Reunion
Lamentably for Shadowmere, the wine didn't hit as hard as she thought it might; it merely gave the pain a slightly more transcendental feel in addition to the raging agony of her shattered feet and Sigrid piercing her skin with the needle. She managed to distract herself by thinking of the whiskey she was owed and, for reasons of which she wasn't entirely sure, singing a slurred version of the cliff racer song she had heard from Reynald, the drunk in Chorrol.
"How many verses are you going to sing?" Sigrid asked with a sigh, clearly fed up with the musical accompaniment.
"How many more stishes are you goin' to put in?" Shadowmere asked before taking another swallow from the exsanguinated bottle.
"I'm almost done," Sigrid assured her, passing the needle through her hand once more.
"You better be," Shadowmere warned, rolling her head over toward her, now too lazy to lift it. "The wine's almost go-NE!" Her voice jerked at the end of her sentence as the Nord woman tied off her suture.
"There we go," she said, sighing with relief and leaning back on her knees. "All sewn up, no more bones sticking out. Well…" She realized her mistake with a mere glance at Shadowmere's feet. "No more bones sticking out of your hand." Shadowmere scoffed, not entirely pleased with Sigrid's statement.
"The fact that you have to make the specicat- pecific-" She stopped and took a breath before trying again to make her case. "…to point that out does NOT make me feel happy!" Shadowmere rewarded herself for getting through the sentence with another swallow of wine, even as the reed was sucking air at the bottom of the bottle. Sigrid laughed a little as she dipped her hands into a cauldron of cold water, trying to scrub off the blood that had formed sickening red gloves on her skin, covering her from her broken fingernails to her wrists. "But whiskey would make me happy…er. It would make me happier." Sigrid shook her head, shaking off the water and wiping her hands on the skirt of her dress, the cleanest dry material around. She scooted over to the trunk and began rummaging around before pulling out a small silver flask which, from the sounds of it, was about half full.
"I can spare two capfuls of this for you," she said, gingerly pouring Shadowmere's apportioned dose. "But Menien's going to need some as well, and who knows what the people from the chapel are going to need."
"Hey, they all prolly still have skins on all their toes!" Shadowmere said, accepting her drink nonetheless and swallowing the liquid quickly before handing it back. Shadowmere wasn't typically a whiskey drinker, and the first had carved a fiery path down her gullet that nearly took her breath away entirely.
"Yes, but Menien has a hip socket without a hip in it and those people have been in the chapel for…" The Nord woman's face was suddenly twisted with worry and sorrow. "Strange…I really don't remember how long it's been." She poured another cap for Shadowmere before she shook the expression away like a dog shaking off water. Shadowmere accepted the cap and gulped quickly, disliking the taste, and handed the cap back while the liquor kept the fire burning in her throat.
"Gods that's good," she breathed, coughing a little after the second swallow. Sigrid laughed quietly, putting the cap back into place and stowing the bottle in the trunk once again.
"Not particularly, but I suppose it gets the job done," she said, looking somewhat longingly toward the trunk. Shadowmere felt guilty about having taken two shots when it was painfully apparent her caretaker needed one as well. "Well," she said quickly, closing the trunk and dusting off her hands. "Since you don't have the act of drinking to keep you awake, you should try and sleep until Brother Martin can get here."
"Don't you mean 'if' the good brother comes?" Shadowmere asked crassly, forgetting her words could have a negative impact on her surgeon's mood. Fortunately, Sigrid was unfazed by the comment.
"He'll come back," she said calmly. "After seeing that gate closed, I'm a believer in just about anything. Give your body a chance to rest."
"I'd rather stay awake," Shadowmere muttered, sucking uselessly out of the thoroughly saturated reed. "If I fall asleep I might sober up."
"Go to sleep, if you wake up sober I'll find you another bottle." Her eyes were already heavy, but Shadowmere didn't want to sleep. Being asleep wasn't entertaining enough for her current state of mind, where her vision was blurry and her other senses were skipping gleefully around her like frenzied First Seed hares. Instead, she decided on just closing her eyes, feeling surprisingly settled, if not comfortable, and Shadowmere paid rapt attention to the amusement her distorted senses were giving her.
