No answer? Hardly. You’ve told her exactly who you are, honored scribe.

You are healer, of long-borne aches, of troubles too small to bother anyone with, of everything your hands touch. Everything she lets you touch. And it’s so hard. It’s so hard to keep holding her secret hurts in scarred hands, when they could be gone forever the moment she hands them to you. It’s so hard to remember the lesson burned into her by a lifetime of learning. Your heart is dangerous. Alien. You must never show it. Everything is on you. You’re strong enough to do it all. It doesn’t hurt that badly. It doesn’t. It. Doesn’t…

You are guardian, of this moment, of this little bubble of creation big enough for two and two alone. Nothing may enter without your leave. Nothing will slip past you for some less honorable soul to steal. A total authority that cannot be resisted, and yet, an authority that she does not resent. For instead of secrets, you draw groans, you draw sighs, you draw soft, needy whimpers from her lips. They travel no further than you, living only in this quiet you’ve created for her. Not even Emli, clinging close to her side, hears a whisper of them. When you leave, you will take them with you, and will she even remember speaking them?

You are strong, enough to reduce a dragon to a blissful nothing, to take on the thinking for two. It will take her hours for her body to process what you’ve done to her. It will take her days, months, maybe years for her heart to process what you’ve done to her. Even this evening, as she lies in a half-dreaming daze, she will remember the warm fog that descended on her and wonder.

And yet, you are just not strong enough to stop her eyes from flickering open. Her head from lolling over. Her gaze to meet yours, with hardly a breath between the two of you.

“Hey. You. M’gonna. Gonna find you. And. Get you back. Show you good. Time. Tea. Yeah…”

And what a heroic effort it took to say that much. To take her heart and push it to the surface, hold it up on trembling limbs long enough to speak, before succumbing all over again to your command. 

The last of her energy leaves her. She is nothing more than exhausted. She cannot comprehend the wordless command you finally give Emli. Her trained hands accept the precious bundle, working without thought through soothing patterns of touch and skin. Attendants bring her cups of cool water, and she lifts them gently to Han’s lips. As you are helped away, you see the mighty dragon, she who rebuked the General himself, nuzzle into the slave-girl’s neck, too safe to remember worry.

For now, for once, she is safe.

[Han opens up via submission, and clears Hopeless.]