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Every part of him hurt. Even the places he wasn't cut or bruised or burned were aching deeply, and his lungs felt raw as he breathed.It was strange, being in a cavern underground. He felt like he ought to be seeing those open wastes again, like he ought to be in them, like he must be in them, but the vision before his eyes was a cave instead.He blinked multiple times, but the vision of the cavern didn't fade or shift or dissipate. If he was hallucinating, it was a darned stubborn hallucination. For an instant, everything in the cave had felt real and logical, like nothing had changed, like he'd only been unconscious and only for a moment, but then everything had caught up to him, and now it was - it was something, anyway.Jester said she had seen the Wildmother, and that made sense. He knew that he'd been in a cave, fighting, before the Wildmother had been there, and that made sense, too. But now he was still in a cave, surrounded by his friends, and it felt fake. Distant. Unreal.He closed his eyes. Fields. Ice. People. A forge. Maybe a forge. Maybe a cave was like a forge enough to make sense of things. The vision started to slip away from his memory, but maybe a forge and maybe a cave and maybe -He opened his eyes again. Yes. They'd been fighting. They'd been fighting in this cave. Now they weren't, and he was alive. That felt less fake than the cave, but not real, either."Is it over?" he asked, trying to focus on his friends and not his surroundings. "Hey." The cavern didn't feel true enough to hold onto, but his friends were here, and he could see them, and that felt real enough. True enough. He tried to focus on them, even with the distant drifting feeling around him and the aches everywhere. Tried to focus. Tried to focus."Hey, Caddyshack."Caduceus laughed. Yes. That was real. Beau was here and real and things were alright."Wow," he said, letting the echoes of the nickname roll through him a little bit. Hey, Caddyshack. Hey, Caddyshack. Yes. Friends. Here. Alive. With him.Things made sense in pieces, fragments coming gradually back together as the world began to feel real again. Breathing hurt, but it made things make more sense.The half-images of his visions were still dancing around the edges of things, invisible and real, and he kept half expecting everything to shift in the moments between his aching heartbeats, kept expecting to find himself somewhere else. Instead, in the closed space of the cavern, he slowly became aware that he wasn't breathing alone. The others shifted a little, some of them, and he remembered a breeze from his vision, but he couldn't feel it. He could only hear it, moving in and out of his friends' lungs.His own breaths hurt, but the breeze was good. Was right. He breathed in and out, listening to his friends and to himself and to everything.For a moment, he could hear a breeze a little ways away that was neither his breath nor his friends' breaths, that wasn't breathing at all, and the breath he took after he heard it was deeper and easier and hurt less."Huh." The next breath wasn't any better than the ones that had come before the breeze, but in the tiniest flash of darkness when he blinked, there was something again, there and gone, and his heart ached a new way. This was right. He was on the right path. He was with the right people."That was invigorating," he said, and he wasn't sure what part of it he meant. Jester giggled, and that was right, too. Was good. Was what it was meant to be.He was where he was meant to be. It was a cave, but the cave wasn't the part that mattered, and he was where he was meant to be. "Let's, uh -" he said, "Let's uh - take - a few minutes." The next breath hurt again, like all of his breaths hurt, but there was something about it, something looser, more open, and more relaxed. That, at least, was progress."I think I've got something left," he said, breaths still coming heavy, but not too heavy, now, not too heavy to bear."Oh." He sat up and his head spun too hard to hear Jester and the others start talking through the ringing in his ears, but as much as sitting up hurt, and as much as his lungs still hurt, they at least didn't feel constricted, and that meant something. Something important.Prayer was many things. He had an incantation in his brain, one he'd been careful to learn, but prayer - prayer was many things. Jester would know his incantation, because it was like hers, but that wasn't the point right now. This was something else. Something private. Something personal.He switched into Giant and started speaking, half a whisper, and half inside his own head, everything swirling around him again as he talked to the Wildmother. This time, he was steady, even in the swirl."Thank you."The rush of divine warmth that came in response to his statement came faster than usual. Faster than it usually came even with the most proper, most formal incantation."Thank you," he said again, pushing all of himself into those two words.His heart beat easier than it had since he'd woken up, expanding freely into a warm space in his chest. As he breathed back in, there was power humming in the air, filling his mouth and his throat and his lungs."Mother," he whispered, daring, for just a moment, in her presence, with her power in his lungs, to offer himself as something vulnerable, something weak, something not just a servant or a Cleric the way his friends said 'Cleric' when they looked at him and Jester, all capital letters and status.There was a warm breeze, and the air in his lungs still had power in it, the same as the power he always called forth to heal."I'm glad I'm where I'm supposed to be," he said thoughtfully. "And I'm glad I know."He kept talking, the words coming easier, now."I know this isn't how it works. Graves are - things work in cycles. In seasons. But this is - you're the air right now, aren't you? You're the air in my lungs. That's nice. That's - different. Thank you for it."Maybe the words weren't so easy."I am something to you now, aren't I? We're all something to you. Because you're here, and Jester saw. We were always something to you, because this is - I know there is magic to do this. But this is not - I don't have the power for this. Jester doesn't. We knew - I - we purchased those diamonds for a reason, but it was never us. It was never going to be us, and I knew - I felt when I was buying it -" He cut himself off, unable to finish the sentence. "Thank you," he said, instead. Again.He had wondered if buying the diamonds was presumptuous. He had wondered if it was demanding too much, if he had overstepped a boundary. But if he had - well, saying 'thank you' felt good anyway. It felt good in his lungs and on his tongue and on his lips, and it eased his chest, where it had been growing tight again in spite of everything. He said it again. "Thank you."He wasn't smart enough for this. He didn't know enough for this conversation. He switched into the incantation for healing, giving himself a moment to settle, to catch up, to solidify. "I'm sorry my brain is so slow," he thought as his mouth continued to incant. "I'm sorry I cannot be more for you, in that regard."The answer he got was deep and imperceptible, something known rather than heard, but it was real and he grabbed ahold of it."Thank you, for believing I am enough," he said, breaking the incantation again to do it.
