Of Two Minds – The Tale of Ashan

A Short Story Series by Novem's Natural Roll


Chapter 1: The Logical Mind

Takes Place: 4692 AR


Second Draft


I had smelled the blood long before I saw the bodies, but the sight still makes me freeze. I'd found the corpses of dead outsiders before – the victim of some deadly creature or hazard they'd been unprepared for while moving through the jungle – but I'd never seen them so fresh. The redness of their skin has yet to fade, and the blood from their injuries is still soaking into the mud and dirt of the road… not yet dried from the exposure. Looking at them, one could tell they had been alive just minutes before I'd arrived. Stepping back along the branch to hide the sight from my eyes, I try to settle the fierce beating in my chest… all while unable to stop myself from asking the question, What if I had been here just a few minutes sooner?

It's a stupid question. More likely than not, even if I'd been here hours ago, I still wouldn't have been able to do anything to save these poor souls. Exposing ourselves to outsiders is deeply forbidden, and I'm no use in a fight regardless. If I had been here, all that would've happened was that I would've gotten to watch them die while I stood by... helpless to do anything but watch.

Tears build in my eyes as I grapple with my helplessness, but ultimately I shake them off. I know it's not true – nothing my nose or ears had picked up on suggested it – but I can't help but latch onto the idea that one of them might still be alive, bleeding out onto the ground and in need of a healer to tend to their injuries. Though fear tangles my heartstrings, I descend the tree and approach the field of corpses.

I'm hesitant. I tremble and cover my eyes with my forepaws. I even partially withdraw a number of times before I actually descend into the midst of the dead. The first body I come across is a man of the human species, as far as I can tell from his rounded ears and tall stature. I have no idea how to tell the age of an outsider by appearance alone, but his eyes are frozen wide with the fear of a person who wasn't expecting death to visit them any time soon. I get drawn into his gray pupils and the whites of his eyes that had veined red. I stumble backwards, and trip over the handle of a spear… tumbling over in the mud and coating my previously pristine fur with patches of brown.

After shaking a bit of it off, I take a breath and get back to my feet. Inspecting the spear, I note that his hand is reaching out for it. He'd been trying to grab it as he died, but it was too far. I could tell my tripping over the spear had moved it for sure… but the rigor mortis in his fingers would've stopped it from rolling away if it had been trapped underneath his hand, so I could tell for sure he hadn't had a solid grip on it when he died. No way to defend himself from whatever had killed him.

I look for his injuries to determine what exactly that had been, and I notice a tear in the back of his brown coat. It's not the kind of tear which would've been created by the teeth or claws of a beast, or at least none of the kind that roamed these jungles. There's no signs of the shredding that would be caused by fangs, or of the long thin cut that would be caused by a claw or talon. Rather, the tear is round and small... something that could've only been created by a thin and singular piercing weapon, like a spear or an arrow. The frayed edges of the tear are also sticking into the air; whatever had caused it had been forcibly removed.

There would be the possibility that the tear had always been there, but the frayed fabric around the edges of the opening – as well as the coat around it – are stained red with blood and small giblets of flesh. Even from a distance, I can tell for certain that there's a wound underneath. A stab wound. It's in a vital area as well, the back of the chest right where the heart would be. It's quite likely this blow had killed him, and the seemingly deliberate placement of it along with the other details all but confirmed a sapient being had done this. And it was nothing as simple as a kill in the heat of battle, no. He'd been stabbed in the back while on the ground with his weapon out of reach. This had been an execution.

As soon as I have that realization, I turn away as my eyes go wide. I put myself on the ground and wrap my forepaws around my ears as I shake with terror and sadness. Who would do such a cruel thing, even to an enemy? What could've possibly justified the ruthless and cold-blooded execution of a defenseless person? The questions race through my head, but I have no answers. Because to me, nothing can justify this… the reckless discarding of life.

