Your mind is full of images. Some are yours and some are the scout’s. The most painful and clear is that of Tomas, your first lover. A scout, brought home with arrows sticking out of him. He was too close to death to be saved. Sorrow and pain weigh on you. “If I can save them I will. No matter the cost.” An unfamiliar face of a girl crying and saying “Kerry, you don’t need to enlist. Let’s get married. Others can fight.” The images shift to the Collegium, and a healer teaching you “Orgasms while using pleasure spells to block pain are common.” Your classmates giggle like children. “This is serious and not an excuse to use pain to bring forth an orgasm.” There is another shift, and a man who you feel is ‘Father’, gives you a disappointed look. “Son, we are merchants. Marry Gabriel and work the store. Let others serve.” Next image is of your mentor telling you “Use an emotional stimulation charm if you can. The Merge spell should only be used in extreme cases. The bond lasts well beyond its use.” You yell at your mentor in pain and frustration “If I could have Merged, I would have saved him.” Her disapproving scowl is the last image as you wake. “He was too far gone. You can’t heal them all.” You hear as her voice trails off.
There is a warm pot of herbal tea and a cup on the stand next to your cot. You pour a cup and sip it. Diana, A junior healer comes in. “You’re awake, Mistress. I was going to replace the pot if you were still asleep.” You move to sit up. Your muscles feel stiff from lack of use. “How long was I out?”
She slowly shakes her head, “Almost two full days. You pushed yourself harder than you allow us.”
You lean back against the canvas wall of your tent. “It was a mistake, Diana. I used the Merge spell.”
She nods and hands you a small unwrapped piece of travel bread. “Here, eat this.” As you take a bite, she continues. “We all saw.” She unwraps some more and places it on the stand. “Mistress, during the worst of the fighting, you wouldn’t let any of us use it.”
You swallow and then take a sip of tea. The warm herb infused water feels good going down your throat. “I shouldn’t have used it either.” You softly admit. You rub your chest and feel where the arrows hit the scout. There are no scars on your skin, but your muscles feel like they tore and then stitched together. “If I let any of you do it, most of you wouldn’t have survived a month.” You finish the piece of travel bread and wash it down.
“Mistress, why did you do it then? Wouldn’t a pleasure charm have worked?” She asks genuinely curious.
You lean forward to sit up straight, and your muscles scream. You bite your lower lip in pain. Diane pours another cup of tea for you. “Here drink this.”
You nod, resting your elbows on your knees. You take another deep drink. You call on magic to remove the echoes of the scouts wounds, but you are still too weak to direct it. You place the empty cup on the stand. “This, Diana is why we can only use it as last resort. It drains you and riddles your body with echo pains from your patient.” She gives you another piece of travel bread. “Please eat Mistress. Food gives strength. I’ll have the herbalists make another pot of health tea.”
She grabs the small teapot. You place a hand on hers. “You’re right a pleasure charm would have worked. I should have done that, but I just reacted. The opposite of what I tell all of you to do.”
She gives you a weak smile. “I understand, Mistress.” She stops, “Mistress Helane has been making your rounds. I’ll have her brief you when her shift ends. I’ll be back with more tea and some pemmican to go with the travel bread.”
You stand up, move to your meditation cushion, and sit. Closing your eyes you focus on your breathing and circulation. You feel a strange echo of mismatched pulses. “Mine…My pulse…. Not his…..” you think. You lick your lips as you feel your heartbeat. You concentrate on it. The echo seems very close and hard to block.
The smell of freshly roasted game pulls you out of your meditation. The flap of your tent opens and the Scout comes in carrying a large plate and a tea pot.
“You’re awake.” He says as he sits down on the floor of the tent. You notice that he winces a bit as he extends the plate to you.
“Are you in pain?” you ask.
“I’m alive. All because of you.” He pours some tea into a little metal cup and then fills yours.
You take it and say “I accept what you offer in the spirit in which it was given.” Using the scouts’ standard diplomatic phrase.
He nods and takes a sip. “Marg…I mean Mistress Healer, is that a leftover from the spell?”
You shake your head, “My lover was a scout.” You want to tell him about Tomas, but a lump rises in your throat as you think about him.
The scout sits in front of you, placing a reassuring hand on yours. “But that’s from the spell.” You nod, feeling his comforting emotions too.
“I’m Kerry” he says as he points to the plate of food. “I felt that you were hungry.”
You look at the roasted game and cooked root vegetables. “These are from the cook?”
