The Healers Hands (are the bloodiest)

Hello friends! I have a little something for you; I was going to write smut, and you’ll probably tell where in the story I tried to steer it in that direction, but it wasn’t happening. I think I’d like to build up some tension first, and it got me thinking. What if I made this short story into a prequel of sorts, where you can romance or get deeper into your previous relationship with Leith? Obviously nothing is custom in this little drabble, but it could be. I’m thinking of doing it from the healers origin as it allows for the most cozy setting, and it would be hilarious watching Leith purposefully or not so purposefully injure themselves just to spend more time at the clinic. A healer would also be in high demand, with the well claiming victims almost daily. What do you think? Please let me know! 

Also, I won’t slander my writing publicly, so I’ll say that this has potential that isn’t fully realized yet. My mind is all over the place (I got called for a showing of the apartment I’m hunting on Friday!! Yay!) and while writing this was so much fun and just what I needed to take my mind off of things, it doesn’t have the level of polish or prose that I want it to have. Yet. I would love to work on it, honestly. Make it a shorter IF, perhaps for hosted games depending on their policy on prequels/works connected to independent publishing… Let’s just say I am thoroughly considering it. This week I’ll also sit down with an earlier ouro renpy build, and depending on how well I can debug and run the tests on the laptop, I might just continue working on that. Either way, here’s a taste of what I’m thinking The Healers Hands (are the bloodiest) could be like. (It is very rough!!! Sorry!!) (Please let me know what you think of the prequel idea!)

The door opens with a pleasant jingle of the bell. Scents of dried herbs and medical ointments wash over him as he steps inside, the floor creaking under his dragging feet, and he clears his throat, his mouth dry as the parchment that litters every inch of the wall in the hallway. Handwritten notes, recipes, for patients to snag on their way out. She thinks of everything, and every one.

“Healer?” he croaks, and ducks beneath bouquets of lavender. A cluster of lilac flowers stick to his already mussed hair, but he doesn't bother to brush it off. If he moves his hand from his ribs, he will bleed all over the floor, and he knows from personal experience that getting the stain out of hardwood planks that are long overdue for oiling, is a nightmare to avoid. 

“Ah, healer?” He tries again, and carefully dings the bell on the front facing counter. It is laden with trinkets, but his eyes lands on a particular one; a porcelain cat with an eternally pleasant expression of bliss, with some kind of mechanic that allows it to wave its paw back and forth. He can't resist the temptation to flick the paw to make it sway. His brows fall deep over his eyes-- he shouldn’t have come here. Not to her, not in the middle of the night, not after what he said about her lips-- but the light was on. And he had nowhere to go, and nothing to stitch himself together again. 

“Leith? It's the middle of the night!”

Sin. She looks like sin. Her silk nightgown barely conceals what hides beneath, a thin shawl of cashmere slipping off her bare shoulders. He grits his teeth. “Hi.”

She steps towards him; he straightens too fast and the pang from his wound nearly buckles his knees. With harsh breaths, he grips the counter and glowers at the cat that waves, and waves. Anything to not linger too long on the flush on her cheeks, or her scent as she rushes towards him or-- heaven. Her cleavage, breast unbound beneath a slip of lace, sways right in front of his eyes as she grabs his shoulders to steady him. His eyes flick to hers, but he only grunts, words slipping off his tongue as his mouth fills with saliva. He loathes himself for the desire that roars through his system, for the imagery he can’t quite scrub from his mind.

“Leith, tell me what is going on. Are you hurt? Come, have a seat.” Her tender hand grips his wrist and she pulls him along to her personal office. Danger, danger. He feels her heat drift off his skin as she lets go to drag a large chair out of a corner, and he misses it like a tooth when she pats the cushion and then perches herself at the edge of her desk. Guilt already curbs his enthusiasm of seeing her. “I--” he starts, but never finishes. I did something bad, and you will kill me for it. 

She stares at him, pulling her bottom lip behind her teeth in that way that she does when she has a problem to solve. “You’ll have to speak eventually, or bleed out.” She glances at his pained posture, tapping her lip. “Though I am in need of cadavers…”

It teases a chuckle from him, a gruff one, enough to pull him out of his trance. “Sorry. Still dizzy from the poison,” he lies. The poison was out of his system with the second healing drought she made him, and he always carries at least six.  

