Rub-a-dub-dub, two pirates in a tub! [Hemogloblin!]

[Rhindeer]

"How did this even happen? Who is she?" Kota's mother, Fujin, was demanding in Thanati as she bustled over to where Kota had laid the girl. The girl's wound was obvious, and not just because it was dripping all over her clean floors. She cursed under her breath, both at the situation and the mess as blood spilled all over her rug, too. "Kota! The rug?! Really?"

"Ya want me to put her in your bed?" Kota answered, also speaking his native tongue. "Ma, please, just help her!"

"You come in here after a year of nothing carrying some foreign girl—!" But even as Fujin ranted, she was kneeling down to examine the wound, sucking air through her teeth. "How did she manage that?"

"She, uh, fell."

Fujin's eyebrows raised and she shook her head. "This is bad. This will take a little time...remove her boot, I'll be right back. Goddess above, just wait until your father gets home!"

As she rushed about gathering up supplies, Kota took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself to take off her boot. Every time he looked at her injury, he wanted to gag—which was so not helpful. He had just worked up the resolve to get it over with and started to reach down to do the job when Morgan came back to life.

Oh no...why couldn't she stay unconscious?

For her own sake!

"Hey, hey, I'm not going anywhere, alright?" he said in Common, and clasped her hand, something he thought he would never do--because she was a bitch! But right then she looked so small, so vulnerable, so hurt and scared, that seeing her like this made his heart ache. Don't leave me, she'd begged; it made an unexpected lump lodge in his throat. "We're in my home, we're getting ya help. I'm not leaving, okay? Just hang on. I...I'm so sorry, this...this isn't gonna feel great..."

He let go of her hand so he could work at taking off her boot, hands going slick with blood and nose filling with the strong, coppery smell. His throat tightened, mouth watering, and he swallowed hard against the urge to retch. Desperately, he focused entirely on her boot and tried not to look at her mangled, gory leg.

By the time he got her boot off, he was pale and sweaty. Which was also about the time his mother returned--with a bottle of strong rice wine, a thick piece of wood, sturdy lengths of cloth, a knife, and some incense she gave to Kota to light. He quickly set about doing that as Fujin knelt beside Morgan and swiftly cut away her pant leg.

"She's losing blood fast," she said. "I have to be quick. Give her the wine, then have her bite down."

Kota, regrettably, was familiar with the procedure. He flashed Morgan a sympathetic look, then slid a hand under her head and tilted the wine to her lips. "C'mon, drink this," he said. "Big gulps."

She wouldn't want to be sober for the next part.

[GoblinFae]

Pain-filled whimpers and delirious mumbled words tumbled from her lips as the boot was removed. A pool of blood flooded out of it soaking into the rug and spilling still further past it. Fujin was not wrong, Morgan was dying. Fast.

The wine was vile but shocked Morgan back into brief awareness enough to spit it back in Kota's face with a glare and a hacking cough. "Stop," she commanded roughly in heavily accented Thanati holding her hand out palm out towards Fujin before the limb became too heavy for her and she dropped it. She knew enough of the language to bark minor orders but in this case the word would do. Morgan panted with such efforts before fumbling for the stick beside Kota. Sweaty fingertips finally managed to grasp it before she wedged it properly between her teeth. THIS she knew how to do.

"Kota, hold me." Morgan's breath wheezed between her teeth as she bit down on the wood in preparation and tried to keep from passing out again. Sweat beaded thick upon her pale face and streaked down to mix with her openly falling tears.

"Go."

[Rhindeer]

...Eugh.

The wine came back up and directly into Kota's face, and he couldn't even be mad about it. Just startled, some of it going into his mouth and the rest stinging his eyes and dripping down his shirt. He shook his head hard to flick some of it away and was about to scold Morgan, because this was for her own good, but she told them to stop--in his own native tongue.

She knew Thanati?

It was a brief flicker of a thought, for then she'd shoved the stick in her mouth.

And told him to hold her.

Very well, if she wanted to endure it completely, they had no time to argue the point.

Oh, Inima. Here we go...

He wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her half in his lap, and as soon as Morgan gave the command and Kota had her arms firmly pinned, Fujin went. Kneeling beside Morgan, she put her hands on her bloody leg and held it--and there was a sudden wet crack.

