Leaves…. Sunlight…. Air….. Pain…. No…. I'm….I'm moving….
Sunlight…. Blinding….. Arrgghhhhh….. Uhnnnn….. Must keep…..keep…..must…. c-can't….
… Trees…. Blue Sky….. Uhhhnnnn-Argh! Don't move….. Darkness...sleep….
The sound of a soft breeze through the leaves was all he heard the first time he woke. He drew in a slow, painful breath. Then winced. Everything hurt. He couldn't even pinpoint what hurt more, or where the pain was coming from. His side? His leg? All he felt at that moment was blinding pain. Every body part seemed no different than the next.
A soft groan escaped his lips as he tried to will his body into motion. He had to move… had to get somewhere safe. If he managed to so much as twitch a pinky, he couldn't tell. His eyelids opened ever so slightly, just to snap shut again at the blinding white light that filled them. No… wait…. D-don't…. Sleep….
The smell of dirt was the next thing he woke up to. Strong, but comforting. Like a hole in the ground. A safe little hole…. His head throbbed, and he gritted his teeth slightly, trying to make sense of the flood of information assaulting him. Dirt. Yes, he could smell dirt. But when he managed to locate his fingers and wiggle them, ever so slightly, it didn't feel like dirt. No… cloth…
A soft sound filled his ears. He couldn't place it. Not the wind, no. Talking? No, not talking either. More like voices. … no, that was wrong too. Not voices. Voice.
Focusing all his strength into one eye, he slowly cracked it open. The blinding light made him blink it rapidly, but beyond the white light shapes began to form. They stayed blurry, but he thought he could make out…. Metal? A ceiling…. Gritting his teeth against the still overwhelming pain, he managed to turn his head slightly. Piles of… things… he couldn't make them out. A distant bright light. Square. The door? Or just a window….The edges of his view were smudged, as if he looked through a dirty glass.
He could feel his strength ebbing away again, could feel unconsciousness reaching for him again. No...Not yet… Not…
The third time he woke, he could draw a deeper breath, though his sides still felt tight. As if he were in some strange vice. He could hear the wind in the trees again. Nearby. And that other sound…. A voice? But different. The same voice, he recognized it, but it wasn't someone speaking. He still couldn't place it, couldn't make sense with all the throbbing in his head. He could tell, though, that it was more distant.
His eyes opened more easily this time, both of them, feeding his throbbing head another round of stabbing pain. But he stubbornly held them open, blinking away the cloudiness. He saw the metal above him again. Though now he could make out grooves and bolts. It was a ceiling made out of what looked like metal squares, interlaced and bolted together. The metal wasn't polished: it looked worn, dull, and dirty. Groaning softly, he turned his head. Piles. Piles of things. Clothes. Books. A small makeshift table with plates and pots and a strange candle. Sticks and firewood. He turned his head more, making out cloth boxes, and the strange square light he had seen before. Yes, it was a door. He could see it more clearly now.
With a gasp, he struggled to lift his head up off… a pillow. A bed of sorts, he realized. He managed to look down at his body, covered in a soft blue blanket. The ground beyond was dirt. But the walls were a rounded metal. Like the ceiling.
Something had changed, he realized dully as he felt light-headedness grabbing at his senses. He struggled to pinpoint what as he sank backwards again. The voice, he realized distantly as his head fell into the pillow once more. It had stopped. He managed to look to the doorway just in time to see a dark silhouette as sleep took him again….
No blinding light this time. Soft leaves swaying in the breeze. The quiet crackling of a fire. Crickets. He turned his head slightly to assure himself he was awake. The headache had subsided a bit, and though the rest of his body throbbed in pain, he was also more aware of it. Painfully aware, but better than the disembodied experience he had felt before.
He opened his eyes a bit, blinking away the sleep. He could just see the small fire outside the door. He stared at it for a moment, then drew as deep a breath as he could manage, turning to look about himself.
"Shhh, easy, easy," came a soft voice.
