A deal worth making

I awaken to pain and the smell of cooked fish. I love fish. The sensation of knowing something without knowing the reason for knowing it is becoming annoying. That said, the possible reasons for it are alarming and I am unsure whether I want to investigate.

I find the pregnant woman sitting on a chair next to the bed I am in. Where has she gotten the furniture from? „Please say something“ she says slowly in my mother tongue. „It was no dream. You can suddenly speak my language.“ I reply. „It is a miracle. I am wearing this ring and it is a miracle.“ she practically beams. I try to sit up and immediately abandon the attempt. It hurts. It hurts a lot. She notices my quite obvious expression of pain and says „I would have sewed it shut, but the foreign lady insisted that it was unnecessary and that using improvised thread for that would do more harm than good.“ „I see. She was right. Give me a few minutes.“ I say.

Can I just remove the pain? Yes, I can. Closing the skin is trivial and removes the chance of further infection. I follow up with a killing round for bacteria, just in case. And then I levitate myself into a sitting position. The woman generates a frightened sound. „Is something wrong?“ I ask. „I am not used to magic.“ she answers and continues. „You have been very niece, but you are so mighty it frightens me and my cousin.“ I can say nothing to that. I could use a thunderbolt to strike her dead. She is objectively right. I wouldn’t do that, but there is no way she can be sure of that. Voicing these thoughts, however, seems unwise to me. And it seems to me like I need to say something, lest she takes silence as affront and I scare her even more. „We are in this together. We are certainy mates and may even be friends. My name is …“ I stop. This hurts emotionally. She quickly says „There is no need to tell me your name, Lord Wizard. Just call me Helena“. I shake my head and say „No. No, you misunderstand. I have forgotten my name. That wizard has done something serious to me. Not knowing my own name is a bother.“ Her eyes widen. She decides to change the subject. „We have cooked fish and potatoes. They are getting cold.“ I smile and extend my arms, which I immediately regret.

I end up being fed like a baby.

Hildegard is doing laundry. That, however, occupies only her hands and back, not her mind. Her mind needs to come to terms with a winter storm stopping her after beating an Atlantean. She can’t neither read nor speak their language, but she does recognize the script. It was bizarre to see the ancient glyphs on a simple box containing soap. She supects that the short word written on the box even said soap. Has that made it more real or less real? The part of herself trained to run a large household is getting angry at the part of herself that wants to answer that question with both.

She was cooped up long enough in that cave. She wants to go out. Even more though, she wants to keep her fingers and toes. Her travel clothes and boots are made for her lowland home in autumn, not mountains in winter. She lacks a mount, sleeping bag, even a backpack. And that disregards that she has no idea where she is and lacks even a basic map.

There are some travel rations among the stores and they’ve found two spears and large kite shields, which presumably belong to the incerated guards, but she doubts she can simply claim them. She can’t wait for better weather and then leave on her own, even if it weren’t inadvisable to travel alone, let alone through unfamiliar terrain.

That means relying on the wizard. She needs to inform her father that she’s escaped. Wizards have a means of sending messages superior to anything else.

My shoulder hurts a lot. I have reknit the muscles and connective tissue. What is still injured? I look inward. The answer is simple but terrifying. My shoulder blade is broken. A dieing dryad had the strength to hurl a sharpened wooden stick with a force to pierce my body from front to back and still break a bone. Can I heal this? The healing works badly on bone. Is that because bone is partially inorganic matter and hence less alive? Possibly, but at least it heals. Am I doing this wrong? I am trying to imitate what the healing process would do in a manner of speaking. Ca I smash a breakage like I initially approached issues. Initially I fail, but get the feeling that I am close. On the fourth attempt I get it right. I can undo change.

That reminds me. I need to try. She might know things. I cannot just let her die. I need to heal the dryad, so that we can question her.