I looked over the fae man again to size up the problem before me. He looked to be much taller than me and made up of nothing but tanned skin and muscle. There was no way I could move him on my own, and bringing someone in here to help would only raise questions I couldn’t answer. Not that there would be many people willing to help me at present. That left me with only one available option: I had to try to wake him up.
Kneeling before him, I turned to the mountain cats beside me. “If this goes sideways, I expect you both to go for the jugular. You understand?” I had to assume the deadpan look they both gave me was confirmation that they understood.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward and placed my hand on the fae man’s shoulder and gently shook him. From outward appearances, he seemed relatively fine, but I didn’t want to risk any further injuries by shaking him too hard. After about a minute of trying toshake him awake to no avail, I went over to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of menthol oil from a cupboard. This stuff was so potent it could wake the dead. I removed the cork from the top of the bottle, held it just below his nose, and muttered a fewPlease hear me, Mother Vikteriyas, hoping the man would stir.
Thirty seconds later the man’s eyes fluttered and his nose scrunched.Thank you, Mothers Above!It was working. I quickly reached over the man and grabbed one of the folded blankets from the sofa to cover his lower half, so he didn’t wake up exposed to the realm, thinking the worst of me. After another thirty seconds of taking in the menthol oil, the man opened his eyes, and he stared up at me unblinkingly. I let out a huge sigh of relief.
The man gained his focus and spoke warily. “Where… where am I, and who … who are you?” He looked down at himself, face flushing. “And why am I naked?” He slowly wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to preserve whatever dignity he felt he had left.
“You kind of just showed up in my home that way.” I reached over him to grab another blanket from the sofa and placed it gently over his arms and chest. “I found an injured fox in the woods last night. I brought it home to take care of it. And then you were here this afternoon…” I let my thoughts trail off, as I wasn’t quite sure what else to add to that. “My name is Aurelia, by the way. And you are…”
The man looked concerned, his brow bunching in what appeared to be a mixture of frustration and contemplation. “I…I don’t know.”
“Um, all right. Do you remember what happened to you or how you got here?”
There was a slight panic in his voice when he replied. “No, I… I don’t remember.” He looked around the room, searching for an answer. “I don’t remember anything,” he whimpered as he clutched the blanket to him tighter.
All right, this was a bit concerning. Clearly, he was experiencing some type of amnesia from his injuries.
I calmly replied, “That’s fine. It looks like you have had a bit of a head injury. Sometimes, with those, there can be temporary amnesia. It’s nothing to worry about for now, though. The most important thing to do right now is get you up and into bed to rest.” I looked down at the blanket-covered fae, my face flushed with embarrassment at my rudeness. “And get you into some clothing, of course.”
The man looked up at me now with full fear in his eyes. “I don’t even remember my own name or how I got here. And now I’m supposedly injured? How bad is it?”
“Well, when I found the fox… I mean, you, you had a large wound to the side of your head.” I reached out and lightly touched the still-healing wound on the side of his head. “There were also some restraints on your, or its, wrists and ankles that had caused a fair bit of damage.”
The man slowly inspected his wrists and then lifted the blanket to check his ankles.
“I’m not really sure why the restraints caused such damage—I’ve not seen anything like them before, to be honest—but the lacerations do appear to be healing rather quickly and without complication. I suspect another day or two of bedrest will be necessary before they are fully healed.” A small smile spread across my lips as I clasped my hands together on my lap.
His brow creased, and his lip quivered. I could only imagine how terrifying it must be to wake up in an environment foreign to you, with no recollection of why or how you had gotten there. Amnesia was a fickle thing I had dealt with far too often, thanks in part to the numerous blasting accidents that occurred up in the mines on Mount Morningstar. It was a copper toss when treating them. Not everyone I treated regained their memories, though. The human brain was complicated, and the magic I used was not always powerful enoughto heal it. Hopefully, I could help him so this wouldn’t last much longer, and he could figure out what had happened and go home—wherever that was.
“All right. I think it’s time we got you off the floor and into a bed.”
The man sat upright. Leaning forward, he placed an unsteady hand on the floor and tried to get up to his knees. I squatted down and positioned myself just under his arm so I could help him. Thankfully, he was able to get up on his own with minimal assistance from me once he caught his bearings. I picked the fallen blanket up off the floor, coming face to face with his… manhood. The immediate difference I could see between human men and fae men was… sizable.
I blushed as I realized that I had been staring at his privates and hurriedly wrapped the blanket around his waist, trying to preserve whatever shred of dignity he had left. I walked him to the end of the main hallway and into the spare bedroom—my grandmother’s old bedroom. I found some clothing that Wyatt had left behind. Unfortunately, Wyatt was not as tall or muscular as my new house guest. After some squeezing and stretching, we finally managed to get him into some cotton pants that barely covered his ankles, and left nothing to the imagination. After he settled into bed, I started a fire in the bedroom hearth, warmed up some leftover soup for him to eat, and gave him some tea with moonshade to help him with any pain he may have and get him back to sleep.
“You should be good for now. If you need anything, just holler for me. I’ll come check on you every few hours to make sure everything is all right.”
The man nodded and started to drift away, the moonshade pulling him into a restful sleep.
During the night, I woke up several times to check on the fae man to make sure he wasn’t in any pain or hadn’t started to run afever. I was still astounded by just how quickly his wounds had been healing. I was uncertain as to whether this was due to my healing magic or a perk of being fae. The wounds on his wrists and ankles had also almost completely healed, which was a relief, and there were no visible signs of a fever. It was still early, but it looked like all we had to worry about going forward was the lingering effects of his head trauma, which could include a lack of stability, headaches, vision issues, and of course, amnesia.
I wasn’t able to sleep much that night, so I got up early to tidy the house and hid any remaining healing supplies I had left out in the cellar underneath the kitchen—I didn’t want to give the Cult of Children or anyone else a reason to come after me. After that I made breakfast and went to check on the fae sleeping in my grandmother’s bed. I knocked on the door before entering and announcing myself, happy to see that he was awake. “Good morning … you. How are you feeling?”
The fae man rubbed his eyes, stretched his long arms over his head, and replied sleepily, “I’m feeling fine. I think.”
I set the plate of food—scrambled eggs, a few rashers of bacon, toast—and some water on the bedside table. “Do you feel any pain anywhere? Headache? Nausea? Blurry vision?”
“I have a bit of an ache in my head, but otherwise, I feel all right. I still can’t remember anything, though.”
“The headache is to be expected. Hopefully, having something to eat and drink will help a bit. If not, let me know, and we can try something else.” After what had happened in the village square, I was nervous about using my magic, especially on someone I barely knew and had recently discovered existed.
“How long will I be like this?” he asked before he hastily ate a piece of bacon. His appetite clearly had not been affected.
“It’s hard to say. I have a feeling it may take a few days at least for that to resolve, but we’ll work on some light exercises to make surewe’re doing everything we can to speed that recovery up.” I grabbed the glass of water and handed it to him, urging him to drink. “I was thinking, in the meantime, until everything comes back to you, that maybe we should give you a name. It would be quite rude of me to go on calling you,you. How does Forrest sound? Since, you know, I found you in the forest.”
He studied me with intent and some emotion I couldn’t quite place as he chewed on a piece of toast. “That would be fine. Sorry, what do I call you again?” The words stumbled over the crumbs tumbling about in his mouth.
