Out under the speckled Altas Verde forest canopy, a dark hood emerged from between the foliage. The figure stepped through the leaves more silently than the dewdrops rolling off their hood, although at this point it seemed more force of habit rather than function. What was the point of quietly sneaking up on a wild game trap that he already set up if it worked? Not like the animal would get away.
A handful of rabbits and grouse, dead but fresh, dangled limply from Onca's belt as he approached the last trap of the morning for him to check. He only found it logical to check the largest last so that he wouldn't be encumbered from dragging a larger carcass around, but this was neither wild game nor carcass.
What was meant to snare and suspend a larger animal had snagged a more unfortunate and sentient catch. Onca stared at his unintentional victim with an unreadable face. It wouldn't matter how readable his face was anyway, given his entire face was fucking covered. He expected venturers in this neck of the woods (lol) to be less unseasoned to spotting a fellow woodsgoer's traps. The hell?
Was a quiet life really so much to ask?
Asta--or The Ghost, as she had once again begun to be known in her new stomping grounds--had been in her doe form when the snare snapped shut around her back foot. Surprised, she'd instinctively reverted to her human shape. Which was something of a mistake, as it left her dangling above the forest floor it little more than an enchanted slip and a frown.
She'd considered taking a smaller shape--maybe even a bird of some sort--but an experiment start to change into her pine marten form had proved that the snare just tightened around her ankle, and then when she tried to change back, the damn thing was cutting into her flesh.
Maybe if I could swing myself up, she mused, eyeing the closest branch. If she could just get ahold of it, she could change into something that climbed more easily, maybe a squirrel, and keep herself steady while she tried to untie or cut the snare.
She was just starting to swing herself back and forth when the hunter--presumably the person who'd left the snare--approached. Baring her teeth and wishing she'd kept her knife on hand--but what good was a knife to a deer--she warned, "You lay a hand on me and I'll bite."
Onca stared disinterestedly at the hapless lass snarling at him. Wordlessly, he sighed slowly. Disappointment? Irritation? Definitely not guilt. The victory of catching something was sort of killed if it was something not even worth butchering or skinning. Like a person.
Completely ignoring her warning, he turned to the side where the snare's base was. He unlatched whatever da hell mechanism held the rope up, but held it in place with his hand. The snare didn't move yet, leaving Ms. Bycatch still dangling.
Keeping the snare still suspended, he turned back to her and held his other hand out expectantly.
"Pay up."
He tugged on the line a few times to get the message across, resulting in the snare bobbing her up and down. Not the most polite shakedown.
"For the deer I lost because of you."
Asta yelped when she bobbed in the air, the snare digging even more firmly into her ankle.
"Alright--alright, stop it!" she snapped at the hunter. Gods. Just her luck. The last time she'd been trapped, she'd wound up spending a hellish few weeks in a traveling menagerie. It seemed this time she was to be stripped of any coin she had on her.
Which...was precisely none. How was she supposed to pay him?
"I don't have anything," she sighed, glaring at him from her upside down vantage point. "But if you cut me loose, I--I can get you two deer."
Had he been a funnier individual, Onca would've cackled at the view of this pale woman being strung up and shaken around, reminiscent of a tablecloth left out to dry. Instead, he just raised his eyebrow when he heard her offer, stilling the snare in his hand. Ever the skeptic, he looked her up and down to assess whether he could hold her to follow through with her proposal as strange as it seemed. She looked feeble enough to coerce even if she didn't.
Even though his face was totally covered, anyone could tell that Onca seemed amenable to this compromise. However, he's just a tad bit scummier than your average opportunistic predator.
"Make it three," he demanded without skipping a beat, "and I'll let you down slowly. Instead of just dropping you." He lessened his grip on the rope to demonstrate that he wasn't above just letting go rather than easing her down gently. "No tricks."
Asta glared, but muttered, "Fine, three." She probably could have figured out her own way down eventually, but the hunter was closer, and new the intricacies of his own trap. At least, she assumed.
Besides...she didn't have to deliver on the deal. He didn't know just how fast she could get away, if she put her mind to it.
"Now, will you let me down? Please?"
"Bring two here first while I'm lowering you." Even someone as magic-illiterate as Onca was still sharp enough to recognize when someone wasn't. Surely this starkly pure white and flowing lady hanging out (literally) in the woods didn't look like this without supernatural reason. Onca figured there was a non-zero chance of her somehow magically summoning or calling them over, so it was worth a shot trying to negotiate for her to do it right where she was.
However, he still did need his trap back, and he wasn't the type to be dishonest during negotiations, so Onca began lowering down the snare anyway. He just did it at a snail's pace (if the snail were stuck in molasses) to give her ample time to respond to him. After all, he did promise to let her down slowly.
"The third after I let you down," he grunted. He thought this was a fair enough deal, or at least if it was within her powers anyway. She could hand the last one over if she rated his customer service for gently letting her down enough stars.
"I--what?"
Asta stared at him. "I--I can't bring them," she exclaimed, as though the very idea was ludicrous. Which it wasn't, if she really thought about it for a moment. Plenty of mages and druids could probably pend their magic to such a task, but that wasn't exactly withing the scope of her talents.
"I'm a hunter," she snapped by way of any explanation. "And I don't need traps."
Onca snorted at her exasperated response. Could you even blame him for trying, she looked super fancy and magical. At least it was worth a shot. He sighed, continuing to let the snare down just as slowly as before.
"Then explain how you'll hunt them." His hood shifted as he visibly looked her up and down judgmentally, considering she was fairly empty-handed. What, did she summon lightning from the sky to slaughter wild game? He'd hate that, considering how damaged the sizzling carcass would be. He'd expected to be able to kill them himself, so it only made sense that he'd still rather check to see how the carcasses might be affected by... whatever her hunting method may have been. "Without traps," he added as a biting jab at her.
"Let me down," Asta responded slowly, "and I can show you."
It's a bit of a gamble, but what does she really have to lose at this point? She'd already established that she can't shapeshift her way out of the snare, not with the weight of her body hanging from it.
She could have lashed out at him, but...gods. She didn't want to. All she'd wanted was a few months of peace and quiet, was that really so much to ask?
"Already am," he grunted back at her. True to his word, his hand was indeed letting the rope down just as agonizingly slowly as before.
You know, at first Onca hadn't even been suspicious beyond his typical caution when negotiating with strangers. It only seemed fair to exchange both sides of an agreement at the same time to him, or at least offer an explanation why it wasn't possible in order to appease the other party. This chick hadn't done either, and only seemed to be keen on being let down. He noted this, but what else could he have done anyway. He was confident in his own ability to out-stubborn someone into getting what he wanted one way or another, even if it meant easing up just in the moment.
Onca finally let the rope go slack in his hand as the snare was lowered enough to let the stranger's head, shoulders, torso, and eventually hips make contact with the ground. He nodded at the loop of rope around her leg, indicating for her to loosen it and take her leg out. "Not cutting it. There's no more tension. 'Should be loose." Onca preferred his rope fully intact and reusable at full length, thank you very much.
Asta oofed quietly when she finally made contact with the ground, and immediately rolled and tried to scramble into a slightly more dignified position. Still eyeing the hunter warily, she reached down and worked the snare loose, then off her foot.
Then she was on her feet and changing, taking the shape of a large, lithe forest cat, though the snowy color of her hair stayed in the feline's fur. She bared her teeth at the hunter, fangs easily the length of a human thumb.
But instead of attacking, she whirled and took off into the brush, a flash of bright white against the greens and browns of the forest around them.
"Twel-" Onca caught himself as he saw her form morph into an animal. Oh. A shapeshifter. Well that explained why she was so adamant on not being able to do anything before she was let down.
"Six hours." I'll give you six hours to come back with your end of the agreement. Onca watched her dash off, assured that her hearing was probably sharp enough to have heard him before she'd left. He turned back to his snare to properly dismantle it.
