((Note: I am not the author of this story. This was written by the player of Anguloceyon and is being posted with his permission.))
Frumere sat against a thin alder tree beside a pool which was still as glass under the shade of the Greenwood eaves.
The sky beyond was quartz blue, milky with high, diffuse cloud, and the summer wind which passed over the waters to him was warm, yet not so warm that it did not cool the blood which stained his tunic at the abdomen. The cuts to his arm and legs were trivial, he could wrap them in bandage cloth and drink to their healing with his fellows, but the pierce of the worm-fang spear to his middle was too cruel for laughter.
He had been deep in the woods when the orc party found him, harvesting wood for his carvings, seeking shapes grown naturally which a clever hand could fashion into knots and curls. The fascinating diversity of shapes taken as each breed of tree rose in search of sunlight had stolen his thoughts until the patter of blackbloods on rain-soft leaves was so near that he had no chance of hiding. The wrathful shrieks they made as they charged him came only as enough warning to take up his javelin and shield, to hurl the weapon through one starving orc before unbelting his axe to face the rest.
The fight was fierce as it was brief, and in the end five orcs lay slain at his feet as he chopped the haft of the spear which wounded him so severely and then hurled his axe into the back of the cowardly orc which tried to flee. He made what dressing he could, as quickly as he might, and then sought to find his way back home. The chaos of the fray had spun the world in circles around his head, and his dizzy, blood-faint head only showed foggy patches of north moss and dimming sun, not landmarks memorized from his early wandering.
The trickle of water which built up to a grumbling fall down a cliff twice his height had been his hope. The water would flow to the great river, surely. And from there the roads, a town, a passerby. Any chance might spare him a sorry death, bled out unsung after his victory. But as he went down the slope, his legs gave out. He crashed onto his knees, clutched his belly at the sharp pain of his innards poking at the open air and laughed grimly. He crawled like an infant over to the alder and sat there to watch the passing of the day.
The water of the mere was so dark and lovely. Scant ripples passed out from the banks as quiet creatures dipped inside. The earth before the alder was fully brown and soft, growth hindered by the slanted boughs, but it was not sodden into muck. There was no cutoff but a smooth descent into the water. Perhaps when his spirit fled he would tumble down into the water and be carried off with the currents to the great river, and from there to the uncharted oceans. But that was too grand. And the slope was too low. His body would remain here to feed a passing beast, if it hurried on his bloody heels.
How he wanted to go and lap at that water. Thirst scraped his throat. Yet if he went, he would not have the strength to bring himself back here. Face down in the earth was no place for him to die. He could endure the thirst. All would pass away soon enough. He smiled out at the temptation of the water.
“You did not conquer me.”
That was when he saw her.
She was dressed in furs, to the exclusion of all other fabric, and might have been a prowling beast herself but for the remarkably low neckline, open all the way to her pelt skirt, showing smooth female skin to the world. She had set huge feathers of brown with black bands and some few with white tips in a leather thong crown about her ears. Perhaps she was no woman at all, but had manifest out of the far fringe of the woods to revel as he sat dying, bespoiling her groves.
He winced, but raised up the red hand which had clutched his would, hailing her with a sign of blood. She pursed beautiful lips, the lower more full than the upper, as she leaned upon a half-staff held with both hands. His hand fell limply back onto his belly, no longer pressing on the pain, but laying still.
She stood a moment longer, then brought up a pouch off her waist, tied it to the staff and resolutely strode into the mere. The staff remained high, keeping the contents dry, even when the water hid all but the tight chords of her neck and her hair made a wake of its own behind her slow passage. As she neared, she began to emerge. The water had made her fur vest dark and brought it heavily close to her frame. She had been feminine across the mere, but now she was both sleek and bestial in her womanhood, a spirit of the wilds looking down on a lowly mortal as if he was one more among the countless deaths she must witness, no better a soon corpse than a vole or worm.
“I am ready to reach the halls of my fathers,” he said. It was true. Not fully true, but true enough to declare himself set apart from the brutes of the woodland.
She canted her head like a falcon eyeing a mouse. Then she clicked her tongue.
“If you wish to die, I can let you. But your wound isn’t so serious that it can’t be mended.”
