Shapes in the Mist by AdmirableMonster

Gentle

written for the prompt "flyblown," meaning "tainted" or "infested with blowfly larvae"

Deep, wet darkness yawns all around me.  The rain has ceased, but the clouds above still hide the stars.  The storm season came upon us early this year, and the swelling of the Big River parted us from our companions.  We clashed with a party of lamp-eyes in the hills, but we did not match their number, and they do not take prisoners, so once our captain was felled, I called a retreat to save those of us I might.

I am Urbwaštai, sibling of Ešekula, apprentice of Nasusara.  I am not a warrior, nor have I the honor to call a retreat, but they listened to me because I am a keeper of knowledge and a healer who has almost attained my mastery—and they were afraid, and there was no one else.  We fled the lamp-eyes and waded through mud all day, the storms unceasing.  At least the water washed away our scents and our tracks, but we lost another companion before finding a stand of gnarled willow trees at the bank of the Big River.

Now there is no light but what we can generate with the rushlights in our packs.  Many of them are soaked and may be useless, and the others may burn for ten minutes or an hour—it is hard to know.  Even with our vision that is so much better attuned—ironically—to the darkness than those of the lamp-eyes, without the fire, this darkness is impenetrable.  Dim light we can use to see by, but beneath these thick clouds there is no light at all.  The air is thick to breathe and stinks worse than an Angband dungheap.

I must use the light—two of the injured have wounds that are deep and unclean, starting to rot rapidly in this heavy damp.  I do not trust our alcohol stores, and I do not trust myself to be able to clean them well in these conditions.  So instead, I will use the light to find some gentles, and let them do the cleaning instead.  It was not Nasusara who first taught me of them, but my mother, I think—I do not remember her face, I do not know her name, but I remember her spread hands, the white gentles like specks of bleach across her dark palms.  Friends, she called them.

They will be our friends tonight, if I can find them, for they devour the dead flesh and leave the living.  Some say our lord breathed life into them to eat our sins, while others claim they are children of the hidden mother from before she went mad.  They have so many beautiful eyes when they grow, after all.

I raise my rushlight high, searching for our friends.

“Return,” Mozhak whispers to me, and I rise through the thick darkness to the mother’s distant gaze, shedding Urbwaštai’s skin like a gentle splitting its molt and spreading its new gossamer wings over its shimmering green body.

Chapter End Notes

"Gentle" is another word for a blowfly larva.