Chapter 2: leather is not a good look on you honey
"HISS! I say, HISS!"
— 3 —
She suspects she's died of a brain aneurysm. Eddie isn't a stranger to people wanting her dead for one reason or another. Somehow, despite all the people who want her blood, it had been something that idiot boy had said that finally broke her.
Imagine her surprise when she wakes up in a crumpled heap on the ground, nose clotted with blood and mucus, and just barely able to make out the smell of food.
Eddie sits up sharply, taking mental inventory of her weight, blood sugar, and the mismatched position of her organs. The tadpole in her brain squirms as she probes at it. Her joints ache; there's a crick in her back running up to her neck from how she'd been laying. Just, she doesn't hurt like she expects, bar poor posture and days of exhaustion. Without thinking she reaches for one of her cuts and finds instead of a scabbed wound all there is is a nasty red welt. It's like that all over her body. Her body isn't leaking anymore.
Her clothes are a different matter. Sweat and blood have crusted everything to her, forming more of a solid outline of clothes instead of actual fiber. Her undergarments feel brined over with salt. She's pretty sure something cracks as she adjusts herself. Her own scent is putrid.
Then she realizes what's outside her own body.
The boy is sitting a few yards from her next to a campfire he built, cooking fish he's hung from a makeshift spit. Most of his clothes and armor are drying alongside the fire. For a moment, she just stares at his back.
His bare left arm is the wrong color. No, that's not it. He has a sleeve of inky tattoos, full of symbols and letters she can't properly parse. They remind her of the tattoos her father has, and of the familiar stab of needles and magical ink. Would probably feel familiar, even. Except, she doesn't know why this big dumb brute would have those on his body. Are they slave brandings from the east?
Eddie tilts her body, trying to get a better look at them. That's how she sees his hands towards his lap, fiddling with something. She feels a moment of horror and disgust, just thinking the worst, before something changes. She can feel her tadpole psionically reaching out, only for the boy's tadpole to say nothing.
He manipulates something in his hands. Eddie very much wants to see it. More than she has any reason. She can feel it tingling down in anxious little shivers as far deep as her sweat glands. He has something. She needs to see it.
Eddie crawls a little closer. She tries to stay quiet. But her joints pop so loud that the boy pauses.
He puts the object away and instead reaches for one of the fish. He turns to offer it to her.
"Breakfast?" he asks simply.
Eddie blinks. As she's just on all fours, trying to crawl around like a cat. And he's just holding out food to her. That strange compulsion to see whatever it was evaporates into some vaguely embarrassed froth in the back of her muscles.
She sits down, trying to look prim and proper. Which is hard with so much crust on her body. He pushes the fish into her hands. She snatches it to prevent him from actually touching her. It's a big trout.
The boy gives her a knife. "Here. To help cut it. I think I got the guts out, but y'know."
"You can fish?" she asks, sniffing at the food for poison. All she smells is her own snot. The knife helps her poke at the fish.
He shakes his head. "You passed out last night. I don't sleep well. I wandered downhill to make sure we were safe. Found out the tentacle ship crashed on some fishermen. I stole from their baskets and figured we'd need the food. How you feelin' this morn?"
Eddie looks at the red welt on her wrist that used to be a cut. "What did you do to me?"
"Helped."
Her teeth grit. "How? Did you touch me?"
"No," he says, meeting her eyes, as if daring her to challenge him.
Her skin feels like curdled milk. She stares at him, mouth dry.
"One of the fishing boats had an old healing potion in a tackle box," he says, idly looking at a couple of gulls watching them from a nearby rock. "I just stood awkwardly above you pouring it over your wounds."
"You're supposed to drink those," she says. "Not topically apply it. Everyone knows that."
"It done worked, yeah?"
She examines her old wounds with an unhappy expression. Then, with a sign, she bites into the fish. Grease from melted fat gets onto her fingers. The little white bones are like toothpicks she can't use. The meat gets stuck in her teeth. She claws at it with her tongue. Poking and rubbing at it to get it out, until she feels a sudden rush of anxious energy that it's well and truly stuck. The more she scratches at her teeth, the more plaque and mouth-filth she can feel from not being able to brush her teeth. Until her heart is throbbing in her chest, rubbing against her sternum as if trying to carve its way out.
He absently dresses himself. "Scouted ahead," he says. "Only real way up these cliffs from here is through the squid ship."
"No!" she snaps.
The boy cocks an eyebrow.
