Chapter 16 - Aven

It's been a few weeks and we are moving from minor injuries to things that are a little more intense, the advanced training classes must be led by monsters of the highest caliber, People come in all the time from earth, and fire very rarely air and the only two people in water Elaxan and Titan's Crash. I think we have worked on increasing the severity of injuries, and my proficiencies with healing with water are second only to my instructors.

People in my class are struggling with the increasing complications of the injuries, and I have learned so much in comparison, combat, and non-combat alike. All bodies of humans, elf, dwarfs, fae and demon alike are made of a majority of water and the mushy parts are all bound to water. For example, our brains are surrounded and with water. Simply commanding the watery fluid to rip around in someone's skull is an instant way to kill someone, I would never do such a thing, and this technique unless necessary is forbidden by the water's decree. Water gives life and can take it, but all life needs it. Well off to class, I heard yesterday's training was especially brutal for fire.

Heat 3

The building's walls had begun sweating on the inside a few days ago the heat from the summer sun blazing at its highest peak of the year. Inside the building remains cool though only a minimal breeze can be felt through the narrow vertical cracks up the building's exterior that serve as its windows. Waiting in my medical garb, a simple black tunic, and pants, with a red apron for the front of it illuminated by the blue flame lanterns spread all through out the building. I can hear the carts they move severely injured trainees around on and the first form through the door is Lyka. His dark hair growing a little longer than when I met him now braided back through his scalp. His bound a Panther, its size and strength a cautious warning to those around Lyka that he was serious more often than not, followed alongside his gurney.

The cart was moved to me and the four other carts to my classmates. Looking down at his bare chest his muscles rippled between blood-soaked bandages that seemed to cover the majority of his body. His tattoos I can now see spread from a center point at the middle of his chest, to his arms and continues up and around his back to the base of his skull. I wonder what they mean to him, or his family. Now placing a thin blanket of water over his body I examine every inch of his body a groan of discomfort passes through his lips making me jump a bit. "Sorry, I will try to be a bit gentler with the process," I say to him, his eyes cracking open a hair at the sound of my voice. He smiles and groaning through the motion he nods his head.

The water passes over his body a bit more softly at my command, removing the bandages into it. Looking through the contact with the water in and out of his body allows me to see every inch of his body. His battle-worn muscles and his bruised stomach from repeat trauma, then to his . . . My face breaks into a made blaze and I have to check to see if my patient's flames were alighting on my face, it burned so profusely. His voice tired and worn says as playfully as he could, "Oh that's what this is, I promise that works just fine." A broken chuckle followed by coughing deep from his chest follows, and I have to step back up to the table and finish the examination. His legs next let's skip those parts, the muscle chorded like that of a dancer's strong and nimble grace his legs, but no apparent damage is done to them.

I step back from the table and place my hands in a bowl of water saturated with healing herbs and spices, saying, "Your body is hating you for the punishment you are putting it through, and the instructors are taking extra exceptional care of your internal organs they are all bruised." My hands leave the bowl of water, and it follows as it always does when I move around the element. As my eyes fix on Lyka again, I feel a pang of remorse, "This is going to hurt, and there isn't much I can do about that." He turns his head a fresh agony stretching across his face, "It's fine I already know not my first party with you guys." I feel a blush coming to my face and realize it is from the smile Lyka places on his face through the pain.

The water swirls around my hands and as I pull them apart placing one over his stomach and the other over his chest needles of the sharp water hit every injury simultaneously, the liquid returning stained with the red of Lyka's blood sets me on edge. He didn't scream though, he just gazed into the room past me his eyes glossed over falling unconscious. The dirty blood and debris from his wounds pulled out by the water in his wounds begin to pool in my palms and I feel the final piece of the rot break loose from an older cut I guess he has been nursing himself. I turn back to the bowl, and he lets out a gasp of relief from the water no longer cleansing his body.

"This isn't the worst part, and you are pretty beat up, it will take a little time for me to do it slowly, and I drop the pieces of flesh and rubble from his wounds into the bowl, his blood dripping out of the water with the motion. The pure herbal water back to its crystalline clarity, I press both hands to each surface injury the water sewing the flesh back together and removing the wear and tear from the muscle fibers. The water moving across his body left behind small pools of water in the grooves of his body. Stop getting distracted by him, or you might hurt him.

Lyka's arm rolls to the side of the table and almost falls off I use my hips to press it down to the table. The last two cuts and bruises on his chest go smoothly, as the first two did, the pain not prevalent on his unconscious face. I turn to my bowl to pull the blood from the balls of water surrounding my hands, and I feel his hand grasp at the back of my tunic. "Please don't go, this hurts and I need you to stay here to keep me calm," Lyka's voice filled the air behind me, and I felt a smile and the desert sunburst on to my face. "Don't worry I am not done, and I will be taking a while, to finish the healings," I reply to him pressing my arms out to the bowl the blood isolating from the water and falling into the bowl with a quiet plop. Turning back to Lyka the color had returned to his mostly black eyes, I wonder what happened to the green his eyes used to have before the choosing.

"Alright I'm going to do you organs now this will be the worst part and then it's just wrapping you in fresh bandages. A scream from another patient on the table splits the air in two, and a stone the size of my fist parts from her stomach, and blood seeps from the wound, the healer at her table quickly discards the stone and presses the water in their hands over the wound without fully cleaning it first. Two instructors step alongside to help her, and the trainee's face goes pale from shock as the team of three brings water to bare sewing flesh and reintroduces trauma to the horrendous wound. "That will scar, "I mumble almost too quietly for my ears to hear.

The battle we face here is not as simple as they face or as dangerous for us, but our actions can take lives just as quickly if we don't think. The young girl at the table across from me could lose her life on the table if the instructors weren't there to catch the simple mistake of the girl working the flesh and water at that table. My hand's rest over Lyka's stomach and his pained expression fades back to a neutral blur, and I continue with my work. The water creates a small pool around his belly button and I press the water into the divot in his flesh slicing cleanly through and into his abdomen, all of the water but a small trickle coming from my fingers fills in his abdomen, the cool water stirring between his organs, finding the bleeding holes and bruises around his liver and kidneys, the pooled blood pulled out of his gut finds its way to my fingertips, and I allow the water to repair the flesh, fixing the tiny tears and holes around his ribs and stomach. More blood pulls from his abdomen around my hands. The pain on his face becomes obvious to a point of agony as the water retreats from his organs, repaired to a point where they are stable and working properly. Pulling my hands up the dark black red of his gut's blood fills the gaps between my fingers.

The pain would have set anyone to yelling and hollering from the tops of their lungs but for me, I believe he held his pain to the best of his ability. The water gently rolling from my fingers taking the blood along with it slides through the air and back into the bowl. Small feedback of moving the muddied water, I lean on Lyka's table my back to him. His hand rests on the small of my back and his voice licks playfully at my ears, "See that wasn't so bad I didn't even scream, do I get a piece of candy now." I felt a chuckle roll in my stomach, and look over my shoulder simply saying to him, "Thank you."

The girl's screaming comes to a stop from the table across from me, they were able to repair the damage by the stone, and save her from the apprentice's mistake, good. Lyka's voice comes to me again making me look at him, those two seem pretty comfortable and nods his head toward our bound who are lazily sleeping next to each other in a pile of fur. "I guess so, but importantly, you are on two days of bed rest, you have three cracked ribs and two broken they are reset for now but take it easy on them, and I have done what I can for the cuts, but the other things will just take time. Doctor's orders." We share a chuckle, and a blush burns onto Lyka's face through his dark skin and sets mine to burning as well.