Part Three, Chapter Three: Grace

Mint woke to a pleasant warmth and a great deal of pain.

He cracked open his eyes to see a blur that he nevertheless managed to recognize instantly as Herb, and after an additional moment he identified the warmth as healing energy, the softer manifestation of Herb’s mastery of chi.

“Herb-sa… sama?” he managed to croak.

The warmth immediately cut off, and Mint regretted speaking.

“Good, you’re conscious,” said Herb in a clipped voice, turning away.

Mint groaned and sat up, trying to ignore the spinning in his head but it was futile. He slumped back down, clenching his eyes closed against the sudden burst of nausea.

“Don’t try to move,” Herb snapped at him, but beneath the irritation there was a definite note of concern.

Mint didn’t try to move again, but he did turn his head to one side to watch Herb.

The dragon had moved to another, very familiar, figure who Mint could barely see out of the corner of his eye. He nearly gasped when he saw Lime’s condition, and immediately understood why Herb had stopped healing him.

He also wondered – what had happened to do all of this? Herb wasn’t in top shape either, Mint saw easily, and it took a lot to dishevel her. Mint wished that he had fully seen and understood what had happened on that mountaintop.

But it had obviously been devastating. Lime was… Mint wanted to look away from the tiger-boy. He looked like he was almost dead, and that was the most optimistic description that Mint could think of. A better one would be that the looked like death would be the preferable option.

And then his mind immediately came up with the question, one that should have logically followed more quickly – how badly was I hurt, that Herb-sama tended to me first? Mint shuddered, and closed his eyes. Herb had started to heal Lime, and it seemed like a very good time to take a nap.

Mint woke up again an indeterminate amount of time later. It was night, and it must have been a while since his previous awakening. He was feeling better – and starving. He sat up, pleased that he could stifle the dizziness that came with movement, and glanced around. Herb was asleep, looking exhausted; Lime was also asleep. They were alive but looked worse than Mint felt, and that meant that they were probably unconscious.

Mint vaguely recognized his surroundings as the same place he had been upon his first awakening, a clearing in a forest near a rocky outcropping that provided some protection from the elements. It wasn’t quite a cave, but looked like it could protect them from rain at the very least.

Mint crawled over to Herb to check on her. She was showing obvious signs of fatigue, deep lines etched into her face and bags underneath her eyes that were only beginning to smooth out in sleep.

Suddenly her eyes snapped open, and bright red eyes with cat-slit pupils that shone in the moonlight looked at him, confusedly for a moment, then narrowed, dark and disapproving.

“Go to sleep, Mint,” she ordered in a tone that was authoritative even through the sleepiness, and Mint habitually obeyed, practically throwing himself back onto the soft spot in the ground that had partially molded itself to the shape of his body.

“I… I’m sorry, Herb-sama…”

“Don’t be. Just go to sleep, let yourself heal.” The voice, so laden with exhaustion and underlying pain, was unusually soft. Mint hastily closed his eyes and willed himself to go to sleep, certain that he would never be able to attain that state again for hours at least.

Of course, he was asleep less than five minutes later. His body knew what it needed, even if his mind didn’t.

***

In the end, it was the sunrise that woke Herb.

“Go-good morning, Herb-sama!” Mint greeted her haltingly as she carefully opened her eyes. She was awake, rested, but still feeling drained from the great expenditure of energy from the day before that had been necessary to heal herself and her two underlings. She sat up.

Mint had somehow managed to light a fire and was roasting three squirrels over it on a spit. He prodded one of the rodents and shook his head. “If you’re hungry, Herb-sama, I am sorry, but breakfast is not quite finished cooking yet.”

“I thought I told you to rest.”

Mint immediately looked contrite. “I apologize, Herb-sama,” he said, lowering his head. “But… I was hungry… and squirrels are easy to catch, so it was really no effort at all!” It was pointless to say that they had lost all of their possessions, including money, in the blur that was the destruction of Horaisan. They retained their clothing, but that was about all – and even it was looking tattered. Herb’s armor had survived, and that was the only item of any real value they had, so it was but a minor worry.

Herb just shook her head. “Very well.”

“Are you feeling better, Herb-sama?”

Herb waved a hand negligently in his direction. “As well as I ever will be, trapped in this body!” she spat, unintentionally bringing up the real reason for the dark feeling that filled her.

“You shouldn’t be so upset, Herb-sama,” Mint said, obviously trying to consoling but missing wildly. Herb grimaced, torn between the instinct to slice Mint in half for his obtuseness and the knowledge that it really wasn’t his fault. Then he spoke again.

“Oh, Herb-sama! I just remembered!” Herb looked up at Mint curiously. “When I was out hunting squirrels,” he went on, “I found something that I thought might interest you!” He reached behind his back and picked up two shining fragments of metal. Herb’s eyes widened.