She takes a breath, trying to forget the uneven weight stuck in her teeth. It doesn't work. "I don't want to go back through there."
"Then we have to go further down the river to find a better way."
"We. You're assuming we're sticking together."
He looks at her like she's stupid. "Squishy lil witch wanna jog it solo, ain't nothing stopping you." He finishes strapping his armor together and kicks dirt to kill the fire.
Eddie wants to fight him on this. She just does. But staring into his annoyed expression, she suddenly feels incredibly small. She doesn't need to read his mind to know he's right. She doesn't even have a concrete reason to want to travel separately, just the fact the boy gives her an uncomfortable feeling. She is sure he lied to her about her name. She doesn't even know who he is, not really.
He nods to himself. "Quit being so high siddity, Eddie. We both got violent squid semen in our skulls. We have better odds if you carry the bucket and I handle the mop."
She steadies herself, just trying to breathe. Hand to her breast. "What's your name?"
He blinks. "Hmm?"
Eddie exhales slowly. "You're right. You're big and I know magic. It's a duo so classic it's a cliché. But you know my name and I don't know anything about you. What's your name?"
The boy squints before his eyes go to his hand. He flexes his fingers before rubbing his face, tracing the fresh stubble over his jawline. He looks at his gloves as if his face might have smeared off onto the metal, like his skin was nothing more than a poorly applied layer of lead-filled makeup. The boy cranes his neck to look at the sky, and Eddie finds herself staring at his jugular and wondering how much blood is pumping through it at any given moment.
"What?" she asks.
His attention falls back to her, smiling faintly. "It's the damnedest thing, Eddie. I ain't me too sure who I is."
She gets that feeling again. His smile raises the hair on the back of her neck. This sensation that she's in danger. And that he's lying to her about something. Playing loose with the truth.
"What?"
He tries to keep on that easygoing smile. "Yeah, it's a bit of a blur. I think I'm just going to make up my own personal headcanon where I was someone totally very cool and important before this whole mind flayer. I think it'll help me sleep at night."
Eddie stares at him for a very long time. With a mix of disgust and disbelief. "Are you mentally disabled?"
"Pre or post catastrophic brain damage?" he asks.
Eddie steps forwards sharply, jabbing her finger in his face. "No. It's too early into ceremorphosis to start mentally degrading. So, no."
The boy frowns. "No what?"
"No. We're not doing this. You don't get to avoid a name while you know mine."
"You're just Eddie and I'm not," he says, stepping away from her. It's almost satisfying to see him flinch.
"No," she says again. "I am Miss Edwina Odesseiron, Wizard of Waterdeep. Figure out who you are quick or I'm going to make something up, and I doubt my refined tastes will accord with yours."
He holds up his hands. "Whoa, cool it with the fancy words."
She sighs. "If you must, you may call me Eddie if you need something less syllable intensive. I don't know if you're being cagey, you're lying to me, or if you're a genuine victim of illithid brain damage, but you require a name if we're going to work together. Think."
His arms fold defensively. "I try to limit my conscious thoughts to only one or two times a day. It's for health reasons."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"Because you're incredibly judgy."
"Boy. That's your name until you decide to call yourself something sensible," she says, rolling her eyes.
"'Boy'?" he scoffs. "Like you're old enough to call me that."
Eddie mockingly puts her hands on her cheeks. "Fine breeding does wonders for the skin."
"Oh I'm sure you're plenty proud of your family bush. Your folks must have had a lovely first date in the womb together."
"If you had two brain cells to rub together, you'd know how little sense that makes," she says, trying to toss her hair over her shoulder. Instead of gracefully fluffing to show her ear, the day of muck, blood, and illithid cerebral fluid just made it sort of clump together.
"You leave those two out of it!" he says. "They're good boys just fighting for third place."
She can barely hear him. She's too busy almost thoughtlessly trying to claw the knots out of her hair, desperately wishing for a comb and bath. It's more important than putting the boy in his place.
The boy frowns, almost worried. He fakes a cough. "Why can't I get a cool and mysterious name and we'll call it even? Like 'Nameless One' or 'Six-Pack Jack' something?"
Eddie scoffs, fingers combing through her hair. "You know what, fine. I'm the bigger person here."
"Girl, you tiny."
She holds up a hand. "So we'll compromise. You can be Jack. That's a normal, unassuming name for a normal human type person."
He makes a protesting noise in his throat and kicks a rock over the lip of the cliff and down towards the nautiloid. "That was a theoretical suggestion, not a practical desire."
