Thanks to the glowbuzzes, it was darker inside than outside. The witch tossed a conjured scoop of smokeless fire into his ash pit, and the dry wood popped ablaze like it was on a spring. Meri followed him once it was light, and Timothy stifled a laugh. She was staring at everything! The potions rack on one side of the room, close to the beat-up and misshapen clay cauldron (but not too close-- he'd learned that lesson when he lost his eyebrows the first time) especially got her interested, but she also examined the strings of dried herbs and roots all around the hut's ceiling. He wondered how good dragon noses were-- to his nose, the air was a medley of herbal scents. Her eyes passed over his thin and patchy sleeping mat, which was just far enough away from the fire to not catch, and over to his pantry box, on which sat a homemade teapot and a pair of clay cups and bowls. Other than that, there wasn't really much in the way of personal effects: by now, his life'd drilled the lesson into him that he should carry everything dear to him in his cloak or his bag.

But Meri seemed enthralled! "Wow… Is this all your witchy stuff?"

"Yep." Timothy nodded to her. "Welcome to my lair!" He set down his bag by the door, and quickly rummaged around inside for his new ingredients."I'll just put these away first and then we can look at your arm.”

Meri watched curiously as he set the bottle on an upper part of the shelf. “Are those all potions? What do they do?”

"Yeah, potions, and raw ingredients. I do a lotta brewing when I have problems to solve… Which is just about all the time." He grumbled. Meri giggled at the look on his face, so he gave her a mock pout. “It’s also how I make medicines for my monster friends.”

“Ooh, neat!” And before he could do more then yip in surprise, she snagged a bottle from a low shelf and popped it open. The dark, metallic smell hit them both a moment later. “B-blood!”

The witch yelped and lunged for the bottle as she dropped it, barely snagging it with the very tips of his fingers. Whew. With a sharp tug of magic, he yanked the stopper from her and re-sealed the bottle. "Don’t just drop stuff in here! There’s enough alchemy here to blow us sky high if something reacts wrong!”

The dragoness took a nervous step back. "W-why do you have a bottle of blood there?" Ugh, and after they’d made some real progress, too.

"Relax, it's mine." Timothy waved her off. The little girl didn't seem reassured in the least. "…For healing potions? It’s pretty common in Strenel.” ‘Course, you had to be in good health to give good blood, and you had to preserve it with magic, and… well, he was running low.

“But that’s so creepy! It’s like, evil witch stuff!”

“What? Who told you that?” Timothy rolled his eyes. “It’s my blood, it ain’t like I’m going around sticking pins in toadbeasts or something. That’s creepy stuff.” Of course, he regularly took blood from creatures he hunted, but that was just the great cycle at work, really. There were a lotta ifs with blood! All kinds of arcana and ritual/alchemy stuff you had to balance. She didn't need to know that, though, especially now that she was finally calming down.

Meri nodded slowly. "Okay…" After a moment, her eyes widened. "Oh! I think my big bro talked about something like that at the hospital."

Timothy’s smile returned, if a little miffed. “I'm glad. Now, have a seat near the fire; I gotta look at that arm."

"…You're not gonna put your blood in me, right?"

"No!"

------

Timothy soon washed up, Meri sat down in the light, and they were ready to go. "Alright, let's see it." The littlun bit her lip nervously as she held out her arm. Her scales were cut through all across her forearm, but they'd done their job. The cuts were shallow, and while they were bloody, it wasn’t that bad, on a physical level. He'd have noticed a blood trail if she'd been leaving it, after all!

The witch gently took her hand, turning her arm here and there to get a better look at the wound. “You said it didn’t hurt earlier. Are you numb?”

“Y-yeah, actually. It kinda hurts now, but it feels kinda like my arm’s waking up from being asleep.”

Timothy nodded slowly. “I thought so. Humoganth claws aren’t the worst claws around, but they hurt your spirit. They can be real pests.”