As I tremble, I force open my eyes to look around at the other corpses. And they are corpses, there's no one been left alive here. They've all been left in similar circumstances as the first victim I'd found. So many reaching for their weapons, so many left dead in positions that made it clear they'd been vulnerable. A woman with pointy ears has her arms splayed… she'd been gored in the chest while her bow lay a full foot beyond her reach to the side. A lizardlike man has his arms partially hugged around a tree, indicating he had given up and tried to make himself seem not dangerous, but then his head had been beaten in by his own club that now lays on the ground behind him… leaving blood and grey matter sprayed all across the trunk, and the wooden bludgeoning weapon. A small bearded man lays farther down the road, far beyond the reach of any weapons and with his back turned to the dead behind him… he'd been trying to flee, and the arrow sticking out of his back shows that whoever had done this had shot him while he'd been trying to get away.

It's a grotesque scene. I can't look anymore. I run back into the jungle, coughing as I begin to puke up my breakfast… forcing me back into my larger form. The brownish green sludge that erupts from my mouth mixes well with the mud underneath my feet. Knees to the ground, it smothers my robes... though all of it is just an abstract painting through my blur of tears. I'll get scolded for it later, but I don't care. This is because I've just had an even worse realization. Whoever had murdered those outsiders... they'd just left them there. They didn't take any of their stuff, or see fit to bury the dead. No… they'd just been left to rot. This is a level of cruelty far beyond my comprehension.

I can't take it, I need a distraction. Desperately, I remove the bundle of papers Miss Minako had given me and scan the list of ingredients I need. Focusing my all on my training, I get to work gathering them all as I make my way back to the commune. Having something to concentrate on other than what I had seen helps me a little bit… but the memories still fester in my mind. I sob as I grapple with complex feelings of fear, guilt, grief at the misfortune of those poor people… I don't know how to process any of it, so I just keep my mind's eye focused on the next plant on my list. But every time I gather one plant, the memories flood back until I push them out again with the next goal. And eventually there are no more goals left. I've completed my task, and I've arrived on the outskirts of the commune.

There's a brief moment of relief, reprieve… I am home after all. But then the grisly things I'd seen come back to my mind and I fall to my knees shaking, hugging myself. I don't know how long I stay like that. Seconds and minutes seem meaningless to me as I try and try and force the images and smells of the dead from my mind. As I try to purge the conclusions of a cruelty that had, up till now, been beyond my wildest imagination from my thoughts. But they don't go anywhere. I'm too smart for my own good to deny the results of my own investigation into what had happened back there. I'm just happy that I hadn't figured out who had done it… I don't know how I would handle that information.

I am so happy when my reverie of pain is disrupted by the voice I associate with everything good in this world.

"Hey big brother, you're back!"

I look up to see my little sister running toward me. When she sees me though, she stops briefly. I imagine how my eyes must look. Bulging and red with sadness, fear, and pain. I see a similar look cross over her own face before she runs the rest of the way to me in an instant and hugs me around the neck.

"Big brother, what's wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?"

Though it's not usually in character for me, I hug her back. Tightly, as tears leach from my eyes. She doesn't complain, though I do feel her wiggling around a bit as she looks across my body, probably looking to see if I have any injuries. She is the youngest and thus the most responsible after all. I try to speak, but I only gasp… my heart's beating too fast from the fear. She hugs me tighter, coming to better understand the situation from my behavior.

"I see... you saw something real scary, didn't you…?"

I gasp again, trying to form words and failing. Then I simply nod.

"Well, it'll all be okay now…" As she says that, she strokes the back of my head a bit. Even now… that experience is very pleasant and calming. Though she doesn't have much of a shoulder, I pull it tightly under my muzzle as she keeps smoothing my fur and my heart slowly calms. After a few minutes, I'm feeling a bit better, so I pull away… nodding and saying "okay, I'm okay now" in a gasping, throaty voice.

"Come on big brother, that's not true."

Before I can respond to that, she suddenly runs around me and jumps on my back before starting to scratch me behind the ears. I've never been so happy to have my weakness exploited. The sensation is so pleasant that I unconsciously sink to the ground, panting like a dog while my triumphant sister's knees press into my back as she giggles.

