It had been a slow and cruel process. Gundar had nothing even resembling a healer's tools: only a nicked knife, a piece of bone hastily sharpened, and fibers torn from a root that still oozed damp soil. He stitched the wounds on Eden's forearm as best he could, tugging at the torn skin so the stitches wouldn't come loose. Each time the bone pierced flesh, Eden took a deep breath and bit his own tongue to keep from screaming. There was no clean water, no bandages, no alcohol; only mud, stagnant rainwater.
The shallower wounds, though still ugly, were less fortunate. Gundar simply pressed their edges together with the same rope they had used to bind him earlier. The cord was rough, stiff, soaked from the rain. It burned. The lacerations closest to the wrist, too superficial to hold a stitch, were left as they were: open, shiny, breathing in the cold air without anything that could truly be called treatment.
When they finally finished, everyone returned to their places, worn out by exhaustion. Alaric insisted on staying on watch, even though he was so tired his eyelids seemed to be held open by nothing but pride.
Eden lay back as best he could, his stitched arm pressed against his torso. His elbow touched the damp ground, and the rest of the limb rested against himself, pulsing with a beat he couldn't tell was his own or simply pain piling upon pain.
"I don't understand… why is he helping me?" he thought. The sky was beginning to clear, the rain clouds unraveling and revealing a firmament full of cold, distant stars. Even so, a few drops of dew still fell onto his face, sliding down without asking permission, just like the doubt in his mind.
Melchor slept beside him. Part of his body lay on the ground, the other resting on Eden's lap, like a puppy keeping watch without knowing whether it was out of affection or habit. He was curled in on himself, gripping the tip of his tail with both hands as he dreamed.
Eden tried to clear his mind, but he couldn't. Each time his thoughts circled back to the same question, that "why?" gnawing at him, he slowly and deliberately closed his left hand. The stab of pain running through his arm gave him no relief, but it didn't make him pull back either. He didn't enjoy it; he simply needed to feel something he could understand. Because receiving help without a cost, without a hidden price, without a future favor… was impossible for him to process. Nobody gave anything for free. He had never seen it. Never lived it. Even now, with Vairon's deal, he had come to think that he would impose some role on him to fulfill.
Or that was what he wanted to believe. He repeated that lie to himself like a worn-out mantra. Yes, at some point he had lived it, seen it, felt it, until it became a daily ghost. It was the dream that returned every night. And even so, he wanted to forget it.
The cool dawn dew dampened his face. The cold kept him half awake, but each blink weighed a little more than the last. Before giving in completely, he adjusted his backpack beneath his head with clumsy movements and, at last, fell asleep without fighting it anymore.
Morning arrived without ceremony. The sun peeking over the horizon pushed the gloom back. It was the presentation of change. Light spread like a hand opening everything the night had left in shadow, with the birth of a new day in which life flourished in full.
He opened his eyes and, even before the light reached him, the pain arrived. It was rough, old, as if every joint protested on its own. He tried to turn onto his side, but the simple act of stretching reignited the discomfort lying in wait throughout his body. The clumsy attempt, barely a gesture to get comfortable, was enough to wake Melchor.
Eden let out a tired sigh and stopped forcing his body. He lay back again, flat, with his right arm over his forehead to block the brightness coming in.
Melchor tried to rub his eyes, though his short arms couldn't reach. He lifted himself from Eden's lap and moved closer, stopping at his left side, watching him with that restless curiosity he always had.
"Kuh, kuh?" he uttered, tilting his head.
"I'm just tired, buddy," Eden murmured, lowering his arm to see him better.
Melchor shook his head hard. He let out a sharp roar, a "Gaaah!" that filled the air. He raised his arms, let them fall a little, then raised them again, as if it all followed some internal logic only he understood.
"Gah! Gah!" He hopped in place, moving his legs with enthusiasm.
"I don't want to get up…" Eden watched him with a mix of exhaustion and amusement at the spectacle.
"Kuh!"
He didn't have time to react. Melchor took a couple of quick steps and, with those tiny legs and that strength that seemed nonexistent, delivered a direct kick to the injured arm.
Eden let out a choked cry. The pain folded him in on himself; he rolled by pure reaction and ended up on his knees, forehead against the ground, clutching his arm desperately to contain the rising stab that mixed with all his other aches.
"Kuh, kuh, kuh!" Melchor laughed shamelessly.
"Idiot!" Eden threw a handful of wet earth at him, nearly mud.
Melchor's laughter died instantly. He stared at him, and a mischievous smile began to form on his face. Slowly, he puffed his cheeks full of air.
"No, no, no," Eden repeated quickly, almost pleading. "I remember what happened yesterday."
He clenched his fists from the pain, got up limping, and though he couldn't fully stand, he dragged himself away, trying to put distance between them before it was too late.
Melchor, still with his cheeks puffed out, couldn't hold back when he saw Eden's exaggerated reaction. As soon as his friend took a couple of steps back, Melchor ended up sitting down, laughing out loud. He pointed at him the way Eden used to when he asked him to join his "victory pose," index finger and thumb extended, pointing straight at him, palm tilted slightly downward.
"Ahhh…" Eden let out a sigh that hurt more than he wanted to admit. "Don't play like that," he murmured, between laughs he tried unsuccessfully to suppress.
"Gah!" Melchor shook his head with that fake ferocity of his that never intimidated anyone.
That moment, so small, had something clean about it. Melchor standing up with his usual clumsiness, Eden finishing straightening himself, both of them laughing at something absurd. It was as refreshing as a bath after an endless day.
