Tsk. Right. You wouldn’t know what you weren’t taught. But complacency is never acceptable.
“The most important thing is hemostasis. If you can’t control the bleeding, nothing else matters.”
I folded a clean cloth into multiple layers to match the cub’s leg. I held it up to rough the size.
Kallen, to her credit, handed me a leather thong, and Rami, peeking her head from the pocket, had adhesive ready.
“Up to now we’ve been lucky and only seen venous bleeds. When blood flows this slowly, you compress the wound itself.”
“...Huh?”
“The spot you pointed to above the wound is what you compress for arterial bleeding. You press the side closer to the heart.”
I pressed the cloth over the gash in the thigh. And shoved in the most basic medical knowledge.
Kallen only fluttered her eyes, bewildered. Something in me flipped at that vacant face.
“Don’t just blink at me. Did you get it?”
“What are veins and arteries?”
...Great. We’re not even at square one.
It was my mistake to grab a blank page of a girl and decide to raise her as a hand-trained apprentice. I shook my head and wrapped a bandage over the cloth I was pressing.
“Do you at least know what a blood vessel is?”
“Umm, a tube that blood flows through?”
“Correct. Broadly, blood vessels split into veins and arteries. Arterial bleeding is especially lethal. When it tears, blood spurts like a fountain, and if you don’t control it within one to two minutes, they can die.”
Kallen nodded hard with a face that clearly hadn’t understood. Her lips shaped my words, replaying them.
I let Rami fix the end of the bandage, then took Kallen’s hand. I brought the tips of her index and middle finger to the side of my neck.
“Feel the pulse?”
“Uh—yes! The thumping is the pulse, right?”
“Right. That’s an artery. Memorize at least this much.”
The novelty of the first pulse she’d ever palpated made her eyes sparkle.
I’d written her off as hopeless, but her curiosity was keen. The eagerness to learn was worth something.
Meanwhile Rami pattered her tiny feet and pressed down the bandage. I stroked her commendable back with a fingertip and stood.
Exhausted, the cub fell asleep with wheezing breaths, and the mother never stopped licking.
“Tymer, that’s all the treatment I can give. I hope it heals well.”
“Grrr.”
Even without the dragon’s translation, I knew what she meant.
Kallen hopped off the cub with a relieved smile, then scurried to Ella’s side.
But my feet wouldn’t leave the spot; the treatment left a nagging itch. I kept thinking of the mud and rust driven deep into the wound.
“Trap wounds infect easily. It’d be good if we had an antibiotic—”
Explaining to the guardian, my words trailed off.
I’d been lamenting this world’s lack of modern medicine, but there was something more certain than a single shot.
The ultimate remedy that had fixed even my own trap-punched ankle.
“Varen. Can you treat her?”
Varen, who’d been standing off with arms folded, scowled at once.
“You want me to lick that brat?”
For a second I pictured Varen licking Tymer’s cub’s thigh.
Ugh, even for fellow monsters, that’s a bit much.
I looked at the sleeping cub again. Calf-sized and gaunt, snoring in little rattles—it hit me square in the chest.
Even if the wound healed without flaring up, normal gait would be impossible. The thigh’s big muscle was torn.
A wild predator that can’t use one leg—mother or not—has slim odds.
I let my brows droop and stepped toward Varen.
“I want to treat the baby.”
He snapped his head aside, displeased.
“Pretty girl will manage.”
So that’s why he was so uncooperative today—he’d soured because I called Tymer “pretty girl.”
I wanted to smack that lush blond head. Or boot that big rump and tell him to act his size.
But I was the one asking, and he held the key, so I dredged up patience and gave him a warm smile.
“Varen, help. Please? Isn’t there a way?”
“Don’t try to seduce me.”
Knew it. I should hit him.
How do you hit an ingot without hurting your hand. I quietly curled a fist—when the dragon made a tempting offer.
“There is a way. I can treat that brat without licking.”
That brat. Accurate, yet somehow it sounded like a curse.
The corner of Varen’s mouth hooked up. On a handsome face the elegant smile should’ve been nice—but dread crept in.
“Collect my saliva.”
“...Ah! That would do it!”
I clapped without meaning to. A perfect idea.
Why hadn’t I thought of it? The effect is in Varen’s saliva itself; licking isn’t the point.
