It turns out that pouring healing potions over wounds also closes them, knitting Ace's lacerations shut as I watch, leaving only pale white lines on tan skin. The poultice method doesn't work as well as drinking a potion - something about the bloodstream and digestive system distributing the potion where it's needed, I'm honestly only half-listening to Hikaru's explanation as I treat Ace - but when someone is unconscious and there's a risk of choking, like in her case, it's a literal lifesaver.

I am literally saving Ace's life.

I shouldn't have to be saying that. Ace doesn't deserve this. Ace never even wanted to play this game after the free trial ended. She was just Casting a show where she played a flirty bubbly bouncy busty foxgirl for clicks but now she's stuck that way and the only thing that can save her is my pouring potions over her wounds in the back of a rickety horse-cart full of rations and trade goods.

Shadi is cowering in fear as far as possible from us two, and honestly, fair. She said a lot of things while berserk, and...

Gods. Please.

Sylphan, trickster-fox, protector of travelers and those very far from home, please, don't do this to her, I pray. Please, Sylphan, don't let the person who least wanted to be here die first. I vow to sing and dance in public if Ace survives this.

My fingers have been against her neck the whole time, tracking her pulse. Faint but steady.

Getting stronger, as the breeze picks up.

Her eyes pinch shut even tighter, before finally opening.

"So tired of this game," she mutters. "So tired, period."

I hug her close and cry, and everyone else breathes a sigh of relief.

Alesha takes over fire and cooking duty, and Ace doesn't have the strength to protest. Hikaru sets up the wards; Sekhmet and Siobhan hunt, while Tayeb and Shadi set up tents and feed the horses and chicken and I, as the medic, stand watch over Ace.

This involves her resting her head on my lap, and my running my fingers through her hair while reminding her to drink more potion, and my applying hand and Breath to sore spots. She's out of her armor and in her black skirt and blouse with plenty of midriff, the better for me to massage bruises.

It's a while before she speaks.

"So," she says. "I uh. Said a lot of things I didn't mean, huh."

"You have a right to feel that way," I say.

I... don't feel the same way about the apartment and Oakland and California and the US and Earth, of course, it was always where people took my money so I could keep my stuff there, but then again the lack of physical attack by horrors beyond mortal comprehension is a plus and she has a family who likes her who she lives with.

And a cat.

Gremlin, you think his name was.

"Maybe try not to tell Shadi her world is fake and not real, though," I allow.

Ace winces. "Yeah, I... God, she must hate me. She doesn't deserve that, I was just, you know."

"Berserk," I say, and shudder. "I never thought... you would actually go berserk."

"I never thought I'd run around in the Waistpincher, either, and here we are," Ace groans. "You know if I die here I'll probably wake up in a church with a hangover?"

"Let's not test that theory soon," I say very quickly.

Ace winces and turns away. "Right. Forget I said that."

"I wouldn't," someone says.

Ace leaps out of my lap - then winces and grabs her side. I also think I've shifted a foot to the left in alarm.

It's only Hikaru, though. And I sigh relief before glaring at him.

"How long have you been listening in?" I snap. "Watching us?"

"When Ace said Shadi must hate her," he sighs.

Ace folds her arms. "What, hoping we would make out in front of you?"

"Yes," Hikaru says, voice flat. "So you two don't keep ignoring your mutual chemistry, at least. Congratulations on actually getting past Deedee's traumagenic defense mechanisms by the way."

For a moment I'm too offended to even say anything, a moment Hikaru takes to pinch the bridge of his nose, push up nonexistent glasses, and groan.

"That was uncalled for," he says. "The message was necessary, my hostility wasn't. Which seems to be a theme when we're all on edge."

"No, no, you were totally fair," Ace says, her ears and eyes adding the inflection of amusement her voice lacks. "Gave as good as you got, anyway."

"I'd argue you came out better on that exchange," Hikaru says, glancing at me before waving his hand and sighing, again, deeper. "But it just highlights how much we need to discuss. How much all of us need to discuss. Including Tayeb and Shadi - if keeping in their good graces is important to you."

"Fuck," Ace breathes, wincing. "Please help me apologize to Tayeb and Shadi. They don't deserve my opinions on AWO- on Mundus."

"I honestly think your opinions on AWO as a game are going to be important," Hikaru says, sitting down next to Ace. "That Tayeb and Shadi may need to hear them."

A chill runs down my spine. "Is that... wise?" you ask. "Telling them about the game that happens to be about them and their world?"

Hikaru takes a deep breath, and looks me in the eye, then Ace. "I feel that no good decision we can make will make the slightest bit of sense to them without that context," he says. "And that's what we all need to discuss."

As your party gathers to eat, Siobhan brings the unconscious rabbits she trapped, and takes out a knife.

"You should watch, god-botherer," she says to me, while inspecting the blade. "The rest of you should know this is bloody work, and don't need to, but I want a cleric to witness this. I want Sylphan's banner-bearer looking on as I honor the vow that saved our fucking lives when Thorne held up her end of the bargain."

It takes some effort for Ace to imperfectly hide her thoughts on this, but she doesn't say anything; she just looks away. Hikaru looks on, trying to be detached; Sekhmet is blase, and Alesha looks down but can't avert her eyes fully.

For Tayeb and Shadi, of course, this is Tuesday; they only look on because Sio wants witnesses.

Once Sio is satisfied that her knife is razor-sharp and has no nicks, she kills the rabbits instantly and with a minimum of pain, the same way Jewish butchers do back home: with a single knife thrust that severs the spinal cord and the throat at once, and then once that bloody work is done, she slashes again to bleed them. Then she holds them - cradles them - as their life drains out onto the ground.

I've seen her eat blood sausages - "Morciyla" according to the old game - before; eating blood isn't taboo for her as it is for your Ashkenazi mother, normally. But no one's having morcilla tonight. This is the part that she promised Thorne, the sacrifice she vowed.

"Blood and breath for you, Thorne," she says. "Lifeblood and last breaths for the huntress who showed my arrows the way, who gave us hunters eyes, and saved our lives from a predator that should not be in your woods. Blood and breath of my first kills for the pot tonight as promised. Let this bloodshed be sacred to you, Thorne, and let it please you; let me make a burning of skin and fat, and let that please you; let none doubt that I honor my vow as you honored it, Fae Warden of the Wylds."

"Let Sylphan's wind carry that copper scent and the smoke of that burning to Thorne," I say, and shiver as the wind picks up. "Let Flamma taste that fat, that hair, the sweet wood of our fire; let her drink of our deep red libation, and account it to Thorne. Let this bloodshed be sacred to you, Thorne. Thus do we keep our faith."

The fire blazes high as Sio throws the skins on the fire, and they start to curl and pop and white smoke rises. Alesha makes the Sign of the Cross, startled; Tayeb claps and says "amen!" and after a moment's hesitation, Shadi joins him. Sekhmet is just staring into the fire, hands clasped over her mouth, breathing, thinking.

Hikaru is clearly discomfited, but then he sighs, and nods. "Let this bloodshed be sacred to you," he says.

"So say we all," Sio murmurs.

"So say we all," Hikaru says out loud, while me and mine mutter it.

And again: "And while we cook, as we eat, there's much more we should all say - for the sake of our survival," Hikaru says.

"Yeah," Sio grunts, looking at Ace shrink under her gaze - before looking up at the rest of us. "I think so, too."