"Do you have a better idea?" she asks, spreading her hands.
"I…" The boy sulks. "No."
"Jack it is."
"Jack-of-all-trades, maybe?"
"No," she says quickly.
"So, I'm Jack."
She nods, satisfied. "Now you're getting it, Jack."
"Don't help me off a horse," he says petulantly.
Eddie puts hands on hips. "Was that a grammatical joke?"
"I think."
"Don't make jokes. You're no good at them."
Jack scowls at her, waving her away like a bad odor. "Oh, quit giving me lip from afar and just kiss me like you hate me already."
Eddie rolls her eyes with a sigh, turning around to the nautiloid and the riverside. Her skin settles uncomfortably over her bones. "We can sit here and trade insults all day. I'll win, then the tadpoles will kill us. Or we can try to get help and die with the illusion of progress. Your choice, Jack."
He side-eyes her for the longest time, before chuckling to himself. Like this is all familiar to him, almost bitterly pleasant. It's a noise that rattles around in her ears, clanging between soft tissue and microscopic aural hairs. Then he just picks a direction and walks.
— 4 —
Eddie really wishes she had shoes right now. She'd take ugly boots or ill-fitting sandals, at least. The riverside beach smells mostly of fish and strange astral scents from the nautiloid. It felt like a surgeon's ward where the only patients are clowns who survived off a diet of crispy human hair and urine, mixed with a hint of the supernatural. A smell of cherries and mustard wafts through the air.
Jack had been right; the only easy way up the cliffs is through the crashed nautiloid. It wrecked upon the only gentle slope up. That, or learn how to swim. Jack had offered to try to climb the rocks if she was willing to hold onto him very tight, which was a complete non-starter.
The only course of action is to walk down the banks of the river, crossing beaches and the shallows until they find somewhere the river hasn't carved into over centuries. And it is a massive river. It looks navigable by boat. The far side has more red rock canyon walls like this one.
More than once Eddie sees seagulls picking at bodies. They pass the crashed boat Jack had looted for breakfast. He looks out at the bodies and wreckage with a strange half smile she chooses to interpret as a grimace.
There may have been a fishing town under the massive nautiloid. Even though the ship is in several pieces, with its tentacles sprawled across the beach, she can tell how massive the thing had been. The damage it caused when it crashed made her wonder how she survived it with only minor injuries, at least compared to the people who died when it crashed.
"Where do you reckon we is?" Jack asks, boots sucking slightly in the wet sand. Given his armor, he's walking ahead of her. Just in case.
She looks around, neck craning to look under the massive tentacle of the nautiloid limply draped on the rocks above them. The suction cups each look as big as her entire body and leak an off-white fluid.
"The Sword Coast," she says. "Given how few rivers are that size here, the safe bet is that's the Chionthar. But it's a big river. We could be as far east as Far Hills for all we know."
"What's the ideal place to be along it?" he asks.
"Closer to Baldur's Gate or Elturel, I suppose. I know those areas better."
"You a local, then?"
She scoffs, trying to avoid the deep prints his boots make in the sand. "I'm from Waterdeep."
Jack glances back at her. "Is that far away?"
Eddie makes a face. "Have you never seen a map in your life?"
"Alien semen is doing numbers on my brain, chica."
"Gods, do not call it that, Jack."
"So," he says, walking backwards and gesturing far too much with his hands, "if this is far from wherever Waterdeep is, how do you know for sure that river is the one you said?"
She glances at the water. "I saw a river dolphin. Its skin pattern matches Chionthar river dolphins. Given the familiar plants and animals, it's safe to believe we're not even that far from Baldur's Gate."
"Oh, dolphins. I know what those are," Jack says, nodding to himself. "Horrible creatures. The males kill other males' children to mate with the mothers and there is no word in any dolphin language for 'consent.'"
Her nose wrinkles. "How do you not know where Waterdeep is but know about dolphin mating habits?"
Jack shrugs—a big, expansive gesture with far too much arm-swinging, as if making a point of how quickly he could reach out and touch her. "Never know when what information will come in handy, Eddie."
She scowls, but doesn't really know if she has a response to that. He's not wrong. He's just not right. And she's pretty sure he's dodging the question. That's the more worrying part.
Jack seems to get bored of her and her expression and just turns back around to walk forwards normally. As they both follow the bend of the river and the cliffs and try to put the nautiloid out of sight. Hopefully there's a point where she won't smell it anymore, assuming it hasn't stained her clothes and hair.
