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“It’s weakening! Keep the pressure on!”
“Trying!” Sciel gritted her teeth as she parried yet another attack. She flung a volley of cards in response.
Distantly, she was grateful that the others had already told her the tale of another nevron just like this one — who had swallowed Gustave like this in Flying Waters. Otherwise, she would have been absolutely horrified when Lune had been snatched up from the ground a few moments previously.
(As it was, she was still horrified, but at least she knew what she could do to help — they just had to weaken the nevron enough that it would spit Lune back out. Hopefully.)
As they fought, the Bourgeon vomited clouds of a foul-smelling, vaporous substance. Maelle dodged deftly out of the way of the first few volleys, but she was too slow to avoid the last one and it burst over her head in a rain of sickly green bile. The girl staggered backwards, reeling from the stench and from the miasma’s exhausting properties.
“Sciel! Now!” Gustave shouted. His last hit had left the Bourgeon marked — primed for a massive attack.
Sciel closed her eyes and called on the overwhelming grief she had felt when she woke alone on the beach, when she trekked across the plains alone — and when she had believed herself the sole survivor of a dead expedition. She channeled the feeling into a wave of dark energy and pounded her scythe into the ground, sending it flying towards the Bourgeon.
“Your fate… is sealed,” she said, with disdain.
The attack landed squarely, and combined with Gustave’s mark, it was just enough. The nevron swayed precariously for a moment, then fell to its knees and collapsed, motionless. The dust settled and the battlefield cleared, but Lune was nowhere to be found.
This wasn’t right. The nevron was supposed to spit her out… where was Lune!?
“Gustave?!” Sciel called with mounting alarm. “What’s happening?”
Gustave was already sprinting across the battlefield towards the body of the nevron, sword raised.
“Wait! You’ll hurt her,” Sciel shouted as she chased after him.
“I’ll be careful. But we have to get her out.” Gustave steadied his hand and moved slowly, cutting into the belly of the Bourgeon in cautious, shallow strokes.
Maelle seemed to have recovered from the miasma and staggered her way over to the two of them. “Gustave…? Where’s Lune?”
“Gustave will get her out, don’t worry,” Sciel said, with much more confidence than she felt. Sensing that Maelle might try to intervene, she put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her towards herself.
For several agonizing moments, Gustave hacked away at the Bourgeon’s side. A foul wave of blood, fluids, and entrails sloshed out of its side, but still there was no sign of Lune. Sciel swallowed thickly as time seemed to drag on and on. She had made her peace with the loss of her friends while she was alone at the Gestral Village, but now, so soon after getting them back… she wasn’t sure if she could bear to lose even one of them again. And especially not—
“There!” Gustave exclaimed.
Sciel leaned forward to follow Gustave’s gaze, and sure enough, a shoulder clad in golden filigree could just barely be seen through the viscera. Maelle rushed forward out of Sciel’s arms and fell to her knees at Gustave’s side, pulling and tearing at the Bourgeon’s flesh with her hands.
In a matter of moments, Lune’s body was rolling out of the belly of the Bourgeon, collapsing into a puddle of blood and bile.
“Lune! Lune, wake up!” Maelle cried, shaking Lune’s shoulders.
“Help her roll over,” Gustave said.
Together he and Maelle guided Lune’s body onto her side. Sciel pulled a revive tint from her pack in preparation, but then Lune sputtered and coughed, spitting up a lungful of bile and fluid — which might have been hers or might have been the Bourgeon’s.
“What–” Lune tried, then broke off into a coughing fit. When she finally recovered, she continued, “What happened?” Her voice was low and strained and her eyes were glassy and unfocused.
“The Bourgeon swallowed you, but we got you out. Are you alright?” Sciel crouched down beside her, overwhelmed with relief at the sound of Lune’s voice.
“Yes, yes I’m fine.” Lune was already struggling to her feet, her face pale and tight with pain.
“Are you sure?” Gustave asked. “You look a bit–”
“I’m fine,” Lune snapped, then proved herself wrong by immediately crumpling to her knees.
