Jenny: The Leavings of the Wolf

Kay sucked in a hissing breath. "Oo... That's not pretty," he murmured sympathetically. He straightened from his position and let Gaius in.

"No, it's not," said the surgeon, crouched down to wrap the wound. "It still burns a bit, by the look of it."

Bedwyr, half-slumped on Gaius' bed, cocked one eye open and grimaced as he watched Gaius apply the bandages over top of the poulice. It did hurt, with a throbbing, hot, remembering sort of pain. Most curiously, he could still feel the hand. Whenever he opened his eyes, he expected to see the hand still there; only, when he moved, there was no hand, and the awkward lack of weight from his left side threw him off balance. As Gaius laid the bandages on, he drew in his own sharp breath, bracing.

Kay whirled and crashed down on the side of the bed, sticking his long legs out. "Well, Tyr!" he said, "that was quite a blow. I should think you have Artos beat for wounds now. But don't worry. Gaius will have you patched up soon enough, and we'll figure out how you can throw knives with your teeth."

The dodgy fellow smiled at him. Kay always managed to be comforting in the oddest ways, even when he was jerking one's sickbed around and playing ominously with his stockwhip. Bedwyr, vision blurring a bit with the pain, managed to smile back. "Just...don't go easy on me," he said, finding to his horror that his voice was uneven.

Kay let the whip fly across the floor, cracking in the quiet. "When have I ever gone easy on you, old dog-wolf? Don't be a bore. Now - " He sighed and got to his feet, coiling his whip back up into his belt. "I suppose I had better find that new bard-girl. She'll need the details. Bedwyr, the Handless Hero." He began to walk away, singing a broken tune. "So bravely put his hand - his left hand, though, he could spare it - in the mouth of war, in the mouth of war. And War, he bit that hand clean off, swallowed it down, it made him sick! Bedwyr the Handless Hero, better than old Tyr-oh! he put his hand (the one he could spare) down in the wolf-mouth of war!"

The whip cracked in the hallway to punctuate the end of the song.