Chapter 5: The Servant of the Wild
Why are we speaking German? A mime cries softly as he cradles a young cow. Your grandfather stares at you as the cow falls apart into patties. You look down only to see me with pickles for eyes, I am singing the song that gives birth to the universe.
I woke up, and for the first time in a long time I could think clearly. I still felt terribly weak, but it was definitely an improvement.
“Where the heck am I?” I thought aloud, as I realized that I wasn’t in the same place I was when I lost consciousness for the last time.
I snapped my fingers to make a mirror appear so I could check myself, but nothing happened. Frowning, I kept snapping my fingers, but my magic refused to come out. It was similar to the effect of eating bellanoche, but not the same. After a few tries I noticed that one of the trees was moving towards me. I immediately noticed that it wasn’t a tree, but some sort of large wooden creature, with a heavy torso similar to a tree’s trunk, vines covering most of its body and twisting into limbs, and a head with two asymmetrical, intelligent, green eyes.
“Graaah! What are you?!” I asked as I snapped my fingers, trying to push the monster away from me. “Why can’t I use my magic?! What have you done to me?!”
I was convinced that the creature before me was behind my lack of magic, so I got up and tried to claw his eyes out of his face before he could end me. However, the moment I got on my legs they buckled under my weight. I was about to land face-first when the creature’s vines stretched towards me, catching me before I fell.
“Hey, whoa there,” the creature said telepathically with a rather common male voice, very different from the deep growling I expected such a being to make. “I didn’t do anything to you, but if you keep going like this, I won’t have to.”
The wooden creature made me lay on the ground, its vines still coiled around me. “You need to rest, I don’t want all of my work to be for nothing.”
I struggled against his vines, but I soon found myself exhausted and just as trapped as before. “Fine, fine. You win,” I admitted. “I won’t do anything to you, you can release me now.”
“OK, I’m going to let you go now, but you have to promise that you won’t fight. I don’t want you to get hurt again. I didn’t spent all this time fixing you up just for you to get yourself killed.”
Only then did I notice that my wounds looked much better than before. Apparently the golem knew about medicine and had bothered to heal me for some reason. I immediately wondered why would he do such a foolish thing. “Why have you done this for me? You don’t know who I am, I could be your enemy.”
“Well, there isn’t a reason for us to be enemies, so why would you be one? I mean, I wasn’t about to just let you die when there was something I could do. And if you were an enemy - well, you saw how that would have turned out.”
“I… I don’t understand. You… Helped me without expecting to earn anything in return?” I asked, completely confused. It was impossible that he had spent his time and effort in something as boring as treating my wounds without hoping to gain anything in return. Leaning against a nearby tree, I managed to rise to a sitting stance, so I wouldn’t be completely defenceless if the golem proved to be dangerously insane.
“Of course. I mean, It’s just common courtesy to not stand by and watch while someone bleeds out in front of you. ‘Course, it wasn’t easy. You were in a bad way when I found you.”
“Yeah… I thought my wounds would heal by themselves with enough time. Then this nasty yellow stuff started oozing out of them and thing started getting weird. I really should have learned more about biology before jumping to this land…” I thought that maybe healing was something fun for the golem, something that creatures of order and harmony enjoyed for some strange reason. Since he seemed friendly enough, I decided to get to know him better. “Oh! What’s your name? I am Guffaw!”
For some reason, the golem looked surprised by my words. I wondered if he was a bit slow in the head. “Well, first off, call me Anders. And second, you probably would have healed if you’d known… well, ANY first aid. You were pretty banged up, but nothing that needed anything close to medical knowledge. But what do you mean by, ‘before jumping to this land’? And while I’m at it, what… are you?”
“I am a spirit of chaos, although my species is apparently called ‘draconequus’ here,” I told Anders before asking him my own questions. “And you? I have been told that the only sapient species in Atlantis are the cynogriffins, but you aren’t one of them.”
