[A/N]: here ya go, a quick and short update!
The chapter title goes to Coheed and Cambria.
It began as a fever, a sense of heat that left Gwen feeling strangely cold. Though her clothes stuck to her skin, she couldn't stop shivering. The sound of her shackles rattling was regularly heard. Thankfully, no one seemed to pay much mind to the crazed half-elf who refused to eat or speak.
Then came the spells of dizziness that continued to take her by surprise. Even while sitting down, suddenly the world would tilt, leaving her stomach unsettled. She would hear her heart beating – loud and fast – and for half a moment she would wonder if this was it. If this was the moment in which she would die. It would always pass, though, and so she chalked it up to some illness she had caught.
When the aching in her arm, which had never completely gone away to begin with, returned with a vengeance she knew she wasn't sick. She held out for one sleepless night, the stabbing pain keeping her awake well past her limit. When it continued throughout the next day, she decided to pummel her way through her pride.
By then, however, it was already too late.
Darkness had fallen once more, and the group – now consisting of six prisoners, seven guards and two carts – stopped for the night. That day had gone by at a snail's pace. A fight between captives had broken out during a stop at the previous village, forcing them to spend most of the hours of light there. The two captives had been split apart, each with a guard on them at all times. At least it gave Richard something else to do than bother her.
"You look like shite," Rodrick provided rather helpfully when he moved to let her out of the wagon once the camp had been set. Even with her mouth dry and her head spinning, from the way his brows rose, Gwen knew he hadn't expected the half-elf to leave her seat.
In that moment, she was too busy trying to grasp the edges of the cart to thank him for his observation. With a grunt and a huff, she pulled herself up and took a step forward. Shadowy spots appeared in front of her in that exact moment, however, and she toppled over the edge of the wagon, crashing to the ground below.
Raised voices came from everywhere all of a sudden. Hands that felt uncomfortable against her skin touched her all over, probing. She wanted nothing more than to push them away from her, wanted to scream at everyone to shut up and to leave her alone, but her body refused. The last thing she remembered was a feeling of weightlessness.
Fire raged all around her. The flames licked at her, crawled up her limbs, merged with her skin until all else faded away. All that remained was heat, encasing her inside and out.
Burned her saliva, her dry mouth incapable of making any other sounds than the choking ones that came out of her.
Burned the fluid in her eyeballs, causing them to shrivel up and fall out of her eye sockets like spent flowers during autumn. A screen of red replaced her sight, writhing and glowing as though a thousand tiny snakes had crawled into her head.
Burned her hair, long and black and thicker than it had been in forever. Tresses that fell around her, caressing her arms while they slid down to her feet. Bare feet, standing in a puddle of hot liquid that came up to her ankles.
The blinding hotness stuck to her forehead, where her wrinkles creased so deeply that they almost hurt. It clung to the cut on her shoulder, warmer than everywhere else. Wormed its way into her heart and almost choked her. And it nestled into her stomach, glowing and growing until she felt like she might burst.
And then she opened her eyes and stared into a blue that looked so cold in that moment. She opened her mouth, but a tautness in her chest withheld her from speaking. Instead, she breathed in, only to find that she couldn't. Her fingers clawed at her throat before something pushed them away. When her nails found the mattress beneath her, they clung to it as if it were life itself.
All the while, she continued to gasp, mouth opening and closing until she simply gritted her teeth together. What little air she could breathe whistled in and out of her, sounding about as ineffective as it felt.
Over the sound of herself, she barely even heard it when somebody called out, "She's going into shock!"
A different pair of eyes replaced the blue, darker and squinting down at her. Then they looked away. The person's mouth moved, but all sound had become warbled and so Gwen did not know what they said. Hands were all over her again, and her heart thumped so loudly in her ears she wondered if they might start bleeding.
A bowl neared her face, some sort of dark green liquid sloshing around inside of it. Poison. They were going to kill her. Or had they already done it? Was this really how she would go out?
Through the burning of her chest and her arm and her entire body, she could only think, Finally.
Fingers pried her teeth apart and something held her head upright at an almost awkward angle. Before she could comprehend anything, the green stuff was entering her mouth, sliding down her throat in a cool stream that tasted like grass. Scrunching her face up, she tried to turn her face away, but those fingers dug into her chin and held her in place.