His gaze fell on her, sorting her out from the clutter around her as she moved forward upon seeing his movement. She was young, perhaps in her twenties, with round features on a dirt stained face. Her hair glittered like gold in the firelight, pulled back from her face into a tight strap at the back of her head. Her eyes were the soft blue of the cloudless sky. But he didn't know her. Her clothing was strange, her accent foreign.
He tried to form words in his mouth, but found it parched and dry. "Mmhhnngg…." He mumbled.
"Shhhh," She soothed again, coming closer. She turned, grabbing a cup, then tucked one hand gently behind his head. "Here you go. You're alright." She lifted his head and neck, helping him to sip down the liquid.
As the water touched his lips, he suddenly felt as if he had never drank a drop in his life. He gulped at it as greedily as his throat would allow it to pass, even managing to reach up one hand as if to clasp it himself. She patiently held it to his lips until his strength subsided and he collapsed back into the bed with a soft gasp. Reaching beside her, she drew a cloth and wiped what had drizzled down his chin, then dabbed with the damp cloth at his dry lips.
"W-whh…" He struggled weakly "W-whhhoo…?"
"It's alright." She assured him, placing one hand lightly on his shoulder. "I'm a friend." She pulled his blanket up tighter, brushing something off his forehead. "You're safe."
He'd have to take her word for that. He could already begin to feel the hefty weight of sleep dragging him down once more….
It was daylight again the next time he woke. Pain rippled through him, but thirst clawed more prominently at his throat. He opened his eyes, turning his head to the side where the girl had been before.
Her seat was empty, but there was a tall glass of water resting on an upturned log. He reached for it, wincing against the pain, turning halfway onto his side. His hand shook from the exertion even as it wrapped around the glass. No, not glass… some strange, delicate, clear substance. Had he more of his strength, it might have crumbled between his fingers as he grabbed it. Slowly he eased himself up onto his opposite elbow, and took several long swallows. Within a minute, the strange cup was empty, and he licked his lips almost desperately.
A sharp snapping noise drew his attention to the doorway. The girl from before entered, carrying a bundle in her arms. When she saw him awake, she quickly dumped the bundle beside the door and stepped over to him.
"You're awake again!" She told him, her voice filled with pleasure and praise.
He managed a weak nod, rolling back onto his back once more. He still clasped the cup in his hand that rested on his chest. He took a few deep breaths, as if to draw strength merely from the air around him.
"Do you want more water?" She asked him, sitting in the chair once more and picking up a pitcher. She refilled the glass without waiting for his answer, but his answer was clear as he guzzled it down.
When half the glass was gone, he lay back again with a heavy sigh. Even that had felt like climbing seven mountains in a day.
"It'll get easier." She told him, as if reading his mind. "You were very badly hurt. Still are, really." She eased the glass from his hand and returned it to the upturned stump. "But you're getting better."
"Where are we?" He asked weakly, his voice thin and hoarse even to his own ears.
She ran one hand over the top of her head, pushing aside loose strands. "Only a few miles from where I found you." She told him.
"Others?" He gasped around his dry tongue.
"What?"
"Were there others?"
"Just you that I found." She looked at him curiously. "No one else nearby that I could see."
He nodded weakly and closed his eyes, lifting one hand to rub his brow. The water had helped his headache a bit, but he didn't need this girl to tell him how badly injured he was. He could feel the dull throb of pain throughout his entire body. A dull ache that promised blinding pain should he attempt to move too much.
"You'd lost a lot of blood." She explained to him, then twirled a strand of hair between two fingers. "...I wasn't sure you were going to make it."
He opened his eyes again, looking about the strange room they were in. It was long, and narrow, almost like a tunnel, but the ceiling and walls were... metal? Now he wasn't so sure. He noticed the ground seemed to be fresh turned dirt, but only up to a point. Then the strange metal seemed to be embedded underneath it, sloping up to the ceiling in a point. His bed, barely wider than the width of his body, took up most the space. There was only a thin pass between the edge of the bed and the clutter lining the far wall. The opposite end seemed not to be the metal, but cloth instead. The more he studied it, the more he realized it was like half the room had been torn away, leaving a great big gaping hole. Which had been covered with a large, thick blanket. He had never seen anything like it.
