Battle Wounds

Shadowmere kept her eyes squeezed shut, just breathing the warm, sweet night air, the taste free of sick and fear. The ground, though hardened and cracked from the heat and weight of the portals, was like the finest, softest down mattress she had ever laid on. She could almost feel her lungs healing with each breath of the ephemeral nectar, even as the pain caught up to the rest of her body and Menien was just shy of writhing on the ground beside her.

"They're out!" The mildly familiar voice sounded rapt and incredulous as it approached her, the footsteps shaking the ground as they drew closer. "Captain Matius, we've got wounded!" The voice was much closer, and the footsteps seemed to have multiplied while more voices echoed the same news over and over.

"Goneld! God damn, am I glad to see you!" That was Captain Matius, she remembered his voice, but instead of being greyed with exhaustion and frustration, it was colored with a palette of relief.

"It's good to be out," Menien said, his voice painted by the same artist that had done the Captain's. "I'd kiss you if I could get up Captain." The sound of a hand clapping a shoulder stippled the air and a pair of footsteps pounded away, though Menien kept speaking. "Is she alright?"

"She?" A familiar sounding city guard's vocal canvas now had a streak of confusion running through it, as though he hadn't seen the Dunmer woman lying on the ground.

"Shadowmere," Menien insisted through his no doubt staggering pain. "The one who pulled me out."

"She's fine," herself chimed in, knowing that hearing was sometimes believing. "She needs a stiff drink, but she's fine." Shadowmere blinked into the darkened sky, what little light there was blocked out by faces of the remaining Kvatch city guards standing over her. An Altmer guard laughed nervously and tried to smile.

"Don't we all?" he said, his golden skin jaundiced and waxy looking. "We should get Menien down to the encampment and then go find the captain," he said, looking to the other guards who nodded. "Yeah, don't mind me, I'm just going to lie here and bleed quietly," Shadowmere thought with some spite as the High Elf and another guard hurried to their fallen comrade. She knew she had a tendency to blend into the night, but could they really not see her there?

"Can you stand, Shadowmere?" She nodded, suddenly not feeling so invisible and taking the anonymous hand that came out of the sky. "I know you've done a lot, but do you think you could help us get to the chapel?" Before Shadowmere could even nod, or think about the discomfort hanging on every pore of her skin, pain exploded through both of her feet as she tried to bring them into her body to stand. A groan choked in her throat, the sound trapped by the sheer magnitude of sound it would take to express the agony that brought her to her side as she reached down and wrapped her hands around her feet, which felt as though someone had driven a dull stake through them.

"What the hell?" she yelled, the closest she could get to expressing her pain. She wanted to scream and swear and bawl out the world, but she settled for wrapping her hands firmly around her shins; the closest she could get to her feet without pain giving her the urge to puke. "I just ran across a plane of Oblivion!" As much as she wanted to just lie on the ground and rest, she was furious with her body for betraying her while she still needed it.

"I guess that's a 'no' on getting to the chapel," the voice said again, now tinged with genuine concern.

"It'll be fine," Shadowmere said, trying to downplay how much she hurt. "It's probably just cramps from running so hard with Menien on my back." She knew this was worse than simple muscle cramps, but she wanted to keep the action moving toward the city gate. If the soldier was distracted by her, it would take away the chances of a successful mission in the ruins of the city. If he went on his merry way, she could crawl down to the encampment and get whatever healing she needed there. Despite her best laid plans, the soldier's attentions weren't moved.

"Let's get you down to the encampment too," he said, his voice kind. "Even if it's cramps, you may not make it down on your own." Feeling a little nauseated at the sudden onslaught of pain, Shadowmere almost didn't notice herself lifted into waiting arms, as though she was nothing more than a child.

"I swear, I don't know what happened," she muttered, feeling embarrassed about having to be taken care of. "You saw me, I was just fine when we came out."

