Hello and Welcome to the next chapter of Barbarians Healer - I hope the last wasn't too um…bloody, for you! Anyway, I'd like to thank my marvelous translators, MalinChan, yotzie, Ruusu, kooliobutterflyhahaha, Sine-k, Another Mad Swiss, Lillens, DianeLeBlanc99, and Sarai Onyx Vainamoinen, Thank you so much you beauties! I do not own Hetalia but I do own this story! For this chapter I recommend listening to the song Bed för din Själ by Fejd.
Now! Onward to the story!
…
The Finn's face was ghostly white, like that of a fishes belly. His lips were pale pink like that of a tulips first bloom and Peter, who feared for the very life of his Mamma, softly began to whisper little prayers and blessings in English into his Mothers shoulder blades as he pressed tightly to the warmed body of the Finn.
"Lady Sirona, she who commands healing by her watery springs, please - let not my Mamma be taken by the soil nor flame. Please."* Peter sobbed softly, clutching ever tightly as he felt Tino slip some in his grasp, head lolling forward dangerously as drops of blood began to drip from the soaked cloth at his neck. The cloth was so burdened down by the red running liquid that prickled warmly. His horses bay coat began to grow slick and black with the very substance.
Peter scrambled with hurried hands to right the Finn to sit up again, begging Tino to please hold on, hold on and help will find us. We will be back home, in tents fueled warm with crackling pine fires, mead down our throats and gruel in our bellies. We will be warm and safe and happy.
"Oh please, Mother, please." The little child begged, curling his fists into the edges of Tino's tunic as he cried.
The Finn barely stirred.
…
The war camp was eerily silent when they reached it's crooked gates and latches, all shaved clean and nice and manned by the few soldiers that had come out mostly unscathed through the massacre. Though bandaged they were, no leg nor limb was lost to them, and they could still see outward. Not like the many others who had been cruelly blinded and left to crawl among corpses of horse and men.
And of the horses, Tino could smell but not see. Muddied flanks slathered with manure and blood, the burning stench of their fur being bristled off, of the dead ones being hacked and quartered for salted meat - the remains burned black into the pits of a bonfire strikingly high and smelling rightly of burnt flesh.
Tino did not wish to open his eyes, knowing full well how badly it would pain his already breaking heart.
He was so wrecked with body and mind. Heart he feared, he could not bare.
And so they trudged on through mud slewed tents and dry grass that Tino recalled rather faintly smelled sweet in place of the moldy scent of death.
Death, everywhere.
They did not stop, they did not loll and dally to their tents perfumed with pine resin and juniper incense - smoke to carry away the scent of the dying and destruction.
Their horses moved vacantly over the earth as if in a funeral procession. Tino, who was too weak and nauseous to open his eyes could still very well imagine the horror-filled faces of the villagers, men, women, and children who looked upon his face and neck - seeing the red bright cloth upon his flesh. A sign of Slavic conquest on the fair skin of the Finnish Bride.
Wrecked and damaged by the atrocities of war.
And so, when the Finn was finally slipped from the big saddle of Berwald's horse and his child parted from him by the arms of handmaidens, Tino was so overcome from relief that he slumped into the body closest to him - his mournful husband, and fell into a deep deep sleep.
…
The smell of burning pine sap, of it's crackle finally had woken him up some time later - early in the evening when the sky was burnt a great bought of orange and the blue jays made their last caws into the air.
It was nearly twilight and he felt as if he had slept for days, curled and nestled in warm blankets, throat burning as he tried his best to breath and swallow - yet to swallow would do no good. Even spitting burned him like fire, eyes rolling back into his skull with each moan of pain and with each toss of his neck that wrecked him so.
But with Nikolas' cooling hand on his massaging and lovely, Tino bade stillness to overcome him, for his eyes to flutter open and the dazzle of candle lights to overtake him into the land of the living once more.
"Ni…Niko..las…" He chocked dryly, mouth filled with sand and flour and pebbles and sharp glass. It hurt, oh how it hurt.
"Shush, my dear Cousin, hush young one. Do not speak - only drink." He heard the Norwegian whisper over to him as the lip of a cup, finely blown from glass and smoothed to the touch was pressed to his mouth.
He drank heavily, the hot water tainted with honey sliding stiffly down his parched throat, his blood loss body soaking it up like a well gone dry for many seasons.
It wasn't long before he was begging for another cup, another drink or sip. Anything to wash the slate of dying off his tongue. No matter how much swallowing the liquid pained him.
