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“Faster! That would have been a hit!” A clash of metal on metal singing in Eilistraee’s voice. Her mother dipped in and out of her blind spots in an elegant dance. Young Helena swung her mace in a wide arc, only for it to bounce off her mother’s shield. “Better! But keep it tight!”
The ache in her bicep was becoming unbearable for the pre-pubescent drow. She dropped her arm, pouting.
“I’m tired, Mother,” she whined. “Can’t we stop now?”
Cadenza’s face, stern but loving, appeared. A few strands of her stark white hair had come loose from the intricate braid that was coiled around her head. With a wave of her hand, she pushed the loose hairs out of her face, which was shining lightly with sweat.
“Do you think your opponent would be so forgiving?” she asked, an eyebrow raised. “Have the courtesy to stay their hand because you are tired?”
The air was cold on her face. It was all she could focus on, despite the shooting pain echoing across her stomach and side. Her companions’ voices swam in and out of focus as if her head was bobbing underwater.
“Under her arm there.”
“Wyll, fetch some bandages from my pack.”
“Easy, Karlach! Set her down here.”
“Do we have extra health potions?”
“What happened?”
She found herself asking the same question, clumsily pawing through her memories of the last hour. It had just been a simple outing to gather firewood for the evening. An ambush. Some blasted tree-like creature had melted out from the woods and attacked. But she was exhausted, and her sluggishness was her undoing. Hundreds of thorns came hurdling towards her, slipping right between the links in her armor and embedding in her skin. Something searing hot and nauseating spread through her blood with every pump of her heart. Poison. She’d attempted to draw enough power to cast lesser restoration on herself, but when she reached into the well, she’d come up empty handed.
Panic began to rise in her throat. Helena’s tongue felt thick and gummy in her mouth as she tried to speak and her words melded into each other like a sticky mess before they even had the chance to leave her lips. The world around her lost its form and turned into shadows as her eyelids grew heavy.
So this was how it was to end. Her fingers began to tremble as she reached out to Eilistraee in her last moments, entreating the Dark Maiden to take her home at last. She felt her goddess’s arms surrounding her in a tender embrace and the feeling of something cool that tasted like sweet almonds trickling down her throat.
A moment passed. The ringing in her ears grew fainter, as did the sound of her heartbeat. The pain rushing through her veins dissipated like mist in the morning sun. Her breath slowed, but did not stop. And as her vision cleared, she found herself gazing up into Gale’s worried brown eyes.
“Can you hear me now, my love?” There was a slight strain to his voice. Helena became aware of his thumb gently rubbing her temple as his hand cradled her head. “Helena?”
“Hunh? I…fuh…” Her lips were dry and her teeth caught on them as she tried to speak. She took a breath and the air lodged in her throat, causing her to sputter through a wet cough. “G…Gale…” The wizard’s dark eyes lit up, a little wrinkle of relief creasing between his eyebrows as his arms tightened around her.
“Yes, my love. Yes. I’m here. I’m right here.” He turned his face away from her. “She’s alright!” There was a hum of relief from close by and Shadowheart’s face quickly appeared beside Gale’s.
“Thank the gods you had an antidote on hand,” she murmured to the wizard. “She’s the one who always keeps lesser restoration prepared.” The edge in the cleric of Shar’s voice indicated that perhaps she would be putting that spell in her own rotation going forward. “We’ll have to remove the thorns still, but at least she’s not in any immediate danger at this point.”
“I’ll remove them.” Gale’s response was immediate. “Just help me get her into my tent.”
Shadowheart nodded and looped her arm under Helena’s. Gale did the same on the other side and the two both grunted as they lifted their drow companion off the ground. As soon as her body stirred, stinging pain ripped through Helena’s body starting from her side and she cried out.
“Hold on,” Shadowheart said sternly as she hoisted Helena’s arm over her shoulder.
She could feel the thorns lodged in her skin. They shifted as she walked, an agonizing throbbing sensation around every puncture wound. Tears welled in her eyes, but she tried to force them back, resulting in a shaking whimper escaping from her throat. Gale’s hand tightened around her upper arm as he leaned in closer to her.
“Focus on my voice, my love.” It was warm and soft like a comforting blanket wrapping around her shoulders. “That’s right. One foot in front of the other. You are doing a marvelous job.” Her mind pulled itself away from the pain emanating from her side, attempting to zero in on the sound of Gale’s praise in her ear. “That’s my girl. Just a little further.”
As the trio crossed the threshold into Gale’s tent, Helena’s legs wobbled before completely collapsing underneath her. She tumbled to her knees onto Gale’s bedroll, gasping for air as the thorns pressed deeper into her skin. Gale immediately knelt beside her and set to work. His fingers dexterously unclasped the buckles on the shoulders of her armor and slipped it off with a clatter.
“Have someone start preparing a hearty soup,” he commanded Shadowheart without taking his eyes off Helena. “Pork, potatoes, vegetables, and a sturdy red wine. I believe there is a bottle of Berduskan Dark in our provisions that should do nicely. She will need her strength to heal from this.” He paused for a moment, glancing up at the raven-haired cleric. “Perhaps it would be wise not to ask Lae’zel, though. I feel as though my stomach never quite recovered from the last time she cooked the evening meal and the last thing we need right now is food poisoning.”
