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Fucking ow.Her eyes aren’t even properly open and she’s in pain. Her heartbeat throbs all through her chest. And her back. Aches like a motherfucker, from between the shoulder blades down to her ribs. She groans on the next exhale. The rest of her body feels mostly fine, as far as she can focus. Which isn’t far. Ow. From somewhere far away, there’s a voice.“Are you waking up? Take your time, but do let me know if you’re awake. Don’t move too much.”And because she is literally incapable of taking an order, Turaz tries to move her arm and has to muffle another groan of pain when the motion tugs at her back. Her limbs feel weak as soggy bread. She opens her eyes, all bleary, and spends a good minute blinking the blurry shapes into some semblance of order. The most distinct shape resolves into a dwarf with a shaggy black beard and the largest eyebrows she’s ever seen. He’s sitting there, looking at her. Turaz makes another sound that charitably qualifies as a grunt, because words are hard.“Yeah, I know. Hurts like shit. But I got you off the painkillers because you just kept napping, had to actually get you lucid again. And the fever’s down now, so there’s that.” His words wash over her, barely conscious, and she’s tempted to close her eyes and try to slip back into sleep, if only to ignore how much everything hurts. The dwarf moves, waves his hand in front of her face a bit.“Hey there. You with me? You gotta eat something. ‘No’ isn’t an answer. I insist.”Food. The thought makes her stomach twist on itself unpleasantly — empty, but the wave of nausea that creeps up is as bad as the hunger.“Feel sick,” she croaks, and fuck, her voice is cracked as hell.“Yeah, don’t doubt it. You’ve been under for-fucking-ever. But I’m not dripping more soup over your half-delirious face. Time you sat up. I’ll help you. It’ll hurt like a bitch.” The dwarf comes up to the bed. “You gonna work with me?”“Yeah.” She tries to help when he works a hand under her shoulder, but trying to move tugs at her back something fierce. He pushes her up to sit and her vision reels with vertigo. And— holy shit, ow, her back is a terror, even with the pillow the dwarf shoves between her and the wall. How exactly did that happen? The dwarf steadies her until he’s reasonably sure she won’t fall over sideways, then he fetches a bowl.“C’mon, eat,” he says, holds a spoonful of what’s probably soup under her nose. The smell of food makes her stomach twist again and she wants to gag.“Feel sick,” she repeats, but the dwarf shakes his head.“You gotta. Only way to get over the nausea is to eat. C’mon, power through. One spoonful.”Turaz acquiesces and manages to swallow a spoonful. It’s potato soup. Bland as hell, but maybe that’s better in her state. The dwarf feeds her half the bowl before he puts it aside, touches her forehead.“Well, that’s an improvement. You’re eating the rest of that in a bit, when you keep this down.”She rests her head back against the wall and lets her eyes slide closed again. More sleep would be nice, really. And it’s right there, like she could just drift off.“Ey, you only just woke up. Rest is important, but stay conscious for a bit. Make sure your brain hasn’t cooked.”“Cooked?” Turaz cracks one eye open a bit: the dwarf has sat back down.“Yeah. You’ve been running hell of a fever trying to heal this wound. Nasty piece of work, that.” He pauses for a second, then, “I’m Teo, by the way. I’m a healer. I’ve introduced myself before, but I don’t know if you remember a lick of the last days.”“Not really,” she admits. “I’m Turaz. You probably know.”“Yeah, your father told me.”“Father?”Teo frowns. “He not your father? I figured, with the horns and all that,” he waves a hand vaguely upwards, “and with how fucked up he was about this disaster.”Huh. Fancy that. Turaz blinks around the room.“Not related. But he cares, I guess. Where’s he?”“Oh, he wanted to be here. Didn’t want to leave your side at all. The only reason he’s not here right now is because the boss ordered him to go eat with the others. I should go tell him you’re awake, but the man needs food. He’s gonna be mad I didn’t immediately get him, but,” Teo sighs and shrugs, “he can just suck it up. I’m the qualified healer here.”Turaz feels oddly warm. Didn’t want to leave her side at all.“Is he okay?”“Yeah. Got injured in the fight too, but he’s not the squishy type. And the other mercs assured me he’d’ve walked off a broken leg to get your bleeding ass out of there. He’s been healing fast. Would be faster if he didn’t insist on watching over you all fucking day and night, like it’ll make your body repair faster. Had to kick him out a few times just so he’d get some sleep. It’s hard to take care of a patient when there’s seven foot of concerned idiot collapsed half on the bed in the deepest nap I’ve ever seen someone take, y’know?”