by Andrew Rowe
“You are ridiculous.” Reika sighed. “But I like that. I like that you try to make friends with people. And things. I guess I wouldn’t be here with you if you didn’t.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.”
“...Thanks.” Reika glanced away for a moment, looking mildly embarrassed.
“And Dawn, too.” I added it both for Dawn’s benefit and to help with Reika’s expression.
“Right.” Reika paused. “Dawn, too. She says you’re okay, she guesses.”
I chuckled. That also hurt.
I was beginning to surmise that everything was going to hurt for a while.
That was fine, though.
Sometimes pain is a good reminder that you’re still alive.
***
Reika went to sleep after eating virtually the entire deer. I had a more reasonable portion, but still a larger-than-usual meal. I needed it.
With Reika asleep, I spent some time examining my injuries.
My shoulder and right arm were still by far the worst, even after drinking the potion and the shadeweave tunic working on them for half a day. The tunic would probably reduce my recovery time from weeks to days, but I still expected some scars.
My left arm and hand had a series of cuts, but they weren’t nearly as deep as the others, and the shadeweave seemed to be doing a good job of helping them.
I could still feel the remains of the arrow wounds in my back, but they’d healed pretty well over the couple weeks since they’d been inflicted. They were no longer a threat.
I didn’t have a bullet wound. There was a slight bruise near where it had hit, but the shadeweave tunic and my own resilience had apparently been enough to prevent it from breaking my skin. That wouldn’t have saved me if Miyuri had hit me in a spot where I had a hole in my tunic, though, or a more vital location. I felt fortunate I’d only been shot the once.
The biggest problems were burns. The worst were the ones along my leg and the left side of my chest where the fake Lydia had triggered the fiery explosion that destroyed my pouch. In spite of the fact that I’d deflected some of the fire, it had burned me pretty badly. The tunic was healing the portion of my chest that had burned, but the tunic didn’t drape down low enough to work on my leg.
Then there were the acid burns on my hands and face, since my tunic wasn’t working on them. The healing potion seemed to have helped them somewhat, but they were still pretty raw.
I didn’t have any way of dealing with the burns. My bandages and salve had both been in the bag that had been destroyed in the explosion, and the salve hadn’t been meant for burns in the first place.
I considered deliberately tearing off a piece of my tunic and sticking it over each of the wounds, but I didn’t think the magic of the tunic would work like that. The tunic did break pieces of itself off, but that had to be after whatever function it used to identify the damage had determined how to heal it properly. Just sticking a piece of the tunic onto a random body part probably wouldn’t work.
After some consideration, I decided that slipping the tunic off and wrapping it around another injured part would probably work, since all of the functions of the tunic would probably still work even if it wasn’t over my torso. Taking the shirt off was awkward and immensely painful, and pressing it against my face and leg were strange and awkward, but eventually, pieces did separate from the shirt and stick to the injured parts.
I didn’t know if it would work properly, but I felt that the odds of it helping were better than the odds of it making things worse.
After that, I painfully slipped the shirt back on. I needed the protection it offered, both from further injuries and just exposure to the elements. It was cold, and it felt colder still because of my use of fire sorcery earlier. Fortunately, I hadn’t taxed myself in that particular area as much as I had with everything else.
Even with the tunic at work, I knew I needed to make finding a healer one of my top priorities. I still had to deal with the risk of infection with several injuries, and more importantly, I had no way of treating Reika.
She hadn’t drunk any of the potion Miyuri had given her; she’d given it all to me. And, looking at her while she slept, I realized just how selfless that was.
Reika wasn’t in quite as bad of shape as I was, but she was still very badly injured. She’d managed to tear up a shirt and awkwardly bind some of her wounds, but she had several of them. The acid burns from that first globe were the worst, but not the only injuries.
I couldn’t share my tunic with her; the healing wouldn’t work on someone else, since it was built with pieces of my own shade and spirit in the cloth. I loaned her my cloak to cover the injuries, but that wasn’t much help. She needed a healer as badly as I did.
I kept watch for the rest of the night, busying myself with worrying. My body wasn’t up for much else.
***
In the morning, Reika and I shared another light meal, packed up the remains of the deer, then headed south.