"Well, you may be right," he said. "It may just be that they cramped up when you got the chance to relax," her steed said, trying to reassure her. "Not to worry." Shadowmere heard him, but was distracted about how to hold her arms; her position was awkward, with her right arm pinned against the man's cuirass and her left one flopping free. She had never been carried like this before and had little knowledge of how to properly position herself while in someone's arms. "Put your arms around my neck," the guard said, practically sensing her thoughts. "It'll help support you. It'll also keep your elbow out of my sternum." She recognized the voice now; it was the man who wanted her name for the memorial with which he assumed she would be honored posthumously.

"Sorry," she muttered, wrapping her arms around her bearer's neck, clasping her hands around her forearms, finding that he change in position did help. "I'm usually the carrier."

"No apologies necessary," the man reassured her firmly, treading carefully as he made his way down a slope to the encamped remains of the town. "You deserve a lift after what you did." Truth be told, Shadowmere hadn't really carried anyone since she was a horse; she had more or less dragged Menien. "Menien," she thought suddenly. "Is Menien alright?" she asked, digging her fingernails into her arms to keep from groaning in discomfort as his steps jarred her legs.

"He looks like he's in about the same shape as you, unfortunately for him," the man said. "A couple of other city guards have him. He looks a little beat up, and one leg is broken or something, but mostly he's just dehydrated and hungry." Tensely shaking her head, Shadowmere couldn't stay silent.

"He was in a cage made of iron and bone at the top of a tower made of fire that could give frostbite," she said as firmly as she could manage. "If he's only hungry and dehydrated, you're not looking closely enough." She cringed and said no more, trying to focus on not wincing with every step the man took.

"I'll make a note of that," he said, almost as though he intended to do just that. "Sigrid!" The man bellowed, brushing back the curtain to a tent and setting Shadowmere on one of the sleep mats. "We need some healing potions!" Shadowmere covered her eyes with the crook of her elbow, gritting her teeth as the man unlaced her boots, the agony in her feet near overwhelming. She didn't want to cry in front of the guard, and certainly not in front of the townspeople. They had been through enough without her boo-hooing added to the mix.

"You may be out of luck Jesan," a woman's voice said from nearby. "Most of my stuff is back inside the city gates or inside your friends. The only things I have left are pretty low strength." Shadowmere let out a moan as the guard pulled her boots off, and she lurched to her side to throw up from the excruciation that started with her toes, pushed through her body and ended in her toenails, like a rope doubling back on itself.

"Oh Gods," he muttered, covering his mouth. "Unfortunately, I don't think this just cramps," he admitted to Shadowmere. She did NOT need to be told that.

"How do they look?" she asked through gritted teeth. The guard sighed, the nausea almost audible in his breath, the sound not lending a great deal of confidence to Shadowmere.

"To put it mildly, broken," he said as calmly as he could manage. "Two broken feet over here," the man said, his face twisting a little at the sight, making her stomach clench again. "She needs some kind of help."

"Shit!" Shadowmere had a sinking feeling at the Nord woman's outburst. "It's waaay too late to deal with something this severe!" Trying not to grimace, Shadowmere lifted her head to try and see her feet, but the city guard put his hand on her forehead and gently pressed her head back against the threadbare pillow.

"You probably don't want to see it," he said with a frightened voice that masqueraded as a confident soother. "This is about as bad of a non life-threatening injury as I've ever seen."

"So much for patient morale," she thought miserably.

"I'm no healer, and the stuff I have won't heal broken bones without them being set. In a pinch I could maybe set one bone, but there's at least ten bones here, not to mention the…" The Nord woman wavered, making Shadowmere's stomach bubble. "Well, there's just too much for me to be able to do on my own."

"So I'm screwed, is that the gist of it?" Shadowmere asked briskly. She knew healers, or those acting in that capacity, had a tendency to beat around the bush and sugar coat the truth, and she just wanted to get to the meat of the matter.

"Unless Brother Martin can do anything about it," the Nord woman said with all the honesty of a four year old. "He's a decent healer, he may be able to help you out, especially since you closed the gate." Shadowmere scoffed.

"All I did was pull out Menien," she muttered. "Saeana's the one who closed the gate."

"Your friend?" Shadowmere nodded, hazarding a glance at her feet despite the guard's hand still resting on her forehead. She immediately wished that she hadn't.

