been intimate, they had teased and taunted and brought each other to the brink in steamy encounters that were so intense Kovac was sure the dreamwalker was ready to devour his soul, and he ready to offer it. They even made love once, a torrid night with unexpected consequences.

But this was different, Chemar was different. Kovac, in his own state of conflict between primal arousal and a new-found gentle affection for the woman, was not himself either. But the Avora was who he was, and the tender compassion displayed in the Tisserand's momentary vulnerability was soon yoked with his lust as Chemar slipped his vest from his shoulders, drawing his arms around her and pressing another kiss to his lips. There was need even in her embrace, and she drew Kovac to her, warm body to warm body, as if she were to draw strength from the flush contact of their skin. Kovac's arms encircled Chemar's slim waist fully, pulling the woman against him until every possible point of contact between them as made.

"I need you."

Kovac was not without some sensibility, and as Chemar whispered his name into their kiss and made her confession, the half-blood heard much in her authentic tone. She needed more. The man could not discern all that her weighty phrase carried, but Kovac knew it was more than just the need to satisfy primal lust. Kovac looked into her eerily sultry amber-trimmed gaze, and saw that Chemar had some deeper need to fulfill. At that moment, the Avora found that he wanted to be the one to meet her need, to make this intimate moment more than a carnal exertion of pent up sexual urges. Chemar was...Chemar. She was of significance to Kovac, even if he could not yet, or would not yet, put words to it. For that night, Kovac would do all he could to meet Chemar's needs.

As if to confirm his commitment to be her's that night, Kovac pressed another kiss to Chemar's reddened lips, parting them with his tongue and leisurely caressing hers in an unhurried manner. Kovac, finding something within himself almost disturbing, carefully raised an arm to warp around the dreamwalker's back, his other shifting as he lowered himself enough to scoop Chemar up in his arms. She felt light in his strong limbs, and he maintained the passionate kiss as he carried her over again by the fire, settling down to sit upon her katinu spread across the ground, still holding Chemar in his lap.

While still cradling the Inartan with his left arm, his free and caressed her cheek before dragging fingertips down her slender neck. Curious hands lazily explored the dreamwalker, trailing over small shoulders and down lean arms, along the ridges of her ribcage and spending some time caressing the soft globes of her breasts.

Kovac's heat had not subsided, quite the contrary. His desire still burnt, but tempered with something that had never really entered into his lovemaking. Meeting his needs were not the priority this time, somehow, meeting Chemar's needs had become his purpose. It was all strange, and a bit concerning, to the shallow-hearted Avora. But in that moment, it felt....right.

"I am here for you...Chemar."

[Chemar Tisserand]

Tender

Not the first word that would come to mind when reminded of Kovac, but as his lips and hands concentrated on exploring her, the only way to describe it was 'tender'. Was he trying to confuse her? On the last breath of her confession, something had changed within Kovac, a nuance that made her blossoming paranoia suspect that his desires had somehow shifted in the blink of an eye.

His actions now seemed measured...and driven by something other than a flood of passion. He no longer hungered for her. when his arm curled around her to scoop her off the ground, she felt like a dried leaf. For the first time she noticed the sensation that her blood had begun to turn to glass, growing colder and more brittle as it passed through her veins. Her trembling arm curled around his shoulders as he kissed her once more, this time, even her looming doubt could deny the fervor in that kiss. That's more like it. Her soft inner voice chimed in as he sat down on the covered ground. He stared into her as his fingertips trailed over her skin and she could feel the waning of his expectations. What kind of game was he playing? Accusations were poised on her tongue when he shattered her last bit of composure with a simple phrase.

I am here for you...Chemar.

Was he? Tell him. He would be caught unaware...and would have no idea exactly what he was sentenced to. Sentenced by her weakness, her addiction.

Tell him.

The voice was unrelenting. Chiming with a dissonant message that she was trying her best to deny. Instead, she curled her other arm around his shoulders, drawing him into a ravenous kiss.

Tell him.
Tell him.
Tell him!

The sensation that had begun in her veins had reached her heart and claimed it with a crushing grip. The constricting pain radiated out from the center of her chest and made her stiffen like an aging corpse, she could feel the tearing of his skin beneath her nails, but could not stop it until she felt the moisture of blood. With an aggressive thrust she pushed herself out of his arms and into a crumpled mass on the ground.

Tell him!!!!

