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| Details |
| Author: | Luridel |
| Summary: | After two training montages, Shun and Estel return to the inn to rest and take care of one another. Shun has opinions; Estel asks about them. ~1.4k words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
It's dark by the time they return to Halfhill, and a short climb up half of the hill later Estel enters the Lazy Turnip Inn with Shun in tow. "You wanna eat upstairs?"
"Sure," Shun states before looking around, furrowing his brow some. He utters quietly, "Word has traveled quick… the locals seem… excited."
Estel nods, moving up to the counter. "Can I get something with a lot of noodles and rice and some kind of protein that isn't egg to take upstairs please? Thanks. Shun, what d'you want?"
Shun lets out a grunt as he thinks about that, "Rice and fish."
Den Den, the hozen behind the counter, grunts affirmatively and begins cooking. Estel pays for the two of them and waits, tapping her fingers.
Lei Lan, the innkeeper, a pandaren with primarily white fur and a black marking like a domino mask across her face, smiles at them as she wipes down a table. "You've been gone a little while, welcome back. The room is still yours."
"Brilliant, thanks." Estel gives her a thumbs-up.
"Been busy," Shun utters to Den Den as he makes his way up the steps. There, he goes on to settle down at their table.
Den Den plates the food on a tray. "Grumpy. Maybe fish will help."
"Usually does," Estel says, smiling. She takes the tray and follows Shun upstairs, setting it down. She begins removing her armor, starting with her gloves. Beneath the gloves, her knuckles have bled through the bandages.
Shun eyes her hand, noting the blood. It's not a surprise to him. His hands are in a similar state, but he still asks, "How is your hand doing?"
He doesn't take his own gloves off.
"Starting to hurt again," Estel says. "I've got more jademoon leaf ointment for after we eat."
Shun nods with a grunt as he takes his portions from the tray to start eating. Well. He tries. He's come to realize it's difficult to use chopsticks with his hands figured fucked up.
Estel watches him fumble for a minute as she sheds her armor and underarmor and pulls a casual blue robe on instead. There's no shyness whatsoever in her stripping in front of her partner. "Okay," she says when she's done, sitting down across from Shun. "Do you want a fork?"
After a few moments of basically brute forcing the chopsticks, Shun lets out a sigh, "That would probably be for the best…"
Estel fetches him one from her bag, then looks at her own meal and her own chopsticks. With a shrug, she just brings the bowl up to her mouth. She does not carry two forks.
Shun nods to her in thanks as he takes the fork to start eating with greater success. He falls silent once more as he focuses on his food, though it's clear that he has a few things on his mind.
Estel's eating is a messy process, but she manages. "I shoulda just bought skewers," she complains when she's done. "Oh well." She puts her empty bowl back on the tray and fetches her mortar, pestle, and stash of jademoon leaves. It's back to smushing leaves into leaf juice for her. "How's your hands?"
It takes Shun a bit longer to finish up his food.
"Hard to use them right now," he mutters in reply. He finally removes his gloves to reveal the mess they were hiding.
Estel winces. "Okay, one at a time." She dips her unused napkin into her water glass and starts carefully wiping blood from his hands. "This is sort of nostalgic, isn't it? Well, this part specifically. For me. Getting to take care of you like this. Punching rocks was bullshit."
Shun holds his hand out to Estel so she could work on it. He lightly sighs with a nod, "Well, the training itself kind of reminded me of the old days too."
"Mmhm. It's rough being on the training side of it." Estel folds the napkin and dips it into the water again, dabbing carefully at his knuckles. "I do feel like we actually accomplished something, though."
"You think so?" Shun asks while raising a brow, "That would be nice if so because we missed some pretty big shit while we were in those woods."
"I punched a fucking rock until it broke, Shun. Me. I did that. Even Gwen did that." Estel gives him a look. "Be proud of us."
"You did good," Shun states.
Estel grins at him. "You did good, too." Once his hands have been cleaned, she goes back to crushing the leaves.
Shun resumes eating. He has a little bit left to go through.
"I guess," he shrugs.
"Uh huh." Once Estel is satisfied with the consistency of jademoon leaf goo she has created, she gets out her bandages and waits for Shun to be done eating. "What's on your mind?"
Shun sets his fork down as he finishes his meal. It isn't until then that he answers her question, "I am not usually one to complain about training but… usually I am not training while actively on a mission. Are we as a company really progressing on our mission here in Pandaria by having half of our deployed numbers train?"
"I am pretty certain the last time some giant monster came attacking, we were also in the middle of training."
Estel takes his hand, carefully coating his knuckles with ointment before wrapping it up. "I see what you're getting at. The monastery was one thing, I think that was genuinely worthwhile. We got to show a large group that we were willing to put in the effort to learn how they do things, and we made connections there. This was one guy in the middle of nowhere. And Lin." She reaches for his other hand and repeats the process. "The things in the mist and those fog wards that drove them off… I think that was worth learning about, for sure."
"That part was good to know, yes," Shun agrees.
"How's that?" Estel asks, nodding down towards his hands. "Good?"
Shun carefully flexes his hands to give them a test now that the ointment had been applied.
"Better," he nods.
Estel nods and peels the bloody bandages off of her own hands, wincing. "Okay. My turn. Help please."
Shun shifts towards her and gently takes her hands to start cleaning them up first. Wiping away the blood and just generally examining the damage done.
Estel's hands are in a similar state to Shun's - easily just as bad if not worse. She is obviously in pain just from her expression, but other than the occasional indrawn breath through her teeth she just watches Shun with warm affection in her eyes.
Shun diligently tends to her hands, carefully applying the jadeleaf ointment to her knuckles. Once that's all done, he wraps them back up with fresh bandages, just as she had done for him moments ago. Though, he holds onto her hands a bit longer after finishing.
Estel doesn't squeeze his hands like she usually might, but she gradually relaxes as the pain numbs. "Thanks," she says, which also means I love you. Not that she's scared of redundancy or expressing her feelings in words either, so she also just says it. "I love you."
"And you," he replies quietly.
"You could basically do my job by now," Estel says, nodding down at their hands.
Shun just grunts lowly at that, "Not really. I have shit bedside manners."
"Not with me you don't," Estel objects.
"I would not just be tending to you if I were to do your job," Shun notes.
"You just did," Estel points out. She finally releases his hands to put away her bandages and the extra leaves.
"I mean, you would not be the only person I would have to deal with at your clinic," Shun replies.
"Sure, sure." Estel shakes her head. "Let's pick more of these leaves tomorrow. I wanna send some to Niris."
"Sounds like a plan," Shun nods.
"Might be clean-up to do in Stoneplow as well we can help with." Estel smiles. "Although you should probably rest your hands a bit."
"Wonder if there is still some Sha wandering around the field," Shun muses, "Otherwise most of the cleanup will probably be the wall's rubble."
At the mention of his hands, he looks down at them again, "One night of no use counts, right?"
Estel looks at him seriously. "I guess we'll see how they're looking tomorrow, yeah? Obviously I don't expect you to do nothing."
"I will figure something out, one way or another," Shun grumbles.
"Yeah, I know." Estel leans in for a quick kiss and then gets up, collecting their dinner tray. "Tomorrow's tomorrow."