Chapter Text
The fight with Obann the Punished is... brutal, to put it mildly.
Everyone in the Mighty Nein was feeling drained and exhausted before Tharizdun reached out to exact his revenge on the instrument that had failed him. Just when they thought they had finally come to the end, they were pulled back into another round of grueling combat with a creature so twisted and perverted from its natural state that it sent a shudder down Caduceus' spine just to look at it.
The creature that used to be Obann had fought wildly, running only on warped feral instinct that tried to inflict the same punishment that was forced on it. In a way, the tragedy of its existence almost made Caduceus feel sorry for it.
That was before his friends started to drop, like flies with their wings ripped off.
The fight could not have lasted more than a couple minutes, but that was enough time for the creature to cut through the Mighty Nein with brutal strokes. The first one down was Beau, when a tentacle lashed out and struck her in the barely-healed spot where she'd nearly been cleaved in half. When Fjord tried to impose himself between her fallen body and the creature's rage, it launched itself at him, biting and slashing at him with horrible fangs before Fjord dropped in a bloody heap beside her.
Caduceus had tried, then, to get to them before the creature could launch another attack, but Jester's spiritual weapon streaked by much faster than he could run. The resulting barrage of radiant energy attacking the creature drove it back towards her, leaving her as the next target for a round of pummeling attacks that brought her to her knees.
Only a desperate bolt from Nott directly into one of its mouths prevented Jester from being killed on the spot, but by giving away her hiding spot, she took the next hit directly on. Her tiny body flew through the air, careening wildly before hitting the far wall and crumpling to the ground.
He can barely remember the next few seconds of intense panic, sending his beetles streaming out across the ground to imbue his friends with just enough magic to stabilize them for a few moments. He knows he reached Jester first, throwing out enough healing magic to pull her broken ribs back into place and to hear her ragged inhale when one of the creature's arms slammed into him, violently cracking his head against the stone and everything cut to white.
He doesn't think he was stunned for more than a few seconds, because he remembers seeing Jester crawl a few inches away before collapsing to the ground. Off in the distance, the eruption of a fireball consuming the creature made his head pound fiercely and he had to shut his eyes. As it was, he heard more than saw Yasha carving into the ruined remains of the demon who'd held her captive for so long with a primal scream that ran all the way down his spine.
A horribly wet slicing noise had cut through the air, which was either the sound of Yasha's sword or the demon's last gasps through a massacred cluster of punished lungs, and Caduceus had felt the wrongness of the situation so strongly that he almost wished he could disappear again when a hand landed on his shoulder.
He blinks his eyes open to the bloodied face of Caleb Widogast roughly shaking him awake.
"Hey, are you with me?" he asks. The note of strained panic in his voice is unmistakeable, and Caduceus hates that he's had any part in putting it there.
He considers shaking his head to clear it, but then decides against it. Probably better to keep his neck as still as possible for the next little bit. "I'm here, Caleb. How's everyone doing?"
Caleb finally stops shaking his shoulder, which is a bit of a relief. "It's, ah, not looking so good, I'm afraid." He looks around, running red and burnt fingers through his already fire red hair. "No one is dead, but we are not very... intact, at the moment. How much healing do you have left?"
Caduceus pulls himself up on his elbows and runs a quick mental check, feels the familiar tug around his ribs that means he's tapped out of all but the most minor spells. "Enough to keep everyone from bleeding out, at the very least." Caleb reaches out to haul him onto his feet, pausing to help him steady himself against his staff and take a second to reorient himself to being upright.
About sixty feet away, Yasha is leaning against the sword she has buried to the hilt inside Obann's twisted remains. Caduceus taps Caleb on the back. "I'll get started here if you can go make sure she and Nott are okay over there."
"Ja, I can do that." Caleb probably doesn't realize that his eyes are blown wide in barely restrained panic, but Caduceus just thanks the Wildmother that Caleb's ruthless compartmentalization will keep him on his feet for the next couple of minutes. There will be time for a well deserved breakdown once everyone is stabilized.
The first person Caduceus can reach is Jester, whose eyes are open to slits and who seems to be vaguely aware of someone approaching her. She has one hand clutching her chest, which Caduceus can see is rising and falling at a steady pace, even if it is shuddery. The gasping quality to her breathing is a bit alarming.
