10 Years, Improvised camp. The Nosediving Merlin.
I wake up. The burning on my skin has faded, a relief, and has been replaced by a refreshing coolness, like a cold breeze on a warm summer day. My chest still hurts, but the pain seems to have lessened. In fact, I feel not all too much of my body altogether, and my mind seems a bit clouded. I open my eyes, and look at the face of a bearded man with dark brown hair and green eyes, whom I see from a sidewards perspective. It seems to be around early morning. The man seems to be busy working something in front of him. The bundle of talons lays right next to my bed, an assuring sight. I try to get up, experience taught me to not expect to much, but it is wrong this time, for I can get up without problems. How strange.
The man was grinding herbs in a mortar, but stopped almost immediately, looking at me with an unfamiliar expression. "You are awake."
I decide there is no reason not to answer this man, my apparent saviour, and say with silent and rough voice: "Yes." Surprised from how weak that sounded, I clear my throat, and say again, louder and clearer: "Yes."
The man continues to stare at me, and seems unsure what to do. Then, he remarks: "I had my doubts. How do you feel, little one?"
Little one? Come on. "I have a name. It is Reiland." This man was about thirty, if I had to guess. Still, he got no business calling me 'little one'. Then, I add, albeit more quietly: "I feel better."
The man seems taken aback from my answer, and stutters: “Ah, oh, sorry. Reiland, of course. I am glad you feel better. In all honesty, you have some unusual set of injuries and bodily conditions, so I was not sure about my prognosis. Also, that terrible fever of yours... But, you seem better indeed.”
Unusual injuries? I think he may be right. After all, it is not exactly normal for a boy of my age to stand against an owlbear. Or be a magic caster. “Where am I?” This question haunted me ever since I woke up a few minutes ago.
“How much of a fresh-up do your memories need? Do you mean this camp, this forest, this region or this country? This world?” In his voice there is not one gram of irony. I look at him in bewilderment.
“This camp should suffice? I hit my head once, but not that hard, you know.” I notice a small accusatory tone sneaking into my voice.
The man blushes, which looks strange, paired with his looks, especially his beard. “Sorry! I... You just seemed so outlandish, so out of this world, that I just... “ The man hastily brings forth an apology, and finally after a bit of awkward silence, he says: “We are at the improvised camp of the Nosediving Merlin Band. A... what was the proper word again? A... Right! A hunting band, specialised on big game hunts. The biggest kind there is, to be precise.”
So that is what it is like. This band was travelling along the path of destruction, presumably in the opposite direction, presumably to hunt the owlbear. The mayor said he would hire an exterminator, but I had not expected them to come this fast, or be this unprofessional. Still, they mended my wounds, so I have to be grateful. I think back to not being able to properly assess them – and how I would need someone with proper medical experience to do that. It seems that I have someone who has this experience now after all. I should ask him for a status report.
“You told me that you had doubts of me waking up again... How bad is it exactly?”
“You want to know?” The mans expression changes, subtly only, but I see his insecurity waning. “Yes.”, I answer. That is why I asked, after all.
“You have first degree burns over every last bit of skin on your body. In addition, you have frostbite on your extremities, of varying severity. Your feet are barely alive, a wonder they did not turn necrotic already in that snow. You got a cracked rib, if not for the narcotic I gave you, I doubt you would be able to think as clearly as now due to the pain. You have extreme fever... It went down a bit, but every part of your skin is still glowing in heat. Most peculiar of all, you should be dead. Starved, long ago. For how tall you are, you should weigh tenfold, better more. Yet, you show no particular signs of starvation. This puzzles me the most, to be honest.”
All of that makes sense, I can see how that happened. I look down on myself. The blanket laying over my lap was made of fur, it covered me whole when I was asleep, but slid down when I sat up. It revealed blank skin, covered in a cream. I touch my face, and feel that the same cream is applied there, too. Indeed, I feel like I am a bit hot, as he said. The cream itself seems to cool my skin a bit, but none the less does the rest of my body feel searingly hot. I lower my self-heating by a good bit. Now that I am covered by a thick and warm blanket, it is overkill. “I see. I should have figured.”
The man nods in thought, and then proceeds to say: “I gave you quite a strong narcotic, and a fever-suppressant, so it is normal that you do not feel pain. Still, do NOT take that as a reason to get active now again. You are not healthy. In fact, I never before saw someone in that strange of a condition before. You would do well to just stay on this bed until it normalizes. Of course, I will have to discuss that with Olivia and the others as well...”
“Olivia?” I did not hear that name before. I realise I do not even know the name of the man in front of me.
“The leader of our group. You will get to meet her, and the rest of us, soon enough. They are off hunting at the moment. Safe for Simon, he is sleeping in his bedroll close to here. The past few days of travelling were stressful for him, he is not as used to it as the rest of us.” The man explains this, but makes not efforts to introduce himself, so I wont ask him for his name, either. Yet, I can see a question in his face, but he does not seem to have the courage to ask it.