"You're so silly." She says. I can't deny it, this is a pretty ridiculous weakness for a person to have. I usually hated knowing that it existed, even if I knew that my sister would never tell anyone else or take advantage of it in consideration for my feelings. In the present though… I have never been happier to be so weak. My heart for the last hour or two had felt like it was going to be crushed, and now it felt light again. When my sister can no longer contain her laughter and she has to stop scratching me behind the ears to cover her mouth with both hands, I roll over onto my back… sliding her gently off of it as I do so. She falls over backwards onto the ground, but this only seems to make her laugh harder.

I get to my knees with a smile and shuffle over to her. Looking down at her, I reach out and pat her on the head while saying, "Thank you so much Rin… I feel better now, I'm sorry."

She bounces up from her place on the ground with a big, pure-hearted grin as she reaches as high as she can from sitting on the ground to pat my snout.

"You've helped me with scary things before big brother, I was just helping you out too!"

"Well, I tried at least…"

"No, you didn't just try, because it worked… and that means you did it then! Right?"

I scratch the back of my head while awkwardly looking away.

"Yeah, I guess that's right."

She gives me an even toothier grin as she says, "hehe…!". I can tell no matter how much she covers it up that she's still worried. Her ear is twitching and there's a bit of a distant look to her eyes, but she still dares not ask the question on her mind. "What happened big brother? What did you see that was so scary?". She wants to ask that, but she knows she can't. She knows it might bring me back to the way I had been feeling before, so she doesn't. And I'm very thankful for it, so I pat her on the head again as a reward.

Luckily, this seems to reassure her at least a little bit. I certainly won't be answering those questions any time soon… not just for my sake, but for hers. If what I'd seen and realized did this much to me, what would it do to someone as pure-hearted as she was? I don't want to know. To avoid her patience running out – at least for now – I stand. I need to tell the elders about this.

"I gotta go now Rin, we'll talk later."

As I move to walk away though, I feel her tug on my sleeve. Cocking my head in confusion, I look back at her.

"I just wanted you to know big brother, something's going on with the adults right now. A bit after you left, big brother Haya came back with the hun- the hunta-"

"The hunter's party?" I wonder. She nods enthusiastically.

"Yeah! They came back, and they had some weird looking animals with them. They walk on two feet like we do! They kinda remind me of those out-sid-ahs… and I think they were hurt too! Their clothes were all dirty with that red blood stuff we've got in our bodies!"

Survivors!? I wonder. The thought makes me happier than I thought possible. If they are survivors and they are hurt, maybe I could help Miss Minako treat them. It sounds like the best way to soothe my aching heart, and so I smile even though I shouldn't.

"Thanks for telling me Rin. Now why don't you go back home for now?"

"But I don't wanna… no one's there!" She gyrates her arms in annoyance at the thought of being alone. "All the adults are in the big place to talk about the adult things! Papa and Mama are there too!"

So they're in the elder's hut to discuss what to do with the outsiders. Makes sense. My brother's probably there too. He leads the hunting party, so I'm sure he's receiving no end of scolding for daring to bring outsiders here – breaking our most sacred tenets and all that. I'm sure he couldn't just leave those outsiders to die, and I'm fairly proud of him for that.

"Well then, sounds like your chance to go play with the other kids with no adults to ruin the fun." I say. She smiles and nods before running off, both arms spread far to her side. Adorable and heartwarming as always. I'm glad she's still young enough to have her worries fade away so easily. I wish I was able to easily forget the things that trouble me, but no such luck.

"Well, this is no time to be standing around…" I mutter, and I set off to Miss Minako's hut. If the outsiders are hurt… they are surely there receiving treatment, and so that's where I need to be. To help. The problem with outsiders knowing where our commune is can surely be resolved later, after we make sure they're okay and know that whoever attacked them won't be coming after us next, right?

