Chapter Text
The merchant caravan had stopped for the night at a weathered inn on the southern coast, where the salt air mingled with the scent of spices and perfumes lingering from before the markets closed for the day. It was a quaint little seaside town that had replaced a sprawling city she had once visited with her master.
Such was the nature of human settlements; they came and went.
She had debated asking the innkeeper to deliver her dinner to her room, but her stomach rumbling decided otherwise. Instead, she had gone downstairs, a grimoire from the mythical era in hand, one she had acquired from a few villages back.
Frieren sat alone throughout the evening at a corner table, a half-finished bowl of stew growing cold before her as she paged through the grimoire. The spell she sought from it was unremarkable, a minor incantation for preserving cut flowers, but she found herself reading the same passage over and over, making sure she understood how it came to be and what counteracts its efficacy.
‘So, keeping the flowers in water is actually counterproductive in this case...’ she found herself thinking.
The inn's common room buzzed with the sound of travelers exchanging news. Frieren had long ago learned to let human conversation wash over her like background noise, but a fragment cut through her concentration.
"...Himmel the hero, can you believe it?"
Her fingers stilled on the page.
"Collapsed right in his own home, they say. Some kind of curse. The priests can't wake him."
Frieren's chair scraped against the wooden floor as she stood. The two travelers at the next table glanced up, startled by the sudden movement from the slight, white-haired elven woman who'd been so still and quiet all evening.
"What did you say?" Her voice came out shakier than she expected. "About Himmel?"
The older man turned to face her fully. "You haven't heard? It's been the talk of every town for months now. He has fallen into a cursed sleep. They've had mages and healers from across the continent trying to help, but nothing works." He shook his head sadly. "A demon did it, they say. Revenge for the Demon King."
Frieren stood frozen. The grimoire slipped from her fingers and hit the table with a dull thud.
Cursed sleep.
The words lodged in her chest like a splinter. For months, Himmel had been unconscious and vulnerable, and she had been sitting in dusty libraries and overgrown ruins, collecting spells to make bread sweeter and to preserve various flora.
"Where?"
"They say he lies in his home in the capital. His companions, the priest and the warrior, are asking for anyone to come forth and help—"
Frieren was already moving toward the staircase to go up to her room.
“I’ll be checking out now,” she muttered over her shoulder to the innkeeper as she climbed the stairs.
Back in her room, Frieren’s movements were uncharacteristically frantic. She didn't carefully fold her spare clothes or organize her collection of seeds and herbs. Instead, she shoved everything into her luggage, bottled potions, clinking dangerously against one another.
She didn’t care. For once, time was truly of the essence.
She paused for only a second, her hand resting on the trunk's lid. She looked at the grimoire she had brought up from the common room. The spell for preserving flowers seemed so banal now.
She didn’t recall caring about a human’s wellbeing so intensely since her master had fallen fatally ill.
But her heart was racing, and her fingers were shaky.
Frieren shut the trunk.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm her heartbeat, but it kept pounding heavily against her chest.
She couldn’t hear anything else, with the buzzing in her ears growing stronger.
Her fingers curled slightly.
“…This is inefficient,” she murmured.
She straightened, pulling her luggage off the bed in a single, ungraceful motion as she turned and left the room.
The innkeeper barely had time to look up before she crossed the common room again.
“You can’t be leaving already” he said, surprised. “At this hour—”
Frieren placed a small pouch of coins on the counter.
“I am.”
People murmured behind them, staring at her like she’d lost her mind.
“The roads are dangerous at night, miss.”
“I’ll manage.”
Then, she heard heavy footsteps behind her.
“You’re the mage from the hero’s party, aren’t you? You’re going to see him?”
She turned around to look at him, it was the same man from earlier, the very one who told her about Himmel’s predicament.
For a moment, she considered denying it.
It would be easier; it always was. That was how she mainly avoided conversation nowadays, ever since her journey with her companions had ended ten years ago.
But instead, she nodded.
“Yes.”
The man’s smile softened.
“I was planning on leaving for the capital early in the morning tomorrow, but a head start wouldn’t hurt. You’d find it difficult to find another caravan at this time, so please, consider joining me.”
