The Arcana: Fragments

XXIII: Fragments

*Julian x Lucio Side Tale*

This was not easy. Selling ointments and herbal infusions to passersby on warm afternoons, safely nestled into the booth of my masters place of business was easy. Chopping off limbs and listening to the constant wail of men wasn't. I had sore, red patches of scalp from where my hair had once been, prior to me tugging it all out. Oddly enough, I found that inflicting some pain into myself sprouted some unorthodox bonding and understanding of what the men all around me were going through. It was nonsensical, but it helped me fall asleep - on the occasion that I did.

I never planned to be here. If it had been my decision, my master and I would have left Prakra and set sail back to Nevivon more than a week ago. If it had been up to me, Pasha would've hopefully been still waiting for me there, and her brother would've returned with a career and money capable of sustaining them both comfortably for the rest of their days. But it wasn't my choice. I am but an apprentice, serving at the will of my master. He was a good man, but a fool to live his life thinking good deeds will keep you alive. Now, I'm stuck here, an abandoned apprentice stuck in a battlefield with which I know not the cause of. It was my master's idea to come help the sick and wounded, he said being a real doctor went beyond the barriers of opposing faiths, traditions, peoples. A real doctor tosses all of this aside, trusts in their work, the science of nature, and acts on the sole ideology of doing to help.

I will stress again, this was his idea.

My body was sore and fatigued, my hands trembled at my not having a proper meal for days. From outside the tent, a man's scream could be heard filling the dimming sky. Night was approaching. Probably in the process of losing a limb, I pondered, analyzing the degree of the man's cries. Sounds like a foot. My fingernails were crusted with dried blood, I used what little water was left in the copper bowl beside me to rinse them off, but not to much success. The water was just as tainted as my hands. Can't wash blood with blood. My patient left out a soft groan as I, in a daze, went about picking up my equipment. Looking about the tent, it's rich cardinal red and white trimmed fabric, the rather exotic looking furniture, I came to the conclusion that this one was rather high up in the ranks. Another groan, he was waking. Coming to his side, I gently advised him to stay still and go back to sleep if he could. After all, I was depleted of my entire stock of opiate based pain reliever and didn't have the means to ease his discomfort should he come to full consciousness.

The man licked his pale lips, moaning. To both of our dismay, there was no fresh water to be consumed. "Just rest", I said, "You'll live to tell this tale". Black rings surrounded the hollows of his eyes where some sort of charcoal paint had been, his eyes opened, revealing two pale white orbs in the midst of his black ringlets. His eyes wandered about the room, slow and sleepy until they landed on me. The bandages on his arm were slowly turning red as he looked at me, he noticed I did not hold his gaze. He attempted to look down at what I was watching, but I put my palm to his forehead and replaced his head to stare at the ceiling instead. "Nothing you need to see just yet", I assured. He licked his lips again, groaning at their dryness.

"I know you", the man finally said after some time of more groaning and lip licking. "By now many people know me", I replied sarcastically, remembering my situation and how much I hated it. "Your master....where..?", a fit of coughing cut him off before he could finish. "Dead", was all I cared to respond to. "Why am I here?", the man asked. At this time, one of his captains came into the tent. Seeing that he was awake, the captain knelt to his side, informing him of the progress made beyond the four walls of this awkward uprise of fabric. "My Count, night grows and the enemy tires. We could strike again come nightfall and be done with this. My men can still fight, just say the word". The Count looked into the light peering into the tent from where the captain entered, it cascaded his features in a warm orange hue that did well at making him look more aware and strong. For a moment, there was silence, save for the occasional squeak as my dirtied rags wiped my saw and forceps clean. I hardly noticed I had even gotten this far in my cleanup process. So much becomes mundane and routine as a battlefield medic; numb, remove, stitch, sterilize, and on to the next.