That's what I ask myself, and I'm sure it's true… but when I arrive, I find Miss Minako's hut empty, and all of her herbs and medical equipment still in place. Confusing. With nowhere else to look, I decide to head for the Elder's Hut. They'd know where the outsiders are being kept and how I can help. And that's something I definitely want and need to do right now, help. So I head to the commune's center and the largest hut in my village, the one where our council of elder's sits. They make the community's important decisions for the most part, though our lives are so peaceful and orderly that they are rarely convened except to perform traditional ceremonies.

Today, it's the loudest and most crowded I've ever seen… meaning most of the kids in our commune aside from my sister – about twenty or so – are arrayed around the outside of the Elder's Hut, engaging in furious whispering. Their mutters are measured, just quiet enough that the adults inside won't come out to scold them. They're conspiracizing about what's happening inside and what the weird "pale-skinned things" were. Missus Bigsby, the teacher of our commune, is crouched down and chatting with them. Clearly she'd been assigned to keep an eye on them while the rest of the adults hashed out current events.

Listening in, I hear some of the kids correctly conclude that the "pale-skinned things" must be the outsiders they'd learned about in class, but the ones advancing that position are quickly buried under the more insane conspiracies. Stuff like Desna's chosen coming to take us to the Promised Land or pale-skinned demon's come to eat our souls. Missus Bigsby is prone to telling very fantastical tales to keep the little ones entertained… and so it's no surprise how elaborate they can be when given the fodder, or that she's joined in and tickles the little ones who get scared by the stories. Normally I'd want to grin and join the group, and normally I'd end up too shy and just kind of stand around listening in. But I don't have the time for even that. I head directly for the entrance of the Elder's Hut and step inside.

Even before I open the door, the adults are the bulk of the noise around here. All of them except for Missus Bigsby – which adds up to a bit over thirty, not counting our elderly – are gathered inside and arguing. Haya is there too, though he's kind of just rolling his eyes and not really engaging with the conversation. My eyes are drawn away from them and to the back.

Mister Shiro, the head of our current council of elders, sits knees first on-top of his pillow at the head of the room. The other three elders sit beside him, two on the left and two on the right. He's outstretched his hand and seems to be trying to calm the panicking throng, but his voice isn't strong enough to reach them. Ultimately, he sighs and scratches his head with one hand, while pulling on his long grey mane at the same time. The adults still old enough to yell are in furious debate over what to do about the outsiders in the commune.

"We need to leave, pack up and move the commune somewhere else!" Says one.

"No, it'll be fine! We can just have them keep it a secret!" Says another.

"That's ridiculous, you know they can't be trusted! We're simply going to have to imprison them here until we can be sure they won't talk!" Says yet another. But then finally, there's an argument I can't stomach not speaking out against.

"We should simply kill them…"

I don't know who spoke, even if the voice is familiar… but the second I hear what they're saying, I give up trying to figure out who it was. My fur stands on end and my lips instinctively pull away from my teeth in anger.

"What the heck are you talking about!? Are you a monster!?" I shout.

With that, the adults finally notice I'm in the room and all eyes turn on me. This is quite intimidating even if their eyes hold only confusion rather than malice, and I instantly become more meek. I close my mouth and step back a bit, folding my arms.

"I-I mean, that would be wrong… and it's up to the elders anyway, isn't it? I-It's not polite that you're just ignoring them, by the way…"

A lot of the adults smile at me, but father nods the most enthusiastically.

"My son is quite right. We're being quite disrespectful right now, wouldn't you all say?"

One of the women who had been shouting most voraciously looks down in shame, then turns to Mister Shiro and bows in apology. The other adults follow suit and I join them in absence of knowing what else to do.

"Oh no, it's quite all right…" Mister Shiro says nervously, waving his hand about a bit. "Thank you young Ashan. I am very grateful for your aid in breaking up that row. Maybe now we can get to business."

Standing up straight, I nod enthusiastically at that idea. Then, I look to Miss Minako.

"That's a good idea!" I say. "Master, wasn't one of the outsiders injured? We should be treating them, shouldn't we?"

