Eight Intertwined

142 - Vow

Alfyn pushed the door to the shack open with just a bit too much force, and he resisted the urge to flinch when he heard the door almost snap as it hit its limit. "Heya, Miguel!" he exclaimed around the pounding of his own heart. He started over toward his patient, H'aanit and Linde falling into pace beside him as Therion, Tressa, and Primrose retreated to the outer edge of the room to watch silently. 

Miguel had woken up in the time the group was away, and he had one arm wrapped around his injury as he groaned quietly. "Alfyn, mate... Me wound... It stings somethin' terrible," Miguel choked out. As Alfyn stared at him now, he could see that Ogen was right. There was a knife peeking out from the opposite side of Miguel's cloak from where his wound was, and there was far too much blood on him to have come from a simple stab. 

Alfyn shoved all of that out of his mind as he crouched beside Miguel. "Let me take a look," he murmured. He examined the wound carefully and made sure his frown wasn't too obvious to anyone watching. The wound was worse than he thought, and it had clearly been festering for too long... Just as Ogen said. Miguel should have seen treatment for it ages ago, but if he was a man on the run... Then...

"How's it look? Tell me I'm goin' t'survive..." Miguel said, clenching his teeth through the pain exploding actively across his abdomen. He must have known he should have sought medical attention sooner, and yet, he never did, and that had led him here... But was it really because he was a man on the run? Were all the rumors about him true?

Alfyn did his best to not entertain those thoughts, and he shook his head to snap himself back to the present. "Yeah," he said breathlessly before he remembered he needed to be optimistic. "I mean, you sure will! The sting's how you can tell the salve's working." He would need to give Miguel some stronger medicine, but he was fine with that. He would be able to whip something up in no time given how many herbs he and H'aanit had gathered when they were on the edge of town. It wouldn't take long for him to find something to address this level of severity. 

"I... I see..." Miguel murmured, though it was clear he wasn't certain about Alfyn's confidence. He must have known everyone was starting to doubt him, and his morale was being dragged down as a result. 

Alfyn was quick to cover his tracks even though he felt the other travelers' eyes glaring into the back of his head. Primrose had said she could tell by looking into a man's eyes what kind of person he was, and she didn't like what she had seen when she looked at Miguel. Therion looked more uncomfortable than ever before, and while he had never been the best at coping with being in Saintsbridge, it ran deeper than usual this time. All of them were starting to doubt both Miguel as a person and Alfyn's judgement of him, and the apothecary could barely blame them. "You just hold on, okay?" Alfyn told Miguel softly. "We'll have you on your feet again in..." 

Before you act, ask yourself what it truly means to save a man's life... Especially the life of a killer.

Before Alfyn could even get started on brewing the concoction, Ogen's words echoed in his mind again. He couldn't get distracted by Ogen's moral judgements of him or his patient, but at the same time, it was difficult to stay on subject when there was so much to think about. If Ogen was right, then should Alfyn have really treated Miguel? How far did it go down from there? Would Ogen leave Alfyn's other friends to die? Was Alfyn as bad as a killer himself because he had mended their injuries in the past? Was he a horrible person for standing at Primrose's side as she continued her quest of revenge and bloodlust?

"What's the matter, Alfyn?" Miguel asked, his voice cutting through Alfyn's thoughts with far more brutality than they had any right to. "Is it worse than ye thought?"

Alfyn paused for a long moment, weighing the options that had been presented to him, before he let out a heavy sigh. He wouldn't be able to hold this in forever, and he needed to talk to Miguel about this eventually. He wouldn't get anywhere if he kept bottling up his fears. "I heard folks talkin' about ya, Miguel," Alfyn told him quietly. "Sayin' you're a thief... And a murderer."