“I got stabbed by one of the stingrays in the western forest,” he winces as he gauges her reaction. She hides her anger well. “I don’t have anything to use to stitch myself together, and I can barely reach the wound as it is.”

She draws a sharp breath, tenses up, and rolls her lips. “A mature one, or a pup?”

“Mature.” The wound wasn’t wide, but deep. A stab by a fully grown spine, not a slash by the soft cartilage the pups have. He tries for pity. “I was lucky it didn’t puncture my lung.”

Her expression shifts, concern knitting her brow as she examines him, gaze drifting over his every limb. The dim light of the floating lanterns flicker around them like a heartbeat. She pushes off the desk. Mercy.

“Why were you in their territory?” Her brow is quirked, challenging. 

He knows, that she knows-- he was looking for the rare orchid she complained about not having but also explicitly forbade him to look for. Leith has the decency to look away, more so for being ashamed that he crushed the specimens he did find, leaking their milk, rendering them useless.

“Just wandering?” He mumbles. She crosses her arms, muttering something under her breath, shaking her head. 

Her words stop abruptly and she takes two wide steps to reach him. Good grief, he thinks, as she places her hands on the sides of his face and tilts it forward, towards her chest. He closes his eyes, and grits his teeth. She smells so good.

“You walked right through my lavender.” 

“You think I’m an idiot?” Leith tilts his head back up and looks at her through his lashes. For a second, she stops untangling the fragile flowers from his scalp, and just looks at him, her eyes swirling with something he rather not name, not yet. Not ever. He could almost fool himself that she looks wistful-- hopeful-- but then she heaves a sigh and tugs on his ear like a sister would a bothersome brother. 

“I just wish you wouldn’t put yourself in so much danger, least of all for me-- Leith. Look at me.” She tilts his chin just so to force his gaze to hers. He shivers at the rightness of it. “Those flowers, the paphiopedilum, I can substitute them with a simple dandelion root.”

“But it isn’t as effective, and you said Mina’s fever won’t come down.”

“I know what I said, but you can’t kill yourself over--”

“She is just a child.”

A darkness falls over her eyes and she hisses, “You think I don’t know that? I am the one spending my days at her bedside! I can’t do my job properly if I’m constantly worried about you, and with the recent missions you have been going on with Ida, I do enough of that already!”

Silence engulfs them like a gust of wind snuffing out a candle. Her grandfather's clock ticks loudly, too loudly, from the corner. He needs to reel it back or they will end up bickering in circles.

“You worry about me,” he tries, smirking. When she doesn’t reply, he pokes a finger into her ribs, and she squirms. In a moment of forgetfulness, his pain hidden by the warmth of her caring, his hand lets go of the wound and he places both of his hands on her waist, turning her, looking up at her. “I’m sorry, <name>. I couldn’t help myself. It was right there.” I searched all day for it.

His blood blooms on the silk, and he snatches his hand away, and immediately the pain rushes back so intensely that his vision blurs.

“Oh, fuck,” she squeaks. “I’m sorry-- I-- I am sorry. Come on, let's get you stitched up.” She rushes away, keeps speaking. “I have my cot in the next room. I hope you didn’t go to the baths before coming here, with a wound that deep--” her frantic voice trails off as she wanders into the next room. He hears her slippers drag against the floor, her voice still humming about the wound, how his recklessness will be the death of both him, and her.

He hesitates, caught between the ache in his ribs and the intoxicating pull of her presence; he didn’t plan on getting out of the chair before getting dosed with some anesthesia. When the faucet starts to sputter next door, he sends a silent thanks to skyward for the cover of sound as he struggles to stand. The damn spine must have hit something sensitive, because the pang of pain from getting up nearly puts him on his knees. He muffles his anguish with a fist between his teeth.

“That bad?” She peeks out from the doorframe, hands in the air and covered in soap, a ringlet of hair falling from behind her ear as she cocks her head. He imagines twining it around his finger. “You should have told me.”

Another grunt, but he braves a smile. “I’m telling you now. You know I wouldn’t bother you otherwise.” Even though I want to.

“Aw, and here I thought you just wanted to see me…” Her pout is lethal. 

His hand automatically reaches down to adjust himself thoughtlessly, but he stops himself halfway, with a heady growl, and when he remembers where he is, he stumbles on his words. He winces. Fool. “Sorry, the pain--”

“Yeah, that. Uhh-- Come on.”  

