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The issue with making a go-bag at 12 years old is that the things you think you’ll need as a kid, are not in fact that useful when you actually get whisked away at 20 years old.
This is something Olethra has become terribly aware of the longer they have been in Zood. It started with clothes, her small child clothes in no way fitting her grown body, especially a few puberties later. Luckily, between Van and Marya she’s been able to make do, trying not to think of the small thing in her chest that shines at getting to wear the clothes of some of her favorite adventurers.
It also means she doesn’t have her meds.
It’s not the biggest deal, or at least that's what she’s trying to convince herself as she rubs the swollen skin around her knees. It would be effective if her hands weren’t also swollen. It’s fine. She’s an adventurer, she’s supposed to be stronger than this.
Sitting on the deck of the ship, she does not feel particularly strong. She feels tired, and sore, and a little homesick, which is dumb because she’s been dreaming of this for so long.
Pulling her gloves back on, one of the only things she did manage to bring with her that help, she tries to put it out of her mind. They are still in the middle of their adventure, she just has to suck it up. Even if her joints are mad at her for it.
“Getting some fresh air, Olethra?”
Monty is standing in front of her, must have come around the corner as she was focused on fitting her clumsy feeling fingers back into her gloves. He’s surprisingly quiet of foot for a man of his stature, but maybe that comes from his job. Takes a quiet step to approach a beast.
She’s staring at him and not saying anything. Fuck. “Yeah, yeah just uh,” she gestures out into the breeze, “enjoying it. Reminds me of home.”
Maybe it’s an odd thing to say, but it’s true. The little valley where her family lived was far from the smog choked cities of Gath, air clean and cool as it came through the canyon to their little farm. She wipes her eyes quickly, the homesickness welling up too quickly to stamp down.
“Woah, hey there, you doing ok?”
“Yeah,” she sniffs, shaking her head, “yeah I’m ok, just a little tired and achey is all.”
“Achey?” he lifts an eyebrow. “You got an injury we need to be worrying about? Don’t go playing martyr or anything, being hurt doesn’t make you any less of an adventurer.”
She shakes her head quickly. “No, I’m ok I just have a joint issue ‘s all. Usually I take medicine but I didn’t pack any. I’m fine, I promise.”
The look he gives her is hard to read. Not quite upset, but not necessarily happy with her response either. “What do you usually take?”
“Oh, ya know, at first I was on hydrochloroquine, or like, our version of it at least, and then I was on these corticosteroids for a little bit before I went on DMARDS, and I take methotrexate with that now which…”
Monty raises his eyebrows. Right.
“Have I not mentioned the uh… drug farm thing? My parents don’t trust most things so they kinda, you know, make it themselves?”
“I don’t think you mentioned that, no.” Monty shakes his head, sliding a hand over his face. “I apologize Olethra, I don’t know if I can make anything the level of what you’re used to but if you want, I think I know something that might help?”
“Sure?”
He offers her a hand up which she gladly takes, letting out a small wince as her knees protest. Monty gives her a look.
“You could have come with us sooner, you know? It’s ok to ask for help.”
She can’t help the snort she lets out, coughing awkwardly as she ducks her head to avoid him looking at her. “No, yeah, you’re right it’s just… it’s not like you guys are the best at that either?”
When Monty laughs, it seems to fill the space so completely, and even standing on the deck of the ship it booms around her. “Fair enough, kid. Fair enough.”
Following his lead, they walk down the deck until he leads her into the galley, watching from behind as he starts digging around the pantry and drawers of their food supply. He’s elbow deep in a sack of vegetables when she starts to ask what it is he’s looking for, but he finds it before she gets the chance.
“There we are,” he speaks as if just to himself as he pulls out a string of what looked to be dried peppers. “Do me a favor Olethra, go ask Gotch for some oil and bring it back for me?”
“Oil?”
“Oh yeah. I’ll prep this, but I know he’s got some to spare.”
Assigned her odd mission, Olethra turned from the galley and made her way across the ship to the cabins. Get oil. Totally a normal thing to ask for. This is fine.
She knocks on Maxwell’s door before she loses her nerve, fidgeting with the edge of her skirt as she waits at the door. She’s about to knock again, but the door opens, Wealwell smirking at her in the doorway.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, hey Wealwell, I was looking for your brother.”
“Come in,” Maxwell calls from somewhere inside, Olethra slipping past the door as Wealwell stands strangely to the side. “Can I uh, help you with anything?”
“Do you have oil?”
He's looking over some papers, but at that he glances up at her. “Yes?”
Of course he does. Everyone knows he does. What the fuck is she doing?
“Could I… have some?”
“What for?”
Olethra bites the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know?”
“Is this a prank? Am I being pranked? I really can’t tell when you all get like this.”
“Maxwell,” Wealwell starts, teasingly, “Don’t you have oil enough to share? Why are you being stingy?”
“I’m not– Wealwell I am not stingy, I have shared plenty with you.”
“Not oil.”
“Do you want oil?”
“I don’t know what I want,” Wealwell cries, leaning up against a wall. Olethra looks between the two of them amusedly.
“So,” she tries, “oil?”
Maxwell rubs at his brow, taking a deep breath. “I don’t have a lot of extra anything, but if you tell me how much you need…”
“Monty knows, if that helps?”
He sighs. “Alright.” Pulling a drawer open next to him, he hands her a small bottle of whatever bizarre oil he covers himself in to fight. “If you have left over, I would appreciate it back, but I suppose if not it is fine. Please don’t let this be a prank.”
“It’s not,” she grins at him, though she isn’t sure how reassuring she can be. Maxwell is funny like that.
Wealwell is still pouting as he gets the door for her out, hearing the sounds of “why don’t I get any” behind her as she goes back to the galley.
Monty has taken the string of dried peppers and turned them into a mound of dark red flakes, smiling at her as produces the oil.
“Perfect,” he grins, brushing the pepper flakes into a cheese cloth.
Olethra watches with strange fascination as he stuffs the pepper filled cloth into the mouth of a bottle, pouring the oil out on top so it drips through, filling up the bottom of the bottle with a slight red tint.
It takes a bit, but once the oil has moved most of the way through, he twists the fabric back over the mouth of the bottle, like a marker stopper filtering ink.
“Where are you hurting?” he asks, eyes soft as he looks at her.
“My hands and knees,” she tells him, already starting to take off her gloves. Her right hand flexes odd and her fingers stutter as she fidgets trying to pull the leather off her swollen fingers.
Slowly, as if a question, Monty reaches for her hand. She nods. His steady warm hands pull the fingerless gloves off of her, kind and careful not to pull too hard, to grab too roughly. Once her hands are free, he grabs the bottle, turning it upside down and pressing the oily fabric down her hands.
Olethra gasps.
The oil stings against her skin, making it warm and pulse before quickly cooling, leaving her hands tingly cold. She lets him do the other hand, watching in strange fascination as it sits over her hands, the sensation ebbing at the ache that’s been plaguing her for weeks now.
“Now, once it cools off you either have to wash your hands or be extra careful, cuz if you get this stuff in your eye, it will mess you up bad. Don’t ask me how I know, just know.”
She nods, the odd wave of tears from before coming back. “Thanks,” she says in a small, dumb voice, too reverent.
“Aw, it’s nothing,” Monty shakes his head, and accepts her awkward, hands-splayed hug.
She may not have everything she meant to bring, but standing with Monty, she’s all of a sudden sure she has everything she needs.
-
"I knew it," Marya mutters to herself as she watches Olethra take a bottle of oil and press it against her knee, rubbing across joint. Olethra MacLeod was a robot. She has to go tell Van.