G/t Brainrot

Spidersilk and Bandages is about a cleric who finds herself injured and alone in the woods, and ends up in the care of a wandering part-spider healer. It's set in a larger fantasy world I'm working on, and has one chapter. (minor tw for injury, the descriptions aren't very gritty but there's like, blood and stuff) ((Also! Just a couple months ago I re-wrote/edited the first two chapters! They're linked here in the perentheses))

chapter 1: Red Thread (revised ver.)

chapter 2: The Swing of Things (revised ver.)

chapter 3: All Tied Up

chapter 4: Gordian Knot

A Study in Curiosity, also called And They Were Roommates is about an aspiring engineer named Aubrey, and a small fairy she finds injured in the woods, called Shai. The story is mostly about Shai learning about modern technology while Aubrey learns about magic, and how their conflicting fields intersect and interact. It's got five chapters,

chapter 1-1

chapter 1-2

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

Tumbling Tambling is a fluffy piece loosely based on the Scottish folk tale of Tam Lin. It's a one-off which you can find right here!

The human concept of cities continues to fascinate. The institutions she speaks of maintain immense social goods, but at what cost? Helena mentioned that the workers of such institutions rarely have time for artistic pursuits. The extent to which our societies differ has yet to be fully comprehended.

At the same time, my window is closing. Helena’s recovery has come along well, and I fear that as soon as she is able, she will depart homeward. I’m unsure how to proceed when that day arrives. There is so much remaining to be asked, and I do not know which path I should take.

