"I think he's awake."
A voice, unfamiliar to me, brushed against my ears as consciousness returned.
I couldn't feel anything. Couldn't remember anything. What was I doing here? Where was here?
The room was dark, the floor soft to my touch. My fingers dug into the ground—earth, soil getting under my long fingernails. I was outside then.
A weak fire illuminated the tent I was in, green cloth just a few feet from my head.
"Don't move too much, you'll disorient yourself." A familiar voice said. Tav. Then my head was shoved back to the ground.
"Agh! What the fuck! Take it easy!" I shouted without thinking.
Tav knelt above me, a shadow leaning over me. No—a girl, perhaps fifteen, knelt beside him over my body. Small frame. Short braid. Eyes that looked older than mine.
"I think he's awake," she said, as if she'd been waiting a while.
"Stop looking at me like that. What happened to me?"
"You're sick. And you almost died," Tav replied as if discussing the weather over bread.
"That's not exactly something to say so nonchalantly," I sighed. "So what happened?"
"Food poisoning, that's what." Tav shifted into full physician mode. "We didn't need to extract the poison since you vomited it all out. We just used some red tea leaves to flush your system. Plus, you were severely malnourished, so we gave you some pudding while you slept."
Now that he mentioned it, my stomach wasn't groaning in pain and hunger anymore. My limbs had just a little more strength now that I had something in my belly. I didn't deserve any of this, but I was grateful.
"And who are you?" I asked the mystery girl. She had dirty cream-colored hair roughly cut at neck length, her dress with purple fringes worn like a single cloth tied against her body. She looked frustrated and tired, as if she didn't want to be here. I wouldn't want to be here with me either.
"I'm just someone the healer asked to help with your condition." She answered tightly, averting her gaze toward the tent's opening. "Can I leave now? It looks like they're gathering for dinner."
"Sure, you can." Tav nodded. "Thank you..."
"...Kuti," she said reluctantly.
She moved to the other side of the tent and hoisted a wooden box larger than her back, using ropes tied to it like an oversized backpack.
"Care to tell us what's in the box?" Tav asked curiously. "You've been carrying it since we were in the carriage."
"None of your business," she replied bluntly as she lifted the tent flap to exit.
"Rude," Tav grumbled. "Guess her domain didn't teach her manners."
I stayed silent.
"You haven't thanked me for the healing."
"You didn't have to. You could've just let me die." I replied. Who was I kidding? I didn't want to die, but at least it wouldn't have been me taking the action. The starvation and poisoning would've killed me if they had just ignored me. Why was I always causing problems?
"What did I tell you in the carriage?" Tav barked, shoving my shoulder. "I'm not leaving you behind. I'm pushing you into the third path so you can move forward."
Then quieter, though I could still hear him, "If not for your sake, then at least for mine."
So it was just him being self-serving. Not really about me. That made it better.
"Besides, I wanted to ask you something," Tav started. "What did you eat? It was obviously some kind of weird animal and not poisoned food. A rat? Toad?"
"Lizard," I said flatly, turning away so I didn't have to look at him.
"Must have been the North Spine Lizards then." He said, following his own train of thought. "I didn't mistake the spine fragments you vomited for regular bones."
"You inspected my vomit?" I said, visibly grossed out.
"I've been interested in all things biology since I was a kid." Tav said, a slow smile crawling to his lips. "I used to trap lizards, open up their stomachs and look into their guts, then sew them back up and get them to run off. That kind of anatomical knowledge is part of why I became a healer."
The pudding I had been force-fed fought to rise back up. "That sounds more like psychopathy to me."
"Ha, my big brother used to say that too." Tav mumbled, his expression darkening briefly before he gave me a hard slap on the back. "Now come on, we should go outside and join them for food. Aren't you hungry? Also, the Priestess was worried about you and came to check up a couple of times, so you'd better meet with her."
"You kind of made me lose my appetite. But I could use a bite." I grunted, trying to stand. My muscles still felt weak and lax from the Waiting effects, but I was slightly stronger and steadier now that I wasn't driven solely by the need to survive or exact revenge.
Now that I didn't have any drive, what would become of my life? Part of the reason I almost jumped off the cliff was because I didn't want to think about what to do with my ruined life, but now the future presented itself ahead of me.
"You coming, Reygir?" Tav called out, snapping me from my thoughts, already halfway out of the tent.
Reygir. No, I wasn't Reygir. Reygir Bondyek was strong and brave and courageous. I am not Reygir Bondyek. I don't even deserve to be called that name.
"Please, just call me Bon."
Tav gave me a strange look, but a half-formed realization crept onto his face. Not shock, just understanding.
"All right, Bon. I heard we're having stale bread and pheasants tonight. Hope you're a fan of that."