"Gods' blood," she hissed between her teeth at the sight, putting her head back down quickly, trying to forget what she had just seen. The damage started at her ankles, which were crumpled and swollen into an unnaturally small area, and made its way into her feet, which were strangely distorted, the arches bent the opposite direction, and ended in her toes, screwed into unnatural positions, some torqued backwards, some jerked to the side. Somehow finding the nerve to take another look, her stomach churned harder at the sight of her second toe on her left foot flopped over, the skinless bone sticking out of her foot. "No wonder it hurts like hell."

"How did this happen?" the soldier said, unable to look at the display of podiatric gore for very long either. "There's no way you couldn't have known about it." Shadowmere shook her head, struggling to think of what had transpired to cause her to have such injuries.

"I don't know, I don't think I did anything out of the ordinary," she grunted, dredging her mind for answers. "I was fine running through Oblivion, I was fine going up the tower, I was fine cutting Menien out of the cage, I was fine jumping up and down on the bars, I was fine when I jumped off of the bars and I was fine hauling our asses home!" The alchemist thought for a moment, twirling a loose strand of her blond hair.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that you probably broke them jumping up and down on the cage," she started, carefully considering each word. "Probably just a hairline fracture at first, maybe a little worse, and as you ran, it was like a crack in a pane of glass; it just started climbing up your bones, splitting them all the way until you're left with what you have now. If you were focused on getting back to the gate, you probably didn't notice until you got back."

"How could I ignore something like this?" she muttered, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead. "My feet look like the insides of sausages!" The woman shrugged, tucking her hair away.

"I'm no doctor or healer or anything, but I've heard that sometimes when you're in a stressful or dangerous situations, your body can ignore pain in order to get you to safety," she offered. "Maybe that's what happened." While she wasn't sure she bought into the Nord's theory, Shadowmere certainly didn't have any better ideas, and accepted the hypothesis as law merely because she hurt too much to truly care.

"There's nothing you can do?" she asked through her teeth.

"I guess I could try to stick the end of your toe back on," the potion peddler said, sitting on the end of the bedroll, the minute movement causing Shadowmere to gasp. "You want me to?" Without a second's hesitation, she tightly shook her head.

"You're option B," she grunted, her teeth still clenched. "You said Brother Martin was a healer? Where is he?"

"Still in Kvatch, I suspect," Jesan, the guard who had carried her, spoke up. "Captain Matius is going back into the city to clear out the remaining creatures inside the gate. After that, Brother Martin should be able to come and take care of you."

"Awesome," she grumbled with cynicism. "Do you have any whiskey or wine or something until then?" The pain was beginning to eat through the muscles in her legs. "I'd settle for a hammer to the back of my head." The younger guard shook his head.

"Sorry, we haven't got any concussion hammers; our blacksmith hoards them," he said with harried sarcasm. "Whiskey and brandy went in the first wave, but we may have some wine." The city guard hurried out, leaving Shadowmere alone with the Nord woman.

"Did Saeana get out?" she asked, her mind flashing to her friend for the first time in the time since she'd gotten out of the gate.

"Yeah, she's fine; certainly better off than you are," the healer said softly. A sudden stinging below her eye made Shadowmere jump, which in turn caused her to gasp in pain as her jump jarred her legs. "It's alright, you've got a cut on your face, I'm just cleaning it."

"Why not just use the healing potion you've got?" she asked, still cringing. "Just wipe some on a rag and put it on my face."

"Well, unfortunately we don't have enough supplies to use healing potions on cuts and bruises," the woman said, as though admitting defeat. "Water will do fine until your feet are set, which I'm not overly sure how to do. And if you drink the potion, it'll fix up the cuts and bruises just fine; it'll also start healing your feet in the position that they're in, but it won't finish the job. Your feet would have to be re-broken before being set." The thought of having her partially healed feet crushed again, this time by unskilled human hands, was even less appealing to Shadowmere than the idea of the alchemist sticking the end of her toe back on the bone; a feat that boggled the mind.

