Since getting shuffled into a bed at the inn yesterday, Wilhelm has spent most of his time asleep. Amid so much to be grateful for, his gratitude is steepest for the fact that his exhaustion is so complete that his sleep is dreamless. He closes his eyes and slips into a perfect emptiness. In the narrow hours that he's awake, he wolfs down bowls of stew and thick slabs of bread delivered by a small army of volunteers, and healers apply salves and magic to his wounds. Then there isn't much to do but stare out the window and try to keep his thoughts from slipping into shadows.

He's idly plunking out a song on an imaginary piano, fingers fluttering on the quilt pulled over him, when the knock at the door comes. He assumes it's a healer announcing their presence before striding in, until the familiar voice smacks him right in the chest. Wilhelm perks up.

"Come in!"

As uncharacteristically somber as Jesper is, the sight of him is it's own kind of medicine. And as dire as Wilhelm's state is, with almost every visible inch of skin wrapped in bandages, he looks much better than he did in that glimpse Jesper caught the day before. He's been bathed, scrubbed from head to toe — carefully, to avoid aggravating his wounds. His hair has been salvaged from the tangled, grimy mess it had become. The roots growing along his spine have been cut away, the fungus overtaking his skin pruned.

Still, he's too skinny. What concerns Wilhelm the most about his appearance, though, is the tragic attempt at a beard that's sprouted in patches over his jawline. He's scratching at it when Jesper steps into the room.

"Hey, Jes."

An anticlimactic greeting after a month apart, a month swollen and bruised with so many terrible things, but it's all he can come up with.