He lowers himself onto his knees, careful of his bad left one. His gloves are torn and filthy, so he yanks them off and reaches out towards her. She makes a wounded noise of fear that pierces right into his heart, but all he does is twitch one ear and pause his hand in the air.
"Jester," he says slowly, with as much calm as he can muster. "It's just me, it's just Caduceus. I need to check the breaks before I can heal them up a bit more. If you've got a rib poking into one, I don't want to heal the lung around it."
The barely visible slits of Jester's eyes widen, and it takes a moment, but the recognition seems to kick in eventually, and she gives a minuscule nod.
"There we go," Caduceus says, nodding back and reaching forward to palpate the left and right sides of her rib cage. There are definitely a few ribs that shift underneath his touch, and Jester lets out a high pitched whine that gets cut off in her throat, but no sections give when he presses forward. Both lungs are moving together, so he rules out a leak in either of them.
"Good news, Jester, is it's just the ribs, which I can do a little something for."
Jester doesn't say anything back, her eyes shut and her face a pasty pale blue. He inhales and exhales slowly, then presses his hands forward again, this time gathering up a handful of magical energy to seep into the bones. The movement makes Jester shudder again, one of her hands coming up to grip his wrist tightly.
"Sorry about this," Caduceus murmurs. "It's all gonna be okay, I'm just taking the edge off for you."
The magic isn't nearly enough to fix every crack that spiderwebs through her chest, but it is enough for her to take in some deeper breaths without that tic of a gasp.
"Caduceus!"
Caduceus spins around a little too fast for his aching head when he hears Caleb's shout. He quickly runs what he hopes is a soothing hand through Jester's hair and stumbles up to his feet. "What happened?"
"It's Fjord, he needs..."
Caduceus is already running to them, unsteady feet slipping a little on the black splattered floor as he rushes over. Caleb stands over Beau and Fjord's bodies, clutching Nott against his chest. There's a bandage wrapped hastily around her head and she blinks slowly, which Caduceus mentally translates to a nasty concussion. He has just a second to hope Caleb knew to check her for a spinal injury before taking in Yasha shoving bloody hands against Fjord's stomach.
He throws aside his staff and gives Yasha a nudge. "Let me see what we're dealing with here."
She leans aside, letting up the pressure on Fjord’s stomach enough for Caduceus to make out the gouged out wounds left by vicious teeth that punched straight through Fjord’s armor. Based on how deep the wounds are and how quickly the blood was seeping through Yasha’s fingers, he was lucky to have not been torn in half.
Caduceus stiffens, allowing the shock of seeing his friend actively dying in front of him shoot through his veins for just a moment, before shoving his hands on top of Yasha’s and doubling the pressure on the bite marks. Fjord jerks beneath them, a garbled noise of protest forced out of him as he weakly thrashes back and forth. A splash of blood coats his teeth when Caduceus holds him down.
This is… bad. This is really bad.
“All right, Yasha, there’s a roll of bandages in my pack. I’ll heal this up as much as I can but it won’t be enough to stop the bleeding all the way, and I need something to wrap it with,” Caduceus says quickly.
Yasha, who is still shivering, doesn’t say a word.
“Yasha?” Caduceus asks, leaning forward to press even harder on the open wound. More blood bubbles up and soaks through the fabric of his gloves. He glances up at Yasha’s face. Her eyes are wide, green and violet flashing with pain and sorrow that threatens to overwhelm her. Caduceus reads all the emotions that live in her expression and does his best to cut through them all. “Green pack. Bandages. On three. One, two –”
He pulls his hands up just enough to give Yasha room to wiggle hers free. This time, she nods, and stumbles away. Caduceus instantly redoubles his efforts to press down on Fjord’s chest, keeping him from bleeding out right there. This time, Fjord doesn’t make a sound, which is much more frightening than if he was still moaning. Bad sign, very bad sign.
Caduceus shuts his eyes, scraping the bottom of the well for any traces of magic he has left, and concentrates on pouring it all back into the gouges carving through Fjord. For a moment, he’s afraid that he’s been too slow and the magic won’t take, when he feels the warmth of the Wildmother coursing through him. Flickers of pink lichen blossom from the wound, pulling the edges closer together and stemming the blood enough that Caduceus can ease up a bit from grinding his palms directly into the bite marks. He doesn’t see any blood in Fjord’s mouth beyond what he coughed up before the spell, which almost makes him dizzy with relief.
