Buttercup wasn't sure how they had made their way to the island. It didn't look like any part of Florin that she knew, and neither did the forest before it. One minute she and her friends had been galloping away from Humperdinck's soldiers on the four horses Fezzik had stolen, trying to reach Westley's ship in time, but her horse was stumbling and Westley had collapsed and Fezzik was asking, 'Inigo? Is it this way?' but Inigo was too weak with pain and blood loss to answer…
And then, although she didn't remember them falling into a pond, somehow their horses were all climbing up out of a pond that didn't seem large enough to hold four large horses and their riders, in a forest that hadn't been there a moment ago, and they were all dry and her hair (elaborately braided for her wedding to Humperdinck) and her wedding dress weren't even stained with mud. And the horses were trotting purposefully off now, through the forest. Inigo winced with pain at every jolt, and Fezzik leaned over from his own horse to hold him steady, while Buttercup leaned over to hold Westley in place and stop him falling off.
Unfortunately, the thing about forests is that they tend not to have room for horses to walk two abreast. Buttercup hauled herself across from her own horse to sit on Westley's, behind him, and hold him in place. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, and a modern girl who is used to riding in jodphurs probably couldn't have managed it in a wedding dress. Maybe Buttercup couldn't have done this when she was a scruffy teenager riding her own horse, imaginatively named Horse, around the lanes and fields back home. But since then, her princess training had included practising riding side-saddle in long dresses. Staying on without the appropriate kind of saddle was harder, but she managed, just.
The horses found their way out of the forest full of ponds and guinea-pigs (Rodents Of Unusual Sweetness), and even managed not to trample any of the guinea-pigs under their hooves, as they made their way down to the shore. And there was a causeway over to an island, and the causeway was about to be swamped by the incoming waves, but the horses splashed through the water and arrived safely ashore before it was more than halfway up them (this time, the water was soaking them, and Buttercup knew that her shoes and skirt were ruined, and she didn't care as long as she could keep Westley safe). There was no sign of Westley's ship, but the first building they came to was, conveniently enough, a hospital where the doctors and nurses immediately swung into action to tend Westley and Inigo, without a moment of arguing or asking questions or asking for money, let alone needing Buttercup and Fezzik to go on side-quests for obscure items. The medics were a strange-looking lot, and many of them weren't even human, like the giant caterpillars with silver fur that moved constantly, and the huge creatures that looked like six-legged tentacled elephants. But they were all kindly and efficient.
Inigo needed hours of emergency surgery, and one of the furry silver caterpillars brusquely warned Buttercup and Fezzik to stay in the waiting-room, well out of the way. 'Pathogens from my species cannot harm yours, nor can you transmit your pathogens to me,' it explained. 'But one member of the same species can infect another with all kinds of diseases, so kindly keep your five-fingered hands off my patient until we have finished treating its wounds.'
'Can't we do something to help?' Fezzik asked.
'Yes. Get some rest, and have something to eat: both of you, but especially the male Earth-human, who is an exceptionally large member of its species and will correspondingly have higher energy needs. You will not help your friend by fainting with hunger. At least your kind have a sense of taste, even if most of you do insist on eating meat as well as vegetables' (its fur spiked with disgust at the thought) 'so it's not as bad as nagging Hudlars to remember to keep spraying their nutrient paint on.'
Shortly afterwards, there was the sound of a creaking wheel, and a multi-armed newt-crocodile-like thing brought them food on a tea-trolley, and they ate, and then, for want of anything better to do, Buttercup said, 'So, uh, tell me about yourself. What were you doing before you kidnapped me?' and she and Fezzik started telling each other their life stories.
After a while, another strange creature – but this one was at least a being Buttercup could recognise from picture-books as a centaur – came into the waiting-room, and at the same moment Fezzik asked, 'Is Inigo going to be all right?' and Buttercup asked, 'Is Westley going to survive? We promised both to outlive each other!'
