After opening his eyes, Kai's mind took a while to return form the sweet numbness of sleep to the painfull world of consicousness.
Their 1 part of daylight had already ended and night had taken over the world. Only the faint glow of the small cube above their heads illuminated the scene a bit.
Across from him sat the man. His sleeves were torn off, and his clothes were stained with brown blood that had already dried into a crust.
His eyes were closed, brow furrowed as if he was trying hard to remember something.
As Kai's mind caught up with the recent events, his hand instinctively shot to his left shoulder.
The pain was still there, though it pulsed rhythmically beneath a blanket of numbness he had never felt before.
Kai shifted his position, sitting upright against the tree he was leaning on.
The movement seemed to go unnoticed by the man, so Kai coughed softly into his good hand to gain his attention.
Finally, the man's eyes flickered open.
Seeing that the boy was conscious again, a smile spread across the stranger's face. "How do you feel?" he asked, his voice laced with genuine curiosity.
"It still hurts," Kai replied, "but not as much. What did you do?"
The man shrugged.
"Scavenged a bit while you were out. Found some plants I recognized, ground them up, and made a poultice with sphagnum moss and wild lettuce.I was hoping the lactucarium in the lettuce might dull the pain."
He paused for a moment, glancing at Kai.
"They looked a bit different than I expected, but judging by the way you’re talking, they seem to be working just fine. Maybe even better than I hoped."
Kai blinked in surprise. He might have just underestimated this stranger. "You are a healer?"
The man shook his head slowly. "I wouldn’t say that." He shrugged again, almost casually.
"I just know a bit about plants, light, and a lot of other things, apparently." Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he reached for a violet-red mass at his side. "Oh, and—here."
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He held the object out toward Kai’s chest. "Got a heart for you."
Slowly, almost reverently, Kai reached out and caressed the heart with his healthy hand. This was what all his efforts had been for.
If he made it back to the village with this, he would finally become a warrior.
He glanced at the man who was watching him closely, one of his eyebrows raised.
"So, next station is your village?"
The boy hesitated briefly before responding. He knew next to nothing about this stranger who had suddenly appeared and saved his life twice within a few hours.
The man seemed a bit too keen on visiting Kai's tribe, but the boy sensed no malice in him.
Perhaps he truly was a lost soul seeking a safe place to call home. But what were the chances of such a person surviving so close to the hungry ocean?
Unfortunately, the numbness in his legs and arms made it clear that he couldn't reach the others without the man's help.
Even if the man had less innocent motives, once they returned to the village, there would be plenty of people who could take care of him if he did as much as take a hostile breathe.
Kai nodded.
"Yes," he finally answered, "but you’ll have to assist me. My legs are sluggish and we have quite a bit to walk."
The boy pushed himself up from the tree he had been leaning against and extended his arm. The man swiftly moved to support him, pulling the boy's arm over his shoulder.
"If we move cautiously—and we must be—we might reach my village before dawn," Kai directed, nodding towards a direction.
"This way."
The man understood and adjusted his hold, moving the boy's arm more securely around his neck. The maneuver send a wave of dampened pain through the boy but he limited his reaction to a sharp breathe.
Together, they limped towards the village.
The man's cube levitated just over the ground, producing just enought light to see where to place their feet to avoid the attention of the things living inside the forrest.
While they walked, they whispered with each other. After two hours they took a short break and then another after six. Every time they set down to rest the man inspected Kai's bandage.
The grew less responsive quickly.
After their first stop he could still converse with him normally, it was then when they agreed that the man needed a name and set on Moran, because Kai found it fitting.
During their third stop he was barely answering anymore and after the fifth, durning which they must have been walking for around half a two third of a day,
he wasn't able to stand up anymore so the man called Moran had to carry him from this point on. The heart he had placed on the cube.
About an hour later the boy began to shiver and moan how everything hurt. The man didn't dare to stop anymore in fear that shifting the boys position too much would worsen his already rapidly declining state even more.
So Moran just marched on, ignoring his sore feet and back. By now every step felt like the bones of his feet were slapped against stone, but he kept moving.
Luckly Kai was still there enought to grunt disapprovingly whenever he began divering from the path too much.
After what felt like an etherntiy, light began to spread over the world again, the red glow climbing up behind them like the sky itself was a translucent bubble.
Whether it was due to his exhaustion or something else, he failed to notice the two shadows darting out of the woods. In an instant, one figure grabbed the boy from his shoulder while the other slammed his head into the ground.