Ch. 48: Second Mountain

Using Rosy's insight, Adrian funneled magic power through his legs. In order to compensate for his higher body weight, Adrian needed to use a bit more power than Rosy had. Rosy gave him a general idea of the amount that she thought he'd need through their bond, but Adrian decided to play it safe, and draw out a bit more than she'd recommended.

With a running start, he jumped as high as he could with the magic pouring through him. As soon as his feet left the ground, a loud SNAP echoed through the air. Adrian's ankle had probably broken, unlike Rosy's. He'd half expected something like this to happen with that much power, but it hurt like hell, disrupting his focus as the worst possible moment.

"Oh!" Rosy barely had the time to shout as she watched Adrian leap off. He'd lost focus when his ankle snapped. She didn't have time to register the residual pain going through their bond as he flew haphazardly through the air. He'd used too much force. He was going to crash into the cliffside with too much force, causing it to collapse. She could just tell, and he wasn't going to manage to get control of his jump in time to lessen the impact.

She launched into action as he flew over the lip of the cliff. She grabbed him by the collar as he flew over her head, causing their bodies to spin against each other, lessening his momentum with her body. Upon landing, they rolled a few feet before they stopped, both groaning in pain.

...

"Stop squirming. I've gotta figure out the exact extent of the fracture." Rosy berated Adrian, holding his ankle. Though it was easily forgotten, Rosy had more experience with the human body than any trained doctor. This was technically torture and fighting experience, but she could pass as a medic more than most doctors. So... she was doing a check-up on Adrian's ankle, which had broken during his jump. 

Luckily, they could share pain through their bond. This could be blocked to an extent, but it was useful for Rosy in finding out the extent of the fracture on Adrian's ankle. Unfortunately, Adrian wasn't as used to pain as Rosy was. Every time that she touched his foot, he'd flinch a lot. He even accidentally kicked her in the face once, which was something that he'd  never do again for as long as he lived.

After a small battle, Rosy'd reached her verdict. "You're lucky. It's a tiny stress fracture. Had you used the amount of power that I'd recommended, you wouldn't have been hurt at all." She told him, pointing out (not for the first time) how annoyed she was that he hadn't trusted her calculations. 

Adrian ignored the dig. There wasn't much point in apologizing to someone who knew what you were feeling at all times. She was simply annoyed, and that would eventually pass, her knew. 

The more important thing was... "Is this going to slow us down?" He asked.

She punched him in the gut lightly, but still hard enough to take all the air out of his lungs. "Duh! You wasted all of my magic reserves, you know! Your  human body would normally take several weeks to heal a fracture like this! Even with my magic's healing effect, you won't be walking like normal for days."

"Sorry." Adrian apologized. He didn't have anything else to tell her. It was totally his fault, after all. He'd been the one who'd gotten spooked by the inhuman feat that he'd needed to perform, and even after seeing Rosy execute the move to perfection, he hadn't trusted her analysis of the strength that he'd need to execute the same feat.

Realizing the general extent of what Adrian was thinking, Rosy gave a long sigh. "Don't worry about it. Last time that I did that jump, it took me over a week before I believed that I was capable of it. I broke my leg back then, too. We're already ahead of where we need to be. A couple of days isn't going to hurt us." She told him, resigned, "The only problem..."

...

"How was the hunt?" Adrian asked as Rosy entered the little cavern that they'd made into their temporary base while Adrian healed. Since Adrian couldn't run, Rosy'd been the one who needed to provide food. They had a few rations hidden in their clothes, but they considered relying on those to be last resorts in the case that they weren't able to find anything on the mountains themselves.

According to Rosy, Griffin Mountain was home to an assortment of natural chimera creatures with unique abilities, like the flying piranha at the bottom of the chasm that Adrian had broken his ankle jumping. As a result, the waters were filled with dangerous creatures, and the hunting grounds were unpredictable and dangerous, even for Rosy to an extent.

"As long as you keep the fire going, I'll deal with the food and water." Rosy told him.

"Without your magic..."

"It's not like it's avoidable. Healing magic takes a lot of power, even for small things." She reminded him. At the end of the day, Adrian was more irritated by his uselessness than he was nervous about Rosy's safety. She was terrifyingly strong, after all. Meanwhile, his only use was to keep the fire going so that she didn't need to use magic to relight it. He couldn't even go too far from the cave, since he could barely stand.

"Anyways, my magic's recovered a bit. After we finish eating, I should be able to finish healing you, and we can head out tomorrow." Rosy decided.

"Alright. That's fine by me." Adrian agreed, "Mind showing me how to skin those things?" He asked. Since he was out here, learning new skills was probably a good idea, so he decided to start with skinning and cooking whatever animals that they caught.

"Okay, that's fine, but it's not like it'll help you learn how to skin other animals." Rosy told him, shrugging. As she showed him, Adrian realized why she said it wasn't going to help much. Each animal she brought back had its own unique physical property. A rabbit with a turtle's shell. A squirrel with long, deerlike legs. Learning how to skin these wouldn't be too much use compared to skinning normal animals. Despite that, he learned everything about skinning and cooking them that Rosy could teach him.