Walking down the elven road

Chapter 9

“Melya, wake up!” The elven woman grumbles something in answer, and sits up in her bed. To her surprise, the door is swung open. Kithan is standing in the doorway, with an all happy expression on his face. When he sees he is obviously disturbing Melya in her I-hate-everything awakening ritual, he turns all red, mumbles: “Sorry” and closes the door. Melya is frozen in her place, quite surprised by the sudden intrusion of her room. After a while she realizes she has to wear clothes if she wants to follow that healing lesson, and jumps out of bed, sees her working uniform and sighs. That stupid dress won’t be any good, it’ll get in her way. Melya starts to panic, she has nothing to wear! Then she remembers the dress Arion gave her when they were at the market in Corntown, and pulls it out of the closet and dresses as quickly as she can.

In the hallway, Kithan is waiting. “Wow,” he says, “You really look better when you’re not wearing that burlap sack they dare call a working uniform.”

Melya smiled timidly, says: “Thank you. Shall we go now? I think the main healer would forgive you if you would be late but to me he won’t be so lenient I suppose.”

Kithan grins confirmatively, and together they walk to the healers’ wing of the palace. Every time Melya catches a fellow servant staring she blushes, and a lot of people sate at the Crown prince accompanying a common maid to the healers’ wing. Usually when Kithan is with a girl he looks… different. Less patient, for sure.

The elven woman cautiously inspects Kithan’s features. Damn, that boy looks like an elf! He doesn’t have pointy ears though, but when she examines them more closely she sees they do have slightly pointy ends. Oh well, she’s probably imagining that. She hasn’t been with anyone of her own race for so long, and in this elf-hating kingdom she feels like she’s starting to look and act like a human woman more and more.

When they arrive, the highest ranked student of the main healer opens the oak wooden door with an incredibly bored expression on his face. That changes quickly when he sees who are standing on his masters’ doorstep.

“Welcome,” he hurries himself to say, “Come inside, please. Does Your Grace want anything to drink? Does your lady? No? Nothing? In that case, I’ll go get my master.” He takes a few steps, obviously not knowing which protocol should be applied in this situation, and decides to mumble a soft: “I’ll go get him at once, my prince, my lady.” And runs off.

“Do they always act like that?” Melya asks, a bit surprised by all the fuss made by the healers’ pupil.

“Yes,” Kithan says, “You’ll get used to it.”

“Are you implying I will have the chance to get used to it?” she asks jokingly. The main healer enters the room. Kithan leans over.

“Maybe you will,” he whispers quickly in Melya’s ear. Then he breaks away from her and looks at the main healer like nothing just happened. Melya tries to pull herself together while shivers are going up and down her spine.

The main healer, a white-haired old man with eyes filled with an obvious good sense of humor, looks at her curiously, but he takes a deep breath and introduces himself: “I am the main healer. My name is Kresten. I hope my time will not be wasted on teaching you how not to die.” He gestures them to follow him, and they do. Kresten brings them to a light room with large glass windows. On the walls are multiple shelves, packed with potions and herbs and powders. Under the shelves drawers stand, problably filled with bandages, scalpels and such.

“Sit,” the healer says.

“Where?” Kithan asks. Melya laughs at him.

“On the floor, of course. Otherwise you’ll be unable to practice properly. Unless your royal butt needs a pillow,” she jokes.

“Your lady is quite courageous to dare say that,” the healer says, smilingly, “I wouldn’t lose her, if I were you.”

Melya smiles, and they sit down. Everyone without a pillow. They start with the simple stuff. Tea of willow bark eases most pains even though it tastes awful, if a bandage is applied too tight it will reduce blood flow which will cause a body part to die if it isn’t removed in time. The elven woman is in her element, finally.