Page 56 of Nixx
I follow Eleny out of the tent where we spent the night. I slept really well. What a pleasure to exchange an ugly water lily leaf perched dozens of meters away, for a real bed, comfortable and intimate. This morning I feel great, rested like I haven't been for a while.
Eleny and I enter the tent of Mery, the sister of Lokk. She is in her sixth month, out of seven Erian pregnancies. I am not a midwife and have never had a pregnancy to deal with on the Proud, but overall, I know that pregnancies are pretty much the same.
It seems that Mery has mostly strong contractions and anxiety which are common to all mothers-to-be. I give her some Tylenol to calm her contractions and recommend a few days of rest, as well as some herbal decoctions that Holly told me about in a similar case at the West Bastion.
As I finish with Mery, one of her friends comes to visit her. Learning that I am a healer, she asks me for advice. Soon, I am surrounded by several women asking me to reassure them about various small ailments. I am taken to one, then to another. They serve me a cup of kafae, they offer me a fruit. Eleny follows me at each step. I think that Nixx must have left his instructions to always know where I am when I am not in his field of vision.
I feel good. I feel accepted. Not as Nixx's companion, although obviously everyone knows that. No, I feel accepted as a doctor. And that feels good. These women come to me because they sincerely care about my advice to solve their problems. They don't care that I'm different.
I now realize that this partial rejection at Bastion West ultimately hurt me. And as a doctor, I know that the relationship of trust between a practitioner and his patient cannot be forced, it must be sincere and spontaneous. Certainly, the patients at the Bastion did not clearly reject me as a doctor. They just systematically sought out their usual healer rather than dealing with me.
A young Eriane pulls me out of my thoughts as I put my things away.
“Hi, my name is Polly, I heard you’re a healer? My little brother fell this morning, his wing is not working very well. Do you think you could take a look?”
“Hi, Polly, I'm Sarah and yes of course I'll follow you. Take me to him.”
Blimey, I hope I'm up to the task. Wing medicine, let's just say it's not my thing. I follow her to the very edge of the camp and enter a tent with her.
“This is Dall, my little brother.”
“Hello, Dall, I'm Sarah. I'm a healer and I've come to see if I can help you.”
Dall is a young Erian. No longer a little boy, but not yet a young man either. He looks at me warily. His wings are a soft brown, a little lighter than his sister Polly's.
“Hello. It's nothing, it will pass by itself.”
Dall looks embarrassed by my presence, but in his eyes; I see real pain.
“You're probably right. But now that I'm here, I don't mind looking and being able to reassure your sister too.”
He lets me approach him and inspect without touching his left wing which hangs on the ground. Undeniably, it is wounded.
“How did you get this?” I ask him gently.
“I followed my father, Ivann, to see my sister. She came to live here a year ago now when she met Finn, her mate. When my father told me that he was accompanying Amill to the Middle Lands for a meeting, I asked to come with them to see my sister. My father agreed, but I must not be an embarrassment to him. I don't want to embarrass him.”
“Come on Dall, being hurt is not shameful. It doesn't make you a weak person either. You just need to understand where you’re hurt and how I can help you. Can you tell me how old you’re and how exactly you got hurt?”
“I am eleven years old. And I got hurt stupidly. I was doing aerial acrobatics to impress my sister. And then I messed up. I landed in a bush. At first, I thought it would be okay, but my wing is getting harder and harder to lift. I don't know what's going on.”
His voice trembles and I understand that the fear of losing mobility is even more painful for him than the pain. I do a quick scan with my scanner. It does not detect anything in particular. So, I decide to do a manual search for possible internal injuries. Handling the wing with softness, I unfold it the first time, the primary[9]remiges, then the secondary, then finally the part of the tertiary remiges attached to his shoulder. The bones do not seem to be affected. Nor even the tendons.
Carefully inspecting the plumage, I see black marks on the inner surface. I rescan this area and the analyzer informs me that Dall has fallen into a particularly poisonous bush. The substance that covered the plant he fell on has two properties. Not only does it paralyze the part that was hit, but it also starts a decomposition process. Basically, it's dirt.
“Okay, Dall, I see what this is all about. But I have good news. Nothing is broken and you will regain the mobility of your wing completely and quickly. However, you should immediately wash yourself with plenty of water to get rid of the black marks you see under your wing. You must not leave any. Then, you will have to rest and wait without forcing, until your wing regains its strength. Maybe a day or two, in my opinion.”
My young patient seems dismayed by the delay!
“But I'm going to have to tell my dad!”
So, I decide to stall. He will decide when to announce it. For the moment it is necessary to proceed with the cleaning without delay. His sister, Polly, intervenes in this sense.
