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Pain. Noise and pain and fear and fire and –
Abbie forced herself to sit up, forced her mind into military discipline as she took in the scene. Screaming. Blood, so much blood. The – cannonball? Was that it? Or something bigger? had ripped raw gouges out of the earth, torn apart fences and tents, and left broken humanoid carnage in its wake.
The detached part of her mind followed its track and realized she had only been glanced by – whatever it was. She was lucky, if you could call the crushed knee that persisted in screaming for her attention “luck.” Her eye stung; only after she wiped it did she realize that what she’d thought was sweat was blood, pouring from a head wound she hadn’t even noticed over the roar of her knee’s pain.
She grimaced. Every healing spell she wasted on herself was one young man or woman who wouldn’t come home, but when she tried to crawl to the nearest injured man her body betrayed her, waves of pain causing her vision to flicker as her legs simply refused to move. Muttering curses she hoped her goddess would forgive her for later, she stripped her shirt and wrapped it around her head to keep the blood out of her eyes, then cast the simplest cure spell she could on her leg. There. It hurt, goddess it hurt, but it worked. Rising to her feet, she scrambled towards the nearest broken body and began her work.
She reached for the brace before her eyes even opened. If the dream hadn’t warned her, the raindrops she could hear pinging off the roof of the temple would have.
She strapped it on with practiced ease, tightening the straps until she felt confident she could walk, if not without pain, then at least without limping. Goddess bless that gnome. She didn’t need the brace often, but when she did her fellow cleric’s careful craftmanship was, quite literally, a godsend.
She dressed quickly after that. Then morning ablutions, quick prayers of gratitude to Yondalla for the new day and the healing rain – even as it caused old war injuries to twinge – and a breakfast of bread, fruit, and tea brought to her room by one of the acolytes. Then Sister Abbie Silvergrass, Head Abbess of the Brilight Temple to Yondalla, emerged from her rooms to start her day.
In the courtyard a half-orc roared when he saw her, bringing twin blades up into an attack stance. Abbie raised a cup of steaming tea to return the greeting and leaned against a tree, watching the half-naked man continue through his morning practice with an appreciation wholly devoid of lust. Father Rik might have grown children of his own, but Abbie was still old enough to be his mother, and still remembered when the strapping paladin was just a scrawny youth: eager to serve the goddess whose temple had raised him, and ready to dart off in a dozen different directions to discover what his calling actually was.
She hadn’t made a very good surrogate mother then, she recalled with a twinge of regret. She was still bitter about being discharged from the army; sure, they had made all the right noises about honor and gratitude, and had pinned all the right medals on her, but the bottom line was this: no matter her healing skill, magical or otherwise, and no matter her loyalty or years of service, a woman with a trick knee was a liability as a medic. An asset you can’t rely on in a pinch is no asset at all; Abbie had understood, and had hated it anyway. Back then, she’d seen her position at the temple as a sinecure, a cushy reward to bribe her into being retired without a fight, and her bitterness had colored everything. Even her relationship with a young and hopeful paladin-to-be.
Still, it had all turned out well in the end. Even sabotage from her own worst instincts hadn’t entirely kept her from taking care of the boy – a good thing, too, as he was now one of the temple’s best assets. She grinned as he let out another battlecry. The rain kept the children at home and indoors, but in better weather Father Rik attracted a crowd of little ones eager to scream in feigned fright when he pretended to be fierce.
With a sigh, she moved on. No time to dally; it was the end of the month, which meant the temple finances had to be squared, and she’d learned from painful experience that while the new assistant she’d hired was brilliant at juggling appointments, he had no head for numbers. After that, she had a meeting with the heads of the Ehlonna and Osprem temples, and the Pelorite Sun Festival had brought an unprecedented number of worshippers into the city. Their high priest had asked for her help in housing the pilgrims that his temple couldn’t handle, and in what must have been a fit of madness she’d agreed, so acolytes would have to be organized to do everything from preparing the pilgrimage rooms to adjusting the kitchen’s food budget to handle the influx.
And she still had to meet each of the new clerical recruits personally, and at four bells she had a class to teach on the balance of life and death in the universe, and somewhere in there she still had to finish writing the sermon for the upcoming ritual and service, and by young Nicara’s frantic gestures Lord Koriellen was in her office again, demanding she explain again why his son refused to be resurrected when he’d paid good gold for the service, and if she answered truthfully - “you are obnoxious and his soul is probably glad to be rid of you” – he would withhold his funding from the temple next year, which would require going over the budget again –
For a brief moment she thought wistfully of the simplicity and clarity of a battlefield. Go where the screams are loudest. Heal what’s hurt. Fix what’s broken. Let the officers worry about the rest.
Sweet Lady, why did I ever think this job would be easy?