Caleb is hovering anxiously behind his shoulder. “What can I do to help?”
Caduceus takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Caleb’s arms are full of Nott, who really shouldn’t be moved more than necessary, but at least Caleb still has his eyes. “Tell me what’s going on with Beau. Is it broken bones, a head injury, anything stuck in her?”
“Ah, it looks like that sword wound was reopened.” Something dark moves through Caleb’s voice when he mentions the injury, but Caduceus is too busy to parse what it could mean right now.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he says. The muscles in Fjord’s abdomen twitch underneath his palms and he leans forward to press down harder. “If it’s the same injury – I mean, I suppose we’ll have to be worried about infection anyway –”
“I have bandages,” Yasha says, reappearing at his side. Her voice is hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He gives her a nod of thanks and she hands him the roll of white dressings.
“These wounds are all going to need medicine if they’re going to make it through the night,” Caduceus says, taking the bandages and unrolling them as much as he can with one hand while the other stays firmly against Fjord’s chest.
Caleb stiffens. “And is that medicine that you have?”
Would it help or hurt more if Caduceus let on exactly how worried he is? He rips the bandage free and hands it to Yasha. “I have enough to make it work. For now, start wrapping Beau up with this. As firmly as you can, please.”
Yasha takes the bandages and kneels down by Beau. Caduceus sends a beetle scuttling from his staff and stabilizes her as much as he can with the absolute dredges of magical energy he can summon up. It’s not enough to really heal much, but it will keep her steady until they find a safe place to let them rest.
“I have one spell left,” Caleb says. Caduceus wonders if he knows his voice is shaking. “One big one that can transport us one way.”
The bandages are almost soaked instantly as Caduceus packs them in against Fjord’s shuddering chest. “We need somewhere where we can get them to safety pretty fast. No long walking distances.”
“Back to Xhorhas?” Yasha says.
“No, we have been gone for too long to return without any explanation. We could go back to the Cobalt Soul in Zadash. That will require the least amount of walking and talking, I think.”
Caduceus trusts Caleb’s judgement about that. He unrolls another length of bandages to tie against the wounds.
“Who needs to be carried?” Yasha asks. “Can any of them walk?”
“Doubt it,” Caduceus says. “I don’t want to risk a spine injury on top of everything else if there’s anything I’ve missed.”
“From a head injury, you mean?” Caleb looks him over. “What about your head, is it all right?”
“I’ll be fine for now.” The headache is fierce but the gripping fear of losing one of the others is stronger. “How about this: Yasha carries Jester and Nott, since she can handle two. Caleb takes Beau, and I take Fjord, since they’re closer to our sizes.”
Yasha doesn’t make any noise of agreement or otherwise but does immediately head off to go collect Jester. Caleb seems reluctant to release the white-knuckled grip he has around Nott, but seems to understand the reasoning behind passing her off to Yasha when he finally nods slowly, which is a relief. Caduceus is not really in the right frame of mind for much arguing at the moment.
Caduceus packs another wad of fabric against the wounds still sluggishly bleeding down Fjord’s torso and ties it off tightly. This provokes another slight keening noise from Fjord, which Caduceus takes as an improvement. He channels another scrap of magic into him, not enough to heal anything but enough to keep his ravaged insides stable for transport.
“Nott, if you can hear me, I need you to hold onto Yasha for a few minutes, ja?” Caleb murmurs behind him. Caduceus can just see her wide green ears twitch out of the corner of his eye, which he takes as her best attempt at a nod. When Yasha comes back carrying Jester in her arms, she reaches for her slowly. Caleb passes her over to Yasha, who tucks her up on her back.
Hauling Fjord up takes a lot more effort than Caduceus expected. He’s absolutely dead weight in his arms, and Caduceus is reluctant to peel his hand away from the bandaged wounds any longer than necessary. The final pull to get him on his feet makes Caduceus’s head spin, and he staggers a bit while trying to adjust the arm thrown across his shoulders.
“One minute for the circle, then everyone runs through,” Caleb says. He’s moved Beau a few inches closer so she lays right beside him as he works. When the circle finishes he’ll be able to drag her through if he hurries.
Right next to his ear, Fjord whines softly. Caduceus glances down and feels his stomach flip when he sees more red already dripping through the bandages hastily tied around his middle. He can keep casting Spare the Dying, but without any actual healing done he isn’t going to last much longer.
