Hey guys! Welcome back to Hear a Tale! One vacation and one subsequent illness later, I'm back - so let's get straight to the reviews!

Thanks so much to CitrusChickadee (Glad you enjoyed! Therion and Olberic are an interesting dynamic I haven't explored much up to this point, so it was fun to experiment with how they'd interact!) and Guest (Very true! ;) And yeah, Therion's a little troll sometimes lmao) for reviewing!

With that, on with the tale!

Relevant Events: Primrose's Chapter Three

41. Teamwork

There were some things that an apothecary could not heal on their own.

True, their herbs worked spectacularly for most illnesses, and they were often no strangers to patching up the occasional cut or setting the odd broken arm, but there was much they did not have the power to fix. They were not surgeons, nor were they miracle workers. When faced with a patient who had sustained a grievous injury, most apothecaries were all but helpless to do anything other than clean, bandage, and pray.

Luckily for Alfyn, he had a skilled cleric to team up with.

As he worked his pestle into a mass of herbs faster than he ever had before, his eyes flicked up to where Ophilia bent over Primrose's limp form, across from him. Sweat was rolling down the cleric's brow as she focused her healing magic into the dancer's torn organs. It was a difficult, precise process, and had already been going on for what felt like hours, but neither of them knew that for certain. Alfyn himself had already given Primrose a concoction to keep her sedated during the process, and was in the midst of mixing up medicine that would guard against infection, but Ophilia was easily the one pulling the most weight.

Though healing magic might have looked like a miracle to observers, the truth was that it was far more complex than most people who could not use it realized. The human body was intricate, very selective about what it allowed in, and often alarmingly delicate. For anything worse than a flesh wound, a medical caster had to be extremely careful about how much magic they used, where they allowed it to go, and how quickly they let it work. They required the same precision that a surgeon would need with their tools, and all while their energy was gradually being drained away by their constant output of magic.

Ophilia was going to be terribly exhausted by the time she was finished painstakingly knitting Primrose's organs and flesh back together, but the cleric refused to falter. She kept her hands firmly wrapped around her staff, staring hard at the strands of silvery magic that poured from it. Alfyn couldn't help but admire her level of control and focus - had she even blinked once since she had begun?

Well, he thought grimly, pushing the pestle against the bottom of the mortar one last time, all the more reason I can't be slackin' off here, huh?

"How's she lookin', Phee?" he asked, setting down the salve he'd made and beginning to cut a length of bandage. "I'm ready to dress the wound once everything internal is cleared up."

"I-It's coming along," Ophilia panted, not looking up from her task. "Th-The blade didn't hit anything i-immediately lethal…b-but she's lost a lot of blood already. W-We may need to give her some Olive of Life extract, j-just to be safe…"

Alfyn nodded quickly. "On it!"

He rummaged around in his satchel quickly but carefully, soon locating the vial of pale green paste he'd prepared for such emergencies. "I don't wanna move her, so I'll have to apply it topically," he mumbled, half to himself. "She could just end up chokin' if I tried to make her drink it, lyin' flat like this..."

Cautiously, Alfyn inched forward, placing a hand lightly on Primrose's stomach, right beside the wound. He was careful not to bend over her too much, as he did not want to risk distracting Ophilia while applying treatment of his own. He risked a glance up at the cleric, and was relieved to see that her focused expression had not shifted. As such, he quickly got to work.

Making sure that he did not touch Ophilia's threads of magic, the apothecary held the vial over Primrose's abdomen, letting the Olive of Life-based medicine slide out and collect around the edges of the stab wound. With his other hand, he gingerly massaged the concoction into her flesh, where it would seep gradually into her body in order to begin its life-preserving effects. The medicine would work slower this way than if it had been ingested, but it was still far better than doing nothing.

"G-Good…" Ophilia breathed, her shoulders relaxing just barely. "Th-That should keep her stable while I f-finish up…I'm almost done, so be ready."

Alfyn gave a brisk nod and returned to his earlier project, applying the salve he had mixed before to the inside of the length of bandage he had cut. He trusted Ophilia to fix the majority of the internal tearing, but it was still up to him to give their friend as much protection against future infection as he could. They would both need to keep a close eye on the dancer's injury in the days to come, to ensure that it would not get any worse.

After another tense few minutes, Ophilia finally released her hold on her magic, crumpling to her knees with an exhausted gasp. "I-It's…it's done," she panted, drawing her wrist across her sweat-soaked brow. "Y-You…you're up, A-Alfyn…"

"Right!" He darted forward, swiftly cleaning the excess blood from around the wound in order to prepare it for bandaging. Ophilia's threads of healing magic eliminated the need for physical stitches, but the gash still needed to be covered if it was going to have any chance of healing cleanly in a timely manner. Alfyn expertly wrapped the dancer's abdomen in the bandages, ensuring that they were tight enough to discourage further bleeding, but not to the point of causing excessive pain. Afterwards, he busied himself with checking Primrose's pulse, listening to her breathing, and performing a final once-over in search of any other injuries they might have missed. There was some mild bruising forming across her jawline, looking an awful lot like imprints of a man's fingers - Alfyn had to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing loudly - but otherwise, her condition appeared completely stable.

She was going to be alright.

Alfyn allowed himself to sink down to the floor just as Ophilia had, bracing himself against one of the legs of the table they had lain their patient upon the moment they'd entered Revello's house. He wasn't sure how long they'd been at it - the daylight streaming through the windows hadn't been this dim when they'd started, had it? At least one of them should probably head outside and inform the other travelers (and Revello and his wife, of course) that Primrose was no longer in danger of dying. No doubt, they were all worried sick out there.

He would go, just as soon as his legs started working again.

In the meantime, he tilted his head to watch Ophilia, who somehow looked even more exhausted than he felt. Her hands weren't covered in blood, as his were, but the cleric was thoroughly drained, kneeling on the floor and panting like she'd just run for miles.

"H-Hey," Alfyn began with a weak smile, "Phee. We did it."

Ophilia lifted her head to meet his gaze, a weary grin of her own lighting her pale face. "W-We…we did, didn't we? Th-Thank the gods…she'll be okay…"

"Y-Yeah…all thanks to you, you know that?"

The cleric gave him a look that might have been scolding, were it not for the small smile still on her lips. "D-Don't let me take all the credit," she chided. "W-We did it…both of us. I-If you couldn't have done it without me…th-then I certainly couldn't have done it without you."

Alfyn's grin widened. "A-Alright…I can live with that. Y-You know…we make a pretty good team."

She nodded. "W-We do." The cleric leaned forward and reached across the underside of the table until she reached Alfyn's shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. "I-It's a pleasure to work with you, Alfyn…I-I hope you know that."

The apothecary's face reddened, though he hoped it could pass for mere flushed exhaustion. "L-Likewise! I-I'm…I'm always glad to be your partner! W-When treatin' a patient, I mean…"

Ophilia giggled softly. "Me too. N-Now…" She took a deep breath, pulling back to her side of the table and rising, using her staff for balance. "We…w-we should go tell the others the good news. Th-Then…a well-earned rest."

"H-Heh…yeah." Alfyn stood as well, face still red and a crooked smile stubbornly stuck onto his face. "C-Couldn't've said it better myself."

See you guys next time for Tale 42: Standing Still!