"Is it working yet Nico?" The feminine elderly voice floated around in Talia's head for a while as it slowly brushed away the dark caves of her nightmares. As the world around her shifted the more she realized she could feel her body again. She also quickly realized she didn't like it, not one bit. Every ounce of her was on fire and she wasn't supposed to be able to feel the burn from flames.
"Her fever's still high but I think she's starting to wake a little. Was that your plan?" Nico's sharp voice was like a ray of hope through the darkness. She couldn't have been happier to hear his snark little tone cutting through the dark abyss. Or the retort from the woman who was with him.
"Aye, but it's only the start boy. Now we have real work to do." The woman sounded pert as always, her genuine enjoyment for her craft bleeding through in her voice. Talia knew who it was after she thought about it. How could anyone forget Madora? She was the woman Nico always called after all, the blind psychopath was one of the best healers in the country, perhaps the world but Talia wasn't going to give her that much credit yet. Her methods very rarely matched up with her madness.
"Now pull away the soiled bandages and get ready to use these. They're going to feel weird so I imagine it might rouse her more. Don't let the paste there touch your skin or you're going to go out the roof of this place." She warned Nico darkly as she rustled around in the background. Talia wished she knew where they were, how much danger they were in. Had demons followed them? Had the dragon truly died? How many days had passed? With her mind racing she didn't even notice when Nico pulled the bandaging away from her face or how much it stung. She wasn't aware of his movements until he applied the new bandages.
"Arggh...!" She jumped, her back arching as she instinctively clawed towards her face. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Nico grabbed her hands and held her down with all his weight while she struggled against the war of cold, hot, freezing, burning, and every other range of temperature that was seeping into her very bones. She was certain every time a wave of cold hit that she'd die, it numbed her to the core. Every time the heat returned she'd try to break free from Nico's hold but it was futile, she was as weak as a kitten that had been starved half to death.
"Hold still you idiot." Nico gritted his teeth at her. She could acutely hear the sound of his teeth grinding which only served to drive her more crazy. Hearing everything but being unable to see it was maddening.
"Hrngh... Urg.." She tried to retort to him but nothing intelligible came out. Was her tongue just as weak as her body? She wanted to slap herself for the idiocy of it.
"Here I am all damsel in distress and I can't even wag my tongue like a true person. He's going to rail me for sure after this..." At least in her head she was still capable of speech. Snarky and sarcastic speech too. But that didn't matter when she still couldn't talk to Nico or Madora and get a gauge of the situation. Or snarl at Nico. Or tell Madora to stop fucking giving her mana potions when things 'didn't look good'. She knew full well the woman had done it again, she could feel it in her quivering muscles and racing heart.
"Now that she's calmed down a little see if she'll drink this. I think it'll give her the energy she needs to wake up the rest of the way. Then we can continue to draw out the poison and lower her temperature. By morning I'm certain we'll have it under control." Madora shuffled and rattled around to Talia's right. She heard the clattering of bottles, the snapping of dry herbs, and the sloshing of water. She could imagine her withered hands tending to the herbs, mixing the water, picking the bottles. Madora was a diligent woman who had been practicing her witchcraft for years.
"I certainly hope so. We can not afford to stay here much longer." Nico grumbled as he took a seat and pulled out what Talia could only assume to be a book. The sound of paper flipping every so often confirmed that theory and set her at east. If he was comfortable enough to read she could be comfortable enough to relax.
For a time the silence was sweet and comfortable, and so was the darkness when she finally relaxed into it. With Nico at her side and Madora watching like the blink hawk she was, there was little to worry about. At last she was comfortable enough to just... Be. She wasn't sure how long it lasted, only that every once and a while Nico would startle her by brushing her forehead and muttering to himself.
"Her temperature's coming down now, it's almost back to normal." He spoke up after brushing her head again with his ice cold hands. She wanted to grumble at him and call him a corpse or something else equally frigid. But she was still unable to speak, so she pocketed the insult for later. She wasn't too happy to have them talk over her as if she wasn't really there, but she had to wait to tell them that too.
"Good, now have her drink this. It's going to taste... Well let's just say it has a taste that rivals the most foul troll shit in the Emerald Mountains. So... You know. Make it fast." Madora cackled as she handed the bottle to Nico. Talia stiffened at the sound of the transfer, there was no way in hell he was going to make her drink it. Not after that description.
"Move you stupid fucking body!" She urged herself violently. She would much rather throw herself out a window than swallow whatever steaming pile of shite Madora was trying to get her to drink. Helpful or not, it wasn't going down her throat. But no matter how hard she tried she was still just a floating ball of consciousness unable to escape the cloud of her mind. Her body wouldn't react at all.
"Sorry Talia... Please don't puke on me." Nico sounded almost as apprehensive as she felt.
"No promises..." She groaned internally. He stuck the bottle in her mouth and tipped it and in an instant she was writhing in a mixture of disgust and desperation to get away. But just as quickly as the urge to violently vomit came it went just as fast.
"That was... Easy." Nico hummed slightly. Talia groaned then, the memory of the taste still lingering. But Madora hadn't been wrong, her energy was returning quickly. She even managed to crack open her one eye. Though she couldn't see anything really, everything was just a blur of light and shadow dancing in her range of vision.