Sigrid was opening the trunk again, the sound of the worn hinges creaking and the solid wood being lifted weaving a brandy-colored tapestry in her ears. As the lid came to a rest, the sound of her hands sifting through the contents added the echo of a few gentle, straw-brown thuds to the aural picture. "Absorption, Disbelief, Light, Night-Eye," Sigrid murmured, the sound of clinking bottles the accompaniment as she, evidently, took inventory of her supplies. "Encumbering touch, Chameleon, Greater Soul Trap," she listed off to the sound of the scrolls shifting paper. "Red caps, columbine, flax, dragon's tongue, imp gall, garlic, peony seeds, nightshade, redwart flowers, lotus seeds, harrada." Sigrid's list of ingredients from which she might restock her stores of potions was as thinly spread as the resources of the city guard.
Outside the tent, she heard people moving and soft babbling as they passed the news of what Shadowmere could only assume was the Oblivion Gate being closed. The words were lost on her bleary ears, but when she heard the exhaustion and bitter yellow despair in their voices, as she had heard when she and Saeana had first arrived in Kvatch, it had now been accompanied by a hopeful, sea-green descant.
She heard Sigrid let out a sigh and leaned against something, her trunk, Shadowmere guessed, and she was taken aback by the sound of the woman crying. The alchemist didn't sob, she didn't howl or scream, just wept softly and made Shadowmere feel guilty listening to it. "She probably thinks I'm asleep, or passed out or something," she realized, continuing her pretended sleep. She clearly wasn't supposed to hear it, and she squeezed her eyes tighter, trying to force herself to fall asleep and stop the sound from reaching her brain.
The tears continued, now accompanied by the sounds of a new battle up the long hill where the Oblivion gate had been. The war cries and demonic screams started blending into Sigrid's grief made an ugly, bilious cacophony in Shadowmere's head. The scowling sound too terrible to listen to any longer, Shadowmere felt herself get up and start running, the pain in her feet apparently gone.
The light was in front of her again, and since the sound got quieter the closer she went to it, she ran as hard as she could, feeling her four legs…strange, she now had her own upper body, but the four legs and tail of horse. She didn't mind, it made the run go quicker. Feeling her hooves pound against the ground, she focused on their steady beat, accented by a light echo of the sound she recognized, in voices she knew, but didn't understand. As she ran, the echo became louder, as though she was reaching the source, and the light became almost unbearably bright, like dawn on new fallen snow…
"Is this her?" An unfamiliar man's voice interjected, the light darkening and the beautiful sound growing quieter.
"Yeah, this is her," Sigrid's voice piped in, laden with concern even as far away as it sounded. The songs from the clashes of arms had been replaced by the clattering aftermath of the battle that had taken place not far from her.
"Has she been sleeping long?" The man's voice from Shadowmere's side murmured. It sounded like her old quilt that Hannibal had made into a horse blanket for her; soft, warm, welcoming. As her consciousness returned to her, she groaned a little as the pain returned to her lower body.
"About an hour," Sigrid responded quietly. "She's probably still a little drunk; it's the only way we could make her comfortable."
"It didn't work!" Shadowmere slurred loudly, still coming around from her foray into Vaermina's realm. "I feel it all! It's like my feet are puking pain!" She stared up to see what the man crouching beside her looked like, but the dim light and double vision made it difficult to get a clear image. He had shaggy hair, gentle blue eyes, and was an Imperial, but beyond that it was difficult to make out.
"Just a little drunk?" he asked, turning toward Sigrid, who seemed to reconsider her words. "What's a fur mane?" he murmured to the apothecary, which sounded wildly foolish to Shadowmere.
"It's just a mane! Manes are made of fur!" she blathered stubbornly, almost completely incapacitated by the wine. It was shameful; she hadn't had enough, in her mind, that she would be this drunk.
"Her name's Shadowmere," Sigrid offered after a moment of confused silence. It took Shadowmere a bit longer to put the pieces together, but she eventually figured out that the man had said "what's her name?" and not "what's a fur mane?" She was too intoxicated to be embarrassed and settled for simply closing her eyes and wallowing in pain.
"Shadowmere, I'm Brother Martin," the man said, lowing himself to his knees and patting her hand, still wrapped around the now empty bottle of wine.
"I will accept you as my personal messiah if you are half the healer these people claim you are," Shadowmere groaned, not caring that her tipsy greeting was addressed to a man who was likely the lost heir to the Septim throne.