"Where are we?" He asked again, but obviously more pointedly referring to the strange structure around them.
The girl considered the space, looking around almost hesitantly. "Just...what I could find." She offered casually. She stood then, leaning over him and pulling his blanket down. "Your bandages are still clean, but I'll change them in a bit just to be safe." She told him, touching his chest lightly as she considered the cloth there. "I don't see any signs of infection. So far, at least. And I'd like to keep it that way."
He snorted softly, watching her as she gently picked up his right arm and turned it this way and that. It was bandaged from the elbow almost to his shoulder, and there was more cloth around his palm. When she had finished, she carefully lowered it back to rest on his chest.
"I forgot to ask you your name." She smiled at him, sitting back down into her chair.
"...Artemis."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Alice." She told him, reaching out to gently squeeze his hand with her's. She smiled, but he didn't return the look. Seeming unperturbed, she released his hand and stood. "You should get some more rest now. The more you rest, the more you heal."
He nodded slightly, his eyes already fighting to stay open. She said something else to him, but he had already fallen asleep by the time the words made their way from her lips to his ears. Instead, a soft sound filled his dreaming thoughts.
He wasn't sure how long he had slept, but when next he woke there was a slight chill in the air. Just beyond the small doorway, he could see the dying embers of the fire. And beyond that, a soft morning fog. A few birds chittered softly, but the day had dawned grey and, from the slow dripping he could faintly make out, wet. He turned his head to the side, and though his muscles were sore and his head complained at the movement, it was with much greater ease than he had yet managed.
The girl was lying not far away, atop a pile of cloth laid over leaves which he could just see spilling out at the edges. She was curled into a loose ball, a blanket draped over her, her fingers clinging tightly to its edge and her chin tucked into it. Her breathing was deep and slow, her golden hair tumbling about her youthful face.
He wondered at her. Wondered what her motive was for helping him. Wondered where they really were, and why she was out here all alone. Wondered what kind of strange structure they were in. Wondered where his …. He paused, searching in his thoughts for the right words. Allies? Companions? …. Friends? Shaking off the thought, he continued his wonders, merely picturing their faces and wondering where they were. Had they even bothered to look for him? Or had they been so certain he had plunged to his death?
Artemis reached one hand up to rub his face slowly, but his fingertips lingered over the busted lip, then the deep cut from his left brow to his hairline. He tenderly touched the bruises he already could feel there, then traced his hand down his throat, giving a soft sigh.
The last thing he remembered was fighting the Netherese on the cliffside. He had taken some heavy hits trying to ward them off; it wasn't easy fighting a band of tieflings on his own. Especially skilled, specialized shades. He smirked when he remembered that he had sent a fair few of the group to their graves, and others would be nursing their own grievous injuries.
One of the magic users had summoned a devil of some sort, he began to remember. Already having been so injured and exhausted, he had barely deflected its blows. The others had appeared at the last moment, chasing off or slaughtering the last of the Netherese… but the devil…
His hand went to his face again, rubbing his sore head as he tried to put together the pieces. He vaguely remembered the sharp pain in his chest. Remembered the desperate move to drive his own blades into the beast's heart. Remembered falling into the rushing river below….
Growling to himself softly, the assassin forced his body up and out of the bed, swinging his legs over to its side. He gritted his teeth against the pain and had to drop his head to his chest as the wave washed over him and threatened to knock him back into unconsciousness.
When he had finally managed to push away the blackness from the edges of his eyes, he saw the girl watching him. He scowled at her, and perhaps at another time it would have been terrifying. But with his whole body quivering just from the exertion of sitting up, it instead seemed to have no effect at all.
"You need more time to heal." She told him softly, swinging her own legs off the side of her makeshift bed, letting the blanket fall off to the side. Again he was struck by her strange clothing; form fitting, dark blue pants and a top that seemed like the upper half of a grey nightgown or undergarment with thick straps instead of sleeves and a loose draping form that reached just past her hips. Like someone had simply cut holes in a silk sack and hemmed the edges.
