“What sort of fool wanders this deep into the woods while wounded and then claims he just needs a nap of all things!” Erich growled as he hastily swept their first aid supplies into a satchel.

::Sounds like someone after your heart,:: Alexis said, stepping forward and stretching her neck and wings up to let him drop the satchel around her body. She huffed and shook herself to settle it in place, then turned to leave the small shelter. ::Now, less grousing, more saving your newest charity case.::

“He’s not— I do not have charity cases!” Erich protested, following his mate out the door and letting his human-like form fade away. Swan once more, he stretched his wings and launched himself after Alexis, pushing himself to catch up with her before she made it too far across the lake. ::Ren and Mami just needed a safe place to stay! I didn’t do a damn thing except show them where they could live!::

::Keep telling yourself that,:: Alexis said primly as she landed on the shore near the stranger. Her body blurred as she shed her swan-form and knelt at the man’s side. “Come, help me take a look.”

::He’s in a bad way,:: Erich said as landed by the man’s head and retook his human-like form. He folded his wings back and leaned forward, working his arms under the man’s torso and carefully lifting him up. Erich braced the man against his chest with one arm and reached down with the other, helping Alexis pull the man’s blood-soaked jinbei away from his wounds.

The man groaned and his pale eyes fluttered open, clouded with pain and confusion. “What..?”

“Shh, shh,” Erich murmured, arcing one great white wing upwards to shield them all from the sun. “You’re safe. We have you.”

An unnerving sharpness grew in the man’s gaze as he stared up at Erich’s face, then over to his spread wing. “Never thought I’d meet an angel,” he mused, lifting a trembling, bloody hand towards Erich’s wing. Before he could touch it though, he sighed and dropped his hand back to his side. “Interesting hallucination,” he muttered, head lolling against Erich’s feathered shoulder and eyes drifting closed again. “Don’t know why you’d want to save a man like me, angel-san.”

“Trust me, there’s nothing angelic about us,” Erich told the man with amusement, then tilted his head at Alexis in question, wondering what her verdict was.

She wrinkled her nose at him and sat up, pulling open their satchel and beginning to dig through it with a determined air. “Bad is an understatement,” she said while setting out a few supplies. “What in the world did you get on the wrong side of?”

The man huffed but didn’t open his eyes. “Hollows,” he admitted readily enough. “Ones smart enough to use hostages.”

Erich grimaced and traded a speaking look with Alexis. The man couldn’t have traveled far with wounds like this. That there had been Hollows so close and no one had noticed…

“I’ll start a patrol sweep as soon as we’re done here,” Alexis said brusquely while mixing some disinfectant with distilled water. “Now hold still, I need to clean these wounds out.”

“Wha—ah!” The man hissed and flinched away, expression twisting in pain as Alexis began to work.

Alexis’ narrow-eyed glance made Erich clear his throat with an awkward half-smile. He knew what she wanted him to do — what he should do — but her joking comment about the man being his charity case aside…

(Humans and swan-kin had a… history. A long history. A bloody history.)

(A history of stolen brides and enslaved youths, of being hunted for their skins and for their skills.)

(Did he dare chance it?)

Another sharp look from Alexis, accompanied by the man’s pained noises, decided him. He’d begun this with his decision to help and he would not allow the man to die now.

Erich straightened up and let his lungs fill, concentrating on healing-safety-strength, and sang. Power sank into the man’s body and set to work undoing the damage done, concentrating in the deep gashes in his side and rippling out from there. The shadowy threads of Hollow taint burned away under Erich’s strength and the wounds began to knit closed, repairing under Erich’s direction.

The man stilled in his arms, body relaxing as the pain faded away, and stared up at him in surprise. “That’s… different,” he murmured. “Your voice is pretty…”

Alexis snickered and set to cleaning off the man’s side, washing away the lingering blood and debris. “He does sing well, doesn’t he?” she asked, hands gentle against his side and fingers carefully angled so her claws couldn’t cut him. “Count yourself lucky, human, my mate rarely sings for anyone outside our family.”

“Ooh?” The man gave him a weak grin. “My, what a privilege, angel-san.”

He ruffled his wings and shot Alexis a dark look, but didn’t cease singing. Instead, he refocused on sleep-dreams-healing and let his song drift into a softer one. Tired as the man was — and saturated as he already was with Erich’s song-driven power — it only took a verse before his eyes began to close and his breathing started to even out.

Alexis hummed a few notes in harmony with him, reinforcing his song as she finished her ministrations and sat back to wash her hands clean. “We’ll need to take him to Ren and Mami so he can rest,” she said as she considered the now shallower wounds. “Hold him out more so I can pad and wrap these.”

Erich let his song fade away but didn’t yet move the man, staring down at his sleeping face. Whims aside, the man was dangerous; his survival against Hollows said as much, as did the well of power deep in his soul.

“Dear-heart?” Alexis murmured in concern, swaying forward to peer at him.

“I could finish healing him and we could leave him here,” he suggested without meeting her eyes. “We wouldn’t need to involve them.”

“We could,” she agreed gently, reaching out a hand to brush the backs of her claws against his cheek. “But he will wonder, my star, and you know what curiosity does to a soul. He will wander the lake-shore until he finds his answers or fades from the world, you know this.”