"How can I turn down such a proposal?" Martin asked, shuffling on his knees toward Shadowmere's battered feet, the sensation of the movement in the ground making her wince. "God's Blood," he murmured, as she saw his eyes widening even in the darkness. "Sigrid, do you have any magicka restorative potions?"
"No," Sigrid sighed. "Unless you're scared of the dark, I have no potions that are even moderately helpful."
"I can fix this, but I don't know how much I can heal once the bones are set. I'd prefer to let Oleta take this, but she's depleted her magicka."
"She's'n astronach?" Shadowmere asked, her slurring taking away from the lucidity of her question. "Her magicka won't come back on i's own?" The alchemist and the priest looked at each other in shared shock that the injured drunk had said something so coherent.
"Right," Martin said, after a moment of surprised quiet. "She's better at healing than anyone I've ever met, so I'd rather she help with this."
"Just cast spells at her," Shadowmere suggested. "She'll absorb some of them." She recalled Saeana and her experiments in Oblivion and tittered like the drunk she was when she thought of her friend screaming in fear at the sight of her boots and looking at her with adoration as she made fish faces.
"Oleta would probably be a little offended by that I'm afraid," Martin said politely, though his face gave away just how ludicrous he found her idea. "So, seeing as we're going to have to go without her help, I'll do my very best. But this will be a little painful," Martin warned, rubbing his hands together. "But try to hold still." As his fingertips brushed her skin, Shadowmere gasped and clutched at the ground. Though his touch on her toes was gentle, Martin may just as well have beaten her extremities with a sack of horseshoes. The pain she had felt before was miniscule compared to the agony that now surged through her legs, as though each drop of blood in her body was armed with razors that hacked at her legs from the inside and each bone fragment used a hammer to slam at the other bits of bone.
"Fffffuck!" she yelled, many times louder than she should have, considering the linguistic content of her interjection. "This is not a messianic act!" Her legs felt like a battleground for the splinters of her bone now raging freely inside her. Some fragments were using hammers, some daggers and some were spellcasters using fire, ice, lightning, and a few spells about which Shadowmere had never heard.
"Do you want something to bite down on?" Sigrid offered, looking unsure as to what she ought to be doing.
"No, I want something to hit him with!" she hollered through her clenched teeth, pounding her clenched fists against the ground. The Nord healer's question had been innocent, but the mere thought of biting down on anything when she was in such pain made Shadowmere think of nothing except the time she had bitten down on a wooden fork, saturated with soapy water. She remembered the gagging taste of the handle was only subdued by the gagging pain of having her knee set by Ilura's time-trained hands.
"Does he have talons?" Shadowmere didn't want to cry, it still felt wrong and weak to cry in front of so many people she didn't know who had just lost all they had, but Martin's touch was proving to be unendurable.
"I'm sorry Shadowmere, there's just no comfortable way to do this," Martin apologized, though not taking his cornflower eyes off of her feet. The feeling of her fragmented bones fidgeting around in her legs was something akin to a piece of flint being used to start a fire; her leg burning as the bones struck one another and caused sparks, bringing sickening cries from her throat.
"Shad?" Amidst her own groaning, the sounds of the tent flap being thrown aside and Saeana's frantic voice drifted like puffs of smoke through Shadowmere's pain and alcohol clouded brain. "Lux," she murmured, the motion of her hand making a slight breeze that cooled the sweat on Shadowmere's brow. The shelter was suddenly filled with an eerie green glow, as though a dozen will-o'-the-wisps had converged within the canvas walls and Shadowmere was reminded of their moment in Oblivion when Saeana had cast a Light spell. "Shadowmere, what happened?" Though relief poured over her forehead like a cool washcloth at the sound of Saeana's voice, Shadowmere still jumped a little when she dropped to her knees beside her and slid her hand into her own. She welcomed the embracing fingers just as fully as if they had been a bottle of liquor or a broken board with a nail in the end of it that she could use to hit Martin. It was an odd experience for her; for all her many injuries, accidental and intentional, the soapy fork in her mouth had been the only thing that Shadowmere had ever had to comfort her.
"I got Menien out," she moaned, her eyes and nose still covered by her now sweat laden elbow. "And you closed the gate."
"Yeah, I did," Saeana confirmed, squeezing her fingers. "We also got to the castle. Kvatch is as safe as it's going to be." The relief in Saeana's voice was surpassed only by her audible disbelief that they had actually accomplished the monumental task.