Artemis grunted as his reply, and stubbornly remained sitting. The girl sighed and stood, gathering some bandages from the makeshift table. There were numerous other curious instruments there, but the assassin didn't have the strength to care about them yet.
"Well, at least while you're up I can change your dressings more easily." She told him, pulling the stump over and sitting in front of him.
She gently took hold of his wrist with one hand, but he ripped it away. "Leave it." He grumbled, having to close his eyes to fight off the darkness tingling inside him again.
"Seriously?" He opened his eyes just in time to see her roll her's. "I've been taking care of you for a week and now you want me to stop?" She looked at him, raising one eyebrow "Do you have a deathwish?"
"A week?" He echoed, ignoring her questions.
She sighed, but nodded. "When I fished you out of the water it took me almost a whole day to get you back here. It's been about six since then."
Seven days. He wondered if everyone thought him dead. Part of him wished he had died out there. He had lived long past his time. But there was just that stubborn, nagging drive inside him that just wouldn't let him give up. Not without a fight. Some might call it his survival instinct. He called it the gods' way of making him suffer.
"So, if you want to get better, you're gonna have to let me do what I've been doing." She told him, breaking the silence she had allowed as he processed her words.
Artemis looked over at her, and she extended one hand out to him. He glanced at it, then scowled at her. But he put his wrist back into her waiting palm.
"Thank you."
She began nimbly and gently unwrapping the bandage around his arm. Not a real bandage, he realized. Strips of cloth she must have torn off something. As she unwound it, the tender burned skin underneath revealed itself. Parts of the cloth she had to peel off, the material having grown stuck to his body from the wet plasma secreting from the wound. He gritted his teeth against the pain and refused to flinch.
The girl glanced up at him as she reached over to a basin of clear water, dragging it closer and dropping another cloth into it. She squeezed it out then gently dabbed at the wound.
"I know it hurts." She told him softly, rinsing the cloth before bringing it back to the wound. "You don't have to pretend it doesn't."
Artemis merely glowered in response. Which, to his surprise, made her lips curl into the tiniest of smiles. As if she were amused by his threatening demeanor.
"Why are you here all alone?" He demanded instead, brushing off the unsettling feeling her tiny smile had caused him.
She didn't answer for a moment, cleaning the wound in silence. She sighed, dropping the cloth into the water and gently patting his arm with another dry cloth. "I'm the only one left, I guess."
He frowned at her. "Left of what?"
She shrugged. "It's a long story."
Artemis looked around the metal cave they seemed to be in. "What is this place?" He pressed. He wasn't interested in some long winded sob story from some estranged farmgirl.
She followed his eyes, already beginning to rebandage his arm. "I found it like this." She told him simply.
His arm freshly wrapped, she redid the small bandage on his knuckles, then moved to the loose bandage on his shoulder. This one was not wrapped about him like the arm, instead just a cloth scrap lain over it. She slowly pulled back the cloth, revealing the deep slice underneath. It ran from his deltoid to almost halfway down his chest. It was several inches deep in the worst of places.
"I've been wanting to better wrap this one, but I couldn't since you were laying down." She told him, picking up the cloth from the water and beginning to gently clean the wound.
"How far is the nearest village?" Artemis continued, turning his head away from her work.
She drew in a quiet breath between her teeth. "Some days walk, depending on how fast you move." She moved on to drying the wound, then pulled out a strange, colorful tube. When she squeezed it, a nearly clear paste came out of one end, and she gently wiped that onto the edges of the cut.
Artemis wondered how far down the fast flowing river he had travelled. Perhaps he had made it nearly all the way back to civilization. He looked out the doorway, but all he could make out were some trees. The ridiculousness of his adventure hit him then, and not for the first time. Find some artifact that had fallen from the sky. Before any other searching group did. No one even knew what it was. Honestly, the assassin wouldn't be surprised if it became some made up fish tale one of the locals had concocted.
"Where are you from?"
