Warning: brief mention of hand-holding in this chapter. Reader discretion is advised.
"Hey. Buttercup."
Maribelle awoke with a start. She sat up, then immediately regretted it as a lance of pain shot up her leg. She hissed, ignoring the pain as she pushed the bandage back into place.
"Oh, sorry, should I have knocked?"
Maribelle looked up. Chrom stood frozen by the doorway, a startled look of his own on his face. Maribelle's face lit up, and for a moment, she dared to hope he'd come back for her. When she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, though, he vanished, the mercenary from before standing in his place.
She tried to hide her disappointment. No need to insult him, not if he was stuck here taking care of her. The man still gave her a worried look.
"Is... is there something wrong?" he asked.
"Oh no, it's nothing," Maribelle laughed, weakly brushing him off.
"You say that, but your face tells a different story."
"I said it's nothing!" she snapped. "Now, did you get any vulneraries or not?"
The man winced. "Yeah. About that..."
"What? Were they out or something?" Maribelle huffed, turning toward the window by her side.
When she didn't receive a response, she narrowed her eyes, and she glanced back at him. He met her gaze with a guilty look, refusing to meet her eyes.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Maribelle groaned. "Out of all the places I could've ended up, I had to be stuck in the one town without vulneraries!"
"Ah–"
"Do you know how many places I've been to? I've visited cities and towns in Ylisse, Plegia, and Ferox. And any time I visited the shops there, do you know what was the one thing they always had in stock? Vulneraries!"
"The thing is–"
"Some of them only sold tomes, some of them only sold axes. There was even that odd shop that only sold Falchion replicas, but not once did I ever find them out of vulneraries, or concoctions, or elixirs, or any of those things! Do you know why? Because they're a necessity, that's why!"
"Ahem."
Maribelle paused. She glanced back over at the man, a flat look on his face, and it occurred to her somewhere within the fuzzy depths of her mind that he may or may not have been speaking.
"But," she cleared her throat, "I'm... letting myself get carried away here. Was there anything you needed me to hear?"
"I purchased this," he said, and he pulled out a heal staff from behind his back.
Maribelle blinked. "It's better than nothing, I suppose." She shifted her position on the bed, moving the tangle of cloth her sheets had become out from under her. "Well, don't just stand there! Bring it over."
The man shuffled over to her and held it out. Maribelle could only look unimpressed. When he looked back at her, confused, she raised an eyebrow.
"Aren't you going to use it?"
"I thought you were supposed to use it," he replied. "You said you were a healer, did you not?"
"Oh yes, and I suppose you would expect a midwife to deliver her own child, or a surgeon to cut open their own insides." Maribelle crossed her arms. "Didn't your friend ever tell you people can't use heal staves on themselves?"
"Ah... no, not really. He's not really a sociable guy," he said, reaching up to scratch behind his head.
Maribelle blinked. "Fair enough. I wouldn't want to do much talking with someone like you either."
"Hey!" The man frowned, and he waved the staff in front of her face. "Am I supposed to help or not?"
"What do you think? You won't get your payment if I'm dead!"
"Alright, alright!" The man leaned forward, irritation clear on his face. He lowered the bright blue bulb at the end over her bandage, before he stopped.
"What is it now?" she asked.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"What are–" Maribelle paused.
A bunch of things immediately came to mind. Medical terms, slight twitches, odd grips, none of which they had the time for. Healing came naturally for her now, but she couldn't, for the life of her, recall how or why those habits had been instilled into her.
"Just... uh..." Maribelle grabbed the head of the staff and waved it over her bandaged leg. "I think you want to try to push yourself through the staff."
"I'm sorry. What?"
Gripping the side of her head, Maribelle groaned. "Oh, this is going to be a pain."
The receptionist already felt a headache coming on as she trudged up the stairs. Just when she thought she could leave for the night, the inn's owner had told her two of their guests had left a sword at the front desk, and ordered her to return it to them. Why he couldn't be bothered to do it himself was beyond her.
"I don't get paid enough for this," she muttered, her foot barely grazing over the top step. "When I get there, they better open up, or I'm keeping this damn sword to myself."
Blearily, she counted the doors down the hall one by one. When she reached the end, though, she realized she'd completely forgotten which room the sword's owners had taken up and groaned. She leaned back against the wall, taking a moment to try to recall the room number from the tired depths of her mind, when she heard voices slip out from behind her.
"Just what do you think you're doing? Do you think you're going to reach anything through the fabric! Take it off first, you dolt!"
"Hey, I've never done this kind of thing before!"
"That's no excuse! Anyone could have understood– Ouch! Be more gentle with that, won't you?"
"Maybe if you stopped moving so much, I'd be able to get a better grip!"
"Oh forget it, I'll just guide you through it myself."
"Hey now, there's no need to hold my hand through the whole process. I'm not a child, you realize."
"Maybe I might have less trouble seeing that if you stopped doing everything wrong! Here, give me your staff, and–"
The receptionist pushed herself off the wall. She glanced out the window, then up at room number, confirming that, yes, this was the same couple who had checked in earlier this afternoon.
"I guess he didn't listen when I told him we needed thicker walls," she said to herself. "And I thought it would have taken at least a day for anything to happen."
Maybe she was just getting old at the ripe age of nineteen.
And with that thought, she pushed off the wall and headed back toward the stairs. The hotel owner could return the sword himself. It was time for her to leave. She had seen everything.
Maribelle hummed, impressed as she rubbed a hand over the healed skin on her thigh. "Well, I'm certainly glad that's done with."
"Yeah." The man wrung his hands and shuffled his feet. "So, how'd I do?"
"How did you do?" Maribelle tried to move her leg, and she winced when her movement came out slow and shaky. "It still feels stiff, and I can't feel anything over here... but," she added as she saw his face fall, "for someone who's never done this before, I've seen a lot worse."
"So... I did good?"
"You did fine. Stop looking so dour, mister..."
Maribelle hesitated. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she had never asked his name.
"I never did get your name, you know."
"Ah. We were in a bit of a rush, so it's no big deal."
"Please," she said. "As a noblewoman, it is only proper that I know the names of my traveling companions, even if they are only staying for pay."
"If you insist, then." The man glanced around, his eyes flitting from corner to corner, before they landed on her, deep, hazel, and almost steady. "My name," he said, "is–"
A loud crack cut him off, splitting the air like a thunder spell ripping itself apart from the inside out.
Each chapter we descend further into crack territory.
I'll be honest, this is probably "The Princess and the Fraud" levels of "It's a lot less funny than I think it is" unfunny, but hey, an opportunity presented itself and I took it. And who knew Gardenia was an actual flower, I thought that was just a gym leader from Pokemon!
Been juggling some projects between this and school stuff. Some may eventually see the light of day. And at least I didn't leave this fic alone for months on end, so there's that. Until next time, I wish you all well, and stay safe!