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The last thing Carilthea expects to hear while fetching water is a whimper, but there it is. Control Water isn’t the simplest spell in existence but it is an old and familiar one, and extremely useful down here with the damned quipper-like fish in the water. She hardly has to think as she casts the spell, directing water into flasks and waterskins and buckets. It’s going to be a damned pain to carry the lot back up but it wouldn’t be the first time.
That’s when she hears it, just barely over the splash of the water - a whimper.
It’s probably a trap.
All right, if she’s honest, it’s almost certainly a trap and so she gathers up the flasks and skins and buckets before heading back to camp. There, she snags Ora from where she was sharpening her sword, drops off all the water but her own waterskin, and notifies Cleva.
Then she heads back down, Ora at her side.
They have to be quiet, which she thinks might slightly put paid to the idea that this is a trap. If it were a trap, they’d wait for noise to know to set it, but whoever or whatever whimpered before is being painfully silent. Ora’s looking frustrated and is almost about to stomp back to camp when they hear it again - a definite whimper.
That way, Ora mouths, pointing a little ways down the riverbank. It’s pitch dark down here so she follows Ora’s footsteps. Ora, as an elf, can see far more clearly in this darkness; even with her amulet Carilthea can only make out the ground about thirty feet ahead.
They step carefully, as quiet as can be, stopping every now and then to listen. It’s hard to hear much over the sound of rushing water but Ora’s got sharp eyes as well as sharp ears and keeps going steadily on until she pauses by a crevice in the rock.
In there, she mouths, pointing.
It’s a damned narrow crevice - tall, but not at all wide, and Ora’s built surprisingly solidly for an elf.
I’ll go, Carilthea mouths. Then, aloud, because by this point whatever is inside has to know they’re there by now. “Just- keep an eye out? And be prepared to haul me out?”
“Or I could try to break the rock now,” Ora points out. “Whatever is in there isn’t your usual trapped and crying child, this is the Underdark, for Corellon’s sake.”
“I know,” she says, and reaches back to tie her hair more securely. “If you hear the sound of crunching bone, go get Cleva and the others before charging in, though, all right? No rage.”
Ever the barbarian, Ora scowls. “Fine.”
It’s a narrow crevice. Whatever is in here is likely even smaller than Carilthea is herself to be able to fit and Carilthea is short and built like a twig. She’s lucky her talents lie mostly in magic; she can use a bow reasonably well, but she’s never really had the musculature of, say, Ora who’s built like a brick.
It’s dark in the crevice, even with her amulet, and it’s deeper on the other side of the rock than she expected. Whatever’s in here, whimpering, it wants to hide.
It’s likely, she thinks, extremely hurt.
She steps carefully, scanning the ground before her for any sign of traps or those screaming fungi, or anything else liable to cause problems. Just about everything down here seems to want to do them in, after all.
But, no, there’s nothing. It narrows too. Once she’d stepped through the crevice it’d been almost twenty feet wide, but it’s narrowing now and that is when she sees it - a body huddled at the far end of the chamber, shoulders heaving with definite breath, hair and skin intact enough she’s pretty sure they’re not undead.
“Hey,” she calls softly. “Are you all right?”
Their face is a mess. They’re missing an eye, blood seeping from the socket; in the sight her amulet grants her it’s a black void in their face, darker even than their pitch-dark skin, a void versus the pale sheen of their hair. They’re curled small, legs drawn up and one arm clutched close - even from this angle she can see it’s badly broken.
Skin as dark as coal. Hair as light as snow. Beware, beware my child, the drow that lie below.
“Fuck,” she whispers. “Hey,” she tries again, stepping closer. “Can you understand me?”
They spit something at her, vicious and quick - she suspects they’re cursing at her but she doesn’t know the language. They don’t respond to Dwarvish, when she attempts that, nor Draconic. They flinch at Elvish, but clearly recognise it.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she says gently. “It’s okay. Do you have a name?”
