Power. For the first time, Issinia felt a non destructive sort of power coursing through her veins. Many times she had used offensive magic before; it was her specialty. Like the older priestesses who would charge in to the front lines beside the huntresses, Issinia could channel then power of the moon to call upon a starfall, and burn hostile targets with beams of starlight. In a few instances she'd even been asked to use it in the field, driving out the seemingly endless demonic infestations in the forests of Kalimdor during her training. She knew the feeling of destructive power very well.
But this power...this was different. It was weak and unfocused, but it was most definitely there. A different kind of power coursed through her veins now as a much more gentle form of the moon's light lent itself to her. Tingling and very faint, there was a tenderness to it that she had never felt before. Issinia had previously wielded the power of the stars only to smite demons, undead and the wicked; to feel that light being used on a person close to her, even if it was weak and untrained, was one of the most eye opening experiences she'd ever had.
Anna pursed her lips tight to avoid laughing out loud as Issinia's glowing hands hovered about half an inch away from her face. For sure the sensation must have tickled quite a bit; Issinia felt it strongly and she was on the giving end. The receiving end must have felt even more intense, though certainly not bad. Moving her hands around, Issinia continued using a basic spell that merely probed for physical wounds for the second time. The first had been on Thandra, as it had to be practiced on someone other than a client for safety reasons. Both instances were under Tinalith's supervision, which made Issinia feel much better, but the still couldn't use it on a client until the first attempt had succeeded safely on a volunteer colleague.
Expending a large amount of her mana pool on the simple yet new spell, Issinia finally toned it down as she slowed the movement of her hands. The tingling sensation died away as did the glow since the two of them were connected, and she felt nothing more than the familiar dryness of reduced mana. That feeling in particular was nothing new; she'd learned to deal with it even during combat situations, though it did feel a bit odd to her to simply lean back and relax in the presence of peers after expending so much mana rather than grabbing a weapon and preparing to finish off enemy lines.
Anna's voice brought her back to the present.
"All done?"
Issinia blinked for a few seconds, shuttering the manaburn away. "Oh...yes, I think that's it," the partially distracted priestess replied. "That was...that was enough. I could sort of, see, I guess you could say, inside of the targeted area. Like a different kind of sight."
Tinalith had been observing the entire time in case the spell failed. That it hadn't appeared to please the head of the program greatly. "Feel would be a more accurate verb to use," the more ancient elf replied in a voice that remained as angelic as it had been on the day she was born. Smiling wryly, Tinalith reached out and nudged her trainee. "What did you feel?"
Issinia and Anna both smirked at each other, knowing what would come next. "I could map out the inside of her nostrils," Issinia replied, much to Anna's amusement. The two of them laughed like children at a gross out joke for a moment. "Up to the very top of the bridge of her nose."
Tinalith smiled, but not join in the juvenile laughter. "And how was the tissue inside her nostrils?" the trainer asked.
"The texture looked a bit sensitive, but there is no swelling, and any tears or perforations have healed up. I think...I think that the herbal treatments have healed the damage done to the inside of her nose," Issinia explained shyly. The damage had been done by nearly half a century of casual drug usage, though out of respect for Anna, she was hesitant to state that part out loud.
"While I usually like to be a bit more conservative in my estimates, there is no denying that your recovery from the residual damage has been remarkable," Tinalith said to Anna, who remained seated in the examination room. "I think it could be accurate to say that in less than two months, your breathing problems might be cured."
Faded amber eyes flickered joyfully, the sort of almost pitiful yet cute joy of a severely ill person being told after years of pain that their body was finally responding to treatment. "Oh, oh my goddess...thank you, thank you all so much!" So overjoyed was she that Anna leapt up and threw her arms around Issinia's neck. In truth, her breathing had slowly returned to normal across a long period of time, but the official confirmation that it wasn't all just some hopeful figment of her imagination lifted her spirits in a very tender, almost private way. "It had been so long, I didn't even realize anymore what it felt like to breathe normally!" She inhaled deeply, snorting like a quilboar to demonstrate her open, painless nasal passages.
"We're as delighted as you are," Issinia chuckled.