“Cynogriffins? Well, I don’t think I’m one of them. I mean, I’m pretty certain that I am not, in fact, a wolf with wings. Although, that would’ve been pretty cool. Uh, sorry, I have a bit of a tendency to ramble. Um…” The golem looked at himself for a few seconds before continuing. “I am a tree person… and I just realized how stupid that sounds. Well, I’ll come up with something later. Right now though, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, ask away.”
“How on Earth… Well, I suppose we aren’t on Earth, so, how on Equis are you alive? When I found you, you’d lost way too much blood to realistically be moving, And your fever was so bad I almost got burnt. I’ve worked with a lot of different kinds of creatures, and a lot of times, they’ll just give up. Hell, even most peo- I mean, most sapient creatures would have just accepted that they were gonna die with those kinds of injuries.”
“Earth…” I suddenly realized that he was a human. Which meant he was another champion. Which meant we were supposed to kill each other. Which meant he might kill me if he knew that. “Right, your question. Did I really get so close to dying?” Anders only nodded as an answer. “Hm… It’s true that I felt really weak, and the last few days I have been having hallucinations so I’m not really sure what happened, but I just don’t understand what’s the point of giving up. I could keep going, so that’s what I did. If I had given up and decided that my time had come, that’s exactly what would have happened. I decided to continue, and luckily for me, I managed to do so until you found me.”
I mean, what kind of question was that? What was I supposed to do, give up? Stay still and wait until I died? That makes no sense. If a lot of creatures give up to injuries and diseases and he says, then it’s no wonder that chaos is so much better than order.
“Now, you have mentioned Earth,” I continued, deciding to learn as much from my new friend as I could. “In all the multiverse, there’s only one species that name their homeland Earth: humans. You are not in Kansas anymore, huh?”
“Wait, hold the Hell on! How in the Hell do you even know that? How do you know about humans? Do all y’all here know? That fuckin’ bastard Pan… He said I had to keep it a secret! Oh, I swear, when I see him next, I’m gonna whip him inta next week!” He became so angry that he coiled his vines into a fist and punched a tree. If Pan is the one who chose him as a champion, it seems that Discord isn’t the only annoying player around.
What was that?
Not now, I’m busy meeting an enemy who could kill me whenever he wished.
You know, if he managed to heal your wounds, maybe he could teach you to do the same. Didn’t you think about learning to heal without magic?
Could you please stop reading my mind when I’m not thinking towards you? For fuck's sake!
“As I said, I am a draconequus,” I continued, deciding to give Discord’s idea a chance. “My kind is on the same level as gods. We live in the space without space, in the time without time that links all the dimensions. I have watched several dozens of alternate universes in which your species has thrived. You have saved my life, and for that I’m very grateful. However, I must ask you to help me once again: I want to learn first aid so I can deal with any other wound I might suffer. In exchange, I’ll share my knowledge with you. I have the knowledge of ten thousand human lifetimes, so I think it’s a fair deal.”
“Wait, hold on… you wanna learn first aid from ME!?” he asked, suddenly showing embarrassment. “Well, shoot. I don’t rightly know a whole lot, but I’d be happy ta help ya out. Don’t wanna be that close to dyin’ again, I’d imagine. And I’m sure that I can learn from you too. So what the Hell, I’ll do it. Gotta keep an eye on you while you’re still healin’, after all.”
For the next seven days, Anders took care of me while teaching me how to deal with the great amount of different maladies my body could suffer. Who would have thought that non-magical healing was so complicated? Closing recent wounds with stitches made them heal faster and without leaving a big scar, but old wounds needed a different treatment! Also, before doing anything you had to disinfect the whole thing! And that was just one of the many different things you have to do to a wound so it will heal! Anders told me that his Earth’s medics had to study for five or more years so they could heal other humans. Five years out of the few years a human has to enjoy life before growing old and dying.