So maybe he'd halved the initial time he'd intended on giving her, but having seen her as a pure white wildcat, he knew her pelt's value would be way higher than three measly deer. Onca wouldn't be all that bummed out anymore if she didn't hold up her end of the agreement, since that would mean he didn't have to either. Honestly, he kind of hoped she wouldn't. He'd love an excuse to sell a skin like hers.
At first, Asta fully intended to just keep running. Maybe take a shape with wings, and simply...find somewhere new. Somewhere far from this hunter's scope.
But...no. No, she had chosen this place. When her father had left, she'd promised that he'd be able to find her in these woods. And—and even more than that, she was tired of running. Every time something happened, a trapper appeared or human settlements moved too close or even a shift in the wilds themselves, every time she ran.
She was so tired of it.
It took about three hours before she returned to where the snare had been laid, still in her feline shape, with a rather impressive buck dragged along beside her. She dropped the animal in the natural hollow formed by the roots of the tree and sat back.
Well damn. There goes a massive profit for now. Bah, Onca couldn't complain if the woman was truly going to follow through with her promise. It was no pure white pelt, but three deer were still way better than none. He wasn't going to risk shooting for platinum when gold was already setting itself down for him.
He dropped from out of the trees where he'd been stringing up and hiding most of his gear and smaller catches, landing with a very [cat jumping off kitchen counter] thunk onto the soft forest floor.
"One." Two more. Onca approached the carcass while almost entirely ignoring Asta and pulled out a knife. It was unlike the combat knives he carried on his front, flaunting an ornately carved handle and a blade that looked like it belonged in a toolshed rather than a fight. He grabbed an antler and held it up to inspect the buck's head and body; at least he could trust her to make clean kills.
Onca squatted and immediately began dressing the carcass, pleased that its insides were even still slightly warm.
"Nine hours," he revised, not even looking at Asta. Even he'd struggle to snatch two more in just three remaining hours, and the unrealistic timeframe he'd demanded had just been to make it easier to hunt her down had she not kept her word. But now she had, and waiting a little longer for the extra free catches seemed a lot more worthwhile.
Asta let her form melt back into human. Ever since she had started living in these woods, she had taken to wearing an enchanted shift that stayed with her through her numerous changes--a parting gift from her father--so at least she had some semblance of modesty as she stood before him and folded her arms, glaring.
"No," she told the hunter, softly but firmly. "I was caught in your snare, which only would have caught you one deer. If that. This is fair payment, since you didn't have the common decency to let me down for free."
Her expression softened slightly from a glare to more of a considering frown before she added, "I could have left. You know I could have, you saw what I am. But I...I live here, now. I'm making a place for myself here. And I'm tired of running. So, if I have to make nice with rude neighbors--fine. So be it. But I won't let you take advantage of me."
"Not my problem. You offered," Onca grunted while hoisting up the prepared carcass on a hook to temporarily hang it from the tree. He didn't appreciate fickle bastards who didn't follow through what they said, even if they agreed to something unfair. "Should've just said you'd bring one."
He looked at Asta again, now facing her human form. "If you left, I was just gonna kill you instead. Your pelt's worth way fucking more," he noted flatly while climbing back up into the tree to gather his more perishable belongings up in the branches.
"Figure it out or pay me later before someone else actually shoots you," his voice rang out from the leaves. She couldn't really pay him back if she was actually dead, and he'd be majorly pissed if some other hunter still sniped her pelt while he'd dismissed his own chance. In his mind, it was still on Asta for offering two and then still agreeing when Onca got his scummy little foot into the negotiation door by tacking on a third. He wouldn't be forgetting this, and figured she'd be hellishly easy to track down again to badger for payment. Granted someone didn't kill her beforehand.
"Oh, horse shit!" Asta's glare was back. "I didn't offer, you coerced. If you don't know the difference, that's not my problem."
She wasn't backing down on this. It had taken her too long to learn to hold her ground, she wasn't prepared to give it up so easily.
"Enjoy your buck," she muttered, turning to head back into the trees. She waited until she had a bit of distance before falling forward into the shape of a snowy hare and bounding away into the underbrush, making for the small cottage she had begun building for herself settled in a tiny glade further into the woods.
Onca snorted before dropping back onto the dirt, seeing the tracks of Asta's departure. He hefted up her little gift and prepared to take it back to town where it could age and be sold. He sincerely didn't have high hopes in her ability to survive because, just look at her. Onca mulled over an appropriate time he could track her back down before the idiot got caught in another trap or by other hunters.
... The idiot got caught by other hunters. But the idiot ain't Asta this time. Explain to Onca how being in Serendipity meant getting used to the fact that magic might've been anywhere, even a simple illusion spell for concealing a stupid fucking pit trap of all things that he'd otherwise have spotted from a mile away.
Had he any semblance of shame left, Onca would've been absolutely embarrassed to find himself stuck in the most primitive trap known to mankind. He'd managed to mostly avoid the barbaric spikes by sheer reflex and the split-second assessment that if this were him making a trapping pit, he'd have definitely laid down barbaric spikes at the bottom, but he wasn't faster than gravity. His vitals were only bruised from the fall, but his calf wasn't spared the fate of being skewered all the way through by one of the wooden stakes. Onca was smart enough to saw off the wooden rod as close as he could to his wound to detach it from the ground, but there he was immobilized with a massive piece of wood fully impaling his leg.
And now he found himself surrounded by the very hunters responsible for this childish trapping pit. He didn't fail to recognize the twist of irony when they goaded at him for ruining a massive trapping pit they spent forever working on (an inefficient and very unprofessionally messy way to kill animals, Onca thought), and demanded compensation for their ruined work. In the end though, if Onca thought that their trap was stupid, then what did that mean about Onca, the person stupid enough to get caught in that trap? He didn't wanna think about it.
"Treatment for this," he deadpanned at them from below as he cocked his head at his impaled calf, "costs more than whatever your shit trap could get. Call it even." They spit on him.
It had been a few days since Asta's run-in with the hunter, and she'd rather thought she might be rid of him. The woods were wide, after all; maybe they'd manage to avoid each other for the foreseeable future.
That would be nice.
Unfortunately, the odious hunter was not the only problem she would seemingly have to deal with. She caught wind of the poachers from a naiad that lived in the stream she'd been using for fresh water near her new cottage. Hunters were one thing—even that awful man from earlier was simply making a living. She could understand that; some had to hunt for food, for their livelihood.
But poaching was another matter entirely. Game hunters were despicable, as far as she was concerned, and these had come to her woods.
Like hells.
Once again in the form of a large forest cat, she crept through the branches above their trap—she'd caught their scent not too far away, and had decided it would be best to approach from above.
The group was gathered around their pit; clearly they had already caught something. A low growl started thrumming in her chest, and her tail lashed as she crouched lower on her branch.
If Onca's mind hadn't been so occupied with suppressing the urge to yell from the sensation of his leg currently hosting a foreign skewer in it, he might've noticed the slight glimmer of a white creature up above the shady leaves. But no, he was entirely focused on hiding the excruciating pain while having a stare-down with his captors.
"You really don't know your shit around here, do you?" one of the men jeered. The leader, perhaps? He didn't wear anything to indicate any higher status above the others, but then again, what kind of poacher would brazenly flaunt his criminal status for everyone to see. The others seemed to give him the leader treatment, though, looking at him for direction and letting him speak freely. "I'm not really sure in what world any part of you would cost more than the work my boys here put into digging this whole setup." He leaned in, propping up his elbow onto his knee as he peered into the pit.
This world, Onca thought dryly. "It's messy," he retorted back. He didn't see himself winning this fight anyway, so he figured he might as well go out dissing them before whatever they did to him. "Would ruin the carcass."
The man up at the top smiled smugly, looking back at his men as if to prove a point. "See what I mean," he sighed at them, turning his head back down to Onca. "Hunters like you remind me of beggars. So desperate to squeeze every drop of worth from a filthy damn animal or you can't even feed yourself." He chortled. "I bet you even sell the shit from its innards to boil as tea. Waste not want not, no?" Not even two minutes in and Onca was already thinking of ways to beat the guy's theatrics out of him.
