Chapter 28: Chapter 28: Pine Sap & Orange Rinds

The next morning, Nay felt well enough to be back on her feet and back in the kitchen. Quincy gave her a sling so she could keep her bandaged hand close to her body. “Take it easy,” Quincy said, as he helped her into it. “No one is expecting you working again. The healer from Fort Nix should be here today. Until then, make sure you don’t over-exert yourself.”

“The kitchen isn’t going to run itself,” Nay said.

“You’re right,” Quincy said. “That’s why you have Nom and Gracie.”

“Only a matter of time before Nom sets the Lodge on fire,” Nay said. “I can at least be down there working on recipes and the inventory.”

Quincy made sure the sling was on proper, then backed away and nodded. “I was thinking. You think you could have a chat with Alric? Maybe work out a deal with the abbey to provide the Lodge with a cask of Frostbite Ale? I think it would be good to have more varieties of beer for the customers. Some have been complaining I only give them my Icemarrow.”

“The next time I see him, I’ll bring it up.”

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After noticing how Gracie was cutting onions, Nay had to intervene. “Ol’Pat never taught you any knife skills?” Nay said.

“Ol’Pat never really liked anyone in her space,” Gracie said. “I think having to train someone would have interrupted with her own routine too much. She was a bit of a curmudgeon.”

Nay, with her one good hand, took the knife and showed her where to cut the onion in half. “See, if you cut it here, it still leaves a bit of the root on the end.”

“I thought we were supposed to cut the root off.”

“Not until you can use it to help you dice up the rest of the onion.”

Next, she showed her where to make vertical cuts on the onion. She handed the knife to Gracie and watched her.

“Okay, now you cut horizontally in. But only halfway,” Nay said. She pointed where to cut.

“Like this?” Gracie said.

“Yep,” Nay said. “Now you can start dicing.”

Nay showed her how to hold the onion and how to tuck her fingers in, so she could guide the knife along her knuckles. “Do it like this, and you won’t accidentally nick a finger.”

Gracie followed her instructions and was delighted that she was actually properly dicing an onion. “That’s so much better!”

“One more thing,” Nay said. “Instead of pushing straight down, which is kind of making you saw at the onion, let gravity do the work for you.”

She took the knife back and showed her to move the knife forward as she cut, letting gravity carry the edge down. “This is also easier on the blade and you won’t have to sharpen it as much. The more you saw away at something, the rougher it is on the blade. It dulls it. This way, you’re being kinder to both the blade and yourself.”

Nay looked at the cigarette burn Mishell had left on Gracie’s cheek. The girl had been rubbing ointment on it to accelerate the healing.

“I’m sorry.”

“Chef?”

“I’m sorry you got hurt the other night. That should have never happened.”

Gracie stopped cutting and looked up at Nay. “I should be the one apologizing. It’s just a small burn. I’ve burnt myself worse taking food out of the ovens. If I wasn’t so weak, maybe I could have…” Her eyes went to Nay’s bandaged hand in the sling.

“They won’t hurt you again. I promise.”

Gracie nodded. Her face seemed to darken at the prospect of what that meant. But then Nay thought she saw a hint of a smile form on her face.

Nay showed her how to julienne peppers and how to quickly chop carrots and celery. Wouldn’t hurt Gracie to know how to properly dice the trinity of vegetables.

“Nom,” Nay said, “help her out if you ever see her doing something that needs instruction.”

He was holding a fried drumstick in one of his protuberances. He stuck it in his mouth and stripped it clean and tossed the bone in a stock pan.

Nay was mortified. “Is that how you’ve been making the stock?”

“What?” Nom said, all innocent.

“Oh hell no,” Nay said. “That’s I think the most unsanitary thing I’ve seen!”

“I’ll have you know that nothing is cleaner than my mouth,” Nom said. “If it’s good enough to feed my young, it’s more than fine to feed our customers.”

Nay felt herself gagging. She took the pan and dumped the bones into the trash barrel.

“I haven’t heard anyone complain about it yet!”

“The bones that go in your mouth, go in the trash! The bones from the oven that are leftover, go in the stock!”

“How do we not know that my method is responsible for the flavor, though?”

Nay threw a winter eggplant at him.

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The healer from Scarwatch arrived just after lunch and was brought up to Nay’s room. Her name was Lain and she was originally from the city-state of San Violeta on the Ligeia Peninsula. She had the same aura of wildness about her that Martygan had on him, but instead of a cloak of feathers she wore white fur that had streaks of blue. It looked like it could have come from a chillwind wolf or bear, one of those species native to the Spineshards.

Her hair was golden and there were alpine twigs with clusters of red berries decorating her head. She wore ivory bracelets hewn from some type of horn or bone and she spoke in a soft whisper, as if whenever she spoke she didn’t want to scare any delicate animals that had ventured to be close to her presence. Nay glimpsed what looked like razor sharp golden rings strapped to her back, poking up out of her fur vest.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Lain said, as she sat in a chair next to Nay’s bed, inspecting her bandaged hand. Her touch was soft and her presence was calm. Nay instantly felt relaxed and peaceful with the woman next to her.

---

[Aura Detected]

[Peaceful Presence]

---

So it was a Marrow Eater passive that was putting her at ease. Nay suspected Lain would have the same effect on people even without the passive ability. The healer smelled like pine sap and orange rinds and Nay found herself craving hot chocolate with cinnamon or, hell, even a goddamn pumpkin spice latte. It was a little ridiculous how much this woman smelled of autumn and winter and Nay wished she would become friends with her.

Lain undid Nay’s sling and stretched out her arm. She examined the bandaged hand and her forearm. “All of the bones in your hand have been shattered. There’s dozens of breaks here. The metacarpal bones might as well be dust. There are stress fractures even traveling up your ulna and radius.”

