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Ursus had left just two days before, taking Mojo with him to a market some miles up North to sell his “lotions and potions.” Dea knew he was just trying to make extra money so he could buy her something for her upcoming birthday. Ursus said eighteen was an important age, but Dea couldn’t imagine it would be too different from being seventeen.
Ursus had left with instructions to keep the caravan’s door locked in case anyone but him comes by, and a reminder that the spare Crimson Lethe was kept in the top cupboard. He trusted Grinpayne to keep himself and Dea safe, but Ursus still worried. If anything were to happen to his boy, his little girl… Well, he just couldn’t bear to lose them. He couldn’t bear to lose anyone else.
Of course, Ursus had left the two alone in the past, but he had always left Mojo with them. This time he had taken the wolf with him, for protection against thieves and highwaymen.
Dea and Grinpayne were completely alone together, for the first time in their lives since that dark and frigid night. They’d spent the past couple days telling each other stories, practicing their puppetry, and playing card games (a few months back Grin had had the genius idea of adding dots of paste to the cards, which would harden and act as indicators as to the suit and number of the card (Dea had nearly kissed him with gratitude) (Grinpayne had sort of wished she had))). Nobody had knocked on the door, and everything had been sweet and peaceful.
As much as Dea adored her father, it was a little embarrassing, knowing he was watching every time she blushed at something Grin would say. Every time she reached for Grinpayne’s arm to find him, but continued to hold him for a little too long. Every time she would lean into his touch, not that Grinpayne noticed. But it was nice, being alone with him. Being able to simply hold him in her arms, and not worry about Ursus’ inevitable semi-joking questions about “wedding dates” and “grandchildren.”
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It was on the third day that it happened. Grinpayne had been in the middle of telling her a tall tale when suddenly his words became strained. Dea had heard this tone a thousand times, “you need to take your medicine, Grinpayne, I can feel your pain,” she said.
She could, she could feel the way his arm had tensed where she was holding it, could hear the change in the timbre of his breathing. The way the air around him turned electric with silent agony. It hurt her, knowing he felt so.
“I’m fine,” Grinpayne insisted, as he always did.
Dea tsked, “please, Grin, you can’t hide it from me, now take your Crimson Lethe before you worsen.”
She let him stand, listening to his footsteps as he crossed the room to the counter where his bottle sat. She heard him remove the cork, and she heard him set the bottle back down. Grinpayne walked back over to their seat on Dea’s bed, and continued his story.
Dea couldn’t focus on the tale, however. Why were his muscles still tense, his words still strained? She could still feel his pain. The Crimson Lethe was usually so fast-acting, perhaps they needed to up his dosage? Did it not work properly anymore? She decided to ask him if his injury was still bothering him.
His breath caught in response, “no, Dea, I-I’m perfectly fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
He wouldn’t lie. Not to her. Dea knew that. But his breathing only became more ragged, his words more and more grated and pained. He was practically groaning out the story, and Dea could tell if he wasn’t sitting, his knees would have buckled by now. She reached out for his shoulder, and could feel it shaking.
Dea leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his quivering frame, “Grinpayne please, get the bottle, one dose clearly wasn’t enough! You’re torturing yourself!” she implored.
Grinpayne began to respond, “D-Dea, I--” when he suddenly went limp in her arms.
Dea gasped, catching him from falling to the floor. She reached for his face, “Grinpayne? Grinpayne?! Please, what’s happened? Grinpayne, please answer me!” she could feel his forehead was slick with sweat, and his breathing was labored and slow.
She received no answer but the dead weight of her favorite person, lightly shaking under her hands. He was out cold, and she was alone.
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Dea felt her snow-pale eyes fill with tears, and she bit back a sob. He would be okay, she told herself. She dragged Grinpayne’s lanky body fully onto the bed, laying his head down on the pillow, and running her fingers through his damp, curly hair. He would be okay. He would be okay. He had to be okay. The air was somehow both charged with pain, and oddly empty. It felt like when the wind suddenly died down, but you could still feel the storm around you. It was almost comforting, Dea thought, rubbing the wetness from her eyes.