When they finally looked around, already on their feet, they saw Alaric overcome by sleep after a long night on watch. Eden scratched the back of his neck, still clearing his head, and let out a slow yawn.
"Where are the others?" He shielded his eyes from the sun. Looking at the grove, he noticed changes. The path he had arrived by seemed different. From another angle, maybe. Tiny details, but they were there. "That's strange," he murmured, chalking it up to the disaster the previous day had been.
"Gah!" Melchor pointed, indicating the opposite direction from where Eden had been staring, lost in trivialities.
The group was gathered around a lit campfire, roasting something over the open flames.
Eden ran a hand over his neck, uneasy. "Should I?" he wondered. He clicked his tongue. "Ahg… whatever," he told himself, trying to convince himself.
"Come on." He nodded in that direction and gave Melchor a small nudge with his foot.
As they approached, the disastrous reunion with the group and the friction with Cecilia seemed to have improved. At least they looked a bit brighter than yesterday. He greeted them with a quick gesture, waving his hand with a forced smile. Melchor, at his side, imitated him with that goofy grin and his tail wagging nonstop.
Grumblin and Vairon returned the greeting with a slight nod, without stopping their biting and tearing chunks from the roasted fish skewered on branches. The rest of the group seemed too rough to respond.
"Right… I'm still a stranger." He let himself drop to the ground and opened a space between his legs. Melchor slid to his side and occupied that gap without asking permission.
Melchor's eyes lit up like they hadn't in days when he saw the juicy fish, golden against the fire. He brought the tip of his finger to his lip, entranced.
"Gah!" he squealed, fascinated by how the scales tightened and took on color from the heat.
Vairon picked up four fish with great care. They looked tiny in his enormous hands. Holding them by the branches they were skewered on, he passed them to Eden and Melchor.
Eden stretched out his arm with an unsteady pulse. His finger hesitated for a moment, pulled back, then extended again in a motion so quick he didn't even understand what he had tried to do. In the end, he opened his palm completely and took them.
"Why…?" He stared at them for a few seconds. His blank expression didn't match the discomfort burning inside him. Of course. He had spent so long maintaining a rigid calm that, in his case, meant looking almost as lifeless as the fish he was holding.
"Th-thanks," he said quickly and awkwardly, realizing he had been staring. "Here," he told Melchor, gently patting his scaly head as he handed him three of the four fish.
"Gaaaaahhh!" Melchor hugged his leg as if it were a log in the middle of a river. Then he began devouring the fish with a delicate speed that was almost comical.
A small annoyed squeak was heard.
"And why do you give more to the lizard?" Cecilia said, eyeing them unpleasantly.
"Please, don't start," Vairon replied. Without realizing it, the branches he was holding creaked and snapped from the pressure of his fingers.
"But if—" She cut herself off abruptly.
Vairon only had to raise his palm. Cecilia clenched her jaw, irritated, and looked away, muttering something she didn't end up saying.
Eden, for his part, had already finished all the meat on the fish's body. Instead of tossing it onto the small pile forming to the side, he bit down decisively and, in a single bite, tore off the entire tail. He chewed it without any sign of disgust on his face, as if it were just an extremely dry, crunchy cracker. Without stopping, he moved on to the head, tearing away the flesh still covered in skin with small bites.
He tried to split it with his hands, felt a stab, and could barely apply force with his left arm. It was the only gesture of displeasure he made, a faint flicker of irritation crossing his face. Then he tilted his head and cracked the fish's skull open with his teeth. He ate the tongue first. Then, using his fingers, he pulled out the eyes and brought them to his mouth without hesitation.
He left the split skull still skewered on the tip of the branch. The fish's brain lay exposed, wet and shiny. He brought it closer to the fire. The heat made the juices and grease begin to boil, sizzling until they nearly burned, slowly evaporating.
Only when he set the skull against the flames did he lift his gaze.
Everyone was staring at him.
"What did I do?" he asked, with a nervous laugh that never fully formed.
No one answered. The silence grew thick, uncomfortable. It wasn't outright rejection, but shock. There was something unsettling about seeing that he had left nothing. Not even what most wouldn't consider food.
Melchor finished two of his fish and did the same. He ate the tails, then banged the heads together until they split open. He set them against the fire naturally, mimicking every gesture.
"Are they brothers from the same mother?" Velkari asked, with barely concealed sarcasm.
"Ah…" Eden understood immediately. He shook his head. "No, no, no…" He paused to pull out the fish brain, now almost dry. "You… you don't eat the whole fish?"
"Not even those of my race, who carry the reputation of living off fish alone, ever get used to eating it that way… eating all of it like that, down to the last scrap," Velkari said, laughing.
"Gah!" Melchor pressed one of the heads against Eden's cheek, offering him what, to him, was a true delicacy.
The situation left Eden frozen, not knowing what to say in the face of such a direct clash of customs. Melchor began hitting the fish head against his cheek again and again, each time with more enthusiasm, unaware of how stiff Eden's body had become.
"Poor girl who ends up falling in love with you," Cecilia murmured with a laugh, without bothering to lower her voice.
"Gah!" Melchor gave a harder hit with the fish skull straight to his cheek.
"Ah!" Eden took Melchor's gift in his hands. "Thanks," he said without warmth, but not cold either, almost with resigned gentleness. "Are you sure you don't want it?" he asked sincerely.
Melchor shook his head and settled back between his legs. Then he slurped slowly and delicately, savoring the juices from the skull as if it were a cup of hot tea, with absolute naturalness.