Chapter 53 - Chapter 53: The Recuperation - Part 1

Chapter 53: The Recuperation – Part “…be fine. Just needs to rest up now.”

Slowly opening her eyes, having heard a voice nearby, Olivia bore witness to a few different people surrounding her, none of whom she knew.

One was a very tall and gruff man, who unless she was mistaken might be about as tall as her. Adorning his head like the rest of the people she had seen, he had two horns on his head poking out of his slightly greying hair, although one had been snapped off and all that was left was a short stump. His garb was mostly made up of leather armour, with a nice shirt and trousers underneath it.

Opposite him was an older woman who had fewer grey hairs than the man and of which was shaped in a bun. She had a very simple outfit which was a cream and white dress. On top of that, she had a leather apron that covered most of the front of her body. There was a small pouch in the front of the apron that had various blades and what appeared to be rudimentary surgical implements.

As she looked around the room she was in some more, she saw some windows made up of murky glass, a table with a large basket on top, along with a couple of chairs, and eventually, she saw the door. On either side of it, she saw two men head to toe in metal and leather armour, both with their hands over the pommels of the swords.

Continuing her gaze around the room as the two nearby continued to talk, she eventually found what she was looking for.

Lyrika.

She was sitting on a chair right next to the bed with her arm outstretched. It was at this point, she realised that Lyrika’s hand was in hers. If anything, this reminded Olivia of so many of the romantic movies her friends had forced her to watch. If it was anything like this, she could see the next scene being her squeezing her hand to let her know she was fine causing Lyrika to notice.

Figuring why not, she decided to go for it.

Although, she was denied this opportunity when the man above spoke out.

“Ah, she’s awake.”

At that, Lyrika stood up and leaned over the bed Olivia was on, causing her to let go of her grip on her hand. That did disappoint Olivia a little since she couldn’t do the cliché moment, but she got over it quickly when she saw the concerned look on Lyrika’s face.

“How are you feeling? Are you ok?” Lyrika quickly asked, as she worriedly looked over her.

Olivia honestly felt fine. All the pain that had covered her body was now gone, replaced by just a dull ache in places. She was no longer in agony from all the damage she had received.

“I feel much better now. What happened? Where are we.”

“What happened is you terrified everyone in my village and nearly died when our guards attacked you in one of our barns. After the battle, you passed out and have been asleep for a couple of days as you’ve been recovering. If it wasn’t for Lyrika getting to me in time, I’m afraid to say you wouldn’t be waking up in our village right now.” The gruff man said with a voice that demanded authority and respect. Olivia could recall some of what happened before, and she realised that this was the same voice that had told everyone to ‘stop’.

“Ah…I…” She’d been asleep for two days. Olivia really didn’t know how to respond to what he said. It also felt like she was being told off by her father when she was six. She could imagine him saying ‘there are always consequences for your actions’ and making her feel even more guilty. Even though, it wasn’t…really her fault she ended up here. At least that’s what she told herself.

“Now, enough of that, allow me to introduce myself. I am Teagan, the chief of this village. I will apologise on behalf of the people in this village, but I’m sure you can understand how seeing a…seeing someone that looks like yourself would cause panic.” He said, managing to catch himself before he said monster.

Of course, Olivia knew that what he was saying was true, which was why she had planned to stay out of sight the whole time. If it wasn’t for those two men coming out of the forest it would have been fine.

“Lyrika did say that you were hidden on the outskirts of our village, and I imagine it was only dumb luck that caused this to happen.” He looked away and sighed. “But thankfully, aside from yourself with your prior injuries, no one has been gravely injured from all that mess which is a blessing. Both of the people you…encountered are fine and only have some minor damage. I imagine their bruised ego feels worse than the actual injury they received.”

Olivia was thankful for that. As she thought back to whom she fought against, she has been worried about how much she hurt them. There was the chance that her body weight had done more damage than she thought, or that the hit from her Morningstar had caused more permanent damage to that man’s hand. But that was not the case which put her at ease.