"Hey, you finally coming around?" This time Nico's voice rang clear in her head, though with her mind pounding in agony she wasn't sure she appreciated his voice. She groaned again just to make it clear she was very unhappy.
"I know how you feel. This has been a rough quick-draw mission hasn't it?" He chuckled as he handed Madora the bottle. Talia glared at him with her one good eye,
"You didn't have to fight a fucking dragon!" She croaked. Rough mission? Next time he could take on a legendary creature. Then she could nurse him back to health and make him drink sludge.
"Oh gods you kill one bloody dragon and I'll never hear the end of it." His voice was lined with sarcasm but she didn't miss the tears in his eyes or the smile on his face. He was just as happy to see her awake as she was to see him alive.
"How are the...?" She tried to look to Madora but turning her head was agonizing and the woman was sitting on her blind side.
"Safe, for now. It's only been about a day since you killed the dragon. I figure we've got at least two or three days that we are safe here. After that we need to move." He got up from his seat and moved around the room. Talia took a deep breath, picking apart every little scent to determine just where they were. She picked up Astor's usual pungent odor hanging in the background.
"What are we doing back in the town? What if the monsters come here too?" She tried to raise her voice but nothing but a hollow croak escaped. She felt like a fat toad with her raspy voice. Nico was shuffling around where the closet was, most likely digging out a book.
"I made sure to scan the skies for leagues, nothing out of the ordinary was lurking or hiding within my range of vision. I'd guess at a few days of relative safety. One we move on any danger will likely follow I'm afraid." Both of them sighed in tandem. It was the price they paid for their goddess and her will.
"Where should we head to next?" She wasn't sure if he had a plan already, if they would head to the dwarven kingdom directly or if they would take a more round about way. What was better? What was safer? Their cargo needed a veritable army to keep it safe but they didn't have that. So they needed to keep speed and shadow as their closest allies. Nico paused his rummaging for a moment to answer,
"Amethyst Cove is our next stop to stock up on some supplies for the length of our journey. It's the next closest city if I remember and we should be able to stick to some decent enough roads for the majority of the trek." He finally finished rummaging around and pulled something from his stash of books. Talia blinked blearily as her mind swam.
"Right. Travel." She wasn't sure she was ready to knuckle down and ride for hours and hours on end let alone do it as a glorified body guard.
"Don't worry about that yet girl, for now let's just make sure you don't turn into a demon and die on us. Or effectively die." Madora piped up from the shadows, her voice sounding extra gravelly. Talia wasn't going to try and look at her again, so instead she just closed her eyes and waited for an explanation or for sleep. She didn't particularly care which. Demons, monsters, dying, she didn't care. She was just tired.
"So it's true that a demonic creature carries a poison that can create more?" Nico asked. She was glad at least he was curious, she still couldn't bother.
"There's a lot about them that I do not know I'm afraid. But what I do know is that they can corrupt nearly any living creature. Plants, animals, bugs, nothing is safe. Whether or not the corrupted are the same as the demons themselves I can not say." She moved suddenly causing Talia's eye to snap open in surprise. She eyed the corner but still couldn't see the woman.
"We are so painfully unaware about them and yet they're Vekkar's creation. They exist, they're a part of our world. And we know nothing." Nico sighed as he slammed whatever book he had reading closed. Talia eyed him instead, he looked frustrated and just as run down as she felt.
"It is the sad truth of our current reality I'm afraid. Historians have erased as much as they can of his creation and because of that we are suffering for knowledge now."
"Does that mean I'm going to die?" Talia grumbled after silence fell amongst them. Madora's answer was a dry chuckle,
"Of course not. I'm quite capable of drawing out the poison. That paired with your ability to naturally survive most poisonous compounds makes this an interestingly survivable case. Which sounds bad, but for you it's good." Talia closed her eyes again. Good for her but bad for everyone else wasn't usually what she heard. She wouldn't complain as long as it stopped hurting.
"I'm going to read everything I can and see if there's not some sort of knowledge or references to his creations. I don't like going in blind." Nico sat once more next to Talia's bed with what she noted to be a rather large stack of books. He picked the top one and flipped it open before setting himself to diligently reading.
"Haven't you read all of those already?" She mumbled at him. What new knowledge could he glean from the pages of books he'd already read dozens of times?
"When I read them I knew nothing about Vekkar or his minions. I still don't, but maybe now with some more... personal knowledge I can pick something out of these passages. We can hope." He leaned a little closer to the pages as he finished his reply. Talia knew he wouldn't be talkative for a while after that.
"Alright I'm going to keep making my medicines for you girl. I don't think you'll fall into a comatose state again so sleeping now should be safe." Madora sat again from whatever she had been tinkering with. Talia didn't need to be told twice, she settled back into her bed without further ado. She may have hated her dreams but she was certain if she tried to push any farther she'd just pass out regardless.
"Just don't force any troll shit down my throat again. Next time I won't take it lying down and that's a promise." She tried to snarl at Madora but she was certain it came out more like a half-snore. She was already mostly asleep at that point.
"Ha, we'll see girl. I hope you'renot wrong there." Madora's reply was the last thing Talia heard before shepassed out once more.