She felt on the counter for the Crimson Lethe, and found it. Holding it she could tell it was empty, but she couldn’t know if it had been so before or after Grinpayne had “taken it.”
Suddenly, she straightened, Ursus’ parting words occurring to her. There’s a spare bottle of Crimson Lethe in the top cupboard. She dashed to the cupboard, feeling around for the familiar glass bottle, and cheered aloud in relief when her fingers closed around the object.
She excitedly turned, and started towards where Grinpayne lay, when her leg caught on a length of rope on the floor, a part of the mechanism which opened the curtains for their shows, and tripped. She knew it before she even heard the small crash. The bottle was completely shattered. Dea screamed in frustration and despair, crawling towards the puddle of Lethe, and finding it was truly unsalvageable.
She didn’t even care as she nearly cut her pale fingers on the shards of broken glass, she sobbed, now at a complete loss.
She had failed him. Grinpayne would die of pain and it would be her fault. Ursus would come home to find his son dead. Dea cried, tears streaming from unseeing eyes. She reached for Grin, and found his breathing had slowed even further.
She sobbed for a while more, maybe fifteen minutes, before pulling herself to her feet with a sniffle, and forming a plan. Ursus had said the market he was traveling to was only a few miles away, and she knew he must have brought an amount of Crimson Lethe with him to sell! All she had to do was bring Grinpayne to Ursus.
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Dea considered the weight of Grinpayne’s limp body, the unwieldiness of his long limbs. It wouldn’t be possible for her to simply carry him three miles, even if she tried. Dea grabbed her cane, which was leant against a wall in the corner. She opened the door of the caravan, trying to remember where Ursus kept the spare wagon. Dea tried walking to the right, and to the left, and finally her cane found the wagon on her third try. She pulled it around to the door, and ran in.
“Alright Grinpayne, please work with me here,” she muttered, setting her cane down and dragging him off the bed. She pulled him outside, as gently as physically possible, and laid him in the wagon. She stood for a moment, then went and grabbed the pillow from her bed, putting it under his head. Dea went back once more for her cane, then took the keys from her dress pocket, and locked the caravan door, praying they’d reach their father before nightfall.
She tilted her head towards the sky, taking the wagon handle, and noted that there seemed to be plenty of daylight left, if she could tell correctly. Despite all the people who thought she couldn’t see anything, couldn’t tell night from day, she knew when there was light, and when there was not. And currently she knew it must be just past midday, though with Grinpayne laying unconscious in a wagon she was towing along, it didn’t feel particularly bright to her.
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Dea could feel the angle of the light, and knew the sun was moving towards her left, which meant north was straight ahead. She began to walk with purpose, swishing her cane back and forth in front of her, and pulling along the wagon filled with a still-shaking Grinpayne.
Dea considered the shaking a good thing, as she walked, at least it showed that he was alive. The thought of him dying was enough to make her bite back more tears, which threatened to fall. He wouldn’t die. She wouldn’t fail. They’d get to Ursus. She didn’t care if it took all day, she didn’t care if her legs ached, or her arm grew tired, she wouldn’t lose Grinpayne.
After an hour of walking, she had to take a break. She sat on the dirt path she was following, and caught her breath.
And among the sounds of birds and squirrels, and very distant people, she heard… muttering? Like a groaning whisper. She turned to the noise. Grinpayne! She reached out to him, taking his limp hand. She leaned in, listening.
“Mother…”
Dea gasped, “your mother?”
Grinpayne let out a soft moan, his ragged breath hitching, “please, mother…”
“What about her Grinpayne? Can you remember anything? Speak to me Grinpayne!”