“I’d rather travel alone—”
“I could use the protection of a seasoned mage like you. Mister Hans is right, the roads are treacherous at night.” The old merchant said, his head tilting towards the innkeeper before looking back at the elf. “So, what do you say?”
Frieren stared at the merchant. She couldn’t think of a reason to refuse him.
"How fast can you get us there?”
"Usually, the journey from here to the capital would take at least a week," the merchant countered, unfazed by her bluntness. "But I have a pair of dapple-greys bred for the royal post, and a light carriage. If we skip a few sleep stops and push through the night, we can probably reach the capital in three days. Besides," he looked at her with a knowing look only a man of his years could muster, “though it may not seem like it to you right now, I enjoy quiet rides very much. You may spend the journey reading your books in peace.”
Frieren looked at the grimoire resting atop her trunk.
"Fine," she murmured. "But we leave now."
"The horses are already being harnessed," the man said, gesturing toward the stables.
The journey was a blur of shadows and the rhythmic clop-clop of hooves against the gravel. Frieren sat in the passenger seat, the salt air of the coast replaced by the damp, chilling fog of the inner lowlands.
She tried to focus on her grimoire, but the text swam before her eyes, thoughts of Himmel taking over.
‘Ten years,’ she thought. ‘I told him and the others I’d see them in fifty, but I guess life had other plans.’
To an elf, ten years was a blink in an otherwise endless lifetime. To a human, however...
...she hadn’t thought of that before.
"You look like you're carrying the weight of the Goddess herself, Miss Mage," the merchant remarked, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead. “What is your name?”
"Frieren," The elf replied, her hands tightening on the leather strap of her luggage. "And I am merely assessing the situation. Curses of demonic origin are complex. If it has been months, the mana will have rooted itself into his consciousness. It’s... it’s useless to worry before I see the mana signature for myself."
"Yet you seem worried nonetheless" The man chuckled sadly. "My wife used to say that the longer you live, the more you realize that rationalizing is just what we do when we're too afraid to feel the sting of the moment."
Frieren bit her lower lip.
The merchant laughed again. “Name’s Hector by the way.”
She didn’t respond.
Instead, she stared up at the moon, the same moon that had shone over their campfire a decade ago when Himmel had joked about how he’d look even more handsome with a bit of grey in his hair as a retort to Heiter saying he would age more gracefully than him.
‘Does he have grey hairs now?’
She shook her head.
It was useless to wonder.
She was going to see him soon anyway.
Three days later, the white spires of the Royal Capital finally became visible. By the time they reached the city’s gates, Frieren didn't wait for the carriage to fully stop at the checkpoint. She quickly muttered her thanks to Hector as she hopped down, almost tripping due to her trunk’s weight, and flashed her mage emblem at the stunned guards.
The city was bustling, as it always had ever since it came to be. The only difference was the presence of fliers everywhere, asking for any skilled priest or mage to come to the aid of the sleeping hero.
She reached Himmel’s house by mid-morning. It was a modest home, tucked away in a quiet district, the garden filled with flowers that were beginning to wilt from neglect.
She pushed the door open, not bothering to knock.
The smell of incense and holy water hit her immediately. In the hallway, she saw a familiar silhouette. He looked the same as she remembered.
"Frieren," Eisen’s eyebrows shot upwards, clearly surprised to see her.
"Where is he?"
Eisen knew not to expect a warm reunion from his old companion, even more so now that the situation was dire. He simply turned and led her toward the back bedroom. "Heiter is inside. He’s been using purification spells around the clock to keep the curse from reaching the heart. Himmel...he’s not doing well, Frieren."
Frieren stepped into the room. It was dim, lit by a few flickering candles. Heiter sat by the bedside, his eyes bloodshot, his priestly robes wrinkled. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.
But Frieren’s eyes didn’t linger on him. Instead, they went immediately to the bed.
Himmel looked tortured, as if he were sleeping through a nightmare. Hovering over him was a faint, jagged aura of violet mana. It was definitely a curse, and a demonic one at that.
"You're late," Heiter whispered, his eyebrows knotting together into a scowl, as if scolding a child...but then his lips lifted into a smirk. "But I suppose for an elf, this is practically an early arrival."
Frieren walked to the bedside. She reached out and, for the first time in ten years, touched him. His skin wasn’t too cold, but it wasn’t at a healthy warmth either. She frowned.
