Blind but Healing

Belan couldn't stop trembling with anger.

He knew the drow were bad. His mom had threatened him to behave or the drow would get him. He heard whispers about how the drow, except for Verika who was the only good apple in the bad lot, were evil beyond imagining. Rumors of how the drow treated people, elves and each other. Stories were told around fireplaces about how the drow, like demons, sought to kill and delighted in torture like the most evil of birds.

He had never realized how bad it actually was until he had been captured. He had suffered, he had watched his friends and teacher get taken away. He had been held captive, fear trembling through his bones. He thought he knew how evil drow were. He experienced it.

He had no idea how wrong he was. This poor, blind, tortured, beautiful girl proved him wrong. She was so thin, so frail. And these wounds... They weren't young. No, his eyes landed on a thin, scarred over slice which was put over multiple scars even older. These were old. These were scars meant to hurt, scars that couldn't be from natural injury. How long had she been tortured? How long had she been injured? How often had she been brought to the brink of death for the sake of horrific drow amusement!

He almost interrupted his own healing by clenching his fists, only to remember himself and exhale. Calm. He must be calm. If his heart was troubled, he wouldn't be able to focus as well. And that would mean she would have to suffer longer.

He couldn't force that on anyone, even a drow. Even the drow that...

He shivered as the memory of the dark body screaming in delight under his touch intruded again. His member, christened with the defeat of the drow, stirred.

No! He scolded himself. That was a memory of victory, of empowerment against his captor. This was healing. He didn't want to take this drow and break her will before him. He wanted to heal her, to end her suffering.

The girl sighed in relief as one of the scabs fell off, the new, unblemished dusky skin replacing it.

"Hi," Belan whispered as Talavar and Verika started talking. Teacher Syvel said that if you could talk to a patient while they were healing, it helped to calm them down, make them relax, which made everything easier. "My name is Belan. What's yours?"

"M-My name?" She whispered back. Belan almost shook in horror. Had she never been asked for her name? Had the drow...never called her by name? Then again, the drow had never gotten his own name when he was her captive so why would they be different now? "My name is Ioni."

"Nice to meet you, Ioni," he greeted, forcing a light element into his voice. He couldn't succeed though.

She nodded once, jerkily.

And he didn't know what to say. This was his first meeting. They had nothing in common. He was a forest elf here to save his friends and she was a drow victim, victim of her own people. What could he say?

Head falling slightly, he berated himself for not knowing what to say. What could he say? He glanced up at Talavar, the nice tiefling, but he was talking with Verika. Too busy to help him right now.

His head fell again, eyes falling onto Ioni, her body's horrific scars, a few having finished bleeding under his healing. His teeth clenched. How could anyone be this badly hurt?

But he couldn't ask her that. He may have put his foot in his mouth a few times in the past. But he knew better than to make her relive her torture by asking questions. He didn't want to hurt her.

As he thought about why, for what possible reasons could she have been tortured, most of his attention on keeping the healing going well, his eyes wandered.

Underneath her scars, she looked young. About his age, maybe, possibly Esile or Leati's age. Or maybe a little older.

Wait, that could be something.

"So how old are you?" He asked.

"How old?" She seemed befuddled.

"Yeah," he forced a smile onto his face. "I'm in my forties, almost fifty. It would be nice if we're the same age. Then you could join me and my friends in taking lessons! Teacher Syvel would be happy to have a new student. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Fun?" She trembled. "I...don't like lessons."

"Yeah," he grimaced. "They aren't much fun to learn. But when you can use what you learn and it helps someone? That's the most amazing feeling."

She shook as he ran his hand up around her shoulders again. Some of the fresher wounds were here. He focused on those next.

"So what do you like to do for fun?" He forced the question out, to keep the conversation going.

"I don't have anything." She confessed after a few moments of silence. "I don't recall ever having 'fun'."

"You don't know how to have fun?" He asked in disbelief. He knew the drow were messed up. But for them to not know how to have fun and to force that upon such a poor girl? They were worse than he had thought!

She shook her head minutely.

"Then, we'll show you," He came up with. "When we get back, I'll take you to have fun. We'll play games, and Esile and Leati will do fun girl stuff with you."

"Girl stuff?" She sounded confused.

"I think it's make-up and stuff. I don't know to be honest," Belan confessed. "I'm a guy so they don't want me around for that. Besides the other guys are more fun to be with. But since you are a girl, you'll enjoy it."

She didn't say anything. Was she shy?

Or maybe she was just tired. Intense healing took a lot out of a person. Both the healer and the healed.

"Do you want a pillow?" He asked.

"A pillow?" She sounded like she didn't know what the word meant.

"It's, it's," He grasped for words. How do you explain what a pillow is? "A pillow is something you put under your head to sleep more comfortably."

"I don't need it," she said quickly.