Her speech was not so rough as it was lovely, with unpracticed eloquence in her pronunciation. Through pain and clouded thoughts he found his muscles to smile. She must be a spirit, brought either to aid or torment him. If a tormentor, at least he would enjoy her beauty in his last moments.
“I do not wish to die. If your magic can save me, then I ask for it.”
She clicked her tongue yet again, a chatter of disapproval like a disturbed squirrel might make, but knelt beside him and carefully drew his hand away from the wound. The loss of pressure let the skin sag open and burned needles around the puncture.
“If you are still in pain, then you aren’t too near death. When the blood is gone out enough, you stop knowing all the parts of your body.” Her fingers nimbly parted the red-soaked tunic as she looked within. Even when she touched the edge of his injury, her prowess caused no hurt at the sensation. “This hardly calls for magic. I can mend your skin, stop the flow. You should be able to heal from that.”
He had not heard most of her words. The dark hair falling around her bare shoulders, the slender body thoughtfully caressing his own, the green eyes under wide lashes, these had been his concern. How sad to have found the touch of a woman like this one only at the end of life.
She tilted her head incredulously when she had no reply and caught out his dreamy, blood-starved look. “Do you want my help or not?”
“I do,” he muttered, as proudly as he could.
“Good. Then sit there and do as I say. First,” she searched her pouch for a parcel which when opened showed a coarse, white powder. She collected a large pinch, set it on a leaf and placed it to his lips to pour in his mouth. “Take this for when I stitch. It will make the sewing hurt less.”
He lolled his tongue and accepted. The medicine was bitter and thick in his mouth. She then went about getting tools of mending: an oddly hooked fish bone needle, clean sinew thread, and a bizarre sort of clamp vice which opened outward. By the time she was ready, his lips tingled with numbness, and when he moved his fingers, he could not feel them even as he willed them to contract and wave. He showed that finger game to her, as if she also knew the loss of sensation, and she only shook her head with an unreadable grin.
There was huge pressure in his belly as she began passing the needle through. At times a flare of pain shot up into his neck when the needle went deeper. That made her stop and check his face, but he was soon back in the hazy stupor of the powder. The sun had not gotten to evening when she had finished and nodded at her work.
“There, the worst is over.”
“I can return home now?”
Her laughter came out through happily bared white fangs. “No! Silly. You are on the path to mending but you will need time to rest. I would not move you now, but I am not prepared to camp here tonight. You will have to wait here while I go and fetch a kit.”
He nodded, drowsily. If she had told him to leave he would have stayed here all the same and passed into slumber.
“But you cannot stay here all alone.” She tapped her lips and thought, then looked up at the trees and whistled a birdsong. In a moment, a tan-body bird with rusty breast alighted nearby. “This man needs rest,” she told the bird. “Set a watch on him until I return. Warn off any prowlers in my name.”
The bird chirped like a soldier and paced the branch until settling there. Frumere was already asleep.
He did not wake again until the morning. A small fire had smoldered out near his feet, and he was covered in a blanket of deep green checkering. The woman was beside him, curled up under the same blanket. Somewhere in the sleep of night, or else by choice, she had nestled her dark head into his arm, with her cheek in the nook of his elbow. His fingers had freedom to play through the gully in her back and to brush the fringe of her fur clothing.
His touch gently opened her bright green eyes. She yawned, wide-mouthed as a cat with her tongue stuck out, and licked her lips at the end. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning to you,” he answered, not nearly so easily. His fingers retreated shyly.
“Has the medicine worn off? Are you in need of more?”
“It has worn off, and I do not feel the wound nearly as much as yesterday.”
She rolled up onto her arm and looked over his belly. “It was bad, but if you aren’t being boastful, we might try to walk to my cabin today. I want you to stay there until I am sure you’re healed completely.”
“Then let us go there.”
She waited until they had breakfast, and he was able to sit on his own strength and eat. That was proof to her, and after packing camp they went together through the summer forest, his arm around her waist for support, along paths only she could read, and found her cabin amidst the unrestrained wild rose bushes and round, unfenced plots of food crops.
