His smile wins him nothing.
All business, this one.
He sighed inwardly. Gone were the days when he was thick and muscled and attractive. As a colt, he'd been larger than some grown men, even. But his magic had been thrust on him and now his once-flawless skin was sunken in and starved, nothing but skin and bones ruptured through with more bone meant to protect him. And there weren't many at all that would wish him safe. His voice, though, remained clear and infinitely smooth, whisper soft, or sharp and bladed.
He sighed aloud this time, and braced himself once again for her attack. Or, her aid, he supposed. Technically.
She stepped to him without fear, and even before she lifted to strike him again, he could feel the pressure in his body build. The plate of bone shifted, another phase of growth that sprung a tear to his eye and he grit his teeth as it pressed mercilessly outward. His already-taut skin pulled even tighter, stretching painfully to accommodate the newest shard of armor.
But, thankfully, with a few more strikes, she freed him. The pressure released at last, and this time he didn't get up but only lay there breathing heavily through lingering pain and the spill of blood trailing down his side. That was well enough, since he couldn't twist around to clean it anyway.
"Are we done with this now," she asked, just a little too sweetly. He gave her a sideways glance, reading more annoyance or impatience in her posture than anything remotely sweet. But he shrugged, rather nonchalant, and nodded. With a groan and a stretch of torn skin, he lifted to his feet, pushing his body to accept wide movement in case he needed to act quickly.
She took a step forward, the impossibly smooth cream of her skin nearing, and his eyes snapped to her. He stood in place as her eyes wandered over him, studying him, taking in the bloodied bone plates thrusting out from burning hot skin, the blue of his legs and the million galaxies of stars embedded in them, slicked with crimson trails of his fresh wounds.
"Will the gashes heal on their own," she asked as she finished her examination, "or should we find someone?"
A healer, she meant a healer. No, he blurted a little too quickly, a little too sharply. He glanced away, quickly masking the flash of hurt in his rich, black eyes. Leliana. Leliana. She'd been the only one besides his magician master to have ever healed him, and he'd hated how it drained her. Too many wounds, he always had too many wounds. Most times weren't bad enough, but she'd nearly killed herself trying to bring him back from the brink of death. Oh, how he'd cried over her body, only to snap and snarl at her the moment she woke for doing it.
She should have let him die.
Leliana. His heart squeezed painfully, tears of a different kind threatened to rim his eyes, and the muscle in his jaw twitched against his clamped teeth. Leliana. Gone, now.
Gone forever. But finally safe from him.
No.. he said softer, returning to her with a dead stare. No healers. He glanced to his wounds, passive and indifferent. They would never heal, only dry and crust around the bone, then bleed freely again at the next growth phase, or even if he stretched it and broke it free with too much movement. But he didn't tell her that. He looked back to her again, searching the crystal blue of her eyes for a moment in silence. She asked.. out of politeness, probably. Neutral concern for a stranger.
He broke eye contact and started walking. Thanks for the help. He gave nothing more, - no name, didn't ask for hers - as he kept walking. Probably best that he return to his hunt, run down the man of iron and kill him as he was directed. And forget about this encounter like so many others before it.
You've only got ten more paces to live
Enjoy your last moments. They're my gift to give