"Get to the point. What do you want," Onca barked out. He knew he was a sturdy individual, but even he wouldn't be able to save his leg from sepsis if this splintering wooden spike stayed for too long. "So useless you need another man on your team?"
"Mm, I do recall an open position." The leader crossed his arms thoughtfully. "We don't exactly have anyone willing to risk themselves to start the flush in Ravensway. That is, if you're still even able to run."
Onca's eyes narrowed. He suddenly made sense of their proximity, as they were currently skirting near Ravensway. They were aiming for fae-touched fauna. Anyone sane knew not to fuck with the faerie folk, so these men had likely set up a trap further out to try and snag a straggler further from its borders in the hopes of getting away fast enough. Their sloppiness suddenly made sense; an animal's powdered bone and teeth alone on the black market would be enough to pay for the entire team's legs being skewered by shit wooden stakes if the animal had ties to the fae. But of course, nobody wanted to risk earning the wrath of any local in Ravensway by actually chasing magical creatures out of there. Shit, Onca wasn't even sure if their plan would work. It wasn't like any fae coming after them would suddenly stop at the edge of Ravensway. He wasn't about to turn his own hunting grounds into a magical wreck.
"Not being your fall guy," he gritted out. "Try again."
Asta dropped silently to the ground behind the lead poacher, creeping forward on quiet paws until she was close enough that their stench filled her mouth. They seemed to have taken certain precautions against hunting fae creatures--the whole group reeked of rowan berries.
Fangs bared, the shapeshifter snarled. It was a low, rumbling sound that grew quickly in volume, ripping through the air like a tangible force.
Three of the poachers yelped, and nearly the whole group whirled to find the source of the noise. "What the--?!"
Weapons drawn, sinking back into defensive positions, it only took a breath for the poachers to come to the obvious conclusion: a snowy white forest cat, in an area not native of such creatures? Maybe they didn't need to start in Ravensway after all.
The leader grinned and hefted a crossbow. "Nice kitty," he muttered as he lined up a shot.
Asta snarled again, though the sound turned to a more human growl as she reared up onto her hind legs and took her birth form. Pale eyes cold with rage, she took a single step forward with fists clenched by her sides. "Leave. My. Forest."
???
Onca stiffened and readied himself as the men above him reacted all of a sudden. His less than ideal vantage point from below didn't allow him much context on what had suddenly distracted them, but hell if he hadn't heard a wild animal's growl. As soon as their eyes were off him, he broke his own vigilance to survey around the pit and scope out the most secure side of the hole. One of his legs might have been rendered unusable, but he assessed realistically that he wouldn't be incapable of dragging himself out as a tripod had he not been facing a group of enemies. Judging from the growl though, the animal wasn't large enough to be a bear and sounded more felid, and he knew it probably wouldn't afford him enough time to actually safely make it out. The men would turn their attention back to him before he could manage anything. He swallowed.
His focus was suddenly interrupted by yet another one of those growls that... now took the form of a human voice. Onca's hood immediately darted to face in the direction that the men were looking, the source of the voice. He could very easily place and remember that tone, livid and hostile that it was. That one imbecile white girl who owed him. So it wasn't just any ordinary animal after all. And they'd definitely seen her cat form too, from the sound of it. Not the best person to have stumbled upon the scene, given they weren't on the best terms, but hey. If these poachers were anything like Onca, they'd know to immediately set their sights on her. And anybody with a common enemy was still better than nothing to Onca. He stilled for the time being to wait and observe.
The leader's face fell in faux disappointment as Asta revealed herself, but he still kept the crossbow trained steadily on her. Damn, magical animals always had to come with a catch. "Miss, do you mind? I'd fancy another look at that marvelous coat." His head cocked to indicate to his men to flank around and behind her to try and close her in. "I'd hate to waste a shot on a fair lady. But if you'd like to stay this way for now, I'm sure we could arrange that."
Noticing that some of the lingering underlings behind him hadn't moved yet, he turned his head momentarily to make a much more exaggerated tilt of the head while whispering a frustrated "Go" at them to move their asses already and surround Asta. An idiotic slip of judgment had Onca witnessed it. He'd never have taken his eye off his target even for a second.
Her coat. Her only interest to these men was her pelt—or maybe worse, if the looks one or two of them gave her were anything to go by. She didn't plan to give them the chance to consider much if she'd be more valuable in animal or human form.
The moment the leader's eyes moved from her, she exploded forward in a bust of movement. She was quick, that was an asset in and of itself—but it was the sudden shift from human to wolf that was truly befuddling to the eye. Enough of a distraction that she managed to bowl the leader over with her first leap, then twist and snap at the ankle tendons of his closest lackey.
She heard him scream in a way that meant she'd met her mark, but then the group had rallied, and the leader was struggling her her weight. She knew he must have a knife, but rather than give him a chance to use it she rolled quickly off and leaped into the air, taking the shape of a heart-faced barn owl as she did.
She screeched, a barn owls terrible scream, and banked back to scratch her talons over the eyes of another of the hunters before swooping wide again to dart over the pit, trying to see what hapless animal they had trapped.
...Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
Oop. As if on cue, there were the cries and screams of pain. Onca let go of the breath he was holding because the screaming was not Asta, meaning she'd managed to get a few hits in. He didn't trust many acquaintances enough to fully believe that she'd win the fight, but if she took down enough of them... no. It didn't seem likely to him. Even he hadn't found her wildcat form the most formidable presence he'd ever met, and so he couldn't weigh her to win against multiple adult opponents. He was certain that the first screams had been from being taken by surprise, and concluded she wouldn't be able to eliminate enough of them for him to whittle down the rest; with a leg out of commission, he could probably only even graze two targets at once from a distance. Asta was not going to be his deus ex machina today; he'd never get that lucky.
Or so he thought. The piercing screech took his attention away from the scuffle and he did the mental equivalent of putting all of his careful mental math right down the shredder. She has multiple animals. Now that was a game changer. He peered up at the sky trying to catch whatever raptor she might've taken form as, and the white owl was unmistakable. Onca figured he wouldn't need to say anything in greeting, but only had one message to get across. He pointed at his injured leg. He wasn't mobile, and needed to make clear that he would be of little assistance to Asta (as much as he wanted to beat some of those guys senseless too just because they annoyed the shit out of him). Dead weight should get dropped, he thought, even if that weight was himself.
Her annoying neighbor, thoroughly skewered by these poachers' trap. Oh, the irony.
Gods this better be worth those two fucking extra deer to him, Asta thought with no small amount of righteous irritation as she swooped back over the pit again; she took wolf form again in mid-air, dropping down onto one of the hunter's she'd already wounded and sending him careening into his neighbor. She bit down on the uninjured man's hip, pretty effectively changing that particular statues, then twisted and rolled back into her wildcat shape.
"Get her, get her, get her!" The leader was shrieking nearly nonsensically. Three of his six men were thoroughly down for the count, and Asta bit down hard enough on the wrist of a fourth that her fang went clean through.
Four down. Three to go.
Skidding to a halt at the edge of the pit, she took her human shape and reached up to wipe blood from her mouth, stark crimson against the general paleness of her.
"Last chance," she snarled at the poachers. "Leave."
It was apparent that in the frantic rush and panic, the leader had forgotten to even shoot a single arrow from his crossbow, not that he'd have been able to land a clear shot with the speed that his men were being thrown about like dolls anyway. With Asta's final warning, he was given the brief respite to aim it back at her, but his hands shook. He didn't have the clarity of mind to check down on his crossbow, not when the last time he took his eyes off Asta even for a split second did in more than half his men.
Without warning, he fired the arrow, failing to notice that Asta's previous advance had crumpled an arm on the crossbow and consequently distributed the tension of the string unevenly. The bolt whizzed completely askew, not even close to where Asta stood, and nearly grazed one of the other men, who only managed to dodge it by jumping back and distancing himself from the others. Onca could see him jumping into view at the top of the pit, and it was a bit too easy of a shot to simply grab a stray rock and aim it at the guy's ankle to throw him off balance. He stumbled back before gravity did the rest of the work, and he joined Onca into the trapping pit. Judging from the screams and the visceral noise of the spikes meeting his body, Onca assumed the man didn't do as good of a job of dodging them.
