Chapter 18

Tibtans

Staggy rushed to my side, placing a hand on my back. “Rico, are you all right?”

Gasping for breath, I sat back on my heels. I ran a hand across my mouth, whipping away the worst of the vomit. “I’m fine. I just had Sting when I was younger. It really screwed with my digestive system. Sometimes when I’m stressed or sleep deprived, I can’t keep food down. But I’m fine, really.”

“Come with me to the medic’s tent so I can check you out. Make sure you’re actually fine.”

I sighed. I felt like shit, but it was just something that happened sometimes, so I knew I would be fine. “I’m really fine.”

“Can you at least let me look you over here? You don’t have to go anywhere, but just let me check on you.”

“Staggy, I know you’re just worried for me, but I’m totally fine. As I told you, this happens sometimes. I slept badly, and I have a shit digestive system.”

“Please Rico. I am worried about you. If you have Sting, then catching it now will make it much less likely to get to later stages.”

I started to get annoyed. I didn’t want anyone fawning over me. “Can you not listen, Staggy? I said I’m fine. Now I’m going to go visit Pill.”

I could tell by his voice and the way he stood with his arms crossed that he was pissed with me. Well and truly pissed off. “That’s a bad idea considering there is a high chance you have Sting, but I know you won’t listen to me because you’re a stubborn little bitch. They will make you put on a facecloth, but the ones they will give you are itchy as fuck, so take one of mine. It’ll be significantly nicer.”

I was still annoyed, but I wasn’t prepared to fully do away with manners (my mother had taught me well), so I thanked him and headed off to the medic’s tent.

I put the facecloth on before I even started to enter the tent. When I pushed away the flap and entered the tent, I was glad to see that many more of the beds were empty than yesterday. Not a single person was lying on the floor, which was a massive improvement.

A medic came rushing up to me with a face cloth. He immediately hurried away when he realised I had one on already. He was way too busy to say anything to me. I was pretty sure he was the same medic I had helped just after the invasion. He had the same pocket watch chain dangling from his skirt pocket.

When I got close enough to see the details of Pill’s face, I was thrilled to see that he was much less pale than he had been yesterday, and his eyes had much more life to them. He was propped up by the one flimsy pillow, his thin blanket draped over his legs. He was shirtless, his bandages fully on display along with his abs.

He beamed when he saw me. I waved to him, and this time he was able to wave back.

“How are you, Pill?” I went and crouched by his low bed.

“So much better. They say I’m healing really well. No signs of infection, so yeah, I’m great. You?”

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I contemplated just telling him everything that was plaguing me. I knew he would listen to me, but I didn’t want to burden him. He didn’t need anything else to worry about, so I opted for a dull two-word response to the question, “I fine.”

He made a noise that clearly said he had no belief in what I was saying. Sometimes I hated how close I was to Pill. He knew too much.

Pill looked me up and down and then said, “You’re pale and have the biggest bags I have ever seen under your eyes. What’s wrong?”

I put as much sarcasm as I could muster into my response. "Thanks, Pill; I love you too.”

“I know. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

There was no way that I would tell him any of the things that swelled around in my brain. Those were the kind of things I would keep to myself until I became a star. “Nothing is wrong. I’m not sleeping well. Considering our current situation, sleep is not something that comes easily.”

“Guess your right, but remember you can tell me things. I will listen. You are my best friend after all.”

I smiled at that. He was too good to me. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

The bell calling us to the green rang out across the camp, cutting my time with Pill way too short. I had no choice but to obey the bell, no matter how much I wanted to ignore it.

I said goodbye to Pill, giving him a small hug on my way out.

I had to run to get to the green before the commander came to brief us. It was embarrassing how short of breath I was when I reached the central green. I had to heave to get air into my lungs. I knew I was unfit, but I didn’t think I was that bad.

* * *

The camp still needed to be finished being set up, but instead of doing anything to prepare the camp or things for the next battle, I was set to mending more uniforms. It was moments like that when I hated my mother for teaching me how to mend clothing. I hated myself even more for telling anyone that I could sew. More men really needed to learn to sew so I could stop being stuck with mending the unending flow of ripped clothing.

I found myself a spot in the sun and began the tedious task of mending every piece of uniform in the large basket. The first thing that I pulled out was a shirt where the collar was starting to fall off. “How did someone even manage to do that?” I muttered under my breath. It was one of the easier fixes as it was a break on the seam.

The next garment was not so simple of a fix. It was a pair of pants that’s knee had been ripped open, almost certainly by a sword blade. For that one, I had to employ my embroidery skills and my patience.

I fixed garment after garment of varying degrees of destroyed. There was one shirt that I mended that was so discoloured that it was now cream instead of white. The blue collar was so faded it was practically white. That shirt should have been thrown away long ago, but we were too short on… everything that it was there to stay.

When I finally finished the basket of clothes, I still had some time before dinner, so I decided to wash myself.

I grabbed my towel and fresh spare uniform and headed to the lake. The lake was thankfully deserted. I had gotten pretty used to washing in front of people, but it still wasn’t the most pleasant experience to have my whole body on display for the world to see. I wasn’t the most good-looking man.

I only stayed in the fridged water of the lake for as long as it took to wash the stale sweat off my body and give my hair a good scrub.

I dried off and got dressed. While I was drying my hair, I noticed that my Tibtan had grown out enough to look stupid. “Better fix that,” I muttered to myself.

Gathering up my used clothes in a bundle, I made my way back to my tent.

When I get to my bed, I just stuffed my clothes into my backpack, promising myself that I would deal with it later. From one of the many small pockets on the outside of my pack, I pulled a small tin my mother had prepared for me before I left. Inside it had everything I needed to redo my Tibtan.

I unwrapped my hair from the old blue thread. It was stained brown and was kind of gross to look at compared to the new thread.

My hair had grown out enough that it was acceptable to do more than one Tibtan. I grabbed a small chunk of hair from just in front of my left ear. I began to wrap the thread around the length of hair until the end. I used some wire to secure it at the bottom and top. I did the same thing on my right side. I then trimmed the longer bit of hair at the back of my head from where the old Tibtan had been. The ones I had just done were not nearly as neat as the ones my mother could do, but they were passable.

I felt amazing after my afternoon freshen up—better than I had in some time. I went to dinner in a good mood.