Completed The Bigger They Are...

[Amelia]

Looking back at the last few months of travel was enough to put a curious glance upon Amelia. Her once pristine boots were now weathered and muddied with scrapes and cuts that would be impossible to shine off and her cloak was hardly the holeless masterpiece it had started as. Her walking and riding had helped nurture a physique that was a bit more sturdy than she had been when she first set out, but considering how scrawny she had been that hardly said a lot.

Regardless it was good to be back home and put her feet up for a bit. Her mother had just come in with a piece of food to help her focus on her studies. They exchanged a few words about the world and where it was going before the great Doctor Ariawyn had to go back to attending to the minor noble that was resting in one of the more well-kept bedrooms. As page for page of the tome passed Amelia by she emptied more and more of her cup of water until finally it was time for a refill.

Her feet came down from the edge of her desk and her chair was finally stablized on four legs again before she rose out of it and reached for the door. Yet almost as if fate knew what she was about to do she heard her voice on the other end.

"Amelia! Amelia, we need you now, come over here!"

The girl threw the metal cup onto her desk and closed the door to the clang of it hitting the ground and rolling off under her bed. She patted herself down and pulled her hair back into a ponytail before rushing down the stairs that led into the clinic in which her entire family conducted their business. Not a cheap place by any means but a place where urgency was afforded no matter who came through the door.

This time it seemed to be a mercenary. It wasn't the first of their kind that had come through and certainly wasn't going to be the last. She approached the door where the nurses had come to help carry the mercenary's weight in case they needed it.

"Woah there, big guy." Amelia chuckled under her breath as she lifted his arm up over her shoulder and began to lead him towards a vacant emergency room. "How did this happen?"

They stepped into the empty room and they put him down on the relatively small bed in comparison to the man's sheer size.

"Go over your symptoms and show me where it hurts."

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

Alleys and assholes, that’s what filled this city when you moved through the back of them.. Gunnar had been an idiot and led himself get trapped in a tight alley where he couldn’t swing his axe, he didn’t think as he was chasing that bounty but it certainly left him with a reminder. He had gotten stabbed in the gut, a wound that wouldn’t kill him quickly but if it got infected then he’d die an agonizing death. He hoped that was the case at least, if blood loss didn’t kill him first.

He grunted as he leaned against buildings to find the entrance to the home of one of the local healers. “Fuck!” He shouted in frustration as he swung open the door, someone rushed to his side and called the healer he had heard of. She came down the stairs swiftly and moved over to give him something to lean on.

“Got ambushed in an alley, got stabbed and they got away.” He grunted as he followed her, moving in to the small bed, which looked like a child’s bed simply due to the nature of his size. “I’ve lost a bit of blood…” He said, he was already light headed as he laid himself down, still gripping the wound as tightly as he could. Gunnar didn’t know much but he knew that this wound needed pressure to keep him from bleeding out.

“I’m light headed.” He said as he laid back, he felt tired and wanted to go to sleep… Drowsy even, he breathed rather heavily, labored breaths as he left himself in the hands of a healer. “I’m tired.” He added.

He was close to passing out as he finally mentioned his name, she may have heard of him if she often treated Mercenaries. "I'm Gunnar.... Bergstrom, just fix me." He said, trying to keep himself conscious, he knew well enough that falling asleep wouldn't help him any, he needed to stay conscious.

 

[Amelia]

Her mother came into view for a moment as they took their seat in the room to make sure that Amelia knew what she was doing and at the sight of the man she did her best to try and hide her grimace. It wasn't so much that the great Ariawyn was unused to treating mercenaries as much as the fact that they all had a tendency to be a bit uncouth. That and the fact that payment was something risky to expect at best. Nobles were snakey, but lives saved were always measurable in coin.

As the man began to go over his symptoms Amelia applied pressure to the man's wound with a nearby cleaned rag that almost immediately began to turn into a darker shade of crimson.

"Hold that for me, please." She urged him and rushed over to a nearby cabinet to gather a select few canisters of herbs and salves. "And whatever you do don't fall asleep just yet."

With a trained eye she dug a small and flat wooden applicator into a salve and began to apply a thin layer of a nearly translucent paste along the edges of the man's wounds before carefully letting it dab against the very corners within it. An icy cold would grasp at his wound before a fiery burn would balance it all out for an ultimately uncomfortable experience all around, but healing was hardly something most people enjoyed. At least in these first few stages.