Did he imagine it, or was she squirming too? He follows her deeper into the clinic, his wide shoulders nearly touching both sides of the narrow hallway. He can’t help but admire the way the silken fabric of her gown glides against her skin, slicked stuck on the side he plastered his own handprint in blood. Something primal roars to life inside him. For fucks sake. He lets loose a string of curses internally, biting his tongue to keep from growling again. If he had any blood left, it would go straight to his cock. Snorting with self derision, his thoughts thunder. My mind slithered out along all that blood, surely.

Thankfully, his train of thought is interrupted as he enters the surgery and is greeted with the grotesque tools of the trade. Pliers, saws, needles and scissors clutter various antiseptic trays. A tied sack filled with bloodied cloths stand in the corner, and a large metal cot rests in the center of the room, a cluster of floating lanterns hovering above it. 

She returns with a small leather bag, setting it down on the desk with a practiced flick of her wrist. She takes out a pair of fabric scissors, and puts on her glasses. “Lay down. You’ll lose the shirt, I’m afraid.”

He grunts and groans and hisses from the cold as he maneuvers himself down onto the cot, laying on his side. She is quick with the scissors, all business now, tearing the fabric and revealing the angry red wound that mars his side. Her breath catches, her fingers hovering just above his skin. 

“That’s worse than you gave off,” she murmurs, heat radiating from her breath. She leans over to look at him, her eyes drooping with worry. “Even with your pitiful sighs.”

“Is that your way of telling me I’m going to die?” His smile falters under the pain that flares up like a wildfire through his body.

“You might wish you did.” She moves closer, her nose nearly dipping into the wound, her breath washing over it. Gently, she prods the skin around the gash. “There is something still in there. I need to get it out before we stitch it together. Yes?” 

Leith nods, his throat working as he swallows and gulps audibly, theatrically. “Anything you say, doc.” 

“If you’d listen to what I say, we wouldn’t be here in the first place,” she tugs his hair, then gathers it into a cord, slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll apply some anesthetic cream around and I’ll try to get some as deep as I can into the wound, but it won’t go all the way through-- the application will hurt. I’m sorry, but the next batch is being boiled as we speak. I don’t have enough to do it intravenously. You think you’ll make it?” 

She wanders off and he takes a deep breath, whining pitifully on the exhale. “Promise to kiss it better afterwards?”

She retrieves her tools—a glinting needle and thread that catches the soft light, a pair of monstrous pliers, and a small jar of salve. She takes the lid off, and scowls at him. “Leith.”

He blinks, angelically, but the sweat on his brow kind of kills the image he is trying to project.

She motions for him to lay back down, sighing. “Damn fool. Lay still.”

“I’ll try.” He can’t help the grin that creeps up his face despite the pain. If she’s scolding him, at least they’re alright. It’s her worry that scares him. “I’ve been known to squirm a bit when someone’s penetrating me.”

A smile dances on her lips, breaking the tension for a precious second. “Menace.” 

She dips her finger into the salve and sets to work, fingers brushing so gently against his skin he sighs from sheer relief as the salve begins to work.

The first dip of her finger into the wound makes him flinch, a sharp gasp escaping his lips, his vision going white. “You could warn me next time,” he grits out. 

“Sorry,” she quips, but doesn’t look up. Her fingers smooth around the wound, featherlight and firm in tandem, warming the skin, working the salve in deeper. “Just breathe, Leith. You don’t have to hide your pain. There is less of it without the anticipation.”

The room fills with a strange kind of intimacy, the silence punctuated only by the soft sounds of her movements and his labored breathing. He focuses his gaze on the warped reflection of her on a piece of polished metal, entranced by her shape, her presence, the warmth that seeps from her body. Her hands are like streams, he muses, smoothing the edges of jagged stone, filing the pain down with every careful, slow, caress.

“I’m sorry for not getting you the papiopapli flower,” he says, breaking the stillness. 

“Don’t be silly.” She grabs something off the tray, rattling the metal. “ Breathe out, and hold your breath.” 

He does, and the second his lips seal, she plunges the pliers into his wound with precision, pinches, and pulls out a long spine that was wedged in there, tossing both it and the pliers onto a tray and pressing a compress against the welling of blood that now seeps from the wound, all before he gasps for breath. “And it’s called paphiopedilum. Pa-phi-o-pedelium. Say it for me?”