When she thought she would choke and drown, it was gone. The back of her head met the mattress again, tears spilling from her eyes while she sputtered and coughed. She shuddered when she could almost feel the liquid move around inside of her, but it was cold and strangely soothing.
When her chest loosened, she inhaled deeply and refused to exhale for fear of choking again.
"Breathe," someone told her, a calm voice that still sounded like it came from the other side of a large clearing. Either way, she nodded and did as she was told, letting go of that breath.
"And again." And again.
And again.
Once Gwen was sure she wouldn't almost die again, she looked up only to see Richard. His eyes had gone from the ice they had been moments earlier to the warm blue they usually were. The half-elf wondered just how expressive humans could be with only their faces, but the memory of feeling like death itself told her now was not a good time to find out.
"Though we'd lost you for a moment," he said, smiling as if nothing had happened.
"Would…" Gwen's voice came out like a hoarse whisper and she licked her lips. "Would you really have cared?"
The dh'oine nodded once, his lips now pressed into a thin line.
Gwen asked the one question that had been on her mind non-stop these past few days. "Why?"
"A life's a life," Richard offered with a shrug of his shoulders, "doesn't matter whose it is."
So you'd rather have me rotting in a cell 'till the end of my days? she wanted to ask, but she didn't. Instead, she gestured at herself rather weakly and muttered, "What happened?"
Though Richard opened his mouth, the response came from the other side of the room.
"The wound on your arm got infected." Gwen's eyes cut to a dark-skinned woman with black curls who entered the small room just then. The woman, however, only glared at Richard. "Most likely because someone neglected to take care of it properly."
A red flush covered Richard's cheeks and he held his hands up as if to ward off the anger in the woman's words. "We didn't—"
"Yes, yes, you didn't know," the woman retorted with a roll of her eyes. One of her hips jutted out to the side when she reached the edge of the bed in which the half-elf lay. She placed a hand on her waist and turned her attention to Gwen, her eyes alight with amusement. "Men, right?"
While Richard choked on something and began to sputter, Gwen said, "I've never had an infected wound that… that did this."
The woman laughed, the sound rough around the edges but so full and rich. "Lucky you, then." When she stopped chuckling, she sat down beside the half-elf's feet, all signs of mirth melting away. "This really cut it close. If you'd been any later, you wouldn't have made it. I'll spare you the details. For now, you should rest."
Without the energy to protest, Gwen could only nod meekly and let the stranger do her thing, soft hands flitting around her body. Before long, she dragged the soldier out of the room with her and closed the door behind her. Darkness closing in on all sides, it didn't take long for the half-elf to drift off.
Rather faintly, the sound of chickens clucking and cows mooing came from outside. Murmurs could be heard from somewhere nearby, too soft to understand what they said. Gwen thought to recognise Ivor's voice. Relief washed over her, together with the realisation that everything had just been a dream. A horrible dream. But she was home again, and she would roll onto her side and find herself staring into Iorveth's eye…
An ache in her shoulder brought her back before the fantasy could take hold of her. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by the sight of a ceiling and stone walls. She wanted nothing more than to claim that she was back in Vergen, wanted to believe it so very badly. The pain in her arm refused to let her go, though.
She wasn't in Vergen, wasn't with the Scoia'tael anymore. There was no Ivor, no Iorveth. Iorveth had…
With a wince, she pushed herself up. Though she still felt sore all over, as if coming down from the yearly illness that was doing the rounds, she knew she had improved since last time. At least she wasn't almost dying now.
She lifted a hand to the bandage on her arm. Even though the cloth, she noted that her skin had cooled down. Trying to be careful, she pulled the dressing away ever so slightly. The sight of a red, swollen cut greeted her, but it looked and smelled better than other infected wounds she had had. She let out a breath and the tension seeped out of her body. At least she wouldn't lose her arm now.
The movement caused the fabric of what she wore to move against her breasts and she hissed again. Pressing her hands against them, she noted they tingled painfully at her touch, a strange tightness that ached whenever they moved. The infected wound must have been worse than she suspected.