It feels like the minute lasts an hour before Caleb finally calls out, “Almost there, everyone get ready!”
The arcane lines glow a bright blue, and the three of them stagger through the transportation circle. The six second limit almost cuts off Yasha and the two bodies she's hauling in her arms. Diving through the transport itself feels wobbly, like the connecting thread between the ruined chamber and the floor of the Cobalt Soul is seconds away from dissolving into nothing as they force their way through. It's close, but they all just manage to make it through.
When they tumble out into the Cobalt Soul, there is no one in the immediate vicinity. Caduceus spares a second to wonder where everyone might be before Caleb speaks up.
"Other academic pursuits must have been put on hold when they heard about the attack on Rexxentrum," he says. He hitches Beau up a bit higher to get a better grip around her waist, and Caduceus winces when the movement jostles the tenuous scabbing over her wounded stomach. "I am sure they do not want a repeat of what happened here last time Obann was around."
"We need to get these four somewhere where I can get to work," Caduceus says, trying to keep his voice as mild as possible. Steadily mounting anxiety is clawing at his belly the longer his friends go without treatment, but he doesn't want to cause any panic when he knows he's going to need at least a couple extra sets of hands. "After they're stable we can look around for any healers or doctors that might have stayed behind."
He personally doubts that they'll find anyone still around who could help them, and judging by the furrowed look on Caleb's face, he feels the same. "I remember exactly where Beau's dormitory is. That had enough room for all of us last time."
That feels like ages ago at this point. Caduceus nods all them same. The movement sends Fjord's head lolling against his shoulder, which he quickly tries to steady.
As they all start heading through the winding halls of the Cobalt Soul towards the dormitories, he tries to start up a running inventory of what all he has packed away in terms of healing herbs. Turmeric for inflammation, yarrow to stop the bleeding… he doesn’t remember if he’d labelled everything, which might be a problem if he has to have Caleb or Yasha dig around for supplies.
Thinking too much too fast makes his head pound, and there’s not a problem he can solve in the moment while dragging Fjord towards Beau’s room, so he concentrates on keeping Fjord stable on his shoulder and silently repeating a prayer to the Wildmother for her guidance when they finally reach the right door.
Caleb starts fishing around in Beau’s pocket for the key, and even in his distracted state Caduceus can see how badly his hands are shaking. Before he can warn Caleb to keep Beau’s neck steady, Yasha strides forward with Jester and Nott still clutched around her and kicks the door hard enough for the lock to splinter inwards.
“That’s one way to do it,” Caduceus says. Fjord’s breath is sounding bubbly in his ear, meaning they don’t have a second to waste. “Yasha, I’m going to need water and any bandages you can get together, and Caleb, could you please get a fire going for us?”
They work their way inside, getting Fjord and Beau laid out on the bed. Nott and Jester are at least in and out of consciousness, so Yasha lays out a bedroll for them and gets them situated on the floor. Caleb goes to the fireplace where there is mercifully a small stack of wood he can use to coax a fire into life.
Caduceus grabs his pack and starts rifling through it, pulling out every vial and cloth-wrapped herb he has stashed away. A quick glance over the four of them puts Fjord and Beau at the top of his priority list. Beau’s bandages are a bit inexpertly placed and have started slipping after their dash through the circle, so he can see the way the wound has torn open again, as well as the inflamed red edges of the slice through her abdomen. Fjord is also in a bad state – his green face is ashen, and blood is starting to trickle through the soaked fabric at his side once again.
Yarrow is the first thing Caduceus grabs. He has a vial of powdered flowers as well as some whole sprigs of the blossoms themselves. He sends another prayer of thanks to the Wildmother when he finds comfrey root buried at the bottom of the bag as well.
“Caleb, come take this and get some water boiling,” Caduceus says.
“What are these?”
“It’s something to stop the bleeding, encourage clotting.”
Yasha trades the roll of bandages pulled from her own pack for the sprig of yarrow. “I’ve seen this in Xhorhas before. We called it staunchweed.”
“That’s a good name for it.” Caduceus presses the vial and the roots into Caleb’s hands. “Peel these, cut them up, and once the water is hot simmer the powdered yarrow and the comfrey together. Keep an eye on the water to make sure it doesn’t get too hot, it’s going to go on their skin.”
