Ch 2.35: Antidote
<span style="font-weight:400">Carline was somehow managing to ignore the things going on around her in the cart. Didn’t Flora know that she still had to deal with the venom inside Tira’s system? It wasn’t like Tira was in any immediate danger, and Flora probably knew that Carline would’ve mentioned if that were the case, but still, there were times for levity and times for seriousness. But Flora was distracting ina at least. Maybe that was Carline’s real frustration, that she couldn’t partake in the distraction, but it may very well have been good for everyone else involved. No, it was good for the rest of them to have some relief. Flora was right: Carline <i><span style="font-weight:400">could </i><span style="font-weight:400">do this, and then she’d get to rest like the others.
<span style="font-weight:400">At least it seemed like such a sure thing when the reassurance came out of Flora’s mouth, but the reality was much moreplicated. There was <i><span style="font-weight:400">something</i><span style="font-weight:400"> inside of Tira, something unlike anything Carline had learned about in her handful of months studying medicine, but it had already spread throughout her body, into her muscture. It was strangely unaggressive, like the only purpose of the venom was to cause pain. If Tira had still been awake, Carline couldn’t imagine she’d be able to feel anything else
<span style="font-weight:400">There was only one thing Carline could think to do in the situation. She opened her eyes, sneaking a quick nce at Flora as she reached into her bag for her knife. Flora was too distracting to look at that, wearing a buttonless tunic over her chest and only covering her lower half by using her torn dress as a nket, so Carline snapped her head back towards Tira, noting that ina had apparently already gotten dressed again out the corner of her eye.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’m going to need to make a wound to bleed out the venom.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Is that safe?” the man up front said, looking back over his shoulder at the girls.
<span style="font-weight:400">“She knows what she’s doing,” Flora said. Carline could tell the words were directed at her more than anyone else, and she appreciated them, weight lifting off of her ever so slightly as she pressed the t of the de against Tira’s arm.
<span style="font-weight:400">Closing her eyes again, Carline peered through [Health], into the systems of Tira’s body that she was bing ever so slightly familiar with. She wished her aspect gave her all the knowledge she needed about the body, but it wasn’t quite that simple. Still, she’d learned a lot in a short time, and a good portion of that was due to something that had otherwise been terrible.
<span style="font-weight:400">Starhounds, creatures born from the night sky when people made ill wishes to the stars. That’s what Carline had been taught of them anyway, though she was learning that some things she’d learned over her life weren’t always urate. Her encounters with them had taught her a lot about the world atrge, her ignorance in the face of the true horrors of the universe, but also about the human body.
<span style="font-weight:400">She focused on Tira’s body, her natural being, separating everything foreign to the body in her mind. She’d first done it when removing the starhounds’ acid-like venom from ina in their first fight together, and while the venom in Tira wasn’t quite so aggressive, so foreign, the same concept would apply. She hoped so, anyway.
<span style="font-weight:400">Squeezing on the invasion inside Tira’s bloodstream, Carline started reversing its course, pooling the venom back into the arm it had first entered from. Carline had already sealed that wound of course, but it was still where thergest concentration of the venom was, so it also made sense as the ce to try and remove it.
<span style="font-weight:400">She could feel the pain receptors in Tira’s body letting out sighs of relief, the body itself rxing as it was slowly being freed from the grasps of agony it was under. In the blood, the venom was actually harmless, causing no pain at all, no destruction, so Carline kept it there, working it back to the ce it had forced its entry, and where she would force its exit.
<span style="font-weight:400">She sliced Tira’s arm as gently as she could, along the same line she’d been cut originally, pushing the blood out of it with [Health], as little as possible while still forcing out the toxin.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Here,” Flora said, ripping off a piece of her dress and handing it over.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Thanks,” Carline said as she ced it under Tira’s arm. Doctor Thims would probably scream if he learned Carline was using such an unsanitary cloth near an open wound, but it wasn’t like Tira was going to get an infection when Carline was around anyway. She focused her attention where it mattered, pooling the the venom out of Tira’s body, clearing her system of any danger.
<span style="font-weight:400">It wasn’t even hard, really, notpared to the starhound manes that fought back as you tried to expel them. In almost no time at all Carline was closing the wound she’d cut, tossing her makeshift bandage to the side as she ced her hands on Tira’s head.
<span style="font-weight:400">And in an instant Tira woke up, gasping. Carline jumped back, not expecting it to happen that fast, but she supposed Tira had probably been trying to wake the entire time anyway. “Whoa,” Tira said, sitting up and looking at her left arm, “my hand is tingly.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sorry,” Carline said, bowing her head. “I tried to get it all, but it’s kind of hard to get a hold of.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Tira!” ina shouted as she threw her arms around the girl. Tira patted ina on the back, looking around her, at the cart and the people they were with.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Good to see you too, but what the hell happened? Where are we?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“This nice couple gave us a ride,” Flora said, gesturing to the front. “We’re safe now now though.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Wait,” Tira said, pushing ina away and looking around again. “Where is she?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“She…” ina trailed off, looked ashamed as she broke eye contact.
<span style="font-weight:400">“She got away; nothing we could have done about it. We’ll talk about itter,” Flora said, again gesturing to the man and woman at the head of the cart.
<span style="font-weight:400">Tira bit her lip, obviously wanting to know more, but nodding her head. “We’re all safe at least… Oh, and thanks to you two, by the way. I wish we could repay you somehow.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” the woman said with a giggle. “We’ve enjoyed yourpany, and the view.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Tira looked confused for a moment beforending her gaze on Flora’s alleged “outfit” and rolling her eyes. “Well, d that worked out at least.” Carline wasn’t sure, but she actually thought ina got away with hiding her blushing face from Tira. “This sucks though. Are the monsters dead, or are they still out there?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Still alive,” ina said, rposing her face. “We’ll need to tell the town guard.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“And then get some rest,” Tira said, copsing back to the floor of the cart with a thud. “We’re staying in town tonight, no matter what.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“That’s uncharacteristically rxed of you,” Flora said as she gently nudged Tira with her foot, her open top shifting, not quite giving a show of everything.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I still feel weird,” Tira said, lifting her arm again. “Besides, we’re technically still on mission. We need to stay nearby, especially with monsters near town.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Good point,” Flora said. “We have budget for two rooms, right?”
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Two rooms?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> That was perfect, a way to get alone time with ina before they got back to school, enough time to talk about—
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yep, and dibs on rooming with ina,” Tira said with a lustful grin. “You two like rooming together anyway, right?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course!” Flora said, beaming at Carline. Carline herself just sighed. She knew why Tira wanted to room with ina of course, and she sympathized with the desire. Tira probably also falsely assumed the same thing would work out for Flora and Carline herself, but Carline knew that Flora had little interest in sex unless it was outdoors, so that probably didn’t even matter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“That’s fine with me,” ina said, a light flush on her face. Carline could feel it through her aspect, arousal burning in both Tira and ina. She could let them have the night together she supposed, as long as she got a chance to speak to ina before they got back to school in the morning.