Noah shook his head at Elann’s question regarding his wellbeing. Moving to the pallet, he answered, “I haven’t been feeling well, no.” Over the past few days since he pointed out his headache and slight congestion to Elann he had been getting progressively worse in feeling. Sleeping the days away had provided him with relief from the feelings, as had being active when he was up, but the avoidance had taken a toll on the Kelvic.

“It’s just a cold,” he said, now sitting beside her as she lay under the blankets. “It’ll go away in a few days.”

It was rare for him to catch any kind of sickness. For as long as Elann knew him he hadn’t been under the weather physically. The fever sickness she had long ago hadn’t made him skip a beat in his own stepping. His body simply ran too hot for most sicknesses to catch ahold of him to slow him down. As it were, the illness developing in him was almost entirely avian in nature and even it wasn’t keeping him down as she had seen. It very well could’ve been his stubbornness in not wanting to be put down by not feeling well. She’d seen that once the stitches were out there was very little he didn’t press himself to do.

She brought up his shaving, to which he had noticed she had found his razor, boar-bristled brush, and tub of cream and set them inside the tent. In thought he stroked the musings of his facial hair. He nodded, saying he would shave it.

“I’ll do it in the morning,” he went, reaching behind his back to pull at the collar of his shirt. Noah peeled his shirt off and laid it across his lap, raising up his arm in order to see the marks of his wound on his ribcage. After the examination he put the shirt to the side and went to take off his pants, eventually joining Elann under the blanket on the bed in the nude, lying down on his back with his hands playing over his stomach.