-Notes of Ursula, First Panacea, on the ninth day of the forty-fourth, week, in the twenty-third year of this Age.

~~~

Helena stood up to her full height for the first time in nearly a week. It felt good; the burn from all her stretches was paying off. She still had to be careful around the still-healing wound, but after taking a few strides round the little camp, she was confident in her range of motion. She swayed from foot to foot, enjoying being up and mobile. A handful of now finished snare traps were looped loosely around her neck.

Ursula finished squirreling the last of her notes away in various pockets, and finally turned to look up at her companion.

She was shocked, though she knew she shouldn’t have been. She had been around the human for some time now, but Helena’s sheer size had never been as apparent as it was now. Seeing her fully unfurled like this, she was truly larger than life. Her head was so impossibly distant that it seemed to scrape the canopy.

Well, that wouldn’t do at all.

Not letting herself think any further than that, Ursula latched on to the cuff of the giant’s pants and started climbing, fast.

Helena didn’t even notice until she was nearly at hip level. When she finally did, she yelped and jerked suddenly, nearly throwing her off completely.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Ursula didn’t respond until she had climbed up the knight’s back and was perched on her shoulder. Her heart was beating from the stress of the climb, and shock at what she had just done. Despite it all, she kept her voice even. “I thought it might be hard to keep up with you on the ground. I hope I won’t be too heavy.”

Helena made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a huff, but didn’t protest. “s’pose it’s fine, as long as you’re okay holding on.”

“I assure you, I’m quite secure.” Ursula looked over at the ropes nearby. “Now, where are we placing these traps?”

Helena repositioned the ropes on her shoulders. Ursula leaned into the motion, swaying. “Actually, I was hoping I could ask you that. I figure you know this place better than I do. Do you know any watering holes nearby? Places that might have animals passing through?”

Ursula hesitated for a moment, considering. “I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you, but I’d suggest we start by going away from the clearing you came from.”

“Okay. Any reason why?”

“Well, I’m not entirely sure of this, but… Don’t you find it strange that no animals have bothered you while you were recovering?”

Helena blinked. “I hadn’t considered that before, but it is odd.”

“Right? So, this is only a hunch, but I think there’s something… off in that clearing. Something that’s kept the wildlife away from the whole area.”

Helena shrugged, again causing Ursula to reposition. “That could be, but it could also be just dumb luck. Have you seen anything else strange?”

Ursula paused. She hadn’t wanted to mention this part. “Well, I also noticed when I visited the clearing that your… companions hadn’t been decomposing.”

Helena froze in place. “They what?"

Ursula flinched with the motion. “I thought it was strange a few days ago, but I wasn’t sure until yesterday. There’s not even a trace of bloating.”

Helena didn’t react. In fact, she was standing so still that Ursula could let go of the collar she had been holding onto. The shoulder beneath her was firm and unmoving.

After a moment, she reached up and tugged on the human’s ear. Helena remained perfectly still. “Helena? What are you thinking?”

“Right now I’m thinking that I really want to check on them.” There was a beat. “I’m wondering if I’m ready to see that.” Another beat. “I think I am.”

Ursula let go of Helena’s ear, bending back down to her collar. “If you’re sure about that, I suppose we could go see.”

Helena took a deep breath in, filling her lungs and sighing deeply.

The trip to the clearing was unnervingly short this time. Helena’s steps cleared roadblocks that Ursula had had to either climb over or walk around. Before she could even get used to the motions, they were at the edge of the clearing.

Helena froze between two trees, looking out at the aftermath.

The humans’ bodies were just how Ursula had last left them, strewn about the clearing. The blood on the grass was still a bright red, and what skin remained was pristine, free of discoloration or decay.

“They’ve been like this since the first day?” Helena’s face didn’t change expression, but Ursula felt a slight tremor run through the shoulder she stood on.

Ursula nodded. Then, after realizing Helena couldn’t see her, she spoke up. “They have.”

With another deep breath, Helena took a step and entered the clearing. The air changed around the two, a slight prickle running up the back of Ursula’s neck. A branch creaked far above them. Helena didn’t seem to notice.

She continued to the body of her nearest companion, lying in a twisted position near the edge of the clearing. Ursula couldn’t be sure, but they looked old. Steely gray hair framed a face lined with wrinkles. The eyes were still open.

Whoever it was, the cause of death was obvious. Their clothing had been ripped to shreds, and every inch of their torso was covered with thin deep gashes, all radiating from a massive puncture over their heart.

“I’d like to bend down. Will that be a problem?” Helena’s eyes were trained on the corpse.

Ursula bent down and buried her hands into the fabric of Helena’s shirt. “I’m secure on here.”

Satisfied, the knight bent down and repositioned her friend, moving the twisted hips and splayed arms until they were lying flat on their back, staring at the canopy and the sunlight far above. The clearing seemed dimmer than it had a moment ago. Gently, Helena reached out and closed their eyes.

There was a long moment of quiet. The only things Ursula could hear were Helena’s breathing and the creaking of the branches.

Without speaking, Helena stood, and began walking over to the next body. They were only a few feet from the first, but Ursula took the moment to appreciate the motion of walking. It provided a reprieve from the oppressively still air.

The next person was young, looking several years Helena’s junior. They were already in a good position, though their wounds were as severe as their neighbor. Helena simply bent down and closed their eyes, taking the same moment of quiet she had for the first.

Except it wasn’t quiet anymore.

The branches creaking above them were a constant presence now, blending together into a drone. With a chill, Ursula realized that the darkness wasn’t an illusion either. The branches above them were growing denser, reaching out and coming together in the center of the clearing, blocking off the pillar of sunlight that had been let through.

Helena noticed at the same time, jerking her head up and glancing at the canopy of snaking, snapping branches.

For a moment, Ursula could swear she saw the shape of a person in the middle of the mass. It was subtle, barely there, as though the twisting branches were forming a basic impression of arms and legs.

That was all she saw before Helena’s massive hand came up, wrapped around her, and plucked her off her spot on the human’s shoulder.

Everything after that was chaos.

Ursula’s thoughts were slow to form, the world moving too quickly.

She was jerked up, down, around, and was soon clutched against Helena’s chest, her face buried in the rough fabric.

Helena’s grip was firm but not painful. In her position, Ursula couldn’t see much, but she could feel the wind rushing by them, and she could hear the motions of the colossal beings around her.

Faintly, she heard Helena panting with exertion, somewhere above her.

Under that, she half heard and half felt the knight’s heart, hammering in her chest. Each beat was tore through every inch of her body.

Then, much louder, she heard the roar of the bramble beast, like a thousand dry branches creaking and snapping at once.

The cacophony was endless. For a time, Ursula lost track of where she was, or what was happening. All she knew was that Helena was still running. She rose and fell slightly with each step, taking them further from the clearing that held the beast.

The roar did not repeat itself.

After an interminable amount of time, Helena’s rhythmic running slowed, then weakened, then plodded to a stop. Ursula was pulled away from her nested position, the sudden cool air a shock on her face. Soon, she was in front of the human’s face, the hands around her twisting to cup under and behind her. The forest around them was still, but her head was spinning.

Helena looked over her, eyes concerned. Her face was dripping sweat, and she was still panting. “Are you okay?”

Ursula tried to stand up, but the dizziness reared its head and she fell, Helena’s hands jerked to stay under her, only causing more nausea.

Ursula closed her eyes and splayed her arms wide across the humans’ hands. Giant skin had a strange texture. “Can you put me down please?”

Helena grunted with surprise. “Right. Sorry.”

The massive hands lowered steadily to the ground, giving Ursula one final burst of disorientation. As soon as the movement stopped, Ursula rolled off her platform without opening her eyes. She landed on solid ground.

Several long moments later, the world around her had calmed down some. Groaning, Ursula sat up and opened her eyes. She rubbed her temples with two hands while clutching her stomach with the others.

Ursula looked up at Helena. The knight’s eyes were locked on her, and she was on one knee, not moving. “I’m okay, please. What happened?”

As soon as she spoke, the tension in Helena’s frame diminished visibly. “The monster that killed my friends appeared again. I had to run, but I had to make sure you were with me, so I grabbed you.” There was a pause as she leaned down and collapsed on her side, still breathing heavily. “Sorry about that.”

“No, you’re fine. It means a lot that you went to such lengths to protect me!” Now that the ground was back under her, Ursula stood up. Helena’s head was back on the ground, turned to look at her.

The knight laughed, a rhythmic, deep, and rich sound. “Are you serious? Of course I would!”

Ursula’s back right arm twitched. “What do you mean by that?”

Helena’s expression returned to one of concern.” Ursula, you saved my life. I’m not sure what that means for you, but it certainly carries a lot of weight for me. That was honestly the least of what I should do to return the favor.”

Several threads came together in Ursula’s head. She started leisurely walking around the knight’s head, considering. The two of them stayed like that for a time, again on the floor of the forest.

Eventually, Ursula walked over to Helena’s face. The human had recovered some, the panting stopped and the sweat drying. “Well if you’re looking to return a favor, I might have an idea…”

~~~

Why this bramble beast reacted the way it did, and what its purpose is, are currently unknown. It could be that it was left by the elves, and was meant to guard the clearing, but that is pure speculation. It does, however, carry the implication that human presence might trigger novel reactions in elven ruins.

In other news, I’ve convinced the human, Helena of Blackwell, to join me in coming to the current Althing. I intend to submit these notes to the Prime Synedrion, in addition to a formal introduction. It is my hope that the Synedrion will consider the unique opportunity this introduction provides, and act to establish relations between Humans and Weavers. While she claims to hold little sway in Human civilization, Helena has offered to lead an envoy back to her city, which is an offer that may not appear again.