"Nikolas… Will I die?" Tino breathed heavily, noticing that his head was propped up by three pillows stitched feathery with goose down. The smell of them, the smell of comfort washing over his cheeks and face and eyes. It was lovely and familiar at the same time.
It was what he needed.
Tino watched with lightly parted eyes as his cousin huffed, a small smile, shaky but there just the same, laughed.
"Dear cousin, you know as well as I that you are too stubborn to die." Nikolas pulled the third cup of water from the Finn's pale and weakened hands, setting it on the working bench at his side that had long since compiled many assortments of poultices and herbs.
Tino could only smile weakly and breathe delicately through his nose, noticing the thick and weighty sensation of bandages over his neck wrapped tight and secure.
"I have lathered the wounds with chewed yarrow to stop the bleeding - another couple of days and it should have fully crusted over. But do not pick at it - the scabs must be undisturbed or you shall heal no faster!" Nikolas warned, pressing soft and trained fingers over the edges of the bandages where the wounds first started.
Tino hissed in sudden pain, gripping at the woolen blankets over and underneath him with white knuckled hands.
Nikolas sighed with tiredness before he pulled his hands back, wiping them over the front of his trousers to clean them as best as he could.
"It was lucky for you Ivan was merely teasing when he was carving, any deeper and your throat would have been split…" Nikolas bit his lip, moving his hand to pet at the sweat dampened hair of his cousin, Tino sighing out with contentment at the touch.
"Tino… I wish, I wish to thank you - for taking my place so bravely. You really did save my life." The Norwegian whispered, his eyes misting over slightly as he wiped them absently.
Tino breathed in and out through his nose softly, stirring his eyes open to smile up at his older kin.
"It is nothing cousin. You are family and I love you." He breathed, lips curled into a sweet boyish smile that reminded Nikolas of better days gone by. Certainly not like these past weeks, filled with so much maddens.
Nikolas nodded shakily, a gentle hiccup of a sob at the back of his throat before Tino frowned chastising at him, teasingly.
"Dear Nikolas, do not weep over me - I am not dying, so do not bawl!" He chuckled lightly, clammy fingers coaxing themselves over Nikolas' shaking own. He squeezed them lightly, with all the strength he could muster and then some.
It was the gentle slither of the tent flaps being shaken and opened that alerted Nikolas to wipe his eyes free of red and tears, to straighten himself up and smile thinly like he should. Like a wise man and Bride of the Wolves should.
"My Lord, he will live. Though weak is he, death will not befall him." Nikolas spoke to whom Tino guessed was Berwald, as a great shadow fell over the Finn's face from his husbands height.
Tino tried to contain the laugh in his throat at the tallness of the man before it left him raw and pained.
He failed miserably.
"Berwald, my sweet, my husband dear - come, sit by me." Tino whispered hoarsely, resisting the urge to rip his bandages off like he desperately wanted to. He felt entirely fettered and lame, like a horse put out to pasture for being no good to anyone at all.
He felt broken and soiled.
He felt warm fingers soon grip him, rough calluses over palms and big hands encircling his.
Tino sighed with contentment at the touch, rolling his neck slightly to the edge of the bed where he saw Berwald sit, the giant hulking mass of the man coiled in on himself like a frightened child.
Tino frowned, moving his hand from underneath the Swede's to rest at his chest, feeling the sot thud of his heard against his fingertips.
It sounded as if the Swedes heart was breaking.
"Oh my love, do not feel sad. I am alive and fine…" Tino coughed suddenly, the movement enticing his lungs to burn like fire and his throat to sting more mockingly than a wasps bite.
He laughed shakily, breathlessly. "Well, at least I am alive."
Berwald's eyes never changed from their deep sullen stiffness - the flame in them all but extinguished. Tino cringed at those very eyes, so devoid of all happiness except for a quick slimmer of hope. But even that was barely noticeable.
"I've come ta' take ya' ta' rest." Berwald explained slowly, his accent seeping in worse than usual so Tino had to strain his aching ears to even hear the whisper of a voice so raw with hurt.
Tino nodded - only then realizing that that pinched at his bandages and hurt quiet immensely - he squeezed the Swede's shoulder lovingly before pushing on his elbows to sit up.
"Oh, not yet you don't." Nikolas chided Tino, propping up his pillows a bit so the Finn could sit up more but not be pushed out from the sides of the small medical cot.
Tino huffed with a pout before his heavy lidded eyes narrowed in annoyance.
"And why can I not…take my rest…elsewhere?" He asked with mild bewilderment at his cousin who wore the very stiff face of a medical doctor taking care o his patient.