Whatever, that was about as much as he could do. He just closed his eyes and leaned back with his head up, facing the sky. The initial adrenaline was wearing off and he was really starting to feel the pain like a bitch now, so he let Asta do the rest of the work. She seemed to have it handled anyway.
The other lackeys were already backing up, ready to abandon the job and flee. But the leader? He knew not to simply just show his back to a predator. He threw aside his now useless crossbow, wiping his hands on his pants and taking out daggers before forming a ready stance against Asta. Then he lunged. But not at Asta. His dagger met the foot of one of his own men, who howled and doubled over. With the decoy's foot pinned to the ground, the leader finally turned and ran, leaving the other two behind.
Cowards like him would rather live, but he wasn't about to let Asta bite his tail while he went running. He considered her no better than an animal at this point, so tripping someone in order to save his own skin seemed appropriate enough to him for an unintelligent wild beast.
Asta didn't even bother trying to dodge the bolt; she'd tensed instinctively when the poacher raised his crossbow, but had noticed the weapon's broken arm quickly enough. She barely spared the poacher who was almost hit a glance before he went toppling backward into the pit.
Fitting.
She didn't say anything as they started to scatter, just kept her glare on the leader with her teeth bared; she didn't trust him not to pull something.
Which, of course, he did, though even she couldn't have seen that particular move coming. She actually started slightly when the poacher nearest her double over, howling in pain as the leader skewered his foot and then...just ran. Ah. A decoy.
"Idiot," she hissed, stepping forward until she was in arm's reach of the decoy, who had recovered just enough to stare up at her in terror. "I don't kill in cold blood," she told him quietly, before bringing her hand down hard on the back of his neck. His eyes rolled back and he slumped, unconscious. She sighed quietly and bent to pull the dagger from his foot, flicking it onto the ground near his head. She doubted he would be much of a threat when he woke--he'd be lucky if he made it back out of the woods in one piece.
Which left one last piece of unfinished business. Carefully, Asta picked her way back over to the edge of the pit and peered down.
"Still alive down there?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow, wincing slightly at the sight of the impaled poacher before looking to the hunter she had met before. "Seems like you could use a hand up."
Onca opened his eyes and lifted his head from having it leaned back against the dirt wall of the pit. He'd heard all the nonsense happening, but surely didn't miss those footsteps getting away. He stared straight at Asta.
"You sure you can afford to look down here yet." Unlike her, he wasn't the type to spare people in case they retaliated no matter how unlikely it seemed, so it didn't sit securely with him that she'd let someone escape.
He didn't see anyone sneaking to jump her from behind at least, so after a second Onca assumed that she'd dealt with it cleanly enough for now. He sighed, pushing himself up onto his working foot and leaning an arm against the dirt wall to balance himself as he stood. He grunted, swallowing down a groan of pain while hopping to the spot he'd singled out prior that he judged to be the sturdiest place to climb up. "Over here."
Sighing, Onca unraveled a length of rope from his bags to tie securely around his torso. He gave it a test tug to confirm it'd help partially support his weight before knotting the loose end around the handle of one of his knives. He tossed it up so that it landed blade down into the dirt in front of Asta, giving her the opportunity to pick it up, and started hoisting himself up side of the pit to begin scaling it. It wasn't like he'd have been able to use a boost up from below considering he could hardly stand, so he reckoned getting pulled up was the next best choice.
"Whatever's your heaviest," he wheezed. Just as he'd expected, it was almost doable with his upper body strength, but excruciating and pathetic from how he was barely keeping himself stable with the one leg he could use. Dirt did not provide a good grip. The larger the animal that Asta could manage in mass, the more she could pit against Onca's weight to speed up his climb.
"They're all gone, or unconscious," Asta replied to his initial question. She rolled her eyes slightly when he directed her around the side of a pit--not that she was really expecting a "thank you" from this particular individual.
She picked up the knife when he threw it, starting tow work through his plan as she started reeling up some of the slack from the rope. Her heaviest...
Hm.
Well, it was a new shape for her--she'd only learned in in the last few months, after spending some time in human settlements--but it was definitely the best option she could think of. Looping her end of the rope around her chest, then her waist, she dropped the knife and took a step back before bending to plant one hand on the length of the rope still tied to the blade. A hand that quickly enough became a hoof as she shifted into the form of a large draft horse.
She tossed her head, feeling strange in the new shape. She'd only tried it once before, and it was a strange way to distribute her weight. How did horses even keep themselves upright? It felt like she was standing on her fingertips.
Still, it was an animal literally built for heavy lifting. Another quick toss of her head and she cautiously leaned back into her haunches, bracing herself easily against the hunter's weight as he hauled himself up out of the pit.
Whatever Asta had chosen, Onca felt his load lighten immediately. He strained to continue hauling himself up, albeit with much less struggle thanks to Asta's support. He presumed from the extremely steady bulk he could feel helping him up, Asta might have opted for large livestock, or at least something hoofed and heavy. Bovine, maybe? He'd seen plenty of exemplary plow cattle in the past.
He should have possibly seen it coming, but the day had already been harrowing enough, and the pain dulled his typical decisiveness. Onca slung his arm over the edge when he finally reached the top and dragged his shoulders up onto the ledge before spotting the immaculately white and majestic horse before him.
"Fffuck," he spat in alarm. He'd just gotten himself to the top but reflexively let go out of shock, partially dropping back down. The better part of him made sure his hand still shot up and gripped the ledge so that he didn't lose ALL of his progress, so he hung there barely having avoided yet another tumble down.
He wasn't about to explain his ridiculous reaction. Since the day he was born, every horse near Onca's vicinity had a raging vendetta against him and he learned very early on to steer clear of them at all costs. There was no rhyme or reason to it, they just flat out hated him enough to want to violently erase his existence off this world, so he couldn't even provide a proper explanation anyway.
Onca dangled for a second before sighing exasperatedly. He wasn't afraid of horses, but avoided them on principle just to reduce the risk of getting injured or having to pay for someone's horse he slaughtered in self defense. Getting jumpscared by one so close was still jarring, and it took a second to recollect his composure; this wasn't just a normal horse, and he (probably) faced no danger in front of her even in that form. It might've been the first time he'd even seen a horse this close that wasn't frantically trying to bite his head off.
Okay, take two. With a last heave of exertion, Onca managed to get his arms back up onto the ground. Once his shoulders were safely up it was much simpler to drag the rest of his body back up as well, and he rolled over onto his back on the ground panting and trying to ignore the screaming pains of his butchered leg.
Asta snorted in surprise as he fell back into the pit, but she kept herself steady so he could clamber back out again.
Once he was safely on solid ground, she let the horse melt away into her human shape and wriggled her way out of the loops of rope. She picked her way over to him and then knelt, close enough that she could better see his leg, but not so close that he could grab her—she still didn't really trust him.
"You're not going to be able to get far on that," she noted quietly. "I...I know a safe place. It's not too far; I can help you get there," she offered, if not a little reluctantly.
Asta was right, he seriously didn't see himself getting much further than a couple hundred meters, maybe a bit more if he was alright with wriggling himself a tad further like a worm.
He swallowed, sitting himself up and leaning down to prop his hands up onto his thighs. It was taking most of his focus to not dry-heave from the pain, but the rest of his mind was busy figuring out how he'd start off. They were considerably far from any larger settlements where there would be better medical treatment to reconstruct whatever got twisted up in his calf, so having a closer spot where he could at least quickly patch up what he could to make the rest of the trip safer made sense. Although, that meant relying more on Asta.