"I would be alright with avoiding that," she said, looking up at the woman for a moment before closing her eyes once more.

"I thought you would be," the woman said, continuing her gentle dabbing near Shadowmere's eyes before giving a curious 'hmm…' and letting her rag fall. "How'd you get all these wounds on your arms?" she asked, setting down the rag and pulled her right forearm into her lap, pushing her sleeve over her elbow and running her fingers over her injuries.

"The big ones or the little ones?" she asked, using her thumb and forefinger of her bloodied left hand to massage the bridge of her nose.

"The ones that look like whip marks." Shadowmere gave a slight laugh, though the motion made her a little dizzy, knowing the woman would likely not believe her story about the other-worldly flora.

"A plant," she said bluntly. The healer looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.

"A plant?" The blonde asked, not quite believing her story.

"A plant," she confirmed. Gesturing toward her pack, she narrowly avoided backhanding the healer, who leaned back just in time. "There's some sprigs of it in with my gear." Walking on her knees, Sigrid, Shadowmere now recalled her name, began gingerly removing the items from the pack, apparently under the impression that Shadowmere was meticulous about how her things were packed. A gasp made Shadowmere think she had either found the sprigs, or cut herself on something, either one being a distinct possibility.

"By Ysmir's beard!" she exclaimed, staring intently at her hands. "This is harrada!" Shadowmere grunted instead of shrugging, knowing overwhelming pain would be the result of the subtle movement.

"I guess that has more significance to you than to me," she murmured. "What's so special about it?" The woman scoffed, as though she couldn't believe someone in the world DIDN'T know about the strange plant.

"Well, not only is it extremely rare," she started, gathering the inert sprigs of harrada into a small bundle and secured it by wrapping a bit of grass around the middle. "Some people have died trying to harvest it." Shadowmere nodded, wishing that the plant had succeeded. "Anything that would rid me of this pain." "Is it alright if I keep this?" The healer waved the little bouquet in her thumb and finger.

"Fine by me." Shadowmere didn't particularly care about the fate of the rare plant that had beaten the hell out of her. "Use it in good health," she added. Sigrid smiled and put the plant into her pocket.

"Thanks," she said. The way the corners of her mouth lingered upward made Shadowmere's pain abate for a minute, knowing she had brought a small amount of joy to a woman in a dismal, joyless place. She was able to enjoy a moment of dulled pain and cooled mind before her foot twitched and nearly knocked the wind out of her. Tickled with her gift, the healer barely noticed when Shadowmere winced and dug her fingernails into the ground on either side of the bedroll. "Alright, now that that's settled," she said, kneeling beside Shadowmere once again, setting a bowl on the ground and wringing out a rag. "How did you get the other cuts on your hand and arms?" The healer gently wiped the blood from the gouges on her arms as best she could without cutting the armor.

"The big ones?" Shadowmere asked, her lips moving only as much as necessary.

"Yes."

"Scamp. I put my arm around its neck and my hand over its mouth and it clawed and bit me. Turns out they're not too fond of being killed." Sigrid nodded, continuing her cleaning of Shadowmere's wounds. For someone who claimed to not be a healer, she had a soothing touch and Shadowmere could almost feel the lesions closing themselves.

"Well it turns out we aren't so fond of being killed either," she said, raising her eyebrows as she focused on her work. "So I assume your hand's been chewed up as well?" she asked, noticing the bloodied sock bound around her hand. The nod that Shadowmere used to confirm the Nord's statement made her bite her lip, the minute gesture enough to cause pain.

"It's not super high up on the list of priorities of things to fix," she added quickly, her fingers instinctively curling into a fist to keep her bandage where it was. "Right now, if it's above my waist, it's not important to me." Shadowmere closed her eyes as Sigrid's fingers found her mangled palm.

"If it's at all as bad as I think it is, I'd like to at least have it cleaned before Brother Martin heals it, so let me have a look."

"I thought you weren't a healer."

"I'm not, but I know how to administer first aid, which puts me a step above anyone else around here except maybe Batul. She can take care of burns as well as I can."