"Please, forgive me." She whispered, her lips grazing the floor of the shelter. The mountain had extracted its hold and left a gaping void in Chemar, that it seemed, was to be filled with a cocktail of searing pain and unbearable longing. She grated her fingers along the wooden floor, feeling the splinters driving beneath her nails, but that was nothing compared to the pinpoints of agony that now consumed her down to the last pore.

Tell him.

"Shut up!" She heard herself scream. "Give me time.." She growled her words into the grain of the wood, searching for one thread of clarity in a maelstrom of her mind.

So quickly...how had this happened so quickly? She saw the blood on her fingertips and bolted upright, staring at them as though it seeped from her skin. Without acknowledging Kovac she began to drag the blood across the fabric of her bryda, so careless and focused were her actions that very soon the fabric gave way to clawing fingers and the pale skin beneath became the target.

Inside her chaotic psyche, there was no one. She was alone now, unaware of anything but the searing pain and deterioration of her mind.

[Kovac]

Chemar was always uncharted ground. Prior experiences never quite seemed to prepare Kovac for what he encountered when it came to intimacy with the dreamwalker. But this evening seemed even more unexpected. Yes, Chemar's behavior was erratic, first fiery then coy, daring and then almost innocent. The mongrel attributed it to the dynamics of the unusual circumstances, the two of them finally alone, and the admittedly uncertain nature of their own feelings for one another.

But almost as disconcerting was the way Kovac found himself behaving. Tender was a suitable description. He was not a tender man. He did not treat women like this, at least since Kalle. When he had found her in the arms of an Endal, the precious little tenderness the half-breed possessed was buried away as a weakness to be rendered unexploitable. The emergence of such compassions were as disarming to Kovac as they were vexing to Chemar.

Yet, even the expression of some long-hidden gentleness did not squelch the sensual desires, and Kovac's hand took the liberty to touch Chemar, calloused pads of his fingers caressing soft flesh. Her sudden stiffening and the sharp pain of her nails dragging ragged layers of skin beneath them alarmed Kovac and he growled. The man's protest was cut short by the small woman's surprisingly powerful thrust as she cast herself from his embrace. He vaulted to his feet, dismayed and perplexed.

"What the petch was that, what is wrong with you?!" Kovac barked, angered by the stinging pain of his rent skin and the startling and unnatural reaction of Chemar's body. He looked down upon her as she whispered an apology, huddled on the floor like a strung out narc, and Kovac's ire melted into a frightened confusion...something was very wrong with her, what was happening?

That compassion surfaced again for a short moment, and he began to lean over, to examine her. But she yelled, demanding him to shut up and give her time. But it was not like Chemar was speaking to him...he had not uttered a word. The Avora stepped back, his gut gripped with worry and helplessness. The dreamwalker bolted up, as if awakened, pawing at her bryda, intent on cleaning his blood from her fingers. She was mad, crazed as she shred her own garment like a lunatic.

Kovac was beside himself. Chemar may have been eccentric, but she was not deranged, not like this. Drugs? He watched paralyzed as the redhead obsessed over her hands. Wind Reach had its share of narcotics, and the Inarta used them freely. Had she gotten hold of something? She acted as if she had eaten the mushrooms that grow on the pines every hunter is warned to avoid. Still, the archer could not quite believe Chemar would take drugs, and he certainly did not see her take any while on the trip.

He had to stop her...soon she would be peeling the skin from her thighs. Kovac crouched down beside her, wrapped strong hands around her wrists and pulled them to her chest, his arms around her torso.

"Chemar, stop....stop it...STOP IT!" Kovac found himself yelling, as much out of his own fear as it was to gain Chemar's vagrant attention. "What is wrong with you? You are going to hurt yourself." Helplessness overwhelmed him and Kovac was afraid that Chemar was going to die right there in his arms. He held her tight, trying to contain and comfort his frantic friend.

[Chemar Tisserand]

What might well have been the preamble to something intimate and erotic in another time, had become a prison that had Chemar feeling trapped and smothered. Kovac's arms lashed tightly around her might as well have been a pair of metal restraints for his touch had lost its tenderness and now served only to make her struggle for her freedom. She thrashed within the unflinching circle of his embrace, desperate to free herself.

"Let me go!" Her voice was horse with a rasp that added the complexion of torture to her usually velvet tone. Every muscle in her body began to tighten, turned in an invisible vise, and the tension threatened to compress her until she had disappeared.

Perceptions skewed, Chemar no longer had a realistic grasp of her life, physical nor psychological. Understanding and awareness had been diluted by the rush of blood in her temples, silenced by a cacophony of clatter in her head. Her only goal in the moment was her freedom. She began to claw at the air trying to connect with Kovac's grip, her body writhing like the possessed.

