(Not) a clichéd fairy tale

Chapter 8

Liarya

"Get your hands off the gems!" Tirian's voice cut across the room, causing the goblin to flinch.

"The price for five medium rubies is 500 gold coins. Not a coin less!" the man growled and the goblin nodded, intimidated. "And that's why you'll pay that exact price, won't you?" he continued in a low voice, whereupon the goblin nodded in intimidation and pushed another 100 gold coins across the table.

Tirian pulled the dagger out of the wood and slid the gold coins from the counter into a small brown leather pouch. He then pulled me out of the house by the arm and slammed the wooden door shut.

"What did I tell you?" he asked calmly, but I could clearly hear that he was quite angry. "Y-you said that goblins are sneaky creatures and that I shouldn't fall for their tricks and give in," I mumbled.

"And what did you do?" he asked, his voice sounding even more annoyed. "I gave in and almost fell for a trick..." I mumbled even more quietly.

"Exactly," he replied before sighing, "Now let's find somewhere to stay." With those words, he walked past me. I wanted to follow him, but at that moment my sight went black and my legs gave way.

The next moment, two hands grabbed my shoulders and stopped me from losing consciousness completely. "Don't give up, princess. If you show weakness, you'll die. The shelter is not far away. You can rest there," said Tirian, helping me to regain my balance to some extent.

I nodded weakly before we continued walking through the town, hopefully to the accommodation. But this time at a much slower pace, as I simply couldn't walk any faster and Tirian also glanced over his shoulder several times, probably to make sure I didn't collapse again.

We walked on for a while and I couldn't remember a single detail of my surroundings as most of my concentration was spent trying not to fall over.

Finally, we entered a tavern. It was loud inside and smelled strongly of alcohol. But I concentrated solely on the man in front of me.

Tirian went to the front where a woman was standing behind the bar polishing glasses. "Good evening, sir. How can I help you?" she asked, interrupting her activity for the moment.

"A room for the night. With two beds if possible," he replied and the woman nodded. "Of course. That's 120 gold coins." My travelling companion fished the leather pouch out of his pocket and paid, then the woman handed him a key and Tirian took my wrist and left the tavern through a sort of back door.

There we climbed wooden stairs. Most of them where rotten and creaked terribly under my and Tirian's weight.

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The staircase ended in another long, dark corridor. Slowly and lazily, I followed him to the end of the corridor and he unlocked the door on the left with the key.

The room we then entered seemed surprisingly cosy. The window was large, the glass a little dirty. There was a bed against the wall right next to the window and a desk at the foot of the bed. Opposite it on the wall was the same dusty window with the same bed and the same desk. Between the two windows on the wall was a relatively large wardrobe.

On the wall to the left of the door was a clothes rack and a little further in the corner was a wash basin and a folded screen leaned against the wall next to it as a privacy screen. In front of it was a small stool with towels and washing utensils on it.

Without giving it much thought, I staggered towards the bed on the right side. By now I was so dizzy that I could no longer take a straight step.

As soon as I was sure that if I collapsed, I would fall onto the bed instead of the floor, I finally let my legs give up and fell onto the bed.

A moment later, I could already feel the surprisingly soft sheet beneath me.

"Don't lose consciousness, princess. It's high time we attended to your wound," Tirian's deep voice interrupted me before his hand grabbed my ankle, pushing the skirt of my dress up to my knee and thus freeing my foot from it.

"Take off your tights, princess. If you have them on, I won't be able to treat the wound properly," was his next instruction and I got up once more and took off my tights, not caring how it is highly frowned upon to do so in front of a man.

Then I dropped back onto the bed, but did my best to stay conscious. My travelling companion inspected my wound.

"I'm not a doctor, but the wound is only slightly dirty. The exhaustion and obvious blood loss are probably also contributing to your current condition. But I repeat myself, I'm not a doctor, so I can only make assumptions. I'll clean your wound now and disinfect and bandage it as best I can and tomorrow we'll see a proper doctor. It's well past midnight so it's too late for that today," he explained and I nodded weakly.

Then the grip on my ankle disappeared and I heard his footsteps moving away. Shortly afterwards, I thought I heard water and then the footsteps came closer again and something heavy was placed on the floor next to my bed.

A little later I felt a terrible burning sensation on my wound and I abruptly pulled my leg towards my body and a pained gasp left my lips.

"Shh, don't panic princess, it's just water. The real pain is yet to come," Tirian murmured and I wanted to roll my eyes.

"V- very calming, really," I breathed, which elicited a short laugh from him. Suddenly I felt Tirian's grip on my ankle again and the next moment the same pain shot through my leg. But because Tirian was holding my ankle this time, I couldn't pull my foot away this time and another pain-filled hiss left my lips.

This procedure was repeated a few more times before Tirian stood up again and probably came back with the disinfectant. The next moment, a much worse pain than the one I had just felt shot through my leg and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and sucked in a sharp breath.

"Almost there princess. Just one more time," Tirian's voice echoed in my ear and I squeezed my eyes shut again and bit my tongue hard as the same hellish pain shot through my leg one last time.

Then I felt him wrap what must have been a bandage around the wound and in the next moment the extra weight disappeared from my bed and slowly the long-awaited sleep came over me.

"Sleep well, princess," Tirian whispered, but I was so exhausted that I didn't even hear his words.