Gods my head hurts.
It's dark out as far as I can tell, but even opening my eyes is somehow painful. My body feels tingly, weak. Nothing moves when I tell it to, and even when I try to my head pulses its resistance and begs me to go back to sleep.
I remember falling asleep, only being conscious long enough to only have seen flashes of light, muffled noises that sound a mile away, and more darkness. I fell asleep before, but I can't this time. There are too many things to do and not enough time for me to do them all.
My head gets dizzy, temporarily blocking out my vision which only makes me want to fall into sleep even more. I'd shake my head awake if I wasn't sure that doing so would only have me hurling up stomach contents and blood. The metallic taste of blood is already in my mouth, and Gods know I hate the taste of bile and blood.
My vision clears up slowly, though the blurriness still sticks to the edge of my vision, only allowing what's directly in front of me to be visible. It's still hard to see with such little light in here...
Where is here, exactly?
I focus on my hands, feeling what's beneath them. It feels like some kind of fabric. Wool? Cashmere? Either way, it's odd. I don't remember wearing nor bringing anything made of wool or cashmere - though I would've paid a pretty gold coin for it. That, and a way out of this fucking forest -
I jolt upright and instantly regret it. My vision goes out again, along with whatever horribly tasting liquid was rotting at the bottom of my stomach. I turn to avoid splattering it all over myself, only turning has me suddenly falling before slamming into the ground.
By the time I'm registering my surroundings once more, my head pounds, my lungs hurt from the vomiting, and my whole body is shaking uncontrollably as my knees and hands struggle to keep me from falling face down in my own filth.
My stomach finally stops contracting, but my lungs still burn and my body is still shaking. I can barely see the dirt beneath my nails, but I do notice that the ground isn't dirt or rock, but wood. Before I can try and lift my head to take in my nearest surroundings, my whole body starts to tilt one way.
I don't even stop myself from falling sideways, thinking that the ground would be a bigger comfort. My body never touches it. Instead, I fall into something warm and strong. I feel an arm wrap around me, and that's all I feel before letting my eyes fall closed.
*****
I wake up what feels like a month later. My head still aches but not as furiously, my body still tingles but not so pointedly, and the wool is still beneath me, though now there's some on top of me as well, tucked beneath my arm. I'm on my side this time rather than on my back, and one arm is folded beneath the pillow under my head.
I open my eyes. The edges of my vision are still blurry, but I can see enough to find a blurry fireplace, a small table, and wood paneling of what must be a house of some sort. There's a window, only showing the azure blue sky and a few cirrus clouds.
The sun's setting and I have no idea what day it is.
I test my limbs, flexing and stretching in slow, small movements. I won't go far, but I only need to sit up. I use both arms to lift my torso, stopping halfway when my head goes light. My vision stays, thank the Saints, and I keep going slowly until I'm sitting up. Out of breath but up and mostly conscious.
That's when I notice that I'm on some kind of sofa, old and worn. The fire's warmth suddenly feels as if it's in my body and I throw the blanket off. My feet hit the comforting cold ground and I sit for a moment, feeling every inch of me go heavy and feel as if I couldn't even snap a twig. I wait for my stomach to quiet and my heart to settle before turning my neck which is sore too, to see about the room.
It's a cabin. No doorways except two, one leading outside, the other to a bedroom, most likely. The kitchen is open, its countertops filled with plants, fruits, vegetables, bowls, meat, and knives laying next to some cut and crushed herbs. Nothing smells as if something's been made recently, nor does it look like someone's been here in a while. Just the tang of the fire burning and the whisper of pine from the forest.
The fire's dying slowly, the wood halfway burned. There's no other furniture, no pictures or signs of the space being occupied by a family. Whoever lives here lives alone, and they've been healing me.
I glance down and find I'm not wearing a shirt...or pants. All my warning systems go off, trying to feel any kind of hint that whoever has been helping me, has also been violating me. Nothing feels off or strange or sore, and I'm pretty sure I would know if they've been down there. Or at least I hope I do. I mean I still have my undergarments on, but they're thin pieces of fabric. Anyone who can get me out of my disgusting clothes that have hardened in some areas and stayed abnormally soft in others can slip off a tiny piece of fabric.