They spit. There really isn’t much of it. Looking closer Carilthea can see too - just how thin they are, how torn their clothes are as well as bloodied from their eye, and she pulls her waterskin from her belt. At the sloshing sound of it, their one remaining eye widens.
“Yeah,” she says. “Water. You want some?”
Immediately their gaze shutters, wariness evident in every movement. “Poison,” they spit - in Elvish, thank the gods, so she can understand for once.
She sighs, and drinks from the skin. “Not poison,” she says when she’s swallowed. Slowly, she steps closer, extending her arm. “Water. Do you want some?”
There’s a long pause where they just stare, one remaining eye fixed on her and wary, before their unbroken arm darts out, snatching the skin. They drink from it like they’ve had no water in weeks - Thea can’t blame them, if they’ve been stuck in here with only the river for water, she’d be hesitant to try to get anything with a broken arm and those damned fish.
“Don’t drink too much,” she says gently. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
They don’t respond aloud, but they do pause drinking so quickly.
“Little bit at a time,” she says. Honestly, she’s strikingly reminded of the street dogs by her uncle’s inn back home. Wary and vicious but willing to listen, to come a bit closer with each scrap of kindness shown. “My name’s Carilthea,” she says. “What’s yours?”
For a long time they’re silent, staring, and in the greyscale of the crevice-cavern, the sounds of the river muffled by rock and distance, it’s bizarrely peaceful.
“I am Jederel,” they say - no, he, from that voice and those pronouns. Bless Elvish, honestly. “Slave of House Baenre.”
She glances at his broken arm, his missing eye. “Still?” she says. “Those don’t look like injuries you get if they expect you to stay in service.”
He laughs at that, before breaking off with a hiss of pain. The movement must have jolted his arm and now, creeping closer, she can see how swollen it is. She can’t make out any sign of bruising his skin is so dark, but she can safely say that it is a decidedly unhappy arm.
“We have a healer,” she says gently. “I don’t know if they can do anything about your eye, but your arm, at least-”
“What kind of healer?” he asks. “Physician or-”
“Yngval’s a cleric.” She keeps her voice soft, her posture open where she’s crouched a few feet from them. “He’s really good at patching us up. Here-” She lifts her shirt, shows the messy scar that stretches across her belly from the one time someone had got past a raging Ora. “He patched that up with spellwork alone. He can patch you up too.”
The wariness is still there and honestly she doesn’t expect it to fade anytime soon but there’s hope there now too.
“Promise?” he asks, pleading like a child.
She extends a hand. “I promise. Let’s get you out of here.”
Ora looks baffled when Carilthea emerges then stops to help Jederel out.
“That’s a drow,” Ora says, stating the obvious as ever.
“He was a slave,” she replies. “And- Ora, look at him. Even if he wanted to hurt us, he can’t right now.”
Jederel winces as he squeezes through the crevice, whimpers aloud as his broken arm makes it through.
“Hey,” Carilthea says - gently and in Elvish. “It’s okay.” She glances over to Ora. “It’s the only language we share,” she says quickly. “Drow and Elvish share roots, don’t they?”
“Theirs is derived from ours,” Ora replies, still frowning at Jederel. Clearly, Ora doesn’t much like this. Just as clearly, Carilthea doesn’t particularly care and she nods, then gently reaches for Jederel’s uninjured arm.
“Come on,” she says - soft, gentle, Elvish. “This way.”
He flinches when her hand touches his skin and she almost withdraws but that he relaxes into the touch in a moment, leaning into it.
Carilthea has no idea what’s been done to this man, but she is not happy. Not in the damned least. With a glance to Ora, they head together back to camp.
“I’ve done what I can,” Yngval says, dusting off his hands, golden glow still fading from his amulet. “But I have no idea how long that arm’s been broken - looked like some kind of infection was setting in. We’ll have to see how it goes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your boy has a fever in the next day or so even with the bone healed.”