Abbie forced herself to sit up, forced her mind into military discipline as she took in the scene. Screaming. Blood, so much blood. The – cannonball? Was that it? Or something bigger? had ripped raw gouges out of the earth, torn apart fences and tents, and left broken humanoid carnage in its wake.
The detached part of her mind followed its track and realized she had only been glanced by – whatever it was. She was lucky, if you could call the crushed knee that persisted in screaming for her attention “luck.” Her eye stung; only after she wiped it did she realize that what she’d thought was sweat was blood, pouring from a head wound she hadn’t even noticed over the roar of her knee’s pain.
She grimaced. Every healing spell she wasted on herself was one young man or woman who wouldn’t come home, but when she tried to crawl to the nearest injured man her body betrayed her, waves of pain causing her vision to flicker as her legs simply refused to move. Muttering curses she hoped her goddess would forgive her for later, she stripped her shirt and wrapped it around her head to keep the blood out of her eyes, then cast the simplest cure spell she could on her leg. There. It hurt, goddess it hurt, but it worked. Rising to her feet, she scrambled towards the nearest broken body and began her work.
She reached for the brace before her eyes even opened. If the dream hadn’t warned her, the raindrops she could hear pinging off the roof of the temple would have.
She strapped it on with practiced ease, tightening the straps until she felt confident she could walk, if not without pain, then at least without limping. Goddess bless that gnome. She didn’t need the brace often, but when she did her fellow cleric’s careful craftmanship was, quite literally, a godsend.
She dressed quickly after that. Then morning ablutions, quick prayers of gratitude to Yondalla for the new day and the healing rain – even as it caused old war injuries to twinge – and a breakfast of bread, fruit, and tea brought to her room by one of the acolytes. Then Sister Abbie Silvergrass, Head Abbess of the Brilight Temple to Yondalla, emerged from her rooms to start her day.
In the courtyard a half-orc roared when he saw her, bringing twin blades up into an attack stance. Abbie raised a cup of steaming tea to return the greeting and leaned against a tree, watching the half-naked man continue through his morning practice with an appreciation wholly devoid of lust. Father Rik might have grown children of his own, but Abbie was still old enough to be his mother, and still remembered when the strapping paladin was just a scrawny youth: eager to serve the goddess whose temple had raised him, and ready to dart off in a dozen different directions to discover what his calling actually was.
She hadn’t made a very good surrogate mother then, she recalled with a twinge of regret. She was still bitter about being discharged from the army; sure, they had made all the right noises about honor and gratitude, and had pinned all the right medals on her, but the bottom line was this: no matter her healing skill, magical or otherwise, and no matter her loyalty or years of service, a woman with a trick knee was a liability as a medic. An asset you can’t rely on in a pinch is no asset at all; Abbie had understood, and had hated it anyway. Back then, she’d seen her position at the temple as a sinecure, a cushy reward to bribe her into being retired without a fight, and her bitterness had colored everything. Even her relationship with a young and hopeful paladin-to-be.
Still, it had all turned out well in the end. Even sabotage from her own worst instincts hadn’t entirely kept her from taking care of the boy – a good thing, too, as he was now one of the temple’s best assets. She grinned as he let out another battlecry. The rain kept the children at home and indoors, but in better weather Father Rik attracted a crowd of little ones eager to scream in feigned fright when he pretended to be fierce.
With a sigh, she moved on. No time to dally; it was the end of the month, which meant the temple finances had to be squared, and she’d learned from painful experience that while the new assistant she’d hired was brilliant at juggling appointments, he had no head for numbers. After that, she had a meeting with the heads of the Ehlonna and Osprem temples, and the Pelorite Sun Festival had brought an unprecedented number of worshippers into the city. Their high priest had asked for her help in housing the pilgrims that his temple couldn’t handle, and in what must have been a fit of madness she’d agreed, so acolytes would have to be organized to do everything from preparing the pilgrimage rooms to adjusting the kitchen’s food budget to handle the influx.
And she still had to meet each of the new clerical recruits personally, and at four bells she had a class to teach on the balance of life and death in the universe, and somewhere in there she still had to finish writing the sermon for the upcoming ritual and service, and by young Nicara’s frantic gestures Lord Koriellen was in her office again, demanding she explain again why his son refused to be resurrected when he’d paid good gold for the service, and if she answered truthfully - “you are obnoxious and his soul is probably glad to be rid of you” – he would withhold his funding from the temple next year, which would require going over the budget again –
For a brief moment she thought wistfully of the simplicity and clarity of a battlefield. Go where the screams are loudest. Heal what’s hurt. Fix what’s broken. Let the officers worry about the rest.
Sweet Lady, why did I ever think this job would be easy?