Nay felt sick to her stomach hearing that. She was struck with the thought that she would have to cook with one hand. Mishell had not only maimed and disfigured her body, but she had legitimately handicapped her and affected her ability to do what she loves. Cook.

“Can you help her?” Quincy said.

Lain stood up and took off her cloak, placing it on the knob on the wall. She rolled up the sleeves of her tunic. “Of course I can. I was the one who restored Frazetta’s skeleton after his fight with The Bjorbane.”

“Who’s Frazetta?” Nay said.

“He’s a Captain with the Scarwatch,” Quincy said. “One of their most skilled monster slayers.”

“The Bjorbane was a Tier 4 monster that awoken from its deep slumber in its lair in the Spineshards during the last outpouring,” Lain said. “It is native to the Spineshards but for some reason made itself a chieftain over the creatures that came out of The Scar. They had gone on a rampage killing chillwind shepherds and they slaughtered an entire village of chillwind fauns on the Onyx Strait. Captain Frazetta slew Bjorbane after a battle that raged three days and three nights. Although Frazetta survived the fight, he was a broken man. Literally. His spine looked like your metacarpals.” She pantomimed blowing dust off of her palm. “Powder.”

“His fight with the Bjorbane is the stuff of legends,” Quincy said.

“From what he says, you’ve had a few of those yourself,” Lain said.

Quincy played it off. “The tales of my deeds are greatly exaggerated.”

“Your boss is a humble man,” Lain said to Nay. “Now, as unpleasant as it may be, I have to remove your bandage.”

Nay nodded, steeling herself. “Let’s get it over with then.”

Lain opened a kit, taking out a pair of scissors. She held Nay’s hand in her lap and began cutting through the bandage. The dressing fell away, revealing Nay’s mangled hand. It was a grotesque sight. It was swollen and had ballooned to double its size. The skin had turned black and purple with bruising and crushed blood vessels, and it was misshapen, the shape distorted from the bones shattered into splinters. There was torn flesh from the edges of the flange of Mishell’s mace, the cuts held together with some kind of unguent and tape. With the splits holding the fingers outstretched, the extremity looked like fruit that had burst.

Nay felt weak at the sight of it and had to look away.

Lain looked at her then, making eye contact. “The damage that physical violence does to our bodies is a horrible sight to behold. Flesh can be repaired, though. It’s the emotional and spiritual, the psychic damage that burrows in deep and is sometimes impossible to repair. That’s the damage we have to worry about. We have to make sure the trauma done to our spirits, to our vigor, doesn’t take root, lest our souls turn black.”

She cocked her head, regarding Nay, as if noticing something. She looked at Quincy. “She has increased vigor, I can see it.” She turned to Nay. “Are you a cultivator?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer, so she told the truth. “Sometimes, when I’m doing certain things, or have…completed a goal I had that was hard to accomplish…I feel like I’m becoming…more. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Lain said. She looked back at Quincy. “If she were in one of the city-states, she could train and ascend.”

“What does that mean?” Nay said.

“You could increase in Rank if you had the proper guidance and structure,” Lain said. “Which is possible on the Peninsula. Or, if you ever wanted to become a Gloom Ranger like me, you could do so at Scarwatch.”

Quincy spoke up at that. “I think the girl just mostly wants to cook.”

Lain looked at Nay, then. “Well, if you ever become interested in trying to increase your Vigor Rank, it’s something to think about. It appears to be happening regardless of structured training. In fact, I’d say that’s why there’s still blood flow in your hand. Your strong vigor helped preserved your hand, along with Quincy’s first aid treatment. You could have lost it before I got here.”

“Thank goodness for small miracles, then,” Nay said.

“Now, let’s get to restoring your hand,” Lain said.

She carefully cut through the tape holding the splints in place. Every little movement or nudge sent a sharp, blinding pain up Nay’s arm. She gritted her teeth as Lain removed the splints.

“Don’t be alarmed with the light,” Lain said. “It’s just a manifestation of my healing. I’m going to be using a combo of my Bone Mend and Lifeblossom spells.”

She laid Nay’s hand on her thighs then, in the cradle she had created between the bed and her lap. She raised a hand in the air and a globe of gold light flared up around her hand. The room instantly grew warm with this new heat source and it sounded like a gas burner increasing in volume as the globe grew in size.

It lifted off Lain’s hand and was floating in the air, spinning, filling the room with sparkling gold light. Another shape formed from the globe. It looked a flower bud that was starting to blossom. The petals opened up and it flew towards Nay. She flinched and it hit her hand in a flash. In an instant the light flower exploded into vapors as the healing magic splashed into her ruined hand.

As her flesh, blood and bone absorbed the vapors, she immediately felt the pain fade and then disappear. While this was happening, another image floating off the globe formed into a shape. This time it was of an antlered-creature, what Nay thought was a majestic elk, and it ran through the air and crashed into her hand and arm, exploding into golden-white motes that fluttered around the room before entering her hand.

Nay could see her bones highlighted underneath her skin as they glowed, the hundreds of broken bits and splinters mending back together and forming back into the recognizable structure of a hand. She gasped as it felt like her hand and lower half of her arm had been dipped into cool water. It was a refreshing sensation that moved in, pushing out any remnant of ache or pain.

The lights faded and she could see her hand now.

It was whole again with a normal color, except for two scars that ran from between her knuckles to her wrist. The lines where the flange split open her skin. She held up her hand in amazement and opened and closed her fingers. There was no pain at all.

“The scars remain so you don’t forget,” Lain said. “For some memories could be folly to lose.”

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