Onca's hand balled into a fist as he braced himself against the pain and straightened up to look at Asta, breathing heavily. He eyed her carefully, since he knew she already had a sour opinion of him. He didn't want to take her offer lightly, let alone take it at all. Onca knew she'd already helped more than she had to, and his cynicism didn't hold anyone above remorselessly indebting him for a past grudge they may have held against him. But right now, it was either risking looking like a fool to Asta by having to accept her help, or very surely looking even more like a fool by turning her down and crawling through the dirt.
"City afterwards. Can't heal on its own." He shakily lifted himself onto his working foot, visibly unstable in his attempt to balance himself as he took his hands off the ground to stand upright.
"...Right."
Moving cautiously, very much a wary animal, Asta leaned forward until she was leaning over his injured leg. She winced, grimacing at the sight. "There's...still bits of the spike embedded," she noted quietly, glancing up at his face. Or, well, hood. "You can't even limp with it like this. I'm...gonna pull them out and at least bind the wound, okay?"
She waited for his permission to actually move to touch him( she was under no illusions that, even so injured, he might lash out at her if he didn't like her plan.
Onca exhaled thinly from his nose to hold down any pained noises that might've leaked out from him. "Leave the main piece. It'll bleed out if it's removed." He nodded at the unconscious poacher still on the ground nearby. "Kill him first or worry about it when we're farther away." Onca was the type who preferred to lick his wounds once he was sure he wasn't vulnerable, and he didn't fancy a run-in with anyone that Asta had let escape either. Had he felt safer, he would've looted the men laying about, but wanted out of there as soon as possible.
He fumbled through one of the pouches at his waist, producing a roll of bandaging, and limply tossed it with an underhand swing to Asta so she could use it later. "Don't just stand there." What was he gonna do, weaponize his nausea and fall on top of her to crush her with his weight?
Asta huffed and gave him a quick, dry look. "If I leave the main piece, you won't be able to put any weight on it—I'll have to carry you. And, forgive me for the assumption, but you didn't seem to care much for my horse shape."
Even as she spoke she began picking the bigger splinters from the wound, hissing quietly and pressing a quickly ripped strip of bandaging to the small holes they left behind.
Without bothering to look at him or the unconscious poacher, she answered him simply, "No. He's no threat right now. If the first wants his life, it can have him, but I do not kill in cold blood."
Onca didn't withdraw his leg from Asta's reach, but he used the opportunity to support part of his weight by leaning onto her shoulders with his hands. "I said when we're farther away then," he insisted flatly. He swatted lightly at her shoulder now that he was much more stable, since he'd have rather dealt with this after they'd left the area.
"I don't do regular horses. Yours is fine," he grumbled. A tiny part of Onca still worried that along the way, whatever ungodly instinct that drove horses to try and eviscerate him would rise up within Asta, but that was just a worry he'd have to shove down and risk anyway. "Don't expect me to know how to get on or stay on."
"No, of course." Asta shot his leg a pointed look. "Even if you knew how, I doubt you could."
She stood and stepped back, giving herself enough ro to take equine form again. Once she'd shifted, she gave her whole body a quick shake to settle herself before plodding forward to lay down beside the hunter, waiting for him to flip awkwardly across her back before she rose again.
With a snort and a little toss of her head, she started off into the trees. It was certainly less...dainty than when she did the same as a deer. The horse shape really wasn't made for navigating the tight spaces, they were field animals. But she made do, working her best to keep her gait as steady as she could so there was a little jarring to her passenger as possible.
Eventually, they made it to the little clearing by the bend in the steam where she had constructed the beginnings of her cottage. It was currently a simple, one-room structure with a thinly thatched roof, a rough window cut into the side of the square room that faced the stream, with another facing the wider forest, next to an unfinished doorway.
Asta clipped over to the door before she laid down again, allowing the hunter to slide off her back and into the cottage.
Onca bit his lip as he precariously tossed himself over Asta's back and secured himself while holding onto her neck. He manually threw his injured leg over to the other side and gripped her mane when she stood back up. The built-in instinct that HORSE=DANGER was making his heart beat fast, even more rapidly than when he'd been stuck in that stupid trapping pit like a sitting duck. It took everything in him to steel himself when he was already injured and vulnerable while so goddamn close to a horse. As she stood up, he lurched forward from the sudden movement and clutched tightly at her hair. Every aspect of this was nerve-wracking.
The ride was... bumpy, to put it nicely. Asta wasn't the only one who felt less natural without being able to rely on a cervid. Onca was only used to the gait of his moose, goddamn if he wished it was anywhere nearby (it was not, and was happily going about its day munching pondweed far off down in Adela), and as careful as Asta was, even just the way her hooves hit the ground was harsher than the more delicate footsteps he was used to. He wryly thought to himself that at least his thighs were intact enough to allow some form of grip.
As the structure came into view, Onca realized he should've seriously asked where they were headed to before departure. He wasn't going to ask what in the world this half-built hut was. No matter. Shelter was shelter, and he was going to take Asta's word that it was safe. He slumped against the wall of the mini-cottage as soon as Asta let him down, sliding down onto the ground with his back to the wall with a strained exhale. Plop went his ass to the floor as he swallowed another groan and pulled up his knee to get a proper look at the injury.
He grimaced, pressing down around the area and holding the wood still. "Here," he indicated with his head to Asta for her to start bandaging. "Secure it." The chunk of wood getting jostled around while in his leg throughout the ride here had been agonizing, and it was about time to immobilize it and keep it in place before he was able to head to a more populated area with healers to get it removed.
Asta waited until he was fully off her back before taking her human shape, then waited a moment longer while the hunter seemed to situate himself and held the bit of stake still.
"Wait." She stood and moved carefully around him to a small chest at the foot of the palette that currently served as her bed, rummaging around for a moment before she came up with a small jar of salve that smelled strong and minty. "For infection," she explained as she knelt back beside him and began dabbing the salve around the open wound. Eyes on her work, she added in a dryer tone, "And I'm giving you a pass because I'm sure you're in a lot of pain, but if you can't bring yourself to thank me for the rescue, you could at least be nicer about how you ask me to help you." She didn't point out that she could have simply left him there; it didn't seem like something that needed to be said.
Picking up the bandaging, she began wrapping his leg, tightly and carefully, trying to secure the wood as much as possible without further aggravating the injury. "Is there someplace you normally go for this sort of thing?" she asked as she worked. "I know the village about two hours northeast--I'm sure they've got a proper healer, but I haven't spent much time there, really."
Onca hadn't even been planning on the luxury of an antiseptic, but there was no way he'd turn it down. Just because he thought his immune system would eventually be able to tough it out didn't mean that he wanted it to. He took a sharp inhale when the salve came in contact with his broken skin, but otherwise stayed still.
He listened silently (half from holding in any cursing from the pain, half because he also just had nothing to say) to Asta reprimanding him. Okay, sure. She was right in that he wasn't the most grateful rescue victim, but he'd learned long ago that favors always came with a catch; he didn't like, much less even know, how to show gratitude anyway, especially when he'd had no choice but to take it or die. Instead, Onca just wordlessly adjusted his hands around to allow her to bind around the wound until it was well padded and secured.
When she finished, Onca leaned back against the wall again, sighing heavily. "Been there before. It'll do." He hadn't stumbled into that village with a wound as severe as this, but remembered seeing at least a handful of places that might've housed a healer who could possibly look at his leg or at least refer him out further, hopefully with some fucking painkillers. But in terms of arriving there...
Onca looked Asta up and down. "You won't. You're covered in blood." He knew he looked equally as unsettling and bloody around his bandaged leg, but he only looked injured while she looked murderous, and only one out of the two of them could actually clean off their grisly bloodstains anyway.
Ah, shit. He was right.
Asta sighed as she glanced down at herself, plucking the fabric of her enchanted shift away from her body for a moment before she gave another little huff and stood. "I'll just be a second," she told him, once again crossing the small space to the corner where her meager supplies were gathered, this time to fetch a water basin. She'd just filled it from the stream that morning, so at least she knew it was fresh.
