She had several more encounters as she retraced her steps. Her second night on the bluff ended with even more of the wolf-like creatures falling prey to her sleep traps. She decided to gather some of their fur while she was there.

  Later that day, after getting slightly lost, she stumbled onto a palace weaver, a man-sized spider that draped its web in large sheets down tree branches, creating a maze-like structure.

  She harvested some of the web. The spider had skittered out of its house to investigate the disturbance and caught Niala in the act.

  The catkin threw a lubricating potion at it. She picked up her loot and left, leaving behind a spider discovering the art of interpretative break dancing.

  She encountered three Gorezillas on her way through their territory, but this time she had kept a sleeping potion on hand, and left the big, ornery lizards taking a mid-day nap.

  And late into the night, wondering why the trip back was taking so much longer, she reached Camp Freshmeat. Coming in from the west, when she had been north-east of it.

  Maybe, maybe, she didn't have the best sense of direction.

  She observed the slumbering camp and weighed her options.

  She made a decision, and instead of setting camp, she took out and drank a long-lasting energizer potion, turned south, and made for Riverwall.

  The nighttime forest felt both claustrophobic and more alive than during the day. The sounds reached further, were more primal.

  She doused herself with a repellent and kept a sleep potion in a tight hand, ready for use.

  She navigated under the moonlight, making full use of her superior night vision and hearing to steer clear of the things slinking in the dark.

  A few bells later, as she began feeling like trudging through molasses, she took another energizer and pushed through the night.

  David was waiting. She'd get back in time.

  Several bells after dawn, she burst through a stubborn bush and nearly plunged into the river below. Looking up and down the waterway, she spotted Riverwall's north gate several hundred meters upriver.

  With an annoyed huff, she picked at the twigs and leaves stuck to her hair and clothes, following the riverbank north.

  Half a bell later, she was at the gate. Covered in grime, exhausted, over-perfumed with repellent, and every part of her begging for the torture to stop, she had done it.

  She'd gone into the Hungerwoods, alone, and came back, alive. Her, the little city-dwelling Niala.

  She squealed despite herself, and did a little dance, staring guards be pitted.

  She soon reached the west gate, marching through on her way home. Then she noticed someone was following her. With a quick glance and from their outfit, she judged them to be an adventurer type.

  She sped up her pace. They didn't.

  So they weren't following her. Weird.

  She soon turned the last bend to the plaza in front of her shop and almost ran into someone coming the opposite way.

  She apologized, puzzled, before finally coming around to lay eyes on her home.

  Where a few people, mostly the adventurer-type, were in line in front of her door.

  What?

  Then realization hit her, and more questions trampled over it.

  She quickened her pace, stepping past the line of people and to the walled garden's gate.

  She came in through the back door, hearing glimpses of people talking at the front counter as she turned to the stairs and rushed upstairs.

  She stopped for a second and soon heard coughing. A weight left her heart, and she walked to the door, barging into the bedroom.

  David finished coughing into his fist and looked up. As he recognized her, a huge goofy smile took over his face. He got up, coughed again, and opened his arms.

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  She slammed into him, rubbing her face into his chest.

  She was back, and David was alive. David was going to live.

  “You smell like soggy wet socks after a week's traveling in the rain,” David said, gagging.

  She punched him in the flank.

  She ended up taking a quick shower and getting into clean clothes. You did not perform high-grade alchemy while wearing rags covered in potential contaminants.

  She used her brewing room's garden door, avoiding the front counter area. The answers to those questions could wait. She had a big idiot to save.

  Her brewing room was in a sorry state, the failed results of her feverish brewing sessions before her expedition still cluttered all over.

  With a frustrated sigh, she pushed the detritus aside, clearing a small work area, and set up her tools.

  She studied the formula her father had sent her; it was a standard formula, not a compound one, and so she had to use the specific ingredients in the exact amounts, no deviation or experimenting allowed.

  Easy and boring, but it didn't matter.

  She retrieved a small glass box with two waxed silk gloves attached to one of its wall, for her to manipulate the more dangerous ingredients, such as the parasite mushrooms she'd retrieved.

  With everything measured, prepared, and planned, she let her hands get to work, observing their movement, correcting the small mistakes they made.