The Human’s anatomical similarities to elven creatures goes deeper than I had thought. In fact, the structure of our endoskeletal parts is nearly identical. Does this indicate a shared origin of our people? I suspect she would know more about it than I, but I cannot bring myself to ask.

[…]

She says she hails from a strange gathering of humans, which she calls a city. It seems to be some sort of perpetual Althing. What craft must have gone into such a structure? Is it the product of these gods she speaks of? More remains to be seen, but I must be sure not to test her patience.

-Notes of Ursula, First Panacea, on the third day of the forty-fourth week, in the twenty-third year of this Age.

~~~

Second day after injury:

Helena swore as she undid the last clasp, letting her breastplate fall to the ground alongside the rest of her armor. She had only been on her feet for a few minutes, but the sweat on her back was already seeping through her undershirt.

The task done, she slowly lowered herself back down to a sitting position, being careful to put as little pressure on her core as possible. As soon as she was seated, she flopped back and let out a deep sigh.

Ursula stood to the side, trying not to think about how much smaller the knight looked without her armor. She wasn’t doing very well. It was distracting, how the human could look so vulnerable, while still being so untouchably vast.

Raising her voice, she called out to Helena. “You’re doing well! Just make sure not to push yourself too hard!”

Helena sighed again. Ursula noted her chest rising and falling visibly. It almost looked exaggerated, now there was no armor to obscure the motion. “Can hardly consider it pushing myself just to stand up for a minute.”

“You absolutely can when you’ve been grievously wounded. Now lay down and let yourself rest.”

Helena grumbled something intentionally nondescript, but relaxed into her position nonetheless.

Ursula sighed. In the past day or so, it had become clear that Helena would only sit and rest if she was firmly told to do so. It felt strange, having to put her foot down before this titan, but also exhilarating. If she worded something as a command, Helena would invariably do as she was told.

Satisfied, Ursula turned to the supplies she had amassed. It had taken several trips of hauling food, but she finally had a decent buffer, at least enough to last for a few days. She had even rigged a contraption to help with condensing water. It was simple, just some sild lines set up and held taut, leading into the mouth of Helena’s waterskin, but with her spellcraft, it would make enough to keep the human hydrated.

Finally convinced everything was as it should be, Ursula turned back to her notes.

It took seventeen minutes for Helena to grow restless.

The fidgeting started as a finger-tapping. A small movement that Ursula would hear a mile away.

Then, it grew.

Helena slowly reached out an arm, swinging it over Ursula’s workspace to land on the recently-discarded armor. There she stayed for a moment, before slowly dragging the breastplate towards herself.

Ursula watched this process bemused. It wasn’t until Helena started to sit up that she spoke up.

“What are you doing?”

Helena tensed, seeming like a scolded child, but continued to rise, rolling up onto one side. “I’ve just got to check the breastplate for damage. It’ll be quick.”

Ursula groaned. She had been told she was stubborn, but that stubbornness paled in comparison to this. “You can check it over just as well tomorrow.”

Fully sitting now, Helena brought the breastplate up onto her lap. “maybe so, but I won’t be able to rest until I see it. This suit is literally irreplaceable.”

Ursula’s back right arm twitched. “Well, that can’t possibly be true.”

Helena shrugged, turning her head down to the armor. “Can’t say I know the details, but I was told very clearly when I was given the armor that there would never be another like it. The knowledge to make it went with the elves.”

Ursula froze. “What do you mean by that?”

Helena looked up from the inspection, furrowing her brow and scratching the back of her neck. “Okay, so an elf is a type of person, like humans, but-”

“No, no, I know what elves are. I mean, I’m interested in hearing that description, but we can loop around to that later. What do you mean by ‘went with them’?” Ursula bent her back-arms in time with the paraphrased question.

Helena sat in silence for a moment, regarding Ursula in a way that she hadn’t before. Bewilderment and curiosity rolled together. “Okay, I’m not sure how much you know, but… some time ago, most of the elves in the city just up and left.”

Ursula stood up and started pacing. A pen practically leaping into her hand. “What do you mean left? Left where?”

“No one really knows. We think they went north?” Helena gestured vaguely into the forest, in a direction that may or may not have been north. “I was only nine years old when it happened, so I don’t remember much.”

“You were there for it? What was it like?” Ursula hopped up on Helena’s ankle and walked up to her knee, glancing up at her face in between the lines written frantically in her notebook. “Please, tell me anything you can remember. No one followed them, or asked where they were going?”

Helena glanced up at the sky, obscured as it was by leaves. The sun was somewhere overhead. “No-one had a chance to. I remember it was sudden. One morning, there was this stream of light in the sky, flowing north. Then, the elves sort of… dissolved into it.”

Ursula’s thoughts were outpacing her pencil. She dropped off her perch on Helena’s knee, and dashed through the grass to her little campsite. She tore several pages out of her notes and spread them across the ground.

She wrote frantically, filling the paper with shorthand notes. After a few moments of silence, she was dimly aware of Helena setting down the armor and returning to rest, somewhere far away.

~~~

The human has said that the city from which she hails has a surviving elven population, though greatly diminished by what she describes as a mass migration some years ago. The discovery of other remaining elves is, of course, monumental. A more detailed report and interview will follow.

Another note: the description and time of this departure might align with the great lights that marked the beginning of this Age, though the exact date of the happening is not known.