He feels like crying, taking in air again. But he tries. "Paphiopedilum."

“Good! No punctured lung. Are you alright?”

He grunts. “Be honest. It would help Mina. Wouldn’t it?”

She pauses, looking up at him with an intensity that almost takes his breath away yet again. “Immensely. But I won’t see you killed over it. I have plenty of other cures for the well-fever.”

Leith breathes deeply, gritting out his words through a different sort of pain. “Her parents will be jailed for what they did. No child deserves that grim of a life.”

Her shoulders slump, ever so little, enough for him to notice. She sighs, continues her work; disinfecting the needle, spooling the thread. But he notices the way her face pinches with rage. She speaks, quietly, as she threads the needle against the light. “That well is nothing but trouble. It won’t end well. They need to secure it, not invite more dignitaries. It’s a joke.”

Leith can’t do anything but hum in agreement. As a mercenary for the druids, he chases the spilling knowledge about the magical powers of the well through all corners of the earth, and snuffs it out before it gets too far. He knows the inherent danger of immortality, and the greed that surrounds it. But there is nothing to be done, not on an individual level, that would solve their problem. Every inhabitant in Riven is just part of a larger machinery, of rules as old as the myths and legends of creation, and if one sticks out, all hell breaks loose; it would all fall apart.

The healer pinches his wound. The needle goes in. He hisses, both from the anticipated pain that never arrives, and from the cruel pain of injustice. They remain silent as she sews his wound, the quiet a friend, the night pressing in from outside. On his tongue he rolls a confession, a question, a plea. He opens his mouth-- and she announces that she is done with a snip of her scissors. 

“There! As good as new.” She rises from her rolling chair, pushing it to a corner with her foot. She walks over to a shelf that covers the entire wall, and climbs up the rolling ladder to the top. Even though she stands on the last rung, her fingertips barely graze the bottle she tries to topple into her palm. She huffs, blowing her fringe out the way, and Leith silently pounces with worry, ready to catch her if she falls. When she falls. He really should fix a better storage for her.

She finally tips the bottle into her waiting hand, and turns on the ladder to find Leith’s nose level with her navel. She sways, and he grabs her hips. 

“Oh. Sorry.”

Lifts her down, frowns. “Who’s gonna fix you if you break?”

Skeptical, she waves him off. “Take this. Go to the baths, and drink this after. It will make you sleep like the dead, so not in the bath. Yes?”

He grasps the bottle from her outstretched hand, studies the label of her intelligible writing, understanding nothing. “Not in the bath,” because that’s all that matters. “Got it.”

“Now you have to go, straight to the baths. Bathe for at least an hour, let it truly soak. Do not poke the wound, or the stitches will fail.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, following her down the hallway, stopping as she turns and tosses a linen shirt at him.

“Do not. Poke. The wound.” 

He carefully works it over his head and replies, “Just a little?”

She growls, points a finger like one does at an unruly pup. “No. And bring that shirt back. Everyone always steals my patient clothes.”

He understands why. She washes them so thoroughly, they feel like a silken caress even though it is made out of rough flax. It smells like her.

They reach the door, and he turns towards her to say goodbye. Backlit by the warmth of her clinic, she looks like a-- “You’re a saint,” he says, and brings her hand to his lips; but he only kisses the air above her fingers. He doesn’t miss the way she shivers.

“Some day, we will fix it.” He smiles, fighting the urge to tug her close. He lets go of her hand instead. “The well, I mean.”

She laughs, acquiesces with an exhaled sure and pushes him across the threshold. “And you’re saying we’ll be alive to see it?”

“We’ll be alive to see it.” He lingers, unsure of what to say, but loathe to leave. He studies her face, how her hair twirls in the midnight breeze. 

She bites her lip, and half-closes the door, her expression tender. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Leith.” She kisses her fingers and presses them to his chest, just above his heart, pushing him off with a finality he can’t argue against. 

“For you,” he mumbles to the closed door, and walks off into the misty streets with his heart in a tangle, “I’d defy death itself.”

[For the chapter 2 start, in the healers (yours) perspective, you wake to find the shirt on your doorstep, and bundled inside, a bunch of pristine paphiopedilum.]