You have always been enough.
His breath hitched, but the voice was inside his head, and the others didn't react, and he returned to the familiar incantation, to the safety of the old words, the ones he meant just as he meant the new words he was weaving into them."I love you," he answered.The feeling in his chest as he said it started off as his own and then doubled instantly, an echo he'd felt before, in moments of his own devotion, but stronger this time. That was often the way of it, wasn't it? Loving and being loved, wrapping themselves together and growing four times the size, like two clumps of moss becoming four, becoming eight."I love you," he said, thinking of a woman who had come to the Blooming Grove to bury a loved one, who had whispered to the corpse, 'You're supposed to say I love you more,' after she told it she loved it, who had whispered, 'It doesn't matter, because I still love you most,' even after she got no answer, but he couldn't think such a thing. Couldn't promise it. Not with a goddess breathing life into his lungs and keeping him alive and pressing her power into his body to keep it running."I can't love you more," he said, "I can't love you most. It's not in me and I can't contain that much. But I love you also," he said, "I love you always. I want to be where I'm meant to be, and I want it because I love you."The warmth in his chest was spreading outward through him. As he returned to the incantation, the feeling of power in his mouth, in his lungs, in his throat continued, and he wished - he wished - "You are for all of us, now, aren't you?" he asked, "You're for all of us, like this spell has been for all of us, because you let Jester see you. You let her know you, and she's - she's -" he didn't know what she was. "She's wonderful. I - I hope she has -" There was nothing there. The words wouldn't come.He felt a swell of love in his chest again, still his and not-his, still magnified by echoes, and he closed his eyes and breathed in, feeling the divine in his chest, and breathed out, feeling it go back out into the world. When he said "I love," his throat choked off the rest, and the empty choke meant everything, meant everyone, meant both Melora and his friends around him, both the allies seen and the ones unseen. Then he was breathing again and the magic flowed in and out with his breath without him having anything else to do with it, and he turned his breaths into incantation again so he could focus on feeling it for a while."I wish they could feel this," he whispered, "I wish they could know. Please be for all of us, as you are for me. I need them to know, but I can't let them die to know it. They cannot die. Should not die. It is - I know the way of things, and I know the way this goes against it, and I want to protect them. I want to make them safe. Strong." His voice almost faltered, but he could not let it. Could not back down from being honest with his goddess, in this moment of her presence. "Loved. I want them to feel loved. To be yours, as I am. To be loved this much."His breath had felt tangible through his whole prayer, but now it swirled around his face as he let it out, spiraling outward into the world, and he began to feel it far from him, as well. Began to feel it tie itself into the world, into the rest of the air in the room, into the breaths his friends breathed."I don't understand this," he admitted, "I don't know if I'm capable of understanding it. I don't know if anyone is. But I know you're still here, and I know what you've done, and - and - Mother," he didn't know how to finish the sentence, how to finish the address, what else to say, so he repeated her name over and over, praying it two more times, all on its own, with every ounce of feeling he could put in it."Mother, Mother, I am what you are making of me and I am grateful for the chance to start again, tomorrow, to be for longer, to go, to breathe, to heal, to know, to -"There were tears threatening behind his eyes, and he wondered how long he'd had this itch behind his nose without noticing. He stopped. He breathed. The breathing was easy, even with the itch and the pressure and the threat of tears."Heal them," he whispered, "Heal all of us, because I cannot - I am weak and I don't know the way until you tell me. I only know to listen for your guidance. I only know to guess along the way. I am not-"My son, the voice whispered in his ear, you know what you need to know. You are enough. You are sufficient. You always have been. But I am also enough. I am enough, and I am beside you. I will teach you where to go, and you will be strong enough to follow.He felt the wounds in his body begin to knit closed, felt the ache lessen in a flood of divine warmth that filled him, starting in his lungs and his heart and spreading outward, encompassing the rest of him, then the air around him, then 30 feet beyond him."Please," he whispered, almost breathless, "Give them a fraction of this blessing you have given me. Give them an ounce of what this is. Or give them more, if that's not beyond my right to ask. But give them something. Give them - I need them to know what this is that has happened. I need them to feel it. I need - this is -"'This' was not big enough for all the things it was. 'This' was his own continued breath. 'This' was the entirety of his future, stretching new and solid before him. 