I want to, as a thanks for him saving me, at least relieve him of that question. “You have questions, I see that. Go on, ask them.”
Relieved, the man immediately starts to ask away, not passing on this chance. “What are you even doing in the forest? This deep in, none the less? Pardon me, but this is not a place for children. You seem more mature than your age, but still... what were you thinking when venturing this far into the forest? Don't you know that there are dangerous animals here? We are actually pursuing one especially dangerous, its path is the one we found you on. Don't you have a home where you ought to be? What about your parents, aren't they worried? And even more, what is it with this bundle you carried? How did you get that? Why are you so light? Why...”
This torrent of questions was a bit surprising to me, but I had intended to answer them, until one particular question hit me right in the heart, and that extremely painfully so. The man sees my agonized expression, which I am making even though I tried to prevent it, and immediately starts to apologize.
“I am so sorry! Was that a sensitive topic?” And then, more quietly, more to himself: “God, I am the worst with people...”
I try to regain my composure, try to brush it off as nothing, but in the end, the best I can do is say nothing. I just slid back under the blanket, and think about those topics that the question brought back, from where I tried to bury them.
Depressed silence arises, and the man does not try to talk to me again. He seems to have gone back to his mortar, silently grinding herbs into powder. After half an hour, I start talking, without getting up. “I live in this forest. I have no parents, never had some. There is no home, no place I got to be.”
I feel like masking the truth behind a convenient lie. I do not want to talk about how it is, I only want to forget, so I talk about how it not is, and make this the new reality. I do not care if anyone believes me, because the only one that has to believe is myself.
The man looks into my face, says nothing for a few seconds, and then turns back to his work. Quietly, he mumbles: “Sorry for your loss.”
I wake up, on the same mattress, covered by the same blanket as before. I feel colder than before, or at least not as hot any more. This shows that lowering my heating was the right call. A glance at the sky shows that it is around afternoon. The man who was sitting next to me is gone, instead, there are people rummaging through something at the edge of my vision. I barely recognize some of the faces as faces I saw yesterday, when they picked me up.
I watch them for quite a while, until someone notices me not longer sleeping.
“Awake! The boy married to spirits is awake!” It is the same deep, calm but foreign voice I heard before. This exclamation seemed to have stirred up the others, I hear several voices saying something along the lines of “Finally!” and “God be praised.” They all assemble around my bed, and seeing them all lined up like this, frighten me a bit. Then, I spot the familiar face of the one who spoke to me hours ago, and I calm down a bit. Finally, a woman steps forward, with the clear authority of someone who leads others. A bird is sitting on her shoulder – I recognize it as the very same bird that circled over me yesterday, right before my collapse.
“Hello! Good to see you awake, Maaten said he had doubts. Whatever fears you had before, do not worry – we will protect you.” The woman, who seems to be Olivia, the leader of this band, comes even closer and strokes my head while saying these words in a charming voice, but one which is charged with power and importance, at least in the confined space of this camp. I recoil from her touch, almost on reflex, and she withdraws her hand. Then, she continues to say: “Whatever the reasons for you being here were, it is alright now. We would be a bad group if we did not care for children in need.” She looks at the other members, who all nod. While she seems to sense some deeper issue that I have, she, in contrast to Maaten, (Which has to be the name of the man I spoke to earlier) seems sensible enough to not ask for it directly.
After that, she gives the rest a sign, and they proceed to go after their individual activities. She then speaks to Maaten, probably not intended for my ears, but they were keen ever since I was born. “His temperature seems better. He is not glowing anymore.” The addressed nods, and answers: “In fact, it went down right after I talked to him. He was more talkative back then. I think I scared him somehow...” Olivia dismisses that with a wave. “Don't worry about that. That boy is an enigma. Just be glad you got to talk to him at all.” After that, they both go after their own work as well.
For the next hours, I just observe them. First laying down, from the edge of my vision, but later I also sit up, and follow their doing with all my attention. They seem to be a pretty random bunch of people. The man who had carried me to this bed, a really muscular type, is butchering a boar which hangs from a long rope of a tree. He has various knives and other tools fit for the job, and uses them skilfully to first skin the corpse, then remove guts and organs, and then cut it into handy pieces. I feel hungry, so I look forward to seeing that cooked.
I could use my magic to get me a piece of that and cook it for myself, but for the meantime, I do not want to draw their attention on me even further. The man is not only professional, but also fast. I try to copy a few tricks to use when I will inevitably have to prepare an animal body for myself to eat the next time. I also can not come around to notice the difference to the owlbear, who just butchered everything by brutally tearing it to shreds. The most impressive thing about the man however is the enormous blade leaning against a tree next to him. It looks like an enlarged meat cleaver, more like an axe than a tool. He was also wearing heavy armour, which he had put next to the cleaver for ease of movement when butchering.
