Rue shook her head slightly upon seeing Anaya doze off. It was a small wonder her companion was even alive. She’d seen the hit but had been occupied together with the other guard at the time by two other skeletons trying to climb into the wagon, and as she’d seen Anaya still move afterwards, she’d thought it hadn’t been as bad as it’d first looked from getting thrown back like that. However, it seemed that second impressions could be more wrong than first ones. Anaya’s ribcage had cracked in several spots, and she’d had internal bleeding.

 Anaya could be brash and a little foolish at times, but it was not exactly pleasant seeing her like this. She’d done her best to protect others without regard for her own safety. Foolish, perhaps, but commendable. Even if it felt a little self-absorbed to think so, Rue knew that in saving her there had been a touch of self-interested included for Anaya; they’d been sleeping together since the first night for a reason. This time there hadn’t been such a motivation, yet she’d still charged on with only the tiniest initial hesitation. Though she knew her companion was capable of making her own decisions, she still couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty that she was the partial reason why she was lying there injured right now, even though they were only travelling together due to the shared circumstances they’d found themselves in.

 Healing with her magic was a difficult, slow process. It didn’t help that touching her companion like this was a little distracting for her, considering everything they’d been up to together, especially after what Anaya had said a moment ago.

 “Is she going to be okay?” A voice interrupted Rue’s already distracted thoughts. She glanced up. It was the female guard Anaya had got hit saving, even if she’d then returned the favour. Rue supposed she’d have to take a look at her as well, just in case. She was barely able to walk yet had hobbled back over to them just for her inquiry.

 “She will live,” Rue replied curtly. That much was true; she’d stopped the bleeding and fixed most of the soft tissue damage as well as she could. The bones were going to be yet more difficult to fix.

 The first guard that had gone down had died. One of the people in the wagon had a broken and bruised arm, a skeleton managing to land a glancing blow before being pushed off the wagon. All things considered, the group had got away lightly, largely thanks to Anaya’s reckless bravery. While she’d made the weapon that helped turn the tide, Rue still admonished herself for not being better prepared. Perhaps she and Anaya had both become overconfident after their fight with the guards in Illion as well as the bandits had gone so well. If she’d had a club to begin with, Anaya could’ve dispatched the undead with more ease and safety from horseback. They’d have to be better prepared going forward. Where there was twice, there was a chance for a third. The whole thing gave her an uneasy feeling. It couldn’t just be a simple coincidence.

 “Thank Kiraya,” the guard uttered, clearly relieved.

 “I need to focus,” Rue stated bluntly. The guard flinched. “I will take a look at you afterwards,” she added more softly. She wasn’t sure why she felt so on edge. The guard hadn’t done anything wrong; she’d been doing her best to protect people, just like Anaya.

 “Oh. Alright. Sorry.” With a sheepish apologetic smile, the woman hobbled away. Rue sighed and got back to work.

 Anaya woke up again just as Rue pulled her hand from under her partially uplifted undershirt.

 “Just how long did you keep it in there?” Anaya muttered and looked around. Everyone else was gathered at the wagon, bustling about on whatever menial tasks or just sitting there, still in shock over what had happened.

 “Long enough to heal you. Mostly. It is not my strong suit. You need to take it easy. Don’t go doing anything foolish for a while.” This silenced Anaya for a moment as she brought her own hand up to her chest.

 “It does feel a lot better.” Her voice was low. “Thank you. I thought I was finished for a moment there.”

 “Well, on that note your new friend came over to check on you,” Rue commented dryly.

 “New friend? Oh. The guard?” Rue nodded.

 “I guess I ought to thank her too,” Anaya muttered and made a move to rise. “Uh. Can I?”

 “If you feel up to it. There shouldn’t be anything that serious left.”

 Anaya used her hands to push herself up and grimaced. Now sitting, she looked at her hands. “Ah. I forgot about those.” Rue took Anaya’s right hand into her left, and then placed her own right hand on top of it, focusing.

 Anaya felt that strange rush of warmth again. Wordlessly she let Rue do her thing. After a couple of minutes, Rue released her hand, and she looked at it again. Visually the wound was gone, though the hand still felt sore in a dull kind of way. It was also still caked in blood. She closed and opened it a few times.

 “You know, of these days I really have to ask you about how that magic of yours works,” she mumbled.

 “Mayhap I will even tell you,” Rue muttered and repeated the procedure on the left hand.

 As Anaya got up and looked around properly, it confirmed her impression that she’d still been lying where she’d first lost consciousness, with the partially smashed skeleton still almost right next to her. She deduced that Rue had opted not to move her due to her injuries. Her upper body armour lay on the ground, while the leg armour was still on. Upon verifying that she realized that her left shin felt an unusual pressure. She looked, and it was the effect of the skeleton’s grip. With an oath she set about to remove the leg armour as well, which took more effort than usual. She lifted it to examine it. It was quite deformed, causing her to groan. She also glanced at her body armour, which had quite a dent in it where the heavy blow had landed, as well as the one on her left arm earlier. She was going to need something like a rounded blacksmith’s hammer to beat them back into shape. It was her luck that they were Merrelian iron armour and could be beaten back into shape, to begin with. Northern-style tempered steel might’ve just shattered and required replacement, though it had various other advantages. But since she wasn’t in a position to replace her armour pieces any time soon given the very high cost, being able to fix it was essential.

 “As I said it is better to take it easy, so you might as well pack away the armour already. Hopefully, we won’t run into more trouble in the meantime, but you should try and stay out of it even if do,” Rue commented. Anaya nodded. It would be somewhat uncomfortable to wear while deformed anyway. “I will go check on your friend.” With that, the witch made off toward the wagon. Anaya wondered what this ‘friend’ business was all about but ended up shrugging the thought away. She looked around and finally spotted ‘her’ horse. She whistled sharply, and the well-trained horse trotted up to her.

 “Good girl,” she murmured and stroked its head. Unlike her, the horse had managed to keep itself safe. While making sure that was the case, she noticed that the whistling had also attracted a few curious looks from the people around the wagon. Ignoring them, she pulled her other set of clothes from the saddle packs and detached her armour into smaller pieces. She then stuffed them into the burlap sack they’d bought from Hurlann. It was also attached to the saddle. She hung a blanket from the horse as an improvised privacy curtain while changing clothes.