Polar Opposites

4 - I'm Elora. I 24 and Don't Know How to Read

          Elora was bedridden for a week and a half after her confrontation with the chief. Although it had initially been hidden by the pain medicine, she had aggravated some of her injuries by her simple peek outside the door. They, unfortunately, became very well known when the medicine wore off. So, she had been on lockdown for a full eleven days.

She was going insane. She was driving Zokkik insane.

For the first two days, Elora had been in so much pain that Zokkik gave her more of the herbs and medicine that made her sleepy. So, she was mainly asleep for those – peaceful - days.

The pain lessened by the third day. Elora wanted to try to not take anything for her injuries. Zokkik was disheartened to find out she was just as stubborn as Water Tribe men. However, by the end of the day, she was struggling and was convinced by Zokkik to take something to help her. The same thing happened on the fourth day.

By the fifth day, Elora didn't need any pain medicine, but she felt fatigued and wanted to sleep all day. On the sixth, she had more energy. That was the last peaceful day in the healer's room.

On the seventh day, Elora was restless. She was ready to get up and do something. She was ready to run a marathon (Zokkik seemed confused when she said this). The arguing also started on this day. Well, it wasn't full-blown arguing, but Zokkik and Elora had different opinions about the state of her health. Many of their conversation for the rest of her bedridden healing went along the lines of:

"I think I'm healed enough to walk around now."

"Who's the healer here? And what did that healer say."

Elora would groan, "Well, I think I know my own body well enough to know."

"Oh, yes. That's why you're bedridden. Because you know when your body needs to heal."

"That's not fair. I didn't know that I was drugged."

Zokkik would give a pointed look, "Exactly. You didn't know."

That would shut Elora up for a while.

Despite what their bickering sounded like, Zokkik and Elora had grown quite close during her healing time. They were basically together at all times of the day, and they shockingly had many things in common. And to Zokkik's happiness, for all her stubbornness, Elora was a great listener and loved to learn. They spent hours discussing healing methods and medicinal plants, and just about anything else they thought about. Of course, when Zokkik would bring up her past, Elora still said she couldn't remember. She would then expertly maneuver the conversation to a topic Zokkik was passionate about and they would get engrossed in another, completely unrelated-to-Elora subject.

Zokkik wondered if she was so eager to learn because she had never had the opportunity before. If her profession had been what he thought it was, she probably had very little schooling. But he could tell that she was very intelligent and understood things that required previous education, so he was leaning towards the fact that she had some type of education. But he was completely stumped about her on the ninth day.