"Get your filthy hands off me, halfbreed." With growling anger she spat her words at him, with every intention to wound him. Why wouldn't he let her go? Chemar threw her head back, with every ounce of force she possessed and connected with a brutal crack.

Bone on bone, her skull crashed into the bridge of Kovac's nose. The force was such that it cast an echoing wave of nausea through Chemar's already sickened stomach and without a beat of warning she felt the bile rise in her throat to be forced past her lips. Her stomach emptied in a wash of crimson, blood and wine coating her and Kovac in a macabre wash. The thrust of her head had caught Kovac off guard and his grip loosened just enough for her to tear herself free. Her own propulsion sent her careening toward the ground and she fell without the bracing support of her arms, her cheek grinding along the rough surface of the shelter floor, rending into the soft skin of her face like an eagles talon. She heard a scream but had no connection to her own voice any longer, and paid it no mind as the scream shifted to mournful sobbing.

Delusions created by her active mind had manifested a serpent churning in the pit of her stomach and she rolled onto her back her fingernails clawing at her abdomen to get it out.

"Just kill me." She curled into a ball, still dragging her nails over her own skin. "Just kill me." She spoke to the demon inside her now, oblivious to anything else. She begged for death, unprepared for the effete emptiness left in the absence of a lifetime of addiction.

If she could only disappear.

Her mind began seeking her solace, reaching out for the Chevina. She could see it, and even the chavi that lived within, but it would not let her in, as her hand wound around each chavi, it would wither in her grasp and dry like a dying branch. Another manifestation of the withdrawal, it had created a doppelganger of the place she felt most in control. A counterfeit. An empty shadow. In spite of knowing it was not real, her subconscious self began tearing at them in a desperate attempt to find one that would take her from this hell, one that would pull her from reality to dream, but none would oblige so she was stranded in her blood, wine and sweat soaked body to endure.

"Please kill me."

[Kovac]

Chemar did not quiet in Kovac's embrace, his attempt to calm her having an affect he did not expect. Her flailing only intensified, harsh labored breaths passed her paling lips as she struggled to free herself. Dark eyes now almost consumed by their golden rings narrowed in rage, the Inartan's demeanor turning to one of anger and panic.


"Let me go!"

Chemar's body stiffened, writhed, struggled. Kovac feared restraining her would hurt her, that in freeing her she would hurt herself. The mongrel had never seen anything like the fit that had seized upon his friend, and he wracked his brain trying to figure out what was happening to her. Maybe she was truly mad, that treading the dreams of so many, existing for so long in realms other than this one, had finally stripped her of her sanity, driving her over the edge.

"Get your filthy hands off me, halfbreed."

Chemar's words were spewed at him with rank disgust and hatred. Perplexed and both hurt and angered, Kovac had barely formed a response when the woman smashed the back of her skull against his face. "Petch!" He yelled. Bright white blinded the man, searing pain splitting though his head, his eyes watering immediately. Even as his hold began to relinquish impulsively after the blow, he heard Chemar gag and puke, through liquid eyes Kovac saw her vomit dark liquid, feeling it splash over him. The dreamwalker dropped to the ground unceremoniously, Kovac hearing her scream as she hit the flagstones of the shelter.

"Just kill me. Just kill me."

Chemar squirmed on her back, digging at her gut, begging for quick death. Her voice was desperate and distant, and Kovac could see that the Inartan was not seeing him, or their surroundings, but she was seeing something. He was not even sure if she were speaking to him.

She is dying, she is going to die. He thought, frantic, the stench of wine and blood and vomit hanging over them, both covered in her expelled bile. Kovac felt helpless, useless.

"Please kill me."

Posion, a ghost? He had no remedy, no cure, no way to help Chemar. He wondered, for a flash of an instant, if he should take his talon sword and kill her as she asked, to end her suffering, to bring quick death over what appeared to be a torturous end. But he would not, could not. If there was any chance Chemar could survive, he would do no such thing. Besides, Kovac knew that he was a coward, that he could not kill her even as she begged him to. He would not try to restrain her, for fear more harm would come to her, so he let her writhe. Taking up is katinu from the floor, he laid it over her.

Watching her in futility, Kovac considered his options. There was no help around, they were halfway down the mountain, and it would take more than a day for him to carry her back up the steps, longer if he took the road.

