They had decided to venture out into the woods and have a picnic and one night camping trip. For some reason everyone was being awfully quiet. Well, Kur seemed to be in deep thought. And the half-elves were naturally on the quiet side. But even Elswyth was being quiet.
Which felt a bit weird. It wasn't that his friend was a normally extremely loud person, but she did tend to talk with him. As long as he wasn't studying, Elswyth would often engage him in conversation. So her silence was more noticeable than anyone else's.
But anyway, Heron had noticed something as they walked that made him quite pleased. His daily training sessions seemed to have paid off. His legs didn't feel like rubber, he was keeping up with the others, and his lungs weren't burning. Oh, after a while he still felt some tightness in calves, but this was a vast improvement. At least he was now on par with Kur's physical abilities. Admittedly, the other three were definitely checking themselves to let him and Kur keep up. But those three had dedicated years to outdoorsy things.
Heron was just pleased he could, with his naturally weak physique, keep up with a self-made recluse. Especially since said recluse was actually not too bad for not doing much, according to Elswyth. She had told Heron she was amazed that Kur was in surprisingly good shape.
So, yeah. Heron felt a bit proud now and thankful to Elswyth for helping him reach this point. It wasn't like he was under any delusions though. He still wasn't that hearty or anything but it was nice being actually somewhat healthy.
And from his reflections he had seen in mirrors lately he no longer had the sickly pallor that had been his norm his whole life. His cheeks now had actual color in them. And he even had tanned a bit. Not much. But from being outside in the morning every day he had gotten a bit of sun exposure.
They only walked for about an hour before finding a meadow inside the forest to have their picnic. Kur happily began setting up what he had packed, with Tira's efficient help. Heron almost went to help them but they seemed in their own little world so he refrained. He'd let his friend have this moment.
Elswyth and Lowks had decided to go gather sticks for the fire later. Heron really felt a bit bad that he was not doing anything to help, but Elswyth had told him to stay here. So, he started making a ring of stones to keep the fire contained.
As Heron was placing the last stone he felt his stomach lurch with an intense feeling of nausea. He was confused by it but it faded almost immediately so he shrugged it off and stood up. His ring of stones looked very perfectly round.
He glanced over at where his wizard friend was absorbed with talking to Tira. He couldn't hear them but they looked cozy together. That brought a smile to his face as he hoped that Tira would return his friend's obvious feelings. There was no way she hadn't noticed right? Like seriously, Kur had such obvious tells.
Then the nausea resurged inside his stomach and Heron covered his mouth at the sudden uncomfortable feeling. As the nausea changed to a feeling of twisting pain he suddenly had a bad feeling. This was the same feeling he had had before he'd fainted.
This time though, he dropped immediately to his knees, and just focused on breathing. It was a bit easier like this. And plus if he fainted it wouldn't be as bad, cause he was already closer to the ground.
Kur noticed his strange action almost immediately and ran over. "Heron! What's wrong?"
Heron could feel the lightheadedness wash over him. "I think I'm going to faint again."
"Ah, that's not good. Its been months. Why is it suddenly acting up now?" Kur frowned a bit then shook his head, "Why don't you lie down? You might recover quicker if you don't conk your head."
Heron did so, with Kur's help. He was lightheaded enough that he was not sure he could really make any movements on his own. It was awful feeling like this.
It was almost a relief when the blackness started encroaching on his vision. It was a lot slower this time than last time. He almost would have preferred to immediately faint. At least the pain had been unnoticeable after he'd fainted last time.
Within a minute though he'd already passed out.