"It's a slow death," she said, her voice trembling slightly despite her best efforts. "He isn't just sleeping. His organs are gradually failing. It’s...it’s very...”
“Cruel?”
She looked at the priest and nodded.
“I know, I figured out what the curse immediately too, but none of the incantations I know seem to be helping at all, they’re not even slowing things down.”
"Can you break it?" Eisen asked Frieren.
Frieren looked at the violet mana, then at her suitcase and the handful of grimoires she carried, including the one about preserving flowers.
An idea came to her.
“I need to study the curse further to try and break it, but that may take a while.”
Eisen and Heiter’s shoulder slumped, knowing that a while for Frieren could be an eternity for them, and for Himmel. An eternity he never had and he surely has even less now.
“Frieren—”
“In the meantime, however, I think I can modify a spell I just learned to use on him...to put him in stasis.”
The elf knelt by his bedside, her fingers tracing the air just inches above the violet, jagged mana.
Heiter leaned forward, trying to understand her train of thought. "Stasis? Frieren, I’ve been using every purification rite in the scriptures just to keep his heart beating, trying to imbue positive magic into his body. A stasis spell on a body already under a curse... I don’t think it’s been attempted before...the mana rejection could be catastrophic."
"I know it’s never been attempted on a human before," Frieren countered, her eyes scanning the complex geometric patterns of the demonic curse. She reached over her trunk to grab the mythical-era grimoire she had been reading at the inn. "It’s a spell for the preservation of cut flowers."
“Himmel’s not a flower—”
"To this curse, he is," she replied flatly. "This demonic mana seems to be designed to 'wither' the host. It treats the human body like organic matter that has been severed from its roots. That’s why your healing magic isn't working, Heiter. You’re trying to mend a wound, but the curse is convincing his body that it’s time to decay."
“That...” The priest looked at his sleeping friend and then at the elf, “that makes sense now that you put it that way. But it also means that no healing spell can save him.”
“Correct.”
Heiter’s face paled at her confirmation, causing Eisen to step forward.
“So, what needs to be done then, Frieren?”
"The preservation spell works by halting the exchange of energy with the outside world, which is good in this case because wilting requires exposure to the elements" Frieren explained, her voice steady and her attitude clinical. "If I modify a bit of the spell’s wording and structure, I’m pretty sure it can work on a human body. The curse will still be there, but it will have nothing to feed on, all while maintaining the needed elements for his survival, meaning allowing him to continue breathing and for his heart to continue beating. The curse will just be trapped in a state of arrested development, just like him."
Eisen looked at Himmel’s pale face, then back at Frieren. "How long will it buy us?"
"I don't know," Frieren admitted. "Human life is fragile, and I can’t be sure that the stasis can hold indefinitely like it does for flowers. But...it will buy me time to try and break the curse. What happened to the demon who cast it?”
“Himmel killed him,” Heiter explained. “Like you said, the curse is a slow death, meaning he didn’t start feeling its effects immediately. As his health started to deteriorate, he wrote me, asking if I could come take a look at his symptoms. By the time I arrived to the capital from the holy city, he was in really bad shape.”
“He was still awake?”
“Yes, and...” Heiter stopped for a moment, swallowing away a lump in his throat, his eyes threatening to tear up, “he was in a lot of pain.”
Frieren’s hand, still hovering near Himmel’s chest, twitched.
The thought of Himmel, the hero who always helped those in need, who’s always been so focused on the comfort of others...enduring a slow, agonizing death was just too brutal to imagine.
Frieren has seen countless humans die of horrible and painful circumstances, and she had never stopped to wonder why before. But Himmel...
Not Himmel.
"He asked about you," Eisen added softly, his voice like gravel. "Right before the sleep took him. He wondered what kind of spells you were finding on your travels."
Frieren didn't look up. She focused entirely on the grimoire, her thumb tracing the ink of the flower-preservation spell. Himmel had always praised her for all the random spells she gathered, and she used to think him a fool for complimenting her for such a useless pursuit.
Yet this little meaningless spell could be the key to saving his life.
Maybe you’re not a fool after all, Himmel.
She smiled.
