Elias slowly started coming to, his vision still slightly blurred and his back still on fire.
He blinked a few times, letting his eyes adjust to the light level in the room.
When he could finally see clearly, he never felt more out of place. Large red and gold trimmed tapestries adorned the solid white walls of his room.
A massive fireplace was carved into the white stone itself at the far end, and a massive sword sat neatly on its mantle.
Creatures that Elias had never seen before were mounted sporadically throughout the space, giving it a filled-in look.
He tried to sit up to see more of the room, but was quickly overcome with excruciating pain. Sweat began pouring from his head from the exertion.
A thin, cloth bandage met the back of his hand when he went to wipe away the sweat. He wasn't sure how it got there, and after looking over the rest of his body, he noticed the somewhat fresh bandage wrapped around his shirtless torso.
His slim, but toned stomach and chest rippled slightly under the fabric. Scars from past brushes with Fate scattered themselves over his torso like bodies on a battlefield - each with its own story.
The slight squeak of un-oiled door hinges snapped his focus to across the room. There, a large, ornately decorated door was being opened gently, almost as if trying not to disturb him.
From this distance, Elias could clearly see that the figure entering the room was the young girl from the Town Square - the one he saved.
She hurriedly made her way over to the bed that Elias was lying on, looking down the whole way.
When she saw looked up and saw that he was awake, she almost dropped the bandages she was clutching.
"Y-you're awake?" she stammered, not quite able to believe what she was seeing.
"I am" replied Elias. "Are you the one I should thank for the fresh bandages and comfortable bed?"
The girl started to blush slightly, before breaking eye contact.
"It was the least I could do. After all, you saved my life!"
"I couldn't very well let an innocent girl get stabbed now, could I?" said Elias, smirking a little.
A few seconds of silence passed before the girl finally broke the tension.
"Since you're able to sit up now, could you move to the edge of the bed please? I need to change your bandages out."
"Oh, sure thing."
Elias swung his legs over the side of the bed, making sure to leave room behind him for the girl to sit.
She carefully unwrapped his torso and discarded the old bandage. From the bundle of new bandages, she produced a small glass container of red liquid and a rag.
"I'm sorry for this in advance. This next part isn't going to feel good, but it's necessary to prevent infection from setting in."
She coated the rag in the mysterious liquid, and started gingerly dabbing the knife wound on Elias' back.
A white-hot pain shot through him, stealing his breath from his lungs. Once again, sweat started pouring down his head, drenching his short hair.
"You handled that better than I thought you would" said the girl. "I've seen grown men cry when Rogue's Nettle is rubbed onto their wounds, and since you've been unconscious every time before, I wasn't sure how you'd react."
"Th-thanks..." said Elias through shaky breaths.
After giving the wound a few minutes to breathe, the girl began to expertly wrap it with the new bandage.
Elias noticed that she would pause slightly whenever she got to a particularly large scar on the left side of his chest, almost as if she was admiring it in secret.
"You know, I still remember when you got that scar" she said, gently tracing it. "You were climbing one of the larger trees outside of the village one hot day. You were so close to the top when the limb you were on broke, and you fell all the way to the ground - a fall that would kill most people."
The girl stopped tracing the scar and began collecting her supplies.
"The Apothecary" she continued, "said you had only survived the fall because of the branch that caught you on the way down. He said it slowed you just enough to not break your body, even though it left you with that scar."
Elias' mind began racing, desperately trying to recall the memory that she was reciting to him.
"I remember how terrified your Mother was when I ran to get her, and how much your Father scolded you when you were finally on the mend. It was a long few days before the Apothecary was sure you were going to make it, and the whole village pitched in to cover your family's workload."
The memory began to flood back to Elias as clear as the day it had happened. How could she know about all of this though? The only people there that day were his Mom and...
"Sable?"
The girl stopped mid-story and just smiled at Elias, now knowing that he recognized her.
"Hi, Eli."