"Only a tad of apple," she corrected, watching as the young Breton ahead of her hesitated before pulling her cup away from the bowl. "We want our potion to have mostly aloe vera leaves, it'll be more liquid rather than mushy apples."
Mirin, probably the youngest of all Ariviane's students, looked up at her mentor for reassurance that what she did was right. Ariviane gave a small smile, nothing with true meaning.
"It's not done yet," Mirin squeaked, nearly dropping the bowl of mushed apples on the table as she reached over to grab the small cup of blackberry juice on the side. She shakily dipped a spoon in, taking only a small amount out that ended up spilling anyway, and poured it straight into the cup. Then, she began mixing.
This was routine. Since Ariviane discovered how to heal through recipes and her own magic, she'd been sharing her knowledge to the other kids in the small town of Bayside Heights. It was a poor town of much less than fifty, all Bretons, where the way of life was old and traditional after years of being shielded from the outside world. No visitors would show up to such a small town, so far from any main city. Yet, it was home, and it was warm and welcoming.
It was all routine until there was shouting outside her house in the front. Ariviane looked up with a frown, and even Mirin paused mixing, and both stood from their chairs to lean in towards the table and glance outside the window.
Narrowing her eyes, Ariviane caught three men, two carrying one in the middle. Right now, they were just specks of color, even though Ariviane knew one was her father, and the other was a close friend of her family Erjstien, and the black speck in the middle she didn't know.
One of the men shouted her name, something Ariviane thought was her own imagination until she saw Mirin glance at her out of the corner of her.
As the men got closer, she could see the dark spot turn into a form, though she couldn't quite tell what due to the black robes that hung off it. She could, however, tell there was fresh blood dripping from it, and the robes were shredded.
"Oh Lorkhan," she gasped. "Mirin, run home, quickly! Your lesson is done, go home and practice!" Mirin hesitated at first, and Ariviane looked at her now. "Quickly!" The last thing she wanted was for the young girl to get stuck gazing at a bloody and torn body, if that's what the robe covered. Mirin now turned away and dashed out of the room and out of the house at the impatience in Ariviane's voice, passing the three approaching men with a glance back. Ariviane rushed to the door in time for the three to approach, and she ushered them inside and to place the injured body down.
Ariviane got a good look of the newcomer once he was lying flat on a bed. His black hood fell from his face, exposing blood on his darker skin. An Imperial? All the way out here? His skin was darker than hers, and he had raven black hair that fell out of a ponytail in the back. Pieces in the front were pinned to his face from dried sweat and blood. She carefully felt one of his cuts along his narrow jawline and found it sticky. She might have considered how attractive he appeared had he not been bruised and bleeding. His wounds were fresh, but old enough to have stopped bleeding, much to her surprise. She thought all of the blood on him was completely fresh.
Shaking herself back into reality, Ariviane noticed the two that had carried him in still hung around, and she waved her hand. "Leave me, I've got this under control." And with that, they were gone.
Ariviane untied the belt that held the cloak together at the waist, and then carefully pulled apart the robe to a black shirt underneath of finer material than Ariviane had ever worn. She lifted that to expose herself to the mess of a wound running across his chest. Ariviane leaned over to the bookshelf and grabbed a rag and used it to wipe up the fresh blood around the wound and give her a better look at it, where she would inspect it to make sure nothing was lodged in there before beginning to heal it with her own hands. It was too much for any potions to heal, so she would use her own hands by placing it directly onto the wound
It started at her elbow, and would quickly go to her hand like putting her forearm in a bucket of warm water elbow first. Her hand would glow blue, and then there would be a spark that emerged from it and would disappear into the wound of her choice, just as it did now.
She would have to hope it would hold. But it was more than hope that she felt. It was also confidence. It wasn't the first time she had to treat a decent sized wound on a body. Where she lived might have had a small population, but injuries were still common.
Ariviane stood, grabbing another rag to wipe her hands and then disappeared from the room, reentering when she had a bowl of somnalius and mutton combined. It was her favorite go to paste for wounds when the hunters would come back with wounds from wild dogs or wolves.
Dumping it straight into the wound, she watched it harden, then begin dissolving with a sizzle, and the wound closed on its own, leaving a red line where the wound had been. Ariviane gave a nod to herself.
She moved next to the small nicks covering his body and face, let out a breath. It would take this man a while to fully recover, but for now, his wounds closing was a start. He could gather his strength in time.