She casts her glance away, as do many of the other adults… causing my face to fall in confusion. Before I can speak, Mister Shiro scratches at his throat.

"It would be in the best interest of fine hospitality for us to treat their wounds, until we decide what is to be done with them." His voice is uncertain, which is pretty confusing itself… but I put that aside and nod before speaking.

"Yeah, definitely! But killing them is off the table, isn't it? We're better than that!"

"Hm… well…" Mister Shiro glances sideways now too. My face falls again.

"A-Aren't we…?"

No one answers. Suddenly, Miss Minako grabs my attention with one of her scary glares. I feel it before I see it, and when I do… I stand stock straight in unconscious fear.

"Well if it is in the interest of hospitality anyway, we can send Ashan to care for them while we decide what to do."

My jaw hangs open a bit at the suggestion.

"Wh-What? There's no way I can do that, I'm still just an apprentice."

"That sounds like a fine idea to me." Mother suddenly pipes in, with a smile. "You should believe in yourself more honey. Miss Minako says you'll one day be a finer healer than her, so I'm sure your skills as they are will be more than enough to help the outsiders!"

"I-I guess…" I mumble, not looking my mother in the eyes. "If their injuries are minor, it shouldn't be a problem…"

"Then off you go Ashan." Miss Minako says, and in a way a lot more pleasant than anything she's ever told me that wasn't one of her rare compliments. "We've put them in with the livestock, so go ahead and do what you can."

My eyes widen at that.

"B-But that environment is so unsanitary! Why wouldn't they be taken to your hut?"

Miss Minako comes to me and pats me on the head.

"You're absolutely right, but we needed a place where they could be easily guarded and kept away from the others in the commune. We didn't have anywhere else to put them in the end."

I'm not sure about that, it doesn't sound right to me. Quarantining them in Miss Minako's generously large medical hut – the second largest building in the village behind the elder's hut and ahead of the school – wouldn't be that hard. It had been designed with high capacity and few windows, I'm sure deliberately for this exact kind of situation. But… Miss Minako's so smart, she must know something I don't. Regardless, I'm not brave enough to stand up to her. I just have to do what I can. With all that in mind, I nod and look down.

"O-Okay, I'll go to the livestock pens then."

"That's a good boy."

I'm not stupid. I know I'm being patronized and gotten rid of because I'm still a child... still beneath helping make the adult choices like this. But even if they would suggest something so barbaric as killing them, I believe fundamentally that everyone here isn't so bad and that it had only been said out of fear. I trust all of them to do the right thing in the end, once they'd calmed down and talked it out. I trust the adults. I trust my parents. I trust Haya. I trust Miss Minako especially. She had taught me to value every person, taught me that it was our fundamental duty as healers to protect life... a duty I've come to cling fiercely to. So I do what I'm told. I leave the adult's meeting and head for the livestock pens on the outskirts of the commune. I dart quickly with a spring in my step, knowing that every second I spare is another second of suffering I can spare my patients. Still... what I find brings me to a quite horrified standstill.

The outsiders haven't just been deposited in the pens. There's a small hut where the straw is kept that would've been perfect, but instead the outsiders are being held in the horse stall on the far end, closest to the refuse hole we'd dug to store waste. It's not a place simply of pungent fumes, the last pen is never cleaned and any extra refuse is kept there. It's the worst possible environment within which an injured person could possibly be kept. It's cruel, and barbaric, and the two young hunters who'd been assigned to guard the outsiders are so freaked out by how angry I look that they almost deny me entry. Ultimately however, when I get over my shock and order them to escort the prisoners to the hut instead in a voice of cold rage, they do it without question even though they're a bit older than me.

"Geez Ashan, I've never seen you look so scary before…" Mumbles Gaden as he carries out the task I assigned them. Then, when he opens the pen, he says. "Come on. Get up, you filthy-"

I can't help myself, I growl a little at the remark. Maybe I am a dog after all. If I am, then in that moment he must've seen me as a ferocious guard dog. I hear him audibly gulp before he changes tact.