"You don't need a pillow," he said, looking around. Where was what he had been using for a pillow? Oh, he had been using a corner of his bedroll, balled up. "You just use it to make yourself more comfortable as you sleep."

What to do? Ah!

"I'll get you a pillow tonight," he promised. He could just sleep on the rocks and use his staff for a pillow. It would be uncomfortable but he obviously needed it less than Ioni did.

"I-" She broke off when he interrupted.

"It's nothing, really," he insisted. "You are my patient and I will take care of you by my honor as a healer." in training, at least.

She stilled at the words, face turned away so he couldn't see her expression.

The green light on his hands flickered out, his energy out. Belan collapsed back, arms spilling to catch himself.

Whew, he yawned. That took a lot out of him. He was almost out of magical energy. But she looked much better already.

"Okay, that's it for today," He said, forcing himself to climb up onto his feet. "Any more and your body won't be able to handle it. It takes time for healing to happen. We'll do some more tomorrow. Maybe eventually, we can even heal your eyes."

At that moment, his stomach rumbled, causing him to flush. How mortifying!

"But before that, what would you like to eat?" He asked.

"Anything would be good," Ioni said, her own stomach giving a quiet murmur.

"Okay," Belan took some steps toward where they had stored the scavenged meals from the drow camp. Good thing they had packed some food from there. He would not feed Ioni any moldy hardtack if he could help it!

"But, my eyes? You can heal my eyes?" Her voice stopped him cold. "That's impossible. For it to happen... is it even possible?"

Belan looked back. Ioni was still lying still on the rug Talavar had brought her in. In the dim light he had conjured, he could barely see her.

But her voice. He had never heard anyone sound that disbelieving. Yet her voice was full of naked desire, a yearning hope, a need almost snuffed out. The emotions overflowing in her voice stirred him.

Did she want to be able to see again? Of course she would. But did she think she would never be able to see ever again?

No. Determination swept through him like iron turning into steel. No, he would not let it. He would heal her and restore her sight. As a man (even if only becoming a real man less than a week ago), he couldn't say no to her. For her sake, he would wrest the secrets of healing until he could. If he had to lay siege to the goddess of healing herself to heal Ioni's eyes, he would!

"Yes. I will heal your eyes." he promised, taking several steps back to Ioni, who flinched. He kneeled down in front of her, bringing one hand to her chin and gently raising it up so that if she had eyes, he would be looking into them. These disgusting iron spikes. He would pull them out himself when she was safe. What would her eyes be like? Would she have gentle and pretty red eyes like Verika or harsher eyes like the other drow?

"But," He hesitated. But he was promising and he couldn't lie to her. "It, it might take a while though. I, to be honest, I don't know how." He confessed before realizing that it probably would ruin her hopes. "Yet, that is. I'm only an apprentice and I don't think even teacher Syvel knows."

He could see her start to slump. And that set off something inside of him.

"But I will learn," He vowed with all his heart. He was a healer on a secret infiltration into the heart of the drow in the Underdark to rescue his teacher and friends from being sacrificed. This was an adventure out of legend! He was with no fewer than two of the famous heroines! If he could do this, then what was healing eyes? "Even if it takes me a lifetime and I have to besiege the goddess of healing's home myself with prayers, I will restore your sight and beautiful eyes."

Her jaw hung open slightly in his hand. His strong emotions ran out and he flushed.

Making promises like that... What did he think he was, a great healer? He hadn't even graduated yet. He was being an idiot!

But, he really wanted to. More than anything, well really almost as much as he wanted to free his teacher and friends, he wanted to help this poor girl with such a horrible past. He wanted to give her something good in her life, something to make her smile.

A soft clang of a spoon on the pot caused him and Ioni to start, almost jump.

"Ah," He scrambled away, realizing how close he was with her. Stupid, he chastised himself. Stupid. You already had sex with a drow, what are you getting nervous about? "I'll get you something to eat. It'll be good, I promise. Just lie there and rest and I'll bring it to you."

He left in a hurry, not paying attention to the still slightly stunned and imperceptibly blushing young maiden he left behind.

"So," Khaytala grinned at him, the beautiful half-orc with a teasing grin on her face. He could already feel blood pooling on his cheeks. "Restoring her beautiful eyes was it?"

"Um, uh," He scrambled for words. How could Talavar always know what words to say?

"Don't worry, kid," she reached over and tousled his hair, like he was just a kid. He involuntarily whined. He was not a kid! "I think it was rather cute. She looks like she could use someone who wants to do her some good. And you're a good kid, she'd be lucky to find a guy half as good as you."

"Uhhh," he couldn't find words again even as his face turned tomato red and hot as a fire!

"Just continue to be the good and sweet boy you are as you grow up and she'll be in the palm of your hand in no time," Khaytala teased.

"Khaytala!" He protested. His voice most certainly did not squeak!