Caleb takes the handful of herbs, brow furrowed as he turns to start preparing the roots. Caduceus reaches out to take half of the yarrow blossoms back from Yasha. “These we can use as a poultice for now. You take Beau and I’ll take Fjord. Start by unwrapping the bandages, since the flowers are going to have to go right on the wounds.”
“How do you know this will work?” Yasha asks.
He pauses, halfway through unwinding the blood-soaked wrappings around Fjord’s torso. Her voice is quiet, holding back a thousand questions he’s sure she has for all of them after everything that’s happened. If he had to guess, he would say that that was the only one that she felt was innocent enough to ask in the moment.
“Sparing the dying works two ways,” he finally answers. “Being a keeper of the graves means guiding people away from early ones or helping along the people who are ready to find rest in theirs. You could say I’m good at telling how nature can help in either case.”
“I suppose that is… nice, in a way,” Yasha offers.
Caduceus hums a bit in acknowledgement before turning his attention back to Fjord, who twitches slightly when Caduceus tugs on the bandages. They’re slick and tacky with blood, and when Caduceus goes to pull them away, he lets out a plaintive noise that hurts to hear.
“Sorry, Fjord, but these are going to have to come off if you’re going to get well.” He unstops his water skin and pours some over the bandages, hoping to unstick them a little as he slowly starts to peel them off. Fjord gasps and his eyelids flicker, but he doesn’t wake up as Caduceus works. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Yasha doing the same thing with Beau, who instinctively is putting up a little bit more of a fight. She murmurs something low enough that he almost doesn’t catch what she says, but he can just make out the shape of an apology.
“Now we have to get the yarrow in there, so we can hopefully start to get these wounds sealed up,” Caduceus says. “I’m not sure if you can hear me, Fjord, but this is going to sting a little.” Before he can second guess himself, Caduceus lays the mass of plants down onto the bites and presses them along the edges. Fjord jerks, a hiss escaping his throat as he tries to dislodge the pressure against his chest. Caduceus hums in a way he hopes is at least marginally comforting, even as Fjord struggles beneath his hands. He reminds himself that struggling is better than stillness in this case.
Next to him, Yasha is having a little bit more trouble with Beau. Caduceus doesn’t miss the moment when the blood in Beau’s own chest wound bubbles up over Yasha’s fingers where she’s trying to get the yarrow in place, and Yasha suddenly goes very still.
“Yasha?” Caduceus asks, the note of concern in his voice hopefully not betraying the roiling emotions churning when Yasha lets up the pressure on Beau’s body. “Yasha, you need to press down a bit harder to keep her from bleeding out before Caleb has the comfrey ready.”
She doesn’t respond. Her long hair has fallen forward, a dark curtain separating her face from the rest of the world, but she seems fixated on her bloodied arms. Caduceus looks back and forth between her and Fjord, trying to figure out which one needs him more in the moment.
“Caleb, how much longer do you need?” he asks. Across the room, Caleb is glancing back and forth between the four of them on the bed and the kettle of water propped up in the fireplace.
“Just another minute – I think the yarrow is not all the way dissolved yet.”
“As soon as it is, bring it over here and start dipping the bandages in it so we can wrap these two back up.”
Caduceus hesitates, then resolves to either help Yasha come back to herself or get her out of the way before Beau loses too much blood. He reaches one hand across the bed to brush the hair out of her face and get a better look at her, while still trying to keep Fjord stable on the other side.
Yasha shudders when his hand gets close to her neck. Ah, so that’s it, Caduceus thinks sadly. He pulls away, giving her room to pull herself together. “Talk to me, Yasha. I need to know if this is too much for you.”
She blinks slowly, eyes hazy and unfocused. “The blood…” she mutters, then falls silent.
Caduceus sucks in a breath. Of course, the last time Yasha’s hands were covered in Beau’s blood, she had just driven a sword through her. “Yasha, I understand that this is a lot for you to deal with right now. All I need is for you to keep pressure on this wound for a few more seconds, and then it’ll be over, I promise.” Once Caleb is ready and the bandages are in place, he’ll be able to keep both of them steady, but he can’t keep enough pressure on both of them with just two hands. He splays his fingers out on her broad shoulders, sending a prayer to the Wildmother to help guide Yasha forward. “That’s it, just lean on that and don’t let up.”
