Page 12 of Triadic

"Sip this," I ordered, handing him the water.

"I can't keep anything down," he whimpered.

"Slowly and carefully, keep it down," I commanded.

He nodded and did as ordered. His clothes were filthy, his ripe smell filling the room and threatening to turn my stomach. I brushed his matted hair out of his face and Peter seemed to only then notice it. "Oh! Chop this off, what on earth—"

I chuckled, then regretted it because of the stink. "We'll cut your hair and get you washed so you can rest."

With one hand he touched his face and squawked in alarm. "I have a long beard!"

I held back a laugh. "That you do, my friend. You look like a true mountain man right now."

"I'm in your debt, but please: I demand a shave," he said with a feeble, exhausted smirk in my direction.

"All in good time."

Marit came back, and we each took an arm and helped him into a small bath chamber down the hall. Ceridor got the wood stove going, both to heat the room and the water. Marit supported Peter's weight and rid him of his grimy clothes while I made quick work of his hair, snipping close enough to his scalp to sever all the mats. It was uneven and would need fixing later, but that could be sorted out after a good rest.

With shaking legs, Peter lowered himself onto the stool and scrubbed the dirt off with a rag while we poured warmed water over him to wash his suffering away.

Marit and I finally had a chance to sort out our own clothes while Peter soaked in the warm bath after scrubbing everything clean. We got into fresh clothes as he cooed and praised the warmth. Then when Peter rose fromthe water and carefully stepped out of the bath, Marit squeezed my hand, and I finally paid attention long enough to take in what my eyes were telling me.

He was skinny, too skinny, and covered in scrapes and bruises, but beneath all the signs of his massive ordeal, Peter had creamy skin and petal-pink lips in a cupid's bow. Freckles dusted his cheeks and elsewhere on his body, seemingly coming and going as they pleased. He was young, younger than us but definitely still a man, maybe in his early or mid-twenties. His sage-green eyes were soft and unobtrusive in their color, but they shone brightly with intelligence. His ears stuck out a little bit, also dusted with those freckles. He was beautiful.

"Do I look as ghastly as I feel?" he asked with some humor.

"Nein," Marit said when I couldn't find words. "Corbi will get you back to health in no time."

A shiver wracked through his frame, and I finally unfroze and stepped forward to help him dress.

Chapter Six: Marit

Our current discussions around Wren and our situation were put on hold as Corbi and I turned all our focus toward caring for the beautiful man that we'd found in the forest. In the following days, we'd helped him finally get hydrated and drink enough medicinal juices to replenish all the vitamins he'd lost.

As soon as Corbi had determined that he would pull through, however, he explained that he needed Peter to take a solution to make him purge because the fact that he was having a recurring fever meant that the poison was still in his body, and his body was trying to fight it.

Next came a brutal week of that horrible concoction making him vomit and empty out his intestines. Corbi flat out told the clinic he wouldn't be working and stayed with us full-time. It was a far cry from the younger Corbi I'd known, who wasalways scared to stand up for himself and set limits with his work.

We took turns helping Peter to the restroom across the hall, cleaning out his chamber pot of vomit, and changing the sheets from all his sweat. He seemed truly miserable, and his quiet weeping broke my heart. At one point he asked us if he was dying after all, but the feeble hope in his eyes when Corbi explained that he was absolutely confident in Peter's recovery was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. Those sage-green eyes were a tame shade, but the immortal soul behind them was so expressive, it was utterly endearing.

Corbi and I didn't even bother returning to our room to sleep at night. One of us would take the other single bed that we'd pushed up next to him, and the other would climb into bed with him to stabilize his life force and his temperature as he slept. Since he was still feverish, we bundled him in blankets and then held him over those, which seemed to help his fitful sleeping and hold back nightmares. We were both always nearby when he began to stir so we could move quickly with the chamber pot and getting him up and across the hall.

I'd given him a shave, and Corbi had trimmed the uneven parts of his hair into something manageable. Peter told us about his time in the forest and that he thought he was twenty-one but had no idea how long he'd been trapped.

Corbi and I would go eat briefly in the dining hall with the other monks, then do our separate spiritual practicesin the evenings before returning to Peter. Corbi thought if his temperature continued to stabilize, Peter could begin to wean off the purging solution soon. I was very excited about that.

"Look," I whispered at Peter's doorway, snagging Corbi's hand before he went in. "There it is."

My lover stopped and appraised the sleeping Peter under his piles of blankets. In my astral vision, a soft white dome hovered over him, like a protective shield of glittering sunlight beaming through an otherwise dark forest. This could be Peter's astral body healing him, but Corbi didn't think that was the case. Though he specialized more in etheric or life force sensitivity for his healing work, he could see some iteration of that shimmering dome also, a quiet and subtle radiance content to go unnoticed.

Corbi leaned against me, and I squeezed his hand, so pleased at our increasing closeness during this time. We were united in the same goal of healing Peter, and in the process of helping him, our confusion and distress regarding Wren had begun shifting into a more manageable place.

"Should we leave him be?" I asked softly. "Maybe we shouldn't sleep under the dome with him, since we don't know what it is?"

"It is surely angelic protection,Schatzi," Corbi surmised. "If we sleep next to him, we help stabilize his life energy and health, which is also what the angel who left that light was likely trying to do."

When I didn't reply, heturned to me and eventually echoed my smile. I didn't know how to say this to him, but I had noticed Corbi's inner strength come through in the last week. Wren's leaving had shaken him, but he had clearly found a way to regain his footing and move forward. He made me so proud.