lukeoutbelow | Do not be afraid of light

Do not be afraid of light

They smelled the battlefield long before they saw it. The apprentices and little Sisters who hadn't been on this kind of excursion before covered their noses and exclaimed. Vena didn't. As the child of a camp follower she would know to expect this, but her tread slowed and she looked repeatedly at Sister Lashan, especially as the sound of incredible numbers of crows cawing grew louder.

"Nasty, isn't it? Decay is part of death which is part of life," Lashan said firmly, if not totally without sympathy. How young had she been, the last time she was upset by the aftermath of battle? "There's armies that immediately turn around and sort the living from the dying from the dead and take care of that then and there. Not here, they're leaving it for the locals to handle or not and we're local enough. If you fight, you may well fight for people who'll leave you if you fall and move on. Make sure you at least have friends who'll look for you." They pressed on with their wagon. The donkey put its ears back but did not balk.

It wasn't as bad as it would get over the next few days. The bodies - it was now academic who had belonged to which side of whichever meaningless conflict this was - were not much bloated and decayed yet. Flies were not yet overwhelming. Right now the field of bodies was mostly attended by carrion birds, and various other birds that were willing to take advantage of the bounty before them. Finches among them, tiny beaks dipped red. A few other people could be seen picking their way across what had been a perfectly useable pasture. They kept clear. Lashan tasked girls to keep watch for them anyway, pretended not to see the ones who were being sick, and oversaw as dead men were loaded onto the donkeycart. They'd take them away a distance, say the rites, strip them of useful things, get them buried, and come back.

She paused. Something... like a sound. Not a sound. Lashan was hearing something with her mind, closer than the pickers. A threat? She stood like a sentinel and paid attention.

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There she goes. The crazy old lady and her obsession with horses. Maybe the cold was getting to her. Or maybe it was getting to him, since some of the lanterns had a bizarrely colored fire in them.

"I'm fine," he replies flatly,"Aside from being stuck in the rain."

Guts was a mirror of Lashan in that way, apparently. He would have said he was fine even if he was in much worse condition, if the previous fight was any indication. As it was, his face was a bit pale from the cold, but not nearly as gray as Lashan had gotten. The blanket had stayed his wet trembling, and he seemed rather attached to it. The cloth concealed much of the beatdown his body received, and he wasn't about to explain how his head still hurt as ferociously as his ribs did.

The uncomfortable itchiness around his leg does get him to notice a shard or two of horn embedded in his thigh. His legs were sparingly armored compared to his upper body, and tended to be nicked with small wounds more often. Thoughtlessly, he sets aside the clay cup (now devoid of warm drink) and fiddles with the things to attempt to pluck them out. They were more thorn than arrow in shape, so he wasn't too worried about bleeding out.

Edited 2022-09-25 09:23 (UTC)

"A bear?" Everyone turns to look, though after seeing that Guts isn't actively in several pieces, and after noticing the big now-stiff paw he brought with him, they mostly turn back to Lashan, rather to her displeasure. This is too much fuss over her.

This does leave Guts with two women peering at him trying to see if he's bleeding out or about to die and a third who decides to just examine the pieces of his armor and Lashan's irreparably stained, sodden shirt and forensically determine that most of the blood probably isn't his. One of the two, suspecting he won't like to be helped, offers him a pair of little bronze tweezers before slipping out of the wagon, into the rain. If anything it's gotten worse out there. The rain appears to be sideways and makes a steady, constant noise against the canvas.

The tweezers will make it easier, but it hurts to pull these things free. The really unfortunate thing about this Healing charm is that the scabs cling to the foreign objects like he's left them for longer than a few hours, and there's more bleeding as those are taken off. It's also kind of satisfying though. The spikes are disgusting, sort of hairy at the non-sharp end.

"Do you want to wash off?" the forensic Sister asks. "Or are you too wet already?" This spurs a small side argument with the other girl about blood in the bathhouse and if this is worse than moon-blood.

“What the hell…?” He mutters to himself, wondering how his wounds had dried up so quickly in the soaking wet rain. What was in that milk they gave him?

Guts curls up into a ball beneath his blanket once he checks his legs for the fourth or fifth time to make sure there were no more thorns embedded in them. They still itched like a scab as the wounds spilled over slowly with bright red. Hopefully it wasn’t infected from the rancid creature.

He earnestly felt too miserable to say something smart back to the girls, eyes drooping half-shut with weariness. His face looked okay, beyond a few scuffs and the ebbing sharpness in his eyes. The adrenaline of the fight had worn off, leaving him with a rich buffet of burning and aching. A post-fighting drink (a real drink) would do a lot better for him now, he thinks.

“The bath’s for washing the blood off, ain’t it?” He says, not considering the particular Enclave Sister that would have to take care of the aftermath.

