Chapter 7 : Clinic

Location Southern Healing Clinic, Waterless Shore, Blue Wave Territory
Time Warming (Morning) 1630 hours (48 ¹/2 hours before dusk)

The clinic was quiet, with only a young man with a bandaged hand and a young woman with a crying child waiting to see Telvra. Maiho went straight to the consulting room where she had left Bardre. She was surprised to find Nargre, Bardre and Jetrel huddled together naked on the rather small bed.

Nargre looked at her with hostility. “What have you done to her? And where have you been?”

“Get up off the bed, and let me examine her so we can find out,” ordered Maiho.

“You have made her into a freak,” complained Nargre, slipping off the bed and standing with arms crossed under her small breasts pushing them up. Nargre was almost as tall as spidery Bardre, but with a longer torso and shorter limbs which were toned and athletic. Her hair was short but not as closely cropped as Bardre’s and the colour of her hair and patterns were a blue-green that was darker and bluer than Bardre’s patterns had been.

However Bardre had changed since Maiho had seen her last. Her hair was now brown with silver threads running through it. Maiho had never seen silver hair. Most of the aquamarine patterns had disappeared and been replaced with brilliant blue patterns on her stomach and side plus one lonely pattern on her leg right where Maiho had been touching her when Wendam had brought her to orgasm.

“What did you do to her?” repeated Nargre.

Maiho reached out and touched Bardre on her patterns. She hummed, extending her senses, assessing Bardre’s condition. “I tried to give her more colour around her wound, unfortunately it seems to have taken the colour from the rest of her body.”

“You did this on purpose! This will destroy her life. She can’t be seen looking like this.”

“I will attempt to restore her normal colour once she has healed,” said Maiho endeavoring to stay calm and reasonable. “Has she woken?”

“For about half an hour then she went back to sleep.” replied Nargre. “If you don’t fix this I will beat you to within a finger width of your life.”

“Stop harassing the poor girl,” cautioned Jetrel, raising his head from behind Bardre. “Bardre ordered you to leave her alone.”

“Did she eat?” asked Maiho.

“Yes, Laivo gave her some tube worm soup. She had quite the appetite,” said Jetrel. “You will fix her appearance, won’t you? She will be quite upset when she gets hold of a mirror.”

“I have had some success in moving colour from one part of the body to another. So I should be able to improve matters,” stated Maiho. “How quickly did the change take place?”

“Slowly over the course of a couple of hours,” said Nargre.

“Your mother was quite useless. We called her in to ask her why Bardre’s colour was changing and she muttered something about people from the Shambles and fled,” complained Jetrel.

“She seems to be healing nicely,” said Maiho. “Fetch me when she wakes up again. Make sure she gets plenty of water and food, and make sure she doesn’t overexert herself.” Maiho gave Nargre and Jetrel her best Healer’s stern look.

“She didn’t exert herself too much,” smirked Jetrel in a way that was totally at odds with her previous perception of the mild mannered Sword Instructor.

“You aren’t going to just leave her like this, are you?” objected Nargre.

“The extra colour around her wound is helping her heal. I am not going to mess with it until she is feeling better,” stated Maiho.

“She was energetic and perky enough before. I’d say she’s healed,” argued Nargre.

“She became tired very quickly, and have you ever known her to fall asleep like this in the middle of the wake portion of the sleep cycle?” asked Jetrel.

“You can talk about this among yourselves, I will check back in an hour,” said Maiho exiting the consulting room.

“Hey! You come back here!”

“Leave it Nargre, let her go.”

Escaping from the room Maiho collapsed on a chair in the waiting room. The girl with the baby had gone into the temple leaving the man with the damaged hand as the last patient.

“You look as if a war Artificia trampled you,” said a voice behind her.

“It has been a tough morning, Laivo.”

“With Bardre?” asked the beautiful healer caste girl as she sat down next to Maiho. Maiho’s best friend Laivo took after her mother, Pelfra. She was slightly taller than Maiho and had a fuller figure with large aureoles. Her patterns and long thick hair were bright blue. She was toned but not as athletic as her friend.

“And Nargre, but mainly Kernan. I kind of left our relationship out in the sunlight,” said Maiho.

“That bad huh! So what did he do to push you over the edge?”

“He kept on stealing my message crystals.”

“No, really! What did he do?” asked Laivo.

“My decision to leave Kernan out of our little trip next waking, has been bothering me. How can I be with someone, when I can’t trust them enough, to share the most important parts of my life?”

“You can’t. Goodbye and good riddance.”

“Laivo! Don’t just agree with me,” complained Maiho. An old woman walked into the clinic and went over to Laivo’s mother at the greeting desk.

“What am I supposed to do? You don’t need that fool. Just get rid of him.”

