He was watching her closely. His eyes taking in every contour and curve of her face as he waited for a sign, any sign that she was coming back up to the surface. She had a pretty face, he couldn’t deny that. The soft crescents that her close eyelids make, the dignity in that prominent nose, and those gentle lips that seem to be begging for a kiss. She would have been truly beautiful if not for the thick layer of dirt that had covered her face. Black soot had stained her cheeks, and she was every bit the grimy and grubby little wanderer that they all usually come in. Nevertheless, she was human, and Oliver had accidentally shot her with an arrow. He, not his servant, not anyone of his friends, but he himself. He was thankful that he had not pierced her heart, or he doubt he’d be able to live it down for the rest of his life. She may be just a nomad, but she was human all the same.
A soft sigh of relief escaped his lips when he saw the daintiest flutter of her eyelids. The small smile that had started to appear on his face turned back into a frown, however, when the young woman gasped in pain. He winced just as if he felt her pain as well. Then her mouth opened and the faintest of words came out. Oliver leaned his head closer to hear her clearly. His face merely inches from her own as he tried so hard to hear what she was saying. Stop the bleeding, she had whispered. Oliver nodded hoping to reassure her when truth be told, he didn’t know exactly how.
“Don’t…don’t…pull it out…”
At least he got that one right. He knew for a fact that pulling the arrow out would only do more damage than good, and even worsen the bleeding. And he hadn’t been using an ordinary practice arrow either. Lodged into her shoulder was one of his finest and sharpest hunting arrows with serrated edges on the arrowhead, primarily intended to injure and to kill. How was he to know that it would hit anything but this young unsuspecting woman right here.
“Tell me what to do. What do you need? Herbs?” he told her urgently, grabbing her hand in his as he noticed that she seemed to be swimming back down into unconsciousness. He can’t have that. He needed to keep her awake. He needed to be sure she was alive. “Talk to me. Please.” He had never felt so useless in his entire life.
Cursing her fate would not bring Yassia anywhere, she realized very quickly. She needed to keep her mind free for thinking in clear, straight patterns. No panic nor pity would do her good now. She needed to stay in the here and now, not in the vast land of ‘what might have been’. Oddly enough, the pain helped very much with that. Every time she so much as breathed, a spasm of pain ran through her whole body, starting from her injured shoulder. Rearing up would only cause the arrow to move, and so Yassia tried to stay rooted to the ground for all it was worth, her muscles rigid and cramping from the effort. She didn’t even realize she was trembling now. All the while her mind was running two miles a minute, trying to think of what she could do. This would be so very much better if she had a full room of herbal remedies at hand, but of course she was in the middle of nowhere. She had to do with what she had got.
Yassia may be occupied, but not too occupied not to take in what was going on around her. She was very well aware of the man that was leaning over her, seeming so very desperate and… guilt-stricken? Had it been his arrow hitting her? Oh, she would come back at him for his bad aim later, but now was not the time for that. First things first. Looking at him, a weird sense of déjà-vu overcame the princess. Once before a man had been leaning over her like that, urging her to wake up and stay awake. It had been when she had been washed ashore in Albion after her shipwreck. She had been deadly chilled, but not so much injured, also on the brink of dying. But that was were the similarities ended, truly. Not only was this young man different from Lorcan as night was from day, blond and tanned while Lorcan had been dark and pale, but Yassia also doubted that things would proceed from here as they had with Lorcan…
Another surge of pain ripped her from her walk down memory lane, and she gasped, involuntarily gripping the man’s hand tight. She needed to focus now!!
“White moss”, she breathed out between gritted teeth. “These woods must be crawling with white moss. It stops… the bleeding.” That at least was what her mother had told her. Sadly, even though she had her pouch of first aid herbs with her, made of an intact marten hide, head and all with only the bones and guts having been skillfully removed, white moss was not in her stock, for the simple reason that it only did grow rarely in Ailantha. Her mother had brought this knowledge with her from Albion, but had never really used it in Ailantha. And sadly enough as well, fresh white moss was not nearly as effective as dry one, but they didn’t have time for such inanities.
And then once the bleeding had stopped it was to get really nasty. Even thinking about it now made Yassia want to be sick, but she knew it had to be done. And the sooner the preparation for it started, the better was her chance to survive.
“Please… make a fire… if you can.”