-Notes of Ursula, First Panacea, on the fifth day of the forty-fourth week, in the twenty-third year of this Age.

~~~

Fourth day after injury:

“So the elves that are still around, what do they do, usually?”

Helena looked over at Ursula, and her rapidly growing stack of notes. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Ursula shifted her position, moving her current notebook to a different hand. “I mean their callings. Do they make art? Are they mostly craftspeople?”

Helena hummed, considering. “I’m not sure there are really any patterns. They have the same jobs as anyone else in the city, mostly.”

“And what does that entail? Have you met any elves? What do they do?”

“Well, most of the ones I know, I met in my training to become a cleric. They were healers, to a one.”

Ursula’s eyes snapped up from the page for the first time in quite a while. “You trained under healers?”

Helena shrugged as well as she could, while lying down. “Not very much, only enough to do basic healing in an emergency.”

Sighing, Ursula turned to a page of reminders, and scrawled “compare notes on healing practice” into the next entry.

~~~

Seventh day after the injury:

Ursula’s lungs were burning by the time she dragged the coil of rope back to camp. It was a strange thing, thick and coarse, made from thousands of overlapping threads. Each strand was incredibly weak, but together, they made something as strong to the humans as Ursula’s thread was to her. Apparently they had kept a great deal of the stuff with them on their travels.

Helena didn’t react to her approach for a time, absorbed as she was in her stretches. Ursula was glad for the moment to breathe, which she spent looking over the larger woman’s exercises. With each movement her massive form swung up and around, before returning to a neutral resting position.

It was graceful, in its way. The motions were smooth, with barely a tremor in Helena’s immense frame. Ursula appreciated the intense effort that must go into maintaining such incredibly control and power.

When she finally stopped for a rest, the knight turned to face Ursula, rolling onto her side and regarding the rope. “Thanks much, this’ll do nicely.”

Ursula, still winded, simply stepped back from the rope as Helena picked it up, taking it onto her lap and starting on a simple knot.

It was the most bizarre thing Ursula had ever seen.

It certainly looked like a knot, and Ursula could recognize the motions in it, but it was a strange parody of the art she knew. Helena’s gargantuan fingers haphazardly pushed, pulled and contorted the rope into a loose tangle.

Ursula realized she was laughing before she could stop herself.

Helena’s head whipped upwards, her work forgotten. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Her brows came together in a concerned look.

It took several seconds for the laughter to die down. She held out a hand to forestall Helena’s worries, while wiping the tears from her eyes with two more.

When she got her breath back, she finally spoke. “It’s nothing important, I was just thinking of what my mother would say if she ever saw a knot tied like that.”

Helena glanced down at the loose series of loops tied in her hands, then back at Ursula’s spot on the ground. The tension plain on her face had been replaced by bafflement. “Like what?”

“It’s just… I shouldn’t judge, given your, ah, stature, but the way you feed the lead through a loop is clumsy, and your tension is inconsistent.”

Helena snorted lightly. Her wry smile wasn’t visible, but it was clear in her voice. “Was your mother particularly strict about these things?”

“Oh, yes, very. It is vital for every child to be able to craft with the utmost precision and speed.” Ursula adopted a mock chiding tone.

At that, Helena smiled earnestly. It was faint, just a narrowing of the eyes and an upturn of the lips, but to Ursula it spoke volumes. “That must have made for a stressful childhood.”

Ursula giggled, turning away from the human and starting to walk back to her campsite. “You could certainly say that.” There was a pause, a moment of quiet. “So how about yourself? What were your parents like?”

Helena looked away from Ursula, reaching a hand up to scratch the back of her neck. “Well, truth be told, I don’t remember very much of them.”

“How do you mean that?” Ursula tilted her head as she fetched her notes and sat down.

Helena’s voice got quiet. “Well, I was separated from them when I was pretty young.”

Ursula’s back right arm twitched. “Oh, my goodness. That must have been difficult.”

“Not as much as you might think. I was hardly the first orphan in the city.” Helena’s eyes landed on a spot far away between the trees, lingered there for a moment, and then swung back around to Ursula. Her smile flickered, but only for a moment. “But enough about that. What can I do to fix that tension you were talking about?”

Cleaning the wound was easier than Ursula had expected. As it turns out, humans weren’t all that different from elves, so her spell needed only minor adjustments. Likewise, sewing the wound shut went well. After the stitches had been finished and the wound bandaged, all that was left was to wait.

