It's only then, when he finally calms, however miserably, that Jedao disgorges him gently back onto the stone. All the places Fives has bled - his wrists and ankles, the claw marks, even the scrape on his cheek - throb and tingle slightly, but with strangely little pain. A smaller, rougher tongue laps at the places, only one at a time, and Jedao seems to have folded into something smaller, now, a jumble of folded limbs settled between Fives' sprawled legs.

And there is, now, light: a collection of lambent yellow eyes, gleaming in the dark. It's not enough to make out Jedao's shape by, but it is something other than black.

"I will take care of you," he promises softly, fiercely. "I may be wicked and brutal, but I am all you have, now. And you are fierce, and glorious, and clever and brave and devoted. And you are not devoted to me, but you are all I have."