“No, they are still serving travel rations.” He says as he uses his knife to spear a chunk of potato. “I woke up, surprised that I didn’t have stitches and bandages. So I hunted up something fresh.” He slowly bites into it. “I have memories of seeing through your eyes.” He then shifts a little uncomfortably, “And how do you thank you for one of the strangest sexual experiences of my life?”
You take a knife and fork, then slice into the meat. “This is more than enough.” You say as you bite into it. “But why rabbit? A plate of pemmican would be good enough.”
He smiles broadly. “Because of you, I can still shoot a bow.” He flexes his arms, expanding his chest.
You wash down the bite with some healing tea. “A game bow isn’t a war bow.”
He rotates his left shoulder. “I know. One of the healers mentioned something about special exercises to help return me to full ability.”
You smile as you feel the desire to rotate your shoulder too but fight against it. “If the surgeon had stitched you, then you wouldn’t be able to fire a bow for a couple of weeks until everything was healed. Then you’d have to do exercises to recover your strength and flexibility. By using magic, I sped up the healing but you’ll still need to do the exercises.”
He takes another bite of food and leans in closer. “Why did you use magic to heal me? Is because of…” he pauses and thinks for a moment, then says “Tomas? I think that’s the name that keeps echoing in my head.”
Just hearing his name said aloud causes another lump in your throat. Kerry reaches to comfort you. “I don’t want to cause you sadness or pain, but I don’t understand it. We saw so many soldiers and scouts brought off the battlefield. Many of them are still recovering. But you healed me with magic because of someone named Tomas?”
Tears well up in your eyes. You want to run away. You want to tell him to leave. You want the pain to end. Kerry’s hand softly holds yours. “I’m causing this, I should leave. Thank you for saving me.” He starts to stand up. You keep hold of his hand.
“No. Sit. We’ve been in each other’s minds and bodies.” You wipe your eyes. “I haven’t talked about him to anyone.” You shake your head. “I haven’t really dealt with it myself. Stay. Eat and drink with me. Let’s learn about each other like we should have.”
He sits and continues to eat while listening to you tell about, your scout; your love; Tomas. How you and he were stationed together on a border outpost. Both of you new to your positions. You worked at the Healing House under your mentor. Tomas was just a member of the scout platoon, protecting the border. It was during a time of peace. Times when you both learned to enjoy quiet of the sunrise and the calm of the sunset. He taught you how to read the weather, standard code phrases and greetings, then some self-defense. You taught him how to feel the magical energy around him. He didn’t have the gift to use it, but he could recognize when it’s there which was helpful with magical traps and items. You also taught him basic healing techniques that didn’t require magic. Beginner herbalism and basic life saving skill that are taught to all who work in the Healing House.
As you tell Kerry all of this, you see that he’s clearly seeing this in his mind. The images that you shared during the Merge spell. He doesn’t interrupt but smiles, knowingly.
“Then there was that day.” You start to say.
He places his fingers to your lips. “Margaret. I see that day clearly. Don’t say it. I see the arrows in his chest. I feel your panic and frustration as he dies before you. I, too, feel that empty pain.”
You exhale, center yourself, and then smile. “So it’s ‘Margaret’ now, not ‘Mistress Healer’?” you say with a wink then take his hand. “Of course, Kerry, I’m Margaret to you.” You kiss the back of his hand as your fingers interlace his. “You saw me and Tomas, just like I saw you and Gabriel.” You pause and look deeply into his eyes. “Tell me about her.”
He talks about how they were to be married. He was going to work in his father’s store and she was the daughter of a traveling merchant. But when bandit attacks were on the rise, he felt it was his responsibility to enlist and fight back. He was good with a bow, a good rider, and knew how to negotiate. All skills needed by scout units. Without him saying it, you see the disappointment of his father when he leaves to enlist. The tears of Gabriel along with the angry words of her father.
You hug Kerry. “I’m sorry that I forced you to share those memories.”
His arms hold you too. “You did what you thought was best. Now I know why.”
You want to kiss him, but stop. “This closeness isn’t real. The magic made it.” You release him and sigh. “You should go. We both need to rest more. I need to meditate.”
He kisses you. His lips feel good on yours. “As you wish, Margaret.” He says as he stands, taking the empty plate and teapot. He stops at the door flap. “Who will help me with those special exercises?”
You smile, and slowly shake your head. “Come back tomorrow morning. I’ll help you.” You close your eyes and prepare to meditate. “See you then, Kerry.” You hear the flap rustle as it closes. You softly breathe as you try to clear your thoughts. You softly say to yourself. “Yes, I will see you then.”