Chemar. She had proven to be both the desire of his heart and the bane of his existence. She had walked in his dreams, bared his soul, haunted him, judged him, challenged him, infuriated him, aroused him, made him feel things he did not want to feel, perplexed him and made him want her so bad he felt it viscerally. They were friends, enemies and more, desperate opposites that attracted to one another yet invariably could not mesh. Kovac loved her and resented her, wanted her and wanted not to want her. But all the paradox and conundrum seemed irrelevant at that moment. All Kovac knew was that she was dying, and he did not want her to, and he had no way of stopping it.

[Chemar Tisserand]

Smaller and smaller.

Beneath the cover of Kovac's katinu she began to shrink, drawing legs to chest and by the curling of her trembling shoulders. If she could curl into herself perhaps she would succeed in disappearing altogether. A blades edge of pain carved a line just beneath the covering of her skin, it materialized as the feeling of flesh separating from bone, though no such thing occurred.

The sour taste of bile threatened to empty her stomach once more, but her own hand clapped across her lips stayed it for the moment. She could still feel the serpent, struggling to tear out of her abdomen, but a thin strand of clarity told her to ignore it, a task easier imagined than employed. Chemar closed her eyes and struggled to control one, just one aspect of this horror. At once she was on fire and colder than she'd ever been, flames chasing ice throughout the vessels of her body, she gathered Kovac's coat tightly around her. Mixed with the disgusting odor of her own vomit, she could smell the faint spice of cinnamon, she latched on to that sweet smell and clung to it, her focus allowed the rich smell of the man to mingle with the cinnamon, and against all odds, she was comforted.

Clarity seemed just beyond her reach, all her lucid thought was floating around the periphery, taunting her. If she could just force one thought to solidify in her mind she was certain it would lead her through the chaos she was feeling.

One thought was all she needed.

Another wracking pain seized her, twisting inside the dreamwalker as if wringing a length of fabric. The pain screamed through her mind, obliterating her thoughts, clear or clouded, and a scream shattered the tense silence in the shelter. Words were beyond her now, the best she could manage was a random collection of mutterings, indistinguishable as language.

Chemar remained as such, for what seemed like hours. All sense of time had gone. The only sensations the now registered were the light weight of Kovac's coat covering her and clutched in her tight fists, the continual pain that consumed her, and the grating ground beneath her body. There was no Chemar any longer, only a shell, curled into a insignificant ball on the ground.

Chemar tried to beg for an end, but all her words were trapped by the paralyzing tangle of her once clear mind and her once sound body, leaving her no escape. She could hear her voice, but understood none of what emerged,
Try Harder!.

When she dared open her eyes the ground beneath her undulated, writhing with the bodies of a unnumbered snakes. They wrapped around her limbs and bore into any exposed area, driving into her and squirming just beneath her skin. A howling scream burst past her lips and sounded until her breath was gone. Before the snakes could drive into her brain she slapped her palms over her eyes, but they were not deterred and cut through the back of her hands to pierce the gold rings. Gasping for breath she began to lose the weak grip she had on consciousness.

Whether driven by pain or the utter loss of her control, Chemar was forced into a state of consciousness she had never experienced. There were no dreams, no images of horror, no glimpses of other's trials and failings, no happy memories of family...there was nothing.

Nothing.

No one clamored for her attention, or pulled her into the nightmare of their existence, she had no memories, no past or future. She was free from pain, and the shroud of anguish, but she did not feel empty, in that moment of nothingness she felt free.

It was sublime.

[Kovac]

The stench of Chemar's vomit filled Kovac's nostrils, but the offending smell was lost as his senses wrestled with a more immediate matter. The Dreamwalker's condition was worsening as she curled tighter into a ball, clutching the katinu around her, eye's squeezed shut, writhing slightly as unintelligible syllables slipped from stained, muttering lips. The Avora's mind whirled with fruitless endeavor, striving to imagine some remedy, some comfort, some way to help his friend. He considered more wine, as an anesthetic at the least, but since she had already vomited up what she had consumed, he presumed more would not help her. He wondered if it was the wine that poisoned Chemar, yet he drank of it and felt fine.

Kovac stoked the fire to fend off the chill of the evening, hoping the increased warmth would be some comfort to the Inartan. Returning to crouch next to her, the mongrel stroked her auburn hair, though it seemed his attention was lost to the torment she suffered. There was a period of time where Chemar's condition seemed to plateau, not improving but not worsening. Kovac continued to caress her head, a gesture that managed to comfort him more than it did the ill woman. Suddenly, her eyes flew open and she screamed out, causing Kovac to flinch involuntarily. Her cry was horrific and eerie in the dark night air, and Kovac skittered back as Chemar clamped her hands over her face, as if to deny some terrible sight. Her breathes came in strangled gasps, as if the horror she witnessed was beyond her capacity to fully fathom or believe, and once it reached a frantic desperation, it eased into a quiet rhythm.

