Child of the Moon.

~Chapter Fifteen~

Hector's eyes shot open. He hissed in pain.

"Sorry, buddy!" Eugene said, letting go of the ropes on the hot air balloon "The rough landing was my fault. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, mostly," Hector groaned. "Might I ask where we are and when we are?"

"We're just in another forest. It's been six days since we left the Dark Kingdom."

Hector groaned again. Lance started to pick Hector up, but the warrior shoved him away, insisting that he could walk on his own just fine. Eugene sighed and stepped in. It took several long minutes of arguing, but the former thief did finally manage to convince his friend to allow Lance to carry him out of the balloon.

Lance set Hector down to lean against a tree at the edge of the clearing in which the party had landed. Everyone got to work with whatever job Rapunzel had assigned them. They needed new supplies if they were to keep traveling, and the majority of them also needed to bathe.

Eugene walked over to Hector and sat down next to him, medical supplies in his arms.

"Alright, Hector," The former thief said. "Time to clean you up. We're also gonna need to replace your stitches."

"Great," Hector sighed. "Ya think maybe I could get some decent clothes too? Evidently my cloak has been destroyed and I haven't had a shirt for the past week."

"Look, buddy, we were low on supplies to begin with, but that balloon can't hold much, so you're just gonna have to deal with the fact that all you're gonna get are those bandages and that blanket. "

"Fine, fine!"

Eugene smiled a little before spreading out and briefly organizing the medical supplies he'd brought. He then undid the bandages around Hector's chest. He winced a little at the state of the gash. It was obviously infected, and quite badly at that. Eugene had already swapped the bandages out once and was alarmed at how much the infection has spread in the past two days.

Well, that explains his fever.

Eugene started a small fire and heated some water, while he carefully started to take out sections of the messy stitches. He didn't want to take all of them out all at once, since that would make it start bleeding again. Therefore, he only took out a few stitches so he could clean part of the wound. Once the water was hot, Eugene took the bowl off the fire and extinguished it. He checked that the water wasn't too unbearably hot before soaking a cloth in it and beginning to slowly clean Hector's wound. The warrior hissed a little but stayed still.

Once Eugene had done his best to clean the gash, he pulled out a small bottle of alcohol from his bag.

"No, no, no, no!" - Hector recoiled. - "Don't you dare use that on me!"

"Look, I know it hurts, but it'll help the infection."

"Yeah, but it's also not good to put it in your body through an open wound!"

"I know that, Hector! I'm not stupid! I'm only going to use a tiny bit. Just a few drops for each section of the wound. I even have a clean-ish stick for you to bite down on."

"Fine! But I don't want your stupid stick!"

Eugene pulled the cork out of the bottle and soaked the cloth in it so that all he'd have to do to get a few drops of the alcohol was gently squeeze the cloth. The former thief held the cloth above the section of the gash he'd taken the stitches out of. Hector suddenly pushed his hand away.

"Never mind!" he yelped. "I want the stick. Gimme the stick!"

Eugene laughed and pulled the 'clean-ish' stick out of his bag.