"I mean, you're fastidious as a cat, usually," the young woman says, put on the spot. She's noticed that he is shirtless and caught a couple of glances as he's shifted the blanket around, enough to reassure herself that he's bruised but everything seems to be in the right place. Past that she's just carefully not staring. It's hard to know how to treat The Boy but she knows she shouldn't ogle him when he's beat up and exhausted. "...We could just bring a bucket of hot water to the infirmary though?"

In her corner Lashan is complaining some more. Someone has told her she's getting taken to the temple. "I am not that badly off! Just drop me at my loft and I'll come let children poke at me in the morning."

"You're not climbing into that drafty loft with this knee," someone tells her. "It's the infirmary or the temple, Sister, they'll both be warm and dry."

Fastidious as a cat? He looks at the Sister with a flattened, weary expression, unsure if it was an insult (overly fastidious??) or a compliment. His head was still swimming too much to determine the answer. So he melts further still into his pile of blanket until his face is half-obscured by it. All that's left is one long leg extended haphazardly accross the cart, the other folded up with the rest of him.

"Warm water would be nice..." he admits, voice muffled through the bundle. A thoughtless wish tossed into the air in earnest. Too hot and his body will ache and throb, too cold and he'll be miserable and shivering.

It was hard to make out the infirmary from the village gate, but he catches a glimpse of the familiar arrangement of lanterns through the sheets of rain. So much for being kicked out. Guess he'd be roommates with that apothecary witch for longer than she'd like.

The Sister tells her companion something and this girl, too, darts out into the pounding rain, arms crossed over her head as an inadequate shield against it. The wagon comes to a stop outside of the infirmary and a couple of sturdy women, argued out of actually carrying Lashan, submit to her arms going over their shoulders and help her out of the wagon and inside. Galli makes her escape quietly, back towards the teen dormitories. That leaves the boy.

When he's exhausted and baffled Guts is not terribly strange or frightening. He seems, in fact, not unlike one of the girls. Sister Faler wavers and then, knowing she'll probably regret this, says "We're here. I'll bet it's hard to move now that you've stopped. You can lean on me." She will go red in the face and make an involuntary noise like a protesting kitten if she has to bear too much weight - the spirit is willing, the flesh is a weaver! - but is game for a short distance.

Being away from the sword with its Healing charm makes the sort of feverish aspect diminish and the pain increase. That could just as easily be having to get up and step down out of the wagon and be pelted by cold rain and have to climb the few steps into the familiar infirmary, though.

"Oh dear, and you just recovered," the Sister Apothecary says soon after Guts comes in. She's supervising as other Sisters work something into Lashan's shoulder and wrist and just glances back at him, more of her attention on the older woman. "Were you bitten? Clawed enough to break the skin? I need to know what salve to give you."

Crowding in after Guts, a skinny girl comes huffing and blowing with two buckets of water from the bathhouse. "I did it," she tells Faler. "You owe me."

The offered hand was really for him? "... Oh, thanks."

As she guessed, it takes a little wind-up time for Guts to find his legs from his comfortable position in the wagon. He's dense for his size, earning that protesting peep from Faler when he steps out onto the mud, grasping for the point of stability.

"Sorry." he remarks sheepishly. Once his two feet were planted on the ground, he's able to ease the wobble in his step and walk on his own. He lags behind Lashan at his own pace, aches gradually increasing and throbbing painfully. He didn't pay it too much attention as he stepped through the door. The discomfort was a familiar one.

The infirmary is busy, again, and he has nothing he can give the Apothecary but a shrug at her observation. Yep. He'd just left that morning. Not even a day had passed and he was back under her roof again with more work to give her. At least this time, he had a trophy to show for it.

"It's nothing. Just got some scratches and scrapes." he replies, parting the blanket open like a cape so she could get a look. "Head hurts, though."

The lacerations on his skin were minor, small streaks of red that had scabbed over. The result of being dragged accross rocky gravel or shards of wood jammed into gaps in his armor. The punctures from the horns were among the worst of it.

The bruises on his chest and shoulders looked uglier, mottled patterns of deep red and purple. The blotches mostly followed along the edges of the plate armor where it had been slammed against his skin. The bruising of his ribs radiated from the bottom, the bottom edge of the armor. Being thrown around by such a large creature had done its number on him, but the plate metal had spared him lethal injuries. Nothing seemed to be irreparably broken.

Faler sucks in a breath in a sympathetic hiss. This gets others to look, and yes that's some spectacular bruising that shows the extent of his armor, but Guts is, also, in possession of rather more extensive musculature than is at all usual for a fifteen-year-old. Few people present have seen anything like him. Lashan picks up on one girl's mouth dropping open and smacks her on the back of the head, rasping, "Brat! Keep your eyes in your head."