She's sure trying to save this outfit is already a lost cause. There's no recourse but burning it all and getting something else. Her long hair is another matter. Despite whatever her father thinks, she's not going to shave it off even if it's the fastest way to clean this mess.
The boy stops and she nearly runs into him.
"What?" she asks, peeking around him. "Oh."
It's at the edge of the beach, the last part that's easy to walk across. It's large and made of age itself, though it may have once been wood and metal. There's masonry around it that plants have long since colonized. Part of some old structure extending up the rocks.
"It's a door," he says, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword.
"No duh, Jack." She examines it. "Might be some local crypt. I suspect there was a town here before the nautiloid crashed."
"Should we try to go inside?" he asks, rubbing his chin.
She makes a face. "Good gods, why would we do that? For one, it's needless grave robbing. For another, did you forget we're on a timer before we die and become illithids?"
"Oh, yeah," he says. "Good point."
He pauses. "Wait, 'needless'? So there's circumstances where robbing the dead is okay?"
"Are you stupid? Of course there is. They're dead; their stuff just goes to waste. What else are their bones going to do? They have two options: do nothing, or kill people."
"Huh?"
"It's what skeletons want to do, after all."
"Huh?"
Eddie sighs. Then, enunciating slowly, gesturing for emphasis: "Jack, it's part of the conflict of being alive. Our meat and flesh want to wander the world, see art, and mate. Meanwhile, our skeletons just want to wither in an ancient barrow, rising only to kill those who dare disturb their slumber. It's literally the cause of, like, most of the random aches and pains everybody gets."
"Are… are you fucking with me?"
"Why would I do that to you, Jack?" she asks, tapping at her own cheek.
"Because I've only really known you for, like, a cumulative twenty minutes and have no reason not to implicitly trust you for want of contrary evidence." He shrugs in that almost gangly way of his.
She shakes her head. "Look, think of it this way. Have you ever lied to me?"
"No, why would I?" he says without any hesitation, more confused than anything. "What does that mean? What are you implying?"
"Well then you have your answer." She steps away from him, looking for a way down whatever is left of the beach past this door.
He doesn't seem happy with that answer at all. It takes him a moment to gather whatever is left of his wits before following back after her.
The way past the door up the beach is perilous. Mostly because there is a way up, but it's not exactly a path. More that it's rocks and some grass it's vaguely possible to climb up, if you ignored the seagulls mocking you.
Still, it's a gradual upshift in elevation. That has to count for something. There's even a couple of trees in the narrow bands of walkable terrain. She gets uncomfortable pebbles between her toes.
Up above, there look to be large nests in the cliffs. Some kind of big eagle or hawk. Sometimes she thinks she can hear them in the distance, screeching before diving into the water after prey. This part of the river is little more than rocky outcropping, little canyons, only some walkable terrain if she's willing to keep hugging the walls. Too many times they have to walk the shallows.
There's a lot to think about. Primarily what to do when she actually has a coherent plan. "The plan is to make a plan," really. Although she imagines if someone came to her asking for help with a tadpole in their brain, she wouldn't be inclined to help them exactly. All of the books and research indicates they wouldn't last long. Keeping them around for treatment is likely to see them transform and then try to enslave your own mind.
Maybe she could be artful with the truth.
Or maybe it would make more sense to send Jack in first and just see if he survives the process. That might actually be a good plan. If they kill him, it would be inconvenient, but she wouldn't be dead, which counted as a win in her book.
Mostly a win, in any case.
If she had any money on her, which she is currently lacking—implying that the mind flayers not only impregnated her mind with a parasite but also mugged her for both her shoes and her gold—she might be able to get a letter magically transcribed to her father. The costs would depend on how far away she is from Waterdeep. Though she was loath to ask for help, he was once a famed and renowned wizard. He might genuinely have a way to save her.
She just has to be willing to grovel a little bit and debase herself. It would set her back potentially years in her work in progress, but at least she'd be alive enough to make progress.
A chittering noise distracts her from her own thoughts. A brown squirrel climbs off the rocks, making a little sound as it looks up at Jack and her. Despite being little more than a woodland rodent, it's oddly cute and fluffy. It would be ever so twee if it were climbing a tree, some old childish nursery rhyme sings in her head—the voice of her mother. The thought is so sudden and intrusive she almost wonders if it's coming from the tadpole and not her.
