Angelica sat on a stool outside her hut, picking burs out of her favorite green cloak. “Didn’t have to deal with burrs in the city. No sir. Not a burr-making plant in a hundred blocks where I used to live. Why in the name of the Artificer did I ever leave?” She looked down at where a black cat slumbered near her foot. “Ah, right. That’s why.” It had been for her own good, Owen had said. A better plan for all. To be fair, she was full grown. No need to rely on him any longer. Better to set off and make her own way in the world anyway. Besides, two healers under the same thatched roof were bound to get in each other’s way eventually. Only so many injured and sick in one place, and too many cooks in a kitchen’ll spoil the broth. But damn, she wished she’d at least chosen a proper city to set up shop in. Twin Bells, for all it’s importance to the blacksmith’s trade and for all it’s historical significance, was by no means a metropolitan thoroughfare. It was situated in a valley between two mountain ranges, making it exactly the worst place on the Artificer’s green globe to travel to. The only reason anyone had ever bothered to move to this dump was the fact that just about any ore ever could be found here, and also because of the historical sites to the south of the valley. By Angelica’s reckoning, two types of people, and two alone, had any business being here. Miners, and religious personnel. Note, nowhere on that list were “Healers who would rather be anywhere but the woods”.
But she’d taken a grant from the Mayor’s office. They provided a stipend and funding for housing, and she worked commissions for them when they required a healer. A tidy job, and she had full right to work on the side if she felt like it. That, plus the fact that she never had to pay for healing herbs again, because they were literally right outside her door, made her situation an offer no healer in their right mind could refuse. And refuse she had not, taking a contract that was set to last 8 years of her life. 8 years, pulling burrs out of cloaks and riding out day after day in possibly the most boring and monotonous town she could have ever pictured.
If only something interesting would happen.
Regardless, however, of her own personal grievances, she was still a professional, and being a professional meant that she wouldn’t make her distaste for circumstances the problem of potential patients. She set aside the cloak, brushed at her dress in vain, and grabbed her gathering basket. She left the cat to it’s own devices and began once more the arduous task of hunting down alchemical ingredients.
It was, to her surprise, a short trip today. Not because the herbs she had come out for were suddenly in the mood to be forthcoming. Of course not. That would be crazy. A significantly more plausible event had occurred. She’d found a pair of teenagers on the forest floor.
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A bright light shone deep in the woods. Lucien stood up immediately. He completely forgot about the track he’d been examining. Reynald. He started sprinting. He pushed through brambles and thorns and branches and anything else that dared to stand in his way. There was only one thought on his mind. Reynald. He broke through to a clearing. There, right in front of him, was Reynald. Reynald, and six coyotes. Reynald, barely standing, bleeding all over. Reynald, surrounded, his back to the den. Reynald, glowing.
Lucien kicked the nearest coyote in the face. He felt its soft bones crack and give way. It let out a single yelp as it flew two paces backward. The remaining coyotes turned towards this new threat. All eyes on me, Lucien thought grimly. Reynald hadn’t moved. Probably couldn’t move. He wasn’t glowing quite as bright anymore. Instead, he was steaming like a pot left on the stove too long. Another of the pack launched itself at Lucien. He grabbed anything he could (a foreleg, as it turned out) and ripped it over his head in a throw that would have made his Dad shake his head in disappointment, but it did enough damage for the purpose. Unfortunately, as the victim of Lucien’s improvised brutality broke its spine on a tree, Lucien himself felt teeth sink into his side. Another of the beasts had slid in under his throw and now it was latched on. The pack, judging Lucien incapacitated, was splitting its attention, with only one more watching him and the other two slinking towards Reynald. Reynald, who was lying on his face, bleeding into the soil. Reynald, who couldn’t defend himself. Lucien screamed into the sky.
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He grabbed the biter’s tail, and squeezed, hard. It didn’t do much damage, but it dislodged the teeth in his side. He was vaguely aware that he was leaking, like a waterskin with a hole in it. He swung the coyote from the tail like a reverse-grip club, taking out its partner in the process. The two attending to him were stunned, so Lucien sprinted at the two bearing down on Reynald. He tackled the one closest to him. His knee put all his weight directly behind it’s ribs, and he punched it in the face as hard as he could. It tried to come back round. He punched it again, and again, and again. He felt a bone shatter. He couldn’t tell if it was his or the beast’s. The other three, upon seeing this, and two having tasted it first hand, backed away in a synchronized retreat. When they crossed woods cover, they sprinted into the shadows. As soon as they were gone, Lucien collapsed.
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Angelica stared down at the two boys lying in a pool of blood. The corpses of three coyotes were scattered around the clearing. The smaller one didn’t look hurt. The larger, on the other hand, was mostly dead. She stared down at him for what felt like an age. Then she trudged over to the smaller one and slapped him across the face. Hard. He barely stirred. “Hey. Hey jackass. Hey jackass, wake up. I need you to help me save your friend’s life.”
He woke up in three stages. The first, he was barely alive. Didn’t even seem to feel pain. The second, he looked lost. He squinted at her like she was a squirrel that had broken into his house. Then came lucidity. He shot up. “Lucien! Fuck, where’s Lucien!?” Angelica had already mostly dismissed him. She was already looking around for something to stop the bleeding. “If you mean your friend here, he’s somewhere between here and the Artificer’s workshop, little man.” She gave up searching. “Gimme your shirt.” “What? What happened?!” “Figured you would know that better than me, having been there and all, but if I had to guess, big boy over here fought at least three coyotes to the death to save your scrawny-ass life, least you can do is give up your shirt to save him. Now give.”
The boy’s eyes were the size of saucers. He struggled his way out of his shirt and tossed it to her. She caught it in the air and started tearing it apart with her gathering knife. “Now get yourself situated, make sure you can walk, and start stretching your arm muscles.” “My arms? Why?” “’Cause big boy here’s passed out and I am under no circumstances capable of dragging him back to my hut alone. Why, you wanna leave him here or something?”
The boy started dutifully stretching and pacing while she stabilized the one he’d called Lucien. She smiled to herself. Maybe he wasn’t a lost cause after all.