Chapter 5 - Siedr Ayah.
I had thought about taking the girl to the house I was at the night before, but didn't want any survivors seeing me land and trying to attack. She slept for most of the flight back to the library. Stirring slightly ever so often. She was pretty much out of it, and I noticed half-way through the flight she was burning up with fever. How did she get herself into this mess? Was she dense? Where had she been going so late at night, knowing how many violent creatures come out after the sun sets, and sick for that matter? Didn't she know most of these abominations prey on the weak? So many questions ran through my mind on the flight home. It wasn't until I arrived at my little safe haven that I realized that I wouldn't be able to deal with this alone, and just how sick she really was.
The girl was mostly skin and bones, but that didn't tell me much about her condition at all. Most people couldn't afford a chicken leg now a days, much less know where to find even the slop that pigs eat. Monsters were the only thing that could find something to eat on the regular now. Humans were at the bottom of the food chain. I laid her on my junk-yard couch, and she immediately sat up and had some sort of coughing fit before passing out from the pain the contractions had brought to her ribs. She needed antibiotics, if not morphine to keep her subdued long enough for her fractures to heal.
What had I gotten myself into? I barely had the means to take care of myself, much less an adult injured human. After making sure she was comfortable and setting up my makeshift lock for the library's door, I left in search of the only person I trusted enough to help in this situation.
Siedr Ayah lived in a rusted old boxcar on the track on the outskirts of a city a few miles south. She was a powerful hedge witch, who like me held on to the lost humanity of the world. She was older than me and adopted by humans when she was only three years old. She came to find out what she was later in life, using her powers to cure the sick people in her village and mend broken bones. She lost her adoptive parents as a teenager, finding them after a horrific accident and being only seconds too late to save them. This caused her to become somewhat reclusive, only using her powers to help people when she needed to make money to survive. The war only made her hide her true potential more. Afraid of being shunned by the humans she loved so dearly, and not wanting to choose sides between them and her deeply rooted magical ancestry.
I had come to meet her only a few days after I had been turned. She had taken care of me for a few weeks, finding me mad with thirst and hot from a sweltering fever no regular human would've been able to survive. She nursed me back to health, feeding me cat's blood when I refused to feed off humans and performing various spells to keep the fever at bay. Not everyone that is bitten and envenomated survives the transformation. Had it not been for her I wouldn't have survived the first week. I struggled with that for a long time, cursing her for not letting me die. Eventually she became like a parental figure to me. Even if I had refused her efforts at keeping me alive, it would have been pointless. The woman was stubborn, you did what she told you to, or she had the power to make you. But deep within that she was just a calm soul with a deep turmoil for the way the world had ended up. I had to be grateful to her, she was one of the only souls I could truly connect with in this life.
We didn't talk much after I learned enough to get around on my own, I've only seen her a few times in about 40 years. I landed on top of the rickety box car, jumping off with ease and making the old metal rattle and shake slightly. She rushed out, obviously startled at my visit. Her eyes widened with joy upon seeing me, I gave a sheepish smile in return. Just before watching them narrow and a scowl falling on her lips. "Kristur stúlka, don't just appear that way, you nearly gave me an aneurism." She scolded. "You know how I love to spook you, Móðir Ayah." I responded before she wrapped me in her arms. As much as I hated to admit it, I missed her hugs. I wrapped my wings around her and squeezed with all my might, receiving a chuckle in return.
She stepped back from my embrace and pulled my wing out gently, stretching it out to it's full span. "You look good, Ástin mín. How have you been Rainn?" She asked. Her warm smile always made me feel like there wasn't a problem in the world I couldn't face, even standing here in her normal state, looking as human as possible, she still emitted so much power. She wore a battered off grey wool dress with a grass green scarf draped across her shoulders. Her pale skin was slightly washed out by the colors and her flat heeled boots had little green charms laddering up the sides of them. She had beautiful honey blonde hair that curled around the bun she had it pulled into in frizzy little spirals. "Actually, I've run into a bit of a problem, Móðir. That's why I've come to you, I need your help." She smacked her lips and led me inside her boxcar, "What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?" She started. The boxcar was bigger on the inside, an outcome of her magic. The walls were lined with beautiful grape vines and falling flower petals flowed from their place on the ceiling.
As we sat at the large table she had sculpted out of a fallen tree, she served me spring tea and I told her everything about the fight with the wolves and the small woman laying on my couch. I told her the symptoms I had noticed in the short flight, the broken ribs and the fever that attacked the girl. "Ayah, I don't even know if she'll still be breathing when I return, but I had to try to help her. I didn't realize how bad off she was before I brought her home. I can't handle this alone, I need your help. I wouldn't even know where to start." She looked at me with wise blue eyes, and I couldn't gauge the expression behind them. "I couldn't just leave her to die Móðir," I rambled. "Heimsk stelpa, always meddling in things that ought not be meddled in." She spoke. Ayah always scolded me for wanting to be by myself yet still not wanting to hide in the shadows with her. But I had wanted to learn to live this life alone and I hated living in the dark. I wanted to help where help was needed, she'd rather hide now a days. "And what exactly are you going to do if I do heal her, huh?" She asked. "I figured I'd just send her on her way, once she gets her bearings she won't have a need for me anymore, and you know I like to be alone." I replied. She scoffed and rolled her eyes at me, "You know nothing about this girl, not even a name. What if she's dangerous? What if there was a reason she was out so late at night? Or what if she follows you around like a small pet and you can't shake her? You don't need a human trailing you, especially when you get hungry." Her words were true. But they still didn't matter. I could control myself enough not to hurt her while she healed and there was no way such a frail malnourished thing could even be slightly dangerous to a monster like me. I begged Ayah to help once more and through a defeated sigh she agreed.
"It'll be risky magic, Rainn. From what you've told me about the girl's state, but I'll see what can be done." She filled a travel bag with different medicines, both herbal and medicinal. Along with different items she might need for spells before we left behind the seemingly old and dusty box car. I led her to my library, praying to a God I wasn't even sure existed anymore that this girl could be saved.