“But I do need him. With my special needs I don’t think I can be without a boyfriend.”

“There are other people who would appreciate being given the chance to keep you happy,” urged Laivo. The old woman took a seat opposite and smiled at them.

“I have never been with anyone other than Kernan.”

“Really! Aren’t you forgetting -”

“Other than fooling around with you and Wendam.” Maiho corrected herself dismissively. “Who would I be with instead? Flerhan who spat at me and tried to push me when we were 11? Bozzak who -”

“Don’t go through the entire list. You will only make yourself angry and you are quite intolerable when you’re angry. You will bear a grudge to the grave. You need to be more forgiving for Naedri’s sake.”

“I need to be less forgiving.” she stated darkly. Her eyes shifted to the inner temple doors as the girl exited them carrying a much happier baby.

“Don’t be that way,” Laivo said taking Maiho’s face in her hands and forcing her to look her in the eyes. “Wendam and I will take care of you.”

“I can’t just borrow Wendam every time I need him. It would be outright theft. You would never get to see him,” objected Maiho.

Laivo snorted. “That won’t be a problem,” she said with a sly smile.

“It’s getting worse and worse. I no sooner get rid of one lot of crystal energy when I start to build up another.” Maiho mood was turning morose.

“You are very tame compared to Viune. You should read some of the things my grandmother wrote about her.”

“Did you know about Bardre, Nargre and Jetrel?” asked Maiho, curiosity getting the better of her.

“Not really. There were some rumors, speculation really. They have kept it quiet.”

“How did they do that?” asked Maiho, in exasperation. “I can’t do anything without it being all around the village in half an hour and Kernan can’t scratch his rear end without at least three people coming up to me and telling me all about it in that, oh so concerned tone of voice, that makes me want to shove their teeth down their throat.”

“Neither you nor Kernan are very good at sneaking,” remarked Laivo.

“I think I was too rough with Kernan. He’s only doing what he thinks is right.”

“Why is Kernan the only person you have no trouble forgiving?”

“I tried to make him see that the way the villages were run left a lot to be desired and blindly following their policies was not the best thing to do,” said Maiho.

“You’ve never forgiven them for Veuto’s death have you?”

“Veuto wasn’t the only one we lost. The problems with the Reborn have dragged on too long and they keep doing the same things over and over to try to solve it. The Reborn at least have the excuse that they can’t remember experiences from one life to the next,” replied Maiho, her eyes regaining that spark of determination. “But that wasn’t what I was talking about. As I was telling Kernan off, I realised that I was just as guilty as he was. I have been so focused on the Reborn that I have been missing other opportunities to do good. I have been thinking too small.”

“You have had another one of your big ideas,” exclaimed Laivo in alarm. “And you are going to charge full stride ahead like a rampaging War Artificia, trampling everyone in your path.”

“This will work. You haven’t even heard my idea.”

“Remember your idea about how to catch more mana by stringing webtree cloth between shard crabs?”

“That was a problem with coordination we just needed more practice.”

“What about time you decided to breed night rabbits?” asked Laivo.

“We just needed better cages.”

“What about the time -”

“Enough already. Maybe the execution of some of my ideas has left a little to be desired, but most of them were good ideas,” asserted Maiho.

“Humm.”

“We had lunch with Song Master Huglek this predawn.”

“How was the old curmudgeon?” asked Laivo.

“Happy.”

“Really? When he was teaching us singing, he never smiled once.”

“He has a new young wife and he looks about 40 hundred-days now,” said Maiho.

“He’s a source now?”

“It would be all that singing in the classroom I would say.”

“That old hypocrite!” Laivo accused. “He condemned your Aunt Viune for her unnatural youth saying that she consorted with sun demons,” commented Laivo.

“He seems to have had a change of heart.”

“I bet he has. Why did you meet with that old fool anyway?”

“I wanted his advice on how to deal with Kernan, and I wanted to show Kernan it wasn’t just me, that there were others like me. Instead he warned me about Kernan, and started lecturing me about politics, saying how evil the different singer factions were, and how they were not to be trusted,” said Maiho.

“Still angry about how Logwan stole his job by murdering Song Master Theunis?”

“Laivo, you are too young to be that cynical.”

“You are too old to be that naive. And if even Huglek can tell Kernan is bad for you doesn’t that tell you something,” said Laivo.

“It’s a moot point. After what I said to him, I doubt that Kernan will want to have anything to do with me.

“No, you won’t get rid of that cave slug so easily.”

“There was another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Did Wendam talk to you about what I discovered about singing and fertility?” asked Maiho. She felt a faint pressure; someone was trying to take over a crystal that she controlled. “Sorry Laivo, I need to be quiet for a few ticks.” she said before Laivo had a chance to answer.