#thinking early street rat era... learning new normals. adjusting

[accultant]

"When did you get this?"

━━★. *･｡ﾟ✧ tracing scars

Iago stares at their brother for a moment while he examines the cut on their palm, trying to decipher if he's teasing them or not. It seems unlike him. No, no, he looks more worried than anything. That worries Iago in turn. Their stomach ties in knots and they decide it almost would have been preferable for him to be laughing at them.

"You don't remember?" they ask after a few moments, tilting their head slightly.

He had pushed them. They were balancing along a short brick wall while Puck walked beside them on the ground proper. There was a flash of movement from the corner of their eye, a hand reaching towards them, a wolf's grin, then they were falling, sprawling onto the road below, narrowly scrambling out of the way of a passing cart before the wheels could crush them, split them into pieces, grind their bones into the cobblestones below.

They must have scraped themselves on the ground or against a brick or maybe it was the sharp claws that plucked them from their perch - they don't know for sure, and hadn't the time to dwell on it before Puck was pulling them from the road, hugging them close (too tightly), chiding them for not being more careful. They couldn't stop shaking for the rest of the day.

They hadn't even realized they had been hurt until later that evening, when they snuck away while Puck was asleep to neatly clean and bandage their hand like their mom taught them. And then again, when they whispered one of her healing spells and the skin split open all over again. They didn't want Puck to worry more than he already did. They didn't want to show that he could hurt them so easily, even if all it was, at the end of the day, a silly scrape and a few bruises. Not so bad. Not bad at all. No. They were fine, really. He didn't need to know.

It was probably an accident. Yes. An accident.

They gently run their other thumb over the cut, rough with scabbing. It will scar, even as shallow as it is, they always scar. "I fell," they say simply with a shrug. "Off that little wall by the square? Two... three days ago, maybe? You remember."

They won't be walking along that wall again. It's too compromising - and rather childish, anyway. It's best to stay on two feet, it's safer that way.

"I'll be more careful," they tell him, since they had been too shaken to reassure him of that right after he... after they tripped. They close their palm to hide the cut and hold a pinky out for him instead, hooking it with Puck's, "I promise."