Lazy orange rays dappled through the canopy, dancing across motes of snow with the gentility of a lover's breath across naked skin. Despite their flickering warmth, the last grasps of winter held tight to the earth; tender spring buds grappling with the last meek snaps of frost.
Few in the village bothered to rise so early on such brisk mornings. They instead basked in the last lull of rest before the turgid promise of spring's gentle warmth coaxed life back into the farms of the valley; its occupants tilling, sowing, and rending their ministrations to the land in preparation for the harvest seasons ahead.
Maeve, however, had no such schedule to be bound by, her errant roles in the farms and nearby township keeping her woefully busy regardless of the seasons. She had fumbled into two opposing livelihoods in the past year; that of a healer and that of a bard. It was the former that had her up so ruefully early, at the mercy of the frigid air and sleet-soaked paths leading from her hut, cursing at the damp soaking through her boots.
Her short walk culminated at the edge of a farm where a handsome bay Forder was tied, saddled and waiting, to a post. He threw his head and nickered in greeting, ears twitching toward Maeve as his hot breath plumed in the air.
"Good morning, sweet thing! Aren't you handsome as ever?" Maeve cooed, rubbing a gloved hand over his thick neck in greeting before untying his reins with deft fingers made ungainly by cold.
A merry, clear voice called to her from the stables as she swung up into the saddle.
"Maeve! You're not heading off without so much as a by-your-leave, now, are you?" the woman admonished good-naturedly, waggling a finger in the air. "Andraste's fiery knickers themselves couldn't keep me warm while saddling that brute for you this morning. You know, he never behaves for me now you ride him? And to think, you were going to gallop off into the day without even a measly hello!"
The woman was lithe and beautiful, with russet skin and a smile that rested easily on wide lips. She was dressed in workmans leathers, well worn from tending her equine charges, and had pulled a rough blanket around her like a cape against the cold.
Maeve laughed, warm and loud, and pressed a hand to her breast in earnest apology.
"Seanna, you know I normally wouldn't dare do such a thing, but I'm afraid if I don't harvest the elfroot up the mount by midmorning the rams will have it for breakfast and I promised your father a quart of tincture by Wintersend. But - " Maeve watched Seanna's smile turn utterly crestfallen; "- but, if I can get this done by noon I swear I'll come by and we'll have tea. How's that for a deal?"
To Maeve's relief, the young woman grinned wider than before and nodded her assent. "I'll hold you to that," she warned, still feigning being cross. "Now, off with you, I suppose. Can't let you be bested by a ram."
And so Maeve rode the winding way up the hill that straddled the village, lost wholly in calculations of volume and strength for her upcoming brews. She tried somewhat in vain to anticipate the needs of the upcoming season. Spring always brought new babies to birth, and a host of allergies in local residents; but the thaw opening roads and encouraging travellers to the region always posed the greatest problem, bringing both sickness to the populace and a slew of grisly wounds to tend on soldiers and civilians alike.
So little was her attention on the path that it was only the starting of her gelding and his snorts of warning that snapped her from her reverie. She pulled him to a gentle halt and cast appraising eyes to the road ahead for anything that may have startled the horse, before she spotted something out of place, propped – or perhaps more appropriately slumped – by a boulder.
"Oh, shit," she breathed, heart thrumming to a staccato rhythm.
"Shit, shit, shit."
She scrambled out of the saddle, adrenaline-soaked veins making her feel light as a feather, and ran up to the figure with reins in hand. She could see his pallor even from a distance – a sickly grey tinge to his skin, which itself was taut along gaunt, high cheekbones and shaven skull.
In her haste she crashed to her knees in the snow beside him, pulling off a glove to press shaking fingers under the line of his jaw. Her panic abated far less than she would have liked at the thready, shallow pulse that greeted her there. The gelding tossed his head in unease, but stayed close, pawing at the snow to settle himself.
"Hey! Can you hear me? Hello? Come on now, time to get up!" she said, firm and loud, rubbing a knuckled fist to his sternum.
When this elicited no response, she let a slew of curses fly, and with great effort hauled the man's shoulder over her own. Despite the visible frailty of his form, he was shockingly heavy; her brain filed this away to appraise later. She groaned, inching him over the saddle like a stubborn sack of grain before hoisting herself up behind him.
"God, what are you made of?!" she muttered between heaving breaths, "You got stone for bones or something?"
Her harvesting mission all but forgotten, she urged the horse on as fast as she dared, one hand on the reins and the other firmly gripping the snow-soaked clothes of her peculiar cargo.
The journey to her hut was a scant half hour at their hurried pace, but it had never felt so long as it did with her passenger aboard.
"Didn't anyone tell you it's folly to go out so underdressed for the weather? God, you're lucky I've a nemesis in those bloody herb-purloining rams, or else you'd have been frozen solid by the time anyone found you!" she admonished the unconscious figure, as much to calm herself as to keep something in his ears should he wake.
What on earth was a starved, stricken man – elf, she noted distantly – doing there? There were no landmarks up the mountain, save an eerie skull on a stick she'd avoided like the plague during her scouting trips. There were no clans nearby from which he might have wandered; and to top it off, no marks in the snow showing any sort of movement to and from the area at all.
She gave the pliant gelding a firm pat on the neck as she slid off him, and made the final few steps into the hut with his arm slung over her shoulder. Still muttering a string of obscenities at his unexpected heft, she lowered him as gently as she could onto her cot. Maeve was no wilting wallflower, taller and broader than most women she knew, but the elf still had a good few inches on her which made any manoeuvring inordinately difficult.
