it's WIP Wednesday, my dudes!
As usual, I have an excerpt from the Young Martin AU. I was possessed just now and wrote most of it in the span of half an hour in my bed.
The spar finished as it always did: with Torodryn’s sword against Martin’s neck. The Blade held it there only for a moment before he said, "Take a break."
Martin nodded in thanks and trudged over to the nearest blanket, where Corella sat stripping bark off of some odd plant. He flopped down next to her, prone and unmoving save for a deep, dramatic breath. Sunlight warmed his back.
“I see Tor went as easy on you as he always does,” said Corella. “Have you come to look pathetic in my general vicinity so that I’ll mend your bruises?”
Martin raised and awkwardly turned his head to look at her. A little smile traced her lips—a smirk, really.
“Is it working?” he asked.
She set her project down on the blanket and turned to properly look at him. Martin didn’t miss the softness in her eyes as she dragged them along every inch of his bare back, the way her brow lacked that little pinch that it had when she was actually examining someone. Vanity wasn’t the worst of his vices, but he still felt a little smug under her gaze.
Martin pushed himself up with a little groan and faced her. She set to work enveloping each of his bruises in a little cocoon of glowing light, perhaps uncomfortably warm in his sweat-soaked state, but not unwanted. Her gestures were languid. Sometimes her fingers rested on a bruise.
“Anything else still hurt?” she asked a few minutes later, when all his visible injuries were mended.
Martin took stock of himself, moving each of his overexerted muscles.
“I think I pulled something in my back, lower left.”
Corella didn’t even bother to make him turn, just reached around and prodded the spot, making him wince. A few seconds of warmth from her hand unraveled the tension. Martin thought he should not be held responsible for the little wisp of a moan that escaped him, but Corella chuckled at it anyway. Then her face took on that curious pinch of hers, and she ran a finger briefly but firmly over a spot on his lower back.
“I presume these are from growing?” she said.
Martin twisted around to see what she was referring to; that was comically futile, so he reached back and prodded the spot himself.
“Oh, the saint’s marks? Yes. I shot up like a stalk of corn when I was fifteen.”
“Saint’s marks? That’s what you call them?”
“Is that not what you call them?” Martin asked.
Corella shook her head. "Properly, they’re—well, healers call them striae. I’ve also heard them called by other names, but never saint’s marks.”
Martin flushed a little. Of course they’d have a more proper name, and of course that’s how Corella would know them. Every year he was alive made him feel like he knew less and less.
“Do you know why they’re called that?” asked Corella.
She looked sincerely interested, wide-eyed and expectant. Sometimes Martin forgot how curious a person she actually was.
"Yes, if my father is to be believed,” said Martin. "He told me that—according to myths, at least—they first appeared on men after Saint Alessia freed us from the Ayleids. For the first time, we had as much food as we wanted to eat. So we ate and ate and ate, and we all grew six inches taller, and”—Martin laughed a little—“the Divines were so busy celebrating that Dibella didn’t have time to repaint our skin the right way. So, saint’s marks.”
Corella was making a face at him that he couldn’t quite decipher. He cleared his throat.
“Silly Colovian legends. I'm sure there's a real explanation for why we have them."
"There is," said Corella, "but I like that name. I like the story. It's poetic."
Martin hummed. “And it made me feel a lot better when I went to my parents asking if I was dying of some strange disease.”
Corella smiled, a far-off thing that made Martin think that she was contemplating something of her own parents. Then she reached out and poked the crease between his arm and shoulder.
"And these?” she said. “They look new."
Martin looked down and was reminded of the newer marks on his arms, these ones red-purple instead of pale.
"Ah. I spent a lot of time in Kvatch moving crates for whichever church needed me on a given day, and I got these for my trouble. Father Wrellan is a firm believer in lifting heavy things as a form of penance.”
Corella hummed. “It looks good on you."
Corella’s tone wasn’t sultry. If anything, it was matter-of-fact, a passing remark of little weight, but still Martin could feel his face flush and his heart beat a little faster.
"Penance, or the marks?" he asked.
"Lifting heavy things," she clarified with a laugh. "And perhaps the marks, too."
Her expression changed the moment that she registered what he had said—subtly, but definitely there. Martin kicked himself internally. That was the sort of joke that would have made one of the brothers at the chapel laugh. Not her. Not someone who knew too personally why he was hauling barrels of fish around as a way of earning the Gods’ grace again.
But her expression schooled itself into light-hearted amusement before he could ponder how to rescue the situation.
“You ask strange questions sometimes, Martin Carius.”
and I can't believe I forgot to tag you @sigrid-of-solstheim! if you have any WIPs you're able to share 👀
