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There's an awful ringing in Wyll’s ears as the battle comes to an end, though whether it’s the last deafening growls of the Bugbear and the Ogre or due to the crack at the front of his skull is unclear.
Blood soaks the warm mud around him and taints the air a sickly metallic flavour as freshly spilled viscera begins to cook under the midday sun. He squints against the brightness splitting his brain and stumbles towards the rest of their party, too exhausted to sheathe his rapier. It's usually light and nimble in his steady hands, a tool to match his agility in a fight, but right now the weight pulls heavily at his shoulder, and their hand – scraped raw from a tumble – shakes minutely with effort.
“Hey, soldier!” Karlach calls cheerily, jogging over with as much exuberance as she had before the fight, possibly even more. Wyll tries to muster up a smile, but it quickly turns into a grimace as his head throbs in agony. Ordinarily, the barbarian’s bright personality would cheer almost anybody in camp up, but right now the sound of her voice is suddenly far too loud on his sensitive ears.
She’s quick to notice his discomfort, and lowers her voice, though it’s still louder than he’d like.
“You don’t look too good there, mate. Not surprising – you took a pretty nasty hit back there, and those guys were biiig.” She eyes him up assessingly as she talks, hands fidgeting like she’s trying not to reach out. Here eyes linger on his hairline above where his torn hands shield his eyes.
“You got a little- something. There.” She gestures to his face, and he reaches sluggishly to the itch on his forehead, feeling a stickiness he knows all too well. When he looks at his fingertips, he’s unsurprised to see them stained a thick, dark red. He’s no stranger to concussions and finds himself unfortunately more susceptible to them each time he’s hit on the head. He considers, dazedly, that he should start wearing more durable helmets.
“Ah,” he says, manoeuvring the words around an uncooperative tongue, “that sounds about right.”
In his ears, the constant chiming of bells seems to grow louder, drowning out the ambient sounds around him. The heat of the day and the death stench in the air makes his stomach roil, and he feel his hands suddenly go clammy, a cold and sweaty sensation sweeping from head to toe.
He thinks he hears someone calling his name as the ground seems to tilt dizzyingly towards him.
It’s sheer luck that they’re standing close enough for Karlach to catch him when he falls, quickly lowering him to the ground and releasing him before his leather armour starts to burn more than the blackened handprints she’s left on it.
As his head sinks into the drying mud, he allows himself to close his eyes, taking deep breaths of air so disgusting that he doesn’t know whether it helps his nausea or makes it worse. It’s a relief to take the weight of new horns off his neck. His fingertips feel slightly numb where they dig into the mud, but it grounds him so he no longer feels like he’s swaying away from the floor.
There’s a bitter taste in his mouth that he swallows on instinct, and then a cool sensation washes over him, soothing and blue behind his eyelids, and he sighs in relief. The sickness is pushed back and with it, the awful, aching pain in his skull. It’s still there, both stinging on the surface and deeper in his head, but the world is clearer now, sharper, and he can open his eyes without the need to vomit.
The sound of Astarion and Gale bickering about ‘only imbeciles open doors that are clearly shut for a reason’ and you’re no fun at all, you old goat’ filters back into his senses, and when he looks around, Karlach is nearby. She’s crouched in a circle of unnaturally dried dirt that still steams slightly, and she’s putting an emptied potion bottle back into her backpack, rolling her eyes at the dramatics of their party. When she sees Wyll looking, she grins brightly, and this time it doesn’t hurt him.
“How you feelin’ now? We only have a couple of health potions so I thought we should save the other for emergencies, but we’re close enough to head back to camp from here.”
Wyll almost accepts the hand she extends before they both catch themselves, and he smiles sheepishly before standing on his own accord, still weaker than normal but no longer unbalanced.
“Nothing a little rest won’t fix,” he says gamely, lifting his chin slightly as he settles back into the infallible Blade of Frontiers. “Thank you.”
She nods happily, turning to call for the others to ‘quit your flirting and get moving’. He chuckles at the scandalised gasps coming from the barn and reaches for his fallen pack, but Karlach’s already slung it over her own shoulder, unbothered by the extra weight. She sends him a wink and he can’t help but laugh despite his injury, feeling the blood already start to flake from his brow. Instead, he picks up his rapier, and falls into step beside her.