"Asterix!"
The druid elbowed Obelix sharply for silence, even as Caesar's shaman stifled a gasp.
Dear gods, she thought. They tortured him.
She couldn't stop staring at Asterix. The only thing that told her he was not dead was that the villagers had not covered his face, beaten to an unrecognizable pulp. So was his body. O Libera, what had they done to him? What had they done in Obelix's absence? What had she, Latraviata, let them do to him?
Obelix was still standing with his back to her, facing Asterix, trembling. "Asterix…" he whispered.
It was a good thing Latraviata could not see Obelix's face. She had the feeling it might turn her, perhaps, to stone.
The villagers were still, as though in some ceremony, all except for Getafix the druid, who turned away and jogged towards the cart. Latraviata swept her hands back and forth in the dark of the cart-bed to find the gourd with the elixir that healed, bumping into the dream-whisperer as she did. He was curled up, muttering to himself, shuddering occasionally.
When she straightened, the frozen tableau was still there. Asterix, shattered, in a villager's arms; Obelix with his back to her; the village blacksmith still in the clearing carrying the injured bard. Arms outstretched, shaking, Obelix took a step forward, then another. The Gaul holding Asterix moved towards him. Obelix reached out carefully, preparing to receive Asterix into his arms.
The blacksmith stepped into his way. "Don't you dare. You're not his friend anymore."
Obelix stopped dead. She couldn't see his face, but she had a front-row seat to the other Gaul's expression: rage and contempt. "You've no right to touch him. You shouldn't even be allowed near him," he snarled at Obelix, who stood frozen in place. "Do you know what happened to him? Do you even care? Or were you too busy running around after what you wanted?"
Obelix said nothing. "No, of course you don't know, how would you?" the other Gaul spat. "Where were you when the Romans were using him as a punching bag? That bastard of a centurion treated him like a slave! He slapped him! Slapped Asterix, our Asterix! And then the legionaries laid into him, beat him until he was more dead than alive. We were all standing there! All except for his fair-weather friend!"
Obelix flinched at his words, as though he were being struck. The little shaman whimpered with each flinch. Suddenly, along with the whimpers, there was a rustle behind her: it was the druid, scrabbling in the cart-bed for the elixir. Latraviata held out the gourd to him behind her back, not really looking in his direction as she watched the drama unfolding in the village.
The blacksmith – she couldn't remember his name – was still raging. "They broke every bone in his body! Look at him. He's barely alive. They broke him into pieces and humiliated him and all we could do was watch. The centurion smashed his knee and he didn't even scream. But he called for you. Do you know that?" Some of the surrounding Gauls nodded, including the chief, who grunted confirmation. But the blacksmith wasn't done. "Do you even care," he ranted, "or did you just not think of what would become of him now you've run off after a pretty face?"
Obelix flinched again, a tiny sound escaping him.
"No…" muttered the little shaman, somewhere at Latraviata's feet. "Wanted to protect him…" Latraviata wasn't sure whether the words were the Roman's or Obelix's at this point. "He's so hurt… Left to keep him safe…" She stared as the little man started to sob, Obelix's shoulders shaking in unison.
"Go on and cry," the blacksmith shouted at Obelix. "Fat lot of good it'll do him! You weren't there. When they were finished with him and they left him for dead…" Tears choked off the blacksmith's rage, but he swallowed and went on. "He called your name. He called for you and you never came."
"Fulliautomatix," the village chief cut in. That was his name, then, Fulliautomatix, thought Latraviata. "Asterix forgave him." Chief Vitalstatistix choked. "Forgives him. Forgives him. He said to tell him," the chief swallowed, "not to blame himself." He looked directly at Obelix. "He said to tell you that it's not your fault."
Obelix dropped to his knees, as if under an unbearable weight. The ground shook.
"Fulliautomatix," the druid said gently. "Asterix needs him." Latraviata admired how the druid had sensibly stepped in at the descending arc of Fulliautomatix's rage, after his ire was spent. "And we need to take care of Cacofonix, too," the druid went on, gesturing to the man in Fulliautomatix's arms, whom he had been cradling with great tenderness all through his tirade, not tightening his grip once. He waited for the blacksmith to subside, then nodded. "Go ahead, Unhygienix."
The blacksmith stepped aside. The fishmonger reverently lowered Asterix's small, broken body into Obelix's outstretched arms.
The villagers were still, looking on without a sound. Getafix the druid parted Asterix's swollen lips, and poured the elixir down him. Asterix's bruises didn't fade, but he shuddered all over. "It will take a moment to take effect," Getafix said tightly. "Bring Cacofonix over here, Fulliautomatix. What are his injuries?"
"The silly idiot," Fulliautomatix's voice hitched, "got in the way of a legionary's sword. I tried to stop the wound, but he's been bleeding for a while, and…" Still carefully cradling his friend, the blacksmith hurried to the druid, who had moved a small distance away. Next to Latraviata, the little shaman moaned in tandem with Obelix.
Caius Insidius had no knowledge of the power that now linked him to the big Gaul even in wakefulness, but the man's suffering was tearing through his insides. He crouched in the bottom of the cart, trying to block it out, but it was relentless. "Asterix?" Obelix whispered. Caius didn't need to see Obelix's face, nor Asterix's injuries. Eyes open or closed, Asterix's image was burned into Obelix's mind, and Caius could see it.
He wasn't sure how he knew, but at the sight of Asterix, Obelix's heart had stuttered, as though punched through the chest. Caius had gasped along with him, Obelix's shock like a punch to his own solar plexus. Gathering his friend into his arms was like taking back a broken-off part of Obelix's soul. All he wanted, all he lived for in this moment, was to comfort, to shelter, to protect. Now that it was too late.