She shakes those thoughts from her head, trying to see if she can tell anything from the coloring of its fur. Trying to recount hours spent with picture books about wildlife, hoping some half-remembered factoid might inform here where exactly along the Sword Coast they are. How many days away from cities like Elturel or Baldur's Gate or—
Jack kicks the squirrel, hard enough that it explodes against a rock with a mix of fluff and bone marrow, with a sickening squelch of popping organs. He just stands there and blinks, surprised.
"What the hell!?" Eddie screams. "Why would you do that, you psychopath? It was just a squirrel!"
He looks around, sucking on his lips. He twitches, almost shivering. "Okay, would you believe me if it's because of my deep knowledge of squirrel mating rituals? I may have just saved our lives."
"Oh my gods, you maniac!"
"It startled me, okay!" he says, throwing his hands up. "I panicked!"
"Unbelievable!" she shouts, gesturing away with him. She tries to get away from Jack but there's not very much room on this narrow band of cliff they're on. She has to very awkwardly step around the exploded guts of the squirrel to avoid it getting on her feet.
Change of plans. If there was any risk the healer might kill them for the tadpole, she would say only Jack had it and she was merely a concerned friend.
"Wait, hold up," he says.
"What?" she snaps.
But he's not looking at her. Something past her, almost. "You hear that?"
"Are you trying to distract me from how you just murdered an animal?"
"Do you hear that, Edwina Odesseiron?" he says more tersely.
Eddie swallows and strains her ears, keeping wary eyes on the boy. Good breeding gives her exceptional hearing, but the blood running through them makes it hard to notice until Jack points it out. It tingles the top of her spine, worming its way down and rapping ethereal knuckles on her vertebrae as if trying to gauge if someone's home.
It sounds like a woman's voice, singing even. She doesn't really hear it itself so much as faint echoes off the canyon walls. It's from behind her, further down the little cliffs and shallows they'd been going through. She almost doesn't want to turn around and put her back to Jack. His steely eyes are so intent she nearly feels he doesn't even know she's standing there.
Eddie pulls at the muscles in her shoulder. They offer token resistance as she turns to face the sound. There's something settling in her stomach, like breakfast is turning into grainy sand. She feels clammy, absently wiping her hands on her clothes. And suddenly she misses the wounds on her body; she feels like she needs to grab something and hold on, but there's nothing.
Jack's armor clinks. Eddie makes a muted noise, flinching. He doesn't strike her. Instead, he sprints past her and jumps over the rocks, landing hard in the shallow water, and just takes off towards the singing.
"Wait, where are you—!" Eddie realizes she's reaching out to him, but he's already splashing away on those long legs. She looks back up and sees the big eagle's nest, and feels even worse. She can't find any quick way on the ground to follow him.
For a moment, that's almost it. Jack just ran off and is way faster than her. Maybe she'll continue on her way, a better route. Sure, she's without the traveling companion who shares her brain parasite condition, but so what? She may even be better without him weighing on the chords stringing whatever's left of her nervous system together.
But…
Eddie flexes her fingers. She's pretty sure her heart is pounding from an unpleasant chemical concoction, pounding against her bruised organs. Here she is, in the middle of nowhere, alone but for her passenger. She takes one last look at the poor pulped squirrel.
Squishy lil witch wanna jog it solo?
She groans nauseously, limbs shaky as she grabs the rocks and tries to slide down into the water after Jack. Eddie nearly slips and still splashes into water that goes nearly to her waist, which Jack is still able to sprint through.
"Wait up, you oaf!" she shouts, trudging through the water, hoping there won't be any sudden waves to knock her onto her back.
It's around the bend in the rocks. The singing gets louder, more serene, and she's not sure if the cold on her back is the water or the voice. She hates how this is faster than safely scuttling over the rocks. Her clothes are too stained filthy for this to even do anything for her hygiene.
Then she sees it. A secluded little cove with a break in the rocks, shallow water leading up to a gap in the cliffs. Somewhere she can walk up. Jack is standing there, boots-deep in the water, not moving.
"Hey!" she calls out, nearly tripping over rock. The singing is so loud. "Hey, Jack, don't run off on me!"
He's just standing here, back to her. Until he takes a step away, looking at one of the big rocks in the cove. She realizes he's not alone.
Barely up to his knees there's a child with bright red skin, half-submerged in the water. A tiefling, of all things, out here in the wilderness. There's a hazy look in the kid's eyes, while Jack just looks lost and confused.
Eddie hears wings.