"Because first you mush finish this entire bowl of steamed greens. Your blood level is low, water can only help so much. So - eat this all up, and then you may go take your much needed rest." Nikolas took a scrap of fine orange linen from the table beside him and laid it over Tino's lap. Then, cooling the mixture of warmed nettle and spinach sweetened with honey and finely ground nuts for added protein for the weaken state of the Finn, he left Tino to his meal.
After the more than rather bland meal was, with difficulty, passed through the Finn's lips and down into his aching stomach, Tino was excused from the sick room.
Wrapped up in a heavy woolen cloak that covered his night gowned self from prying village eyes, with fresh new bandages swathed over his silted wounds Tino was heaved up bridal style by the strong arms of Berwald.
"Now do not shake him much - he his still weak, as weak as a childs doll. If his wounds re-open, com get me immediately." Nikolas warned Berwald carefully just as the pair was pushing their way past the shifting curtains in the tent that smelled of cedar smoke and juniper berries crackling on top of coals.
Berwald only nodded solemnly, taking great care in cradling the Finn's weary body to his chest, Tino sighed softly into his shoulder as the pain within him ebbed and waxed, came and went.
Outside the Finn can smell the destruction, can see it with his own eyes, stark in front of him unmasked and horrid.
Men hobbling on feet wrapped tight with strips of stiff hide - arms that are broken attached to splints of wood to right the bone painfully and slowly.
Women, those who had not had their lives taken by Ivan's men fluttered about the place like shades and wreaths - hands moving over opened wounds and pressing bowls of warm gruel into hands as others worked to cook for the many hungry bellies that called out with gurgled. Somewhere off into the night a babe cried and kinsmen wept and wailed for those that were never coming home.
Tino wondered silently how many had died this day.
Yet once inside the tent Tino's thoughts are stolen from him as he gazes at the expectant eyes of his freckled child, curled up in a froth of blankets, eyes peeping over the covers.
Tino smiled weekly at the little lad, wincing only slightly as Berwald sets him down against the bed, blankets pulled back to quickly snuggle the Finn's hurting body.
"Mother…" Tino whispered softly in English, Tino barely making out the words before Peter softly, slowly because he knew his Mamma was still hurting, settled down against the Finn's chest.
"I prayed for you - I prayed to the Goddess of healing - the Goddess of back home." Peter murmured with half gibberish, messing his Swedish all up till Tino could only laugh and clutch at his child like he was a young babe coddled in his arms.
"Your prayers have been answered, my baby," Tino sucked in a bought of painful breath before he kissed the top of Peter's golden crowned head. "Now you must sleep. Sleep and dream of wonderful things."
Peter nodded and tucked his head against his mothers collar bone, sniffling once, twice, before he began to lull off to the soft whispered breathing of the Finn.
It didn't take long for the Finnish man to join his son in the land of Slumber.
And while they slept, Berwald's son and wife, the Swede was alone with his thoughts. So terribly alone.
Berwald then, mind working despite his lack of faith in his emotions, began to unbuckle his armor, the putrid smelling reindeer hide smelling like blood - another mans blood, another mans torment.
The rose coiled knots gave weigh under his trembling thick fingers, hands used to having someone help him with the giant ticks of bronze on his shoulder pads. Yet after a few quiet minutes he managed on his own, armor laid over the backing of a chair to keep the shape of his body - he would tend to the blood stains making the leather stiff later. Now was not the time.
He then got to work on the dirty rag of a tunic that was left graced over his shoulders flaking with dirt. Un-looping the twine that held the shirt together in front, Berwald scraped it off his sweaty body and threw it into the fire place in the middle of the room - watching at the cloth hissed with the additive of blood and sweat. The smell was something less pleasant to his nose so that he quickly lit a twisted bundle of evergreen bough - dried a creamy green color. It caught in the flames magnificently, enticing the room to it's crisp smoky scent. It did wonders to calm the warriors already flayed and flogged nerves.
Next, thinking that Tino would be none too happy with him rolling in their sheets as dirty and muddy as a boar, the Swede took a small washcloth and warm water to his face and neck, shoulders and back to clean of the added grim that coated his once pale body a dulled brown like those Roman men with their warrior bronzed flesh.
After the cloth, stained a deep brown with spots of purplish red from blood not his own, Berwald too, threw that cloth into the fire and watched it burn for a few minutes, not wanting his mind to run back to it's maddened place. The place that housed all his fears and secrets, that housed his worries and doubts.
He didn't need to think of that now - it would only kill him.
And so he slipped into a new flaxen tunic, the cloth feeling nice and warm and lighter than his armor. He tucked off his dirty boots and left them by the door before he pulled the giant beds covers back and sunk into the warmth that two bodies had already circulated within the blankets.