"Any way we can help makes us happy," Tinalith said as she led the two women toward the door. "And as far as I can tell, your ears and nose are as close to their original state as they will ever be. But Anna, since this was Issa's first time using a diagnosis spell on an actual client, I'll need to debrief her. Thandra is about to conduct a role playing session where everyone will act out presenting their ideal selves to their initial selves."
Easily and eagerly taking the hint, Anna bowed out of respect for her caregivers and started on her way. "I've always wanted to act! Not professionally, of course, but...this sounds fun!" she chirped as she bounded around a corner and toward the common activity room.
Once she had disappeared from sight, Tinalith took Issinia by the arm and led her over toward the staff room (Tinalith's 'private' office, ironically, was constantly full of staff members and even live in clients helping her with administrative work, and thus was the least likely place for the two of them to speak alone). As it often was during the night, the staff room was empty since everyone else was either taking their turn maintaining the facilities or attending Thandra's role play event. Tinalith sat down and began rolling through the recap of her apprentice's performance.
"You did a good job of holding back from extending the spell too far; it's harmless, but if used improperly then it can cause severe discomfort in the person's eye sockets and sinus cavities. You expended more mana than you would have while smiting an entire battalion of demons, but that's normal for a novice. The most important thing now that you have the basics is practice: as often as you can, I encourage you and your colleagues to test the spell out on each other. The more you repeat the action, the more control you will be able to exercise over it, and at less cost."
"So no actual healing, yet?" Issinia asked more to test the waters than to sate any sort of curiosity.
Tinalith hummed with her mouth closed. The sound unsettled Issinia, who was shocked that her mother's neighbor of some seven thousand years had caught on to her so quickly. "Issa, you're not trying to rush through your training and Anna's treatment, are you?" Her voice didn't increase in pitch at the end, though the sentence was still phrased as a question.
"What? No. Well, maybe," Issinia stammered, caught completely off guard. "I'm just eager to start actually healing people is all."
Raising one of her long eyebrows, Tinalith looked at Issinia as if she were looking right through the trainee. "That's all?" she asked in a pleasant voice that sounded like she was just teasing her younger, though it was obviously a little more than that.
After a few moments of silence, Issinia found no recourse but to give up her attempt at concealment. "I was accepted to the position at the Uldum mission. They require confirmation only nine nights from now, and the boat leaves from Rut'theran in about three weeks."
For a good amount of time beyond Issinia's initial moment of silence, Tinalith simply sat in the chair and looked at her. It was impossible to fathom what someone so aged was thinking; night elves older than Narrus had a real talent for concealing their inner feelings. Denied any indication of what was going on in the mind of her mother's former neighbor and shield sister, Issinia began to fidget and pleaded via her eyes for a response.
"The art of healing is...of the greatest endeavors a person can pursue for the sake of others," Tinalith began, speaking slowly and choosing her words carefully. "Motivation to begin one's career is always admirable; but such a delicate matter never suffers from caution and restraint. Irrespective of the reliance others that you have accepted, to spend extra time in training rather than in the field is never a waste. After all, half the blood in your veins is star born; it is not as though you are running out of time in what will inevitably be a life three or four or more centuries long."
Issinia's ears drooped as she already felt the answer coming. "I know," she sighed.
"And all of this is assuming that you are merely focusing on your own betterment and professional development. But for a healer, that is rarely the case; almost never. For you have given another being the greatest gift, and that is a second chance. Through you, Anna has progressed so much. She possesses that inner fire, and she will prevail, but we are facilitators, not merely counselors; we hold the hand of the sick and the wounded along the way, and provide them that light on the path when fear and abandonment tricks them into shutting their eyes." She reached forward and put a hand on her trainee's shoulder - a rare instance of touch among such an older, self possessed figure. "You have the power to rescind that gift at any time, Issa. But if a healer makes that choice - that choice to take back what they had previously given to those in need - then she might need to ask herself what made her decide to walk the path of a mender and curer from the outset."
Although the words were intended to merely be inspirational and a strong form of advice, they inadvertently stung as well. Tinalith might not have wished for that, but nevertheless she must have been aware given the insight such a person bore.
Unable to look her mother's friend in the eye, Issinia trained her vision to her lap, much as she'd noticed Anna doing during their initial sessions. The irony was overwhelming. "Thank you, Tina," she murmured, feeling rather humbled as she had so many times before when overstepping her bounds in front of an elder.
