_____ C l a s s Q u e s t _____
A girl is brought in with an illness that the healer doesn't know what to do. Klaas throws things together and just tries to cope and figure out how to safe a life. He finds his magic.
Finding that body on the side of the road happened months ago. Since then he had been under the tutelage of the town healer. He learned he had the memory to make potions and but his timing needed work. He didn't get to work
with patients yet, but he read the notes that she'd left him.
“I feel like a stupid chef,” he muttered to himself. He was happy to work with potions, but he didn't feel like he was learning anything useful.
Well. Okay. He knew potions and ointments, salves, balms, and what not were important work to a healer, but she hadn't taught him how to tend to sword wounds. He wasn't taught how to sew up wounds yet. He wasn't even taught the proper way to check for a pulse. No, Klaas couldn't touch a patient at all, and it was getting very irritating to him.
The masked Oban figured she was keeping him out of sight. Who would trust a healer with scars they couldn't heal.
The bitter depression was getting to him. He stared at the pestle and mortar before him and just shook his head. He was making the same paste for the hundredth time this week. Klaas was so bored he could literally do this while napping.
It continued like this for a few months more.
One day, it changed. Maeri the healer came in with a little girl who was dangerously sick. She'd lost weight, her eyes looked sunken, black around them. The girl was soaked with sweat, her red hair sticking to dark skin. On her arms red spots. It looked like some form of pox.
“I don't know what it is,” the healer said frantically. “I've been treating her at her house, but she's gotten worse. Klaas, something for the fever. It's too high. We have...”
He'd never seen her so frantic before. Klaas readied the tub. He went back and forth to fill the pail with the coldest water he could find. “Here. In here.” He helped the healer lower the girl down into the tub and helped her head above the water. She shivered, she whined, she half screamed too. The girl was so delirious.
Klaas was scratched and even bit at. Nothing broke skin, but her nails did cut his sleeve once.
“These marks,” Klaas said, swallowing. “...They're.. they look like.. some kind of pox. Did ..you try--”
“Of course I did, Klaas!” She snapped at him.
The male ducked his head and just focused on feeling her skin to make sure the fever was going down. “Is it a brain fever?”
If it was, she'd start convulsing soon.
Unfortunately, Maeri didn't answer him. Instead, she was busy looking through books, trying to figure out what illness this was. More than likely it wasn't contagious, else someone else in her family would have it. The old woman just shook her head and ran a hand through her knotted hair.
It took almost a half-hour before the fever died down a little. The tub had been drained and re-filled three times to keep her cold enough. Finally Klaas lifted her from the tub and put her back on the patient bed in the middle of the healer's hut. From there, he applied a salve to the spots. He didn't know if they itched, if they hurt her, but they looked ready to burst and looked like it could cause infection if they didn't at least
try something.
“Should we… lance them?” His black brows knitting hard before licking his lips. There was no answer yet again. The healer didn't seem to know
what to do.
So Klaas didn't do anything. He sat beside the girl's bed, holding her hand and listened to her pained whimpering. He prayed to whoever was listening to watch over this little girl, to help her. Help Klaas
heal her.
It was hours later when Klaas lifted her head, offering water mixed with medication to her. She needed fluids. She was still feverish, still sweating, but not as bad. He hoped what he put into the water would help her fever come down. She gagged, almost threw it up, but he kept a hand on her mouth and told her to swallow it.
“Come on, sweet heart. I know it's bitter. Please. For your sake, just get it down.”
And she did, and Klaas rewarded her with a cool cloth to her forehead. “Thank you. You're such a good girl. Don't worry..” He looked to the healer who was working on something for her. “We'll make sure you get better. We have to get your fever down...”
Would they be able to save this girl? His eyes watered as he held her hand and just smoothed her hair back.
Come on, Klaas, think!
He looked over to the herbs he had and then got up. He started mixing things together. Fever reducer, swelling and pain reducer. He swallowed thickly as he continued to mash everything around in the bowl, adding some of the mixture he mixed in with her water.
The boils on the girls arms weren't growing or anything. They weren't reducing either.
“I think.. They need to be lanced,” he said, looking at the healer.
“I know,” Maeri whispered. “I've taught you how to do it? Do it. Heat the needle. Once...”
He stopped her and shook his hands. He knew. He was going to put this mixture on her wounds to get it into her faster.
It was a slow process. He had to check everywhere, getting every boil he could find. They weren't on the middle of her body yet. So he lanced, put the mixture on, bandaged, and just did it with every single boil. Over thirty of them over her limbs and neck. Her shoulders, too.
When he was done, Klaas rested his head on the bed next to her, exhausted and stiff from sitting still on a stool for so long.
He looked up when Maeri put hands on her and started to help the process along. “Try, Klaas. Try.” She sounded tired, too. She'd helped him. Made more mixture, changed needles for him, kept the candle hot and lit. She lifted the child, and fed let the girl squeeze and dig her nails into her arm. It came with being a healer. Her arms were littered with little half moons of nails.
So Klaas put his hands over the girl. He closed his eyes and tried to feel the magic within. He concentrated so hard sweat build up over his skin. A few minute later, his hands had a glow to them and that glow was going
into the girl just like Maeri's glow was.
“Ah,” Maeri said tiredly. “You are a healer yet...”
They did this for ten minutes before Klaas had nothing left to give. Exhausted, the pair of them changed her bandages one last time and slept for the night. Klaas stayed right beside her.
They did this treatment for three days, always pouring magic into her at the end.
It was working. Klaas's magic, Maeri's, and the combination of
everything he could think of was working.
On the fourth day the girl was strong enough to sit up. She was strong enough to complain about how thirsty she was and Maeri sent her on her with with instructions for her parents, along with the mixture.
Klaas had never once felt
this good about anything in his life.
He helped save a little girl. She'd now have a long life ahead of her.
Word count: 1261
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