Everyone is suddenly quite busy and looking at anything else. The Sister Apothecary is intent on Guts in a much more detached, clinical way and ignores all that, inspecting him gravely, rising on her toes to look into his eyes, asking if the blood in his ears is his and how many fingers she's holding up. At last she says, "I don't know if you're the luckiest boy in the world or the most deeply unfortunate." Just like Lashan had had a funny look when he'd survived, there's some change in this Sister's manner. She is impressed and a little unnerved. "You're going to be fine with rest. I'll make you a willow tincture for the pain. Use this for a sponge if you want to clean the blood off - don't let it in your eyes, though."

She's rummaged for a little cheesecloth bag filled with sweet-smelling ground herbs and offers it to him. Faler's tugged a folding screen open to enclose a corner. It's a wooden frame with cloth panels - there are similar dividers in the bathhouse, but they're carved wood - painted with water lilies and goggle-eyed fish. Guts is already tall enough that the top of his head would be visible behind the screen, but that's it. There's a basin there to stand in, and one of the buckets of sulfur-tinged warm spring water with a big dipper in it, like in the rinsing-off section of the bathhouse. Faler also drapes a drying cloth over the screen and has to rummage through general supplies to find a robe that might be big enough.

Guts thought he would get used to the staring a week in, but girls always find a way to make him feel … weird? Embarrassed? He is more accustomed to being dismissed for being a lone whelp with no status to speak of.

Avoiding the peanut gallery to focus on the Sister Apothecary instead, he answers her questions agreeably enough as she examines the injuries with a practiced eye and hand. She was right, in the end. He was incredibly lucky to only be battered rather than dead. It wouldn’t be the first time a surgeon has told him this. The change in her expression was notable as she says this, but he figures there’s no sense no dwelling on it. He would risk his life again soon enough. That was his line of work, after all.

The boy simply nods and takes the herbs, giving the top of the bag a curious sniff or two.

“Smells nice…” he adds. The Infirmary tended to have plenty of pleasant herbal scents abound. The blood and rot of the battlefield hadn’t infected this place.

On his way to the basin he briefly looks at Lashan, as if wanting to say something, but reconsiders it given the crowd of Sisters around her. Maybe another time.

Faler gets a quiet ‘Thanks’ for her assistance, slipping behind the screen to wash the dried blood off his body. Fastidious as a cat, just as she said.

"This is a place of recovery, I won't have it smelling like death," he's told primly. The herbs are kept from dispersing by the cheesecloth but stain the water like tea, making a sort of rinse. Even if some diluted blood remains

The Sisters talk quietly on the other side of the divider. Snippets like "-really, a bear?" and "all by himself?" and similar can be heard. Lashan's lower, weary voice carries a little differently. She sketches out what happened without mentioning her part in killing the animal, not being someone who cares about credit, but describes it. "-a minor change-beast, probably a yearling. The growths were all horn-formed and they could only half control it. Those were mostly green men not really prepared to handle it. We caught them with their pants down."

Someone asks a question and she says, "It'd make me think about backing off but I mean, I'm not a lord. What has me the most worried is the blood oath," and then her voice drops a little softer.

The robe Faler ends up flopping over top of the screen is made for late-stage pregnancy. It's tight in the arms and shoulders, and in front wraps around with a whole lot of excess. The fabric is heavier than his borrowed clothes, more absorbent, and smells like cedar from storage.

The Apothecary, now with a distracted air - she's been writing something at her desk - gives him a little ceramic cup of sediment-filled brown liquid. "It's bitter. All at once now and then you can have soup to chase the taste out." 'Bitter' is understating it, but the soup looks good. Someone's set up a pot. Egg noodles, chopped carrots and turnips and fennel, butterfat shining on the top. Lashan's striker is bullying her into drinking a bowl of broth, she would clearly rather rest.

The hushed voices carry beyond the dividers, though Guts does nothing to gloat about the victory. He still plans on collecting his end of the bargain when Lashan was feeling better. He takes a bit longer than expected, curling up in the standing basin to enjoy the warm water for as long as the heat remained. If he were in the bathhouse proper, he might have sank in for a more indulgent amount, letting the warmth and pleasant herbs make the aches of his body ease up.

The robe disappears behind his side of the cloth panels once he dries himself. The robe fit more awkwardly than Lashan’s hand-me-downs, the sleeves feeling small around his arms while the neckline left more of his chest exposed to the cold air than usual.

He awkwardly gives the sleeves a tug or two, assuring himself that the shoulder seams won’t split if he moves, before realizing in the middle of it how soft the clothing was on his skin. The wooded scent was pleasantly familiar, the smell of lone nights under quiet pine-crossed starfields. Of course, he would also carry an herbal scent with him once he leaves the bath to take the cup of medicine from the Apothecary.