"Have a habit of getting stabbed, Mister Bergström?" Amelia asked and continued her procedure by scraping off some of the superfluous paste around his wound. "It's not conducive to good health, you know."

She washed her hands off the blood that covered her fingertips in a nearby basin before she took a seat on the chair by his bed.

"That's the bleeding stopped." She exhaled in relief and grabbed the rag from his hands. Small driplets of blood still ran red into the wound, but at the very least it wouldn't be pouring. "At least enough to keep you from getting anymore lightheaded."

"Is that bed working for you, by the way?" She chuckled and cleared her throat. "We aren't used to treating people with your, errrr, physique."

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

The bed was too small and he knew it but right now it simply felt right to lay back, Gunnar in his current state was very susceptible to suggestion as he took and held whatever she gave him. His face crunched up a little at the strange sensations of hot and cold before it slowly ebbed in to a more bearable sensation. “I’ll be fine, I’m not going to fall asleep.” He said, stubbornly with a hint of frustration, he was embarrassed that he had gotten stabbed in the first place.

“Do you have a habit of asking useless questions.” He huffed with a grunt. “Of course I don’t make a habit of getting stabbed, I just made a mistake.” He sneered those words at her, he certainly wasn’t the most grateful of patients, though this seemed more a personality issue than anything else.

True, the blood was no longer flowing and though it didn’t give any instant relief it certainly made sure he wouldn’t get any worse for the time being. “Fuckin’ idiot.” He muttered to himself as he looked down his own form towards the wound. Gunnar’s green eyes then locked themselves on Amelia with a quirked brow. “It’s something, as long as the bed doesn’t give out under me.” He sighed.

“Why, you planning on conjuring a bigger bed? Why ask about something you can’t change.” He said stubbornly, manners certainly weren’t the greatest asset among mercenaries but Gunnar seemed to have more grump than a drunk orc.

Gunnar’s thoughts however were simply influenced by his failure, getting stabbed in an alley. If he hadn’t been so close to a healer he would have been done for, a miserable end. That thought bothered him, not because he was afraid of dying but because it could end on something so useless, insignificant.

“Next time I see that fucker I will make sure not even a necromancer can put that cunt back together.”

 

[Amelia]

If he only knew the response she had up her sleeve to his sarcastic remark about questions. Her mother had gotten the brunt of dumb questions when Amelia was young, but as she grew up she had come to realize that by phrasing them with just a hint of joviality it could pass as a pointlessly ironic or sarcastic question. She took the moment to allow the man time to himself as he judged his actions while she reached for the rest of the herbs and grabbed a mortar and pestle.

"Summoning a bed? Can't think of a reason to trade part of myself for that particular magic ability." She snickered and began to ground down a select few herbs from her collection. "And as for that 'fucker' you are rightly upset with, well, I can only imagine he has reason to fear from now on."

The process of grounding the herbs down into something similar to a fine powder was not something that passed all too fast. They would have plenty of time as she crushed the tiny leaves in her bowl.

"We will have plenty of time. Not sure how big you are on small-talk, but I can certainly be quiet if you prefer." With great strain, of course. "But, regardless, how about you tell me about the situation that put you in here? Should we be fearing retribution for taking care of you?"

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

At the end of it all, Gunnar was on a bed with a stab wound, her chatter had distracted him enough to calm down just enough to hold up a half decent conversation. Her joke was met with a half-hearted grin and a light roll of his eyes.

“Heh, I will find him.. But.” He was almost talking to himself more so than her. “I let him get the better of me and this is the result… I have no one to blame but myself.” He seemed frustrated but this was nothing he couldn’t come back from, the man he had chased was a sneaky bastard but not strong enough to handle him.

He gazed her grinding up the herbs, it was almost therapeutic or would be if it wasn’t for the fact that it felt like grating on a chalkboard, he hated having to wait. “No, you’re fine, talk as much as you want.” He shook his head as he tried to prop himself up with his elbows and would even if she told him not to do so.

“Bounty, had to find this little creep, dead or alive.. He runs fast however and led me in to a small alley… It was my own mistake, couldn’t swing my axe there and he took that opportunity to stab me and run.” That was the truth of it, it was a little embarrassing but he was already planning on how to destroy the asshole that did this to him.

“Tell me about yourself healer, distract me while you work or I’m going to go mad listening to the grinding of that crap you got there.”

 

[Amelia]

So he was a bounty hunter. The man certainly had the looks of one, and if anything the smell of one too. Amelia was far from a master when it came to combat, but what little she had picked up were things that had been learned by sweats and bruises. All too often people in books failed to mention that part when describing the glory of battle.