But she didn’t get any response, other than another pained groan. Dea stood, took her cane, hitched up her skirts, grabbed the wagon handle, and returned to her determined marching. If he was remembering his past, then she needed to get him to Ursus as fast as possible, so Grinpayne could tell him what happened! Dea knew her father didn’t know the full story of that night, if Grinpayne could remember, she was sure Ursus would want to know!
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Dea could feel the twilight coming when she heard it. A howl. Any other person would have been sent into a panic at the noise, but Dea recognized that howl. It was Mojo! Her father wasn’t far off! She knew she must have walked nearly three miles at this point. She broke into a sprint, carrying her cane under one arm, and calling out, “father! Father! Please help us!”
“Dea?” came a gruff voice, barely twenty feet ahead of her, “Dea, my dear girl what on earth are you doing out here? And what’s that you’ve got in the wagon?” Ursus was jogging towards her, Mojo at his heels.
Dea nearly cried from relief, but she’d had enough of tears for the day, so instead she cheered, running towards her father. She collided with him, wrapping her arms around him, “it’s Grinpayne, father! He fell unconscious!”
Ursus gently pushed her away from him, dashing to the wagon. There his son lay, his broken boy, limbs dangling from the sides of the wagon. It would have been nearly comical if it weren’t so incredibly panic-inducing. Ursus checked Grinpayne’s breathing, labored but steady, checked his heartbeat, just fine, and turned to Dea.
“What. Happened.” he demanded of her, doing all he could to keep his tone from sounding too harsh.
Dea fell apart, “we were just sitting in the caravan and he needed his medicine so he went to take it but it must not have been enough because he was still in agony so I told him to take it again and then he just collapsed!” she was sobbing now, “and I went to get the spare bottle and I-I-I dropped it and--”
She felt Ursus’ hand on her shoulder, “it’s alright my dear, this wasn’t your fault. Let me get him his medicine from my stock, he will be okay.”
“But father! That’s not all! On our way here he stirred, briefly, and he mentioned his mother!”
The air stilled. Mojo let out a low growl, and Dea could hear Ursus’ breath quicken. She heard the sound of glass bottles clattering against each other.
Ursus grabbed the Crimson Lethe he had left from what he had sold at market. Of course, he’d sold it as a memory suppressant, more than a painkiller, but only he had to know that. He brought it to Grinpayne, and, popping off the cork, poured the contents through the tear in his bandages.
Grinpayne gulped the liquid, spluttering slightly. The sudden action woke him from his unconscious state. For a brief moment, he could swear he saw his mother’s face. He could almost remember a word, an odd word, what did ‘Trelaw’ mean? But before he could ponder such things any longer, his mind clouded over. He gasped a pained breath, before the pain mellowed out, his senses dulled and his brain fuzzy. Grinpayne was awake, but only as awake as he ever was.
“Dea?” he slurred, his limbs just starting to listen to the commands of his brain again. He was vaguely aware that he was laying in something, but it didn’t feel like a bed, and was he outside?
Dea let out an odd squeak of joy, wrapping her arms around Grinpayne, “oh thank god! Oh thank god!” she spoke into his shoulder.
Ursus stood over his broken children. He looked at the bottle in his hand, and sighed. He tucked it into his coat, “come on then, you two will have to rest at my camp for the night. We can make the walk to the caravan come morning.”
Grinpayne struggled to stand, Dea helping him out of the wagon. She knew he must have looked pretty funny. She smiled as she pulled him towards the small camp, Mojo guiding her along. Dea and Grinpayne sat just outside Ursus’ tent as Ursus cooked them all up a small dinner of jerky and toast on the dying embers of his fire.
That night, though Grinpayne wasn’t exactly tired, he let himself rest with Dea, who was truly exhausted. He would have to find a way to repay her. She had saved him! Somehow. Perhaps he could make her a new puppet? Or maybe sew her a new skirt? He fell asleep still considering what he could do for his Dea.
Before Ursus turned in for the night himself, he took one last look at his children. The way they were laying together, leaned up against a slumbering Mojo, it was so very much like that first night. He rubbed a tear from his eye, and went to sleep.