Chapter 12

"Do you hear that?"

Lori glanced up at the bed where Adela slept, keeping her voice soft. She'd grown used to the sounds of the forest, but a prickle on the back of her neck had woken her to a strange, intermittent groaning.

Adela was silent for a long moment, and Lori wondered if she was still asleep until her voice sounded in the dark of the cottage. "It sounds like a wounded animal."

"I'm going to go see what it is." With a sigh, Lori pushed herself to her feet. There was a potential patient out in the woods. Even if it was just an animal, she didn't want it to suffer needlessly—and it had been a while since they'd had any fresh meat.

The balmy, late-spring air greeted her as she stepped outside. She lit a torch and entered the woods with slow, cautious steps. A wound meant something had caused it, and she didn't want to be taken by surprise.

She stopped on a patch of hard earth and listened. The groans had fallen silent, but after a moment her ears perked at a whimper. She pushed into the shadows to her right and came across the source of the noise.

A man was slumped against a tree, his breathing labored. Blood glistened on his thigh. Lori raised her eyes to the man's face, and fear took her in a viselike grip.

There was a new scar on his cheek, where Aragorn's arrow had sliced through the skin. Charlie looked up at her, and recognition washed over his expression.

"You."

Her throat tightened, a defensive instinct seizing her muscles. She took a step back, holding the torch in front of her like a weapon.

"Please." His voice was quite and desperate, nothing like the smooth, arrogant tone he had used during their last meeting. "I won't hurt you. My leg…"

Even if he wasn't able to get her, he hadn't been alone last time. Lori swiveled, illuminating their surroundings with her torch, which suddenly seemed pathetically dim against the oppressive darkness.

"Where are your friends?" she asked, the accusation in her voice equally impotent against the fear clawing at her throat.

"Bastards stabbed me," Charlie responded through gritted teeth. "Left with the money from— It doesn't matter. I heard a healer lived 'round these parts, and I thought…"

"You thought," Lori repeated, and almost didn't recognize her voice.

Their positions were reversed, now. He was helpless, looking for mercy, and she stood above him. She could walk back to the cottage and lie to Adela. If he didn't bleed to death tonight, infection would take him sooner or later.

"Please," he repeated. He sniffled, and a tear fell down his cheek. "Please just help me. I don't want to die out here."

"Yeah, and I didn't want to get raped and murdered by a group of strangers," Lori spat. Her knuckles were white around the handle of the torch. "But you didn't give a shit about that, did you?"

"I-I—" Charlie faltered and visibly swallowed.

"Do you honestly expect me to help you after what you were going to do to me?" she said, the trembling in her voice belying any threat her words might have carried. She realized her own cheeks were wet, and she hated herself for it. She wished she could gouge a matching hole in her own leg.

"I'm sorry, all right?" His voice cracked. "I didn't know… I couldn't have known. What I did was wrong. I see that now."

"You're pathetic," Lori said, and walked out of the clearing.

"Wait! Please!" Charlie howled after her, but she kept her head down.

A sob rattled in her chest. Lori could only take a dozen steps before shame rooted her in place. The bitter anger, the fear, the words she'd spat in his direction—she wished she could cauterize that part of herself. She couldn't stomach the thought of leaving an injured man to die, nor could she stand the idea of treating him.

If Aragorn was here, what would he say?

Lori bit her lip. She already knew what he would have done in her place, but it wasn't the same. Aragorn didn't have to worry about being easy prey.

Her nails were digging into her palm. Lori forced herself to open her fist. She knew her way back to the cottage from here, but she could already picture Adela's indifferent stare, the silent dismissal of the fear she carried.

She looked down at the dark furrows on her hand where her nails had bit into the skin. Neither Aragorn nor Adela were here, right now, on the brink of her decision. She was the one who had to make the call.

A sigh escaped her, and her chest ached with the motion. She'd become a healer so that she could help people, not decide who deserved to live or die.

Trying to even out her breathing, Lori strode back towards the cottage. Adela was sitting up when she walked through the door, watching her with her large eyes.