The inner cabin was all of one room, but shelves of jars, satchels, containers of eccentric shape, bauble stones and crafted vales art, these divided the space, as did the two curtains, one wrinkled and slightly dusty, around a matting bed, the other quite clearly new hung around a table with a pillow on it. That chamber must have been made for him when she had fetched her camp kit.
She helped him along to the table bed and laid him out there. Her hand rested on his forehead, more akin to a blessing than a healer’s test, and she smiled slyly when he stared with such fixation into her strange, wise eyes. She left the curtain open that day, and each day after they awoke, and he saw her coming and going, mixing her healing tonics and sitting cross-legged on a table to perch over him and talk.
She knew enough of what was happening in the vales that his news was of no interest, though she listened politely. The account of his home, the mythic tales of his people, these captured her heart, and so he kept to those most of all. His own questions met most often with enigmatic trails, or subtle redirection, so that he was the one speaking far more than she. That arrangement suited her. She barely broke her dedication to mystery by naming herself Eira when he shared his own.
After nearly a week of healing and sharing her home, a visitor came to her door. He was a wilderman and not of the kindred of the Eotheod. He was broad enough, though not as Frumere was, and his billowy clothing opened into thinner limbs. He did share Eira’s dark hair, but not the green of her eyes. That much was plain when he gawked at Frumere reclining shirtless on the table bed inside.
“Greetings Eira,” the man said, gradually looking away from Frumere to find her posing jauntily and awaiting his cause to visit. He raised up a lidded clay pot with a gauze layer under the lid and hemp twine binding up and down through handy loops and added gaps in the base. “I have brought you a harvest for your store.”
“That is kind of you!” She said, voice bright as the day on a churning stream. She reached out and grabbed the pot from him, and then went to make a space on her shelves. “What can I offer in exchange?”
The wilderman shook his head. “This is not a trade. We all know the good you do for the people. If this helps you work your deeds easier, then I am satisfied.” His eyes kept darting to Frumere and he received the flapped wave of a hand, lifted off the stitches it had modestly hid.
Eira rose again after depositing the pot, but was silent as the guest was focused on her patient then. “I accept your gift. Thank you,” she said, drawing his eyes back to her. “Would you like to stay with us for the midday meal?”
“No, no.” He replied, quickly. “I have food for my journey. I don’t want to bother your… tending.” Another darted glance preceded the pause.
“It is no bother. Have a seat. We will eat early.”
“No. I will go now. Next time I may stay.”
She sweetly bent her head aside, so that a jet curtain cascaded over her shoulder, but he set his gaze low, bowed, and left. She climbed up onto her table and sat watching the door, as if he might return, but his feet ground the dirt path until they were too far away for hearing.
Frumere held his belly, loosely now as the healing was going well, and sat up before getting to his feet. She looked back at him with a pretense of astonishment.
“Oh?” she asked, seeking an explanation for why he walked around her cabin.
“The talk of a meal has put some vigor in me. I think I will gather it up.”
She spun on her seat to watch him with a curious, full grin.
He paced the shelves, pointing at this or that item, seeking provisions among the array of items ordered in a way only she understood. Though he had watched her all week, he had learned nothing. At length he grabbed a pottery jar with a twine-tethered cap and held it out for her to see.
She hopped to the floor with a merry laugh and drew near to him. “That is for cataracts. Are you having trouble seeing?”
He turned the jar for a better look, but there were no markings. “No. I see very well,” he said.
Eira had drawn close to him, with her hand reaching out to take back the medicine, but her eyes were low-lidded, her smile parted to reveal the caps of her front teeth. He stepped in towards her with the jar, so that as it came to rest in her hand it also pressed into each of their bellies.
“I think that man loves you.”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
Frumere huffed out a short laugh. “Why indeed.”
She recoiled playfully, the better to display the hunting eyes and the knowing smile. The press of firm clay to his skin had not lessened for the retreat of her head, a retreat which beckoned him after. And how he wanted to chase her down, with his lips, with his hands. To cast the valuable eye tincture to the floor and take hold of her fur-bound body. His breath was steaming hot, but in the suddenly warm cabin he could see none of it. The visitor had loved her, but Eira wanted more than love alone. The air between them told him so in a way that did not fall upon a single sense.