Unbeknownst to her, she'd just done it again. "Tina?" Tinalith asked while crooking her neck back humorously. "I'm writing a letter to your mom."
"Come on, it's a cute name!" Issinia protested. In her laughter she was able to look her trainer in the eye again, and a sense of both revelation and entrapment mixed around inside of her.
"How do you feel?" Tinalith asked.
"I'm fine."
"Really, Issa?"
"I said I'm fine! Hey, who's the client here?"
It was only then that Issinia realized that Tinalith had never let go of her shoulder, and that combined with the eye contact felt a little overwhelming. "So your reaction isn't avoidance?"
"You really are examining me now, aren't you?"
"I'm like your auntie, I'm allowed to do that," Tinalith chortled in an uncharacteristically animated manner. "Now tell me: have you reached a final decision-"
"Yes."
"-or are you just brushed it aside so you can ruminate on it later?"
"Um...also yes?" Issinia laughed out loud after the sentence, feeling less shy and more resigned and accepting of defeat once under scrutiny.
"Issa."
"Auntie Tina!"
"What? You are so..." For the first time since Issinia had been a child, she saw Tinalith grin wide in an almost giddily annoyed fashion, like someone her own age. She couldn't help but cover her mouth and laugh. "Alright Issa, let's be serious now. I'll let you go so save you from further embarrassment, but I want you to do the right thing." Instead of asking for confirmation, Tinalith simply released her grip and stood up, motioning for her trainee to follow. "Go on, now. You're not cleaning something, so you should be at the group event. You're a sponsor and your client needs you."
"Of course, Priestess Tinalith," Issinia said more respectfully as she stood and bowed to her trainer. She even managed to keep her lips shut tight until she left the staff room and bursted out laughing again.
Outside in the hall, she could already hear the sound of the role play session underway. The common activity room was only two halls down, and from the sounds that reached her long ears, the clients and facilitators alike were all having quite a bit of fun.
Just outside the doorway, she could spy the front of the room where the chairs and tables had been cleared away, and a frilly red streamer had been hung across the wall. Thandra was seated at the front of the room, looking thrilled as Anna stood next to a flip chart with a stick figure drawing of herself next to her on an easel. She rotated her wrists and used her hands to talk quite a bit, and although Issinia couldn't see everyone else as they were seated, she could certainly hear the raucous laughter.
"And rule number thirty two," Anna lectured to the drawing of herself. "Our ideal self doesn't leave her toenail clippings on the bathroom floor, so we really need to cut that out."
That comment in particular caused Thandra's client to choke on her own saliva while laughing at the self deprecating comment. Covering her mouth with her hand again, Issinia remained in the hallway, not wanting to walk in and disrupt the scene. Out of view of all but Thandra, she looked up the hall as the role play finally took on a tone of half seriousness inside.
Out on the walls were a series of photographs. The technology was imported by the gnomes, but even the ancient night elves had to compromise on certain ideals for the sake of practicality. Natural landscapes of Kalimdor and even the other continents of the planet were featured, most of them with cheering teams of sentinels, priestesses and druids posing for the camera. Jungles, forests, plans and mountains were all featured, but down the hall Issinia's keen eyesight fixated on one in particular.
Sand dunes surrounded an oasis full of priestesses and priests, female and male, children of the stars and even outlander converts to the faith. A number of tol'vir natives alongside a single sand pygmy stood among the group, posing as well in front of a mission center for drilling water wells and distributing free medicine. The moon in the photo shone just right to give the top of the dunes in the background an almost silver glint, and Issinia could almost hear a drum beat as sabre paws pattered on the sand.
Movement inside the room caught her eye, and she turned back to see Anna speaking a bit more solemnly. There were no tears and no irregular breathing rhythms, but there was a level of restraint there not present whenever Anna and Issinia spoke in private. She was obviously holding back - Issinia knew the woman well enough to tell merely by her body language. Anna was progressing, but deep down inside, Issinia knew that she wasn't ready yet.
She sighed deeply as she watched, cursing her luck and what she felt was her own selfishness as she prayed that the photo of Uldum would just fall off the wall face down.