I lean over and yank the blanket back over my lower half, taking another look around the room to make sure there's still no one there. The scars on my stomach and arms have sealed nicely, and the ones on my back don't ooze unnatural liquids anymore. I can even feel the slight tug of neat stitches when I pull my shoulder forward.
My skin is still sickly pale, but my fingernails aren't so blue and purple as I remember them being. They still look Gods awful, but nails take longer to grow back, and the blood clots and scabs will protect the tender tissue there for now.
I touch my face, finding it clean and patched up as well. My lips are less cracked, my nose is no longer dry and my eyes are no longer itchy. I can feel bags beneath them that are most likely an ugly bluish-purple. Even my hair which was once a rat's nest of a not is brushed through and smelling of coconut and honey. Where in heathens did they get coconut and honey? I couldn't even find a single blueberry.
I look down at the small table in front of me, finding a slightly bloody towel hanging off the edge of a bowl full of water. There are two smaller bowls next to it. A mortar and pestle with some kind of a grayish paste in it, and another with a needle and thread sitting in a clear liquid. Likely something to keep them sanitized.
I hear dirt crunch beneath a pair of footsteps outside, getting louder and louder with each step. It soon turns to a thud as they climb the steps leading to the door, and then the door opens. A man in a dark coat and hood walks in, a pack held in his hand, a longbow and quiver across his back, and a few knives peeking out at his waistline. I try getting a look at his face, only he completely ignores my presence and keeps his back to me as he enters and heads to the kitchen.
I debate sneaking up on him, but his every step makes the floor creak and groan despite his quiet feet that don't go with his rather large form. He's a large male. Wide-set shoulder, likely six foot four, and large, strong hands from what I can see. The length and thickness of the longbow indicate he's a stronger man as well. Heathens, he could probably shoot as far as four hundred yards-
Saints. He's the Sulus Umbra. The shadow that's been following and watching me from the trees. The stranger that helped me escape the Fiend.
My memories start coming back. His arrow sinking into the Fiend's eye and pinning Hiss to the wall. Him taking on the brute Fiend and me having to save his ass, only for him to leave me to fall off the cliff. He found me in the forest and cut off my clothes...dear Gods. I remember what he looks like. The silver hair, green eyes, absolute fucking ripped body...
Meanwhile, I look like I went through a fucking cheese grater. Fuck my life.
I pull the blanket all the way around me as I watch him toss his bow and arrow and pack on the dining table, and his coat on the chair. To my disappointment, he's wearing a looser long sleeve today.
He goes to the counter, his back to me, and pulls up his sleeves to start skinning the rabbit. My stomach starts to make its current emptiness known, and I decide to try my current strength and stand. It takes a few tries of rocking my body back and forth before I actually get up. My legs nearly buckle, but I grab hold of the couch before I fall to the ground.
Pulling the blanket around my shoulders, I take a breath and start walking. The floorboards creak and shift under my own feet despite the weight loss. He likely knew I was awake when he walked in here, so I don't see a point in trying to sneak up on him and put a knife to his throat. That and the fact that he could probably easily overpower me in my current state.
This blanket isn't necessarily an ideal cover-up. I mean it only goes to my mid-thigh, and I'm only ever this exposed when I'm bathing, and that's usually always in private or with Rohana who's busy venting to care for my nakedness, but I've seen all my sister's bodies and them mine, it's nothing new or unusual. This is definitely outside of my comfort zone, but he's been seeing and healing my body for...however long, so it's not necessarily a necessity that my body be covered.
I make it to the island in the kitchen and grab hold of it for support before I fall over.
Saints he's got everything. Tomatoes, strawberries, cucumber, mint, blueberries...everything freshly gathered. The herbs and plants lay on one side of the island, along with vials of different colored liquids and another mortar and pestle. I sniff a few, perplexed as to what they are. They're nothing I've smelled before, which makes me question what it is, exactly, that he's been putting into my body. I'm grateful that it's working, but what is it?
