10th Bell - 20th Day of Fall, 517AV - The River Flower
The pain woke him up. He was dreaming, though about what he couldn't remember, and there was a dull throb of light, blinding his Dreamscape eyes. Every time it pulsed through that sleeping world, he winced, or hid his eyes, until finally he put up his hands and-
-breathed deep the air of reality, and groaned.
"Good morning, walahk."
Konrad blinked and recognized the middle-aged face that stared down at him. The smile was polite, perfunctory, not quite reaching the eyes. The same face that had tended to him the day before, when he'd been dragged into the River Flower missing half the blood in his body.
Longwell. Fiametta. Yukmen. Konrad remembered all of it, after a fashion.
"How long've I bin out?"
"Just a night," the healer said, as familiar with Common as he was with Pavi, apparently. Watering, tinkling against itself, and Konrad saw the man raise wet, clean hands. "I need to turn you over. Change your dressing."
Konrad braced one hand on the edge of the bed, and felt a gentle hand with a firm grip around his wrist.
"I said that I will turn you over. Not you. You may do it wrong and rip your stitches. That's more work for me and, frankly, I'd rather not waste anymore thread on one patient."
Konrad chuckled, a sound both dry and turgid. Aching for water but not lacking in phlegm. He'd heard that the master of this pavilion was a gifted healer, but had the bedside manner of a petching mortician. Not he knew for a fact.
Shame it took [i]this to know it. [/i]
It was a simple, painful, annoying procedure. Konrad ground his teeth and let himself be turned onto his belly. He'd have liked to see what was going on, but with a wound on his lower back... well, he contented himself with what he could see, instead.
Short rows of beds. Most empty, some filled. Hunting injuries, bloody and foolish. Falls from horses, sickness, disease... one of them behind a thick mosquito net, tended by a nurse bedecked in rubber. Konrad suppressed a shudder. Whatever that man had, it was catching. He made a note not to go near the bastard.
"There. All done."
They turned Konrad back over, Nehrar and his helper, and then the walahk caught sight of someone in the opening of the pavilion. But it didn't make sense for her to be there. For anyone to be there. Not for him. Why would they be, after all?
But he blinked and blinked and took some water and even refreshed and clear-eyed... no, she was still there. Any doubt vanished when Nehrar thumbed over his shoulder and said, "Oh, yes, she has been wishing to see you. I told her to wait until after I was finished. You two may talk now."
Then he was gone, the blunt old fart, and Konrad was left looking at her. Torn between confusion and his usual sullen anger. Trying to shuffle up on his elbows, unknowingly desperate not to appear weak, not to appear wounded, even with half his torso swaddled and his ruddy complexion now pale. He'd lost a lot of blood; it'd be a few days before he got it back.
The vision walked towards him, and Konrad did not like how she towered over his bedridden form. Bedridden. That was him now. Bloody wonderful.
"What're youse doin' here, woman?"