Then the harpy lands on the rock, right where Jack and the child are staring. It almost looks like a woman. Almost. Her wings are spread out, mouth open as she sings, clad in feathers and the bones of previous sentient prey. She's almost naked. Eddie stares at the harpy's chest, looking less like breasts and more leathery, sun-stained sacks of adipose tissue that look ready to melt off in puss-filled clumps.
There's more of them. Four in total, up on the cliffs and higher rocks, watching Jack and the child.
The singing suddenly makes sense. The luring song that draws people to their deaths.
"Jack, don't listen!" she screams.
And the harpies now see her, too.
Jack grabs the kid and throws it out of the water. The child tumbles in the dirt, rolling into a rough pile of limbs. Only to scramble up and look terrified and alive, the spell broken.
The harpy's luring song is ethereal, reaching into the mangled remains of her brain . Digging for magical purchase alongside her tadpole and frayed neurons. Something inside her soul lurches and Eddie nearly vomits at the violation. She shoves the chords from her head and sees double.
But the boy doesn't look as coherent as her. With this strange look in his eyes, he stares at the singing harpy and her skull-mask and trudges towards her, almost leisurely. Like she's a lover calling out for his embrace, instead of the leather-breasted monstrosity.
"Jack!" she coughs out, as one of the harpies lands in the water before her, her claws outstretched.
Eddie curls her wet fingers, whispering to herself as she reaches into the weave of magic. A knife of ice crystallizes in the moist air around her, launching itself out at the harpy. It stabs into the harpy's leg, exploding in a ball of cold and slush. Eddie can see her own breath as the water around the harpy's leg freezes solid, forcing the bird-woman to her knees.
She half-runs, mostly-splashes around the harpy. The thing tries to swipe its talons at Eddie, and screams in rage and hunger as she's stuck in place. Jack is still trudging through the water like it's almost not there. Climbing up onto the rocks. Entranced.
"Snap out of it; I don't want to be the big hero here!" she shouts, grabbing a stone from the water and tossing it at him. It clinks harmlessly off his armor. Another harpy lands next to her singing sister, ready to tear the boy apart.
A harpy screams next to Eddie, diving into the water. She slashes at Eddie. But Eddie is light, embarrassingly so; the splash of water sends her stumbling backwards, trying to find her feet. The talons graze her. They tear into her clothes and score shallow furrows over her ribs.
But her attention flashes to the two harpies about to kill Jack, and the one in her face. The singing in the back of her mind. That feeling of nausea from the mental violation of magic. Her eyes go to the harpy making her way to Eddie to finish the job. Back at the two who will kill Jack.
She ignores Jack and gestures, making the correct somatic motion her father once taught her. Nyobor's Gentle Reminder. To sear the woman's every last nerve, joint, and piece of tissue. The harpy's eyes widen as she screams, so shrill Eddie winces in pain. Nowhere near as bad as the harpy's. The monster's mouth froths as her body seizes uncontrollably in magical pain, so much pain. Eddie can smell the fetid meat and unwashed tongue in the woman's mouth, even from this distance.
Eddie grabs the knife Jack gave her and stabs for the harpy's face and throat. Frantic, desperate stabs into the screaming, convulsing woman. The blade sinks in and it isn't enough. Eddie grunts and shouts as she stabs again and again for her eyes, her jugular, her everything. The harpy gurgles, blood splashing into the water and Eddie's mouth. It's red and tastes more coppery than blood should.
She forces air into her battered lungs. The taste of blood. It's in her nose, even. She tries to suck in more oxygen. Blood runs up into her sinuses and down her throat. She coughs. Swallows it. Gags.
And pukes a rancid mix of half-digested fish and blood over her hands, a slurry of off-brown sludge that looks like spoiled gravy and just as chunky. It pours through her fingers into the harpy's gaping face wounds.
She gasps, throat raw. Coughing. Sputtering. Spitting. As the harpy crumples limply into the water. She tries to get away, but the river's tide brings the puke back to her. The waist-high water mixed with vomit and soaks into her clothes, stinging her cuts from the harpy's talons.
Eddie can't even stumble backwards. If she falls, she'll sink in blood and her own vomit. Her vision fills with black spots. She can't even hear the singing harpy over the blood in her own ears.
She tries to look back for Jack. Her muscles don't work right, moving in twitching spasms like rusted gears. She can't even turn fully. She more twists the only parts of her spine still responding to mental command, until the joints protest from over-work.