Jederel is still hunched, still wary. He leans a little into Carilthea’s side and she pats his hand absentmindedly.
“Will you be able to fix that?”
“Long as I have magic left,” he says. “Though sometimes it’s best to just let things pan out as they will. Makes you stronger to cure yourself a few times, rather than rely on magic.”
“Sometimes it kills you,” Ora points out. “Can you do anything for dark-elf’s eye?”
“Jederel,” Carilthea says. “He has a name, Ora.” Still, she glances to Yngval who shakes his head.
“That’s beyond my current ability,” he says. “There’s a spell capable of it, but that’s a few levels beyond my learning right now.” He pulls a face, tilts his head. “Might be better to get your boy to the surface and ask a temple there for help. Eilistraee’s clerics are usually happy to help a drow that seeks to return to sunlight.”
Jederel’s fine the next few days, that Carilthea can see, though he sits to Trance right by her bedroll which is a little unsettling. Still, she supposes. If the stories of the drow are anything to go by, he probably hasn’t been shown much kindness in his life. Makes sense he might seek it out once it’s been shown to him. That or he’s planning on killing her.
He behaves, though. He’s quiet and does what he’s told if she or Ora ask. He sits with Yngval in the evenings and ducks his head when Cleva tries to speak to him.
To be fair, she’d ducked her head when first meeting Cleva - the tiefling is tall and determined and more than a little intimidating. Coming from a culture where women are both in power and very much to be feared, she supposes Cleva, skin a burgundy red almost black and hair thistledown pale, must be a nigh demonic reminder of the culture he’s just left.
On the third day, though, she wakes to find him not quietly Trancing by her side, but keeled over, shaking with fever, both eyes tight shut.
Yngval looks him over when asked, but though the dwarf’s hands tap his amulet he doesn’t summon any magic.
“Like I said,” he points out. “Sometimes it’s best to let things heal on their own. This is a nasty fever, but by my reckoning it won’t kill him - he’s had good meals the past few days, regular water, and his arm is healed. This is just his body purging itself of the last traces.”
“Yngval,” Ora says, and Carilthea’s surprised she’s speaking up for this except that for some bloody reason Ora’s become almost fond of Jederel in her own gruff way. “We don’t sleep if we don’t have to. Once we learn how to enter Reverie, that’s it, we don’t sleep unless we have to or we specifically relearn the ability.” She jabs a finger in Jederel’s direction. “If he’s sleeping, it means he is too unwell to enter Reverie and that means he is fucked up.” She sighs and draws herself tall where she sits cross-legged by the fire. “Heal him.”
Yngval’s voice is firm. “No,” he says. “Because as I said, I don’t think this is going to kill him and honestly I think he needs to fight this off on his own. If he takes a turn for the worse, then I’ll heal him, but as it is, our next two days involve some of the most dangerous stretches we’ve yet traversed and I’d rather like to keep my spells for patching you up from worse wounds and dispatching whatever horrible monsters this damned place decides to sic on us next.”
Jederel’s hand - strangely fine-boned, even if his thumb is twisted oddly, healed badly from some injury prior to what he’s thus far been healed of - finds hers.
“I’ll be all right,” he murmurs. “Do not- usstan orn naut el. Usstan orn tlu al.”
She leaves her hand in his, strokes the other across his brow - Yngval is right, he’s feverish but he’s not burning up concerningly, certainly not as bad as the time Ora almost got gutted when Yngval wasn’t around to patch her up or the time Cleva was poisoned. “I didn’t catch that,” she says gently. “What did you say?”
“Xun naut yibinus dosstan phor ussa.” He blinks up at her, his one pale violet eye fixed on her face. When she shows no sign of understanding he scowls and tries again. “Do not-” He pauses, thinking. “Do not yibinus - weaken- worry yourself. For me. Xun naut.”
Carilthea glances between the clearly delirious Jederel and the largely unconcerned Yngval.