He sighed and leaned into her touch, knowing the truth of her words. He’d made an impression on the man, and if the man woke with his wounds healed and no one around to take credit… well. It would be strange if he didn’t become curious about whoever healed him.

“We can stay with them till he wakes, and if he proves to be a danger we can deal with him then.”

Erich shook his head and settled back, adjusting his grip on the man to give Alexis space to work. “If we handle it right, perhaps he won’t be,” he said, watching Alexis wrap the man’s wounds. “But… perhaps we should sing Concealment once he leaves.”

She gave him a thoughtful look as she tucked in the ends of the bandage. “It is a traditional way to protect ourselves,” she murmured with a small frown. “Do you think it wise, though? If he tries to return, he’ll notice the oddity.”

“Why would he want to return?” Erich shuffled his feet, wrapped his arms around the man’s chest, and braced himself to rise. He needed to wait for Alexis to finish packing before they could do anything, but there was no reason why he couldn’t prepare. “Not many people return to visit strangers, even if those strangers helped them.”

“He called you an angel. I don’t think he’s going to be so easily deterred,” she said with amusement, moving to squat between the man’s legs so she could grab behind the man’s knees. “Ready.”

“I doubt he meant anything by that,” Erich said with a huff, tightening his grip on the man’s wrists and adjusting his crouch one last time. “Right. On three. One, two, three.” Erich moved in sync with his mate, both of them standing and lifting the man from the ground.

The man was heavier than Erich — than both of them — expected, and it took a moment for them to adjust their grips so they wouldn’t drop him. They set out once he was stable, keeping a steady pace as they rounded the lake and made for Ren and Mami’s home.

“Ren-san! Mami-san!” Alexis shouted as they approached. “Got a visitor for you!”

Erich snorted and nodded at Ren as they appeared around the corner of the house. “A visitor she says, as we carry his unconscious body to your door.”

Ren’s lips thinned and their eyes squinted almost shut, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. It took a moment for them to get themself under control so they could dryly say, “Well, he is visiting, albeit under unfortunate circumstances.”

“Ren-san’s the best,” Alexis announced, then smiled at Mami as she slid open the door to the house and hurried to their side. “Mami-san, you chose an incredible mate, I’m almost jealous.”

Mami smiled fondly and shook her head, gesturing for the two of them to carry the man in. “So you tell me every time. Ren, will you duck in and set up the old futon?”

Ren nodded and slipped past them, disappearing down the hallway to take care of it.

Erich just focused on keeping hold of the man as they navigated the couple of steps into the home. His arms were starting to tire and his webbed, bird-like feet were certainly not made to support this sort of weight, not like human feet were; he should have shifted into his full human form, but then he’d have had to traverse open ground with bare human feet, not something he enjoyed.

(At least he had some protection with his more bird-like feet.)

Ren ushered them into the guest room and stepped aside, giving them space to kneel and lower the man onto the futon. “Does he need more healing?”

Erich rubbed at his wrists and sat back, singing a few wordless notes in query before transitioning into the full song of recovery for a verse. The man’s wounds hadn’t worsened much, but Erich didn’t want to risk it, not with how wounded he’d been at the start.

“He’ll recover,” Alexis announced after a brief trill of her own. “Let him heal naturally from here on.” She stood up and stretched, wings extending as far as possible in the small room before snapping closed once more. “I’m going hunting,” she told Ren when their friend sent her a questioning look. “We didn’t sense whatever Hollow did this to him, so I want to make certain there are no others around.”

“Winds guide you. Return safe to us,” Ren murmured, inclining their head in a shallow bow.

Alexis nodded. “I will. I plan to rouse my Flight so we may patrol together.”

“I will stay,” Erich said with a final glance at the unconscious man. With his mate leaving to investigate, it was his duty to remain behind and assure the safety of their human flock members.

“I’ll get some tea started and you can join us for a cup,” Mami said with a warm smile. “It’s been so long since either of you have visited!”

Erich huffed and followed the others from the room, sliding the door closed behind him. “It’s only been two weeks, hardly as long as it could be,” he offered with faint amusement, before ruffling his wings and brushing the leading edge against Alexis’ side. “Hunt well and swiftly, my mate.”

“They won’t know what hit them,” Alexis said, baring jagged, needle-fine teeth. “Do try not to captivate the man further while I’m gone, dear-heart.”

“But Erich-san is a very captivating person,” Ren teased as they paused at a small closet and pulled out a spare set of clothing to hand to Erich. “And once you return, why, the poor man will have no chance against your combined wiles!”

He groaned and shook his head, accepting the clothing and tucking it under one arm. “We’re not keeping him,” he admonished Ren. “When he wakes up, we will send him on his way and that will be that.” Ren and Mami shared an amused look that made Erich hiss at them in affront. “We are not and that’s final.”

Alexis laughed, pressed a brief kiss to his cheek, and then headed to the door. “As you say my love, as you say. I will see you when I have satisfied myself that the area is safe.”

“Traitors,” he muttered without heat, giving Ren and Mami an exasperated look. “I don’t know why I put up with any of you.”

“Because you care for us, why else?” Mami asked with a cheerful laugh, before shooing him towards the bathroom. “Now go on and shed your feathers, unless you want to reveal yourself as swan-kin to our new guest.”

Erich huffed and went.