Jack is standing there before the singing harpy, as if to embrace her and her sister. Swaying slightly, mentally lost to the luring song. They ready their claws. Eddie wants to close her eyes, but the signals cross in her brain. Her eyes open harder, eyelids feeling numb.
The boy reaches out.
His hand grab the harpy's face and slams her head into a rock.
Everyone is still. Just the lapping of river water. Even the harpies are stunned silent.
Jack grabs his sword and swings for the other harpy. The sword meets her bare flesh with a flash of divine light. The harpy bends, torso crumpling. She isn't cut in half. The sword just smashes into her ribs and spine with the force to shatter her body.
He stands there, up on the rocks, looking at the harpy with her brains smeared against the ground and the other woman in two pieces. Before turning to the harpy Eddie had frozen in the water. The woman screams, wings flapping frantically as Jack jumps down to her. She opens her mouth to sing the chords of another song.
Jack kicks her frozen leg hard enough to shatter the limb. Frozen chunks of red like meaty popsicles fall into the water along with the harpy herself. He puts his boot down on her and stares down as she uselessly claws at him. Eddie can hear muffled screams from underwater, the bubbles rising.
Jack doesn't move. He just watches the harpy struggle and drown.
Eddie coughs. The waves nearly lift her feet from the bottom. And she realizes she's bleeding from her ribs. The pain is… pain. It's strange. Sharp, burning, but almost an afterthought. She regards the feeling more with distant amusement than anything as she realizes she can still walk.
"You," she says, and wheezes. She tries to approach him, and stops. She doesn't know why she wants to be near him at all.
Jack languidly looks over at her. The air bubbles have stopped. "Hmm?" he hums.
"You're a paladin," she says.
He eyes the harpy under the water and grunts. "Are you okay, Eddie?" he asks softly.
"I'm fine, but what—what?" she asks. She has a question. But so much is bubbling in her stomach and lungs she can't properly form it.
The child shouts from the shore, waving at them.
Jack keeps his eyes on the harpy, leaning his weight into it. Until he finally seems satisfied and steps away. The harpy remains below the water. Eddie nearly falls backwards to get out of Jack's way, and then realizes he's going for the child.
Her mind's eyes flashes to the squirrel.
"Wait, Jack, what are you doing?!" she says, ignoring the pain in her everything to chase him.
The tiefling boy's demonic eyes are wide as Jack looms before the kid. "You… stopped them."
Jack drops down to one knee and still towers over the boy. "I'm sorry I threw you, but you were very brave back there. You did good getting away. What's your name?" His voice is kind, almost gentle, in a way that doesn't fit Jack at all.
With a sniffle, the boy shakes his head. "Mirkon. I thought I heard mum's voice. It was so pretty. But those were monsters."
Jack nods. "They can't hurt you anymore, Mirkon. Where are your parents for real?"
"I dunno—they're—I dunno." He rubs his eyes, trying to hold back tears.
"Do you have somewhere safe to go?"
The boy sniffles. "Yeah. I think. I need to find Molly." He steps away and Jack doesn't stop him. After a moment, the boy says, "Dani. He'll help you. Tell him 'dragon's lair,' okay? That's our password. Molly will wanna say hi."
"Password to what?"
"Our place."
"Is there a town up there?"
Mirkon hesitates. "It's where everyone is. It's up there. In some rocks and caves."
Eddie tries to say something, but speaking makes her ribs hurt worse. She clutches at her torso. Mirkon just turns and scrambles up the embankment and up the hill. Jack doesn't try to stop him. He just stands up and watches the kid go, making sure he remains safe until he's out of sight.
"Jack," she says, trying to find space in her lungs.
He turns to her. Something in his steely eyes makes her tadpole squirm. Her skin twitches around her wound as if her ribs are trying to worm through the cuts. She knows he's going to touch her.
Eddie grits her teeth and steps away. She sits on a rock, finally out of the water. The sand sticks to her feet. The wet remains of her clothes stick uncomfortably to whatever's left. He maintains his distance, just looming above as she removes her hand from her chest. She can't tell whose blood it even is. At least the chunks of puke are hers.
"You look like shit," he says simply.
She looks up at him, her face unsure how to twist, the muscles a jumbled mismatch. "Kill yourself," she manages to say.
Jack shrugs and taps at his temple. "Best I can offer is a suicide pact."
"Deal," she says. "You go first?"
"Bet."
Eddie grabs at the cuts again, hissing. Every pump of the heart squeezes blood through the wound. She can feel it now, circulating the adrenaline to less useful parts of her body. But it'll pass. That's the nature of pain, after all. It's a klaxon letting you know something is wrong. Eventually pain gets bored. Like playing dead for an unhungry predator, it'll wander off.