“I guess so.”“Could swear he was praying when it looked like you wouldn’t make it. Didn’t think you big folk tended to be Andrastian, but you learn something new every day.”“We’re not Andrastian,” she frowns. She’s seen Meraad mumble to himself, meditations his mother taught him, but has never seen him pray to anything.“Ah, my bad. Whatever, then. Maybe it just sounded like prayer, fuck knows I don’t speak a lick of your language.”“Yeah,” she says, and clears her throat. “Got any water?”“Coming right up.” Teo helps her drink from a waterskin, and then lets her have some companionable quiet for a few breaths. Her head feels a bit clearer, even if it’s still clouded with the pain on her back and the feeling of being entirely made of soft dough. There are snatches of memory from the last… while, now she thinks on it; muddled images and feelings swim across her mind, feverish delirium, pain, parched with thirst, waking up drenched in sweat. The dwarf’s voice. Meraad’s voice. Cold rags on her face, her legs. The wound on her back, throbbing with every heartbeat. She wonders how it looks now, how it will look when it’s healed.“How long have I been out?”“Oh, couple days. Wasn’t sure you’d make it, the first day, feared again when shit started looking infected. Bastards never cleaned their fucking blades. But you’re over the worst now. I declare that you’ll survive.” Teo picks up a mortar and pestle from a cluttered desk and starts grinding something up, and Turaz zones out again until Teo looks up towards the door.It’s Meraad. He has to bend ridiculously low to get through the door, the frame an entire head too low, without even accommodating for horns. When he sees Turaz sitting up in the bed, the look of relief on his face could move a damn mountain before he schools his expression into something more controlled and gruff. He sits on a tiny stool in front of the bed, comically low.“Hey, kid,” he says. “Good to see you awake.”“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” she jokes half-heartedly, but holy shit, his expression slips again into something raw and vulnerable. Fuck, she hasn’t seem him look this open… maybe ever.“I thought you were done for,” he says, real quiet, and there’s a break in his voice that strikes her down to her bones. “You gotta stick closer to me, kid, I don’t wanna carry you out of a fight like that again.” He looks down at his hands, seeing something that’s not there. From what she’s heard, probably her blood when he carried her off.“It’s alright, I’m hard to kill,” she tries to comfort, lifts a weak hand with a weak arm. Meraad’s bigger hands close around it, gentle like she’s made of crystal. There’s a fat scab on his cheekbone and a healing gash on his arm. The circles under his eyes are darker than they should be. “Have you been getting any sleep?”“Enough. Don’t worry about me.”“Liar,” Teo chimes in from where he’s sitting, and Meraad flinches like he’s forgotten the dwarf was there — he barely ever forgets to take stock of who’s where. He’s fucked up about this. “You weren’t getting enough sleep. I had to make you go to bed.”“Teodor, don’t snitch,” Meraad grunts. “You don’t have to worry the kid, she almost died.”“That she did, but she didn’t,” Teo shrugs. “You’re welcome to show me your eternal, unending gratitude whenever you feel like it.”Meraad grinds his teeth a bit, but he lets go of her hand, turns to face the dwarf.“Thank you for doing your best to make sure the kid survived a dirty sword to the back. I appreciate the effort.”Teo chuckles and waves him off. “Don’t worry, your company’s paying me for this. Taking it out on your wages, I expect, but that’s none of mine.”Meraad ignores him and turns to Turaz again. “You need anything, kid?”She takes a second to think. “I think I could have the rest of that soup now, actually. And my back hurts like a motherfucker. Got anything to numb it?”“Working on it,” Teo announces and waves his pestle. Meraad gets her the bowl of soup. It’s cold and a bit nasty now, but she gratefully lets the man spoon-feed her the rest of it, hunger winning out over the nausea.“It’s probably going to scar flat,” he tells her. “Except the bits that got inflamed. Teodor says those might turn out uglier.”“Long as I’m alive,” she manages between two spoonfuls of soup.“Yeah,” he says, “long as you’re alive. Damn, kid, I’m gonna make sure you stay that way. Don’t do that shit to me again.”“I’ll try,” she says, and he stays while Teo re-dresses her wounds. She makes him promise to go get some proper sleep before she drifts off. When she blinks back into awareness, Meraad is passed out in the corner, leaning against the wall and snoring quietly.