The hunter stepped closer, leaning down to look upon her. A serenity had cloaked her soft features, as if she had finally succumbed to her ailment. Pressing his fingers to her slim neck, he felt the gentle thrum of her pulse against the skin, realizing that his own heart rate had slowed to match it...as it always did.

Breathing his own sigh of relief, Kovac stepped over to their supplies. He dug out a clean shirt, a heavier garment, and shirked off the vomit splattered one he wore. Using a rag and water from a skin, he cleaned himself up from Chemar's disgorging. Once he was squared away, Kovac lit a torch and stepped out of the shelter, scouting the steep mountainside just outside for a source of water. Still within sight of Chemar and the waystop, Kovac found a small stream, little more than a trickle of water that seeped out of a crack in the rock. It appeared potable, and he filled a pot with the water.

Returning, Kovac set the pot of water on the fire to heat up. Once the water reached a warm temperature, Kovac went to work on Chemar. Taking up the water and rag, a blanket and one of her clean blouses, the Avora returned to her side and carefully pulled the katinu from her grip and laid it back. He unbuttoned her stained blouse, untucking it from her byrda and peeling it from her body. The caste of her skin was very pale, but the exposure to the cold brought a bluish tint to her creamy flesh. Dipping the rag into the warm water, Kovac began to wash away the bile that had soaked through her clothes. Gently brushing the damp cloth across her pale lips and chin, he then moved down the column of her neck, removing the rivulets of dried stains. With unashamed caresses, Kovac washed Chemar's chest and the globes of her breasts, finishing with a swipe across her flat belly, convinced the Dreamwalker was clean. The half-breed did not put the clean garment on Chemar, instead using it as a towel, patting away the dampness that made her skin glisten in the firelight. Great care was given, and admitted pleasure received, as Kovac realized the intimacy of the simple task. It was not the circumstances under which he had imagined he would touch Chemar this way, yet there was a satisfaction in the mundane act. Once she was dry, Kovac placed the blanket over her, keeping the katinu beneath her and over the cold flagstones of the shelter.

Maneuvering himself so that he sat on the ground next to Chemar, Kovac slipped one hand beneath the back of her head, carefully lifting it enough to slip the pot of water under it. Then, the Avora gathered Chemar's deep red mane, until the tips rested in the slightly steaming water. With one hand supporting her head, Kovac used his free hand to cup the warm water and spilled it over her hair, working the water into her vomit-covered locks, and combing through it with his fingers. The hunter continued until he felt she was as clean as he was going to get her, and realizing he had no towel, he took her clean blouse and, after wringing the remaining water from her hair, wrapped it in the shirt until he removed as much of the dampness as he could. A bundled up pair of trousers became a pillow, and the hood of the katinu beneath her was shifted to cover her damp head.

Chemar remained unconscious through the process, and once finished, Kovac sat next to her, eyes fixed on her face. She seemed serene, if not happy. Maybe, maybe sleep was all she needed to work whatever it was out of her system. The mongrel leaned down, his mouth hovering over hers for a moment, before he pressed a soft kiss to her lips. The half-blood sat watch over his friend, until he nodded off to sleep.

When Syna's brilliant gaze crept into the shelter, it illuminated the two of them, both under the blanket, Kovac's arm protectively draped around Chemar's bare torso.

[Skerry]

Grades

Kovac

Skill	XP
Compassion	2
Flirting	3
Massage	3
Mountaineering	1
Observation	5
Persuasion	2
Planning	3
Rhetoric	1
Seduction	2
Socialization	1
Wrestling	1

LORES :

• Trust comes with deep intimacy
• Chemar has an adventurous side
• Chemar: Full of surprises
• Massage: The use of cinnamon oil
• Massage: How to unknot muscles
• Chemar: The Unexpected Seductress
• Chemar’s Mental Instability(basic)

Notes:
Chemar: If you happen to reappear and you want your grade, PM me.
That was such a gripping thread! The interactions between Chemar and Kovac are so fascinatingly complex. That madness towards the end and then Kovac’s tenderness and his bewilderment, truly wonderful. Why did it have to be abandoned? It was going so well.

Remember if you have any questions or problems with your grade then feel free to PM me.