Aulfr, being Aulfr, didn't say, mention, or even [try to] think about the night where they talked about his lost mother. He had several suspicions, after, and felt that, distantly, she was no more. But it never stopped him; he had spent a great deal trying to find out, after all. But his heart, his long-frozen heart, warmed a little at the thought of someone caring enough to honestly offer their support.
Which is why he nearly panicked when he saw Aleksandra dragging herself into his room. Hell, upon later reflection, he wondered how she even managed to climb up the castle WHILE so terribly injured. It wasn't as if he told the castle guards NOT to stab a small foreigner climbing up their walls and infiltrating the prince's rooms- she could've been killed by his own guards, and yet she still got past them without even thinking of it. Which, he absently noted in the back of his mind, was terrible, because he could've been dead by now, if their age-old enemy weren't retarded.
He was already rushing forward before she even completely hit the stone floor, only lightly covered with a Noxan rug. He did, of course, manage to catch her head before she hit the ground too hard, cradling it gently for a moment. He tried to regain his bearings, feeling disoriented and confused at the sight of his invincible little darling pale, lifeless, and coming closer to death.
Then his mind cleared, as adrenaline pumped through him, and his training kicked in. He dragged the poisoned woman over to his bed, tossing her in a sort-of gentle way on it. He rushed to his door, threw it open, and jabbed a finger at the nearest servant. "A brazier, freshly lit, a roll of bandages, and get me a healer- with all his antipoisons! Now!"
Ten minutes later saw him roughly cleaning out the woman's wounds with a heated knife- not enough to cauterize, but enough to kill any infections. He worked roughly, but he worked as if his own sister were on the line, if he had one. When the healer arrived, it was all he could do not to strangle the poor man for not working fast enough. He paced impatiently- only the Gods knew how nervous he made the medicine man feel- as the healer ground up, chewed up, mixed up, or whatever else he did with the various herbs he carried.
By the time the man left, under a vow of secrecy to never say anything of the woman or his concern for her again, she was notably looking better and breathing easier. He, on the other hand, wasn't feeling better at all. He felt horrible. He had never felt this way before, except, maybe, upon finding his mother had disappeared. Was it similar? He technically barely knew her. No, he knew that was a lie- he knew her fairly well. He pushed any images of her out of his head- seeing her healthy and sickly at the same time would be torture...
A minute later, he found himself staring down at Aleksandra's face, back leaning against the back of his bed, her head in his lap, stretched out on his bed. He was running his fingers through her hair, calming himself in the process, swirling it and making little inverse tornados out of the midnight waves. Finally giving in, he reached down with one hand, slightly tangled in hair, and touched her lips, hesitant. After a moment, he traced the outline of said lips, then switched to her jaw, and the rest of her face in short order.
And as her breathing fell into the deep rhythm of sleep, his own slowly starting to sync up with hers, he felt himself about as calm as he had ever been.
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