I : Hello Regret

I was looking for the source of all the bleeding. Not with my eyes – the lighting in the Healer's tent was as good as it could get, but it still wasn't much. Mid afternoon, mage storms constantly blocking out the sun. Those were damn pesky things, to heavily understate matters. They slowed not only the progress of the war in a very real weather sense, but they also caused so much magical interference that healing the sick and injured was harder than tying shoelaces in the dark. But still, my fingers could look at the insides of a person much better than my eyes.

I had sometimes had to resort to the old fashioned way of investigating wounds, but it can get very messy when you cut people open to find out what's going wrong. With this touch no new wounds have to be made, no stitches. Not a lot of healers have the energy reserves to muck about inside without any knife at all, but I do. I have lots of emotions to toss on the fire, and the fire becomes green, and the green fire is what heals. With this touch I see in my mind through skin, through muscles, even down to bones. And in such detail. I can see the insides of arteries. The function of the lungs, as the tiny sacks that make them expand and deflate. The beating of a heart. But this time, I was inside a man's abdomen, looking for the source of the bleeding.

He was young, couldn't be more than 20. We were the same age, actually. He was a Herald, fresh from the front lines, from an epic skirmish with some Karasite mages. Someone had stuck a sword into his side, through and through. It was a large and obvious injury; the entrance wound was a three-inch-long slice that welled blood like a spring. My fingers told me that below that, inside him, the sword had missed his liver, which was higher. It had miraculously managed not to perforate his bowel, but instead merely pushed it aside. Unfortunately, the blade had caused one major injury; it had nearly severed his left kidney from its' blood source. The organ was dying, and he was bleeding out. That answered the question.

I drew energy from within myself and channeled it down my fingers, through the seeping blood, down to its' source. It was a clean slice, and in my mind I saw the artery that supplied blood to the kidney reattach itself. The organ quickly changed color from slightly grey-ish to healthy pink again. Thanks to the damned storms it was like seeing through static, thinking through the cotton balls that filled my mind and made the inside of my mouth taste like copper. If I focused completely I could push pass the fog, but the effort was enormous. I checked that there were no gaps in the vessel's joint to the organ. I encouraged the tissues in his abdomen to reabsorb the free blood, which it did obligingly. The wound stopped bleeding. Finally I bound the gashes in his side together, telling flesh to knit as it once was, to heal smoothly. The energy continually flowed out of me, leaving me empty and cold. I didn't much care. Once it was done, then I could worry about collapsing from exhaustion.

While I worked someone wiped my brow once. I distantly heard the low voices of other healers. I felt people inspecting, with their own gifts, the progress I was making. Toward the end another healer (her energy was familiar to me, but I didn't bother to think further than that) put her hand on my shoulder. Gratefully I accepted the power she offered. That flowed into and immediately through me, to get the job done.

The process took over two candlemarks. It wasn't until his wound was closed and I felt certain that his vitals were stable that I saw his face. Even drawn in pain, it was handsome – his hair was a surprising shade of red, and stuck out on his head in all sorts of impractical directions. Despite this, it wasn't untidy, just…a bit amazing. He had a strong, square jaw that hinted at a stubborn streak. His brows were heavy but not unfriendly. He was a few days unshaven, which made sense, seeing as shaving isn't a necessity when people are trying to kill you. And although I didn't see his eyes, I knew they would be a dark grey, large, and attractive.

I knew this, because it was him. It was the man who had ruined my life. And I'd saved his, right here on this table, in the middle of a big, stupid war.

Damn.

……………………………….

A/N – Hello, dear reader, you possibly non-existent person you. I hope you don't get the wrong idea from this first, short chapter. It's not a medical drama. I don't even like ER (not anymore anyway), although I've still got a soft spot in my heart for Grey's Anatomy.

No, at the end of the whole thing, I'll tell you why this story needed to be written. Mysteries! I know. It won't make any sense until you read the ending. Enjoy that, I hope you get there.

I'm happy to take suggestions on my writing. This is my first fiction since high school, and I'm a year out of college now, so…that was a while ago. I don't promise to follow through with your suggestions, because I am an iartiste/i, but grammer? Spelling? Critiques relating to my long, wordy, thoughtful paragraphs….very welcome indeed. All this and other things, of course. Don't want to limit a helping hand. Just know that there are elements to this (secret, mysterious elements) that are not subject to change. 3

So, welcome to the drama. On to chapter two.