Page 53 of Orc'd & Loaded
I loosen.
"There."
I secure the wrap with medical tape, cutting it with the tiny scissors that feel like toys in my grip. The finished bandage is clumsy. Uneven. A child could have done better. But it holds, and the gauze is clean, and the tincture is doing whatever elvish magic it does beneath the layers.
She flexes her wrapped hand. Tests the range of motion. Closes her fingers into a loose, incomplete fist. Opens them.
"Twelve days," she says.
"Twelve days."
"I need full dexterity back in ten to do the final plating rehearsal."
"The tincture?"
"Cuts healing time to maybe three weeks. Best case."
Three weeks. The math doesn't work. The math will never work. Ten days from now her hand will still be raw, still be stiff, still be incapable of the thousand tiny movements that separate her food from everyone else's.
She hops down from the counter. Lands with both feet. Crosses to the stove and peers into the reduction pot.
"You didn't burn it."
"Told you."
She dips a clean spoon. Tastes. Rolls it across her tongue.
"It needs acid. There's a bottle of high-purity yuzu juice in the cold storage I brought over. Third shelf, behind the miso."
"Solene. Your hand."
She sets the spoon down. Turns to face me. The bandage is already spotted with a single amber stain where the tincture is seeping through.
"My hand is wrapped. The festival is in twelve days. And you just proved you can follow instructions without destroying my food. So we train. Starting now."
The yuzu juice takes the reduction from good to transcendent. Even I can taste the difference. The acid cuts through the deep, smoky sweetness like a blade through fog, and the whole thing lifts. Brightens. Becomes something we couldn’t have built alone.
But I'm looking at her hand.
She holds it against her ribs while she directs me through the next steps. Left hand pointing. Left hand gesturing. Right hand cradled like a wounded animal she's pretending doesn't exist. The bandage is already loosening at the edges, the gauze darkening with fluid, and the elvish tincture has done what it can, which isn't enough.
"Stop staring at my hand and deglaze that pan."
"The tincture isn't enough."
"I said deglaze."
"I have something stronger."
She pauses. Mid-instruction, mouth still open around whatever sharp directive was about to come out. Her green eyes narrow.
"What do you mean, stronger."
I reach into the deep interior pocket of my leather apron. The one reinforced with double-stitched hide because the things I carry in it tend to be heavy, volatile, or both. My fingers close around the small clay pot sealed with beeswax and stamped with my grandmother's sigil. Three crossed cleavers over a mountain.
"Orcish burn salve. My grandmother's recipe. Rendered dragonbone marrow, cave moss from the Thornback Range, and rendered fat from a very specific breed of highland goat that only eats volcanic wildflowers."
"You just... carry that around."