"Me?" Amelia seemed surprised at his question. "Well, I am not quite sure what to tell you."

The grinding of stone on stone and flora stopped for a second and made the room almost notably quiet as the girl considered what was even noteworthy about herself. She looked down into the bowl and the thick paste that was starting to take shape before she looked up at the man again with a shrug.

"My name is Amelia, I am the owner's daughter." She nodded and continued to grind the leaves in her bowl. "Owner of the clinic, I mean. I am Doctor Ariawyn's daughter, my father works here as well."

Grabbing a pinch of mint she deposited it into the bowl and continued to grind. Even though it seemed to be part of the procedure, in truth she had quite simply forgotten it to begin with. Throwing a careful glance at the fixture in her bowl for inconsistencies she let out a relieved exhale before she looked up at the man on the miniature bed again.

Or well, miniature in relation to his size and all that.

"Been traveling a lot as of late, mostly running errands for mother. Seen a lot of Elbion and the civilized lands, not so much of the more... Wilder parts of the world." Amelia said and stood from her chair to go over and turn on a nearby burner to boil up some water. "Judging by your looks, I can only assume you have seen far more of it than I ever have, or will."

"Actually, where did you come from?" Amelia's curiosity shone through her question as she took her seat again and continue to grind her leaves yet again. "They don't build people like yourself around here, if you don't mind me saying."

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

He hoped this wound wouldn’t take too long to heal, he sighed as he surrendered to his fate for the time being. “You can tell me whatever you want.” He said with a shake of his head, this woman came across as a little awkward, perhaps it was him that caused it. Gunnar knew he wasn’t the easiest person to be in a room with, his penchant for aggression and general size made him intimidating even if he was wounded.

“Amelia.” He didn’t really give an opinion on her name but rather spoke it out loud to make sure he got it, a trick to remember names as he wasn’t the best with that.

He listened to her words, it must have been an occasion to catch her here if she had been traveling so much as of late, though her mother would have probably done the same. The large Nordenfiir knew that a stab wound wasn’t hard to diagnose, unlike poisons.

“I’ve seen a few places here and there.” He said, not really willing to divulge much more, when she asked where he was from he paused. He didn’t want to tell her exactly what he was so he decided to just call it as most would see it. “I’m a Nord, born on a farm, decided to travel.” He was short and anyone with a decent gauge for lying would know there was a lie in that sentence, a partial truth at best.

“They don’t build people like me in most places, but my parents were tall and strong, and so am I.” It was the most simplistic explanation after all.

His gaze once more fell on that bowl and he couldn’t help but find himself getting annoyed by the sound, he was testy and that sound just grated at his ears. “Honestly, are you going to grind through that bowl?” He exclaimed to her with a tone of frustration.

“Regardless, how long is this gonna take to heal? I have stuff to do and chatting to you while in bed wasn’t what I had in mind.”

 

[Amelia]

Awkward was Amelia's inofficial middle name. Having grown up in the shadow in one of Alliria's most well-known physicians she often felt as if there was a pressure upon her to perform, and that feeling only doubled when she handled some of the more outstanding patients. There were many times that people had been visually disappointed in having her as their doctor, but they usually left better for wear than when they arrived. Sure, it tore at Amelia's own sense of self-esteem, but she knew quite well that she could both spare and end lives in more ways than the average man could, and that alone was reason for her to find pride in what she had accomplished.

... Though maybe not so much on the days when her mother's shadow weighed the heaviest.

Sometimes she met people that made her see what it was that separated herself from her mother. For one, her mother would not have the slightest of ideas how to even treat this patient in terms of just talking to him. She was a bit more cold, a bit more professional whereas Amelia was perhaps a bit too personal. The daughter had picked that particular trait up from her father, he was always the one who handled more delicate interpersonal problems around the clinic whereas her mother simply worked wonders behind the closed doors of their recovery rooms. The thought of her mother trying to bond with this man of muscle upon muscle, in comparison to her usual customers that is, was enough to bring a smile to Amelia's lips.

"I will grind through this bowl if it means the brew I am preparing for you will be ready to be consumed with the desired side-effects." Amelia gave the man another curious glance. Impatience was something she was familiar with, she had seen it in many who came through the clinic before. "Do not worry, I have absolutely no plan of keeping that bed post stuck to your back any longer than I need to."

With a practiced reach she picked up a bandage roll and offered it to the man.

