Life Tying

You're my brother, my best friend. How could you think I'd abandon you? "To the end," remember?

Life tying is a technique that exploits a favor of Greer, the deity of trade and commerce, which involves the exchange of years in one person's life to another in order to create a balanced lifespan between the two individuals.
As two brothers, Allo and Bap, traveled to visit their sister for the midwinter celebrations, they stumbled between a bear and her cub. Bap froze, but Allo, fearing for his brother, leapt between the animal and his kin, pushing him back as he scared the beast off. In the flurry, Allo took several swipes to the gut. The injuries were agonizing, and he begged for Bap to kill him and get far away from the area. Bap, a merchant by trade, grasped his symbol of Greer and called to the deity, offering an exchange for his life for his brother who had protected him. Upon his brothers continued wailing, Bap begged, calling for any trade to help his brother.
Still, no help came. Bap fell to his knees next to his brother and for a moment grasped his dagger, hand shaking. He grasped the symbol one last time, calling for Greer to show his mercy, and promised to sweeten the trade by expanding his altar and increasing his donations to Greer's temple.
A bright flash blinded him, and then a great darkness fell.
When the brothers awoke, Allo was healed, if quite sore, and Bap remained breathing. In the base of his soul, he could read the receipt of his exchange--half of his remaining years had been cast away and sent to his brother, in exchange for his devotion and donations.
Although the brothers agreed to not speak of the event, fearing desperate people seeking them out to live a little longer, Allo was a drinker. One night, tipsy from sweet wine and humid summer air, he told a healer in hushed words of what had conspired. This healer, Tzo'ga of the Exphil tribe, wrote of this technique in their seminal work "Healing Outside of Temples: Folk Healing, Secular Medicine, and Acts of Divinity."