The human — Helena, she reminded herself — had been unresponsive since the morning, but she was still breathing evenly, presumably asleep. So Ursula slung up a makeshift hammock in the crook between the knight’s massive torso and arm, and lay down to rest.

~~~

When Helena woke up, she tensed immediately.

It was subtle. If Ursula were bigger, she never would have noticed. But as it was, the slight jerk sent her makeshift bed rocking back and forth.

Slowly and carefully, Ursula swung out of her hammock, using the hooked claw on one of her uppermost arms to lower herself to the ground. The human gave no explicit indication of being awake, but Ursula noticed her breaths had gotten shallower, and the massive arm her hammock was hanging from had clenched, trembling slightly.

Climbing to the top of the knight’s chest, Ursula came to stop around her collarbone. The human’s head was laying flat on the ground, face-up, giving the smaller woman a view of the skin under her chin. She called out to her patient.

“How are you feeling?”

Helena sighed deeply, trying and failing to hide a grimace as she stretched her torso. Ursula did her best to ignore the feeling of the ground she was standing on shifting beneath her feet, leaning in to the motion that came from the colossal knight’s exhale. When the human spoke, she did it through her teeth. “’Bout as good as can be expected, I suppose.”

Ursula chittered ambivalently, reached out to touch the human’s face, then decided against it. Instead she asked, “how can I make you more comfortable? Can I get you something to eat?”

Helena lifted her head to look at Ursula, crossing her eyes to try to bring the spider into focus, then sighed again and laid back down. “I’m really alright.”

Ursula stood stock still for a moment, completely baffled. “Well you’re absolutely not alright.”

Another sigh. Ursula idly wondered whether that was Helena’s primary form of communication. When she spoke, she was notably quieter than before. “Well, I suppose not, but you’ve already done so much.”

That irked Ursula, in a way that she was sure wasn’t entirely rational. She called out, being sure to keep her voice level. “Look at me again, please.”

Helena did so immediately. The human’s nose was at Ursula’s shoulder level, and she jabbed a finger into it, emphasizing her next point. “Listen. Right now, I am a doctor, and you are my patient. If I leave you aching or wanting for comfort in any way that I could have prevented, I will have failed. Now, what is it that’s bothering you?”

The human met her gaze for a long moment, face impassive, then dropped her head back to the forest floor. Ursula saw a blush the size of a small tent spread across Helena’s face, but when the knight spoke, her words were impassive. “Well, if you’re offering, I haven’t eaten in about a day.”

Satisfied, Ursula stepped back from the human’s face, clapping her hands together. “Yes, of course. I should have asked sooner. What do you typically eat?”

As she lifted her arm to point, Helena grimaced. “There were some rations in my pack, but I dropped it when…”

When her companions were killed. Right. Ursula looked in the direction she had indicated, into a nearby clearing. “Very well, I’ll go grab what I can carry, and return here shortly.”

“About that, just how much can you carry? Are you sure I shouldn’t go get those myself?”

“Oh you absolutely should not be walking for at least another day. I’ll grab enough for a meal, you sit down and rest.”

Helena let her head down again, grumbling incoherently at a volume that might have been inaudible to someone her size. Ursula heard it, and promptly ignored it, climbing down the side of the human’s torso and marching off towards the nearby clearing.

~~~

It took her nearly a quarter hour to get to the pack, and that was with Helena’s footprints providing a direct path. Ursula spent it mainly organizing her thoughts. She had dealt with larger creatures before, so why was it that Helena unnerved her so much?

She supposed it was mainly that Helena was a person. With many of her animal patients, she had to work while they were unconscious, usually kept under by magic. Helena was awake, and aware.

As Ursula rounded the trunk of a tree and found the leather pack lying on the ground some yards away, her mind wandered to just how the knight had looked at her. She had been calm, no outward signs of emotion other than vague tiredness, but being considered by a face the size of her entire body had awoken something strange in Ursula. Fear, nervousness, but also something else. Something she wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

Finally walking up to the bag, Ursula walked around looking for an opening. It was a satchel, designed with a large flap covering the opening. Luckily, it had fallen with the flap up, so all Ursula needed to do was unlatch the clasp at the top of the bag. Climbing up the side to do just that, she also caught a view of the clearing around her.

It was big and empty, in a way that told Ursula this was one of the places the Elves had left their mark on. The trees shied away from this place, letting a golden pillar of sun reach the ground below, where a field of Grass soaked in the warmth.

Interrupting the view were the bodies of the other humans strewn about the clearing, rising like distant mountains from the flat ground. Briefly, Ursula wondered what had driven them so far out into the forest, where Humanity was known only as a distant myth. She made a quick not to ask Helena about it later.