Beneath Yasha’s hands, Beau squirms and mumbles something, high pitched and shuddery in a way that sounds utterly foreign to how she usually is. Yasha and Beau both look pale, but at least Yasha seems like she won’t let go again. Caduceus exhales sharply and redoubles the pressure on Fjord.
Waiting for Caleb to steep the roots and then dip the bandages seems to take an eternity, and by the time he finally rushes over clutching the damp cloth, Caduceus’s arms are shaking in earnest.
“That’s great, Caleb,” Caduceus says, trying for a reassuring smile. “Can you help Yasha get those in place, and then maybe take her for a walk? I think some fresh air is going to do her some good.”
“I – ja, I can do that,” Caleb says, a little breathlessly. Caduceus runs a critical eye over him, noting the white rimmed eyes and the way his fingers twitch to scratch at his forearms. Mentally he readjusts his statement to say that fresh air would do both of them some good.
“Start with the treated ones, then wrap those with dry bandages to keep everything in place.”
Caleb nods, half his attention on Yasha and half on Beau as they both work together to cover up the slash wound with the infused bandages. Caduceus does the same, keeping Fjord stable with one elbow on his chest while the other hand maneuvers the bandages into place. With his face close to Fjord’s, it’s a bit easier to tell that his breathing is a little smoother, and once everything is cleaned and covered with the dry white bandages, Caduceus is able to shift his mindset from complete crisis mode to a still urgent but less immediately dire setting.
“Okay,” Caduceus says, letting just a little bit of the tension out of his shoulders. “Okay.”
Caleb gives Yasha’s shoulder a tentative touch. “Do you want to come for a walk with me, Yasha?” His voice is gentle if a bit unsteady. Caduceus can hardly blame him for that.
Yasha hesitates, but eventually nods and gets to her feet. Caleb guides her towards the door before glancing behind at Caduceus and the four figures laid out around him.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control here,” Caduceus says. “Go get her to a better place mentally while I start making some tea.”
He waits while Caleb nods, gives the room one last look for safety, and then helps Yasha out into the hallway. As soon as they’re out of earshot, Caduceus’ ears droop and he lets out a shuddering exhale. His head is absolutely pounding at this point, pulsing with each beat of his heart. He goes to scrub his hands over his face, before realizing they’re still coated in blood and he thinks better of it.
Wildmother, guide me. Show me how to help them all last through the night.
Checking over Beau reassures him that Yasha and Caleb did a decent job getting the bandages in place, even if they’re a bit too loose again. Even better, when he goes to readjust them, Beau’s eyes drift open for a moment. Caduceus gives her a smile as he pulls the bandages tighter around her middle. She snarls at him, trying to brush his hands away. Caduceus holds steady, even when she somehow manages to get her knee up under her and weakly drive it up into his side. It’s barely enough to make him flinch.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, not really expecting an answer but hoping to see that she can hear him. Sure enough, she rolls her eyes and even tries to form some kind of response before exhaustion takes her over again and her eyelids slide shut.
Fjord is still deeply unconscious, which Caduceus was expecting. At the very least there’s a bit more color in his cheeks and he doesn’t sound like he’s gasping on each breath anymore. Caduceus smooths down the bandages anyway to check for any blood leaking through, but he seems stable enough for now.
That leaves Nott and Jester on the floor.
Caduceus crouches down next to them, one hand gripping the side of the bed for balance as the movement sends his vision spinning a little bit. Both of them are sleeping relatively soundly, which Caduceus hates to interrupt, but he has to make sure they’re safe enough to leave alone a little bit longer.
Pulling back the scrap of fabric wrapped around Nott’s head reveals a darkened bruise and a slight trickle of blood through her hairline. He runs his hands around her neck and skull, checking for swelling, and fortunately finds nothing that points towards anything more serious than a nasty concussion.
He gently shakes her shoulder, which makes her groan and slowly curl her limbs into a tight ball. After a few more moments, she finally cracks one eye open.
“‘M sleeping, Cad,” she mutters, voice still heavy and exhausted.
“I know. Sorry about that. I just have to check to make sure you’re not comatose.” Before she can protest, Caduceus leans right up next to her, holding her cheeks and checking the size of her pupils. A bit dilated and a touch unfocused, but the same size and shape. Nott hisses at him, trying to push him off of her. When Caduceus releases her face, her hands fly to her head, pressing at the tender skin around her temple.
