“I forgot about it until now, but I have some bandages on me that we might be able to use to brace your ankle,” Crow sat up a bit straighter and drew his right knee to his chest. He reached for the bottom hem of his pant leg and rolled it up, revealing a set of bandages around his calf. Glancing back up at Penelope, he went on to explain, “My wounds stopped bleeding a while ago, so these are pretty clean. Hopefully I have enough to give you the support you need to get back without help.”

He bent forward and proceeded to unravel the cloth from his leg. Fortunately, his guess had been right. He had healed enough that the bandages were still fairly clean. Once he had finished removing them from his own body, he moved to sit in front of Penelope and proceeded to work on dressing her twisted ankle. He worked efficiently, having gotten much better at bandaging wounds after treating both himself and his companions countless times since the war had begun.

When he finished, he looked it over with a critical gaze. The layers didn’t look quite thick enough to keep her ankle from bending too much. If she was going to make it all the way back to her camp, she was going to need a stronger brace. “Hang on,” he said thoughtfully. “I have more.” He reached up to untie his cloak, setting it aside before hooking his thumbs on the inside of his tunic collar and pulling the clothing over his head. He dropped the shirt in a small pile with the cloak, shivering slightly as the night air cooled his skin.

While he had only taken the clothing off to have access to the bandages that were wrapped around his left bicep, there was a small part of him that wondered what Penelope thought of him now. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye for a brief moment before he averted his gaze to unravel the cloth from his arm. After two years of being out of prison, he knew he had changed quite a bit. He was in much better shape now, but he also had more scars, the most prominent of which being the one on the right side of his chest from the time he had gotten stabbed near the end of their mission and the one just below his left collarbone from a knight’s sword during a battle.

[i]It doesn’t matter what she thinks,[/i] he reminded himself as he moved on to apply the bandages to her ankle. [i]She’s with someone else.[/i]

Once he had finished the second layer, he sat back on his heels, feeling more confident in his work. “There,” he nodded, reaching for his shirt and putting it back on before looking up to meet her gaze. “Try standing on that.”