Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 57: Gwyradyll Hollow, The Forest City

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Gwyradyll Hollow

When he came to yet again, he was lying on his back in a warm, dark place, and something cool and damp had surrounded his left foot like a calming mist.

It was too dark to see anything at first, but after a few blinks and a squint he realized that he was staring up at a crisscrossing network of wooden poles.

Above that there was... well, darkness.

The ground beneath his body was soft and cushy, and when he shifted, he felt hundreds of small hairs rub against his skin in silky bundles.

Fur, Xaphile realized, clawed hands fisting into the thick stuff. I'm lying on fur. Where am I?

"Oh," someone murmured. "You're awake."

His eyes popped open wide and he struggled to get his elbows underneath him, but a soft hand with claws like daggers gently slid behind his back and lifted him upright.

A slender figure knelt at his side, and then something curved and firm pressed against his lower lip. When he looked up in confusion, he found himself gazing at two unfamiliar hazel eyes that glittered in the gloom.

Shoulder-length blonde hair framed her thin, angular face. Her long ears tapered off into graceful points, and a thick, blonde tail flicked behind her slender body with eye-entrancing movements.

When he opened his mouth to question her, a warm liquid that tasted like murky leaves and a touch of what he thought was honey slid across his lips and cut him off.

"For your throat," the blonde girl murmured. "Please, drink it all."

Xaphile did as she asked, trying to figure out what was going on. He didn't feel feverish anymore, and that was a relief, but nerves made him twitch with every motion this strange girl made.

"Your throat has been ravaged, but not beyond my skill," she said in a deep, soothing voice; her body radiated so much comforting heat that sleep threatened to drag him down again. "I take it you had a run in with Sioh, the guardian of the lake."

Surprised that the thing responsible for his pain had a name, he glanced up at her in shock.

"That monster with all the mouths?" he rasped, watching as she nodded. "Then, yes."

A fire he had not noticed before crackled in a pit a few feet away; his furry bed, which was more like a small mountain of animal skins, lay piled up against the wall of the building, opposite a wooden door that stretched nearly fifteen feet tall.

"Sioh's poison shuts down the respiratory systems of its land-walking prey, making them easier to drown," the woman noted, still holding him gently and watching him drink. "A hacking cough and odd mucus patterns are the most obvious symptoms of her venom attack, but the dressing on your leg will neutralize what poison still remains locked in the flesh."

"So, I'll stop coughing?" he questioned, watching as she nodded again.

"Quite so," she confirmed. "The tonic you're drinking now will further chase the poison away. I forced it down your throat while you slept, and I gave you fever-breaker as well. You should feel fully recovered in little more than a day."

He dazedly attempted to process this.

"Who are you?" he quietly demanded. "Where am I?"

"I am Karla," she explained, and a gentle smile was directed his way. "And you are in the capital city of the eastern rain forests, Gwyradyll Hollow."