Sciel caught her before she could fall all the way to the ground, wrapping one arm around Lune’s waist and slinging Lune’s arm over her own shoulder.
“Easy now,” Sciel soothed. “Take it slow. You’ve just spent quite a long time inside a nevron after all. And one with poison bile to boot.”
Lune softened at this, casting a slight smile in Sciel’s direction.
“Here, take a healing tint. It’ll help.” Gustave pulled the small bottle from his pack and handed it over to her.
Lune swallowed the potion in one gulp, but her face twisted in a grimace and then paled to a frightening degree. She doubled over and threw up. Sciel held Lune’s hair back from her face until she was finished, rubbing her back in soothing patterns.
“Sorry,” Lune said, straightening up. “I– I’m fine. We continue.”
The other three looked helplessly at one another. Clearly Lune was in no shape to continue if she couldn’t even keep down a healing tint. But they also knew she was as stubborn as they came, and it would surely be impossible to talk her out of continuing once she set her mind to it.
In the end, it was Maelle who figured out a solution.
“Actually… I’m tired. Can’t we rest for a while?”
“It is getting rather late,” Gustave chimed in. “Better to stop now where it’s safe than journey ahead and end up somewhere unknown after dark.”
Lune seemed to consider this for a moment, though whether it was her own exhaustion or the merit of their arguments that won her over in the end, it was hard to say.
“Alright,” she conceded. “Let’s camp. But we’re on the move again at first light.”
Privately, Sciel thought it was a bit funny that Lune was “allowing” this — as if she had any choice in the matter when she could hardly walk on her own. But then Lune stumbled heavily against her again and Sciel’s worry overrode any humor she might have found in the moment.
“Esquie!” Sciel called out to their new friend, who was waiting off to the side. “Could we get a little help over here?”
“Ohhhhhhh!” he said, ambling over to them. “Poor Lune is not feeling very well! I can help! I always help my friend Verso when he is sick.”
Esquie scooped Lune up in the palm of one hand, as if she weighed no more than a feather, and set her down on his own shoulders. Sciel climbed up quickly after her, settling beside Lune to hold her up so she didn’t fall.
“Thanks, Sciel,” Lune murmured weakly. “I’m fine, really. I just need a minute…”
“Seems to me you need more than a minute. But luckily you can take as many minutes as you need once we get back to camp. Just rest for now, I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Right then,” Gustave called from the ground below. It seemed he and Maelle were choosing to walk on their own to give Lune some space. “Nice and slow, alright, big guy?”
“Of course! I will be sooooo careful!”
“Thanks, Esquie.” Sciel patted the back of his head.
———
The journey to camp was long and slow, lasting well into the evening.
Much to Sciel’s distress, Lune’s condition only grew worse as time went on. There was a dangerous heat radiating off her body, and she slumped heavily against Sciel’s side, barely able to hold her own head up.
They had to pause frequently to reposition Lune on Esquie’s back so as not to fall. On one such occasion, Sciel caught Gustave’s eye as he looked up at her with concern. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment as the same thought seemed to pass between them: why was this happening?
Sciel didn’t understand it. Maelle had been hit with the Bourgeon’s poisonous bile, but she had recovered in a matter of minutes. So, why was Lune still so sick? And why was it still getting worse, even so long after being pulled to safety? A pang of guilt twisted in her stomach as she realized that surely Lune herself would know what to do if one of them had been afflicted in this way. But what could they do when their healer was the one who was ill?
When at last they reached camp, Gustave helped Sciel guide Lune gingerly down from Esquie’s shoulders as she was now completely incapable of walking. They laid out a bed roll and deposited Lune directly onto it. Her forehead was slick with sweat, and her head lolled limply to the side.
Gustave sprang into action with the usual tasks for preparing camp, no doubt desperate for something to do that would be useful. For her part, Sciel stayed at Lune’s side, doing her best to make her comfortable. She laid a hand over Lune’s forehead and swore under her breath. Merde. The fever was raging far too hot.