He turned back to her, having been lost in his own thoughts. But the man started when he found his face right next to her's. He tensed instinctively, until he realized she was standing and leaning over him to wrap his shoulder again. Still, the nape of her neck was just inches away from his chin, and the strands of hair that had escaped her tie toppled upon his bare shoulder. He couldn't help but breathe deep her scent, and found it as gentle as its owner. And oddly familiar to him as well, though he was sure he had not met nor certainly smelled her before.
"Far away." He muttered, turning his head away once more.
She leaned back, her wrapping done, and turned her attention to his abdomen. "So what brought you this way?"
He didn't answer, grunting softly as she peeled off the cloth on his stomach. The gash there wasn't as deep as his shoulder, but it's edges were still tinted black from the poison that coated the devil's blade. She cleaned it, then applied the same paste, before wrapping it up. The motion of winding the cloth about him brought her dangerously close to him again. This time her shoulder tucked under his chin, and he could feel the warmth of her skin as her arms brushed against him. It was like a teasing hug; never was she fully wrapping her arms about him, but he could still feel the heat of her body. His stomach rolled.
"So I answer your questions, but you don't answer mine? That's how this works?" She sat back, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.
"Glad you understand." He replied sourly.
She snorted, shaking her head. "The dark brooding thing you got going on worked better when you were unconscious." She leaned back in again. "Now it's just annoying."
He stiffened as her head bobbed near his face, the smell of her hair filling his nose. Like flowers. Or herbs maybe. The smell of earth and woodsmoke. She carefully pulled back the cloth near his left ribs.
"I thought this one would kill you." She explained to him, dropping the soiled cloth in the pile on the ground with the others.
"Nearly did."
She nodded her agreement to his assessment and carefully began to clean the puncture wound there. The devil's sword had just barely missed his lungs and heart. But it still stung to breathe, and he knew there would be a tightness to his chest for many years.
"Well, how did you get these then?"
"...a fight."
"How enlightening."
He snorted, more in amusement than deflection. Which surprised him. But he brushed it aside and leaned back on his hands. He was starting to feel very weak and tired again.
She finished tending that wound and laid a folded cloth over it's entrypoint, then wrapped a longer cloth twice around his midsection tightly to hold it in place.
"You'll be stuck here a while yet, Mister Artemis." She told him, sitting back onto the stump. "Might as well make the best of it."
He sighed deeply as he could and she stood, walking over to one of the cloth bags he had seen early. She dug around in it for a moment with her back to him, then walked back over with some bits of meat and some berries on a strange plate.
"You'll need to start building your strength back up." She told him, offering him the food.
His stomach growled and he snatched the food out of her hands eagerly. He found a new vigor in the food, hardly bothering to chew it as he devoured it. She brought him another glass of water, which he quickly downed as well. As the food disappeared, he slowed, and by the time his plate was empty (Which was not long at all), he felt his strength ebbing. She took the plate and glass from him and he had to lay back onto the bed. Though his body cried out for sleep, his silver-grey eyes followed the girl around the strange shelter.
"Why did you help me?" He asked her bluntly, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
She didn't look at him as she adjusted the blankets around him, helping him lift his feet back into the bed. As she began to pull the blankets over his chest, he grabbed her wrist with his hand. Though he was still weak, the motion forced her to look at him.
"It was the right thing to do." She said simply, then shrugged, "Anyone would have done the same." She tugged her hand out of his and turned back to gather the soiled cloth off the ground. "Get some rest. We'll change the rest later."
He watched her for a short while longer as she dropped the rag pile into a strange container that seemed to be filled with water. She used a stick to swirl them around, then began scrubbing at them. Artemis tried to remember back to what she had said before he had last fallen asleep. Most particularly, what her name was….
...Alice, he recalled, after a few minutes. Seemed harmless enough. He sighed, closing his eyes and settling back into the pillows as his thoughts swirled and clouded. And he honestly hoped he wouldn't have to kill her. She smelled nice….
A cool cloth dabbed at his forehead, wiping away the sweat from his brow. Artemis opened his eyes to see the girl leaning over him, her face framed by delicate strands of golden hair.