Following her instruction, he tips his head back and downs the entire solution. The flavor is strong enough to make his face twist up in displeasure. Gross.

With the rain drumming on the roof and the murmuring of thunder it's hard to tell the point when the Sisters go from talking quietly to mostly falling silent. By the time Guts emerges some have left and others, sharing cups and bowls, have claimed cots or bedding, preferring to sleep out the storm instead of getting drenched and possibly lost out there. Most of the lanterns have been put out and a small fire has been set in the hearth against the damp chill.

The willow mixture is wetted by some form of alcohol stronger than the weak beers available at most mealtimes here. It burns and leaves a trail of warmth as well as being hideously bitter. The Sister Apothecary, taking the cup back, tells him, "Yes, no one likes that one, but it will have your head feeling better. Drink something else before you go to bed or your mouth will taste like that all night."

There's the soup and there's a steaming pot of another herbal infusion, which owes its deep red color and tartness to hibiscus, that rather overwhelms the other herbs steeping with it. Hibiscus tisane seems rather popular with the girls, who snuffle over their cups of it. Some are already asleep. No one, at least, has claimed the bed Guts has been using.

Looking a bit more his age, Guts frowns miserably as the bad taste sits in his mouth. He’s had his fair share of foul drinks in his comparatively short life, but few measured up the flavor of medicine like that.

“Don’t tell me what else you mixed in this.” He really, really doesn’t want to know. He just hopes the headache goes away.

Following the Apothecary’s advice, the boy saunters to the large pot, suddenly aware of the loud growl of his hungry stomach. A Sister nearby seems to have heard it too, and he does his best not to awkwardly meet eyes with her. He fishes around for a good amount of substance for the broth, and takes some tea with him for good measure. It was red, like blood, but smelled tart like a fruit.

Sitting cross legged on his cot, he nurses the soup a little bit at at time, enjoying the warmth. The egg noodles were new for him, but he slurps them up without thinking twice. Now that the activity was settling down, he tries to steal a glance at Lashan.

The Sister Apothecary clucks to herself and returns to writing, the line between her eyebrows deepening as she forms the letters. Her desk lamp is the brightest light in the now dimmed infirmary, casting deep shadows against the wall.

The flavor profile of the soup is one Guts has got to be familiar with by now. An elusive chicken taste from broth boiled with bones and scraps, the sweetness of the carrots, aromatic fennel, salt that's mostly from pickled eggs, butter, the various herbs the Sisters grow. The egg in the noodles makes them richer than noodles made with just flour. They're a bit overcooked and gluey but still much more filling than the vegetables. The red tisane tastes remarkably close to how it smells, sharp and assertive in a fragrant way. Even when there's just a swallow's worth in the mug, it's quite red.

The shortsword with the Healing charm is still stashed under his bed, and it's made with more refinement than the quick and dirty version on Lashan's longsword. Between it and the little cup of bitter potion, the pain blunts and fades into a general ache except when Guts puts pressure or any strain on his bruised flesh. Rather than an itch, there's a sort of heaviness. But that could just be an effect of slowly winding down and taking in food and warmth.

Lashan's striker has sat next to her, thigh-to-thigh, and laid her head on the older woman's shoulder. She's one of the handful of Sisters who work with Lashan in her forge; all but Vena are stout or bandy and extremely familiar with her. Lashan herself has looped a long arm carelessly around her striker's shoulder and is drinking broth right from the bowl. She looks a little older, a little smaller, than she had earlier in the day. Having closed off her Mindspeech for once, she doesn't notice Guts looking.

Watching the two women together, Guts decides that any questions on his mind might be best saved for tomorrow. Lashan looked like she could use the rest, and it felt like an intrusion to approach her now. In the end, he says nothing.

His body was tired, but with the pain easing away alongside the warm food, Guts finds it easier than expected to relax from the adrenaline high earlier in the day. He was expecting to be hurting a lot more by now, but the old witch’s brew must be taking effect. He can particularly feel the weight on his eyelids by the time he tips up the bottom of the bowl to finish up the soup, and leaves an empty cup of tea to go along with it. The sated feeling of a full stomach was a nice reward for being battered around. The meal had been well earned. This satisfied him more, somehow.

He normally disliked having so many people this close to where he slept, but it felt different this time. Less like a constant pending threat, and more like a sea of company. Safety, even, in knowing there were dozens of eyes and ears keeping watch rather than just one pair. The thought felt ridiculous if he reflected on it too much.

He was ruminating. Going in circles. In the end, he’d still have to leave once he gets his sword back. Best to not get too attached to the pleasant feeling.

The boy curls up in his cot to rest, succumbing easily to the pull of sleep.

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Do not be afraid of light

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