Our pace was a slow trudge at best. We were both in terrible shape.
After a few hours, we were forced to stop for a break.
“Do you think you could manage to go back into your dragon form?” I asked Reika.
She shook her head. “Not just yet. Eating helped a lot, but my other form needs time to recover. It was even more badly hurt than this form.”
I hadn’t really considered that her other form might need to rest, or how it healed. “Do you know how long that will take?”
Reika shook her head. “Probably a couple days. My dragon form has never been hurt like that before.” She frowned. “Honestly, my human form hasn’t, either.”
“I don’t even think I’ve been hurt that badly before. We’re very lucky we survived.”
Reika nodded solemnly at that. “Yeah. We weren’t just lucky, though. We made a good team.”
I smiled at that. “You’re right. All three of us did.”
“Dawn appreciates your acknowledgement of her contributions and notes that she expects a reasonable share of the loot.”
I rolled my eyes. “We didn’t really get a lot of loot, exactly.”
“She says you owe her approximately one third of a magic shirt.”
I laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
We kept walking after our break. It was a slow, painstaking progress. While we walked, we talked a bit more.
“Toward the end of the fight, Zenkichi started slowing down,” Reika mused. “I still don’t know why. Did you do something?”
“The door handle,” I offered, as if that explained everything.
“What?”
I grinned. “Remember how I got poisoned and took the door handle? The handle itself was enchanted to inject whatever it jabbed with a magical poison. I turned the handle into a dagger and stabbed him with it.”
Reika’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”
“I did.” I was feeling pretty proud of that.
“And that actually worked? On a gigantic hydra?”
I nodded. That still hurt, even the next day. “Yeah. Regeneration usually works by using life sorcery to accelerate natural healing. That, unfortunately, also tends to accelerate the effects of some types of poisons, too.”
“Wouldn’t that make him recover faster?”
I nodded. “Maybe. Depends on the poison and how his body works. I didn’t know for certain if his natural regeneration would work the same way as the spells and potions I’m familiar with, but I couldn’t think of any better options. I suspect his regeneration was both spreading the poison through his body faster and helping him recover from it faster. The problem was that I’d jammed the door handle in deep enough that his body healed around it, and it was probably just pumping poison into him constantly after that.”
“...That’s, kind of awful, honestly.”
I shrugged. “Ow. Yeah, I don’t like poison much, either. But you know what I like even less than using pois
on in a fight? Being eaten by a hydra.”
“That is a fair and reasonable argument.” Reika paused. “Dawn says you gain insight points for that, but lose bravery points.”
I sighed. “Do I at least gain more insight points than the bravery points I lost?”
“She says she’ll consider it if you get her half of a shirt, rather than a third of one.”
I narrowed my eyes at the sword. “That sounds like she’s asking for a bribe.”
“Dawn says that no one is tracking her points, so she can do what she wants.”
I paused, considered that, then said, “Do you have any blank paper and a pen in your bag?”
“Nope. Why?”
“As soon as we get one, we’re going to start tracking Dawn’s points.”
Reika laughed. “She says that’s unfair and sounds indignant about it.”
“I don’t think it’s unfair at all. I would venture to even say that it might be...insightful.”
Reika grinned. “I think I’m going to have to hand her back to you soon, some of these insults are getting too colorful for me to relay.”
“Just give me another day or two. I don’t think I can carry anything else right now. I can barely carry myself.”
“It’s fine. Take your time.”
***
The next day was a little bit easier, with our injuries showing the slightest bit of recovery.
When we stopped for lunch, we had a bit of quiet. Reika had a habit of reading while she ate, which I didn’t mind. Having a bit of relative quiet on occasion was nice.
...But not always possible, given that I had a sword on my side that loved to chat.
Yes, Dawn?
We are talking. Unless you wanted me to get Reika to join us?
That was an odd request, so I raised an eyebrow at the sword. (Or I tried to. My eyebrows were still pretty much gone.)
Sure. One sec.
“Reika, Dawn and I are going to go have a private talk. I’ll be back.”
She didn’t even look up from her book. “Kay.”