Her nerves began to subside as she set to the task of properly assessing him – at least here she had her herbs and tinctures, and could actually do something for the poor sod. She placed one palm over his chest, long fingers splayed to release a thrum of healing magic into him and raised her other to the far side of her cabin, conjuring a spark of fire under the tinder she had dutifully prepared before dawn.
From the atrophied muscles and ulcerated sores she sensed on the blades of his shoulders and the back of his hips, her best guess was some kind of coma – one he had endured without anyone of merit or common sense tending to him, she thought bitterly.
"Who in the bloody nine circles of hell left you rotting and then threw you out on a mountain?" she bristled, indignant on his behalf.
"Honestly, they could have at least had the courtesy to dump you closer to my doorstep. Halfway up a mountain, for god's sake!"
After she'd pulled down his eyelid to check the colour of his conjunctiva, she gently stripped the sodden clothes off him, wiping clammy skin down with a warm damp rag as she went.
"Sorry about this, old boy," she said briskly, "but there's no modesty in illness, I'm afraid. Well, not till you're conscious enough to do it yourself, at least – but regardless of propriety, we need you out of those clothes."
Old scars marred his flesh, and her brows knit together at the sight. There were no shackle marks, though – so presumably his poor shape wasn't secondary to imprisonment. Although, she thought, perhaps his bald head marked him a slave? There were other means than manacles to keep someone in servitude after all.
She studied his face for a moment under her furrowed brows. He looked about forty, to her estimate, although his drawn countenance could be adding some years; dehydration did no kindnesses to the skin.
"You've clearly gotten up to more than your fair share of no good in your time," she murmured, poulticing his wounds with the kind of efficiency that only comes with practice. She re-dressed him in a castoff tunic and pair of breeches she had tucked beneath the cot; they fit him poorly but were better than nothing.
With his general tending done, she sat at the head of the bed and delicately manoeuvred his head and shoulders into her lap. She began talking to him in hushed tones as she drip-fed honeywater and restorative tinctures between his parted lips.
"I'm sure you're sick of my voice already, old boy, but it's best practice to keep talking to the unconscious, you know," she said, voice soft and warm.
"Your pulse is better already – how you came to be in such a state, I'll never know. Now, how about a story? I'll bet a sovereign or twelve you haven't heard this one before. There was once a beautiful, sweet maiden; daughter to a goddess of harvest and the very king of gods, the god of the sky. She moved with preternatural grace, and her manner was considerate and kind. Her name was Persephone.."
Many hours passed with her telling whatever story came to mind, and humming a soft song when none took up the mantle. She periodically dabbed at the sweat of his brow and fed the liquids to him drip by drip, watching as his breathing eased and the sallowness seeped from his skin.
It was only when the noonday sun shone stark through the windows that Maeve huffed a sigh and moved the elf's head from the pillow of her lap to the cot. She brought herself up into a standing stretch to loosen muscles cramped from hours hunched over him, casting a glance to his prone figure as she worried her lip. It would be just her luck that he would wake the moment she left the house – but nonetheless, she still needed to collect that godforsaken elfroot, and return her charge to Seanna with a profuse apology.
"Alright, well, I'll be back by sundown. But if you wake before then, please don't go all mad and smash my things or something, alright? Not that I think you could, in your state. Be impressed if you could sit up, actually," she said absently, pressing a cool palm to his forehead. Satisfied by the absence of fever, she gave him one last calculating look before heading back out the door.
Some hours later, with two hessians of half-chewed elfroot tied saddleside and an apology stem of Crystal Grace in hand, she brought the horse to halt in front of the stables. A frantic Seanna rushed out of the doors at the noise, with an almighty crash of something behind her.
"Maeve!" she cried, "Maker, is it good to see you! After you left I heard talk there was a dragon spotted last night and had almost convinced myself you'd been gobbled up. Are you alright? Tell me you're alright!" She cast a worried look over Maeve, who waved the flower in a calming gesture.
"I'm fine! I promise I'm fine. Hell of a morning, though – let's make that tea, and I'll tell you all about it."
At the culmination of her tale, Seanna was slackjawed over her mug, dark eyes riveted to Maeve.
"So there's just some – elf in your bed? And you just found him half dead up the mountain? Maker's balls, Maeve, I know you're a healer and all, but don't you think he could be dangerous? What if he's an apostate? What if he's a criminal?!" she half-squawked, drawing a throaty chuckle from Maeve.
"The lady doth protest too much! Seanna, the poor man's got half a foot in death's door at the moment. I don't think he'll be up to much mischief for some time yet. Anyway, you know me – you think I'd let any man get the better of me, much less one who might blow away with a strong gust of wind? Theoretical apostasy and criminal charges aside, I think I might have the upper hand," she teased with a smile, but her soothing didn't fully strike its mark.
"Well, if he tries anything, I'll show him what for," Seanna grumbled. "If he so much as looks as you funny, I'll be there with the cast iron to give him a good wack."
"I know you will!" Maeve laughed, giving her a playful shove. "Now – if you'll excuse me, dear one, I've got a guest to attend to. Which reminds me – he's in my cot. Do you think Dennet would mind terribly if I borrowed a bale of hay for my own sleeping arrangements?"
Seanna looked as though she might have a fit.