"Hold her, Kota!" Fujin demanded as she worked, sweat beading on her brow as she watched and felt the bone and fragments and flesh shift under her hands. Like a sculptor working clay, her hands moved and fingers molded as her magic flowed through flesh and tendon and bone. Unfortunately for Morgan, she would feel everything. Every adjustment as pieces snapped back into place and fused, marrow pushed back where it was supposed to be. Fortunately, Fujin had decades of experience so there was no fumbling, no "oops" as she had to re-break a bone and try again. It still took too long, no doubt, but finally the bone was fixed and she worked on knitting together the flesh.

Her hands were slick by the time she was done, her knees red where some blood had dripped. She took a deep breath and swiped over her brow with her forearm.

[GoblinFae]

Morgan wrapped her arms over top of Kota's clinging tightly as she fought to steady her breath as if that simple act would save her from the world of hurt that she was about to endure. It did not, because it could not. Morgan unleashed an unholy blood-curdling scream at the first wet break, her body fighting hard against Kota to curl up and inward or to yank her leg away, the pain was so great. Her cries muffled some by the wood were no less piercing or painful to listen to. She screamed until her voice was hoarse and she was red in the face.

She felt every single cell of her body directed back into its proper order and a part of her begged deeply for death. Was this Angsar's punishment for abandoning her family, her faith, and her future? Was this her punishment for consorting with mages and letting them use their magic on her? For surely this was magic, there was no other explanation for the healing that was occurring like this and Morgan highly doubted he reached this far as to grant a Thanati heathen with the gift of miracles. She was cursed.

When at last the agony ceased, Morgan realised her ears were ringing, not with sound but with the silence. She wasn't screaming anymore and instead there were just the sounds of the three of them breathing, of Fujin resting after such an ordeal, of Kota likely exhausted from trying to hold her in place. Morgan felt incredibly weak despite the healing and her mouth felt like she'd gone and tried to eat sand. Her head lolled to the side some just so she could spit out the wood, too drained to even lift her hand to remove it herself. Her head felt like she was floating again not really attached to the here and now. Was this what dying felt like? Had she not survived the process and this was her escaping her mortal flesh?

The room blurred as her head lolled again to look down at her leg, now smooth and straight, unbroken though still covered in her own blood. "Tha..nk...'ou," she mumbled, her tongue feeling thick and heavy in her mouth. Kota felt so warm against her back, she leaned more fully into his lap, nuzzling her head slightly against him in a self-soothing motion.

[Rhindeer]

This rated up there as probably the worst day of Kota's life.

Yes, maybe even worse than the day he found out he was engaged.

He felt positively sick as he held onto Morgan tightly even as she involuntarily fought against him, thrashing and screaming out sounds that no human being should ever make. His blood went cold and his mouth watered with bubbling nausea, but he swallowed hard against the bile and focused on being her rock. He wasn't the one having his flesh and bone and marrow forcibly rearranged. He wasn't the one enduring unimaginable agony while stone cold sober. His own distress was just a drop in an endless ocean compared to hers—he could endure. He could endure...

He muttered choked words of encouragement to her, telling her it was almost done, just a little longer, to just hold on, that she was so strong. And all the while he did his best not to vomit as the scent of blood, like dirty coins, filled his senses until he felt he could choke.

And then it was done.

He felt drained, his arms a little sore from holding her despite her struggling, but mostly he was exhausted just from sheer stress. Fujin had gotten up to fetch a small basin, and she knelt back down and began to soak up the blood with some of the cloth before she started the process of cleaning Morgan's leg and wrapping it in different, clean cloth.

"Your leg will be tender still. The skin is fresh and new and delicate right now, and so is your leg. It'll take a few weeks before your full strength returns, so go easy on it," she said.

Kota, not quite sure how much Thanati Morgan knew, decided to play it safe and translate for her.

Fujin scowled at him, then looked at Morgan and said, in heavily accented Common, "You're welcome." Then, looking back at Kota and switching back to Thanati, said, "Help me get her to bed. The girl nearly died, she's not going anywhere yet. And then, while you also help me clean up all this goddess-forsaken blood, you're going to explain who she is and where you've been."