“If he’s this bad,” she says. “And we’re travelling a hellscape for the next two days, surely it would be better to heal him of this now? Otherwise he’s another thing we have to worry about.”
“No,” Yngval says. “Because even if I heal away his fever he’s still physically unwell; he won’t be in top form regardless.” He reaches down, ruffles Jederel’s hair and Carilthea almost wants to make him stop but that Jederel leans into the touch, clearly familiar with it. Clearly accepting of it. “He’ll be okay.” Yngval’s voice is softer now. “And really, if it comes to it, I will heal him. But we’re heading to the surface which will have all kinds of diseases he’s never faced before. It’ll take him a while to properly recover from this even with my magic.” He shrugs. “Better he faces down this infection on his own so we know he’s capable of surviving without magical help.”
The next few days are the godsdamned worst.
They survive the goblins. They survive the pissed off displacer beast and it’s two cubs. They manage to avoid the dragon, thank fuck, and the second river with the bitey fish, and a whole cavern of shrieking fungus. They even manage to keep Jederel out of combat and when the rockfall hits he’s up at the front of the line rather than at the back where Ora struggles to keep the stone from crushing Yngval.
But still - Jederel is in rough shape. They’re in rough shape. When time comes to sleep each night Carilthea curls on her bedroll, uses her cloak as a blanket and instead tucks her own around Jederel’s shaking shoulders. That he curls into the touch, that she wakes with his face pressed between her shoulderblades and his hand clutching hers doesn’t pass her by.
Any distrust that might have lingered from the first day she found him has long since shed. She doesn’t think any drow still set on their superiority and their damned spider goddess would make such a blatant show of what they might deem as weakness.
His fever breaks the day after they finally clear the damned hell-stretch of Underdark. She wakes and his face is pressed between her shoulderblades, his hand holds hers, but he’s not trembling at all, his hand isn’t clutching desperately. When she rolls over to look at him his eyes are closed, his face peaceful, his breaths soft and even.
“He better?”
Cleva’s voice is low and quiet and comfortingly close. Carilthea cranes her neck back to see the other woman crouched by her head, a steaming cup in her hands.
“He’s not shaking. He better?”
“I think so,” she says softly. “Don’t tell Yngval. He’ll be insufferable.”
“Nah,” Cleva says. “He’s been as worried as you. Kept second-guessing himself yesterday. He’ll be too happy to be insufferable.” Cleva’s hand is gentle in Carilthea’s hair, her clawed fingers soothing as they scratch over her scalp. “You get a bit more sleep,” Cleva says. “You’ve been worrying yourself almost as sick as him. Ora’ll wake you if you oversleep for breakfast again.”
Cleva unfolds to her full height, glancing over the camp with the confident assurance she always has. Carilthea decides to do as told.
When she opens her eyes next it’s to Jederel’s pale violet eye and empty socket, his face set in a very slight frown.
“I woke up earlier,” she said. “Your fever had broken. Feeling better?”
“Igge,” he says, then shakes his head. “Yes,” he says in Elvish. “Are you-”
“I’m fine,” she says. “Just been worried about you.”
He frowns properly at that - not the silent scowls of someone used to being ignored, but a far more assured frown. “I told you not to,” he says. “I am- naut belaern. You do not need to worry.”
It says so much those simple words. That he doesn’t think he’s worth it - that everything up to this point has told him he’s not worth worrying about.
“Maybe not,” she says, and squeezes his hand where it’s still held in hers. “But I did anyway.” He blinks, surprised, but doesn’t look away and slowly she rolls her shoulders, working out the stiffness that always comes from sleeping on hard ground. “Come on,” she says, tugging his hand as she sits up. “Breakfast time.” She remembers what Cleva had said too. That Yngval had been worried as well. “The others will be pleased to see you better.”
Maybe she’s wrong, but she thinks Jederel’s expression shows the first hint of a smile.