Though she still felt a bit lightheaded, energy ran through her, making her jittery. When her feet began to tap against the mattress, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her soles meeting the cold wooden boards on the ground. Only when she stood up did she realise she wore a white gown made out of thin, scratchy fabric instead of her normal clothes. No wonder her chest hurt against this thing. The sight and feel of a dress on her made her ball her hands into the fabric, fighting the urge to tear it off.
"Good afternoon." The same woman from before stood in the doorway, arms crossed as she took Gwen in. "How're you feeling? You shouldn't be up yet."
"Didn't feel like lying down anymore," Gwen replied. Biting her lip, she wondered why she felt guilty. As if she had been caught in an act she shouldn't have been doing. As if any of these humans had the right to tell her what to do.
The stranger had probably noticed it and held her hands up, a small smile on her lips. "I can get that. Still, you should probably stay calm for a while longer. You look very pale."
As she spoke, she moved closer to Gwen until she placed her hands onto her shoulders and pressed the half-elf back onto bed. She didn't protest, falling back onto the mattress with a grunt. Stared at her bare feet.
"How long has it been?" she asked without looking up.
"A day or three," the woman responded while she checked Gwen's wound for herself. "Doesn't matter what I'll say, you'll probably leave soon enough. The others are getting restless."
Gwen blinked at that. "They're still here?"
"Of course they are. Couldn't leave a prisoner here, unguarded, and couldn't spare a guard either. Or something like that." The medic stood up and walked over to one of the small cupboards in the room. Took out some fresh supplies and came to kneel in front of the half-elf again.
"For all you know I'm a wanted murderer," Gwen commented under her breath.
That made the woman laugh again. "I'll see it when I believe it. And anyway, I can defend myself."
Something struck Gwen in that moment and she lifted her gaze again, her brows knit together. "Where are we, actually?"
"Not really anywhere." The medic removed the bandage and busied herself with probing and cleaning the wound, humming as she did so. "A farm a short distance past the bridge to Vergen."
"A… a farm?" Gwen tilted her head to the side. "With a doctor?"
"Animals need doctors too. Not much difference between a horse and a human, if you think about it," the woman replied with a shrug of her shoulders. Her tongue now poked out from between her lips as she reapplied a new set of bandages around the half-elf's arm.
The half-elf watched her work in silence until her eyelids became too heavy and instead she just sat there, trying her best to zone out. Maybe she should have tried harder to pick up some meditation skills in her life. Still, with the exhaustion that settled inside of her, her surroundings soon enough faded away, until all that existed were the fingers roaming her arm.
When the warm hands disappeared, her eyes snapped open just in time to see the nurse get up and pack her supplies away. Richard stood in the doorway and Gwen would have glared at him if her body hadn't felt like it weighed three times as much as it actually did.
On her way out of the room, the woman murmured something to the man in a harsh voice before disappearing around the corner. The soldier took the chance to walk towards the chair that stood beside the right side of Gwen's bed, behind her, and sat down in it. She followed him with her gaze but otherwise remained unresponsive.
"I hear you've actually been quite kind to the human woman," Richard stated with a raised brow. His blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the sunlight that squirmed its ways through the wooden shutters on the small window in the room.
Grimacing, Gwen muttered, "The human woman saved my life. She can probably kill me, too, and I have no way of defending myself like this." As if to prove her point, she tried to lift her arm and winced instead.
"If it weren't for me, you'd have died in that wagon." Richard's elegant eyebrows disappeared beneath his golden locks. "Rodrick stood and just watched you until I happened to look over."
"You shouldn't have." Without waiting for the human to respond, Gwen slipped back beneath the sheets and asked, "When are we leaving?"
The soldier shook his head, stray hairs falling into his eyes as he did so. "Is it just me or do you have a death wish?"
"When are we leaving?" the half-elf repeated without turning towards him.
"Tomorrow morning," Richard said after heaving a sigh. "We can't afford to stay much longer, and Claire believes you'll be fit enough to be on the road again by then."
"Claire?"
"Yes. The woman who helped you." Cloth rustled and armour clinked, followed by boots shuffling towards the door. "I… I'll let you rest some more, then."
And with that, the door was closed softly once more.