"She's the smith?"

"Yeah. Burns are just a part of the job for her."

"Well, this isn't a burn, it's a bite and it'll be fine."

"How about I take a look so you can prove me wrong?"

"Fine, just be careful. I think it's still bleeding." Not wanting to jinx her small victory, the Nord woman gingerly unwrapped the makeshift bandage and whistled at the sight of Shadowmere's hand.

"Well, this needs to be addressed," she said quietly, though clearly showing some restraint. "I can see bone." Even the word "bone" made Shadowmere's feet hurt a little more, though the knowledge that the scamp's bite had driven to the very core of her hand also added to her discomfort.

"What did you have in mind?" she asked, wanting to settle the matter. It was amazing to her that, with a disaster of this magnitude, the Imperial Guard wasn't sending aid. She had no personal stake in the battle that had taken place here, yet she had stepped up. Why couldn't the country take care of its own citizens?

"Ideally," the Nord said, bringing her attention back to her mangled left hand. "Once you're a little more comfortable I'd like to put in some stitches." Shadowmere did not find this agreeable.

"Are you off your rocker?" She yelped, fighting her natural reaction to jerk upright. Even though she merely lifted her head, her body promptly revolted and made her gasp out loud. Patting her shoulder, an attempt at calming her, Sigrid waited a moment before continuing in her plan.

"I've done it before," she said calmly as Shadowmere's neck relaxed and her head lowered back to the thin pillow. "It's not like you'd be a test subject."

"Well that's comforting." Test subject or not, the idea of stitches was something altogether unappealing to Shadowmere. An image of this woman, a good five inches and fifty pounds larger than her, holding down her bleeding arm and passing a filthy yarn needle through her slashed flesh struck more fear into her mind than standing on the narrow bridge back in Oblivion. "Why the hell would I let you do that?"

"Because the less that's wrong with you when we finally get Martin in here to heal you, the better the chance of your feet healing properly," Sigrid said with damnable logic. Before Shadowmere could express her true feelings on the subject, the tent flap opened.

"Alright Shadowmere with black hair," Jesan's voice was triumphant and Shadowmere could only hope that it meant that he had something for her pain. "Athrelor had a few bottles of Tamika's good stuff. Let's get you soused."

"I'll drink to that," she groaned, pushing herself up and out of Sigrid's grasp, though the pain the motion wrought nearly made her defecate. Taking the bottle with her intact hand, she proceeded to chug nearly half the bottle in one go, though a few dribbles ran down her chin and cheeks.

"Take it easy, you're going to pass out if you drink like that!" Shadowmere glared at the young city guard and chuckled darkly.

"Is that supposed to convince me to stop?" she asked, taking another swallow. Jesan sighed, and shook his head.

"I suppose it wouldn't convince me," he admitted, taking the bottle and downing a swig. "Your health," he added raising it before taking another drink and handing it back.

"Thanks," she said, drinking again and feeling a little lightheaded already, though it hadn't diminished the pain in her lower extremities. Though she wasn't typically a wine-drinker, she dove head-long into her bottle, trying to not mind the taste.

"Alright, if you're set for the moment, I'm going back up to the city to help to help Captain Matius and your friend try to get Count Brandywine out of the castle," Jesan said, stealing one more swallow of the medicinal wine. "Take care of yourself," he said, giving a brief smile before getting up and disappearing behind the tent flap.

"Thanks for the booze!" she shouted after him, before taking another swig. "You want some of this?" she asked, offering the bottle to the unamused Nord.

"No, I don't drink," she said flatly. Although it sent a wave of agony through her extremities, Shadowmere laughed harder than she had laughed in her recent memory.

"I'm- I'm- ow- I'm sorry!" she panted, unable to find the air in her lungs to speak between the laughter and the pain. "You're just the first Nord I've ever met who's on the wagon." Sigrid rolled her eyes.

"I meant that I don't drink wine," she elucidated. "If I didn't drink, my family would disown me." Whether from the sudden surge of alcohol in her blood, or the loss of said blood, Shadowmere found this funny as well, but she restrained herself to giggling foolishly while she laid flat, her head rolling side to side.