Her eyes narrowed, flicking down. Kota hadn't realized it, too tired and nervous after the ordeal, but he had started to stroke Morgan's hair as she nuzzled into him, partially to soothe her and partially to soothe himself. "What are you doing? Oh, Inima, Kota, you didn't--! What about Kanyara?"

Kota jolted, looking up at his mother in a panic at that name. He had hoped that name would not be mentioned so quickly, but leave to mom to go there right away. His throat tightened, his body went stock still, and for a moment he couldn't breathe; this whole ordeal had already thrown him into an exhausted panic, but to add that on top of it all?

"I, uh, I...I already got married!" he blurted before he could stop himself. "This is my wife--Morgan. Sorry!"

[GoblinFae]

Kota would likely come to regret relaying his mother's words to Morgan for while she had not understand what the other woman had been saying with her limited command of the language, the piratess was nothing if not stubborn and defiant. No sooner had the words 'rest' and 'easy' passed his lips before she was gathering what little strength she had left to try and sit up.

Their buzzing conversation around her was ignored as she focused instead on trying to get the world to stop spinning. She had been healed. And she was not dead. Staring down at her bandaged leg she had no doubt of what had been done to her, it was no illusion, and yet she could not help but feel a pearl of fear for it along with a growing well of disdain and disgust....for herself. Why must she always be so weak?

The mention of her name though had her head lifting to look between the two of them. The look of horror on his mother's face and the panic on his own was doing nothing to assuage her concerns. "What did you say?" she hissed at Kota, fixing him with a dark glare. "What are you saying about me now?"

[Rhindeer]

To say Fujin looked livid was an understatement. Horror and anger smashed together into a deadly combination, her face darkening like a storm cloud before a typhoon. "What did you say?"

"Ha...yeah, uh, I'm married. I was bringing her to meet ya, y'know?"

"Kota..." Fujin said, voice strained with barely repressed anger. "Tell me you're joking. Now."

"Ah, yeah, um, about that. Not a joke. Very in love," he said with a weak smile, and then just about jumped out of his skin when Morgan spoke up.

Aw, shit.

"N-nothin'!" he said in Common, holding up his hands, before it clicked in that she was up and she really shouldn't be yet. "Hey, you shouldn't be sitting up!" he said. "Lay back down, Morgan, we're gonna getcha into bed so you can sleep this off, alright?"

"Kota!" Fujin snapped. "You can't be married to her! She's not even Thanati! Not even mixed! Her accent is awful! How much does she even speak?"

"Love's boundless like the ocean, ma," Kota said weakly in Thanati, before giving Morgan a wincing look and lowering his voice, switching languages again. "Ummm...don't be mad...please don't freak out, but I...I told her we're, uh...married."

[GoblinFae]

Her eyes narrowed into a glare doing exactly none of what he urged of her. Morgan ignored his requests to lay down and instead fixed him with a furious glare. "She certainly does not sound like you said nothing, Kota." Morgan's head snapped back to his mother as she continued to screech and squawk faster than the pirate could ever hope to keep up with even with the few words she understood, of which 'Kota,' 'Thanati,' and 'mixed' were the only three.

Dark brows rose higher as she glared fiercely at Kota. Married?! "You told her what?!" she howled, struggling to twist around fully to face him and squealing as she placed weight on her newly healed knee. It took her a moment to catch her breath as she knelt on all fours, batting away any attempts to help before lifting her head and willing death upon on him from her eyes alone. Morgan attempted to reach for him then, hands extended as if to wring his neck or claw his eyes out. "In what universe would I EVER marry the likes of you?! What sick fucking kind of joke is this, Kota?" she howled, drowning Fujin's voice out as she took her turn at reaming the man out.

[Rhindeer]

And now the lovely bride was yelling at Kota, and Fujin watched them in angry confusion. She knew less Common than Morgan knew Thanati, so she didn't have the slightest clue what they were saying aside from Kota's name. One didn't need to know a language at all to see that whatever Kota had told Morgan, she was pissed.

Whatever Fujin felt toward the woman, though, she was still a healer—of a sort. Her duty was to her patient regardless of her feelings, so when Morgan went and just about undid all her hard work, she snapped at her, "Lay back down!" and grabbed her shoulders before she could throttle Kota.

As much as she was willing to let her murder her son right then, she was not feeling up to repairing the woman's leg again.

Kota, meanwhile, now had two angry women jumping down his throat.