"If you wish to speed this up, you can feel free to apply this to your wound." A grin spread on her lips. "Don't worry, I'll help you out later if it needs to be redone."

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

Could be worse really, at least she wasn’t bad to look at. That’s what Gunnar thought to himself as she worked on healing him, he hoped she wouldn’t charge a fortune for this but he’d see eventually.

He was taken aback for a moment or perhaps just surprised that she became so commanding in her words. “Alright then.” He said, caving to her orders, he was in a bad mood but the fact of the matter was that he couldn’t do much at this time but wait for her to fix him.

“Good, glad to hear you have my best interest in mind.” He said with a chuckle and a shake of his head, there was something strange reminiscent about this scene to him, reminded him of what his mother was like when he got hurt. He’d be stubborn and angry and his mother told him to pipe down, nostalgia has a strange way of showing up at the strangest times.

“Whatever you think is best then, but if anything speeds it up then I’m open to it.” He leaned his head back on the bedpost, it wasn’t comfortable but his head was heavy and propping himself up gave him very little rest.

“Who knows, if you do a good job I’ll come back here the next time I get stabbed.”

 

[Amelia]

"Ah, so you do make a habit of getting stabbed after all." Amelia laughed and stopped grinding the herbs in her bowl for a second to go check on the water. "Don't worry, your professional secrets are safe with me."

It was funny how social situations worked. Usually they started out awkward until they mellowed out into something a bit more casual. Amelia's mind seemingly refused to realize that once she got to talking there really was no stopping her, or maybe today was simply a good day and her mood allowed it. She had only just gotten home from another trip after all. Even if she had only rested for a day she felt far better than usual.

"Water's warm." She mumbled to herself and poured it into a white ceramic cup that she had gathered from a nearby cupboard. "Too warm, maybe."

With a gentle shrug she would place the cup on the bed's end table and push the small powder into the warm water. At first it turned into a grimy mess, but with a careful stir the content would clear out into a blue-green solution that looked far more consumable than it actually was.

"It looks tastier than it is." Amelia smiled and handed the mercenary his drink. "The mint is there for flavor."

Bitter as the drink was, the Mint would at the very least add a nice burn and sweetness to it. It was a brainchild of her mother's for when Amelia was a child and refused to take her medicine during the occasional cold or flu. Otherwise it was far more reminiscent of a poison than anything.

As the saying went, if it tastes good it probably wasn't a cure at all.

And as the saying also went, a good poison is never detected until it is too late.

"It's a cheap but effective energizer." Not to mention the mild hallucinogenic herbs used, but that would hardly come out unless the dosage was incorrect. It had happened once or twice, but luckily the hallucinations were harmless most of the time. "How are you feeling?"

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

He chuckled at that but had to resist from grabbing his wound, it obviously didn’t feel too great. “I try not to make a habit of it, but call it a risk of the job.” He wasn’t a bounty hunter purely, he did plenty of things for money from guarding and escorting to killing for the right price, if it didn’t involve children.

“Good, I’m sure your work would be difficult if you betrayed any of your clients trust.” He didn’t say it threateningly but there was a serious underlying tone that said he wouldn’t want to have to come back here for confidential matters.

“It’d be better with some mead or ale in it.” He said, taking the water and chugging it down, hoping to taste it as little as possible. Hs face visibly scrunched up at the taste, he obviously wasn’t a fan. “Don’t want to make a habit of drinking that.”

He quirked a brow at the statement however. “Energizer huh, so I’ll be jumping around in no time.” The giant of a man stifled a yawn, he was tired as it had been quite a walk to get to her and the entire day had been rather eventful because of it.

“Feeling alright, when do you think I’ll be able to work again.. I move around a lot for work.” He smirked, she already knew what he did and it certainly wasn’t shaking hands and holding philosophical debates.

“Also, what do I owe you for this?”

 

[Amelia]

“Loose lips sink ships.” Amelia smirked and brushed her fingertip against the surface of the wound to give it a gentle check. With time the salve around the wound would have slowly numbed the pain some. “Uh, I wouldn’t expect this to keep you for more than maybe a week if you rest properly. The solution you just drank mixed with the drink is meant to expedite the healing process by quite a bit.”

The talk of payment was most likely inevitable. Amelia looked over the cannisters she had opened, considered the herbs she had used and for how long he had been here.

“Really, it depends on how much of your recovery you want to spend here.” She said. “I can prescribe some pain killing salves for you if you want to leave as soon as possible for maybe around…” She thought on it, all things considered it was a fast treatment. “Seventy-five gold pieces for the services provided and the salve, but the price can always be discussed. Otherwise it will be twenty-five per night for which I personally would recommend being in bed for a week. But given your size and the size of the bed… Maybe not.”