"Cmon outsiders… we're moving you somewhere cleaner and less smelly, which is fine with me since… well, just get moving!"

After that speech, I finally see the outsiders. The first one to come out the door is an extremely tired looking and short woman… or girl, I can't tell their ages because I'd never seen an outsider before in person. Judging by her lacking height and reddish skin, I assume she's what the books refer to as a Halfling. She has a few cuts and bruises, and she's hugging herself, but she doesn't seem to be in bad shape. When the other two come out though, I become fixated on them. The first is a very tall man with pointed ears and gray eyes, obviously an elf. But the burden he's carrying is what draws my attention. A smaller woman with blazing red hair and slightly more rounded ears, but not fully… a half-elf, probably. Her appearance isn't what catches my attention though, nor even the fact that she's unconscious… the degree of her injury is.

The tall man is holding his hand over her stomach. The redness of blood has covered his hand and dried, seeming to imply that beneath the hand is some severe type of wound that he'd been putting pressure on to try and staunch the bleeding. Judging by the deathly paleness of her visage – barely more red than the corpses I'd discovered in the jungle – I can tell that his success in that has been limited. Her breathing is fast and fitful, indicating a heart racing to get blood through damaged vessels and to vital parts of her body. The injury is incredibly severe. The woman is dying, and I can only watch stunned as the man and his jailers walk by me without a second glance, all while my own heart begins to race.

It's too much. That injury is far too severe for me to treat. Had Miss Minako knew this when she sent me here…? Is this some type of test…? Would she really risk someone's life just for that…?

I'm interrupted from this panicked reverie when Gaden calls after me. I turn and unconsciously walk toward the hut. Gaden and his fellow guard are at the entrance, spears crossed over the door to stall escape attempts. They part them as I step inside. The Halfling woman has found a comfortable spot on the hay to lie down and stare at the wall. The tall elf looks down on the woman in his arms with a morose look on his face as he sits down… clearly trying to prepare himself for the moment of her death. None of them look at me as I step inside, as I stand there and watch them. The man does speak though.

"I'm glad someone here seems to care…" His voice is quiet, weary. He seems to be talking to me. "Child, I don't know why they would send you here… but you should leave, you don't need to see this."

As he says that, he brushes against her hair with his hand. He's given up. He knows it won't be long, and it pains him to think about it… so he's just appreciating her warmth while he can. Like a parent would. I realize then that the woman in his arms is no woman, but a girl. Probably around my age. The murderers that had attacked them on the road had gone so far as to cause fatal harm to a child. Even as a child myself, I know how monstrous that is.

"Th-They sent me to help you…" I mutter. "I-I'm the healer's apprentice."

"Ha." He actually smiles a bit, if entirely sardonically. "Seems to me more like they sent you to get you out of their hair, since you actually care what happens to us…"

He pulls the girl closer to his chest. A deep sadness pervades his voice, he sounds on the edge of tears he's forcing down.

"They care too, I'm sure of it…"

The man's face crinkles in anger and bitterness. Not at me, but at what I'd said. I can tell he thinks I'm ignorant, even with no context for what emotions look like on a face such as his. I suppose that speaks to the power of his feelings. Ultimately, he looks up at me, anger still in his eyes.

"Child, if they cared, why would they have done this to us!?"

I stumble back a bit. He had a point, putting them in such a filthy place with their injuries was pretty cruel…

"I'm sorry." I say, putting one hand over the other as tears leak from my eyes. "I'm sorry…"

The man sighs, a bit of guilt showing in his eyes. He leans back.

"No, no… you don't have to be sorry. It wasn't your fault. You're just a kid."

At that, I look up to the girl in his arms.

"I… I want to help… My master says I'm really skilled for an apprentice…"

He looks up, but doesn't dare to be hopeful.

"But you don't think you can do it, do you?"

I squeeze on my forearm at the accusation. The truth.