He also taught me a few extra things, such as why it’s important to have a varied diet, why staring at people for minutes makes them feel nervous, and a few annoying rules that I had to follow if I wanted him to help me and stop complaining about what I did and said. I hated suppressing myself, but his knowledge was worth it. He was the first mortal I met who was friendly towards me, and I surprised myself enjoying his company. It was a strange feeling, like he was giving me something I didn’t know I craved for. Once, I asked him about it, since humans know a great deal about feelings and sensations, and he suggested that living all alone in the Nexus might have made me feel lonely. For a moment, I thought he was joking, but I realized he was right when the simple thought of being alone in the Nexus again, with no one to talk to, made me feel anxious.
In exchange for his medical assistance and his pleasant company, I shared with him my vast knowledge in many other fields. First, I told him everything I knew about the world we were in, and Atlantis in particular. I didn’t know a lot, but I certainly knew more than he did. After that, when I was strong enough to use magic again, I revealed that I was also a champion in the game. Fortunately, he didn’t decide to attack me when he realized that we were meant to kill each other, and I didn’t want to fight him unless my life was in danger. He was also interested in the Nexus and the knowledge I had gained from other dimensions, particularly his. After a few minutes asking him about his Earth’s history, I managed to pinpoint which dimension he was from. It was a funny coincidence that his Earth’s movies were the ones I watched when I felt like it, since I preferred them over the thousands of alternate versions.
There is a human idiom: “all good thing must come to an end”. It is true.
After a week, my wounds had healed and Anders had taught me almost everything he knew about healing injuries. Discord had been becoming more and more insistent, demanding me to leave before I turned into a dumb order-loving bitch by spending too much time around Anders. He had a point, as it had gotten progressively harder to behave the way Anders expected me to “so we can coexist in harmony”.
“Anders, there’s no reason for me to stay here anymore,” I explained. “I’m healed, you have taught me what I need to know and it’s been hours since you asked me a question I could answer. I’m not saying that you are boring, it’s just that I will have more fun being on my own.”
“Fair enough, I suppose. I have to say, this past week has certainly been more… interesting, than before I met you. I never would have thought that a donut and some sticks could be used that way - to be honest, I’m still having trouble believing it…” yeah, I’m very proud of my donuts trick. Sorry, I’m rambling again. What I mean to say is, it was a pleasure gettin’ to know you, Miss Guffaw.”
“I have also had fun being with you. I never imagined mortals like you could be so complex. It’s amazing how much you can develop in so little time.”
Then I remembered something I had made for him. “Oh! I have a surprise for you!” I made a dowsing stick appear and gave it to him.
“Well, that’s… certainly a nice stick,” he said, unable to see what made my gift to especial, so I explained it to him.
“It’s not just a stick. I have used my magic on it. It will vibrate whenever a reasonably big living being nearby is in dire danger. If you hold it with both hands it’ll point towards the source of the fear and desperation. I thought that, since you worry about the wellbeing of others, this could help you help them faster.”
Listening to his touched telepathical voice made me feel all fuzzy inside. “I’m honored that that’s the impression you got of me. Thank you for this, I’m sure I’ll make good use of it.”
Just fuck him already or leave.
Can’t you see we’re having a moment here? Go fuck yourself with barbed wire.
“Well, if I linger anymore I won’t ever leave. Until we meet again, Anders. Thanks again for saving my life.”
“I’ve said it about a dozen times, Guffaw, it’s what any decent person would have done. Best of luck on your adventures, wherever they may take you. And one more thing - try not to get in a hurt like that again. That’s one of the limitations of an actual body - if you get hurt, there ain’t no goin’ back.” Suddenly, he reached towards me and held me in a tight hug. “Stay safe you crazy mutant.“
Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh he’s hugging me wtf wtf wtf. Physical contact wasn’t something I was used to. Since I arrived at Equis most of it had been being attacked or being healed by Anders. Thus, I had no idea how to react when he displayed his affection with a hug. Eventually, I managed to return the hug. Woah, he is so warm… How come a thorn golem is so warm?
“I-I’ll be careful. Bye,” I managed to say as we broke the hug. I immediately flew away, noticing a strange warmth in my cheeks.
Discord, being the asshole he is, laughed at me for the rest of the day.