"There is a wounded man out there," Lori said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I am going to tend to him in the forest. I am not going to bring him back to the cottage or tell him where it is." She bit the inside of her lip, half-bracing herself for an argument.

After a moment, Adela said, "You know what you need?"

"Yes."

Lori pushed herself back into motion, grabbing supplies from the shelf. She'd been here long enough that she could find everything, even in the dark.

Her heart was in her throat as she marched back into the forest. Twice, she stopped and considered turning back. Charlie might have grown angry that she'd left and could try to attack even with his injury. Maybe he would find a way to follow her back to the cottage. Maybe she was wasting supplies on a man who would be dead within the week.

The greatest of all her fears was that he would live, that he would make a fully recovery, and that what she had done for him wouldn't matter at all. She was terrified that she was about to save a man that would use his second chance to keep hurting other people.

She took a deep breath, thinking not of what Aragorn would do in her place, but what he would think of her own decision, and how she herself would feel looking back on this moment.

Every muscle in her body was painfully tense by the time she made it back to the clearing. Charlie was slumped where she had left him, but his head shot up at the sound of her footsteps. Fear and hope danced in his expression along with the flickering shadows from the torch.

Lori hardened her expression, trying not to betray the tremor in her jaw. He's not going to hurt you. He needs you, she reminded herself. She propped the torch against a raised stone, securing it so it wouldn't roll over and set the undergrowth on fire.

She never turned her back on Charlie. With her supplies tucked under one arm, she rose to her feet.

"Get rid of your weapons," she said.

A grimace passed over his face, but he voiced no argument. With a wince, he shifted his weight and drew the long knife from his belt and tossed it across the clearing. Lori watched it where it lay across two jutting roots. It would take three paces for him to reach it, and that wasn't taking his injury into account.

Feeling a little more secure, Lori knelt beside him and bent her head to inspect the injury. There was enough blood that it might have hit an vein, but the bleeding had slowed. She cut away part of his trousers with her small knife, then tucked the blade securely in her pocket. Gently, she washed the wound with some water, satisfied to see that the blood had begun to clot.

"Lift your leg a little," she said.

Charlie complied, a pained groan escaping his lips. She found a suitably-sized stone and slid it beneath his knee to prop the leg up. She took a roll of bandages and wound it tightly around his injury.

With her work completed, she handed him a small bottle and stood up. "That will help you if you start to feel feverish. Don't take the bandages off yourself. I suggest you find someone elsewhere that can make sure your wound heals properly."

His large fist curled around the glass container. Sweat glistened on his upper lip. "Why…Why are you doing this?"

A lump appeared in her throat. Treating the wound had provided a distraction from her inner turmoil, but her calm slipped away as soon as she was finished.

"I don't care what happens to you," Lori said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "I won't hope that you live, but I don't want you to die, either. I just don't want to be the person that abandons someone I could have helped."

Without waiting for an answer, she backed up and retrieved her torch. She made for the southern edge of the clearing, planning to loop around to the cottage, then paused. She spoke one last time, slowly and clearly, as if her words carried any power.

"I don't ever want to see you again."

Summer came and died before its heat really had a chance to soak into the earth. Lori watched the leaves turn orange with a lump in her throat. She'd been hoping the warmth and longer days would have kept her spirits up. Even after Faeron left and the cottage grew quiet again, she'd found some comfort in breathing in the blooming scents from the garden and finding shady spots when the sun grew too hot.

But then Charlie had come and gone, and Lori had found it hard to sleep ever since. Without fail, she jolted awake every night, and watched the woods for signs of movement before she was able to relax again. Guilt and unease filled her stomach like acid every time she thought of that night, no matter how many times she told herself that she'd done the right thing.

And now the days were growing colder again, darkness encroaching bit by bit on the evening hours. Lori felt like the cold breezes were blowing right through her. She lay on her side at night and dark thoughts whistled through her chest just as hollowly.

The night the cold reached its solstice, she crept out of the cottage and wandered into the woods. She hiked up to the creek where she washed laundry in warmer weather and dipped her fingers into the water. The chill blistered on her fingers until it felt like burning instead.