So there’s no need to lap a bloody wound—just smear spit on it, even if you have to spit it out. A bit grubby, but.
...Then why did he lick me all the time?
“Not here. Too many eyes.”
I wanted to ask since when he cared about “eyes watching.” But I could concede that spitting in front of his own kind might be embarrassing.
Varen tugged me and headed into the forest. I wondered why we were going so deep.
Still, to beg a cure for a monster, I followed without fuss.
Only after a long walk did Varen stop. He glanced around and faced me.
“How do we do it? You’re just going to spit?”
“What are you talking about. Filthy.”
Varen’s face pinched with disgust at the thought alone.
Mm. Fair. My imagination was one-dimensional. He wasn’t just any dragon—he was a high noble Dravergh; he’d have some other method.
“Then how—huh?”
At some point Varen’s face was right in front of mine. If I stretched my lips, we’d touch.
Before the tail could catch me, I quickstepped back.
“H-hey! What are you doing!”
Like a predator that’d watched prey slip away, he clicked his tongue, regretful.
“My mouth is dry, so saliva won’t come.”
“Then drink water.”
“Therapeutic saliva doesn’t just appear. It needs proper stimulation.”
Liar.
I stared, incredulous, and Varen only shrugged.
“You said you wanted to treat Tymer’s cub.”
“What— you can just spit.”
“I told you, it comes if the tongue is stimulated.”
He lied without a flicker in his face. At this point, annoyance gave way to stubbornness.
Fine, you brat. Have it your way.
“So I just have to stimulate your tongue? Huh? Like this?”
I grabbed the shameless dragon’s face, pried open his mouth, and jammed my fingers in to rummage around.
Despite the rough handling, Varen held his mouth open still. Contrary to my intent, he even looked faintly amused.
But I ended up startling myself at what I found. The dragon’s mouth was truly dry.
“Hey, you said stimulation would bring saliva.”
“Not with your hand.”
“......”
“With the tongue, it might.”
So what you want is for me, to get medicine for a monster cub—
To stimulate your tongue with my tongue. If that isn’t a kiss, what is.
“You... you—!”
Varen’s answer was already decided.
I grabbed the wretch’s hair with both hands. The long strands sliding between my fingers had a gratifying grip.
I put force in as if to scalp him, but Varen didn’t so much as blink.
“You can pull that hard; my hair won’t come out.”
My hands trembled with rage. I glared with everything I had, and he only smiled, at leisure.
I’d thought him an innocent, naïve young dragon. Looking now, he was downright shameless.
“You bastard. How is kissing me all you ever think about?”
“Mm. It’s all I think about.”
The kind of line that leaves you speechless tugged at the back of my neck.
Before my blood pressure could actually drop me, I sorted the situation calmly.
He says therapeutic saliva comes only with tongue-on-tongue stimulation. I had no way to know if that was true. But this was certain:
Varen wanted payment. He was saying he’d treat the cub if I handed over my mouth.
Now the choice was mine.
I could tell this thick-faced dragon to get lost for being filthy and cheap, and kick his rump.
But Tymer’s plea to save her baby still rang in my ears. I could still see the rust embedded deep in the wound.
Caught between neither here nor there, I clutched Varen’s hair and only flushed.
Then Varen’s arms naturally wrapped my waist. At an already close distance, our bodies pressed.
He nudged my stalled choice to one side.
“Didn’t you want to save the cub.”
This vicious, shameless brat.
“...Give it properly. The baby’s badly hurt.”
“Then stimulate me properly.”
Big-headed dragon didn’t concede a single line.
With delight all over his face he leaned in, and I shut my eyes on the thing I couldn’t bear to watch.
The first time was to restore my life force. The second, to heal a monster’s wound. Having to do this again.
No matter that the essence was a dragon, the one holding my waist and tangling tongues was an adult man.
And I was his guardian. What guardian kisses a dependent monster.
“Mm—”
As his tongue slid in, my feelings tangled tighter. It felt like I was doing something filthy; my fists clenched.
To avoid focusing on the vivid sensations, I forced my mind elsewhere. I recited the times tables backwards in my head.
But that hot slab of flesh pushed deep and stirred without finesse until my mind kept going white. Varen, who had never learned # Nоvеlight # to kiss, moved purely on instinct.
