Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

XXXVII

We finished the afternoon practicing marksmanship, still, JD and Yaka practicing as well, under Erk's tutelage. It led to an interesting discussion about Gifts, which JD reported to me, as he needed to sort through what Erk had told him.

Erk explained to JD that he had discovered his Gift very early on, around three or four years old, which we did know. Following a very serious accident in Vestman Islands harbor when he was fifteen, a doctor advised him not to go into medicine. I knew it was what Kris referred to as the "Varda's lifting sling".

This doctor had demanded that Erk come to the hospital every day throughout the summer, before entering high school in Reykjavik, to teach him the anatomy and functioning of the human body, so that his knowledge could complete his instinct. Once in high school, he had continued and she – yes, that medic was a woman, too – had questioned him on weekends when he came home, also answering questions he had his teachers couldn't answer.

Dýri, Kris' father, Erik's adoptive father, a nurse at Vestman hospital, had also helped him gain a better understanding of how the human body worked. From there he had discovered that mammals were all built more or less the same, and that under certain conditions, and with a much greater energy cost than for a human, he could heal animals as well. Here too the doctor had stepped in to ask him not to be a vet either, because, even if caring for animals was good, it was necessary to give priority to humans, even if it was something hard to hear for a young man willing to give of himself for others. The energy cost for animal healing was so high Erk had followed the doctor's advice.

He explained to JD that it took him a long time to partly learn how to ration his Gift, but he did it only when needed, yet without being able to control that. He knew instinctively he would need to parcel out his Gift, or not. Kind of like Baby Jane could instinctively change the trajectory of a bullet.

Erk told JD that, despite having appeared almost a century ago, Gifts were still very much unknown. There was no rule as to how a Gift worked. Some telekinetics could be measured precisely, could move objects consciously and some, like the little porcelain doll, were using their Gift purely on instinct. Some healers could heal just by touching the injured, like he did with Kris or when under a lot of stress, just like on the harbor ten years ago, and some had to touch the wound like he would normally do. Some telepaths, like Poll, could ride radio waves and some had to touch a person to speak to her mind to mind.

He told him he was the first animal speaker he had ever met, but then he was not an expert on Gifts, per se. He then tried to help JD strengthen his bond with the dog. He explained to him that to make his diagnosis, he came into contact with the injured person, with that person's consciousness, and could thus "listen" to the body and know what to do. Touch made contact easier and healing more effective, so JD started by holding Yaka's furry head in his hands, gazing into her eyes.

It would take them a while longer to get to understand each other, to know how to speak to each other. The dog had managed to convey one image to JD and what Kris then Erk wanted to do was for JD to relay instructions to Yaka, as reliably as possible. They would eventually get there.

Kris ended training for Alyss, who was tired but wearing a happy smile. Kris, behind her, had lost the frown he had sported in the morning, which had made it clear he was taking care of her because he was following Lin's orders. He now looked thoughtful and impressed. Listening to the brothers, I understood that she could listen, that she complained when told what she did was wrong but that, when you showed the proper way, she was a quick learner.

We had recovered our cardboard targets and the painting stuff, and were waiting for them to return to base. Tito stood next to Alyss and marched her back inside. I heard him explain to her that it would become automatic and give her the trick I had taught him to keep the pace at first. It's very simple, you just have to keep the cadence in your head, with a song or something, then after a while it becomes muscle memory. The rest of us, even though we weren't in line, were marching, too. Soldier's habit.