Lori shook the droplets away and sat on a flat stone. The cold seeped into her nose and ears without mercy, just like they had that first day she'd wandered through the snow—nearly two years ago, now.

She'd heard that dying from hypothermia was supposed to be euphoric, in the end. After the feeling drained from each limb, it was supposed to feel good. She wished for something like that, even if it wasn't right, just so she could tip the sensation down her throat and feel something else for a while.

It wasn't until daylight appeared above the serrated peaks of the pine trees that Lori realized how long she'd been sitting there. She stirred, her limbs painfully stiff from the position they'd been locked in. She flexed her fingers and hissed at the painful sparks that jabbed beneath her skin.

Walking back to the cottage took longer than normal as she coaxed some life back into her limbs. Her ears felt numb, and she resisted the urge to touch them. She tucked her hands against her sides to try and warm them up, and the flesh began to tingle.

She almost stopped before she reached the door, hesitant to see the look she would find on Adela's face when she returned. She wasn't sure what would bother her more—apathy or concern. Her boots scuffed against the dry pine needles, and she forced her feet to keep moving. It was harder these days to find momentum, and she wanted to keep the precious little she had.

The relatively warm air inside the cottage made her ears burn. Adela was rearranging some things on the shelf when Lori walked in. She paused in her work, but didn't turn around.

Anticipation swelled in her throat. Lori opened her mouth, dully searching for an excuse, an explanation, a plea. It occurred to her that she didn't need to offer any of those.

Adela turned to stoke the fire, then approached Lori where she was still frozen by the door. She gestured, and Lori held out her hands. Adela inspected her fingers and ears, her expression masked by careful neutrality.

She stepped back with a small sigh. "I don't have to tell you—"

"I want to leave," Lori said. She almost didn't realize that the words had come from her mouth. She repeated them with purpose. "I want to leave here."

"I've never made to keep you from doing so."

"I know," Lori replied, and the words sounded childish in her ears. She had no reason to expect Adela to ask her to stay, outside of the usefulness she provided. The thought sent a pang of guilt through her chilled flesh. "I'll stay until spring, and then I'm going."

Adela only nodded.

The urge to walk back out into the freezing air pulled at her. Lori ignored it and moved to start her chores for the day.

The day of her departure drew closer like a holiday. Lori didn't have a specific date in mind—she meant to wait until the weather was warm enough to travel, when there was a sufficient amount of firewood chopped and the seeds had been planted in the garden. There was no one here that would offer to take her away this time—she would have to make the leap herself.

It came to her one afternoon like an instinct, the same pull to her gut that had brought her into the freezing cold all those weeks ago. She waited until dinner to tell Adela.

"I'm planning to leave tomorrow morning. Is there anything you want me to take care of before I go?"

Adela clasped her cup of tea in both hands, her fingers almost as lined as the grain of the wood. "You've done your duty. I won't ask any more of you before you leave."

"All right." She scraped at the small puddle of broth at the bottom of her bowl. "I do appreciate everything you've taught me this past year."

"You should decide which supplies you want to take. You're welcome to whatever you find useful."

Lori nodded. She'd have to look over her notes one more time, just to refresh her memory. She would need to be as prepared as possible if she was going to be practicing medicine on her own. The thought sent a small thrill through her, half anxiety and half exhilaration.

"Open the curtain."

Her head snapped up. "What?"

Instead of repeating herself, Adela nodded towards the curtained section of the room, the tiny section of space that had always remained a mystery to Lori.

After a moment of hesitation, she lifted herself to the floor and made her way to the concealed corner. All the guesses she'd entertained came back to her mind, one after the other. She'd imagined a mummified corpse, a stash of narcotics, a sculpture of a loved one. When a strong gust of wind blew through the door, she would catch some rounded shape on the other side of the fabric and try to piece together an answer from that.

But she'd never looked.

It seemed useless to ask Adela why she was giving her permission now. She could guess well enough that it had to do with her leaving. The rest of the answer was at her fingertips, so Lori pulled the curtain aside.

Behind it was an intricate contraption, nearly tall enough to reach the ceiling. There were several bronze chambers connected with twisting tubes and pipes, and at the bottom was a small spigot.