“Ugh,” she spits out.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Caduceus says sympathetically. “If you can stay awake for a couple more minutes, I’m getting some pain killing tea ready.”
“Don’t like tea.”
“You’ll like this one.” Caduceus pulls the bandage back down over the cut on her head. “And don’t mess with that if you don’t want an infection.”
Nott grumbles, but doesn’t reach for the cut again. Caduceus takes that as a good sign and turns to shake Jester awake as well, mindful of her broken bones. It takes a second, but her eyes flutter open without too much of a struggle.
“Hey there,” Caduceus says. “Just making sure you’re still with us.”
Jester mumbles something he doesn’t quite pick up, and then tries to maneuver herself up into a sitting position.
“Woah, hold on there.” Caduceus gently guides her down to the bedroll. “I don’t think you’re ready to be going anywhere just yet.”
“You’ve got blood on your face,” Jester says quietly, her voice a little wheezy. She reaches out a hand towards him, which Caduceus catches with his own.
“Not all of it is mine. Do you still have some healing magic left?”
“It’s not much,” Jester says. “Maybe one or two more spells.”
A wave of unexpected relief washes over him, and he squeezes her hand, thanking the Wildmother and Jester’s Traveler in his heart. “I don’t need it as much as Beau and Fjord do. If I help you up do you think you could…?”
Jester nods quietly, squeezing his hand back. Caduceus gets a firm grip on her shoulders and carefully helps her stagger up to her feet. Judging by the way she stiffens and has to pause to catch her breath, her ribs are still hurting her a lot. He makes a mental note to give her some of the comfrey for the bruising and gives her an arm to lean on while she heads over to their friends laid out on the bed.
Her violet eyes are wide as she looks over the masses of bandages firmly tied around them. She leans forward to brush a hand over Beau’s arm, but has to stop and clutch at her own chest with a hiss.
“It looks worse than it is,” Caduceus says, hopefully in a helpful manner. “The bleeding is stopped for now, and the yarrow should be helping with clotting, but anything you can do to get the wounds sealed up a bit more would be appreciated.”
Jester gives him a watery smile. “Don’t worry, the Traveler and I are really good at this whole healing thing.” She has to stop to catch her breath in between the words.
Caduceus rubs circles in her back, hoping to free up some of the tension in the muscles to ease her breathing a bit and to give her some comfort before leaving her to get started on her prayer. He checks the kettle over the fire, which still has a little bit of the comfrey water left in it. Not wanting to let any of it go to waste, he dips another handful of bandages into it and wrings them halfway out before setting them aside to use later. He then refills the kettle to heat some more water and begins rooting around in his pack for his stash of rosehip and ginger to make tea with.
There’s two flashes of verdant green light from the bed.
“How’s it going over there?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder at where Jester is perched between Beau and Fjord. She gives him a thumbs up, still clearly trying to save her breath. Caduceus gives her a nod of acknowledgement, then busies himself with steeping the tea and pouring it into the three teacups he has set out on the table.
When Caduceus makes his way back over to Jester, balancing the three cups and the bandages, she takes one of the offered cups and sniffs it hesitantly. “Is this more dead person tea?”
“Well, the rosehip grew from the Matthys family, but the ginger came from the garden, so I guess the answer is only partially yes.”
Jester takes a hesitant sip from the cup. “Hmm, the Matthys family tastes pretty good.”
“It also should help improve circulation and cut down on inflammation, and works as a decent painkiller,” Caduceus says. “Here, help me get some into Beau, if she can manage it.”
Working together, they’re able to maneuver Beau into a sitting position so she doesn’t choke on the tea. The movement gets her to crack her eyes open, even though she can’t quite form words yet. Jester holds her up and supports her head and neck while Caduceus coaxes her into taking a few sips of the tea. Beau seems too tired to put up too much of a fight and manages to choke down a little bit of the tea before her eyes fall shut again.
Fjord takes a little bit more effort, since he still has yet to wake up at all. Caduceus ends up adjusting him onto his side and having Jester hold his head steady while he soaks the tea into a clean swath of fabric and tries to sponge it into his mouth. Most of it trickles out of the corners of his lips, but eventually Caduceus can see his throat start working to swallow it down.
“There we go, that’s great,” Caduceus says, once Fjord manages to swallow about half of the cup. That’s probably about all he’ll be able to handle for now, but it’s better than nothing.