Suddenly he did not know if he could give her what she wanted. His eyes fell above a wistful, surrendering smile, and the jar came away from his belly as she returned a sweet grin, free of pain and disappointment as she gave him room to stand starkly alone. He could not look higher than those innocent lips and so turned aside bashfully, then snapped his face in a whip upon one of the middle shelves.
Prominently displayed was a carved soft-shell mud turtle, with its long snout pointed up as if scenting the cabin.
“That is one of my favorites,” Eira said, following his reaction.
“It is one of mine.”
“You made this?”
He nodded. “I will say it was three years ago. I traded it for some needful good I cannot recall, but I remember holding the block in my hand and bringing out the shape of the turtle.”
“I don’t remember what I gave in trade for that either, but I wanted it when I saw it. It looks exactly like a real one, only smaller.”
“I thought so as well. But I cannot always spare my favorites when I make them. Carving is my trade, and my work goes to support my home when it must.” He had the courage to face her again now, and her delightful expression was far less feral while no less enchanting. “It pleases me to know that it found an owner who loves it, as I do.”
“So you aren’t worried that I cannot love as you do? I am a wild witch-healer who lives among the beasts.”
“I would be a fool to believe that,” he answered. But then the length spent standing pinched near his sutures and he grimaced.
That only made her snort. “Go sit down. I’ve teased you with promises of food, so we’ll eat now.”
Over the next week neither of them mentioned the moment they had stood on a precipice by the shelves, awaiting his plunge. Eira seemed almost to have forgotten, and gone back to her routine as his healer and host. But the alluring look which had begged him to advance was always a shadow in every smile sent his way. He looked for it each time their eyes met, sometimes found it in the moment before she turned the expression back to the aloof confidence of the wild witch.
And then, his stay was over. Two days earlier she had pulled out the stitches. The holes and gash no longer stained the poultices she placed on top. He was well enough to walk now, under burden of his supplies no less, and she led him down the footpath to her cabin, through a series of baffling glades, the exits known only to a few, and out to the road which followed the great river.
“This is farewell, Frumere. You no longer need my tending, but you are always welcome as a guest.”
He could not only walk his way from that, and so took her hand up, clasped in both of his gratefully. “You saved my life, Eira. I will not forget the kindness. I will not forget you.”
She laughed merrily, but did not withdraw from his hold. “You speak like we will never meet again. Come and visit me, whenever you like, if you have need of healing or need of company.”
She had to understand though, for him to return to her would be a return seeking a permanent stay, by her side forever. Still, he bowed his head, accepting the offer, and released her hand.
In that instant a shrill, bold cry rent the sky over them. A huge mountain eagle soared past the forest and across the river and fens. Eira giggled and ran up to the edge of the raised road, shading her eyes and watching the bird’s flight. Frumere might have left her then, but instead he walked after and joined her to silently watch as well, though the eagle held his eyes not so long that he did not look over at her while she was rapt in the moment.
All of her lithe energy was poised on the rise, as though she might spring into the air and chase the eagle in sport. How could a man bear to leave this woman? How could he?
Above her athletic hips rested the medicine pouch she carried for emergencies, such as his own. The loose knot was only enough to keep it in place as she walked, and it came free easily as he grabbed hold and pulled it away. He backpedaled towards the road as Eira rounded on him with a playful disapproval on her face. While she leapt after him, he turned and loped for the forest eaves, holding the pouch preciously close.
She never shouted a condemnation or a demand. This was all a game. They both knew it.
Branches cracked under his boots, but her wildsense landed every bare footfall on a patch of soft earth. He was nowhere near the match of her speed, yet as she overtook him he held the pouch aloft so that she had to collide and grope up his longer arm to reach for the prize. He captured her waist and sent them tumbling as one until she lay atop him. He dragged the now in-reach pouch near to his face, and Eira watched him with that same heated smile she had shared in the cabin.
Back then he had not known if he could give her all that she wanted. He was still uncertain, but he knew well that he wanted to try.
“When I first saw you, I thought you an immortal beauty made of the wilds. From the moment you rose out of the lake to rescue me I have wanted you. I love you, Eira,” he confessed.
She gripped the pouch by slipping her fingers through his, and pulled it away. Then she flicked a brushed finger down the tip of his nose.
“Why wouldn’t you, hm?”