"You know I can help," Jack says.
Healing with a touch. It's what paladins do.
The boy's a paladin. The same one who lied to her face the moment they met. Who killed a squirrel just because. Who had no problem drowning a harpy to death under his boot. And who knows only the most distressing bits of animal trivia.
She can feel her empty stomach groan and contract. Like it's trying to curl up into a defensive ball alongside the rest of her organs.
"Keep your hands off me!" Eddie says, putting more force into her voice than her lungs can really provide. Her breathing shudders. "Just give me a moment. That kid's from a town, right? We can maybe get some healing magic there. For this and our parasites."
She expects him to fight. Instead, he looks out towards the rocks and dead monsters.
"You ran away," she says at length.
"I heard a song," he says limply. "Got a bad feeling."
"So you just run towards it like sirens and sailors." Eddie tries to straighten her hair and finds she doesn't have enough fingers to remove all of the gunk and knots. "She had you and the kid under her spell."
"I was fine," he says.
"What if you weren't?" she snaps.
"The kid was in danger."
"You didn't know that; you just ran headfirst into death."
"I handled it, didn't it?" he asks.
She laughs—a single, mirthless rasp of air. "No thanks to yourself. You're big. I bet you think you can handle a harpy or two. But the rest of them, flying, from all directions? What if I wasn't there to take half of those things down before you finally broke out of it?"
"But—"
"You'd be dead, so would that stupid kid, and I'd be stuck alone in the middle of nowhere with a thing in my head most people would be smarter to kill me over instead of helping. What then, boy?"
Jack folds his arms defensively. But he doesn't say anything. Like a petulant child who knows he's in the wrong and isn't willing to admit it no matter how many whippings you give him.
"Well?!" she demands.
His eyes go to her ribs. She thinks he's going to refuse to speak again, but instead he loosens up and sighs.
"You're right."
She blinks. "What?"
"I said you're right, Eddie." He looks like he doesn't know where to put his hands, fingers twitching slightly as he struggles to meet her eyes. "I went with my gut. Almost got killed. You handling those other two is probably the only reason we're all alive. Thank you. Genuinely."
Eddie doesn't really know what to say. She's correct, of course. She's always correct. It's just… unusual seeing him agree so quickly. He looks and acts like he'd fight her over every inch just to save face.
Slowly, she nods. "I am right. Maybe you're not completely stupid after all. The tadpole must have left some brain intact if you're able to understand this basic fact of the universe."
"Any more sage advice?" he asks, cocking an eyebrow. "Should I start keeping a notebook?"
She makes a pinching gesture. "Teensy tiny helpful reminder, actually. There are two types of people in the world: those who are wrong, and me. Even a borderline simian like yourself should be able to grasp that."
"Oh, thanks. I didn't know that."
"Few are lucky enough to grasp this." She tries to primly examine her nails. They're bruised an ugly black and blue. She feels sick again and quickly removes them from her sight.
"I'd be lost without you. Why, with your brains and my nothing, we almost have a single functional human being between us."
She makes a face. "Eugh. Now you're overdoing it. Dial it back a little, boy."
He shrugs a hand. "Is there an appropriate level of groveling you're comfy with? I offer a wide variety of packages for the discerning clientess."
Her frown deepens. "Now you're just mocking me."
"A little," he says with a slightly embarrassed smile. "Don't mean you still ain't right or that I idn't thankful."
Eddie snorts. She realizes a moment later that it was almost a laugh. As she's cut up, covered in puke, and there's four topless corpses just a few yards that way. Something's even tugging at the corner of her lips.
"Can you walk?" he asks.
Her face is still doing that thing with her lips just a little. "Yes. It's a rib wound, not my legs. I just needed a moment."
Jack looks up the hill, at the path through the cliffs to wherever Mirkon had gone. "What are the odds there's a healer up there who can actually help us?"
Eddie stands up with a slight wince. But she can make it. This isn't the worst thing she's ever felt, not by a lot. "With our luck? I'd take a surly old spinster who's particularly talented with a sewing needle at this point."
"Or maybe the village whore," he says, nodding. "They're good at sucking things out."
She sighs. Then makes another face. "What if they're the same person?"
He tsks his tongue. "Poor old Nan sure has a lot on her shoulders these days, huh?"
Eddie waves him away. "Maybe just shut up till we get there."