He sighs and readjusts the bandages around Beau and Fjord. He’ll have to start layering on more treated bandages once these start to dry out, but the yarrow and comfrey seem to be doing their jobs to staunch the bleeding, and the additional push from Jester’s magic makes him feel more reasonably certain that they’ll both last through the night.
Next to him, he catches Jester’s jaw-cracking yawn and the way her shoulders are bowing underneath the weight of pain and exhaustion. When he pulls her away from Beau and Fjord on the bed, she goes without protest, seemingly happy to let him help her to her feet and guide her back to the bedroll on the floor.
“Thank you for your help, Jester,” Caduceus says sincerely, getting her situated next to Nott, who has fallen asleep again. He considers waking her up, but judging by the dark circles under her eyes and the steady, deep pattern of her breathing, sleep might do her more good. He’ll just have the tea ready for her in the morning.
Jester yawns, one hand drifting towards her sore ribs automatically. “They’re going to be okay, Caduceus,” she says, her words slightly slurred with sleepiness. “You need to get some sleep too.” She wrinkles her nose a bit. “Maybe after you clean your face off.”
Now that she’s pointed it out, Caduceus can feel the way his hair is plastered against his head and the sensation of something dried to his face.
“Sounds like a good idea to me. Get some rest, Jester.”
Jester sighs and closes her eyes.
That is… all four of them asleep. Nott is curled up in a ball, bandage wrapped firmly around her head. Jester’s breaths have evened out and the tension has gone out of her frame. On the bed, Beau and Fjord are quiet, but seem to have transitioned from unconsciousness to genuine sleep. Yasha and Caleb are still out on a walk, but they were relatively whole, if a bit banged up and bloodied.
Speaking of bloodied, the tacky substance matting the fine fur on his face is suddenly significantly more unsettling than it had been a few seconds ago, when he was still gripped by the urge to do something to keep everyone breathing through the night.
He should probably wash up.
Rising to his feet one more time makes his head throb and he has to take a second to steady himself. He doesn’t know how he was working through it before, but now it is aching fiercely as he stumbles his way into the washroom connected to the dormitory.
The firelight doesn’t quite reach into this room, so Caduceus gets a light spell going. When the room illuminates and he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he flinches almost instinctively.
Jester wasn’t kidding when she said he looked a mess. The right half of his face is splattered with blood, most of it coming out of an abrasion along his hairline. It looks like it’s going to need stitches if he can’t heal it up soon. His arms are also coated up to the elbows and there’s a large smear across his shoulders and chest, sticky and red where he was physically holding his friends together.
Caduceus makes eye contact with himself in the mirror and is a bit surprised to see how harried and sunken his own eyes look. There’s a tightness in his face, and now that he can see it in the mirror it’s much more apparent how badly his arms are shaking.
He inhales and exhales slowly, trying to calm the tide of apprehension knotting in his sternum. Everyone is going to be fine, he’s taken care of them to the absolute best of his ability, and it’s all in the Wildmother’s hands now.
His eyes are prickling and it’s harder to look at himself in the mirror. Maybe it would be better if he sat down for a minute.
He leans against the back wall of the washroom and slides down it, folding up his legs underneath him and trying to keep himself pulled together. He wants to wipe at his eyes but doesn’t relish the idea of smearing even more blood across his face, so he settles for pressing his head against his knees. Trying to calm down the tremors running through his fingers doesn’t go as well as he hoped.
When the first few tears break free, it’s not exactly a surprise given the feelings of anxiety and relief brewing in his chest. He sucks in a breath, doing his best to quell them, but it seems like this might be what he needs for just a second. He lets them fall, pressing his face against his knees to cover the sound of sniffling. The emotions overwhelm him for a moment while he holds himself, and if he had even a scrap of magic left he’d be doing his best to calm them with the Wildmother’s help. As it is, he just has to ride it out as best he can.
He is exhausted, trying very hard to pull himself together. His head is pounding and the crying is not doing that any favors. He does his best to wipe the blood off his hands onto his jacket so he can swipe at his nose. Taking a few shuddering deep breaths helps him to finally find a calm place to relax into. Everything is sore and aching, but he manages.
He really should clean himself up and go check on the others, but the tile behind his head feels cool. He gives himself another moment alone to breathe. Once he hears Caleb and Yasha coming back, he’ll get on his feet and get back to work.
For now, he just closes his eyes.