The man on the makeshift infirmary bed – just blankets laid on top of each other under an open sided tent, really – lay unmoving. Lainné closed her eyes, crushing a tear, the beginning of one.
As a healer you must learn to lose.
She gazed down at the lifeless body, chest wrapped in blood soaked bandages. Moving mechanically, she straightened his hair and his hands before pulling the white linen sheet to cover the dead man completely.
Sometimes you will not be fast or skilled enough…
To her right, a healer of the Dawn, with a face drawn and tight with exhaustion worked on another man – caked blood and dirt made it almost impossible to discern the seriousness of his wounds.
Sometimes you will simply fail.
She turned her head slightly to see a woman approaching, staggering awkwardly. She wore the colors of the Dawn as well, the silver rising sun over a dented breastplate. Leaning against one of the tent pillars she stared at the immobile form covered in white.
“He’s dead…” Sobs shook her shoulders convulsively, yet the woman’s eyes remained dried. “He’s dead”, she whispered again. “Told you not to go…not today…told you…Light, I’ve told you…”
Sometimes no one will answer to your prayers. You will ask for the mercy of Light and you will find none.
Lainné’s head turned ever so slowly towards the other side, taking in Eireannan’s tall silhouette, as he stood looking at her. Here was a certain fixity to his glare, yet his eyes were not cold. Not in their usual way, at least. His coat hang unbottonned, one sleeve in tatters and a long trace of char on the other. A shallow cut, a finger’s length, spanned his left cheek.
And other times, no matter how much you love someone, you will not be able to save them…
She walked to him. Her fingers felt frozen as she adjusted a rebel strand of hair and she almost stumbled twice. Her eyes were locked on his face and so she didn’t see exactly where she placed her feet.
Behind her the woman suddenly broke into tears, folding herself by the dead man’s side, forehead pressed against his chest. It was a pained sound, punctuated by sobs that made her entire frame heave.
“It could have been me”, Lainné said softly. Eireannan’s mouth tightened for a second, but then he nodded. She hadn’t said “it could have been you dead” – only that she could have been mourning…
There are trials awaiting to shatter your faith in the Light and make it crumble, for sometimes you will know pain and sorrow and evil – and be able to do nothing about it.
Heavily, she strode back to the wailing woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. Eireannan could not hear what she was whispering, only see the woman’s face lighten somehow.
He sighed. There had been tears in Lainné’s eyes when she came to him. Un-shed, like a wet mist yet nonetheless real. Seeing people die could – still - hurt her so easily.
He used to hope for the stillness of death. He doubted the Light kept in store any peace for him – yet maybe there would be quietness at last. He used to hope for it, and somehow dragging himself out of his bed for one more fight against the Scourge always seemed better than the hundred other opportunities to end his life available. It would not make his sin less..yet maybe the evil plaguing the world would be smaller.
He used to -…yet not anymore.
The thought was unsettling, as if he had discovered on the bottom of his pocket some old family heirloom he didn’t know he still possessed.
He could not make her cry.
But even when you feel lost, in the darkest of times, you must give hope.