I snatch a few berries while ensuring that his back is still turned. Saints I've missed them. Their sweetness and their juice that make my mouth water more and more. I even take a piece of tomato and shove it in my mouth. I keep swiping food as I make my way around the island, and let me tell you, trying to keep in my moans from starvation is an incredibly hard thing to do. I don't know if I'm allowed to eat his things, but he was kind of an asshole when we first met, so we'll call it compensation.
I peek around him and watch him skin the rabbit. He's fairly quick with his work, easily getting one leg done in a minute. I get distracted by a plate of biscuits that sits on the counter to his left. I debate whether or not to try to be stealthy about it, but I've been standing here for more than a minute and he heard me walking over here, so there's really no point.
I eye him for a second more before reaching for the biscuits, only to be stopped by him slapping my hand away. "Ow! I just want one!"
He gives me an unreadable glare before going back to his rabbit. I reach again, and he slaps me away. "What the fuck? Can I not have one?" He doesn't answer, which only annoys me further. "Have you forgotten how to speak?"
He still doesn't say anything, so I lean my back against the edge of the countertop and look up at him with crossed arms. "I may be injured and slightly disoriented, but I'm not stupid. I know you know how to speak my language, Pepito." He glares, which means I'm getting somewhere, and he clearly does understand me.
"Speaking of which, how long was I out for? A day? A few days? A cycle? Two cycles? For Saint's sake. Look. I have an important message for an important someone that I need to deliver in a rather small deadline, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd help me out just one more time, and tell me how long I was out, and in what direction I can find some kind of civilization in this hell hole."
He doesn't give me so much as a glance.
"There's a war about to begin - a war which will burn everyone and everything in this world unless you help me and my own rulers fight to put out the spark before it turns into an unstoppable force. Trust me, the man behind it won't spare you or any child. He'll just feed him to his creatures and watch you beg before torturing you to death. Slowly. This is important, and it's not something I can ignore, and - for Saint's sake will you put the fucking rabbit down for one fucking second!"
He drops the knife and rabbit, but he just turns around and starts chopping up the other tomatoes. I get angry, and before I can stop it my power rises in my chest and makes the knife in his hand disappear. He stops, searching his hand for the knife that was just there. He isn't too fazed and reaches for another. Half a thought and that one's gone before he can touch it too. He keeps reaching and I keep taking them until I get fed up and snap my fingers. Everything on the counters is now gone. Including the biscuits.
His own anger has every muscle in his body clenching. He yanks his coat from the chair and heads for the door. "Where are you going?"
He reaches for the door, so I turn it into a wall. A second later one of his knives flies for my head. I catch it and send it back, followed by another I formed. He catches the first and ducks beneath the second. We go back and forth another time, me ignoring the pull of the stitches at my shoulder and the tightness against my ribs. The bones must still be trying to heal, but it's his fault that they're likely spiderweb cracking.
"Gods just fucking talk to me!" I yell, chucking another two. There are five lodged in the wall behind him, another three in the cabinets behind me. "Is that so much to ask - ah! Fuck!"
One of his smaller blades lands in my left thigh and I fall to the ground. Everything I made disappear reappears, only it all comes back jumbled and wrong, which means everything either fell to the ground or on the countertops and made a big mess.
There's a curse and then the sound of running footsteps.
"Fucker."
I stretch out my leg and don't even think about it before yanking out the blade and throwing it aside. Blood starts pouring out as he comes around the island. I start putting pressure on the wound while he opens a few drawers before finding what he needs.
"Why is it that everyone on this stupid continent has to give me some kind of fucking wound." He leans down and lifts my hand off my thigh before putting a clean cloth on it and putting my hand back over it. He puts one arm behind my back and the other beneath my knees. Normally, I'd sock him in the jaw and tell him that I'm no damsel who needs a knight to carry her to safety, but he just seems so frantic about having injured me that I don't stop him.