"Does your family live here?" She asked, lifting her head to take another drink, though most of the mouthful dribbled down the sides of her mouth and down her chin onto her neck. She was beyond caring how sloppy she looked. Sigrid shook her head.

"Most are back in Skyrim," she said shuffling away on her knees. "My sister and her man live in Bruma. I can't tell you how often I've told them to come live here; they would have loved our arena. But now, I've never been happier that they weren't here." Shadowmere nodded, glad she didn't have family about whom to worry. "Except Saeana and Ilura," she thought to herself. Drinking deeply from the bottle, she wondered why she was thinking of Ilura now. This was the second time in a day that she had found herself thinking of this woman when she hadn't concerned herself with Ilura's welfare in years. She had thought of her on occasion, she was an unavoidable memory, but she hadn't worried for her. Taking another swallow, she tried to suppress the discomfort she felt, not from her physical pain, but from something more intangible, something considerably less obvious than her shattered bones. "Tamika's wines aren't diluted," Sigrid commented with a hint of warning. "When that wine hits your system, it's going to hit hard." Shadowmere rolled her eyes with a sigh of frustration.

"Are you folks under the impression that I'm drinking casually here?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound as unnecessarily exasperated as she felt. "I'm drinking for medicinal purposes; I want to get too drunk to feel the pain or, preferably, to knock myself out until Martin's able to heal me. The harder it hits, the better." She leaned her head back and lifted the bottle of wine over her head. "Take me Sanguine, I'm yours!" Sigrid shook her head and looked at the roof of the tent as Shadowmere downed another gulp.

"If it hits all at once, you're going to start throwing up," she said reasonably, looking at Shadowmere as though her eyes could speak with the voice of experience. "Which will ultimately result in a hell of a lot more pain. All I'm asking is that you drink slowly." Shadowmere rolled her eyes, taking another sip, although she relented by taking a smaller one this time.

"Look, if you want to help me, find me a reed or something so I don't have to lift my head to drink," she insisted, the discomfort not waning in the slightest. Sighing, the Nord woman shifted over toward a scorched and battered chest and began digging through it.

"I can't guarantee that I have any," she said, setting assortments of herbs and recipe cards aside. "I don't know how I did it, but I managed to haul this trunk out and that was it. Whatever's in it is all I have." Shadowmere said nothing, but continued to drink, sloshing some of the liquid across her chest. "Why don't we just prop up your head?"

"Ngh-!" She had started off saying a simple "no" which she had intended to follow with an explanation as to why this suggestion was undesirable. Instead, Shadowmere wound up choking on the mouthful of wine she had taken and spouting it out of her mouth, some in a fine mist, the rest in droplets mixed with spit. Pushing herself upright, despite the radiant agony the movement caused, she coughed and choked, working up a sweat with the fury of her hacking.

"You were saying?" Sigrid asked, looking toward the Dunmer, who now moaned with pain as she gingerly lowered herself back to the ground.

"I- *ahem* I don't want to sit up," she said with hoarse sheepishness. "It aggravates the pain in my legs." The Nord laughed out loud.

"So it wouldn't have made sense to stay upright while you were choking and prop you up that way, would it?" Pressing her head back against the ground, Shadowmere groaned at her own stupidity and Sigrid's enjoyment of her distress.

"Shut up," she muttered, sloshing another swig into her mouth. Truth be told, if it hadn't hurt so damn much, Shadowmere probably would have laughed at herself too. Instead, she covered her eyes again and attempted to drown her pain in the liquor.

"Here," Sigrid sighed sympathetically, holding out a single reed, held between her first two fingers. "If you're going to drink, at least don't waste it. I die a little inside every time liquor is wasted." Taking the simple gift, Shadowmere stuck the dried reed into her bottle of wine and took a test sip. Finding the results to her satisfaction, she proceeded to guzzle the alcohol.

"Thank you," she said, between gulps. Sigrid smiled, turning back to the trunk and pawing through it once again.

