Legend of Ransera

First Star I See Tonight

In her dreams, the stars sang to her—lullabies, paeans, melodies rhapsodical and fair. When her pragmatic waking mind dove under the surface of consciousness, she was more herself, more Herself, the goddess she was slowly, inexorably becoming. Prayers came to her these days, most days, minor things, praise and thankfulness that buoyed her. When prayers came from the west, however, they skewed later because of how Ransera spun about herself within the grasp of the Star's embrace like a dancer spun by her partner. The Star, the Sun, would never let Ransera go, would burn her before the end, before the Star retreated into itself, collapsing in on itself, ages from now. Life might not even exist on its surface at that point. Even in her dreams, Kala didn't know.

Star mother...

Her womb had borne no children, though she had begun to consider motherhood. Under normal circumstances, she was too young, but now she was, perhaps, immortal, and who knew how long it would take to master the draconic tongue such that she could unlock Garel's grimoire? Motherhood was a shorter path to Avialae who could fly no matter what they had between their legs.

Star mother...

Not repeated, but resonating. She woke. She woke, moving through space in a way she didn't understand. She had no Rune of Traversion, but sometimes, when there was need, when the faithful called, she could answer them in the flesh. She didn't control this power, not yet, but it was within her. She flew without her wings, and before she arrived, she knew it was Freya calling, the dragonborn seer, an outlier, a single person who had recognized her divinity in the wilds.

Dragon daughter...

Kala was there, somewhere in Gelerand, perhaps. What was distance to a star? What were maps upon the surface of a rock so small that the star might hardly notice it?

You call, I am here.

She looked past the seer, to what the seer was seeing, and her breath caught. A Kathar lay beneath her and Kala felt Naori's Purpose sing within her.

"I was asleep," she admitted, her voice resolving into something more mundane. She was there, but she almost seemed spun out of starlight. "Answering prayers is still new to me, and while you weren't exactly praying, I could sense your need. And so I am here."

But she was also quick to kneel beside the fallen Kathar. Still while Freya examined him, she began her own examination once Freya was done. Kala had been trained at the Tranquil Gardens, and while she had not taken the trials to become a licensed healer or surgeon, she did have quite a bit of skill. Her examination was augmented by her sembling, and that was augmented in strange ways by what she could only assume was the growing divinity within her. Perhaps someday she would be able to lay her hands upon a dying man and offer the miracle of life. For now, she had but her skills, magical and medical.

Her starry gaze rose to watch Asteri as he spoke, nodding respectfully back to him. Stellar spirits showed her great reverence, but she did not yet feel as though she had earned it. Perhaps it was not a thing to be earned, but she did not understand that; not yet.

As Freya had found him first and was giving directions, Kala complied with a nod. She had learned early on that ego had no place in a house of healing; vying with another healer could only harm the patient. She didn't know what Freya's training was, but she respected the note of command.

"I have training," she averred when Freya stopped to ask. "Medical, surgical, and magical. Necromancy, elementalism. I could create fire to cauterize the wound if necessary. Please bring whatever supplies you have and I will see what I can do. Please hurry."

Time was, after all, of the essence with these things. She didn't know if she could bring him back with her the way she came, and closer to the Tranquil Gardens were there were better healers and the facilities to support their skills and efforts. She was bonded to a priestess of Ioniri, who might lay her hands upon him and treat what ailed him, but she too was in Karnor.

Kala's fine control of Fire would allow her to cauterize a wound without raising the general body temperature, but now was not the time to correct a misapprehension. Freya continued to control the situation, so Kala focused mainly on observation, awaiting an opportunity to act. When Asteri's manipulation of the wards created coruscating lights and colors, she focused on the faint, visible aura she had while in the throes of answering a prayer and amplified it so she burned with a steadier white light that illumined the wound for a better view. She needed to see if there was any sort of shrapnel or other debris within the wound that the flow of blood hadn't purged.

"Unfortunately, no," she said. She thought she could pull one of her soul totems from where it was back in Kalzasi to here as it was steeped in her aether, but that wouldn't help. It was merely helpful for creating necromantic supplies, but that took more time than the fallen Kathar had. Perhaps when she was more than she was now, she would be able to pull her supplies along with her. They had been steeped in her aether too, but there were degrees of separation. Someday. For now, it was miracle enough she was here without a Rune of Traversion.

"However, the body of the average man is about sixty percent water so..." She raised her hand to hover over the wound. She couldn't snap her fingers and make all well, but she could apply what she knew of healing all the same. She bade his blood, or the Water within it, remain in arteries and veins, flow along them as if they weren't perforated. Her wards were hardly expert, and she hadn't had access to them when she had time to study and support at the hospital, but she could sense the energetic signature left behind by the healthy memory of his body and she wove her wards as delicately as she could. They wouldn't last forever, but the flow of blood slowed and ceased.

She bit her lip in concentration, released her control of his blood and released her lip and her breath when the wards held.