Mint mistook the expression in her eyes. He smiled, certain that this had cheered Herb up, and so it surprised him a great deal when Herb reached over to him and knocked the two kettle fragments out of his hands, letting them fall to the ground and roll several feet away. “Herb-sama?” he asked, confused.

“Do not show those to me again!” Herb shouted, clearly angry now. She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. “The kettle is destroyed now. It is of no use to collect pieces! Some other cure will have to be found.” She settled back, trying to relax but still obviously agitated. One hand twitched as if to form an energy attack to disintegrate the pieces of metal, but nothing appeared. She was still too drained despite her apparent energy.

“I-I’m sorry, Herb-sama…” Mint apologized with wide eyes. But he clearly didn’t understand.

“Don’t be sorry. Finish what you were doing. I will be resting.” With that clipped statement, Herb closed her eyes and turned away, but the tenseness in her shoulders didn’t diminish.

Mint blinked, confused.

***

The next time Herb awoke, Lime was awake as well and it was considerably later in the day, nearly evening. They noticed her very quickly – they had been casting nervous glances in her direction every minute for several hours now. Neither of them had dared to touch her. The thought of her wrath if they did was daunting, and besides, their fingers twitched nervously at the thought of touching a woman’s body far too much to do more than wake and annoy her.

Herb was silent. She ate a roast squirrel, her pride obviously taking a blow for it, and stood, announcing that they were leaving. This was all within half an hour of waking.

“Where are we going, Herb-sama?” Lime asked.

Herb didn’t answer. “We are leaving this area.”

They jumped to their feet. If Herb didn’t want to say, pushing the matter could be dangerous. But before he followed Herb, Mint paused, and picked up the two pieces of metal that still lay on the ground. Maybe they would prove useful in the future.

***

“What’s the matter with Herb-sama?” Lime asked Mint in a whisper as they trailed a safe distance behind.

“She seems grumpy,” Mint answered. “I think it’s a… a female problem.” He spoke the last two words so quietly that even he barely heard them, and he still turned slightly pink.

“Oh…” Lime reddened, and nervously twitched his thumbs together. He changed the subject abruptly, speaking in a much louder voice as if to cover up the previous embarrassment. “Are those two still alive?” a hint of anger was showing in his voice now.

Mint shrugged. “I don’t know…” He brightened suddenly, hit with a rare idea. “Ah! Maybe Herb-sama is tracking them down! I haven’t smelled them here, so they much be elsewhere!”

Lime nodded, slowly. “If they’re not dead… they’ll wish they were.”

Mint nodded as well. “Agreed.” He grinned toothily.

***

Herb rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the attempts at holding whispered conversation behind her. When will those two figure it out! Quite possibly the most aggravating part of being stuck as female was the inability of Mint and Lime to get it through their skulls that she hadn’t been born that way.

The irritation towards those two was easily diverted towards another pair, however. Her fingers curled into talons at the thought of… those two. She refused to think their names. She only knew the names incidentally, anyway.

However - destination was uncertain, at the moment. To continue onward, looking for another cure, or to search for the two humans, to either find proof of their death or exact revenge? Herb didn’t like the word, but if ever a situation merited it, this one did.

A faint memory of a half-whispered phrase suddenly sounded in her ears and Herb nearly came to a halt, stunned.

“There is another cure… but I think you would rather have the kettle.” Those weren’t the precise words, Herb knew. But it was the meaning.

That old witch! She said she knew of something else… but why did she say that I would rather use the kettle? Perhaps this other one is more difficult to find, or guarded by fearsome enemies. But I fear nothing!

Mint and Lime were startled by the sudden increase in pace, and fell behind for a moment. Herb had vanished, and the rustling noise of her movement was getting more distant rapidly.

“Herb-sama! Wait up!”

Herb heard them and almost didn’t let them catch up, but after a few moments she slowed. They came bursting out of the foliage around her and very nearly bolted past, but managed to stop before loosing her again.

“Herb-sama!” Mint protested between deep breaths. Normally he could run for hours at a much faster pace, but a combination of injury and surprise had winded him much faster than normal.

“Why did you start running, Herb-sama? Where are we going?”

“Nerima,” she answered them curtly.

“That town…?” Mint looked confused.

“That town. I advise that you keep up, this time.” She gave them another moment to catch their breaths, then started walking again, not quite running but certainly moving at a good clip. A moment later, Mint and Lime were following her at a short distance, looking confused but resigned to never quite knowing what precisely was in their master’s head.

Herb ignored them entirely. She had brought them along for assistance, but at the moment they were useless. She wouldn’t abandon them, of course, but there was no point in explaining anything either. Besides, her mind was preoccupied with other thoughts.

The kettle may be destroyed, but there’s still a cure out there somewhere! And if that old Amazon won’t let me have it… I’ll take it!

***

~Mordain

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