“I will modify the flower preservation spell; it shouldn’t take me more than a few hours. Then I’ll start studying the curse.”
Heiter chuckled under his breath, shaking his head.
“You haven’t changed at all,” he murmured. “Still attempting impossible things like they’re possible.”
Eisen huffed. “And still expecting us to go along with them.”
Frieren said nothing.
After a moment of silence, Heiter spoke again.
“Do it,” he said.
Eisen glanced at him. “You’re sure?”
Heiter looked at Himmel.
“He would want her to,” he answers the dwarf before looking back at the white-haired mage, “he believes in you.”
The next few hours were marked by the scratching of a quill and the rhythmic rustle of parchment. Frieren sat on the floor, surrounded by open grimoires and a bunch of loose notes, worrying her bottom lip as she reworked the fundamental structure of the flower preservation incantation.
Heiter and Eisen helped in their way. The warrior made sure she had water and snacks throughout, and Heiter looked over her notes with her, offering suggestions based on his knowledge from healing spells, but also knowing when to retreat to offer her the peace and quiet she needed to focus.
"The logic for flowers is based on the cessation of sap flow," Frieren murmured to herself, not looking up. "For Himmel, I must substitute the flow of malevolent mana. I need to bypass the brain's signals for pain and decay while leaving the autonomic functions intact."
She paused, her quill hovering. “It’s like when bears go into hibernation, only even more extreme.”
She kept on working on modifications all night.
By sunrise, with the first rays of sunshine creeping through the mostly shut curtains, Frieren finally stood, her small frame casting a long shadow over Himmel’s bed.
"I'm ready," she said.
Heiter stood by her side, his hand glowing with a faint holy light over Himmel’s chest. "I'll keep his soul stable."
Frieren raised her staff, her eyes on Himmel’s face. She began to chant the words to the incantation she just crafted out of the flower preservation one.
"Freeze the life, keep the breath. Let the season of wilting find no purchase here. Anchor the spirit, and keep the flow of blood. But remain as you are, until the winter of this curse is undone."
A ripple of translucent light blue mana washed over the bed. The jagged violet of the curse remained intact, but Himmel’s breathing slowed until it was almost imperceptible, his chest barely rising and falling. The sickly pallor of his skin didn't vanish, but his face loosened, no longer contorted.
Frieren lowered her staff as she let out a deep breath.
"It’s done," she whispered. "He's in stasis now. As long as I maintain the spell with a supply of my mana every once in a while, he won't get any worse."
Heiter slumped back into his chair, the exhaustion finally claiming his features. "Thank the Goddess. The pain... it’s gone from his face."
Eisen nodded before turning to look at the mage with a grateful smile, “Thank you, Frieren. He probably would have been dead in a few days if it weren’t for you.”
Frieren walked closer to the bed. She finally allowed herself to look at Himmel’s features, to properly look at him. He looked a bit older, but he was still just as handsome. Her thoughts took her back to the question she had while on her way here with Hector the merchant, the answer now before her. He did indeed have some grey hairs now.
‘He probably hates that,’ she thought.
Before she realized what she was doing to even think of stopping herself, she reached out and tucked a stray lock of blue hair behind his ear.
"I’m going to start analyzing the curse now," she said, though her eyes did not leave his face. "Heiter. Did he say anything about the demon? Anything specific about the fight?"
“Later,” the priest answered through a yawn, “now that he’s stable, we can all finally catch up on some much needed sleep. Eisen and I have been using the two beds in the guest room, but I could just sleep here on the armchair if you—”
"No," Frieren replied, “I’ll stay here, I want to study the curse for a bit."
Heiter looked like he wanted to argue, but another deep yawn betrayed him. He stood up unsteadily, leaning on Eisen for support.
"Very well," Heiter murmured. "But don't push yourself too hard, Frieren. The curse isn't going anywhere now that it’s frozen."
Eisen paused at the door, casting one last look at the white-haired mage sitting by their friend's side. "There’s food in the larder if you get hungry. And Frieren... it’s good to have you back."
Then, the door clicked shut, leaving her all alone with the sleeping hero.
She studied the violet mana for a while before her eyes grew heavy, and before she knew it, she found herself lying right next to Himmel, too tired to get up, finally letting sleep wash over her.