“I was going to use my right hand!” I protest.
“You are now,” Alessia says, smirking.
She walks back to the campfire to tend to her own reheating slab of meat, giving me no chance to plead my case. I sigh and accept my fate.
“Thank you for saving me, by the way,” Alessia says.
I look up from my breakfast mid-bite. “What?”
“You heard me. I appreciate you saving me last night,” Alessia repeats. “It would have killed me after I hit that tree if you hadn’t stepped in and saved my butt.”
“It’s really no big deal,” I say, shrugging, only for pain to explode in my shoulder again. “Gods, why do I keep doing this to myself?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s entertaining, I’ll tell you that,” Alessia laughs.
I roll my eyes. “I’m glad me being in pain is of great entertainment value.”
“Oh, don’t give me that. You had me worried sick. I had to use the last of my magic on that shoulder to keep you from bleeding out. Dummy.”
I glance at my shoulder, noting that it has, in fact, healed significantly faster than it should have. What should be inches-deep gashes are only surface cuts that will heal with time. I’ll just have to keep it clean and covered, and the healing process will run its course. That leaves me down for the count in terms of fighting off monsters, though, at least until I can move without reopening my wound.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I caused you trouble,” I say.
“It wasn’t any trouble. It was annoying passing out and all, but I got to watch the sunrise when I was stuck immobile for a few hours there.”
I nearly drop my meat. “Immobile?”
“Oh, yeah, that happens sometimes.” Alessia looks over her shoulder at me. “Did you not know? When I overextend my magic energy, passing out is just the first stage, like I did in the Lihra. The second stage of using too much energy, usually after I wake up from passing out, is being completely immobilized. My whole body will go numb from head to toe and force me to rest until it finishes replenishing my magic energy. If I still try to get up and do too much after that, I can just drop dead, like I’ve been struck with lightning or something.”
“Oh, hells no, that’s an image I don’t need in my head,” I say, shuddering.
“Relax. You’d have to be an idiot to push yourself that far. Clearly, I overdid it last night, but I let myself lay there as long as I needed, and the most I did after that was start the fire and watch over you while the sun rose. I was careful.”
“Well, be a little less reckless on the healing magic next time,” I mumble, taking another bite. “I don’t need you dying on behalf of me.”
Alessia continues to look on as I sit there in silence for a moment. She frowns, then all of a sudden, her face lights up.
“Oh my gods, Aurelio, are you embarrassed that I saved your life?”
I nearly drop my meal. “No! Not at all!”
“Liar! Your face is red as a tomato!” Alessia walks over to me just to cup my face in her hands. “See? You’re burning up!”
“Please leave me alone,” I groan.
“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” Alessia encourages, poking me in the chest. “Just because you’re a man doesn’t mean I’m your responsibility. I’ll always have your back, just like you have mine.”
Alessia kisses my forehead, then goes back to tending to the fire. If my face was red before, then I don’t want to imagine what color it is now. It’s got to be hotter than the fire by now.
I know she’s not my responsibility, but I should at least be able to take care of myself without dying, I think miserably.
Being married to a queen is hard enough, but being married to an imperial human is ten times harder. Every time I think I’ve managed to reach a level where she can rely on me, I end up relying on her to save my ass in the fallout, and that goes beyond adventuring. It happens during everyday administration duties, too. The worlds of adventuring and politics have no end to their intricacies. I’m floundering just trying to keep up.
As I watch Alessia tend to the fire, though, humming quietly to herself as she eats beside me, I realize the situation isn’t as cut and dry as I’m making it out to be. There was no one person who saved the other last night; Alessia blocked the initial attack, and I sacrificed myself trying to kill the Oni, and she healed me in time to prevent my death. This was a team effort, a feat neither of us couldn’t have pulled off without the other.
And now, in the end, I’m getting king treatment because I almost died.
Positives? All of them.
