One blink. Yes. Okay.
“Can you breathe okay?”
One blink.
“Can you move?”
Two blinks.No, it could not move you flipping idiot, it was trapped in tons of iron.
“Can you speak?”
Two blinks.
“You must have enjoyed my monologue a lot last night then, huh?”
One blink. Yes.
“You are a cheeky faerie aren’t you?” An involuntary smile cropped on my lips.
It did not gain any blinks. Was that a maybe?
“Right, let’s establish priorities. I can move the chains around your mouth and bring you water or I can start unwrapping you, but we both know it will take a while and you’ll be in a lot of pain. So, one blink for water, two blinks for removing chains.”
This one I already knew and before the one blink even came to an end, I rushed to find a straw and filled a glass with water to bring it back to the subject.
I retook my position and announced my intention to shift the chains across its face to uncover its lips. That got me no blinks, so I jumped into action and shifted a few chains to reveal a mouth. And some very burnt and bleeding lips.
I’d seen faeries in chains before, and I knew how iron burnt their skin. By the deep wounds on this one, it must have not been moved for a while, creating a deep cut into its flesh. Which only confirmed my suspicions, the creature had been locked away for some time.
“Drink slowly, your throat is probably raw, and it will hurt like a bitch,” I announced while placing the straw on the side of its lips that was least burnt, doing my best to avoid causing more pain. My advice did not stick though, as soon as the faerie’s lips touched water, it inhaled it in a few gulps, desperate to hydrate itself. Its eyes widened, I had to assume because of the pain, but it did not stop until the glass fully emptied.
“Another?”
One blink.
“Coming right up.”
My subject did the same with the second glass and a third one. It clearly wanted more, but I stopped offering, I had no idea what to do if it started being sick and choked on those chains.
“We need to start unwrapping you, I’m afraid.”
One blink.
Okay, so at least it was being realistic.
“Do you have any advice on where to start?”
Although I knew the technicalities of iron binding and I had to remove chains from time to time from subjects, it had always been around the wrists or ankles, just a small chain or two, enough to keep them grounded. And they had been on regular human skin. This one though…I had absolutely no idea what to do.
And it didn’t either because my question did not gain any blinks.
“I would start with your face, so you can start healing your lips and eat something. That’s a priority. And then I’d go down and do your torso, so you can breathe better.”
One blink.
Alright, food and oxygen it is. I was starting to like this creature, simple and to the point.
Getting it done took us the better part of the afternoon. The chains were so tangled and tightly pressed against its skin that every movement caused a disturbance somewhere else. And we had to take many breaks.