Taking the basin to the window, she scrubbed at her face until the water no longer came away pink, then tipped the basin over the sill. She'd refill it when she returned. She figured the blood in her shift could pass as having gotten there during her tending of the hunter's wounds. Though the thing did desperately need a wash. Something else she'd have to attend to when she was through helping her...guest.
Speaking of...
Asta looked back at where he sat on her floor, brow slightly furrowed. "You're not going to make it there on that leg," she said softly. "You'll have to ride again."
Onca nodded grimly. If he were a kid he'd have groaned in exasperation, but instead he just bit the inside of his cheek and began pushing himself back upright onto his leg again to stand with a slouch. There wasn't any reason for him to delay anymore, so he gave Asta another look up and down. He came to the same conclusion that the blood all over her clothing didn't seem out of place since she'd been assisting him, and she no longer looked like she'd recently mauled half a dozen men (not that it wasn't true). Onca didn't see anything else that would make the villagers fear her. If anything, if Asta wanted to enter the village as a human while dragging Onca along, they'd probably be more willing to approach an attractive girl who needed help rather than someone as faceless as him. He wasn't a stranger to seeing pretty privilege in action.
He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. At least this time he wouldn't be jumpscared by horse Asta again. "If I pass out or fall off on the way don't bother." If he lost consciousness or blacked out and dropped off of Asta on the way there, then that was going to be on him, and he assumed it'd only make sense for Asta to forget about him and leave him for dead. She'd already gone out of her way to help Onca this much already, and he didn't expect the goodwill to last forever.
"If I make it, stay out of smelling range from any horses." Or they'll come after me, and I'm totally fucking dead with the state I'm in anyway. He took a deep and slow breath, and straightened up while leaning against the wall to indicate he was ready to get back up and move on- or as ready as he could muster in his condition.
Asta raised her eyebrows at that—again with the horses—but nodded. "Fine." She moved carefully around him to step back over her doorway so that she had space to take equine shape, but wouldn't be forcing him to move too far in order to mount.
She paused before she shifted though, looking at him with a slight tilt to her head. "I...don't suppose you've got any beastspeaking ability?" Though it was technically a question, she was pretty sure she knew the answer—she'd been around him in animal form enough that she assumed if he could speak to her that way, he would have.
Sighing quietly, she gave herself a little shake and added, "Well, I won't be able to speak with you, but I can understand you fine. So...I guess that'll work."
Onca shook his head to her question, that no, he didn't know a lick of beastspeak, and that she was correct. He then nodded at her compromise. "S'long as you make sense I'll get it." As Asta probably knew at this point, he wasn't much of a conversationalist anyway and seemed to prefer relying mostly on non-verbal indicators that even an animal could potentially do; he was comfortable receiving the same from others.
Once she was ready as a horse, Onca shoved down all of his instinctual urges to flee so that he could clumsily heft himself back onto her. Again. He was never going to get used to this. Instead, he rather focused on the task of figuring out what to do when they actually arrived, if he'd even be able to get that far. He'd been there a few times, and weighed which acquaintances would be the most helpful.
"Southwestern entrance," he muttered, "gate's too small for horses. Aim there." It only seemed wise to tell Asta ahead of time which village entrance that he knew to take, and that she'd likely have to turn back human and drag him in just so they could fit through it.
Asta bobbed her head to show she understood the direction he was giving, waiting a few more heartbeats once he was on her back for him to properly settle before she began to move.
It was strange; she'd never though of horses as having a particularly sensitive sense of hearing, at least not compared to some of the shape she could take. But they did—she could hear the hunter's heartbeat almost as clearly as she felt her own, with him so close.
Picking her way through the forest in this shape became easier the more she did it, so though the trip was still a good few hours, she at least tried to make it as steady as possible for her passenger.
The tree line ended several wagon-lengths from the village's southwest gate, which seemed as good a place as any to take a more appropriate shape; the hunter had been right, this gate clearly wasn't used for anything other than foot traffic, too small for even a horse and rider to get through.
She curled her legs under her body and lowered herself as gently as she could to let her passenger dismount, again waiting a few breaths to give him time to get properly clear before she took human shape.
"Here." She stood, holding a hand down to him. "You'll have to lean on me—I'm stronger than I look."
If it weren't for the fact that his face were entirely covered, the world would have seen that Onca's face was positively green by the latter end of the trip. He could tell Asta was already trying to reduce as much disturbance to him as possible, and couldn't complain; he didn't want to know what it would've been like had she cared a little less.
He dismounted with 0 elegance, and accepted Asta's instructions to lean on her with equal inelegance. Even had Onca wanted to doubt her comparatively slight figure, he had no choice if he wanted to make it any further than a few hops anyway. He slung his arm over her neck without protest and allowed her to take the brunt of what weight he couldn't support himself. True to her word, Onca found himself able to distribute a decent portion of his weight onto her. He kept this in mind, so that he didn't underestimate her strength in the future.
The village, having been small and knowing mostly peace, simply had a single guard posted near the gateway. As the two approached, Onca recognized the guard as one he'd already passed by before during one of his previous times here. Small village, after all. It was apparent they were there more to keep tabs on the few travelers flowing in and out rather than being able to stop anyone, as they weren't that well armed; the guard also seemed to recognize Onca as a previous visitor who'd merely brought in meat and fur to sell (as there weren't that many visitors to even forget in the first place), and mostly just gawked at the sight of him being almost carried in by a bloody pale stranger.
Their appearance alone told a very plain story that spoke of their urgency, so they made it in without issue. Once they entered, Onca turned his head to a pathway lined with stalls and houses behind them. A market, from the looks of it. "Fourth stall on the right. With the potted plants." He recalled an herbalist he'd run into prior who'd requested antler velvet from him, and figured in terms of locating a healer, their family would be likely to know.
The guard stationed at the gate did little more than give them a startled look and then usher them into the village. Just as the hunter was telling her to go toward the market, the guard noted, perhaps a little awkwardly, "If you're, ah, looking for healing, ask for Madame Nerys. Her grandkids run a stall in the market, they should be able to take you to her."
Asta nodded in thanks, biting back the automatic, snarky reply that rose into her brain about "if" they were looking for healing. No, no, she was just intending to cart her skewered charge around the village for a little exercise.
He's just trying to be helpful, she told herself firmly, trying to force her own irritation with the entire situation away from the front of her mind.
Assuming the stall that the hunter had indicated and the one the guard was talking about were in fact the same thing, she helped her charge hobble over to the stand. She didn't even need to try to get anyone's attention; they drew plenty just from their general state.
"Dear gods!" The person running the stall didn't look to be much more than a teenager, and their eyes went round as saucers when they caught sight of the two wild folk. "O-oh my— Nana Nerys, you want to get to Nana Nerys!" They pointed to a squat building nearer to the center of the town, though still accessible from the market. "Do—do you need any help, or—?"
Asta shook her head. "No, thank you, I've got him."
Yeah, Onca thought tiredly, I think I'm good being coddled by one person for now. He let himself be dragged over to where hopefully, his leg would soon get properly looked at. As soon as they were within reach of the building's entrance, Onca didn't hesitate to drop his entire arm weight onto the door so that his fist slammed against it to give it one giant and desperate bang.
"Injury," he called loudly through the wood. He hated raising his voice in general, but he wasn't about to risk this "Nana" Nerys leaving them unheard at the door; he found old people annoyingly poor at picking up his typical low volume. A few more seconds later, he banged one more time on the door right before they could hear a voice clamoring from within.
"I heard you the first time, you impudent fools, now hang on a moment...!" Heavy footsteps rushed unevenly to the door before their owner finally swung it open. "Now what's with all this racket, coming in such a fuss as if your arms and legs are about to fall right off of yo-"
Onca and Asta were met with a solidly built old woman who was tall enough to almost see Onca eye-to-eye. She was quite the imposing Nana, having a robust and stern face, and rugged set of hands that spoke volumes of her age and experience. She looked at them with a hawkish glint of her eye before adjusting her tiny spectacles and widening the door to let them in. "You look terrible," she asserted. "Sit there." She pointed to an empty cot. The two of them didn't even seem to have to explain any of their situation for Nerys to already stomp around gathering what she saw fit to treat Onca's leg.
