Louisa's POV
"I don't know exactly what happened to me..." The weasel replied as I was dipping some bandages in a bowl of Spilanthes potion.
I saw Uma had done it once before she removed some rotten ulcer of a soldier.
After applying the bandages on the wound, the flesh around the wounds would be anesthetized.
Then, hopefully, I could remove the rotten tissues from his legs.
Mr. Weasel was hanging in my arms and refused to go anywhere else.
He looked so cute, so I stroked him gently on his back. It made him very happy.
He continued, "...I was walking to a pond in the forest the other day, looking for some frogs or lizards for my family. Then, I saw a man with mad eyes flying towards me..."
"Flying?" I couldn't believe what I'd heard.
"Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? I want to tell everyone in my family, but I highly doubt that they'll believe me. I'm confused right now. Normally, people walk. They don't fly. But I really saw him flying in the air, with long hair flying in the wind like a black flag. His eyes were flaming with fire and madness. They looked like burning volcanoes!"
I felt horrified by the image of a flying crazy man in this forest. I could see goosebumps on my arms.
Mr. Weasel put his head on my arm and said, "I was frightened by what I'd seen, but I managed to follow my instinct to jump into a hollowed tree trunk. I don't think he even noticed me on that day. It seemed that he was desperately looking for something. However, his long black nails scratched my front legs accidentally when he flew past me. I was badly hurt. I wanted to go home, but I couldn't walk back. So I had to drag myself to find a place to take a rest. I smelt food in this place, so I came here. I didn't want to steal anything, though. I'd thought there might be some leftovers in the trash, maybe."
"I'm so sorry for what happened to you. But I guess you came across the vampire." I quickly applied the damp bandages to his wounds.
"A vam... What?!" He shouted in pain, trying to retract his legs.
I stuffed a cloth into his mouth and held his legs.
His long body wriggled for a while and stopped moving.
He spat the cloth out of his mouth and looked at me with his big round watery eyes.
"Women are liars! You look pretty but you've lied to me! It hurt so badly!" he said.
But the good news was, he still remained in my arms and didn't go anywhere.
"I'm sorry for lying to you. Soon, the pain will be gone." I said.
Mr. Weasel looked down at his legs and said anxiously, "I can't move my front legs. What have you done to them?"
"Don't worry. It's just temporary. I'll put you down now and take a knife to remove the rotten tissue on your wounds. I promise that you won't feel a thing."
"No! I'm not going anywhere! Don't leave me! Woman!" he shouted.
"OK, OK. I'll put you on my lap. Is that going to be alright?" I tried to calm him down.
He talked like an adult but he acted like a child, which made me so interested.
"How old are you?" I asked him curiously.
Uma said the fire would sterilize the knife, so the cut would heal.
"I'm like, ten," he said.
"That's in weasel years. So, you're fifty years old in hUman years." I calculated in my mind and said.
"Not just a pretty face. You're my type, woman!" he said.
I smiled at him and took a small dagger from the hunter's tool shelf and put it over the fire.
"Are you going to use that giant sword to cut off my feet?" He looked very upset.
"No. It's a small dagger and I will only remove the rotten flesh from your legs. After your feet are recovered, you'll be able to walk back to your family." I said.
"I can't watch it." He buried his head in my arms. His long body was quivering.
"It'll just take a few minutes. Don't look at it." I said as I lifted the bandages.
The rotten flesh started to get purple in color. Some of them had already come off.
I pitched his front legs and asked, "Can you feel anything?"
"No. Is that all?" he asked.
"Not yet. Don't peek and don't move." I said as I used the tip of the hot red dagger to tick some tissues from his wounds.
"Have you finished?" he asked in a muffled voice.
"Not yet. Almost there." I said and quickly scratched out all the bad tissues from his wounds.
The smell of burning rotten flesh made me frown.
"Do you feel any pain?" I rubbed my eyes and asked.
"No. But I'm terrified. Please do it quickly." he whined.
"OK, now I'm going to put some Fenugreek potion on your wounds. It helps new flesh to grow faster. I'm wrapping bandages around your legs... And it's done." I said.
I couldn't believe that I had done my first operation on a weasel.
Mr. Weasel lifted his head from my arms and looked back.
His front feet were wrapped in bandages.
"I couldn't feel my legs. Are they still there?" He lowered his head and tried to sniff.
"Don't touch them. I'll change the bandage for you tomorrow." I stopped him and said.
"Thank you for helping me. If it wasn't for you, I would be eaten alive by some scavengers," he said with gratitude.
"Thank you for being so brave," I said, "Are you hungry?"
"Hungry? I'm always starving, woman!" he exclaimed.
"I wish I could find some birds for you, but I can't find any in this forest," I said.
"There used to be plenty of birds, but now they're gone. I guess it has something to do with that flying thing... Vam...?"
"Vampire?" I asked.
"Yeah, vampire. I guess birds don't like seeing people flying around," he said.
"We've got some hog meat. Can you eat it?" I asked.
"I can eat a whole hog," he said, "But I can't move my legs, so I might need you to feed me."
I walked out of the room and saw Darren cutting some big chunks of meat from the hog's leg. I took one piece and fed the weasel.
He gobbled as he had never eaten before and finished half of the chunk of meat, which was almost the size of him, in a blink of an eye.
Then, he tried to dig a hole to put the other half inside.
"Hey, don't do that. You're hurting your feet." I stopped him and picked him up.
"Why don't you finish all of them?" I looked at the other half of the meat and asked.
"I have to store it for my family." He licked his lips and said.
"You can finish all of them. We've got plenty of meat," I said.
"No... I'm on a diet," he said.
I chuckled and said, "You're in good shape, Mr. Weasel. OK. How about this? Let me help you to bury some meat in the hole, so you can get them later."
"That will be wonderful," he said excitedly.
Then, he wrapped himself on my neck like a scarf and said, "I feel sleepy when I'm full. I guess I'll take a nap."
"Do you want me to put you down?" I tilted my head and asked.
"No," he replied decisively and wrapped himself more tightly around my neck. It seemed that he really didn't want to leave me alone.
"OK. But I need to cook something with Darren." I said to him.
"Never trust a warlock with a dark aura around him, woman... It's the omen of misfortune and death..." Mr. Weasel said and fell asleep.