"I've never treated something so severe before, I… I don't know…"

The man closes his eyes, squeezing the shoulders of the girl in his arm. Suddenly, he opens them again. They're full of resolve.

"I can tell you're scared, and that's why you're saying that. In a way… I'm scared too, which is why I don't want to trust you, or get my hopes up. But… while I'm not this girl's real father… she does think of me that way. So I want to do my best to live up to that." He climbs to his feet and walks up to me. "So… please… whatever your name is…"

"A-Ashan…" I mutter.

"Ashan. Please… help her."

I look up at him, the tears are coming a bit faster now as the burden of responsibility begins to weigh on me. I'm afraid of it. I step back, an attempt to run away from that burden. His eyes drill into me, I can't look away. Not until the moment passes and he closes them while relaxing his body a bit.

"You know Ashan… Every person – including you – has two minds. One's the emotional one, it dictates what you care about. And I can tell that your emotional mind has decided that it cares about this girl's life, that it wants to save her…"

He has more to say, but that was enough to convince me to do something about this. Because he's right, I do want to save her. And I know the steps, they call out to me in my mind, and I project them out to the world.

"We need to put her on a flat surface…" I mumble. The man's eyes steel at the suggestion… he takes it like an order, and looks around. There's a shelf nearby, low enough to be used as a bench and wide enough for hay bales. After focusing on it, he turns again, this time to face the Halfling.

"Sana! Clear off that shelf! Now!"

His voice brokers no hesitation, Sana rolls over from her wall-watching and scrambles to do what she's been ordered to do. She fiercely throws the hay bales and tools from the shelf with no consideration for where they go. That's just fine with me. I ignore it as I dig into my pack for my medical supplies, and all of the herbs I'd gathered. I'm going to need them. When the shelf has been cleaned off, the man tries to set her down on it. I raise my hand.

"W-Wait a second…" I say. Before he sets her down on the bench, I grab a bottle of medical alcohol from the kit I keep inside my bag. Pulling off the top, I douse the entire bench, then use a cloth to wipe it down. Now that the setting is clean, I nod to the man. "B-Be gentle…!"

"You don't have to worry about that." He says with a nod, gently setting her down. He doesn't remove his hand from her wound.

"I'm g-going to n-need you to move your hand, in a second." I tell him, as I use the remaining alcohol in my bottle on a small piece of cloth and on my hands. I grab another bottle as I look to him. "When you do it, I'm going to need you to soak your hands with this, and then take this pad right here." I point to the small piece of cloth in my hand. "While you're doing that, I'm going to inspect her wound. When I tell you, you need to push that pad down on her wound again while I prepare some stitches… Unless either of you knows some healing magic?"

The Halfing and the Elf both shake their heads. Unfortunate.

"She's lost a lot of blood…" I mumble, trembling. I know we can't start while I'm like this… my hands need to be steady, especially if I end up needing to remove the head of an arrow or a spear. In that case I'd need to perform an incision and the shaking would cause even more damage. If she doesn't have any internal bleeding already, this would also cause it. All of this is a lot of pressure, so I grab fiercely to my wrist in an attempt to stop it. It doesn't work. Plus. I can't help but say… "Even if I do this, she might die anyway…"

My heart is racing at simply the thought of performing this procedure, I can't calm down… and every second I'm wasting on this is another second she gets closer to dying. But I can't get all of this doubt out of my head… Suddenly, the man's free hand touches my shoulder, as I sit there on my knees… shaking.

"Hey. What I was saying before, I didn't get to finish. Can you listen?"

I turn my head to look at him, and nod. He doesn't remove his hand from my shoulder, instead he squeezes it reassuringly.