“My-my spirit?”

“Mm-hmm. Everything has a spirit. It maps t’your body, mostly, made up of anima stuff. The soul’s made up of the same stuff, and it can’t be hurt, but your spirit can get smacked around.”

Meri gulped. “Am I gonna be okay?”

The witch smiled reassuringly. “Relax, I’ve done this plenty.” After a closer look, he added, “You’re a lucky girl. That bracelet you’ve got on deflected the claws a little, so this ain’t too bad.”

“So are you gonna magic it fixed?” She perked up a bit. “My brother does that.”

“Wish I could, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to do it.”

“Huh?” Meri just stared. “But you’re a witch!”

The witch winced, rubbing his arm. “Yeah, but, um… Healing magic takes a lot of energy, so if I try something without the energy to see it through, bad stuff could happen. There’s a drought on, y’know.” He was frailer than normal right now, and that was saying a lot. “Um, it’s okay, though, this is why we have alchemy.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Meri nodded hesitantly, and he got up to mix up her medicine. In this case, a drizzle of halana fruit juice, some crushed redcoat stalks, a little honey, and distilled water infused with just the right energies to coax out their properties, all mixed together, formed a pale red poultice that shimmered in the dim light. He carried the bowl over to his patient, who nervously clutched her knees.

“Alright, Meri. This will sting a little, but it’ll go away fast.” He soothed. “I know it’s scary, but try and be brave, okay?”

“Okay.” Her voice was very small. Timothy took a deep breath, and slowly floated a blob of the medicine above Meri’s arm. Then, bracing himself for her reaction, he gently pressed it in.

At first, she only winced, but slowly built up to a hiss of pain.

"Be strong, littlun. It'll be over soon…"

His magic rippled like water along her hurt arm, working the medicine in and making it easy to absorb. He guided it with a feather light touch of power, so it wouldn't hurt so much. It was a lot like treating a hurt monster, really, and that made him feel much calmer. Slow and easy.

After a time, Meri spoke up softly. “Are you really clan Lusundra?” The wolf was too focused on applying the medicine and carefully cleaning her wounds as he went. “You don’t seem, um…”

“Crazy? Evil? Both?” Timothy shrugged.

“N-no, um, I mean…”

“It’s fine. Considerin’ the war, I’d be surprised if you weren’t worried.” There was a reason he avoided people. How to explain, though…? “Without goin’ into too much that ain’t your business, one of my parents was a very bad person. I don’t remember’em, cuz luckily, I got adopted. Unluckily, bad stuff happened. Now I’m here.” He paused in his ministrations to look her in the eye. “I promise you, I ain’t a follower of anythin’ those folks stand for. Heck, I was raised Vol, and we fought him and his clan hard durin’ the war. I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’ when it comes to being a dragon, an’ I certainly didn’t ask to be one. I just wanna be left alone, an I’m stuck with this thing—“ he jabbed his forehead—“cuz my blood. That’s all.”

“Oh… But, can you hear… him? Like I can hear Oel?”

Timothy paused. “You hear your true dragon?”

“Yeah, in my dreams, sometimes. It’s like getting a call from my mom, only way older. I just hafta light it up when I go to sleep.”

“Huh. Well, no. Lusundra’s dead, so… no madmen whispering in my ear.” Though that might explain the nightmares… “Like I said, I don’t know much about dragons. I don’t really think of myself as one, halfblood or not.”

“Is that why you think we’re scary?” She asked with a hurt look.

Oh, right, his tale to Crisp. Timothy felt a pang of guilt. “It’s complicated, littlun.” He said softly. “Dragons are just people, like anyone else. I… I ain’t good with people in general, so I was a little scared of you. But I’da been just as scared of you if you were a kindre.”

“Huh? But why?”