“You on the other hand, I am surprised you managed to make it so close to my village in the state you were in. I will say that you heal remarkably fast given what Lyrika told me of your journey, but even still, walking, and especially the running you had to do, with the injuries you had sustained has not done them any good. Erina here has applied a good many salves and potions to your wounds to help fix the damage. I would say that with the way you heal, you should be mostly injury free by tomorrow morning.” Teagan said, as he gestured over to the woman he had been talking to, who gave a quick wave.

“Thank you. That is good to hear.”

“Rest here for the rest of the day and tonight. In the morning we shall talk about what you are doing here and Yoban’s letter.” He quickly looked across the room and pointed at the two men at the door. “I shall leave two guards here who will stay with you at all times. While Yoban’s letter has explained things, you are still… what you appear to be, and have caused a lot of trouble. Because of that, they will remain inside the room when someone else is here, but will stay outside when you are alone or with Lyrika.”

It was fairly clear what he was saying. With all the trouble that occurred he didn’t fully trust her, so they were there in case she was a…bad egg, so to speak.

“There are not here only for you though. A good deal in the village are still shaken up after all that happened, and in their worried state, may decide that removing you from the village would be the best thing to protect themselves and others. These two guards will make sure that no one enters the room aside from me and Erina. There will be a change of guards in the evening as you can imagine, but all of the guards that will be with you are the most loyal people I know and will not let anything befall you, or others. Now, it is starting to get late and I have places to be so I have to leave you. Someone will be in soon with a meal to help you regain your strength.”

After that he gave a quick farewell and headed out of the room with Erina, the two guards exiting and standing by the door as he said they would.

“Well, he seems… nice,” Olivia said letting her thoughts out.

“He seems strict. As far as I can see he appears to be a good leader. Everyone in the village respects and listens to him. Do you remember how just him saying stop was enough to make everyone listen and stop attacking you? Even though they were still fighting, well you, they still followed his order while still in the middle of their fight.”

Olivia had to admit, that seemed like real power and respect. A good thing too, as if they didn’t do what he said, she would surely be dead as he said.

It was then that she remembered something.

“Ah, where is the, err… we really need to figure out what it is. Where is the baby.”

“Oh, he’s just over there in the basket. I gave him some more meat, which was provided by Teagan, and not long after that, he fell asleep.”

Olivia looked over at the basket and was thankful. They had only had the creature for a short while, but it honestly felt like forever and both were starting to get a little attached to it.

“I’m just so glad you’re ok. I was so worried.” Lyrika said with a very sad expression as she lent over and hugged her. Olivia hugged her back and they just stayed there for a while, only being interrupted by someone entering the room with a tray of food, followed by the two guards.

The person entering was a young man who as quickly as he could, just left the tray on the table and headed out of the room.

Both thought it was a little rude that he just entered and left without saying anything, but it didn’t bother them too much. With the food in reach, they continued talking about what had happened and got to eating, fuelling themselves up.

…

Once they had eaten their meal, it was getting closer to evening, given the darkness that slowly started to fill the room. With the advised bed rest, there wasn’t anything she could do, and Lyrika didn’t seem keen on just leaving Olivia anyway. So, all that was left was to get an early night, which Lyrika started off by jumping into the bed and wrapping her arms around her. She was careful to avoid any of the injuries she had sustained, keeping her arms around her chest.

Both then tried to get to sleep, but Olivia just felt uncomfortable. There was still the dull ache pain along her body, but the fact that there were two armed guards outside the door and possibly a load of people that might decide just kill her, didn’t help with the whole wanting to have a peaceful rest. Because of all this, she fidgeted and ended up keeping Lyrika awake.

She did get a little angry, but once she heard her reason, she understood.

It was at that though, that Lyrika thought of a way to help…ease the stress she was feeling. Lyrika quickly whispered that she would help take the edge off before slowly running her hand down Olivia’s chest.

“But...there are two guards just outside the door.” Olivia quickly whispered back worryingly although completely looking forward to it on the inside.

But it would seem Lyrika hardly saw that as a reason to stop and so just whispered back with a grin on her face.

“I guess you just need to stay quiet then.”