Spidersilk and Bandages
Chapter 1
Posted February 4, 2024, Revised December 6, 2025
As night fell and what light could make it through the thick leaves above her started to fade, it occurred to Helena that she was about to die. Her companions were gone, and her connection to her patron was fading, leaving her alone to fend for herself in the Crowned Forest overnight.
That would be an issue even without the massive hole in her gut.
The wound continued to bleed, painting her silver armor an alarmingly bright red. Distantly, a part of her worried about how the rust would affect the plate.
With the last of her strength, she stumbled away from the clearing where everything had gone wrong. Finding a suitably sturdy tree, she leaned against it, letting her back slide down the trunk until she was sitting at its roots. Not having to move let her focus on the pain as it washed over her, enveloping her in a numb and awful exhaustion.
Unfeeling fingers closed around the bell that hung from her neck, the symbol of her home bringing her comfort. Helena lost consciousness still clutching it.
~~~
Ursula’s breath caught in her throat as she took in the hulking form before her.
A human.
A wounded human, unconscious and half-alive, but still.
Silently screaming at herself, Ursula slid to a stop near the human’s side, taking in the deep gash. It ran fully from the front of the human’s abdomen, just above the hip, around to the same spot on its back, carving a half circle into its side. All in all it was maybe a foot long, and around half as deep.
This made it about twice as tall as Ursula herself.
She began clearing layers of cloth away from the wound with her foremost arms. There was a strange layer of metal, which posed a problem. Ursula’s mind reached out along the familiar pathways, casting a spell to wrench the material upwards and out of the way.
With the scope of the injury in sight, Ursula stepped back to take a look. Blood was still pouring from the opening, soaking into the soil and drenching the roots. Another spell closed the human’s arteries, staunching the bleeding for at least a little while.
The next step would have to be laying the human down. As it was, their torso was bent, warping the cut open wider than it would be. Given the scales at play, Ursula could hardly reposition the human herself, so it seemed she would have to wake them up.
Ursula considered for a very long moment whether she really wanted to do this. She was well within her rights to say she had done all she could, and leave the human where it lay. Unfortunately for her, her own moral principles were quite strict on leaving injuries untreated. That aside, she did also have to admit that the possibility of talking to a genuine human sparked some curiosity in her.
So, reluctantly, hand over hand over hand over hand, Ursula began scaling the human’s chest. It was a smooth climb, as the outer layer of cloth was rough, making easy purchase for her claws. As she reached the human’s chest, she came across its massive right hand, closed around something unseen, held over their heart. The fist made for a good platform, and Ursula stood on it as she surveyed the face of her next patient.
The human’s head was slumped forward, chin-to-collarbone, and from her new vantage point, Ursula could just about reach their nose. She hadn’t seen any human noses before, but she could tell that this one was broken. A scar ran across its bridge, leaving a large indentation where it intersected with the cartilage. Looking around, Ursula saw a sturdy, square jaw, a brow still furrowed with pain, and close-cropped light hair. All in all, they looked like a person who had seen conflict, and survived through sheer persistence.
Now that she was in reach, Ursula found herself frantically going over what all the legends said about human propriety and how to make a proper greeting. This one was wounded, but when waking a giant, it still seemed vital to make a good first impression.
After a particularly long moment of steeling herself, Ursula reached upwards and touched the human’s nose, performing an old spell for wakefulness her mother had once taught her.
The human’s eyes shot open.
~~~
Helena blinked awake, unsure where she was or what was happening.
It took her a moment to clock that there was an unknown and alive something very close to her face, but when she did, she nearly jumped out of her armor. This in turn caused the something to fall backwards, landing with a sort of yelp on Helena’s lap. The knight moved to sweep the thing further away, but a stab of fresh pain from her side kept her from doing more than twitching.
While she faltered, the thing in her lap jumped up and announced, surprisingly loudly: “Hello! My name is Ursula, First Panacea! Pleased to make your acquaintance!”
Helena squinted, taking a closer look at her lap. The thing—Ursula, she supposed—was more of a person, though certainly not a human one. They stood on two legs, granted, and everything from the shoulder down looked very human, if you ignored the fact that there were four arms, but there was an extra pair of fuzzy, spider-leg-like appendages rising up from their upper back that ruined the illusion.
This Ursula wore a utilitarian brown jumpsuit, with a collar that covered up to their nose, and more pockets than Helena could count, each one in a different color. A shock of messy, brown-and-black fuzz covered the top of their head.
Helena took all of this in, and summarily dismissed it. She kept her own words curtailed, speaking quickly and quietly. “Get off of me.”
This was followed, after a moment’s consideration, by a “please.”
The creature named Ursula quickly waved the lower four of their—its? Her? Helena settled on ‘their’ for the time being—hands in an assuaging gesture, and started speaking much faster, seeming to drop most of their formality like an open sack of flour.
“Oh, yes, sorry, I was just about to, it’s just, I was hoping you could get up and lay down on your back? You’ve got a nasty wound there, which I was want to help with, but you’re sitting up and-”
Helena grimaced at the cascade of words, struggling to parse their meaning as her mind caught up with why she was here. She was wounded. She had been in a fight? Yes, with the bramble beast. Helena had been protecting Maia while she lined up a spell, but then…
Ah, right.
Maia, Andrea, Oliver, they were all dead. She had watched it happen. The monster had been clever, pinning Helena down with a spike, and ripping through the weaker party members while they were defenseless. She had wrenched free, but it had been too late to make a difference.
Well, at least, she thought it hadn’t.