I still hate him for not letting me have a biscuit though. This could've all been avoided if he had just let me have one.
He carries me back to the couch and sits me down. Then he goes to the kitchen and comes back with a strip of cloth. I let him tie it above the wound, biting my tongue when he tightens it to slow the bleeding. I let him move my hand and the cloth, replacing it with the wet one from the bowl. My leg twitches at his touch, and I keep my hands hidden in the blanket I'm still deathly clutching to so that he doesn't see how tightly they grip it. My nails would be digging into my palm if I still had them.
The pain isn't that bad, but my leg still shakes on its own, weak from the toxin and the overtime my body is now doing with so many wounds and the last of the venom in it. His touch is gentler as he tries to clear most of the blood away. It's not going to stop, but at least you can see the width and how deep it is now. It's nowhere near one of the worst wounds I've gotten, but it's always the small ones that hurt the most.
"Is this why you know so much about healing? Because you stab everyone who tries to eat your biscuits?" He glances up at me. I suppose it's meant to be a glare, but there's too much concern in his eyes for him to hate my attitude.
I'm allowed to be mad. He fucking put a knife in my thigh.
He moves onto the gray paste, stirring it a bit before dipping his finger in. I look skeptically at it as he lowers it to the wound. There's only a small smear of it on when it starts to burn. I catch his wrist before he keeps going. "That fucking hurts."
He looks at me blankly, then raises an eyebrow when I still won't let go of his wrist. It's like he's saying, "do you want it to heal, or not?"
I definitely hate him.
I let go of his wrist and take a deep breath as I turn towards the fire. I've been through worse, felt worse pain than a sting that won't last too long. Hopefully. I try distracting myself, thinking about what Rohana would say if she saw me now. None of it works though, and my whole body tenses when he continues to smear the paste into the wound.
"Motherfucker."
It feels like hours before he's done, and by that time I'm pretty sure that I'm going to pass out again, only I find him threading the small thread through the needle when I go to check my new wound. I groan in dread, knowing that this is going to hurt. I may be immortal, but stitches are still a bitch. He looks up at me in askance.
"Just get it the fuck over with," I groan, and let my head fall back to rest on the edge of the couch.
I stare up at the ceiling, covering my mouth with my hands which are still wrapped in the edges of the blanket as he threads in and out. Each stitch is more painful than the last, and the tenderness of it doesn't help as he pulls the two sides of the skin together. This wouldn't normally phase me, but this on top of the bite, scratches, ribs, illness, and the cold, makes its entirely worse.
Soon enough it's done, and he wipes away the rest of the blood and access paste. I look down at it, impressed with the stitching and how it looks so nice despite my leg still shaking. Fucking thing won't stop. It's annoying the shit out of me.
"Gods and their Saints. Next time, I'm letting Rohana take the hard mission. Thank you," I say quickly, feeling bad that I threw a few knives at him when he's done nothing but care for me and keep me alive.
"I didn't mean to make you angry. I'm sorry about your food too, I've been told that I'm rather obnoxious when I'm hungry - though to be fair, I haven't eaten in at least a cycle. Fucking forest hates me," I mutter more to myself than him, but a corner of his lip twitches up.
Part of me wants to tease him for it, but I somehow find a way to hold my tongue. He moves his finger in a circular motion, and I squint at him in question. He just does it again. I suppose my poor effort to get him to talk isn't going to work. I turn around, knowing that he's asking me to because some of the stitches he put in my shoulder are torn. I should probably apologize about getting blood on his blanket too.
Later, I decide. When I get a biscuit.
The shoulder doesn't hurt as much as my leg did, which most likely means that it's healing properly. He checks my ribs too, and I let him, along with tilting my chin up to look at my throat. My voice is back for the most part, but after yelling I can feel my vocal cords aching. My throat must still be bruised. He touches one part that still seems to be really tender and I flinch. He stops after that, picking up the bowls and towels and going back to the kitchen. I try to follow him but he gives me a look that suggests he'll tie me down if he has to. I don't blame him, I
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