Unclasping the latch and letting the flap fall to the ground, Ursula climbed inside the bag to find several bundles of crackers, and what looked like some type of dried meat. The crackers were each a bout as tall as she was, and perhaps half as wide, bundles in stacks of four. Dragging one of these packages out and laying as much meat as she could fit on it, she strung a line of web across the cracker to use as a handle, and began hauling the setup back to Helena.

~~~

About a half hour after Ursula had left, the feelings of guilt in Helena were reaching a boiling point, and starting to shift into worry. Was she okay? Had something happened to her? Had Helena really just sent that little thing on what must have been a mile long hike to her, simply to avoid walking the two minute it would take to retrieve her pack?

Slowly, carefully, she began working herself up to standing. Cognizant of how this had gone the last time, she tried her best to keep pressure off the wound, rolling carefully over to her left side, then on to her hands and knees. There she sat for a moment, fighting off a wave of dizziness. Painstakingly slowly she walked her hands closer to her knees, leveraging herself up, and up, until she was finally in a kneeling position. Her wound began to burn from the effort, but she stayed upright. From here, she could-

“What the fuck are you doing?” The voice was loud, as though it were shouted by someone just a few feet away from her. Helena whipped her head around, squinting, until her eyes found Ursula a few yards away, standing near a pack of hard tack with some bacon laid over it.

After a moment, she replied. “It had been so long since you had left, I was worried something might have happened.”

“I’m completely capable of running that errand myself. I told you to stay put.” Ursula’s tone seemed tense.

Helena shrank down under Ursula’s ire, slouching a bit to make herself smaller, but not quite laying back down. “I didn’t mean to question your ability, I just thought I might be able to help somehow.”

Silent, Ursula started walking towards her, leaving the pack of meals behind her. Arriving at Helena’s knee, she began climbing the armor, coming to a stop on the top edge of her breastplate, right below her face. “I am helping you right now, because you are grievously wounded. That’s my job. If you try to help me right now, you’re only going to make more work for me in the long run.”

Helena looked down at the spider before her, ashamed at having angered someone who had already helped her so much, wanting to make it up to her, knowing that any attempt would just further insult her. Unsure what else to do, Helena closed her eyes and took several long breaths, trying to move as little as possible to not upset the passenger on her collar.

“Yes. You’re right. I apologize, I shouldn’t have strained myself like this.”

Despite her small size, Helena distinctly heard Ursula make a sort of hmph sound. Reaching a foot down and hooking onto her tabard, the spider began climbing off of Helena’s kneeling body. “Alright, thank you. Lay back down and tell me anything you might need. How are you for water?”

Helena began retracing her steps to lie back down, wincing with the motion. “I have a skin with me, but I emptied it while you were away. Is there a stream nearby?”

As soon as Ursula touched earth, she had started walking back to the abandoned meal. “There’s no need, I can condense enough water to fill that in about an hour.”

Finally resting on her back again, Helena stared at the forest canopy above her. “Do you use magic for that as well?”

She heard the response as though it were spoken directly in her ear. “I do.”

Helena turned her head, catching a glimpse of Ursula walking through the grass several feet away.

“And that method of carrying your voice farther than natural… How is it you can use so many magical techniques in such quick succession?”

There was a pause before Ursula replied. When she did, there was strain in her voice. She was carrying the meal again. “I’m not sure what you mean. Among my people it’s typical to know enough spells to cover a variety of tasks. Is it not so for humans?”

That unsettled Helena, to say the least. “For humans it takes decades to master even a single spell. Those that do are considered specialists in the field.” She paused. “How… old are you?”

Ursula laughed lightly. It wasn’t a human laugh, but more of a decidedly happy feeling series of chirps. Still, it was a clear and even sound, conveying a type of simple joy that put Helena at ease. “I’m twenty-three, thank you very much.”

Something about that tickled Helena’s mind, but she set it aside for the more pressing question. “So young to be so knowledgeable. If you were human you would already be one of the greatest mages in the world.”

There was a wry grunt from Ursula, and when she spoke next, she was near enough to no longer need the spell. “I had heard that humans had difficulty with magic, but I had no idea it was so pronounced. Wasn’t one of you casting spells before I found you?”

Helena turned her head to stare at where Ursula was now, perhaps a foot from her shoulder. “How did you know about that?”

The spider looked at her feet, as if ashamed for some reason. “It made… quite a ruckus for anyone who might have been listening, but I’m fairly certain I was the only one who was.”

“Oh, that was probably me and Maia. She’s the star apprentice of the Wizard of Blackwell, on track to take their mantle within the year. Her specialty is in making fire, so she can be really useful in combat.”

Then, Helena caught herself in present tense. Stopped. Tried to feel something, then turned back on it. Took a deep breath. In, and out. Grounded herself.

“The food is here, when you’re ready.” Ursula’s voice was soft, kind, and it only made Helena feel worse.

Still, she didn’t want to disregard her benefactor. she removed a piece of hardtack from the wrapping and broke a chunk off in her mouth. Kept it in her cheek while it softened up. Then, Helena turned to her host, most of the piece still in her hand. “Would you like some?”

~~~

Ursula had never had food like this before. It was strange and hard, and spent too long in her mouth. Still, she found it enjoyable, if only for its novelty.

Around the food, she had been working to keep Helena talking. It was clear that the human was grieving the loss of her friends, and Ursula wanted to keep her mind off of that topic as much as possible.

“So I heard you say you do magic as well? What’s your area?”

Helena’s responses were slow, though Ursula couldn’t tell how much was from general weariness and how much was from the reminder of her loss. “No area, really. I don’t actually know any spells, I just have a patron.”

Ursula pulled that thread a bit more. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, what’s a patron?”

Helena sighed again, clearly grasping for an answer. “She’s… My patron is the Queen of Pure Tones. She’s a god of justice and judgment. Those that follow her teachings can form a bond with her, giving them access to magical abilities beyond their own.”

Several dozen questions popped into Ursula’s head, most of which she stuffed into a pocket to be asked later. “And what are her teachings?”

A wry smile broke through Helena’s next sigh. “Are you sure you want me to tell you? They can be quite tedious to list.”

Ursula looked up from her cracker, into an eye the size of her head. This being that many times her size and surely experiencing several levels of intense pain, was worrying if she was bored. She giggled. “Really, I’ll tell you if I find it too dry.”

Helena turned her head to look up at the forest canopy. “Very well then. The first rule is to always be sure. Whether the action you take turns out to be right or wrong, be fully certain of the fact that it is yours...”

~~~

As night fell and what light could make it through the thick leaves above her started to fade, it occurred to Helena that she was about to die. Her companions were gone, and her connection to her patron was fading, leaving her alone to fend for herself in the Crowned Forest overnight.

That would be an issue even without the massive hole in her gut.

The wound continued to bleed, painting her silver armor an alarmingly bright red. Distantly, a part of her worried about how the rust would affect the plate.

With the last of her strength, she stumbled away from the clearing where everything had gone wrong. Finding a suitably sturdy tree, she leaned against it, letting her back slide down the trunk until she was sitting at its roots. Not having to move let her focus on the pain as it washed over her, enveloping her in a numb and awful exhaustion.

Unfeeling fingers closed around the bell that hung from her neck, the symbol of her home bringing her comfort. Helena lost consciousness still clutching it.

~~~

Ursula’s breath caught in her throat as she took in the hulking form before her.

A human.

A wounded human, unconscious and half-alive, but still.

Silently screaming at herself, Ursula slid to a stop near the human’s side, taking in the deep gash. It ran fully from the front of the human’s abdomen, just above the hip, around to the same spot on its back, carving a half circle into its side. All in all it was maybe a foot long, and around half as deep.

This made it about twice as tall as Ursula herself.

She began clearing layers of cloth away from the wound with her foremost arms. There was a strange layer of metal, which posed a problem. Ursula’s mind reached out along the familiar pathways, casting a spell to wrench the material upwards and out of the way.

With the scope of the injury in sight, Ursula stepped back to take a look. Blood was still pouring from the opening, soaking into the soil and drenching the roots. Another spell closed the human’s arteries, staunching the bleeding for at least a little while.

