He sleeps. For a while.

But eventually he does wake up. His head missed the pillow and there are smears of blood and ash on the blanket wherever he touched it. He sighs regretfully at them.

There's a tray with what looks like breakfast, sitting on the bedside table. Scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, strawberries...

It smells delicious.

...

"Nice castle."

He sits up and sighs again at the general state of himself and takes a minute to make himself substantially more clean and slightly more dressed, and then he starts in on breakfast.

Tastes delicious, too.

No traps appear from underneath the toast.

How nice.

Okay. He gets up. He tries to clean the blanket; it doesn't quite work, but it's at least an improvement. He walks around to the other side of the bed and stares down at the girl.

...

"Am I actually supposed to kiss you."

No answer is forthcoming from the comatose girl.

The castle is also silent.

"Fine."

He leans down and gives her a peck on the cheek.

Nothing happens.

Sigh.

Okay, okay. He kisses her on the mouth. But he'd better not have to make a production of it.

Silence -

Then she inhales, eyelids fluttering. Clumsily, weak as a kitten, she raises a hand to rub at her face.

"Mmnh, what...?" she murmurs, drowsily.

Mildly disgruntled stranger standing over her in unfamiliar sleepwear, that's what!

He turns away as she wakes, looking for where he put his sword. It's kind of important not to leave that thing lying around. Someone might touch it.

She blinks at him, confusedly.

Then she eyes the bedroom. "... Can we not, with the cliche overdone romantic lighting," she mumbles, groggily.

The lighting promptly becomes much more sensible.

"Yay." She closes her eyes again and makes a wordless sound of protest at waking up.

Snort. Oh, there's his sword. He picks it up - it has graciously refrained from doing anything nasty to the floor - and sits down to remake its sheath, which is probably at the bottom of a canal right now.

The girl indulges in another few heartbeats of rest, then begrudgingly sits up, peering sleepily at Siran.

"You know," she says, "while 'stranger with a sword standing over me ominously' isn't the best wake up in the world, you're being very non-threatening about it. So, um. Thanks for that."

"You're welcome," he says absently, most of his attention on the sword.

She watches curiously, not interrupting a second time.

Nothing much happens for a minute, and then a sheath shimmers into existence, hiding the sword's unsettlingly wavery blade. He relaxes and looks up at her.

"Good morning."

"Good morning. Um. Might I ask - what the fuck."

"There was some sort of enormous serpent yelling about how I was going to steal his bride, is that informative at all?"

Slow blink.

"... Overly posh accent, creepily possessive of me, bit of a prick, not great at cause and effect?"

"Can't comment on the accent, I'm in translation and you lose some nuance that way, but the rest is right on the mark."

"That prick," she hisses. "Where is he, can I borrow your sword, if he's not dead I will make him wish he was."

"Yeah I already took care of that. And my sword's a bit temperamental, I wouldn't recommend touching it."

"Oh. All right. Thank you." She looks pensively at her lap. "How long was I - asleep, do you know?"

"...Centuries at least. Probably a lot more than that."