The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 487 - Detours Are Sometimes Good Destinations, pt3
His hands gripped the blanket while trying not to struggle, but the harsh breathing through clenched teeth made it clear that things were going terrible for him. A body that didn’t have the leeway to be struggling so much, using up energy that should have been used on his own natural healing. And the green eyed cultivator used it too - sacrificing the precious energy in his leg to seal the worst of the screaming pain receptors closest to his torso. To keep the main arteries from collapsing or gaining any further tears.
She had no choice. For as quickly as the older woman was trying to work, the leg was withering visibly under the corruption. A rapid state of what had been happening slowly through his whole body before as the Void essence induced cohesive failures in the material plane as it decayed. By the end, Zyris was breathing just as hard as the woodworker... and the shaking from concentration was now instead shivering from the failure.
The two ’healers’ met eyes for a moment, but when her head turned as if she was about to try to speak to the patient, a hand landed on top of her hood. Yatrel kneeled down to the floor with them as Hevri struggled to a seated position with help from the youngest of them. He looked away from her mint eyes and down to the area that felt the most ’off’ still.
"I... I can’t feel my leg."
"From what I could tell, they had to choose something terrible to save something greater. I’m sorry for that. But you’ll live."
She’d watched what they were doing closely, felt the ’panic’ in the air right before he began screaming. It was easy enough to assess. Just like she could tell both of the other women were likely shedding tears behind their masks. Taking the role of the one delivering the bad news was the least the Dame Goltbred felt she could do. Because she was stealing the good part, as well.
"Your son might have to help you out a lot more than he should for a young father, but he won’t be alone. And you’ll be able to teach him for a longer time still. After you make more of a recovery."
A chuckle that sounded painful came out of his throat as his weakened hands moved out to grasp the forearms of both of his saviors. He didn’t say thank you again. Not because he was not grateful or because he held some kind of grudge. But because even a mortal could see shakes and hear sniffles.
He’d met with just enough cultivators in his life to know they didn’t measure success by ’good enough’... and that hearing they ’did their best’ would only come off as ignorant. Besides that, his wife always used to say something... after she pulled Hevri himself - a man who couldn’t swim if he had fins - from a fast moving river in their youth.
’The best thank you to a life saved is to keep living it to its fullest.’
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
The field that the militia members fought on had been right in the middle of cultivated land. Some of them had done so with pitchforks, grabbing for anything they could to herd the creatures away from the village, leaving a torn swath of earth where the two Lessers had ripped through soil and the newly planted crops. But the worse section was where they died, as even after cultivators had come to pull away as much of the corrupted material as possible, new growth still struggled in those spots.
"Not quite like salting the Earth, but close enough."
Zyris nodded at the words as she moved and knelt next to the paler greenery. Pressing one hand flat to the ground, she closed her eyes and sought to extract any fragment of essence that might have slipped the Void Defense Society’s services. No longer constrained by the medical work, with less care for any slight damage to plants which were generally more robust than humans, her body’s field quickly lifted and sucked in all of it.
She often caught Nohre mumbling about how the heiress seemed to foresee and prepare things... in how she arranged the knowledge she shared. The woman’s time in the Exclave as an early phase Enchanter could have left her used to only working with the much denser concentrations of essence available there. There was no ’reason’ in that location she needed to practice to find the tiniest traces. But the meditation area that Elua had prepared and the exercises she underwent during that time were intentional.
All of it had been done to further the goal of seeing Void Element as a tool. As one that had a purpose and use. The idea of *cleaning up* had not been as heavy of a draw as aiding the Mend wielder was when first described to Zyris by the small brunette. But feeling no more of the ’nothing’ bits of Void was unexpectedly... cathartic each time she had done it so far. The fact that a couple minutes of this was equal to nearly an hour of trying to filter in other decaying bits of background essence was a bonus as well.
Nohre stood by a fence with her attention on this affair, still processing what they’d done. Neither of them had spoken... not so much for the required secrecy as for the emotions still running high. The complementary nature of their abilities when it came to fixing the miasmic effects post-Descent had never been more apparent. It would be a long time before either of them could do anything about the corruption within a mortal body without needing the other, as Elua had insisted was the case.
But the young woman didn’t mind that so much that she would have to work closely with her mother-in-law for the coming future. She just greatly missed the calming presence of silver antlers at the top of her head... or at least the less calming factor of her husband himself, while recognizing that this part of the day had nothing to do with her.
Zyris also strode along the path of the fight itself, just in case. Pausing at each point where she felt she sensed something. The work took nearly thirty minutes overall... and when she finally stood, she swayed slightly. Fatigue caught up when there was nothing left to do... and the duelist who brought them there recognized post-battle effects enough to already be waiting to catch her elbow.
"Good work."
"...On this part. If I was more careful, it might not have cost him anything."
"Struggles always cost us something, Zyris."
As fingers tapped against the temple-side of one mint colored eye, that was not quite so natural, the other woman removed her leather mask. The cloth under her wrist wiped away the traces of dried tear streaks from earlier as she huffed a sigh. She knew the other woman was right, but it felt hard not to feel responsible for making decisions. Yatrel knew this quite well... but what was being born in her heart was meant to help rectify that just a little.
"How many places like this do you think exist? With fields, livestock, and lives wasting away or abandoned."
"Too many."
Nohre answered the Goltbred while approaching them, slipping off her own mask and flipping it over. Looking at the face, she couldn’t help but feel that her Master would have done a better job crafting them than the person she hired through Nysoi. The idea of keeping identities secret until they could perform successfully had been suggested, but El had prodded her to figure out the details on her own. Still, she was sure they had brought more ’luck’ than the older woman might feel they did.
’It made me feel better going into this, and that alone was worth it.’
"Hundreds across the continent, according to reports. Every bit of black ichor that stained things with corruption has to be moved out of the way and await the Void to disperse naturally."
"I talked to my daughter at length about many things, including your visit. As far as she knows, you could spend these years and those after the next Descent researching and improving... and you still may risk complications like today. What happens then, when attention is finally drawn to what you are doing? Are the Talcres going to take on the press of Guilds and requests of desperate families alone?"
"What are you suggesting, Yatrel?"
The reddish blonde thought about the letters on her desk and smiled. Giving an answer to that was a lot easier than she expected. She had been looking for the best reason to leave that were not just personal annoyances. This plan that formed as she watched the potential orphan and saw the saved father... felt like a great motivation, indeed. Especially because it meant she would lock horns with plenty of self-serving people.
"Before questionable motives try to limit or devour your capabilities into their own sort of structure, we form something new. A Guild registration focused on exactly this - treating the aftermath. I’ll lead the organization and serve as the protective face. You let me keep others off of your backs and make the harder decisions."
She smiled wildly as she spoke - and as she gathered both women’s necks in either of her arms - and began to walk them back to see the father and son reuniting. A one-armed hug on each that was a bit too tight, a bit too loyal, and that Nohre felt was something quite akin to being devoured in someone else’s momentum all on its own. Just like the orphaned pair had been at one time with the woman’s daughter.