"I-it's not real!" he said, waving his hands and shrinking back away from her. Even weak and wounded she was a terror to behold. 

"We're not really married, of course! It's just pretend!" As if that was the part Morgan was objecting to. "Of course you'd never marry me, and I'd never marry you! I—" He sucked in a breath. "I like men, Morgan! Alright? Please just play along!"

[GoblinFae]

She yelped at being forced back down and out of reach of squeezing Kota's soft, vulnerable neck. It would seem he would live another day thanks to her over-protective 'mother-in-law.' How fortunate for him...or not.

It was his words more than his mother's actions though that stilled Morgan. They stung, cutting deeply in ways not even she herself truly understood in the moment. Once more she fell uncharacteristically quiet and completely stopped fighting them both. He liked men. She had been flirting with him and harassing him and he had had no interest in her. And now he was using her. Coward.

"Of course you do," she spat. Although venomous her words lacked bite. She was weary and hurt. He'd allowed her to embarrass herself repeatedly so he could bring here and to what end? To parade her around for all to see and laugh at? Was she just a warm body to be used? Would he abandon her here? Morgan was not naive enough to not know what happened to women in foreign lands. The Thanati were not known for their love of outsiders after all, especially not pale devils that looked like her.

"....you said I could lay down in a bed?"

[Rhindeer]

Fujin was watching the two of them, a mini drama playing out in their expressions: the foreign girl looking angry then upset, Kota looking panicked and then confused. But at least the woman had stopped her fool struggling; it seemed whatever Kota said took the wind from her sails.

"Of course I...? What's that mean?" Kota said, blinking. Was it obvious or something? But why did she look so suddenly subdued, the fight gone out of her and her suddenly uncharacteristically cooperative? His head spun. First she was shrieking about being married to him, now she was...?

Oh shit. He shouldn't have told her, but in his panic he hadn't wanted her to get the wrong idea, hadn't wanted her to think he was going to prey on her now that they were in a land foreign to her. He had hoped it would make her feel...safer about his intentions. But what if she hated people like him? What if she told others? There was a reason he kept it close to his chest, and while the bigger cities might care less, a small town like his was not one of them.

He sucked in a sharp breath, chest tightening, and nodded at her question. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, let's uh...let's getcha settled..."

Looking to his mother as he rose to his feet and offered Morgan his hands, he sighed. "She's ready."

"What was all that about?" Fujin demanded. "What did you tell her? She didn't look happy with--what's that on your neck?!" she snapped, and jabbed at Kota's hickey, making him yelp. "You shame yourself, child! I can't believe you came out of me!"

With an angry huff, she wandered further into the home and sharply drew a bamboo screen out to section off the home, separating her room from what was to be Morgan's, then went about pulling out a futon and laying it out on the floor.

[GoblinFae]

Morgan failed to answer him. All wind was knocked from her sails and she looked as storm-battered as she felt. Wordlessly she accepted his helping hands up after a moment. Her leg, while fully healed, still ached to bear weight on it as if caught between a balance of broken and still expecting to be.

She allowed Kota to leave her over to the futon once Fujin had finished and reached for the woman without touching to catch her attention. "Thank you," she intoned softly and with deep sincerity while slightly dipping her head and shoulders in a little bow. 

From there she crumpled easily and without a fuss down into her new bed before rolling onto her side away from him. Everything in her body language, her facial expressions, and her silence spelled defeat. For all her laughter before they arrived it seemed he was the one to know the biggest joke of all, her. 

[Rhindeer]

Some homecoming this was. It was everything he was afraid it would be and so much worse. His mother was predictably pissed. Morgan was pissed, though her anger carried a strange, dejected air with it. Kota wanted to talk to her, to explain, to see if she hated him now--not that they were exactly bosom buddies before this, but he liked to think they had been getting somewhere.

He hesitated, debating whether he should try to talk to her now or wait until she had rested or simmered down, but his mother made that decision for him.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, she scowled at him. "Let the girl rest," she said, and nodded toward the door. "Let's go for a walk."

---

It had been the longest walk of his life.

He and his mother had walked along the shoreline while she reamed him out in privacy. Why had he up and left for so long? Where had he even gone? For all she knew, he could be dead! And now he shows up married to some pale foreigner?! What about his betrothed? To which all he could say was...he figured the girl would have moved on by now? And love is love, he couldn't help it! He wanted adventure and he found a wife.