The next step would have to be laying the human down. As it was, their torso was bent, warping the cut open wider than it would be. Given the scales at play, Ursula could hardly reposition the human herself, so it seemed she would have to wake them up.

Ursula considered for a very long moment whether she really wanted to do this. She was well within her rights to say she had done all she could, and leave the human where it lay. Unfortunately for her, her own moral principles were quite strict on leaving injuries untreated. That aside, she did also have to admit that the possibility of talking to a genuine human sparked some curiosity in her.

So, reluctantly, hand over hand over hand over hand, Ursula began scaling the human’s chest. It was a smooth climb, as the outer layer of cloth was rough, making easy purchase for her claws. As she reached the human’s chest, she came across its massive right hand, closed around something unseen, held over their heart. The fist made for a good platform, and Ursula stood on it as she surveyed the face of her next patient.

The human’s head was slumped forward, chin-to-collarbone, and from her new vantage point, Ursula could just about reach their nose. She hadn’t seen any human noses before, but she could tell that this one was broken. A scar ran across its bridge, leaving a large indentation where it intersected with the cartilage. Looking around, Ursula saw a sturdy, square jaw, a brow still furrowed with pain, and close-cropped light hair. All in all, they looked like a person who had seen conflict, and survived through sheer persistence.

Now that she was in reach, Ursula found herself frantically going over what all the legends said about human propriety and how to make a proper greeting. This one was wounded, but when waking a giant, it still seemed vital to make a good first impression.

After a particularly long moment of steeling herself, Ursula reached upwards and touched the human’s nose, performing an old spell for wakefulness her mother had once taught her.

The human’s eyes shot open.

~~~

Helena blinked awake, unsure where she was or what was happening.

It took her a moment to clock that there was an unknown and alive something very close to her face, but when she did, she nearly jumped out of her armor. This in turn caused the something to fall backwards, landing with a sort of yelp on Helena’s lap. The knight moved to sweep the thing further away, but a stab of fresh pain from her side kept her from doing more than twitching.

While she faltered, the thing in her lap jumped up and announced, surprisingly loudly: “Hello! My name is Ursula, First Panacea! Pleased to make your acquaintance!”

Helena squinted, taking a closer look at her lap. The thing—Ursula, she supposed—was more of a person, though certainly not a human one. They stood on two legs, granted, and everything from the shoulder down looked very human, if you ignored the fact that there were four arms, but there was an extra pair of fuzzy, spider-leg-like appendages rising up from their upper back that ruined the illusion.

This Ursula wore a utilitarian brown jumpsuit, with a collar that covered up to their nose, and more pockets than Helena could count, each one in a different color. A shock of messy, brown-and-black fuzz covered the top of their head.

Helena took all of this in, and summarily dismissed it. She kept her own words curtailed, speaking quickly and quietly. “Get off of me.”

This was followed, after a moment’s consideration, by a “please.”

The creature named Ursula quickly waved the lower four of their—its? Her? Helena settled on ‘their’ for the time being—hands in an assuaging gesture, and started speaking much faster, seeming to drop most of their formality like an open sack of flour.

“Oh, yes, sorry, I was just about to, it’s just, I was hoping you could get up and lay down on your back? You’ve got a nasty wound there, which I was want to help with, but you’re sitting up and-”

Helena grimaced at the cascade of words, struggling to parse their meaning as her mind caught up with why she was here. She was wounded. She had been in a fight? Yes, with the bramble beast. Helena had been protecting Maia while she lined up a spell, but then…

Ah, right.

Maia, Andrea, Oliver, they were all dead. She had watched it happen. The monster had been clever, pinning Helena down with a spike, and ripping through the weaker party members while they were defenseless. She had wrenched free, but it had been too late to make a difference.

Well, at least, she thought it hadn’t.

She was alive now, so something must have happened. If she had survived, was it possible that the others had as well?

Provided with an actionable cause, Helena came back into herself. She was still on the ground, and Ursula was still on her lap, talking at an impressive clip.

“-but I’m not very knowledgeable about your physiology, come to think of it, I’m not sure I know anything about your culture, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you somehow, I swear I’m trying to help and eep-”

The little creature was cut off as Helena, not having the words to speak, gently picked them up and placed them on the ground beside her.

Ursula was quiet after that, though Helena couldn’t tell if it was from shock or indignation. Regardless, Helena doubted she could do anything to help.

Rolling forwards and to the side, Helena made it just about to one foot and one knee before she passed out once again.

~~~

Just as she was coming to terms with having been picked up by an Actual Human, Ursula was shocked again by that human’s massive form crashing to the ground, shaking the earth with the impact.

Apparently their injury was severe enough that they couldn’t stand on their own, but picking up and moving her entire body had still been no effort at all. Ursula noted that with equal parts fascination and fear, and added it to the choir of voices in the back of her head telling her that this was a bad idea.

Taking a few steps back, Ursula did a few stretches to calm herself down and reassess.

Aside from the danger to herself, there was the question of whether or not she should even be here. The human was unconscious again, but while awake, they hadn’t seemed like they wanted any medical aid. Would it be best if she left them to their own devices?

She shook those fears aside. She had chosen to walk the path of a healer, and it was clear that this person would die without assistance.

After taking a few more breaths and getting her wits about herself, Ursula scurried back around to the wound and groaned. The movement had ruined her frail spell, and the gash was bleeding profusely once again. At least the human had had the decency to land on their back, which made her life easier.

She repeated the spell to close the arteries, and after ensuring the blood was cleared off of the surrounding skin, got to work building a fire. The next and most intensive step on her journey would be cleaning.