Maelle hovered anxiously nearby, wringing her hands. “Will she be alright?”
“She’ll be fine,” Gustave said, beginning preparations for their meal. “Just needs a good night’s sleep and then she’ll be right as rain.”
“Sciel?” Maelle asked, looking hopeful for confirmation.
“We’re going to do everything we can to help her. But for now, I could really use your help,” Sciel said with an encouraging smile. “We need to bring her fever down. Get a bowl and fill it with water from the stream, then grab a soft cloth from my pack, and bring both back here. Can you do that?”
Maelle nodded briskly and ran off to do as she was told.
The moment she was gone, Sciel and Gustave exchanged a pained look.
“This isn’t normal.”
“I know,” Gustave said. “This didn’t happen before. The other nevron like this… it swallowed me and I was fine after just a few minutes! I don’t understand…”
“Maybe because she spent so long in there?” Sciel theorized.
“Could be. Or maybe this nevron was stronger?” Gustave looked at Lune forlornly. “She would know what to do. If this had happened to any of us she would–”
“Then we’ll just have to help her as best we can, yeah?” Sciel interjected before Gustave could spiral any further. “Let’s bring her fever down, help her rest, and then go from there. If she’s not improving by tomorrow morning, we’ll make another plan.”
“Right,” Gustave said with a shaky exhale. “Right. Yeah, okay. Thanks, Sciel.”
At just that moment, Maelle came jogging back from the stream with the requested supplies in hand.
“Perfect,” Sciel said, turning to address her. “Come on, then. Help me with her jacket.”
Together, Maelle and Sciel eased Lune out of her heavy, expedition-issue coat. Once they settled her back onto the bedroll, Sciel rolled Lune’s shirt sleeves up above her forearms.
“The skin is thin here. It will help her body cool down the fastest.” Sciel demonstrated by wetting the cloth with cool water and pressing it first to the crease of Lune’s elbow, then to the inside of her wrist.
Lune reacted with a low groan and a violent shiver.
“She’s too cold!” Maelle exclaimed.
“Her body only thinks it’s too cold.” Gustave corrected, gently. “This won’t be pleasant for her, but we do need to bring her temperature down.”
Maelle looked as dismayed as they all felt at Lune’s suffering, but did as she was told, mirroring Sciel’s actions on Lune’s other arm.
After a few minutes, Gustave informed them that dinner was ready, and though none of them felt much like eating, they forced down a few bites each. An uneasy silence fell on the camp as each of them came to the quiet realization that there was truly nothing else to do but wait.
“I’ll take first watch,” Sciel offered.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’d like to sit with her for a while. I just need to…” Sciel trailed off, unsure how to explain the compulsion she felt to stay at Lune’s side.“Anyway, I’ll stay up. You two get some rest.”
“Alright.” Gustave set his bed roll out near Maelle’s. “Wake me when it’s time.”
“Of course,” Sciel said, though she had no intention of doing so. “Sleep well, Gustave.” She leaned her back against one of the logs by the fire and settled in for a long night at Lune’s bedside. When she looked up to the stars, she had very little to say to them, except to reiterate her worry for Lune and this mysterious affliction.
At intervals, she continued to cool Lune’s body down with a damp cloth to her wrists, neck, and forehead. Each time she did, Lune recoiled away from the cool touch, and Sciel’s heart twisted with sadness to see her in such pain and discomfort. Surely it would be difficult to see any of her friends like this, but something about seeing Lune so weak was especially agonizing.
Surely it was because Lune was always so strong, so poised, so collected. Or perhaps…
Perhaps a quiet, long-forgotten feeling was resurfacing in Sciel’s heart. After all, she had so rarely seen Lune at all in over a decade. They had trained together for the Expedition, of course, and had traveled together these past few days since leaving the Gestral Village. But even then, there had always been a certain barrier between them, a level of distance that Lune very carefully built and maintained. Not to mention the fact that Sciel herself had been emotionally unavailable for much of the last decade — between her courtship with Pierre, their marriage, and her subsequent grief. There had been no opportunity to reinvestigate these feelings or to see again the vulnerable girl of just twenty years whom Sciel had first met.