I walked off a ways, into a nice copse of trees that I suspected would prevent Reika from hearing any casual conversation.
Okay. What’d you need?
I glanced around again.
Nope. What’s this all about?
I winced. I still felt a little bad that I hadn’t asked for the amulet, even if it hadn’t been there. What about it?
I nodded.
She sounded extremely nervous. I wasn’t sure what to say.
Yeah, I remember.
I let out a sigh of relief. She was just a little embarrassed, like she was asking me out on a date or something.
I replied out loud. “Dawn, I’m still happy to be your wielder, if you want me to be.”
<...You sure? You got really hurt doing those tests back there, and I didn’t even take it seriously at first. I didn’t really understand the risks you were taking just to make me happy. I’m not sure I’d make a very good partner.>
“You’re still learning, Dawn. It was your first time out in the world. I don’t blame you for not understanding experiences that you couldn’t have had. And for the record, I’m still learning a lot, too.” I put my hand on her hilt, and I thought I felt her relax. “I’d like to keep learning and exploring together, if you’re willing. I think we did a good job in that last fight.”
I laughed. “I’m pretty sure I can find a use for any abilities you have.”
I smirked at that. “I’ll look forward to hearing about them.” I wanted to ask about more, but it didn’t seem like the right time. “You feeling better? Should we head back to Reika?”
“Yes? That was my goal from the start. But I get the impression there are implications that I’m missing here, and I never ended up asking Reika about it, sorry.”
I...
I admit, that made me nervous, and I could sense an emotional response from Dawn immediately.
I shook my head. “I’m just processing the implications of that. That would mean we’d be continuously having mana flow between us, wouldn’t it?”
I shook my head. “That wasn’t what I was worried about. Sorry, let me be clearer. You know I have a type of magic that disintegrates things, yes? I don’t really understand it very well at this point, but it’s not just in my sword at this point — it’s in my body. If I make a connection with you and that mana starts flowing into your body, I’m not sure what that type of mana is going to do to you.”
“Yeah.”
I considered that. “And you think that your magic resistance would make you immune to any harm from my mana?”
“This is a little different, though. I’ve never seen any other weapon or spell that works the way my sword’s disintegration does. I haven’t found anything it can’t cut yet.”
That was...a surprisingly reasonable argument. I’d actually managed to do something similar with cutting off a connection between a summoner and a summoned monster before. “Okay. If you’re certain. And I will have to cut the connection if it starts to harm you.”
I smiled. “Okay. How do we do this?”
There was a pause, as if Dawn was taking a deep breath.
I complied.
“I, Keras...”
“Agree to...”
I stopped, pulled my hand back, and folded my arms. “Okay. You almost got me there.”
I pressed my hand against the crystal on her crossguard again, feeling dubious.
I took a breath, steeling myself. “Dawnbringer, by my will, I bind my spirit to yours.”
I felt a burning sensation on the top of my hand. The pain only lasted for an instant before it was replaced by warmth.
When I drew my hand back, there was a new symbol blazing white upon my skin. A symbol of three spheres bound together, just like the one below Dawnbringer’s altar.
Dawn’s voice in my mind sounded different now. Clearer, closer. And I felt her emotions more clearly now, too. The pleading in her voice, the fear that I would abandon her. The hope that she’d finally found someone to spend her life with.
And I knew she could feel my hopes and fears more clearly, too.
I felt a surge of warmth spreading from my hand to my entire body. My skin tingled, and my hairs began to stand on end. I felt renewed vigor, but more than that, I felt light. In more ways than one.
My body felt lighter, easier to move. Not just like my fatigue was being burned away, but like my whole body was less of a burden. It wasn’t that I felt stronger; it felt like my body responded to my thoughts more easily, and that made me faster.
My mind felt lighter, too. Like I could think more clearly, focus more easily.
Best of all, my heart felt lighter. Like my worries and fears were easier to bear.
And then there was the literal pillar of light that erupted around us. That was pretty impressive, although I wish I’d known about it in advance, because it was bright enough to be seen for miles.
A moment later, I heard Reika running toward us.
“I cannot believe you just did that without me!”
I gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry. We thought it was best to make the decision on our own.”