Moving up along the human’s body, Ursula reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a sponge, a bar of soap, a waterskin, and a knife. After cutting through the soft fabric under the plate at one of the human’s elbows, she cleaned off a section of skin, and took a small blood sample, storing it in a glass vial she produced from yet another pocket.

With the sample in hand, she sat down, calling a simple analysis spell to mind, and replaced her cleaning supplies with a pen and journal. It would take some while to get an accurate impression of the giant’s innards, but her artery trick would hopefully keep things stable for a time. Flipping past the pages of previous documentation, Ursula came to a blank sheet and began a new entry, scrawling the word Human across the top of the page.

~~~

This time, when Helena woke up, she knew exactly where she was. Still on the ground, still lost in the woods, and still, somehow, alive. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but staring at the canopy above her, she could see what might be dawn light through the leaves.

She sighed deeply, reawakening the pain in her midsection and wincing in the same motion.

“Oh, please try not to breathe too deep! Too much movement will ruin the spell.” The voice was quiet but firm and sharp, coming from somewhere near Helena’s ear.

She turned her head to see the tiny person from before, sitting cross-legged and staring intently at an array of papers spread out on the ground before her, periodically scribbling down short lines. They were working by the light of a small fire, and seemed to have one arm devoted to constantly adding more fuel to it.

The entire setup could fit fully in one of Helena’s gauntleted hands.

Keeping her breathing as shallow as possible, Helena responded in a whisper. “You’re… Ursa?”

Their eyes stayed on their work, but Helena could hear the smile in their voice. “It’s Ursula, First Panacea. Pleased to meet you again.”

Helena frowned at the slip, and the two sat in silence for a long moment. Eventually she spoke up once again. “You seem… a lot less talkative than before.”

Ursula glanced up, briefly meeting Helena’s eyes, before returning to her writing. “I’m focused on writing right now. Before, I was trying to make a proper introduction.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“It’s also… easier, when I’m on the ground and you’re laying flat.”

Helena blinked. She supposed it must have been intimidating to speak with someone several times their size. She wasn’t what to say about that, so she largely ignored it.

Besides, something else had stuck out to her. “You said that movement would ruin a spell?”

“Mhm! A localized shock and dehydration spell. It’ll keep your veins closed until I can sew the wound shut.”

Helena furrowed her brow. “Why?”

At that, Ursula looked up fully, a look of confusion and concern in her eyes. “Well, you’ll most likely die if I don’t?”

Helena returned the confusion. That wasn’t quite what she’d meant, but the reality of Ursula’s statement was undeniable. She was injured and immobile, in the middle of the forest. Even if she were in peak form, traveling home without her party would be an ordeal.

Reminded of her companions, Helena gasped, narrowly avoiding stressing her injury. “My party, they were nearby. They’re injured as well, you should check on them first.”

Ursula’s eyes softened, turning from confusion to pity. “I’m sorry, I did see them, just before I came to you. I didn’t… you were the only survivor. I’m sorry.”

Another stretch of silence passed between them. This time, Ursula spoke first. “You never told me your name?”

Helena turned her head back to the canopy. More splotches of daylight were shining through. “I am Helena of Blackwell.”

Ursula stood, walked up to Helena’s head, and placed a hand on her temple. “Well, Helena, it’ll be about a day before I can sew up your wound, and some weeks of recovery after that, but you’ll be up again in good time. For now, you should rest. If there’s anything you need, I’ll be nearby.”

Helena set her pack of damaged armor down at her side, the satchel following quickly after. Finally free of her burdens, she rolled her shoulders, looking around at their chosen campsite. It was a small space, in the shadow of one particularly large tree, but it would do for a night’s rest.

A squawk came from beside her ear, and Helena realized with a jolt that her stretches had nearly mashed Ursula into her face.

“Ah! Sorry about that. Force of habit.”

“It’s fine, no harm done.” Ursula was already climbing down the front of her shoulder and finding a place to hop over her hip. Helena made an effort to keep still for her, though the sensation of talking with someone climbing down her leg made her want to jitter.

An urge appeared in Helena’s mind, an urge to pick Ursula up and place her on the ground swiftly and gently. She shook it off as quickly as it came, but it left a lingering feeling in her mind, a sort of pull.

“So, I suppose I’ll set up camp!” ~~~

Ursula sat back at her little fire, her lower two arms propping her torso up while her remaining hands worked idly at her notebook. Most of the important questions had been asked, so all that remained was paring down and poring over.

Somewhere above and beyond her, Helena set up her own camp. It was a much more intensive task for the larger woman, only in part due to the difference in scale. She seemed to be much more exacting when it came to clearing and maintaining a campsite now that she had the energy to spare, or at least thought she did.

By the time Helena was hacking at underbrush around the clearing’s edge, Ursula finally called out to her.

“It looks like you’ve done quite a bit of clearing.” Helena didn’t look up as she replied. “Yep! It’s pretty refreshing to be back on my feet.” “You’re not all better yet. You need to make sure not to do more than you should.” Ursula kept the slight impatience out of her voice.

To that, Helena reacted immediately, straightening her back and dropping her task. “Right, yeah, sorry.”

Ursula huffed idly. As always, Helena only really responded to direct commands. When she did respond, however, she was almost perfectly obedient. In the back of her mind, Ursula wondered if Helena would pick her up again, if she phrased it as an order.

She very pointedly didn’t think about why she might request that, in particular. Her first experience wasn’t the most pleasant. Though, between the fear and mayhem of the moment, it did feel sort of… pleasant, in a way. Being encompassed like that.

Helena laying down scattered what were left of Ursula’s thoughts.