"Two entire days???"

"I have zhuren's notebooks and we can experiment with a new talisman? --If that's all right, Mistress Foreigner."

“That’s - research? Yeah, I think it’s fine to work on things if you’re feeling up to it, if you can do them without running around. Though you also clearly need more sleep than you’ve been getting lately.”

She tries to redirect his attention back to the container of now-barely-lukewarm water. “Wen Ning, can you make sure he doesn’t drop that all over himself? I’ll have another go at reading the labels on the herbs and see if I can figure out which is for nausea.”

She can apparently make sense of the written labels even though they’re clearly in Baseline - presumably, magic is involved - but it makes her vision feel oddly blurry and her eyes hurt.

"Two parts ginger, one part ginseng, one part licorice, in a tea," Wen Ning suggests.

“I…will take your word for it.” Presumably anything in the medical kit is not literally poisonous. It turns out that she is capable of deciphering which ones he means. “Is there another fire-safe container to boil more water for that? Actually it might be simplest if you make it. And the congee. I can take over here, now that he’s less disoriented.” Merrin has lit wood fires before but has never before in her life made tea over an open fire, and now is not really a great time to try picking up a new skill that she will almost certainly screw up in some unforeseen way. 

Wen Ning busies himself with cooking.

"I've been sleeping plenty," Wei Wuxian objects. "I like being awake at night."

Merrin does not believe him at ALL but she isn’t going to have that argument right now. She settles herself beside-and-behind Wei Wuxian so she can support his shoulders against one knee and still mostly have her hands free. About a third of the water is gone, which is progress, at least; she helps Wei Wuxian take another sip and then takes his hand to check his pulse and skin temperature.

He's still quite clammy, and his pulse is there but not at all as strong as she'd like.

He almost looks anemic. Giving him a blood transfusion is super not on the table, though. 

Merrin is only a little bit on edge at the possibility of being surprise jumped by more dead people. Or whatever else has been regularly going wrong around here. She has training for operating in hazardous situations but this is a new one. 

“Are you okay to sit up a little longer?” she asks Wei Wuxian. “Tell me if you’re feeling worse and need to lie down flat, all right?” 

"I'm fine. I could go for a run."

DOUBT. Merrin does not actually need to have that argument with a stubborn teenage boy right this second, though. 

(Merrin has met teenage boys before. Teenage boys from dath ilan are not generally this miscalibrated on their condition unless they're operating at a significant cognitive impairment, but Wei Wuxian might be, right now, his blood sugar has to be very low. If he's in a state where he's not actually processing information very effectively, it isn't going to help to keep repeating facts like that, and will mainly result in injured pride. If he actually gets up and attempts to go for a run, she'll have to intervene, but she doubts he's going to try and is even more dubious he would make it more than two steps.) 

She rearranges the blankets so he's very covered, and vaguely wishes there were a convenient way to raise the ambient temperature in the tent, but it's obviously not safe to put a fire inside. 

"Want to tell me the story with you and Wen Ning?" she says, in between feeding him sips of water. "You clearly care a lot about him. And he's been trying very hard to look out for you. But I - if I'm getting the clan names right, the clans here are fighting his clan, and he was captured or something? What happened?" 

"He's my slave," Wei Wuxian says stubbornly. "I can feel about him however I like. Even if he's a Wen-dog."

That wasn't even slightly an answer to her question! 

"Of course you can," Merrin says soothingly. "I'm very glad he has someone to protect him, here, and it speaks well of you. Is it....normal, here, for people captured when fighting to be made slaves of the people who captured them? How does that work?" 

She also has a growing list of questions about why exactly the clans are fighting, this doesn't seem like an equilibrium state at all - maybe the random 'fierce corpses' wandering around have something to do with that? She needs to ask more about them, too. Are they still sentient? Can they be coordinated with? Merrin is going to save her complicated questions for Wen Ning, though, or she can ask Wei Wuxian LATER when he's more lucid. Possibly the question she just asked is already too complicated, but she feels like she needs to talk about something, to keep him awake and entertained so he stays put and drinks fluids. There's clearly something wrong with his attention span. Maybe getting some more glucose into his bloodstream will help. 

"We took him prisoner after the Wen clan slaughtered the Jiang clan-- that's my clan-- and I needed someone to cook for me and keep my bed warm. I deserve it. I'm winning their war for them, aren't I?"

Somehow that is not actually addressing any of Merrin's points of confusion. 

"....Your clan all got killed? Is that - like - your family? I'm...sorry?"

What are you even supposed to say to that. Merrin thinks she is doing very well by saying WORDS and not just INCOHERENT SCREAMING. 

...The corpses presumably come from somewhere. Merrin has...been trying not to think about that too hard. Or about the fact that this world clearly lacks the tech base for cryonics to be feasible at all. Cultivators apparently don't age. What happens to everyone else? no she cannot think about this right now she is working. 

Wei Wuxian should drink more oral rehydration solution. Merrin is being remarkably cheerful and patient and persistent about coaxing him to do this. She is trying very hard to hide any sign of frustration with the task, even though practicing low tech medicine is the WORST. 

"Yeah. But I tracked down everyone responsible and killed them and I'm going to destroy the Wen clan."

He continues to eat his oral rehydration solution.

They're making progress! Maybe she can even trust him to hold the container by himself for a minute so she can free up her hands and rearrange his blankets so he's more thoroughly tucked in. She watches very closely and keeps a hand nearby in case this is over-optimistic, though. 

"Are you cold right now?" she asks him. "Any headache or dizziness?" Not that she trusts him to give her an accurate report of his status, but she might as well ask. 

"I'm a little dizzy? It's fine. I've fought while I was this dizzy before."

"Mistress Dath, can I put spices in the congee?"

“You would probably fight a lot better if when you noticed you were dizzy you ate and drank something.” Merrin says this with only the faintest tinge of exasperation making it through into her voice. 

To Wen Ning, “- Sure, I don’t see any problem? If they’re just normal cooking spices and not ones that have bizarre medicinal effects. And maybe don’t make it too spicy, it can irritate people’s stomachs, though I’m guessing he’s used to it?”

"He likes it so spicy no one else can eat it."

"Wimps."

"Ummm, can you maybe set some aside that isn't spicy, and if he keeps that down okay he can have the rest made the way he likes it?"

Merrin is very sympathetic to patients wanting to have food made the way they're familiar with and prefer, but she is also pretty sure that 'so spicy most people can't eat it' is not going to be gentle on this kid's already-abused digestive tract. He can have lots of the weird herbs tea too, maybe that will balance it out. 

"Make it all spicy, Ningning. --If you want me to eat you should let me have good food."