“What does alcohol have anything to do with helping Ravel?” Cillian asked.

The dwarf was rummaging through a cabinet filled with bottles. The cabinet was high up in the kitchen, and Tygus could only reach so far inside.

“Now’s not the time to get drunk Mr. Dronbar. We have to help him,” Cillian tried to pull Tygus away from the cabinet.

“Trust me, boy,” Tygus said as he pushed Cillian’s hands off him. “Here, grab that one all the way in the back. I can’t reach it.”

“Fine,” Cillian replied as he got up to his toes to reach for what was in the back of the cabinet. “But if I give you this, you can only take one drink.”

Cillian pulled out a bright red bottle. It was about half the size of his forearm. Once in his hands, he stopped to read the label. It was in a script that he could not read.

“What does it say?” Cillian asked.

“Nasir Dathyra, premium elven brandy,” Tygus said proudly as he took the bottle from Cillian’s hands.

“Elven? I didn’t think you would be a fan of ‘book nose’ elven drinks,” Cillian smirked.

The smile vanished from Tygus’ face and he stopped holding the bottle like an award at a ceremony.

“I don’t. It’s not for me anyway,” Tygus started to walk out of the kitchen and Cillian followed.

“So you don’t want to drink any of it, right?” Cillian egged on as they approached the bedroom where Ravel was resting.

“Nope, I want nothing to do with them knife ears,” Tygus pushed the door open.

Ravel was laying on the bed, his eyes were closed and his body was resting limp. A makeshift sling hung from the roof and was holding up the tabaxi’s broken leg. The sound of the two entering the room woke him up.

“Ah…Master,” Ravel groaned in a hushed voice. He winced as he tried to adjust himself into a somewhat sitting position, before resigning himself back to laying.

“Relax, lad. Sorry to have left you alone for so long. I had to make sure our boy here didn’t get himself killed,” Tygus slapped Cillian’s back.

“How did it go?” Ravel asked through the pain.

“Cillian killed the thing! One strike too, a perfect hunt!” Tygus exclaimed. “That’s why it took so much time for our return. We had to drag the whole thing back here. It was like pulling home a cart of coal.”

Tygus walked towards a bookshelf in the room and started to search for a particular book.

“Congratulations, Sir Cillian,” Ravel gave the human a slight smile.

“Are you okay?” Cillian said as he walked to the bedside. He still had the bottle in his hands.

“I wish I could say that I was,” Ravel replied. Cillian could hear the pain plainly in every one of Ravel’s words.

“Don’t worry, we are going to help you now,” Cillian said as he turned to see what Tygus was doing.

Tygus came toward them with a book in his hands. He opened it up and started to skim through it.

“Okay Cillian, first we have to get him sedated,” Tygus said while flipping pages.

“With what?” asked Cillian.

Tygus just responded by pointing at the red bottle.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Cillian said as he gripped the cork and gave it a few hard tugs till it came off with a loud pop.

He looked around for a glass, then decided he wouldn’t need one. Just as Cillian was about to give the bottle to Ravel, Tygus snatched it.

“I just have to, uh, make sure it’s still safe,” the dwarf said then took one long sip. He let out a sigh of delight and gave the bottle back to Ravel.

“Make sure he drinks till he can’t see straight,” Tygus ordered. “It’s plenty strong, so he won’t need much. Don’t use the whole bottle.”

Cillian listened and watched as Ravel took gulps of the liquid. Every time the injured tabaxi stopped to breathe Cillian would gently nudge the bottle back to his mouth.

After repeating this for many minutes, and finishing half the bottle, Ravel wasn’t responding to things with any clarity. Cillian snapped his fingers a few times in front of his face and all the drunken tabaxi did was let out a drowsy giggle.

“Okay, he’s sedated. What now?” Cillian asked.

“One second, boy, Aha!” Tygus slapped the page in the book he was holding. “Here it is. Okay, now we have to shift his bones into alignment.”

A knot twisted up in Cillian’s inside.

“H-how do we do that?” asked Cillian.

“‘A person sits behind the injured party and holds the patient under their arms. Another sits at the bottom and holds the broken leg. Then the surgeon will adjust the bones back into alignment,’’ Tygus read from the book aloud. “We don’t have a third person to help, but we won’t need it.”

The dwarf brought a stool to the side of Ravel and gently took the foot out of the makeshift sling.

“Okay boy, get behind him and hold him,” Tygus ordered.

Cillian reluctantly shifted Ravel up so that he could stick his arms under the tabaxi’s. He felt how soft and well-kept the fur was.

“Now, let’s see,” Tygus mumbled as he messed with the broken leg. He carefully shifted it back and forth, feeling where the breaks were in the leg.

“What about this,” he said as he made a sudden jerk, twisting the leg.

Ravel let out a howl in pain and kicked and rocked his body. Cillian struggled to hold him back. When Cillian looked down at the leg, he saw a piece of bone sticking out and blood coloring the fur around it red. The sight made Cillian dizzy and he screamed in response.

“Get it together! You just killed an owlbear, why are you screaming now?” Tygus snapped as he rushed to get the book.

“This is different!” Cillian shouted back as he tried to hold back the whining tabaxi.

“Shove the sheets into his mouth, he’s gonna bite his tongue off!” Tygus yelled.

Cillian responded as fast as he could, pulling up a bundle of the blanket off of Ravel’s body and into his mouth. The screaming was muffled, but the thrashing still continued.

“‘If fragments pierce the skin, they should be massaged back in or extracted,’” Tygus read frantically. “That’s simple, just put it back in.”

The dwarf held down the broken leg and gently pushed the bone shard back in.

“There, see? All better,” he said, more for his own reassurance than for anyone else’s. “I think it's all in the right place. Just need to wrap it up now. Keep him calm, I’ll be right back.”

Tygus left the room and came back a few minutes later with two rolls of cloth, a thin rope, and several sticks.

“Now, the linen is to keep you dry,” Tygus wrapped one cloth roll around the leg. “The wool is for,” he dragged his words as he looked down at the book to confirm his thoughts. “Keeping you warm and to protect against the cold.”

By now, Cillian could relax since the wound was covered and Ravel had stopped making rash movements. His head wasn’t spinning anymore.

I’ve seen my own blood dripping off my arms, why did seeing that make me want to vomit?

“Finally, just need to make your splint up,” Tygus said to Ravel, not knowing that the injured tabaxi was unconscious from the mix of pain and brandy.

The impromptu dwarven doctor placed the stick around the wrapped-up leg, parallel to the bone, and fastened it together with the rope. After he was satisfied, he sat back and let out a long relieved sigh.

“I thought I was gonna cripple him,” he said.

Cillian responded with a nervous chuckle. He wanted to admonish Tygus for the way the procedure was handled, but he didn’t know any better himself.

“Come on, boy, we have to fix up our patient here some nourishment,” the dwarf said as he got to his feet. “Then deal with the owlbear before it starts to rot.”

“Then I can pick my weapon?” Cillian asked.

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Nasir Dathyra: Premium Elven Brandy