Mitsuko found him, fallen in the snow and unresponsive to her shouts, staining the new snow a horrid red.
She hadn't thought her morning walk would be much different from most days. A normal outing to enjoy the cold forest and watch the dogs run about. Most days she stuck to her self-made path, unwilling to trudge through unwalked snow that could be deceptively deep. There were mornings where she would strap on a set of snow shoes and venture through other parts of the forests, generally for reasons similar to why she was carrying an axe today.
She'd left the cabin, snow shoes on, dogs at her side and pulling an empty sled save for a single axe, and the walking staff in her hand a familiar weight that reassured her that her search for fire wood was to be a success. Her stock pile was beginning to look small, and she loathed to be left in house without heat in January.
Argen and Caes could not run freely today, the sled behind them a clear message that they had a job to do. Mitsuko knew her father's dogs were not terribly fond of the harnesses that confined them, but they did appreciate that the given chore would tire them more than their regular daily tasks. The huskies were both energetic, and once upon a time Mitsuko would have loved to run with them.
Then again, in another story, these dogs would never have been left in her care. As much as she'd come to love the animals, she wondered how much would be different had that other story played out. Would the past eight months have been as arduous and lonely? Her step mother would not be any more unfriendly than normal, but at least she'd get to see her brothers.
The dogs had suddenly began barking, not the playful yips of some roughhousing, but the snarls and warning calls that immediately drew her attention from the barren treetops to a figure on the ground. There was no movement from the person there, and Mitsuko wondered if they were dead.
Stepping forward and falling to her knees, it became easier to see that it was a man lying there, covered in leather, metal and blood. His face was pale, contrasting the black tattoos on his cheekbones, caused by the cold and Mitsuko also guessed at blood loss. The dark haired woman rolled the man onto his back from his side, noting the vest of hard leather and ordered rows of metal rings. There was something sticking out of his shoulder as well as his thigh, it resembled a thick broken twig.
Tilting his chin up and head back with her hands, Mitsuko bent over him, letting her ear hover over his nose and staring down the length of his still body. Don't be dead. She felt a soft push of air against her cheek and heard the faintest of breathing. His chest wasn't moving much, but that may have been due to the heavy layers he wore.
Pulling herself back up, she checked him over for injuries. There was no blood on or near his head save for flecks across his cheek in a splatter pattern. Blood seeped through his grimy clothing from a number of cuts and lesions below, and Mitsuko worried as to how deep they were. They were nowhere near a town or city with an actual hospital or doctor, and with the coming snowstorm there wouldn't be time to get to one anyway. She could only hope, for his sake, that the wounds weren't terribly bad. Though for all she knew his neck could be broken.
I'm not a doctor, what do I do?
Argen and Caes came near, sled trailing behind them, and nudging their faces against her arms which now fell limp at her sides.
"I need to do something, eh? Won't let me leave him here to die?" Caes swished his tail and Mitsuko looked to the sled behind them. They could pull him, and even her if they went slow enough. "You mutts up to it?" Their responsive barks had Mitsuko wondering if they truly did understand her.
The task of moving the limp man was a difficult one. She didn't want to jostle him unnecessarily, but he was heavy and she was not one of great strength. Fiddling with the clasps of his dark cloak, she freed him of that and began relocating him to the sled.
Hands hooked under and over the uninjured shoulder, Mitsuko wished that she had spent more time trying to keep fit. It was slow going, dragging him all of two feet to the sled, streaks of red left in their wake, and maneuvering him into the basket. Mitsuko suspected that if he were awake, the amount of bumping around would have sent him back into unconsciousness.
Once he was settled on the sled, Mitsuko went back to grab his cloak from where she'd discarded it carelessly near the base of a tree. Before she got to it she noticed a long piece of metal in the snow, coated in blood. The man was a swordsman, it seemed. But the man hadn't cut himself open with his own sword, and so that was another being's blood upon it. Mitsuko snatched up both the weapon and the cloak, hurrying back to the sled, worried that whoever the man had been attacking may return. She didn't see a second body, so perhaps the mysterious other was still walking about.
Draping the cloak over the man to at least try and keep off the cold, Mitsuko tossed her walking staff and the sword on top of him and stood on the back of the sled. At the very least, the cold would slow his bleeding, but that came with its own down sides.
With one last cursory look around, she said to her dogs, "Marche."
And they were off.
There would be no way for Mitsuko to get the man onto her bed or even the couch. He was too heavy, and she was tired, cold, and not strong enough.
So she set him down on the floor between the couch and the fireplace in the corner of the room. The rug would be a wet bloody mess later, but that was by no means the important detail in this scenario.
Argen and Caes were curled in their beds by the back doors, watching her and their rescue.
