His long hair had been matted with blood and filth and black sludge, but now it was clean and dark and silky, tied back with a faded red ribbon.
Whatever had happened, she was grateful for anything that made getting him out of his clothes easier, and she was certain that having clean hair had to be much more comfortable than having filthy hair.
She didn’t have to cut all of his clothing to get it off of him. Some of it she managed to remove intact.
But once she could actually see most of his body...
It became a little clearer what had happened to him.
He had been attacked by some sort of animal.
Some sort of huge and terrible creature.
He had gore marks and slashes that looked as if they’d come from enormous claws. His chest was covered by a massive discoloration, as if he had been thrown with violence into something.
But the worst was—the worst was—
One of his feet was just gone. His left calf was hideously mangled and terminated in a bloody stump. His right hand was almost as bad: He was missing three of his fingers, and the ones that remained were twisted into unnatural angles.
And then there was a strange, black oily growth on his side, about the size of one of her new chickens. It smelled unwholesome and peculiar. It was somehow even worse to look at than his mangled leg and hand. It gave her a shiver just looking at it.
And as she looked at it, the reason it made her feel sick became clear.
Atragith Holoparasite Parasitoid
Invader
ENEMY OF THIS PLANET
Demi’s eyes widened, and as they did, more information began populating her view, giving her a complicated summary of the man’s condition. In addition to his missing foot and fingers, four of his ribs were broken and an additional three were bruised. His left clavicle was broken. He had multiple cuts and lacerations.
And the gruesome parasite was attempting to pierce his intestines.
She felt like she was going to throw up.
What can I do? What can I do? She panicked. What is that thing?!!! What am I supposed to do in this situation? She was practically keening in her panic. But then it was if she somehow caught hold of her own shoulders and gave herself a hard shake. No no no. Stop stop stop. There isn’t anyone else other than you to do this. If you lose your head, this man will be dead in minutes.
She closed her eyes hard and gritted her teeth.
Aren’t you a goddess?!!!
When she opened her eyes, she let go of all her extraneous thoughts and focused on the information that the system was feeding her.
As she did, something strange happened. Her vision grew vague and out of focus, but even as it did, something new came into focus: shining lines of green, in tangles and knots, threads bound up together to make a rope or a tree, all gently undulating.
There were dozens of threads loose and in a mess, as if they’d been shed or shredded, like a swill of liquid floating around the main tree.
This is that man, she understood instantly.
And then there was a weird gelatinous mass of dark strings that was in the process of burrowing into his larger mass of shining green threads.
As strange as it all was, it was somehow not unsettling. It made sense to her. Demi found that she was calm and determined. She didn’t know how her fifteen pages of skills worked, but she knew what to do at this exact moment.
First things first, I’ve got to get rid of that gross black thing, she resolved.
It felt a little like untangling a knot. She simply moved her hands through the threads, pulling the black mass out of the main rope strand by strand, until at last, it came free.
It did not like that and began wriggling and flailing ominously.
“I’ve had enough of you,” she said crossly, and then she just pulled it apart.
It was simple, nothing really. She just undid the threads and it was gone.
But the rest—
The rest of it—
“There’s not enough,” she murmured to herself.
She understood it intrinsically, looking at the thread tree before her. So much had been lost or destroyed. She couldn’t put it all back. There just wasn’t enough.
“Well, if there isn’t enough here, then I’ll just have to get it from someplace else,” she said aloud, as if wishing herself luck and giving herself permission all at once.
So she concentrated and she felt around herself, and after a few moments, she found what she needed.
And she took it. She took it because she could. It was hers to take and make of it what she would. She felt that deep in the darkest parts of herself, the most elder corners of her mind.
She took it.
And she made him whole.
Weaving, tying, knotting, knitting, threading, stitching, weaving, weaving.
She made him whole.
And when she was done, she sat back, panting and finally let her eyes focus again.
And what she saw made her fall backward onto her behind.
The horrifying parasite was gone as if it had never existed, but she didn’t find that surprising. She had unmade it, after all.
But the man in front of her—he no longer had a bloody stump at the end of his left leg. He had an ordinary looking calf and foot in a raggedy, bloodstained trouser leg.
And there were now five fingers on his right hand, and they were all positioned like normal fingers.
He still looked exhausted: tired and beaten bloody and raw, but he looked whole. He was breathing normally, and his color was no longer strange and mottled. He no longer felt slick and clammy to the touch, and he no longer had any broken bones.
She felt like laughing and crying at the same time, weak and triumphant in her flood of relief.
Now I think I understand what I should do, she thought to herself.
He was now in a condition that a young lady with a first aid merit badge might be able to treat.
So first she carefully washed his body. Such an idea might have driven her into conniptions if she had thought about it in an ordinary context. She was not accustomed to touching men other than her family’s butler and some of the research scientists at her mother’s lab, and certainly not accustomed to touching their bare skin.
She did, however, have a very active imagination, and she was very good at imagining naughty thoughts, whether she wanted to or not. She seemed predisposed to it to such a degree that she worried it might be viewed as concerning if other people realized it about her.
But fortunately, she seemed to somehow have control over her runaway thoughts in this situation, even when she moved his underwear to check if there were any wounds or hurt places hidden out of sight.
Oh, she reflected as she did. I suppose that’s the first one of those I’ve ever seen in person. Well, at least he isn’t hurt.
She imagined that she was able to keep her overactive imagination in check because he had been so hurt, and she was currently focused on making sure that he was all right.
(But it was quite indicative of her personality that she thought to check in the first place.)
Deep breath. She would have plenty of time to let her imagination run away with her at some less fraught time.
(And it would.)
Once he was fully washed on one side, she began methodically cleaning and bandaging his wounds, disinfecting them, rubbing ointment, putting poultices on the places where his skin had been rubbed raw or burned, and carefully dressing each injury.
While she was in the process of doing this, he opened his eyes again a sliver and silently watched her.
She saw that he was watching her, so she finished what she was doing and unstoppered another bottle.
“Drink this one too,” she ordered, holding it to his lips. “I’m sure it also tastes awful.”
He drank it without complaint. Encouraged, she gave him another that would help with blood production, and then some anti-inflammatory pills.
“How are you feeling now?” she asked in concern after he had finally finished taking the medicine.
He was silent for a moment, apparently thinking things over.
At last, he said only, “Not dead.”
And that pulled a weak and exasperated laugh out of her.
“Do you mind rolling on your side so I can clean and bandage your back?” she asked, rising to her feet. “I can help you if you’re not sure you can.”
He shook his head and then said, “I can do it.” Short, clipped, to the point.
He rolled onto his side, facing the wall, so she was not able to see his expression, or even if he remained awake. His breathing gave her the impression that he was still awake, but she couldn’t be sure.
After she had finished, she patted his shoulder and he rolled onto his back again.
“Please try and get some rest,” she suggested, pulling her comforter from the floor where she had thrown it previously. She carefully covered him with it. “Don’t worry. I’ll watch over you.”
“That thing will come for me,” he warned, his voice very low and gravelly.
That was enough to make her squirm a bit all by itself, but not because she was frightened.
“I’d like to see it try!” she shot back, planting her hands on her hips. She had no idea what he was talking about, no idea what he might be trying to warn her about, but she did feel very passionately that she could defend him from anything at that exact moment.
And this brought the faint whisper of a smile to his face before the effects of the potions and his own exhaustion overwhelmed him and he fell asleep.