She blinked slowly. "Is this what I think it is?"

Lori turned to Adela, who raised an eyebrow. "And what do you think?"

"I mean, I've only ever seen pictures, but…" She bent to inspect the machine more closely. "This kind of looks like a distiller."

"It was built for me by a dwarf many years ago, as a gift," Adela said. "In my younger days I sold moonshine to nearby towns."

Her eyes rounded. "Wow. I…I did not expect that."

"You mean to tell me you've never seen this before?"

"No," Lori scoffed, unable to hide her offense. "I'm not a child. I'll admit I've been curious about what's behind here, but you never gave me permission to look, so I haven't."

She made to close the curtain, then paused as something on the floor caught her eye. Half-hidden behind one of the copper chambers was a large clay jug, its cork sealed with wax.

"You still have some."

Adela beckoned with one hand, so Lori picked up the jug, its weight in her hand confirming her suspicion, and brought it to her. She rubbed the seal for a few seconds, then used a knife to pry the cork out. With a practiced movement, she tilted the jug sideways so a stream of clear liquid spilled into her empty cup. She did the same with Lori's and handed it to her.

Lori sniffed the contents and held her free hand to her nose. "God. What's this made of?"

"Mandrake, belladonna, and a few other ingredients that I will keep to myself."

"So, does this kill people before or after it gets them drunk?"

"The distillate is quite safe, besides the typical effects of alcohol." Adela raised the cup to her lips to prove her point.

Lori glanced at the moonshine in her own cup. The smell of it still tingled in her nostrils.

Fuck it. This was her last night here. She could celebrate a little before she started out on her own.

The moonshine seared the back of her throat and spilled a pleasant warmth down into her belly. Lori stifled a cough with one hand, her eyes watering.

"Holy fuck." She sat on the bed, careful not to spill anything. "People used to buy this?"

"The right people will pay good money for good liquor." Adela tossed back her cup like it contained nothing but water and refilled it. She cleared her throat. "In those days I had enough coin to hire men to repair the cottage, help me carry my wares to town to be sold. But drink can corrupt as easily as gold." She glanced at the dusty machine in the corner. "It's safer now as a secret."

Lori watched her as she spoke, her cup clasped in both hands. This was the first time she could remember that Adela had spoken so openly about something that wasn't medicine. And she'd waited until the day before she was going to leave to share all of it.

Adela couldn't possibly believe that Lori would expose her secret, not after all this time. Maybe she was doing this in an attempt to get her to stay.

She raised the cup to her lips.

"How did you come up with this recipe?" Lori asked once her throat had stopped burning.

"Experimentation. I was already familiar with the properties of various herbs, how to change them into something else, and it was natural to add fermentation and distillation to what I already knew of brewing plants."

"That's pretty impressive." Lori swirled the contents of her cup, surprised with how much she'd drained already. "I mean, it's been a while since I've had anything really strong to drink, but this is good." It was smooth, despite its strength, and had a faint, almost citrusy taste.

"You indulged while you lived in the Vale?"

"Um." Lori masked her hesitation with another sip and cough. One of the benefits of their lack of conversation had been that she'd never needed to flesh out her supposed past on the other side of the Misty Mountains. "Not too often."

Adela leaned forward with the jug to refill Lori's cup. "There's rarely opportunity for women to find themselves three tankards deep, not the way that men can."

"No," she agreed. "But I don't think I'd want that. And I don't think you would, either."

Those large, placid eyes met hers. "I haven't been to a tavern in more than thirty years."

"And how long have you been living here?"

"Longer than that."

"Why?" Lori pressed, propping her heels on the bed frame and leaning her elbows on her knees. The stew she'd eaten for dinner hadn't done much to stop the liquor from soaking right into her veins. "Why do you live out here alone?"

"Because I value privacy. People come to me in need, but never I to them. I am free to do with my land and my home what I wish."

"You've never needed me," Lori said, and drank. She wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement.

"I will not tomorrow." Adela refilled her cup.

Lori met her stare. "And what about when you get old…er?"