"All right. I have staunched the blood flow, at least from the major wound. Now we need to clean it, and use the bandages for the seepage. Do you agree?"

She looked to Freya for confirmation. The dragonborn had spent more time with the patient, after all.

"Yes," she said slowly, tasting the dark aether that clung to the wound, infecting it. Kala did not have great experience with curses; they were taboo in Starfall as they were in most places, though she had heard of people taking upon them the dangerous Rune of Affliction in order to break curses, which was a righteous thing to do. She didn't know if it would be a wise thing for her to do, whether the corruption inherent in it might affect her even as she grew into divine power. That would be irresponsible.

As Freya reached out with her own senses, Kala locked onto her, the better to assess the array of skills and tools they had between them. Ah, so perhaps she was such a curse-breaker.

"You should attempt it, at least. I will also attempt it in my own way. Between the two of us, hopefully one or the other will manage it." Hers, at least, would be noninvasive. She began to weave a ward between her hands, much like a child playing at cat's cradle. She tasked it first against the dark aetheric signature, and then after many of the infections she had seen in the hospital—they were a manner of life unto themselves, creatures smaller than they eye could see, their speedy reproduction overwhelming a body and causing fevers and the like as the body attempted to fight back at what oughtn't to be there.

There was nothing in her weave that ought to interfere with what she sensed Freya doing, and so she passed the ward slowly through his body, which was no mean feat in itself as she was small and he was, like most Avialae, quite large. She moved slowly, reducing her consciousness to the smaller scale until she could sense those little infectious creatures. The body was made up of tiny building blocks, as well, and moving slowly, she could sneak those creatures she was stealing through the cracks so as not to puncture any membranes or the like.

It took time, and they did have a limited amount. Shaking her head to bring her back to herself, she looked at the net in her hands, sensed what she had pulled out. Some of the dark aether had come with it, but not all. As Freya was still working, she hoped she could manage the rest. If not, she could try again. But hers were the surgical skills and so she had to ply them now. She didn't see anything that needed cutting away, and so she took the needle and silk thread, passed her ward over them to ensure no infectious creatures were clinging there, and began to carefully sew up his wounds. Between her wards and Freya's salves, there was minimal seepage of blood. As the patient was unconscious, there was no movement to contend with and so she was able to make fine, regular stitches without too much trouble.

If she could get him home, she could redo some of this work with her necromantic tools and the healing would be accelerated and the scarring minimal, but then he was a warrior and wore many scars already. She doubted he would mind, though she did wonder what his emotional condition would be when he woke.

When she finished, she conjured water, wiping his sewn wound clean, then letting it flow over her hands to clean them as well.

It was weary work, requiring concentration and control more than sheer power. She paused, glancing to Freya and her work.

Next, she supposed, she could see to the broken bones. But she was more worried about what would happen after—could she bring him back to Kalzasi with her? Would he have to recover in the back of Freya's wagon while it jounced upon the Imperial roads?

"Let me," Kala said gently when she saw how much the curse-breaking had taken out of the dragonborn seeress. It didn't seem as though her soul was injured by the transfer, but she could see her aether attempting to break down the dark pattern. In another setting, she would have been studying her with all attention, but the Kathar needed her now. "You've done excellent work where I couldn't have managed."

She turned back to the levitating form and used up most of her bandages to make casts and splints. It was a matter of wrapping them just so, then working Water and Earth through them until there was a sort of cement-like slurry soaked into the gauze, then Fire to harden it, but a weave of several elements to keep it a bit more malleable than rock-hard cement. She didn't want it to shatter, and, especially around his broken ribs, she wanted it even more malleable so that it supported without making breathing painful or deleterious to his health.

As she did the work, she narrated, both to keep Freya in the loop as to the treatment, and on the off chance the man could hear her even in this state; a calm voice telling him what was going on might prevent panic. It was also possible he didn't hear a thing, but the curse that Freya had broken might have left him conscious but trapped in some psychic cage for all she knew. She would, of course, investigate that given time.

When she was done, she sat at Freya's feet beside the wagon wheel, resting her head against the woman's leg. They hadn't known each other long, but Freya was able to reach through space to call her when her need was great. That had to mean something, though she was too new to divinity to be sure what.

"I think we have done all we can for him at the moment," she opined. Then she held up her hand in front of her face. Her flesh was somewhat transparent now, more starlit glow than person. Perhaps there were time limits on apparitions. It was just one more thing she didn't know.

"I would like to get him back to Kalzasi. There are better surgeons and physicians than I... But perhaps we ought to get him to your tent, at least, and hope that sleep begins the healing process. He will need food and water, help with urinating and defecating. Nursing is an ugly, but necessary job. But perhaps if you... hm... pray for me to take him to safety, I might be able to bring him back with me. He would come to my rooms in the Cintamani Pavilion, but I have a friend who could take us directly to the hospital from there, no prayers required." She smiled weakly.

"And then you wouldn't be stuck here watching out for him. You and Asteri."