"We kicked some ass," Shadowmere commented, using the word 'we' a little generously, since it seemed that Saeana had done the lion's share of the ass kicking. Saeana smiled in agreement nonetheless.
"We sure did," she granted. Wincing sharply as Martin's hand moved toward her dangling toe, Shadowmere gripped her friend's hand and bit down on her lip.
"Do you believe in mercy killing?" she grimaced, her voice straining to sound through her clenched teeth. "I didn't before, but I think I might now. Did you see my feet?"
"Yeah, they're pretty broken," Saeana admitted, running her fingers over Shadowmere's scalp, trying to bring her a little relief.
"Saeana, one of my toes has no skin on it. I have a naked toe! It's indecent and incap-incaflat-acitating." Even though her friend was trying to be supportive, Shadowmere could tell Saeana was a little amused by her language.
"Are you drunk?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth climbing up her flushed cerulean cheek. Shadowmere scoffed, recoiling again as Martin's fingers found another torn seam on the moth-eaten quilt of her legs.
"Not enough," she all but snarled. "I can still feel…feelings. In my feet. I feel the feelings in my feet…and they feel…fragmented!" Visibly trying to suppress the amused smile crawling across her azure face, Saeana changed the subject.
"Alliteration aside, how much booze have you had?"
"One bottle of wine," Shadowmere cringed, the very thought shaming to her. "Now the feet feelings I feel have colors," she pointed out. "The wine failed miserably. That Tamika's a goddamn harpie and a crappy vintner…or is it 'wint-ner?' You and your goddamn spells have me all confused. Either way she sucks at wine making." Though she seemed to have made a strong effort, Saeana couldn't completely stifle an unsympathetic laugh.
"No, you got drunk in pretty short order," she contradicted, making Sigrid giggle; a sound unnatural in her alto timbre. Shaking her head, Shadowmere rolled her eyes back to look at Saeana.
"This isn't all drunk," she insisted, unable to ignore the slurring of her own words. "Some of it is pain so harsh it's making my brain fart." Saeana didn't even try to hold back her laughter. "It's not nice to laugh at the drunk and incaflat- incapactated." Shadowmere found it distasteful at that moment for her friend to find enjoyment when she was so clearly not enjoying herself. Her face sobering despite herself, Saeana managed to slow her chortling and lower her smile.
"So, how would it compare to the stuff we were talking about on our way here?" she asked, her voice now calm and collected. "You know, the worst pains we've ever felt." Even in her stupor, Shadowmere wasn't sure that having her think about past pain while experiencing current pain was the wisest course, but she played along.
"This is like the worst one," she said, referring to her transformation. "But it's all in one spot and I can scream, so I guess it's not the worst-" Her description was interrupted by Martin's violent healing, making her pound her free hand against the ground once again as she clenched her teeth. "But I had the luxury of passing out partway through that one! I'm totally aware of this!" The discomfort passing, Shadowmere blew her tongue, the sound like the wings an enormous insect flapping. "That's why Tamika's a lousy wine-maker. She got me drunk but not drunk enough." Though she sounded as though she was again trying to smother it, Saeana once again laughed softly.
"That's your own fault," she pointed out. "If you didn't drink so much, your alcohol tolerance would be lower and you'd get blackout drunk easier." Groaning, Shadowmere lifted her arm from where it covered her eyes and meant to cover Saeana's mouth, but the palm of her hand in the fading light of Saeana's spell caught her attention.
"What the hell happened to my hand?" she yelled, staring at her swollen appendage. Her hand was now crossed with lines of white thread sewn into her skin, holding the edges of the scamp's bite together. "Sigrid, what in the name of Sheogorath's nut sac did you do?"
"I told you," she said, trying not to laugh. "If I put stitches in, it would help the healing potion work better," she reminded her. "And you were awake for it. You got to take a drink every time it hurt. You don't recall that?" Her brain not able to focus on multiple things at once, particularly things she didn't even remember, Shadowmere continued on her latest tangent, ignoring her ostensible amnesia.
"I'm not an embroilery slamper!" she yelled, shaking her stitched hand angrily at Sigrid, who chortled as she suppressed more amusement.
"Agreed," Sigrid said, kneeling by her inventory chest. "But your hand's not bleeding anymore and once the potion's in you, I can take the stitches out."
"And there's no such thing as an 'embroilery slamper' dear," Saeana pointed out, still choking on laughter. Shadowmere failed to see the humor and, her attention distracted from the white thread in her skin, and pushed her fingers at Saeana's jaw, trying to cover her lips.