“But before that,” Amelia said and finally grabbed another bandage roll. “We should probably get that wound covered properly.”

She motion for the man to stand up.

“I’ll show you how to do this properly this time around, if you want. Make sure you don’t turn into a return customer, eh?”

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

He sighed, looking down his body to his wound. “That they do.” He agreed with that, he had the same code regarding information, especially with the work he did for people. The fact was that Gunnar worked jobs mostly for a single employer and he was not in the business of honesty or law. Gunnar didn’t mind however as long as it didn’t involve certain matters, after all he had a loose code, but still a code.

“You just want me to stick around for a week, can you just fix it so I can go out, as long as it doesn’t bleed I don’t really care about the pain.” He didn’t, he had a job to finish and it was somewhat time sensitive, he didn’t have a week.

“Fact is, there are things I need to do well before the week is over, even if you have to burn the wound shut.” It wouldn’t be the first time he had done something like that, it was an emergency fix however but it did the job and prevented a wound from getting worse.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’d stay if I could but we don’t always have a choice.” He couldn’t really tell her more, after all he’d prefer being a return customer rather than having her be his job. The large Nordenfiir didn’t really add anything else to the conversation until she was done bandaging him.

As she motioned he slowly stood up, it hurt still but it felt fairly tight on him, he moved around carefully and tested the reach of his body as he moved. “So I might be here before the end of the week if it doesn’t hold during my job.” He said, a little annoyed at his own incompetence for getting stabbed.

He took out a pouch and dropped a few coins on her table, a few gold coins. “That should cover it, seventy-five is a little steep, for anyone that wasn’t born with gold up his ass.”

 

[Amelia]

Though it was perhaps a bit too much to ask for Amelia knew that it was unlikely he would stay. For one, the bed was too small and for second their rates were almost murder. For second, well, that was really it. Though he didn't seem entirely destitute he would without a doubt be lackingt he comforts these beds usually offered if he stayed. Amelia gave the man a nod and counted the gold he offered.

Good enough.

"Understandable." She nodded and brushed a hand against his wound as if to make a point. "Just don't go ruining my work by dying out there."

A joke to lighten the mood?

"This covers the costs. If you come back, well, maybe something else can be arranged." Amelia held her hand out for the man to shake if he so desired. "If there is nothing else you want to discuss, our time has come to and end for now, Mister Bergstrom."

 

[Gunnar Bergstrom]

He put on his armor over his bandages and flexed a little to make sure it felt right, he still winced a little during certain movements though but tried not to show it. That same flinch showed when she brushed her hand across the wound.

“You’ve made your point, I’ll try not to fuck up your work.. But at least you get more gold if I do right?” He said with a shrug, a joke to combat her joke… These two were not meant to be comedians that’s for sure.

“Something more long term perhaps, plenty of people need help and some days more than others, steady pay can be more enticing than large payouts.” He said, considering that it could be like a service that he pays to keep on payroll or something like that.

“Indeed, thanks for the help Doc, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” He said as he took his large axe and strolled out the door, ducking a little to make sure he didn’t hit his head on the top.

“You stay safe too, it’s a dangerous city.” He said, a veiled threat or a polite warning, the deep and rough voice he held made it hard to figure out.

 

[Amelia]

Though it wasn’t the optimal resolution to their problem there wasn’t much Amelia could do to persuade him to stay and heal properly, there wasn’t really anywhere for him to actually stay. Though she didn’t doubt his words she was still forced to hold back a frown at the idea that he would be back all too soon.

“I am always safe and sound as long as I stay within the clinic.” Amelia laughed and waved her patient off through the door. “Take care.”

They parted and Amelia turned back inside her home and proceeded towards the stairs. Nearing the top she was met with the presence of her mother who seemed less than thrilled at the prospect of having him return, or at least so the look on her eyes seemed to indicate.

“Are you okay?” Ariawyn the Great asked her daughter. “Did he pay you?”

“Yes, mother, he paid.” Amelia chuckled and handed her money the gold pieces. “He just needed some patching up, he is already gone again.”

The mother held the coins in the palm of her hand and let her fingers wrap around them with an anxious grip. Amelia went into her room and returned to her books once again, and her mother, well… Her mother was still the chief around here. She had other matters to attend to.

Sometimes, they grew up faster than you’d like. Ariawyn would never deny that.