'This' was life itself."I need them to know," he said, trying to expand his sense of himself, trying to be and be in all of the bubble of the prayer of healing, trying to feel in his lungs, in his chest, that his friends were healthy, that they were blessed, that they knew, that they understood.He could not hold all of what he had been given. He could not hold it, and his friends could not have held it, even if they had known to try, and as his heart beat, aching, he just hoped that with the Wildmother's help, they could catch on to some of it, to any of it, that they could take in the power that surrounded them, and let it heal them, restore them, breathe through them and make them stronger. He felt stronger. He embraced all the power of the moment, letting the air flow in and out and in and out of him, letting the power soothe and depart, strengthen and depart, heal and depart, without him trying to stop it or shape it or hold it."Let the strength stay inside them," he said, and this time he knew it was out loud, "Let it stay inside me. Let it stick. Let it linger. Let it flow, let it fill us, fill them, fill me. Be here, as you already are, as you have already been. I am always already yours, but please, please be mine. Be mine for a few more minutes, until I can heal, until I can be, until all of us can rest and sleep and knit back together and become ourselves again. Please."Always, she answered, Always and already. From the moment you asked me. From the moment before you thought to ask."I don't understand the size of this," he said, trying to get across why he was still asking, why he had to ask, even knowing the blessing was given. "I want to understand it. I do not know if this will ever come again, this way, and I want to understand it."
The future is mine to worry about. You have enough concerns in the present.
That was true. At least if you thought about 'the present' the right way. He almost laughed.I am here my son. I am enough, and so are you, and that is what you need to know.His friends made soft noises in the background, sounds he half heard. They had been healed. He had been healed. They were feeling out the new rush of health.
Sleep, my son. You will be, when you wake, what you have always been. What you already are. You will be beautiful. And you will go on.
The prayer of healing had left him. The magic had done its work. The air was growing thinner now, less magical, less divine. But there was still something in his chest, right at the center, and the Wildmother was still here."I can't," he told her, staying in Giant like he had never stopped incanting, so his friends couldn't hear. "They're not safe yet. We go to sleep together. We always do."The answer was a laugh, and there was a hand on his face he could feel but couldn't see.
You are nothing if not faithful.
"I try to be."You are. And my promise to you stands, whenever you fall asleep. She laughed again. Return to them, if you will not sleep. If they mean so much that you would wait for them, feeling as pained as you do, having given so willingly of my healing to them instead of trying to hold it for yourself.There was a breeze around him, swirling through his hair and caressing his face, so close he couldn't help but breathe some of it in again.
But you would not be who you are, if you would try to stop the flow of things, to turn them toward yourself and to your own purpose instead of letting them be as they are. You would not be my child and you would not have risen back from death and you would not be here.
He reached a hand up, hoping against all odds that there was something in there to grab ahold of. He caught nothing.Remember, Caduceus, she said, voice fading as the breeze pulled away, Remember, I have promised when you wake again, you will be what you already are. And you will be enough. And you will be beautiful.He smiled, clenching his fingers into a fist even though he was catching nothing, even though the voice was fading, faded, gone, and the breeze was lost to him.Jester was beside him again, or perhaps had been beside him all along. She wrapped an arm around him. "Hey, man!"His ears strained for the last sounds of the Wildmother, but she was gone, or she was hidden from him. He leaned into Jester's side. "Hey.""That was pretty cool!"He smiled. "Yeah, it was pretty cool."As she pulled away, he reached out to grab her hand, stopping her. "Thank you."The words had been not enough aimed at the Wildmother, not enough by a mile, but they'd felt good then, and they felt good now. Jester's face lit up for a moment before it fell again, and he perceived it only because he'd felt good saying the words."You're welcome. I'm sorry I didn't heal you sooner."It was funny, that thought had never occurred to him. Had there been a 'sooner' for her to heal him in? He had no way to know."Oh, better later than never," he said. She had meant well. She had meant to heal him. She had been, also, what she was, just as he had. She had been beautiful and chaotic, a thousand things at once, and divine, and wild, and loving, and powerful, and in those last, aching moments of disaster, the moments he had not seen but could feel now, capable of opening herself up to everything else, to the world, to the divine, to a goddess not entirely her own and she had brought him back.He pulled her into a hug. "Ohh." It wasn't a word as much as a breath that had gotten away from him, but Jester seemed to understand.She leaned her head against his, and he knew the Wildmother smiled on them both, just the way they were.