"Shut up," she muttered, having no tolerance for logic at the moment. "You talk so damn much, it's no wonder you're not married." Saeana laughed out loud, shaking her friend's hand off her mouth.
"Yeah, that must be-"
"Shush, shush, shush; no more talky-yap-yap. Just sit still and shushy." Shadowmere knew she was making up words, and that Saeana would likely just keep talking, but at the moment, she didn't care; she had said her piece. To her immense surprise, Saeana did stop talking. She simply sat still and continued running her fingers through Shadowmere's hair, as long and black as the moonless night, and holding her hand. The subtle touch of her friend's hand in her own and the soothing motion of her fingers in her hair was enough to help Shadowmere fight through the next few minutes until Martin's work was done.
"There." The priest's voice at long last was like a cup of perfectly brewed coffee in the grimacing light. "I'm sorry it was so uncomfortable for you Shadowmere," Martin said genuinely. Shadowmere could almost see the remorse on his face through her arm, that was still covering her eyes, while she nodded her acceptance. "The bones are all set and with the potion Sigrid has for you, and the healing spell I cast, you'll be walking in a few days." The priest's guilt was clearly in earnest and Shadowmere felt ashamed at having screamed so much earlier and wanting to do him bodily harm.
"Thanks," she mumbled. Now that her body was free of pain, the drunkenness was taking a stronger hold. "But that hurt too much for me to accept you as my messiah." To her surprise, Martin made a noise that sounded remarkably similar to a small laugh.
"Next time then," he said, squeezing her intact hand slightly. Shadowmere nodded, moving her arms clumsily to pat his hands.
"You're okay buddy, you know that?" she said, pulling her stitched hand back and curling it into her chest.
"I appreciate your confidence," he said, his pale skin unnaturally sallow in the light of Saeana's spell as he got to his feet, looking toward Sigrid. "How strong is that potion?"
"Not very," Sigrid said, pulling the bottle from her pocket. "It could completely heal a small break in a bone, or a one inch cut." Visibly pondering the nature of her wounds and the strength of the potion, Martin was quiet while he thought.
"It should be able to heal her, but she's going to need to stay off of her legs for a few days," Martin keeping his voice low. "There's more swelling than either I or the potion can control. I set the bones, the potion will heal them most of the way through, but a few days rest will make sure her body has had time to get the most out of both and to get the swelling down." Sigrid nodded, pulling the cork from the oval, pearl pink bottle with a small 'pop'.
"Here," the Nord woman said softly, putting a hand behind Shadowmere's head, tipping a bottle to her lips and helping her sip a smooth, cool liquid. "Like Brother Martin said, it's still going to be a few days before your feet are strong enough for you to walk."
"I can wait," Shadowmere muttered, dozing a little. "I need to sleep off the wine." Giving her head a pat, Saeana let out a sigh.
"Shad, Martin and I have to get back to the priory," Saeana said, letting go of her hand. "Are you able to stay here and catch up to us after you've had some time to recover?" Shocked and crestfallen that Saeana was leaving her behind for the first time in years Shadowmere nodded, able to do little else. Her stomach burbled and quivered as she faced the reality that she would be alone, injured and in a relatively strange place. "Pull yourself together Shadowmere," she chastised herself, urging her lungs to draw a deep breath to trick her mind into calming itself. "It's not forever, it's just until your feet aren't being held together by skin alone."
"Yeah, I guess I can do that," she said, able to think more clearly as her body relaxed. She didn't want to tell her friend that she didn't want her to leave; she'd sound like even more of a baby than she felt. "Be careful amongst the Imperials," she added, rolling her head to her side and watching Saeana get to her feet.
"Will do," Saeana agreed, though something in her voice made Shadowmere think she was just as reluctant to part ways as she was. "Be nice to the people here." Despite her negative feelings, Shadowmere couldn't help but chortle at the irony that it was Saeana who was telling her to be nice to people. But even the bit of cynical humor wouldn't allow Shadowmere to shake the feeling of abandonment that coursed through her leaden limbs as she watched Saeana and Martin dust off their knees and turn to exit the tent. Catching one glimpse of Saeana's shadow in the moonlight waving a reluctant farewell, Shadowmere lifted her limp hand in return before her arm crumpled over her face again, hiding her exhausted tears.