  The formula was long, but not difficult. She breezed through the steps, masterfully controlling the process, as if she'd brewed this particular potion a hundred times before.

  The final part came, where she had to soak the pit-bound mushrooms in the solution, to let their distinctive mana signature imprint upon it.

  She watched the seconds tick by on the bellglass.

  At the first beep, she pulled out the mushrooms and flashed a tiny bit of her mana, locking the imprinting process in place.

  Sealing back the mushrooms into the vial and spraying a neutralizing agent into the small box to take care of any lingering spores, she retrieved the potion, inspecting it.

  It looked to be a success, according to the formula. She frowned, looking at the remaining ingredients she had. Plenty enough for a few more doses.

  She nodded. A bit more work didn't scare her at all, and she didn't want to take any chances.

  A bell and a half later, she stormed into David's room with five potions in hand, and had him drink all of them.

  It was for his own good.

  His complaint that it tasted like rank sewer eggs was ignored.

  After force-feeding him raw sewage, Niala had sat on the side of the bed and observed him. His cough had slowly abated over the course of a bell before stopping entirely. He only had a light scratching sensation when he breathed in now, and even that was fading.

  When she realized he was getting better, with no more anxiety to buttress her resolve, all of the tiredness she had pushed back came roaring in. She managed to snuggle up to him, lay her head on his chest, and then sank like a rock into deep slumber.

  He stroked her hair, enjoying just how good it felt to breathe again.

  His little girlfriend had done it. His little savior, now using him as a comfy pillow.

  Not that he was complaining. To be Niala's pillow was something he didn't know had been missing in his life.

  In the early afternoon, when Panacea Potions' storefront closed, Karline knocked on the bedroom door and stepped in, jolting to a stop as she notice Niala.

  “Whe-” She stopped, and began whispering. “When did she get back? I didn't see her at all.”

  “Must have used the back doors.” He said, his hand never stopping its gentle motion over her head.

  “Oh.. ok. Just wanted to let you know I closed the store, and I put the money in the safe, I updated the inventory, and... I really don't want to do this anymore.” She grimaced. “You're going to pay me, right? You said you would.”

  He nodded. “Yes, don't worry. Just go for now, we can catch up tomorrow.”

  Karline bobbed her head and turned to leave.

  “Karline,” David looked at the young woman, his face solemn. “Thank you.”

  The weight of his words caught her by surprise. She stood for a second before nodding and stepping out, closing the door behind her. He listened to her footsteps down the stairs, heard the back door open and close.

  With Karline away, and the brouhaha downstairs gone, the room was filled with nothing but the sound of Niala's slow breathing and an occasional happy moan.

  David let the soothing near-silence flow over him. He turned his gaze inward, to put some order to the stampede of emotions rutting for his attention.

  Ever since that night where he had barged back into Niala's life, a feeling of guilt had trailed his shadow.

  He still hadn't been certain if he'd made the right choice, back at the inn. Maybe he should have pushed through his fear and gone back on the road. Had he acted selfishly? Was he the kind of man who could give back as much as he got?

  Because Niala was giving him a lot. He knew she liked him, a blind and deaf man would have known, but the amount of attachment she had shown him was intimidating at times.

  To be honest with himself, that was a big part of the reason he pushed to go find the panacea's ingredients instead of using other, slower means.

  And in the end, he'd fumbled and made things worse, made her worry, and push herself to exhaustion. He had made her go into the Hungerwoods alone, expose herself to beasts, and even risk encountering a Fel, to fix his blunder, to save his life.

  He... didn't think he was worth all of that.

  He was happy, undeniably so, to be alive, to have such a dedicated girl in his life, to have helped build a new home for them, one where he didn't feel that restlessness that had pushed him back to the road time and again.

  But now, with Niala asleep on him, her overflowing love seeping into his very being, he was beginning to understand.

  A relationship wasn't a transaction. It wasn't meant to feel fair. It was meant to feel happy, joyful, and purposeful. It was a promise. A promise to be there for the other person, no matter what, and that could not be measured.

  He was finally figuring it out, because if the roles had been reversed, he'd gone to the ends of the world, and further past, to save Niala, just the same as she'd done, and would have wanted nothing in return.

  It was a promise he would renew every day for the rest of his life, knowing that all those days belonged to the cute little bundle of love sleeping in his arms.