Then, with hands that shook only slightly, he nestled his way to the hunched body of the Finn who seemed, was already out like a light and hugging the sleeping body of Peter to him tenderly.
Only the first inklings of surprise grace the Swede's face when Tino rolls over softly and, eyes still very shut, clutches for the Swede with one hand, other still coiled around the body of Peter.
Berwald swallowed stiffly in his throat before he cuddled the Finn to his chest, feeling the first instance of tears soak his face since he was outside the Finnish mans medical tent, sent to wait outside for the verdict on Tino's health.
Berwald, feeling his throat tighten, began to awkwardly stroke the soft hair at Tino's head - a bit blonder from it's time in the sun. It sparkled like snow.
But then the Swede's eyes turned to wandering and Berwald saw things he wished he hadn't.
A purplish blotch at the corner of Tino's mouth was beginning to form, the edges of it yellowing, promising to not go away with in the course of the night. The bruise making it's home stark against the blood drained face of the Finn that seemed to sleep so soundly, so peacefully.
But his eyes kept wandering, to the edges of the bandages that were loosening, showing pink and red and slight purple at the edges - the markings of a dagger sliced along his neck, showing scars that would never disappear.
Tino would have those reminders of what happened today for the rest of his life.
Berwald felt his eyes blur painfully, the first onslaught of tears coming, dripping, wetting.
Then, his eyes that have betrayed him so, moved onward to his son, seeing the battered wrists of his child, from where Ivan's men had tied him stiffly to a tree. The rope burns looked like they hurt as they blushed into the boys pasty colored skin. Painfully red they were.
They looked like the gag marks on the childs mouth as well, tinted pink at the corners from where the cloth was wrapped tight and tied. It would have been even harder for the little lad to breath, so scare must he had been.
Berwald couldn't stop his fingers, fists, hands tightening against the covers of the bed, of feeling his knuckles turn white at the realization of what his family had just gone through.
And all for the victory of a falsely won battle.
Berwald cursed himself with hatred, feeling the tears prickle at the corner of his eyes again, the corner of his tunic sleeves already wet with them.
Then, giving out a quiet sob so as not to awaken Tino or Peter, Berwald leaned down to kiss each atop their heads, whispering "I love you"s and "You are safe now"s.
He only hopped they believed him and his words that hurt his heart so.
…
When Tino finally stirred awake, it was early morning, about four, judging from how the rooster bawled and crowed a fit from his post.
The Finn resisted the urge to plug his ears with the heaps of pillows underneath his throbbing head - wishing for the damn feathered bird to stop his cawing.
But the damage was done and Tino was wide awake now - the fire in the middle of the tent having gone out long ago, entreating the early morning chill to feast upon the cold of Tino's face, ears and nose.
He yawned quietly, carefully so as not to hurt his throat any more than necessary - the flesh between the scars feeling numb and fiery at the same time. A peculiar sensation that he hoped he would never have to experience again.
However, with eyes now awake, his gaze fell upon the face of Berwald, of his somber jade glance that filled Tino with remembrance.
How he got these scars, who they were from…
Who was too late to save him from pain.
Tino place d a soft smile over his face, banishing those thoughts from him forever. Instead, he cupped lightly at the Swede's face, eyes circled underneath with black smudges. The Swede had been up all night it seemed, just gazing vacantly at his wife and child.
Tormenting himself with a nights worth of hateful thoughts for himself.
Tino sighed and sat up, wrapping his robe that was draped over the post of his bed around him, his cheeks already tinted pink with cold - a good sign.
But it was even more trouble trying to forget those strange hands on him before - threateningly cool fingers holding the knife ever so close.
Tino shivered then, a frown coming over his face before he could even stop it - before he could even take it back.
But the damage was done.
In that instant Berwald threw himself from out the bed, his jaw clenched tight as he began to pace about the dirt floored room, his chilled feet sounding ghostly and not at all real.
Put the pain and hurt and anger in his face was real. That, Tino could see.
Tino sighed once more and gaze down at his child, his son stirring slightly from the cold of the morning, but still he slept. Tino knew his son would be lucky if he did not get nightmares.
"Ber...Berwald..." Tino mumbled his throat still raw and underused in such circumstances. But still he tried, tried to get his husband to look at him without sorrow.
It was not the Swede's fault.
But still the Swedish Viking paced tightly around the room, like an irksome stallion with too much tension in his muscles, with a bit pulled tight and fire in his eyes. Even at the soft and worried voice of his beloved, the Swede did not look up.