"Patient name and cause of wound?" She called over her shoulder. Onca remained silent for the time being, as he was mostly focused on easing himself onto the simple cot and biting back a hiss from having to endure the pain from the entire ordeal. He didn't particularly care that neither Asta nor Nerys actually knew his name.
Asta was actually rather impressed with herself for not shrinking under the older woman's gaze. She nodded quickly when they were directed to a cot and helped her charge hobble over to it, getting him settled before she took a brisk step back.
Patient name and cause of wound?
"We, ah, had a bit of a run-in with some poachers out in the woods," Asta supplied softly. "My..." Friend? Acquaintance? Pain in the ass? "Well, he fell into their trapping pit," she finished a little lamely. She looked at the hunter pointedly when she ran out of things to say, mouthing, Your name?
"Impaled leg. Wood's still in it." Onca ignored Asta's question, lifting his leg up to place onto the cot until Nerys caught him with an AHT AHT while holding up a towel to indicate that she wanted to lay it down first. He merely sat there holding his limp leg up by his thigh until she was able to return to the cot and place it down, finally easing his leg on top.
"Well, I'd assume so, considering you haven't bled out yet, Sir Too-Mysterious-To-Warrant-A-Name." Her words were sharp but her tone had become less snappy. Nerys was a stern and disciplined medic, not a hostile one. She cleaned her hands in a basin that left her hands completely dry when she pulled them out, likely a magic one, before pursing her lip and pushing a stool over to inspect Onca's leg.
As she gingerly but efficiently removed the bandaging, Nerys spoke to Asta without looking at her. While her tone didn't soften or lack its intensity, all traces of irritability were gone. "Dear, you're also a mess. There are clean patient gowns in the back that you're free to use; broody travelers like this one would rather I saw off their leg than change out of their ridiculous getup anyway, so you can take whatever would've been his. Use my basin over there to clean your clothes; it's enchanted to clean common organic matter off whatever you wash in it. I'll get you something hot to drink once I've seen to your friend."
"Not you, though." Onca's hood perking up at the sound of a warm beverage was maybe too obvious. "No fluids until I know what to do with you." Nerys tossed the bandaging onto the cot, swatting at Onca's hands when he tried to stop her from cutting open his boot (he didn't want to have to get a new one) and judging how would be best to remove the wooden fragment skewering his calf meat. Her magic was practical, not a miracle, and she wielded it like a surgeon would their powerful tools.
The shapeshifter absolutely crumpled under the woman's brisk kindness, nodding quickly in agreement with anything she said. "Right, yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." She scurried in the direction the healer indicated and quick snatched up a patient gown--not enchanted, so she'd have to stick with her human form for a while, but at least she could clean her shift.
She came a little more sedately back out into the main room, crossing to the basin Nerys had indicated to begin scrubbing the blood off her clothes.
"I put a disinfectant on the wound before I brought him here, but that was really all I could do. I know it's not much," she told the healer softly. "I'm not trained for anything more than basic field medicine. Patch jobs. It's been about three hours since I found him."
She looked at the hunter, head cocked. "How long were you in the pit before that?" she prompted, as gently as she could manage; why the hells was she the one giving the healer all the details? Surely he must have some opinion on his own care.
Although...judging by his order for her to just leave him if he happened to drop off her back, maybe not.
This time, Onca actually bothered to give her an answer. "Less than an hour." His voice was strained, and he was stiff from gritting his teeth and letting Nerys actually begin poking around his injury. She stared intently while her fingers barely grazed against the open wound, deliberating the best steps to proceed with. She took note of Asta's detail about adding ointment. "A good thing that you did, too, given how filthy this is."
"Alright." Nerys looked back up at Onca. "I'll be redirecting your local bloodflow so it doesn't spill out while I fragment the wood into pieces that I can actually remove without disturbing the surrounding tissue." She put her hands together and rubbed her palms as if she were flattening out an imaginary ball of clay between them, and as if the friction ignited her hands, the veins under the skin of her palms glowed softly. "Then I'll take a look inside the actual flesh to plant some muscle growth back in. You'll be needing anesthesia. If you have a budget, now is the time to say instead of telling me you can't afford the strongest numbing we have after I've used it."
"Cheap," Onca immediately responded. Nerys raised an eyebrow. She held up a plain clean cloth, twisting it. "This is our cheapest," she offered; at this point Nerys had also realized that talking to Onca never got very far, so she directed her conversation to both him and Asta as a whole. Onca's hood visibly tilted like a confused dog. Nerys pointed at his face. "You say aah and bite down on it."
"Not that cheap," Onca revised sourly. Nerys gave Asta a look that screamed can you believe this guy and sighed, beckoning her over efficiently. "I'll have to ask you to apply the numbing paste, love, I only have two hands and one's for halting the bleeding and the other's for fragmenting and removing the blasted chunk of wood." She held up her hands as if to demonstrate how her palms were still glowing. "The jar is right next to me on the cot."
Asta returned the healer's look with one of her own that spoke volumes, but she didn't actually say anything until she was told to assist in applying the numbing agent to the hunter's leg.
"I-I--" she stammered, but moved forward automatically at the direction. "Um, okay," she mumbled, sitting where Nerys directed her and quickly picking up and unscrewing the jar. She glanced at the patient before scooping out a dollop of it and starting to dab it on his leg around the wound. "Sorry," she mumbled as she did, though she wasn't entirely sure why, or to who.
With that done, she screwed the lid back on the jar and looked to Nerys again. "Is, ah, there anything else I can do to help?" she offered quietly. Without really thinking about it, she had laid her hand on the cot near the hunter's, and she shot him a quick look out of the corner of her eye. Tone becoming perhaps a little petulant, she added to him, "Take it. You'll probably need to squeeze something."
"You're quite fine as you are, darling," Nerys muttered to Asta. Her tone wasn't the warmest it could've been given she'd been focusing intently on Onca's leg, but there wasn't a trace of any mockery or sarcasm in her, only genuine bluntness. "I'd listen to her if I were you. I've already begun working on your leg before the numbing sets in because we can't afford to lose more time with the state your leg is in."
Onca's hood had turned to Asta's hand and was visibly debating whether or not to take it, but he was hedonistic at heart. Comforting skin contact was something that he could almost never turn down when he didn't feel in danger. The irony of his typical full-coverage gear wasn't lost on him, and his own penchant for pleasant skin contact with others easily won him over. Onca pulled off a glove and placed his bare hand into Asta's, even though he made no moves to squeeze it forcefully as though under duress. He just held it for the sake of liking the sensation of holding someone's hand. Yeah his leg hurt like shit, but he'd started becoming adjusted to the pain enough to hold down the urge to roll around groaning or clutching at anything for dear life. The only visible movement from him was the slow and steady swell of his shoulders and chest as he took slow breaths from his nose. He was really hoping for the anesthetic to kick in soon.
"And here I was worried that you being a dark and brooding vagrant would be terminally unable to accept kindness," Nerys sighed. "Hold still," she ordered again as her hands hovered close to Onca's calf. Not that he had budged an inch anyway other than accepting Asta's hand. From afar it hardly looked like anything was happening to his leg, but if one looked closely, they'd notice small seams cracking through the wood to fragment it without actually moving the body. In the meantime, Onca quietly sat there gently holding Asta's hand. Sure, Asta was still mostly a stranger, but she seemed nice enough to him. He wasn't particularly picky in terms of who or how he got to exchange friendly physical closeness as long as he didn't feel like they endangered him. He knew this wasn't particularly the purpose she'd offered her hand to him, but he still decided he'd take what he could from it.
Asta blinked when he removed his glove, not expecting that to make much difference to him. Especially considering...well. Just about everything about him, but in particular the way he chose to dress, absolutely wrapped up from head to toe.