Obelix cradled Asterix's small, shattered body to his chest, gently pressing him to his heart. He flinched at the touch of the bloody, tattered fabric that had once been Asterix's clothing, the wrappings that the villagers had donated falling off him, soaked with blood. I did this, I did this, I did this. I left him to protect him, and now look at him.
The wind rustled in the treetops as Obelix wept. This was all his doing. He had made Asterix suffer. He'd broken his heart, he'd crushed his beautiful spirit, and then he'd left him alone for the Romans to break his bones. Every wound, every rip in his tunic, every scrap of battered and swollen flesh – and there was hardly an unhurt spot on his body – was his doing as surely as if he'd battered Asterix with his own fists. He'd let himself be tricked, and like the stupid idiot he was, he'd looked Asterix in the eyes and told him he didn't love him anymore. Those poor swollen-shut eyes, Asterix's broken cheekbone and jaw, his—oh, Toutatis, his poor leg—were hurts less terrible than the one he, Obelix, with his own hands, with his own words, had carved into his friend's heart.
Caius Insidius flinched, the waves of Obelix the Gaul's guilt and self-loathing pouring through him by proxy. "Asterix, I never meant…" With a desperate sob, Obelix raised a hand to his best friend's face, stroked his temples, feathered a trembling hand over his broken jawbone and swollen eyes, weeping at the maiming of the most precious thing in his world. He rocked Asterix and sobbed as he searched desperately for an unhurt spot on his friend's body, unable to find a patch of skin not bruised and abraded. "I never… I wanted you to be safe, Asterix… I… oh gods I never…"
Through Obelix's eyes, Caius saw Asterix's eyelids flutter. A jolt of joy pulsed through Obelix. "Asterix!" Smiling through his tears, he brought up a hand to caress a tiny unhurt spot on Asterix's face. But he flinched hard as his fingers brushed the blistered handprint on his friend's cheek where the centurion had struck him.
Asterix flinched at the fresh pain, and Obelix snatched his hand away. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and he shuddered as it revealed more of the damage to his friend's face. The blister, fluid-filled and puffy, lay next to a line of split skin, underlain by a bruise so dark it was almost black. And that was the good side: the other cheekbone was broken. "O Asterix… O Toutatis, you're so badly hurt…" He would never have wanted harm to come to a hair on Asterix's head, and yet here he was, lying shattered in Obelix's arms. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" Obelix gulped through his sobs. "I shouldn't have left you, I shouldn't have, I'm never leaving you again. Asterix, please, open your eyes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Asterix trembled feebly and forced his swollen, slitted eyes open. He made a heroic effort to blink, then slumped back into his friend's big arm. "Ob… uh…" he breathed.
"Don't." Obelix was choking on his tears, steadily stroking Asterix's hair, smoothing gentle fingers down his friend's temples. "Asterix, don't talk. Don't move. Please just rest, just take it easy, our druid's here and he'll make everything all right and…"
But Asterix moved again, and he fell silent, not wanting to interrupt his friend. Asterix struggled to speak past the pain of his broken face and swollen eyes. Obelix watched his struggle, gut twisting that he hadn't been there to protect him. "Obe…lix?"
"Yes." Obelix touched Asterix's hand gingerly, afraid to hurt him. "Yes, I'm here. I'm here, Asterix, I'm here." Obelix tried to make Asterix more comfortable in his arms, but how could he, with every inch of Asterix beaten black and blue? And he'd caused it as surely as if it had been his own fists doing the beating. Like the false friend his conscience—the Roman—had said he was. "I'm here," he sobbed. He was here too late, but he was here. "I'm not leaving you. Never leaving you again. Just please… please hold on."
A flood of love and relief and sadness filled Asterix. He didn't know how Obelix had found them, but his best friend was with him, and Asterix wasn't going to die with regrets. It was almost too wonderful to be true: Obelix was here, caressing his aching head, cradling him and comforting him and loving him in his last moments, and he was going to die at peace in his best friend's arms.
But Obelix was crying. That wasn't right.
With the last of his strength, Asterix closed his trembling fingers around Obelix's hand, and was rewarded by a small cry that touched Asterix's heart. He wanted to say 'I'm glad you're here,' he wanted to say 'It was all a plot,' he wanted to say, 'You came for me and that's what matters.' He wanted to say many things, but he only had breath left to say one thing. "Best friends f…forever," he gasped. "N…no regrets."
Obelix's groan seemed to shake the hearts of the trees.
In the cart, Caius Insidius felt Obelix's thoughts coursing through him, felt it all, felt the selflessness of that final confession. Until his half-trance was ruptured by Obelix's cry. "Asterix!"
Asterix had lost consciousness again, and Obelix was on his knees, gasping with silent sobs, holding in his grief. It flooded through Caius, linked to him, to them both. Shudders racked Caius as Obelix held Asterix and whispered his name, Obelix's guilt surging through Caius' nerves. He rose without knowing he was moving, alighted from the cart, drawn to the pair like a magnet. The pair he had destroyed.
"Please, Asterix," Obelix gasped. "Please." Obelix looked up at the druid, who was walking up to him, holding the gourd. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, only looking at the older man in supplication.
The druid pushed urgently past Caius, standing next to the man whose dreams he had invaded. "Hold his head, Obelix." Gently, Getafix poured more of the elixir down Asterix's throat.
"The Romans are coming!" a feminine voice loudly whispered, sibilant and carrying. It took Latraviata a moment to realize that the call had come from her.