"Then I will be old enough to die."

"People die at any age." She shifted, wanting to curl her legs beside her, but her boots would get the bedsheets dirty. "I did."

Half a second too late, she realized her mistake, but she couldn't find it within herself to care, or to find a way to cover up her slip.

Fuck it. This is my last night here.

"I died a few years ago and then I ended up here." She waved an arm to indicate their surroundings. "In the woods. I've never been to this fucking place before. This world. I've never been to the Vale of the Anduin or any of those places."

"And how did you die?"

"I don't know." She kicked off her boots. "I can't remember. Apparently it was so bad they took my memory of it." She drained her second cup. "I don't care if you believe me."

"I don't know what it would change if I did or not."

Lori refilled her cup, then tucked her legs beside her. "You're not afraid of dying."

"I'm not afraid of anything," Adela said, and Lori believed her.

"Because you don't care about anything," she said. A small, slow part of her recoiled in horror at her own words, but she didn't want to take them back. This was her last night here. She'd been sitting here in this stagnant house for a year, and there was nothing stopping her from digging past the layers of rotting wood and stone and tangled roots and figuring out exactly why this place was here at all.

"All right." Adela's expression was unreadable again. Or maybe Lori just couldn't see it properly. "I do not care for anyone or anything. I treat wounded men for no cost because otherwise the herbs on these shelves would rot and become useless."

Lori didn't bother hiding it as she rolled her eyes. That was an incomplete circle as far as logic went. She wasn't sure if Adela was trying to play mind games with her or what, but she wasn't in the mood for it—or sober enough, at this point.

"I'm becoming a healer because I want to help people," she said. "Because it would make the world a better place."

"And you believe that." Adela's words were still frustratingly clear, even after…how many cups? She'd lost count.

"Why would I say it if I didn't believe it?" Lori smiled, but the stretch of her muscles felt wrong. "Being a healer is a good thing. It can't not be." She shook her head and said, half to herself, "As long as I do it right."

"I hope you will," Adela replied, and something had changed in her voice.

When Lori looked up, she'd gone back to refilling her cup.

Gray light pierced the windows.

A small groan escaped her as Lori sat up and looked around. A headache had burrowed into her skull, just above her left eye, and her whole body felt sluggish and ill.

"Fucking hell…" She pushed herself to her feet. It was daytime, but the sky outside was overcast, and she was grateful for the lack of sunlight.

The curtain had been pulled back to conceal the distiller and the jug. A tiny flame crackled in the hearth, but there was no sign of Adela.

Lori made a small circuit around the tiny space, her footsteps dragging against the floor. She wasn't here. Maybe she'd gotten started on the chores Lori would have taken care of, but the thought didn't really comfort her.

She'd left without saying goodbye.

After a moment, her feet carried her to the table, where the two empty cups stood side by side. A small whiff of the liquor had her stomach turning.

Last night hadn't been about getting her to stay. Whatever it had been, Lori didn't want to dwell on it. Her head hurt. She was still set on leaving.

Gathering her strength, Lori collected everything she needed and shoved it into her pack. Her muscles protested with the simple movements, but she forced herself to keep going until she had everything she needed strapped to her back.

Without turning her head, she stepped outside into the gray morning.

I thought the encounter with Charlie would be an interesting dilemma for Lori: how can you help someone who tried to hurt you and might hurt you again? I didn't really have an answer in mind when I started the scene, I just let Lori work through it in the moment. I like the idea that practicing medicine doesn't just exist within a void, and there are ethical decisions that everyone has to make, some of which don't necessarily have a perfect answer.

I like Adela as being a sort of ambiguous character, but hopefully I've left enough there for you all to at least guess about her motives and feelings. I meant for her to be a sort of foil both for Lori and Aragorn, but I'd be interested to see what you guys think before I talk about my own intentions.

Also: the mandrake moonshine bit is inspired by the only vampire I'll ever stan, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy from The Witcher.

Anyway, thanks so much for reviews/favorites/follows! I was half-hoping to stay at 69 followers, but I'm grateful for everyone who's interested in this story!