"Berwald..." Tino tried again, this time he cleared his throat to be better heard by the enthralled man.
It was then that Berwald stopped and slammed his fist against a table top - causing a clatter so great it caused the small white dog at the foot of the bed to whine and skid out the tent flaps.
Tino swallowed hard as he looked at the rage and wrath captured on his husbands face.
"I'll k'll 'em..." He growled out, like a lion lick his jaws at a potential threat.
Tino could only flinch, worrying over Peter who began to stir from his fathers commotion. The Finn, taking the young boy to his arms simply coddled him to his chest. He hushed Peter back into his dreams as best as he could, looking sorely at Berwald who felt like he would break down at any second.
Then, once the child is put back into the land of dreams, Tino silently slipped out from the side of the bed, wrapping the robe over his pale white and green long tunic for modesty's sake.
With shaking legs numbed by cold Tino made his way to his standing husband who was shaking with suppressed sobs and despair, the Finn cupping his chin with his hand to make him look at him, to gaze into his eyes.
Berwald resisted the urge to turn away.
"You did all that you could…You saved us…when we needed you…most. You did not fail me." Tino whispered gently, slowly as his voice crackled some.
"It feels as if ah' did - ah' should 'ave gotten there sooner, ah' should 'ave kicked th' damn horse till 'er legs fell off - ah' should 'ave been quicker -" Berwald began to babble, his voice growing thick as he dry heaved past a sob, shoulder shaking and hands coming to wrap around the Finn like a child at his mothers skirts.
Tino hushed him softly, a sweet smile on his face as he felt the wet tears stain his shoulders. He rubbed the Barbarians awkwardly bent back soothingly, earning himself a few mumbled words in Swedish mixed in with croons of sobs.
"Berwald, I am fine…Tired and weary and angry at Ivan…But fine just the same. You must let go of these doubts that eat you….You must prepare for the next battle." Tino whispered against the cheek of the man he had come to love, earning a sigh and clench of teeth.
Berwald nodded slowly, pulling back to gaze into the plum spiced colored eyes of his beloved Tino, his bride whom he had sworn to protect with his life and heart.
The man he was most loyal to.
"I will not leave you, Berwald." Tino assured the Swede with a soft peck to his lips.
"As long as I have breath in my lungs… I will never leave you." The Finn pressed his lips then to the Swede's cheeks, the Viking sighing at the affection he was receiving - that he sorely needed.
"And even then, I will always watch over you."
Berwald swallowed his tears down, looking pained at the man before him, so broken yet still so strong and composed - like a leader coaxing a young boy to carry on and move past the destruction to journey to the greatness.
"Dun'... Dun' talk like that. Dun' talk 'bout dyin'." He muttered sadly, resting his forehead on the Finn's warming shoulder, inhaling his scent that calmed him so much.
Tino sighed and nodded, understanding that the conversation had come to a close.
So, with gentle fingers, Tino led his husband back to their bed to snuggle their son and wrap their arms around each other with the promise of never letting go - not matter what.
And as Tino slowly fell asleep, lashes catching the sun from the brand new day that seeped from the cracks of their tent, Berwald felt better, much better than before.
Oh, he still felt like crying and ripping himself to pieces - but with Peter wrapped in between them mumbling silly words, with Tino's soft breath over his face that comforted him so - Berwald felt better. Better than he had in ages.
And so there was nothing to bade Berwald from whispering soft words of love over his child and wife. And there was nothing to keep him from asking Tino a question that he and his heart desperately wanted an answer to.
"T'no, will ya' be m' w'fe...?" He whispered gently over the top of Tino's head - his soft hair tickling his lips.
Tino, still sleeping soundly, only buried his head closer to Berwald's chest. Berwald was sure the Finn could hear his rapidly pounding heart, singing out a song just for him.
But Berwald sighed, kissing once against the Finn's temple before he too sank into the covers for some much needed rest.
He vowed to never let his family be taken from him again.
…..
I would so be a dick if I just ended the whole story here. BUT I'M NOT! (Because we got a shit ton more chapters to go! Ain't I just great?) So, what's the verdict? Good chapter? Sucky chapter? TELL MEH - THE DOLPHINS ARE CIRCILING ME!
…
Authors Notes:
-"Lady Sirona, she who commands healing by her watery springs, please - let not my Mamma be taken by the soil nor flame. Please."* -"Sirona" was the Goddess of healing worshiped in East Central Gaul. She is also found in Old Iris as Ser and in Welsh as Seren. Her symbols were snakes and eggs and she presided over healing springs of water.