Before starting anything, Mitsuko removed her heavy outwear wear, tossing it aside where it wouldn't get in the way. Immediately she went about starting up the fire. There were embers within, but she wanted a roaring fire for the man who was no doubt in the process of thawing.
Once that was complete, she got to her feet and sped over to the bookcase in the front hall, scanning the rows of books behind the occasional knick-knack for one specific volume. Finding it, she pulled it out by the top edge of the binding, grabbed it hastily and placed it on the couch seat.
And then she stopped, staring down at the situation by her feet. She had to undress him, but she didn't know where to start. His clothes were different from what she knew. An older, more practical style. Medieval, almost, but not quite.
"Just no zippers, then" she murmured to herself.
From her pocket, she retrieved a pocket knife, deciding that he could be angry about his ruined clothing later. She cut the ties at his sides that held the strange armor-vest to him and wrestled it off of him. Which became a problem when she remembered the stick lodged in his shoulder.
Up and rushing to the basement in an instant, she returned with a plastic box filled with fish lures, bait, fishing line, but most needed at the moment – a pair of pliers. With it she cut down the stick to a stump and resumed the removal of the vest thing. Underneath was a leather outer coat of leather, which merely required the removal of his belt and then once more she manhandled him out of the clothing piece and simply cut off the loose shirt beneath it.
She could feel every second sliding past them and was ever conscious of the blood on the palms of her hands.
There was a long cut down his chest, the stick in his shoulder, several cuts and abrasions down his arms and torso, and also the other stick that protruded from his leg.
Mitsuko took the book from the couch, forcing herself to ignore the bloody fingerprints she was leaving, and flipped through the book of first aid and wound care. She needed someone to tell her what to do, but the man was of no use in his state, and the dogs were content to rest and watch from their beds.
Mitsuko disliked being in charge.
She got the rubbing alcohol and iodine from the bathroom along with a bucket of water, some rags, and the medical kit. The first thing to enter her mind was to clean each open sore, which she ended up doing primarily with the water and rubbing alcohol – the iodine quickly running out with so little in it to begin with. Following that, she wrapped the smaller abrasions and cuts in gauze, each at least the size of a quarter or as long as her thumb respectively.
Next she was to deal with the long angry line of red that she knew she probably should have started with, but couldn't bring herself to. She'd have to stitch that up. There was a needle in the med kit, but the only thread in the house was the fishing line. Mitsuko felt sick.
A presence came to her side, and then a head resting in her lap.
"Argen." The husky looked up at her, and Mitsuko took in a steadying breath.
The needle piercing warming flesh was disturbing, and Mitsuko had only just learned the bare essentials of this from an old manual. The only thing keeping her going was the black and white dog at her side. She didn't know how long it took her to make the last stitch, nor did she care. That part was done.
Now the sticks in the man's shoulder and thigh.
Her hands began working at the shoulder, fingers trembling slightly, and fumbling with the bit of wood. Her fingers dug into the wound, pinching around the stick, and slowly wiggled it out. The man did not make so much as a sound, still in complete oblivion.
Mitsuko however, was staring wide-eyed at the crimson bit of wood in her hand. It wasn't just wood. There was metal at the end. An arrow head.
"Someone shot you with an arrow," she whispered to the indifferent man. Her eyes slid to his thigh, where there was certainly another arrow embedded in him. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to breathe for a minute. Then she opened her eyes and went on with her patchwork on the man.
The shoulder wound was closed with more fishing line, and the entire process repeated with the arrow in his leg. The only difference there was that she had to cut away some of the fabric of his pants to allow her to get to the wound. The man was still alive, and he did not seem the usual trespassing hunter. She'd allow him his dignity upon waking and reduce whatever wrath may be set on her if it came to that.
With everything bandaged and tended to, Mitsuko pulled off his sodden boots and socks, snagged the comforter from her room, set it down on the floor and endeavored to drag him onto it. She mostly succeeded, and then placed a quilt over him, deciding at the last moment to take a throw pillow and stick it under his head.
Injured guest attended to, Mitsuko went into the bathroom, stripped, and spent an hour soaking under a stream of hot water. She didn't often allow herself the indulgence of long showers, but she felt today was a good exception. Feeling the water start to lose its heat, she stopped the flow and grabbed a towel to dry herself. She went through her dressing routine distractedly—her mind thinking only of the man on her living room floor.
Who was he? A man with an enemy who wielded a bow and deadly arrows. A man with a blood coated sword. A man who dressed as one might if living in a far simpler world.
Absently she noted that she'd put on jeans and a baggy sweater.
Where did he come from?
Why was he in the forest?
Why had he been shot?
Why was she the one dealing with all this?
Letting out a frustrated huff, she dragged her hands over her face before deciding some hot chocolate would be a good idea.