"Be careful with it, it's the only one I could find," she said, walking on her knees back over to Shadowmere and pulling her arm off of her eyes, letting it rest on her stomach. "Let me clean this hand up a little better." Already inebriated past the point of caring, Shadowmere continued to chugged her "medicine" as Sigrid poured water over her palm and dabbed it with a rag. As she drank deeply, Shadowmere was startled by a sudden twinge of stabbing pain her hand.

"Ow!" she yelped, making sure she swallowed her mouthful of wine before crying out. "Easy there, Shinji! What the hell are you doing?"

"Cleaning," she said simply, her tone indicating something less than honesty.

"With what? Broken glass?" Sigrid sighed in exasperation and looked up at Shadowmere, apparently with a new approach.

"Tell you what Shadowmere," she said, ready to make a deal. "Every time I hurt you, you get to take a drink." For almost the first time since she had locked lips with the bottle, Shadowmere pulled her mouth away from it as she looked at Sigrid with sudden suspicion.

"Are you planning on beating me with a rock or something?" She was only too aware of how un-sober she sounded, but she felt her mind was still fully functional. "Because I will fight you!" If it was absolutely necessary, she could clock Sigrid over the head with the wine bottle, or so she told herself. "Not to worry friend," she reassured the bottle, assuming it could read her mind. "It would be only as a last resort."

"No," Sigrid said, sighing once again as she shook her head. "I'm not planning on beating you, particularly not with a rock, since that would make an awful mess, but sometimes cleaning wounds is painful work. So every time you feel pain, go ahead and drink." Shadowmere scoffed.

"You people don't have enough bottles." Sigrid sighed for the untold numbered time, and looked as though she was actively suppressing the urge to kill.

"Well, then only drink when the pain spikes," she said, the sound leaking from behind clenched teeth. This was agreeable to Shadowmere, and she took another sip before leaning back her head against the pallet. A jab of pain came almost immediately after Sigrid set about her work.

"Hoooooly gods!" she gasped, using what little control she had to keep from jerking her hand out of Sigrid's grasp and instead guzzling more wine. "What the hell?" she asked, almost before she had swallowed.

"Drink," Sigrid said simply, not looking up.

"I just did!"

"Then do it some more." Shadowmere chortled; Sigrid didn't exactly have to twist her arm to encourage that behavior.

"You're the healer," she said, taking another drink of her prescribed antidote. She nearly choked on it once again when the blazing pain returned, like someone setting a fire in the palm of her hand. Instead of howling or making some other verbal racket, she took a drink and stayed quiet. As she winced, she could feel something crawling through her skin, like a snake in her blood. "Some of my hair was probably on the sock," she assumed, taking a drink, though she felt no aggravation to her pain at the moment. "It probably got stuck in the cut and Sigrid's pulling it out." Still, as the moments went by, she couldn't help but notice a strange pattern; there would be a stab in her hand, then the crawling sensation, then another stab and a painful tug. All of the steps were intermingled with swallows of wine and Shadowmere cursing under her breath, but that part didn't seem all that relevant. Even in her state of increasing drunkenness, she recognized that something was amiss. Lifting her head just a little, she let out an angered cry when she saw how Sigrid was "cleaning" her hand.

"Since when are wounds cleaned by sewing them closed?" she yelped, switching her glares from her hand to Sigrid's now annoyed face.

"I did clean it, first of all," the woman said, looking down as though she thought to continue her work while Shadowmere had her inebriated temper tantrum. "Second, you were bleeding like stink and this is the best way I know to stop bleeding of this magnitude. Third, if you just shut up and let me finish the job, I'll give you some of my reserve bottle of brandy." Shadowmere contemplated this, nursing the bottle as she thought. "I really don't want stitches," she considered. "But some brandy on top of the wine would make for a bitchin' time."

"Alright," she slurred, taking another swig of the wine. "Take me in at the seams!"

"That's what I wanted to hear," Sigrid said waiting for her to finish her drink. "You ready?" Shadowmere smiled dazedly and nodded, pressing the straw to her lips in preparation for the Nord woman's medicine.

I promise, more chapters are coming…