Another strange man is the one with the foreign accent. Not only his accent is foreign, but his whole looks as well. He has dark skin, unlike everything I have seen before, and also short, black hair. He trains with a spear, with an uncommon tip, it looks more like bone or tooth than metal. When he does not train, he watches me. In fact, he seems very interested in me, and continues to ask me how I came to marry a spirit. I do not know what he means, and also do not answer his approaches. Still, he is persistent, returning every few minutes. He is wearing a leather garment, almost armour, but still allowing for maximal movement, the same garment as Olivia and Maaten.
I notice someone who seems out of place in this group. He seems to be the youngest, barely twenty, and is wearing normal clothes, but more of the kind the mayors children, not I would wear. He also seems interested in me, but after I did not answer him as well, he scurried away and continued to watch me from a distance. Eventually, he got paper and a pen out of his sling pack, and was since then engulfed in his own writing. Olivia sometimes came over to him and sat next to him, but always not for long.
Olivia herself was sending her bird around, and then feeds it with bits of meat jerky. The bird seems to be missing part of its beak, so Olivia is pre-chewing the meat, and then giving it the jerky in a softened state. She talks to the bird, and given I hear a abnormally high amount of the word “Pipin”, I guess this is the birds name.
Maaten was preparing a fire site, with large stones and a good amount of firewood. It seems to be in preparation to cook the boar that the muscular man butchered. When finished and the site only needs to be lighted, he gets to working his mortar and pestle again.
I notice that one member of the group is gone, a woman with a pouch of stones slung around her waist. I know it contained stones because before she left, I saw her picking up one from the ground, inspecting it, and then putting it into the pouch.
Finally (It was already evening) Maaten glaces the meat with a cream from a tallow-like substance, ground herbs and salt. I saw him preparing the mix right next to my bed, so I can tell. Then, he tries to light the fire with a pack of matches (one of the many conveniences produced by the magic guild), but it had turned quite windy, and he struggles to get it burning. I locate the tinder by vision, and heat a small spot with the coefficient that got free when I lowered my own heating. After a few dozens of seconds, quite some wasted matches and a few hearty swears from Maaten, the tinder catches fire, and a short while later the whole campfire burns in a nice orange.
Maaten proceeds to lay out the meat on stones laying next to the fire, and not long after, the smell of frying meat is in the air, remembering my stomach how long it had nothing to eat.
The missing woman returns as if attracted by the heavenly scent, and shortly after, everyone sits down with crossed legs, indulging in idle chatter, and Maaten hands out wooden plates with crisp boar meat, leaving me drooling in expectation. He gives one to everyone in the circle, starting with Olivia and then the person right to her, right and right till all around, and then comes to my bed, with a portion of meat that I feel is almost double as large as what the others got. While cooking the meat, he also had two copper pots on the fire, one now reveals itself as a fragrant herbal tea, where everyone gets a steaming cup from.
I dig in. Self-fried squirrel bits were nice, but this is on yet another level. Taste explodes in my mouth, and as if I were out to get first-degree burns in my mouth as well, I ravish the meat even though it is way too hot. Only after gulping down my first portion, and seeing Maaten get my plate to promptly fill it with seconds, I realize he had been eating the meat from hand, and drinking tea from a bowl. Did he give me his only plate and cup?
As he returns and hands me the new plate of divine meat, I take it, and say, albeit quietly: “Thanks.” Nothing more, nothing less. Maaten smiles glumly, says nothing, and returns to the campfire.
The time passes, and after everyone had seconds and thirds, and I crunch on my fourth while sipping my second cup of herbal tea, they tell each other stories from the past. Then, the foreign man, addressed by others as Popey, sings wonderful and mysterious songs in a completely unfamiliar language, much to the joy of the rest of the group. The stars watch over us, and I tiredly lay down to sleep – the first time in a long time with a full belly and at peace at mind.
ing with Olivia and then the person right to her, right and right till all around, and then comes to my bed, with a portion of meat that I feel is almost double as large as what the others got. While cooking the meat, he also had two copper pots on the fire, one now reveals itself as a fragrant herbal tea, where everyone gets a steaming cup from.
I dig in. Self-fried squirrel bits were nice, but this is on yet another level. Taste explodes in my mouth, and as if I were out to get first-degree burns in my mouth as well, I ravish the meat even though it is way too hot. Only after gulping down my first portion, and seeing Maaten get my plate to promptly fill it with seconds, I realize he had been eating the meat from hand, and drinking tea from a bowl. Did he give me his only plate and cup?
As he returns and hands me the new plate of divine meat, I take it, and say, albeit quietly: “Thanks.” Nothing more, nothing less. Maaten smiles glumly, says nothing, and returns to the campfire.
The time passes, and after everyone had seconds and thirds, and I crunch on my fourth while sipping my second cup of herbal tea, they tell each other stories from the past. Then, the foreign man, addressed by others as Popey, sings wonderful and mysterious songs in a completely unfamiliar language, much to the joy of the rest of the group. The stars watch over us, and I tiredly lay down to sleep – the first time in a long time with a full belly and at peace at mind.
