Gentlemen Of The Court

Chapter Eight

"Miss! Miss! You healed me! You saved me! I'm alive!".

To her horror she'd turned back, to see the man who she'd just lain on the floor with, a few minutes ago, thinking to be dead, standing uprightly, looking more alive than any man she'd ever seen in her life. And he was staring right at her. Gratitude etched on his face.

But the gratitude seemed like nothing, in the face of her own fear. And she instantly screamed with everything she had, and ran away, so fast and so hard.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She'd never been that scared before in her life. She still didn't know how she'd done it. Run the miles back home in that her thoroughly drained and weakened state. Because she only got to know much later, just how much of a toll healing other people took on her.

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"Lilah, here's warm blanket and a cup of coffee, you look like you need it and more." Mrs Jameson offered interrupting Delilah's thoughts, coming into the room where Lilah had been resting.

"Oh Mrs. Jameson you didn't have to go through all the trouble. I'm fine. You and I both know this is not the Salvador's residence. Your services are not required to be performed here" Delilah chided lightly, in a smile, as she gratefully accepted the cup of coffee from Mrs. Jameson

"A simple thank you would have sufficed young lady. Besides, I know you really did need it. I've been in the Salvador household even before your unruly arse was born. I know what your late mother was, bless her heart. And what your elder sister was as well. And I know you may not have the same gifts as they do, but I also know you've been blessed with the gift of healing. I don't know how, but it's happened. Even the best of gypsies, the most trained of them, the most formidable, did not have the power to heal. A healer only came once in a decade or maybe two decades. It was an extremely rare gift and the gypsies who had it, were extremely respected amongst the other gypsies and well protected and cared for. Ironic isn't it? That the healing power finally falls on someone who isn't even fully gypsy, talkless of a properly trained one. You're still very much human Lilah, and I know how much of your strength and power goes into reviving someone. You and I both know Mrs. Thompskin and her baby never would have survived that birth if not for you, and no trained doctor could have helped her as well. It was a breached birth. And her womb had been shifted from the right position. The mother had lost a lot of blood, and was on the brink of death. Plus the child had stayed too long without air. You literally brought both mother and child back from the brink of death, Delilah."

Delilah finally allowed her body to feel just how drained and totally exhausted it really was.

She inhaled softly, resting her back on the padded seats, closing her eyes tightly, as if that could somehow block out the pounding headache threatening to split her head in two.

She had to drop the cup of tea on a nearby table, so she wouldn't spill it's contents, her hands trembling tremendously from the energy that had left her for the past five hours, to transfer to someone else.

Not long after, slow, wet tears began falling from her eyelids, down to her cheeks, and she let them fall.

She was too tired to stop them, too tired to do much else. She just needed to sleep, let go, the burden felt too much on her young, untried shoulders to bear.

"Oh, Lilah..." Mrs. Jameson quickly sat down and gathered up Delilah into her arms, rocking her as the young woman wept in her arms.

"I'm tired aunt Jamie. I don't think I can go on much longer, with this. With all this."

"I've always told you. You can't heal everyone. You can't save everyone. You can't fight in every war. Choose your battles Lilah. It's not a sign of weakness, there is strength in tactical retreat. Step back a little bit, view the whole battle scene, that way you can gather yourself for the right battles and be efficient at it. Choose who's worth saving."

"But this is my war. They made it mine when they hurt my sister."

"And knowing you, you're not going to rest until you find out who did. I've personally cared for you since you were a child, and now you've grown into this beautiful young woman, that leaves me in awe and enthralled every day. I remember all the times you cried and I had to nurse you, I'd been your wet nurse at the time. I held you in my arms, praying you'd stop crying, and you eventually did, gifting me with one of those rare lopsided smile of yours. You can't save everyone Lilah. You have to save yourself first. You always fell ill, did I ever tell you that? As a child, you always fell so ill. You were always the weakest of all the children, always needing extra care, extra attention, and yes, you did grow up to be a really strong and formidable healer, but you are still not very much different from that child at heart. For you are still very much human, my love. Healing takes its toll on you, and it can be fatal if care's not taking. Almost all healers who's ever lived, die prematuredly, or never live to full, ripe, old age, because they think they can heal everyone. The want to play gods and tempt fate, and that's what eventually kills them. Don't heal more than one person a week, no matter how bad the situation is. Don't heal without eating, or without even properly resting. When you're a mess of emotions, a riot of emotions, your feelings waging war against you, do not heal anyone. Because you do yourself more harm. Your mother would have wanted what's best for you. She would have wanted you to live a normal life. And you're a daughter to me as well as hers, Lilah. I do want you to live a normal life"

"Define normal, Aunt Jamie. I already wasn't born normal. A half gypsy, something I've never even thought was possible, kills her mother in child birth, born with red hair, a shade very uncommon in Florence. I'm not normal Aunt Jamie. I'm too bold, I'm too knowledgeable, I'm too intense, no man would want me. They want meek wives. Wives without passion in them. Wives that bend to do their bidding, and live their lives to please them, and cater to their egos, and I simply wasn't born to play that part! I don't know anything about playing God, nor do I want to. But I just know what's right and what's wrong. Even with my tiredness, my lack of supper, my raging emotions having almost been raped by my brother-in-law, I still knew I had to heal Mrs. Thompskin and her child. I couldn't just sit back and watch them die, not when I had the power to do something about it. I didn't choose this path, but I will run it with all boldness and vigor, not looking back, never looking back. No regrets, no longings. I want nothing out of life, except a roof over my head, and food on the table every night when I get back home. If I can be a blessing in the lives of people, like Mrs. Thompskin, even if they never know of what great service I did for them, then that's okay to me. I'm content with that. I've been giving this immense power for a reason. This gift. I will not cower in fear" Delilah resolved, still nestled in Mrs Jameson's arms

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A/N: A new chapter. I hope you liked it. Comment on your favorite scenes, and characters so far. Any future predictions of what will happen next?

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