Of course he didn't tell his mother what he had actually been up to, piracy and all that. She would have murdered him, and he was already surprised he was still alive now after having, in Fujin's view, turned his back on his family, his culture, and his entire nation to go traipsing about with savages.

Not much was resolved by the time they finally returned home. Fujin was, if anything, angrier. She did admit at one point, through clenched teeth and restrained tears, that she was at least glad her son was alive if too skinny, and Kota took that as a small win.

"Go," Fujin said when they went back inside. "Get your woman up. Let's get you fed." And she shooed Kota away.

Kota sucked in a breath and slipped behind the bamboo screen.

"Hey, uh...Morgan? Y'awake?"

[GoblinFae]

Morgan had not moved a single inch away from where and how he had left her. Deep self-loathing took a firm grasp within her breast, spreading its oily black residue throughout her bones. Her father's words rang harshly within her mind, belittling and ridiculing her with knives that still cut deep within her soul.

She was a fool.

Today she had not only proved it but once more came to hate herself. She would never be free of it, she was sure. There was no bettering herself. This was it. This was who she was. This was all she would ever be. She was a disgrace and a fool and a coward and unworthy of existing. All the things her father had ever said of her were true.

Only once her name was called, did Morgan show any further sign of life beyond breathing. She turned her head enough to look over her shoulder and stare wordlessly at Kota with an empty, dead fish eye stare.

[Rhindeer]

No response. Kota winced, running a hand through his short hair anxiously as she stared wordlessly at him with all the enthusiasm of a corpse.

He heaved a sigh, looking away in defeat. "This is exactly why I don't tell people," he muttered. "I knew this would happen. It ain't even safe to tell people here, Morgan. But I told you 'cause...I'm not like...gonna do anything weird to you, y'know? But now I'm a freak in your eyes, too, huh?"

[GoblinFae]

Still she continued to stare in painful silence. There would be no freeing himself of the hook, Kota had landed himself upon. He would be the dancing fish all he liked and still she was resolved not to budge an inch of grace for him. He had humiliated her enough with his games. And what was this? Here, now he decided to act as if he was the victim? To try and place the blame on her? Placate her with words such as freak in order to try and humble himself before her?

No.

She would have none of it. Of that, Morgan could be certain. Her head turned back to face the wall with a disapproving sigh before she struggled with the task of sitting up some. She was tired and lightheaded not that these were things she dared utter to him. They would only be more fuel to the fire of what he considered her weakness.

"What do you want, Kota?"

[Rhindeer]

It was an effort not to squirm as Morgan stared at him with that vacant stare for what felt like forever. But then she turned away again, and he fully expected her to go silent again--except, finally, she spoke.

Kota opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat. He didn't know what to say. Didn't know what he could say. He shut his mouth and looked away, a hand rubbing the back of his neck as he struggled to find his words and failed completely.

She hated him.

He swallowed hard, working moisture back into his mouth, surprised at how much that hurt despite knowing each other for such a short time. "Food's ready," he managed at last.

[GoblinFae]

"So it is to be poison and humiliation today then," she muttered darkly before pushing herself to sit upright. "Haven't you laughed at me enough today?" Morgan huffed and shook her head as she attempted to stand gingerly on her new leg. She gritted her teeth still unused to the aching, overworked muscles and tendons resettled about her mended bones.

[Rhindeer]

"...What? Laugh at you?" The statement was enough to give Kota whiplash. He stared at Morgan, his own woe-is-me thoughts stalling out in sheer confusion

"What're you talking about? Who's laughing at you? About what?" Had something gotten lost in translation somewhere? It was entirely possible! He might be fluent in both Thanati and Common, but sometimes things got a bit funky when he had to switch rapidly back and forth between the two.

[GoblinFae]

"You like men," she spat back at him. "Enjoying your little savage village jokes at my expense? Ey the white foreign ghost she marry a man who like men. Let's all laugh at the poor, stupid woman. Ha ha ha. Do you think I have no pride?"

Her fingers curled to strike over her heart. "Do you think because I am a woman I am without thoughts and feelings of my own? I do not like your games. I wish I had drowned instead of having to be here with you of all people to be mocked and humiliated."