Her breath caught a bit when he took her hand--despite everything, she still wasn't entirely used to being touched. Not skin-to-skin, anyway. It was different when she was an animal, when she'd let him ride her as a horse or when she was a cat and a passing stranger might offer her pets. It was just...different.
Carefully, she folded her fingers around his with a light pressure that she hoped was comforting. Maybe...well. Maybe he wasn't the worst, after all.
She didn't want to bother the healer while she worked, but she was curious about the process, watching the seams splinter through the wood with interest for a few moments. Keeping her voice low, she eventually asked, "Do you have any idea how long his leg will take to heal, once the stake is out?"
Onca responded in kind to Asta's light reassuring squeeze. He already ran fairly warm, but the duress of his injury had spiked his temperature a little. He loosened his grip just a little so his hand wouldn't get unpleasantly sweaty. The anesthetic had started to kick in so the pain was becoming more and more bearable, until he was able to relax a little more loosely and stay still without being stiff.
"I'll know once I get a better look, but I'm afraid this won't be magically better by next morning. I'm unfortunately not that kind of healer." Nerys had begun lifting out the first shard of the wood, tapered and long so that it allowed inner space for the surrounding pieces to be lifted from the flesh without scraping outwards. The wood floated by her palm before being placed onto a tray, and she set to gingerly removing the next pieces.
After extracting all of the wood, she peered into the hole to confirm it was cleared of all splinters, careful to keep her hand that was willing the blood from spilling steady. "Mm, thought it'd be the case." Nerys had seen how Onca hadn't been able to put any weight on his leg at all. "If there was only muscle damage, it'd be a faster recovery, but your tendon and fibula need repair too." She closed her hand into a fist above his leg, almost magnetically drawing in the last traces of debris from his leg, and pulled them out.
Nerys fished out some powders and oil from her pouches, expertly portioning and mixing them with her free hand into a little bowl. "Had it been you, dear, I would say three to four weeks. Realistically for him, I would give six; I know a patient who won't listen to bedrest orders when I see one, and it'll delay the speed." Onca did not protest to this, and watched silently as she began spreading the mixture inside his open flesh. She hovered her hand over it until it glowed and seemingly disappeared, melding into the tissue. "This will restart the growth and keep it from festering. Absolutely no strenuous activity or weight onto this leg for the next month, you hear?" She unraveled a roll of bandaging with one hand and held out the end to Asta to indicate for her to help tear it.
"Once we finish the dressing, I'm releasing your blood flow. I can't prevent all blood loss if you're to heal, so there'll be a decent spillage before it clots and you might be lightheaded for a while." She didn't even wait for Onca to answer (as she she didn't really expect any from him at this point) and finally looked back at Asta while holding out the bandaging. "You'll likely have to keep an eye on him for the rest of the day until he replenishes the blood over time."
Asta found herself watching the process with a combination of curiosity and distaste--quite apart from anything else, it was simply strange to see the inside of someone's leg.
She listened intently to the healer's explanation and instruction, nodding to show that she understood, even while a corner of her brain wondered at just how exactly she'd wound up as the caretaker for a hunter who just a few days ago had been happy enough to extort her into ridiculous deals. I never knew I was a masochist, she lamented silently even as she took the bandages Nerys held out to her and began to hlp dress the wound.
She had to let go of the hunter's hand to do it, of course. There was a moment of hesitation--it was awkward enough to suddenly realize she was still holding his hand when he didn't seem to need it anymore, and only more awkward when she had to pull her fingers back carefully.
"Ahm...just...hold still," she mumbled as she bent quickly over his leg, unsure what else to do. It was, of course, just her luck that her incredibly pale complexion let even the faintest blush show clear on her cheeks and neck.
Onca merely let Asta's hand slide off of his, and he set his hand down next to his side to continue staying still like a good patient as she wrapped his wound. Nerys nodded to Asta to indicate she was doing a very satisfactory job, and neither of them seemed to take notice of her slight flush; either that, or they noticed and paid no mind enough to point it out. Nerys took a deep breath as she flexed her shoulders to prepare releasing her magic on Onca's leg. "Ready?" Onca gave her no answer and just stared. Just do it already. "Of course you are," Nerys answered herself. The glowing in her hands halted.
Almost immediately, bloodstains began to bloom from within the bandaging. Onca let out no sound, but true to Nerys' warning, he immediately faltered from where he was sitting up, and doubled over onto his side before catching himself with his elbow. He gripped the glove he'd taken off and had been holding onto in his fist while straining to get his bearings again.
"Now I can get you a refreshment, in return for your well-appreciated assistance." Nerys washed her hands in her enchanted basin again before bustling off to prepare tea for them, returning in almost no time as promised with a tray. "I'm not able to offer much on the house, but at least take this barley tea. You, however, can either opt to tough it out without anything for a few more hours, or accept intravenous nourishment to help with replenishing your blood. That, you'll have to pay for." Onca's shoulders fell almost comically at the disappointment of no free food or drinks for him. "Your body has to be disturbed as little as possible to start the regrowth to begin properly," Nerys chided, "even from distractions like digesting."
Onca pulled his glove back onto his hand, which in turn covered up his wrist to show that he declined her offer. "I'll pass."
Nerys sighed. Of course he would. She turned back to Asta. "Then you're to stay here for another half hour until he can at least sit upright and you've finished your tea while I clean up. After that he may pay and you two are free to leave whenever you like, given that he follows my instructions properly during recovery. I trust you'll hold him accountable to it?"
Moving seemingly on instinct, Asta reached forward when he doubled over to brace the hand that had been holding his against the front of his shoulder. "Easy, easy," she murmured in a low, calm tone, as though talking to a spooked wild animal.
She glanced to Nerys and smiled gratefully when the healer offered refreshment--and once again found herself flushing as she only realized she was still bracing the hunter's shoulder when she needed to use both hands to take the offered cup of barley tea. "Thank you," she murmured softly to the older woman, bringing the cup to her lips to sip at it carefully.
When the hunter passed on further medical attention and the healer began listing off rules to Asta, she started nodding along without fully realizing what she was doing until Nerys said I trust you'll hold him accountable.
Wait--hold on a second, did she think...?
Well, what else would she think? Asta hadn't done much to explain her presence in seeking the hunter care, why wouldn't the healer assume she was prepared to see through his recovery care? And so it was with some combination of genuine concern for a wounded creature of her woods and a mild desire not to disappoint the brusque Nana Nerys that she found herself saying, "Yes, of course. I'll keep an eye on him."
"Don't have to," Onca responded gruffly. "I'm fine." He shifted with the intent to stand up, reaching his hand into one of his pouches to procure the payment. It was clear he wanted to leave immediately. Nerys shifted over to block the side of the cot.
"I can never tell if strangers like you even have ears to hear what I just said. You hardly lasted thirty seconds, let alone thirty minutes. Your companion here hasn't even finished her tea yet," Nerys gestured to Asta. Onca stared at them, settling begrudgingly back onto the cot.
"Don't even know her. She's not staying," he concluded bluntly. A vein almost visibly popped on Nerys' neck.
"I'm taking that as a prediction and an incorrect one at that rather than a demand to her, especially right after she gave you her word she'd help." Nerys shook her head. Onca only huffed in response, but finally sat still for the duration he was ordered.
When they were finally allowed to leave, Onca unceremoniously dropped his hand onto the counter near the entrance, leaving adequate payment for Nerys to receive before hobbling out with Asta's support. Nerys took one last look at the two and called out to them with her version of a farewell.
"You take care now, you hear? As a healer, I hope I don't have to see you again so I know I did my job right."
Asta smiled at the healer and gave her a nod, replying, "Thank you so much for your help," even as she tried to keep her—reluctant—companion upright. She liked to think she was plenty competent when it came to most physical exercises; she was no strongman, but she was able to do more than most people would assume from looking at her. Still, she'd been carting this hunter around for the better part of a day, and it was most definitely starting to wear on her.
"I can take you back to my cottage," she sighed, considering. She was turning Nerys's instructions for his care over in her mind. "You may have to ride again...do you think you can manage that?"