Timothy coughed and tugged down his hood a bit. “I, well, um… It’s a long story. A lot of long stories, which mostly end bad. Look, I mostly just wanted to get Crisp to go away. I’m sorry for bein’ rude.” He returned to the treatment, finally moving onto bandages. He bound her arm with fibrous leaves, tied together just tight enough. The pain slowly faded from her posture as the homemade medicine soaked in.

“I don’t think you’re a scary dragon.” Timothy looked up, and was surprised to see a small smile on the girl’s face. It hit surprisingly hard, and he turned away quickly to not let it show.

“‘Course not. I’m a wolf.”

She huffed. “You know what I mean!”

“Anyway,” he turned back with a half-smile of his own, “That should do it. You’re a brave kid.”

“Thanks, Timothy.”

“No worries.” Timothy washed his hands once more with some enchanted water, before shooting it off into the herbs. “Did you get hurt anywhere else?”

“Not really.” She said gratefully. “I’m just muddy and my scales are scratched.”

“Sucks. I’d suggest a swim, but we gotta keep your arm dry.” Timothy shrugged. “Anyway, we’ll prolly get dirty again on the way back, so probably no point in getting cleaned up just yet.” Meri gulped. Timothy hurriedly threw in, “A-at least you can get a bath when you get home, right?”

“Right…” There was an awkward, long pause, and Timothy was painfully reminded that his social skills were rusty. Oh… what would he do with a monster in this situation?

“So, um… you hungry?” Timothy asked.

———

Holy frass, that worked? Well, Timothy mused as he munched on a mushroom, we’re all just critters in the end. Meri seemed much calmer now that she was tearing into a plate of wild onions, kala nuts, mudhop mushrooms, and smoked bellfish. The fishbeast had caused a bit of a fuss (“I-It’s looking at me!”) before he realized she’d never had whole-smoked seafood before. Luckily, that was a problem he could solve with a few swings of a shadow blade. And hey, it meant he got to eat the head. She just didn’t know what she was missing.

It wasn’t the kind of home cooking a townie was probably used to, but it was all he had to give. And thankfully, the kid knew how to be polite about it. For his part, he was just happy to finally eat something today besides greyleaf tea. Winter was coming, after all. Of course, Timothy couldn’t fully enjoy the food when he had so many questions bubbling away in his head like a pot about to boil over. Of course, he had no idea how to breach any of them to her.

Don’t settle for cheap, surface observations! Find the right details, and you’ll find what you’re after. His grandmother’s old advice on witchery came back to mind. So, pretending to focus on his meal, he really examined Meri. The townie girl smelled like mud and stress, but underneath were clear layers of soap and… something else, all over her scales. She looked well-fed, with a healthy sheen and color to her scales. Well, if she was anything like a scaly kindre, anyway. And her outfit looked bright and new, rather than torn and stained like his had been seven years ago. So she probably wasn’t a runaway, and was well-taken care of at home. She'd mentioned a brother pretty cheerily, so she probably had an okay relationship with her family. So why was she here, then?

“So…” he hesitated. “Who’s the Lady of Night, then?”

“You… really don’t know about her?” Meri sounded like she was starting to sweat. She tried to hide it with a big gulp of tea, but she wasn’t foolin’ anyone.

“I'm afraid not, Meri.” He met her gaze, trying to project as much ‘wise forest witch’ as he could. The hood helped a little; the brand did not. “You said you were on a quest to find her, right?”

“Right. Well, kinda.” Now that he thought about it, she’d gotten awful quiet after he’d started patching her up. “It’s a long story.”

The witch nodded slowly. “I figured. It’d take a real fool to just stroll in here on a lark.”

Meri looked up at him with curious eyes. “How come you’re here?” The wolf rolled his eyes and jabbed his thumb at his forehead. “Oh. But how, though?”

“Tell you what.” Timothy gave his witchiest smile. “You tell me your story, and maybe I’ll tell you mine.” Sometimes you just had to go fishing— another tidbit his old master had taught him. Just throw out the right bait…

And you’d snare what you were after. “…Okay.”