"Oh good. You're still alive."
He pushed her away with one hand. "Don't sound so surprised." He grumbled weakly.
Sitting back onto the stump beside his bed, she shrugged. "About midday yesterday you became feverish. Started mumbling things in your sleep." She reached out and placed the back of her hand against his forehead. "Seems to have broken now though."
He shoved her hand away again. Then, with a heavy groan, he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Looking down at his legs, Artemis realized they too were heavily bandaged. He looked down at his arms and hands, noticing the fresh bandages there as well.
"You've been busy." He remarked, turning his hand about. It felt suddenly strange somehow, and it only took him a moment to remember what was missing. He looked about the small shelter. "Where are my things?"
"What things?" She grumbled, and he realized she had been talking before his question.
The assassin ignored her indignation and continued to search the place with his eyes. When that did not yield the results he wanted, he even attempted to pull himself to his feet. He only got a couple inches off the bed, his legs and arms quivering from the exertion.
"Stop that." She demanded, having leapt up to grab hold of his arm to steady him. She helped him lower back into a sitting position.
"Where are my things?" He asked again, more forcefully.
The girl rolled her eyes. "Your clothes? They were in tatters, I remove-"
He was shaking his head before she had even finished. "My sword and dagger, and the pouch I had on my waist."
She sighed, as if digging for some last dreg of patience. "You didn't have any weapons on you." She told him, standing and moving over to one of the strange fabric bags that filled the space. "But you did have this."
From amid the pile she brought forth the small pouch the assassin usually kept on his flank. He snatched it from her hands as soon as she was close enough, eagerly opening it and searching its contents.
"No, no, please," Mumbled the girl, "It was my pleasure. Not a problem at all."
When his fingers wrapped around the small nightmare figurine, he sighed with relief. It wouldn't be much longer until he was healed enough to stand. Then he could summon the creature from the Lower Planes and go and search for his companions.
"A gift?" The girl asked, looking down at the small statue in his hand.
"Something like that." He replied absentmindedly, thumbing the figure. "Good news is that I'll be out of your hair soon enough."
"Oh joy." She said with a disbelieving sigh, standing and walking over to another bag. She drew out some berries and nuts, bringing them over to him on another strange plate.
He took it from her when she offered it to him, eating every last morsel. The girl watched quietly, pouring a glass of water for him as well. When he took the glass, he realized she was watching him so intently, and scowled.
"What?"
She shrugged again. "Nothing…." She paused, biting her lip.
Artemis grunted at her. "Spit it out."
"Just wondering who 'Jarlaxle' is."
The assassin stiffened, shoot her a deadly glare. "How do you know that name?"
She cocked one eyebrow. "You said it a few times in your sleep last night. That and 'Dahlia'... And something like…. 'Drizzist'?" She brushed her fingers through the loose strands of her hair. "Friends of yours? You were saying lots of weird things."
He growled and shoved the strange plate back to her forcefully. So much so, it appeared to snap into two pieces. "Not important."
"Fine. Whatever." She tossed the plate off to the side, and if she was bothered by its destruction, she didn't show it, "Just thought maybe someone out there might be worried about you. My mistake."
She moved off to the doorway and disappeared outside, leaving Artemis alone with his thoughts.
She didn't come back til much later in the day. When she did, she said nothing to him, simply walking past and picking up some firewood from the pile at the end of the shelter. She brought it back to the small little pit by the doorway, stroking the embers until the crackled once more.
Artemis had spent his alone time assessing his injuries and testing his abilities. So as she walked past him again, he grabbed at her arm with surprising strength.
"Help me up." He ordered her, "I want to see where we are."
She tugged her arm easily out of his grip. "Don't push yourself. Or you'll end up stuck in that bed even longer."
He growled and punched the blankets angrily. "Then get me a branch."
She walked past him and out the door. "Get one yourself." She called over her shoulder.
She didn't return until after the sun had set. And didn't say a word to him other than 'here' when she passed him his food and water. Then she threw another log on the fire and curled up into her makeshift bed.