But now…
Sciel examined her heart and admitted quietly to herself that there was a particular fondness here — one that ran deeper than her affection for her other team members. A bond had been forged thirteen years ago in grief and in tears, and though it had lain dormant for so long, Sciel felt her affection for Lune wake anew, and the same force that brought them together on that first terrible day of Year 45 drew her to Lune once again.
Reaching out with a tentative hand, Sciel ran her fingers through Lune’s hair, pushing the sweat soaked strands back from her face. Lune fidgeted in her semi-conscious state and mumbled something that could have been words or could have been nothing at all.
“You’ll be alright, won’t you?” Sciel said, more for her own comfort than for Lune’s. “You’re far too stubborn to come all the way to the continent and fall to a silly illness of all things. You’ll be fine.”
She hoped desperately that it was true.
———
As the night wore on, Lune became more and more restless in her sleep. She tossed and turned fitfully and her eyes fluttered open as though she might wake, but there was no awareness behind them. As she had done before, she tried to vocalize something, though if it was speech, Sciel could not understand it.
“Mmnn… ” Lune mumbled, “s–srr…”
“Shhhh…” Sciel soothed, dabbing again at Lune’s forehead with the cloth.
But Lune was undeterred. She seemed now half awake in a feverish haze — not fully conscious, but not truly asleep either.
“Sss… Mmsorr...”
Sciel’s heart felt torn in two as she realized what Lune was trying to say.
I’m sorry.
“Now, now, there’s nothing to be sorry for. You’re alright. I’ll take care of you, yeah?” She still wasn’t sure if Lune could hear or understand her, but she hoped her calm, even tone would be a balm nonetheless.
“Mmsorry…” Lune repeated. And then, perhaps Lune could hear her after all, because she said, “Sci… Sciel…”
“That’s right. I’m here. I’ll look after you.” Sciel took Lune’s hand in her own and squeezed it.
For the first time since the fight with the Bourgeon began, Lune seemed to relax, ever so slightly. With what meager strength she had, she rolled towards Sciel, curling around the hand that clasped her own.
After a few moments, Lune stilled again as true sleep took her once more.
“There you go. Just rest,” Sciel whispered, brushing the backs of her fingers against Lune’s forehead. As she did, her eyes fell shut in profound relief.
For the first time in hours, Lune’s skin was cool to the touch. The fever was breaking.
Assured by the knowledge that Lune’s condition was improving, Sciel felt her own exhaustion crest over her like a wave. It had been an exhausting day before the fight with the Bourgeon, and on top of everything else, it was simply too much.
She should wake Gustave, she knew. That was the sensible thing to do. But a soft purple was already starting to paint the horizon in the east. Dawn would be here soon.
Surely she could rest her eyes for just a moment…
Sciel lay down beside Lune, still hand in hand, and fell asleep.
———
When Lune woke, early morning sunlight shone through the trees in dappled patterns, and the campfire had been reduced to nothing but a few glowing coals. Though there was still a terrible ache in her head and her limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated, she felt worlds better than she had the previous day.
But all of this was forgotten when she rolled to the side and saw Sciel curled up beside her. The features of Sciel’s face were soft and relaxed, and the scar across her nose that so often crinkled with a smile was smooth in sleep. And Lune was struck, as she often was, by how very beautiful Sciel was.
Lune couldn’t remember much of the previous night through the haze of fever and illness, but she did remember the multi-faceted guilt she had felt — guilt for slowing down the mission, for requiring so much care… and for receiving so much undeserved kindness. But she also remembered the way that guilt had faded away in the face of whispered comforts and a soft, steady presence.
They would need to move again soon, but for now, Lune allowed herself this one luxury. She tugged the blanket over Sciel’s body, pulled their joined hands close to her heart, and let sleep take her once more.