She was alive now, so something must have happened. If she had survived, was it possible that the others had as well?
Provided with an actionable cause, Helena came back into herself. She was still on the ground, and Ursula was still on her lap, talking at an impressive clip.
“-but I’m not very knowledgeable about your physiology, come to think of it, I’m not sure I know anything about your culture, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you somehow, I swear I’m trying to help and eep-”
The little creature was cut off as Helena, not having the words to speak, gently picked them up and placed them on the ground beside her.
Ursula was quiet after that, though Helena couldn’t tell if it was from shock or indignation. Regardless, Helena doubted she could do anything to help.
Rolling forwards and to the side, Helena made it just about to one foot and one knee before she passed out once again.
~~~
Just as she was coming to terms with having been picked up by an Actual Human, Ursula was shocked again by that human’s massive form crashing to the ground, shaking the earth with the impact.
Apparently their injury was severe enough that they couldn’t stand on their own, but picking up and moving her entire body had still been no effort at all. Ursula noted that with equal parts fascination and fear, and added it to the choir of voices in the back of her head telling her that this was a bad idea.
Taking a few steps back, Ursula did a few stretches to calm herself down and reassess.
Aside from the danger to herself, there was the question of whether or not she should even be here. The human was unconscious again, but while awake, they hadn’t seemed like they wanted any medical aid. Would it be best if she left them to their own devices?
She shook those fears aside. She had chosen to walk the path of a healer, and it was clear that this person would die without assistance.
After taking a few more breaths and getting her wits about herself, Ursula scurried back around to the wound and groaned. The movement had ruined her frail spell, and the gash was bleeding profusely once again. At least the human had had the decency to land on their back, which made her life easier.
She repeated the spell to close the arteries, and after ensuring the blood was cleared off of the surrounding skin, got to work building a fire. The next and most intensive step on her journey would be cleaning.
Moving up along the human’s body, Ursula reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a sponge, a bar of soap, a waterskin, and a knife. After cutting through the soft fabric under the plate at one of the human’s elbows, she cleaned off a section of skin, and took a small blood sample, storing it in a glass vial she produced from yet another pocket.
With the sample in hand, she sat down, calling a simple analysis spell to mind, and replaced her cleaning supplies with a pen and journal. It would take some while to get an accurate impression of the giant’s innards, but her artery trick would hopefully keep things stable for a time. Flipping past the pages of previous documentation, Ursula came to a blank sheet and began a new entry, scrawling the word Human across the top of the page.
~~~
This time, when Helena woke up, she knew exactly where she was. Still on the ground, still lost in the woods, and still, somehow, alive. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but staring at the canopy above her, she could see what might be dawn light through the leaves.
She sighed deeply, reawakening the pain in her midsection and wincing in the same motion.
“Oh, please try not to breathe too deep! Too much movement will ruin the spell.” The voice was quiet but firm and sharp, coming from somewhere near Helena’s ear.
She turned her head to see the tiny person from before, sitting cross-legged and staring intently at an array of papers spread out on the ground before her, periodically scribbling down short lines. They were working by the light of a small fire, and seemed to have one arm devoted to constantly adding more fuel to it.
The entire setup could fit fully in one of Helena’s gauntleted hands.
Keeping her breathing as shallow as possible, Helena responded in a whisper. “You’re… Ursa?”
Their eyes stayed on their work, but Helena could hear the smile in their voice. “It’s Ursula, First Panacea. Pleased to meet you again.”
Helena frowned at the slip, and the two sat in silence for a long moment. Eventually she spoke up once again. “You seem… a lot less talkative than before.”
Ursula glanced up, briefly meeting Helena’s eyes, before returning to her writing. “I’m focused on writing right now. Before, I was trying to make a proper introduction.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“It’s also… easier, when I’m on the ground and you’re laying flat.”
Helena blinked. She supposed it must have been intimidating to speak with someone several times their size. She wasn’t what to say about that, so she largely ignored it.
Besides, something else had stuck out to her. “You said that movement would ruin a spell?”
“Mhm! A localized shock and dehydration spell. It’ll keep your veins closed until I can sew the wound shut.”
Helena furrowed her brow. “Why?”
At that, Ursula looked up fully, a look of confusion and concern in her eyes. “Well, you’ll most likely die if I don’t?”
Helena returned the confusion. That wasn’t quite what she’d meant, but the reality of Ursula’s statement was undeniable. She was injured and immobile, in the middle of the forest. Even if she were in peak form, traveling home without her party would be an ordeal.
Reminded of her companions, Helena gasped, narrowly avoiding stressing her injury. “My party, they were nearby. They’re injured as well, you should check on them first.”
Ursula’s eyes softened, turning from confusion to pity. “I’m sorry, I did see them, just before I came to you. I didn’t… you were the only survivor. I’m sorry.”
Another stretch of silence passed between them. This time, Ursula spoke first. “You never told me your name?”
Helena turned her head back to the canopy. More splotches of daylight were shining through. “I am Helena of Blackwell.”
Ursula stood, walked up to Helena’s head, and placed a hand on her temple. “Well, Helena, it’ll be about a day before I can sew up your wound, and some weeks of recovery after that, but you’ll be up again in good time. For now, you should rest. If there’s anything you need, I’ll be nearby.”
As dawn broke and light shone on the clearing where everything had gone wrong, it occurred to Helena that she might survive. It was a daunting prospect, and she stayed silent for some time, exploring the possibility. Several hours later, she would whisper a “thank you,” and Ursula would smile and nod, but at that moment, there was nothing but the rising sun, the forest, and the grief.
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