“I shan’t argue with you on that point,” Shadowheart sighed, rolling her eyes before her gaze landed on Helena. “She’ll be alright.” It was a statement, yet there was still a question gilding its edges. Gale gave a nod before busying himself with removing the tunic that Helena wore underneath her armor.
“She’ll be alright.” The echoing of her words with a tone of absolute certainty seemed to provide Shadowheart with sufficient comfort and she disappeared through the flap of Gale’s tent. Now free from distractions, Gale pulled the tunic over Helena’s head, carefully lifting her arms in order to extricate them from her sleeves.
She shivered as the cold air hit her skin and she glanced down at her side. These thorns had long hooked barbs that stung as they caught and strained against her flesh when she moved or even breathed. Helena looked back up at Gale, the effects of the poison diminishing enough for her to be able to speak.
“It hurts.” Her voice, normally strong and powerful like thunder, sounded more like a half-hearted trickle of rain. If she weren’t so distracted by the pain, she would be embarrassed by her weakened state.
“I know, my love,” Gale cooed. He leaned over to a little crate in his belongings and grabbed a silver dish, a small satchel, and a tin. Untying the satchel, he retrieved a pair of tweezers from within. Then he set the dish and tin to the side before leaning down and planting a kiss on her forehead. “Try to relax as best you can.”
He adjusted the tweezers in his hand before gently pulling on one of the thorns. Pain ripped through Helena’s side as the barbed end of the thorn tugged on her tender skin. She tensed and cried out, but the pain subsided after a moment and she opened her eyes to see the offending thorn pinched securely in the tweezers held between Gale’s fingers. He smiled with satisfaction before dropping the thorn into the dish with a plink. His free hand pushed Helena’s hair out of her face, smoothing it against her head.
“There we are.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “It will be over before you know it.” He continued his plucking and Helena became increasingly used to the tugging of the barbs before the sting gave way to relief. As Gale cleared a wider area on her side, he uncapped the tin, revealing a pale yellow cream. He dabbed some of this on his fingers before smoothing it over her skin where the thorns had been. A cool tingling washed over the area and Helena let out a shaky breath.
“Wh-What is that?” she asked.
“Merely an ointment of peppermint, lavender, and chamomile,” Gale replied, wiping the excess off his hand with a rag and picking up the tweezers to continue removing more thorns. “Such herbs have been known to have pain-relieving qualities and should stave off infection as well.”
“I didn’t…” She winced as he pried another thorn from her skin and dropped it in the dish at his side. “I didn’t know you were educated in herbal remedies. Gods, that smarts.”
“I am educated in a wide variety of subjects,” Gale replied. “Some out of genuine interest, others out of boredom.” He held the tweezers up to his eye level, observing the thorn in its grasp before placing it in the dish along with its fellows. “When I was first struggling with my condition and had not yet discovered that consuming pieces of Weave were the key to managing my pain, I turned to botany as a potential answer. And while the pursuit did not yield the results I had initially hoped it would, I did find other practical applications for what I learned.” He paused, his focus shifting from his work to Helena’s face. “You had me frightened for a moment, my love. I’ve never seen you look so poorly after a battle.”
Helena glanced away to a far corner of Gale’s tent.
“I was rather frightened too, if I’m honest,” she said under her breath. “I tried to heal myself, but…I was so tired. I couldn’t.” She could feel Gale’s eyes on her. For the first time, she found herself wishing he’d look away. And, after a beat, he did, clearing another small patch of her skin and spreading the herbal cream over it.
“Were you afraid because of the poison?”
The question pierced Helena’s heart, and she swallowed hard as tears brimmed in her eyes. Her mind flashed back to her mother, lying in bed, sweating and crying out as the poison that had anointed that slaver’s weapon overtook her body. Outside the door, the other members of the church scrambled to find an antidote, but it had been some time since the last caravan to the surface to replenish their stock of medical supplies had come through.
Helena remembered standing in the corner of the room, watching her father clutching his wife’s hand and kissing her fingers over and over again. She couldn’t hear what he was saying between muffled sobs. Prayers? Pleading? Final words of adoration before he and the love of his life were forever parted? But she didn’t need to know the exact words to understand the anguish, for it was the same feeling that was ripping through her stomach with growing intensity every passing minute as her mother slipped away.
The tears that had been fighting to fall won their battle and began to stream down her cheeks. She pictured Gale’s expression when she’d come to, the crinkle of relief between his eyebrows. She and her father had not been afforded such relief.
“Yes.”
Gale nodded and pulled the final thorn from her skin, allowing it to fall with a ceremonial flourish into the silver dish, now heaped with barbs. He dipped his fingers into the tin of cream and grazed them across the puncture wounds that now almost blended in with her freckles. With a smooth motion, he placed the tweezers back in his satchel and returned both the satchel and the tin to the crate from which he’d taken them before stretching out behind Helena on his bedroll and wrapping his arms around her waist. She curled into him as he kissed her just behind her ear. Her eyelids grew heavy from both exhaustion and tears.
“I’m so tired, Gale.”
“I know, my love.” His chin settled in the crook of her neck, his beard rough but soothing. “Rest now. I will wake you when our meal is prepared.”
Helena exhaled softly, her hands coming to rest over top of Gale’s as she melted into his embrace.