The centaur smiled. 'Inigo's out of surgery and recovering in a bed in one of the wards. He's sleeping now, but he'll be waking up soon, and it'll help him to see a friendly face. Physically, I think he's going to be fine, but he'll need plenty of rest while he heals, so don't get him over-excited or make him laugh too much. There's a tube feeding fluids and nutrients into his bloodstream, because he won't be able to eat for a while yet – you can give him enough water to moisten his lips, but no more than that.
'Emotionally – once the euphoria of avenging his father's murder wears off, he might struggle to adjust to not having revenge as a life goal any more, and that could make him deeply depressed. There's a risk that he'll go back to drinking heavily. But he's very lucky to have you in his life,' he added to Fezzik. 'You're a good friend.'
Fezzik and Buttercup glanced at each other. They hadn't said anything to anyone here about Inigo being a recovering alcoholic – though maybe the medical team had deduced this from the bits of his innards that were on display. They certainly hadn't said anything about his long quest to find and kill the six-fingered man who had murdered his father, and Inigo himself hadn't had time to tell the medics anything before the anaesthetist had rendered him unconscious. Either someone had been eavesdropping on their conversation, or the centaur was some kind of mind-reader who knew everything about everyone.
'Are we in the afterlife?' Fezzik asked.
'For some people, it is. But not for you four, not yet. For visitors like you, the Rock – this island – is a place where people can come to find respite and a safe place to heal, or to meet new friends, or to come to help people, the way the alien doctors and nurses here are doing. You can stay as long as you like, and it won't take up any time back in your own world, or make you any older.
'Ideally I'd prefer it if the four of you can stay here together for several months of our time, preferably even a year or so, to be on the safe side. It's likely to take a year or so for Westley to recover anyway. I'm afraid he's going to be in a coma for quite a while yet,' the centaur continued, turning to Buttercup. He's in a bacta bath – that's a kind of healing substance. Traditionally, patients are suspended in a tank of the stuff, with a breathing mask, but in this case we decided it would probably help Westley more if he's lying in a shallow bath, so that he can hear your voice and feel you holding his hand. Even if it's a long time before he shows any sign of hearing you, he needs you to talk to him. Can you do that?'
'Anything,' said Buttercup firmly.
There was a room made up for the four of them to share, with a long, reinforced bed for Fezzik next to the articulated hospital bed that Inigo was lying in, and a normal, not very fancy but decidedly comfortable bed for Buttercup next to Westley's bacta bath, and a shower-room off to one side where they could each wash and change in privacy. Inigo was just starting to wake up as they arrived. He looked very tired and worn, but his face lit up with joy as he saw Fezzik, and the two of them chattered happily to each other.
Buttercup wasn't sure whether Inigo and Fezzik were lovers or just very close friends, but either way, their relationship had everything that she and Westley didn't. They knew each other well, they were loyal to each other, they made each other happy just by being together talking nonsense that nobody except them could understand.
She hadn't appreciated Westley at all in the years that he had worked on her parents' farm, and she had only started to notice how gorgeous he was when she got jealous because Countess Rugen fancied him, and then he had decided to go away to America but then became a pirate instead. And by the time he had returned to Florin, he had gone from being just an exceptionally well-read, intelligent and good-looking farm boy into an impossibly perfect hero, and in the meantime she had become a princess who was betrothed to a prince, and then he was dead, and then he wasn't dead any more and was somehow now friends with two of the three hoodlums who had kidnapped her, and now he was dead again because his new friends had only been able to afford a temporary resurrection spell for him. And she hadn't had nearly enough time to get to know him properly, and she was supposed to talk to him without knowing what to say, other than, 'I love you, I love you,' over and over again.
Eventually, the furry caterpillar (or perhaps a different one) trotted into the ward again. 'You need to let your friend get some rest,' it told Fezzik. 'You two non-injured Earth-humans should go and get some fresh air and exercise.'
Author's note: The alien doctors and nurses are from the Sector General series by James White. The alien tea-lady, however, is from Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett. Bacta is from the Star Wars universe.