"There's another thing your emotional mind is doing. It's holding you back. It gave you a goal, to save this girl. You're a good person, and so following your heart to do that is the right thing to do. The problem is that it's also holding you back from achieving it. With all this fear and doubt that's stopping you from doing what you know you need to do. It's telling you that you might fail, that you might make things worse, and so it seems impossible to even try…" He's right, and it makes me want to cry. In fact, I do cry, tears spilling from my eyes at my own weakness. He squeezes my shoulder again, until I look with tears still pouring out. But his eyes are steady, and he's smiling. "BUT, you remember how I said there were two minds, right?" I nod, my tears slowly starting to dry up. "Well, it's time to put your emotional mind away, and take out your other mind. Your logical mind. The one that knows the steps to take in order to save her. The one that can cut through the noise of your emotional mind, and do what needs to be done."

"But… how do I do that?" I ask, desperately wanting to know the answer. He closes his eyes, but the smile doesn't leave his face.

"Well, maybe it won't work for you… but what I do? I tell my emotional mind that if I don't do this, that I'll have regrets. And those never go away. If I tell it that, then it's more than willing to get out of my way. Because it knows that it'd be best for me to live my life without them, knowing that even if I do fail… I did the best I possibly could, and that's better than having done nothing."

I close my eyes to process that, holding tightly to the scalpel that had found its way into my hand. I try telling my emotional mind what he said. It doesn't work, I don't stop shaking, I don't stop feeling all of the awful things that are holding me back. But it's not that my "emotional mind" isn't afraid of the guilt, it's just not enough to shake me out of this… to get me to focus. But it is enough to give me a really stupid idea. Still shaking, I turn my eyes on the man.

"Um… Mister…"

"My names Cavalane." He removes his hand from my shoulder, then points at the Halfling. "As you know, that's Sina." Then he points at the child. "And this… this is Melanie."

"Okay, Mister Cavalane. I need to ask you to do something that's really awkward, but I think it'll calm me down."

"Then I'll do it, what do you need?"

He doesn't hesitate. That's good.

"Look, Mister Cavalane… I promise I'm not asking you to do this as a joke or something, I really think it'll help…"

He punches me softly on the top of the head and grins, if a little weakly.

"Just tell me what to do kid."

"I… I need you to, um… pet me…"

His reaction isn't at all what I expected. I expected him to hesitate or be dumbfounded or at least be a little surprised. But no, he just shakes his head and… does what I asked. Smiling, he places his hand on my head and starts gently massaging my temples.

"Is… is this really happening…?" Sina wonders. She's reacting more like I expected. It seems Mister Cavalane realizes this isn't really the time to question my bizarre request, but she's in a much better position to question me.

Anyway, his petting feels pretty nice. The roiling in my heart does decrease somewhat, enough to stop me from crying at least. But I'm still shaking. Mister Cavalane seems to realize this isn't enough, and changes tact. He finds the right spot by scratching me behind the ears like my sister always does. This is so pleasant that I nearly drop the scalpel, and I close my eyes and appreciate the sensation as drool starts building in my muzzle.

Still though, it's not enough. Looking with one eye, I can tell Mister Cavalane is getting frustrated. He doesn't get mad at me though, instead he redoubles his efforts… and finds a new spot that not even my sister had discovered yet, scratching me beneath my chin. This finally does me in, my muzzle drops open as a chill passes through my whole body. I start panting, and the shaking disappears.

"You… are one weird kid…" Sina mutters, looking at me through narrowed eyes.

I frown guiltily at that as Mister Cavalane finishes with a pat on the head.

"Yeah, I know…" I mumble.

Mister Cavalane is annoyed by this though, and looks back at Sina with a glare.

"S-Sorry." She says, raising her hands in surrender. "Y-You're not weird at all, kid!"

I know that's not true, but I still smile nonetheless. Mister Cavalane looks at me with a resolved gaze.

"You look better now, are you ready for this?"

I take a deep breath, then nod.

"Yeah… Yeah, I think I am."

We both turn to my first ever real, sapient surgical patient. It's a lot of pressure... but I focus on what Mister Cavalane said and stick to my "logical mind", the steps of treatment that had been drilled into me by my mentor.

I'm not going to let you down Melanie. You or Miss Minako. I can do this!

With that bit of self-assurance, I nod to Mister Cavalane. He removes his hand from the girl's wound, and I begin my attempt to save her life.