Completed [Weekend Challenge] Failure

[Gemma Parker]

Spring 37th, 519av, 9 Bells

Gemma was finally back on her feet. She had been on bed rest on and off to allow her to keep doing her required work activities, but she had been completely shut off from practicing outside of work and school. It had been merciful of the head doctor not to make her miss work, but she was not allowed to do any kind of extra volunteering, and was basically limited to her main work as a healer.

She had basically just been going from room to room praying for people the whole time. No herbalism and no philtering. If she had any recommendations for a tea or tincture, she was supposed to tell an aid to make it for the patient while she supervised. It had been one of the most excruciating experiences of her life, not to mention the pain that still lingered in her shoulder. Of course once or twice she had rebelled just a little bit while they were especially busy and she had allowed herself to make something simple that didn’t take a lot of arm movement. Even holding her left arm against her body didn’t completely stop the pain.

Today, though, she was finally able to do some basic mixing. She had been given some basic stretches and exercises to do, and was instructed to repeatedly apply a healing salve to her shoulder and effected area.

Sadly, her shoulder had not been her only problem. She had also contracted pneumonia, which, by the way, sucked. It limited her energy significantly and there were many days when it was all she could do to pray for her patients with breaks in between. She was finally thankful that her goddess had given her a way to keep helping people even when her body was not up to the task. Still, it was not what she wanted for her career growth. She was learning a lot of head knowledge in her classes, but she wasn’t allowed to participate in any of the exercises, which significantly limited her progress. Like her mom said, the only way to really learn was to learn with your hands. She needed to do something.

Gemma sat in small curtained off area of the consultation room with a line of patients waiting for her healing gift. She was sitting so she didn’t have to waste energy moving, and anyone with a simple injury that was curable with her gift was brought to her. At least she got to rest. But because she was so close to the front of the ward, she was able to hear some commotion at the end of the room. And before she called for the next patient, she tried to hear what was going on.

Staggering to her feet, she forced herself to hobble over to the nearest aid. “What’s going on? What happened?” She wheezed, then coughed. The daily treatment of Eucalyptus ointment was helping her breathing, but it wasn’t enough to cure her completely.

“There was a mud slide. Some hunters got trapped. We’re scrambling help now.”

“I have to be there. I can help!” The man was already gone, off to alert others. But just then, Dr. Alessia passed within earshot.

“Gemma, no. Stay here. You’ll only slow us down. Be ready for when we bring back the wounded.” She commanded.

[Gemma Parker]

Gemma leaned against the support pole for the little makeshift room they had constructed for her. Stay here? She was always the rapid response team. If it hadn’t been for this stupid pneumonia, she would have been out the door already. But no, she was confined to stay here. She closed her eyes, trying to compose herself, but it was hard. She didn’t want her patients to see her frustrated, so she slipped back behind the curtain and gathered herself before ringing the little bell the told the next person to enter.

The line expanded and shrank as time passed, but Gemma barely registered each patient. An arm, a leg, a cough. A light infection, an itch, a wart. Man, woman, young, old. Pretty, fat, ugly, thin. Dirty and clean, local and foreigner. Dozens of patients passed through in the short time it took the others to get together and run to help at the mud slide. Gemma could not help but imagine what they were doing and how she might have helped. Part of her knew that it was not reasonable for her to think she could have really been of aid, but she was stubborn and held onto the belief.

She did her best to keep calm and carry on with her work, but it was hard when she couldn’t even do the deep breathing exercises her mother had taught her to control herself and her emotional state. Each time she had tried she had just ended up hacking up a lung. She was sure she was getting better, but alas, she was still restricted in what she was allowed to do, especially after she had objectively made herself worse in the first week of being sick and injured.

She caught a patient’s eye and saw that she was not projecting the calm confidence that all doctors and healers were supposed to show, and she forced herself to smile, though it felt fake, and she was sure the patient before her saw it that way.

“I’m sorry, I’m just worried for the hunters that were caught in the mudslide.” She confessed to the middle-aged woman and she brushed her hand over the newly healed hand.

“Be more careful with knives. If you’d lost a finger I wouldn’t have been able to heal it. But as it is, you’ll be just fine.” She couldn’t speak well, but the woman understood her. She smiled again, this time a little more true. The woman smiled and said her thanks before leaving the way she’d come, followed by Gemma’s bell.

On and on it went. Gemma tried to pull herself back into the present, to the here and now. There was nothing she could do for the hunters until they got here, and her inner grumbling was only making her work go slower. She nodded a smile at the pudgy man who came in. She would focus on one patient at a time. She would hear the others when they came back with the hunters. She just had to do her best until they got here.

[Gemma Parker]

Gemma took some cream from the little jar in her bag and leaned to make sure no one could see through the curtain. She untied the front of her dress just enough that she could get to the part above her breasts, and with some of the ointment on her fingers, she rubbed the Eucalyptus and Peppermint cream onto her chest. The smell was strong and she could feel her pores opening. Her lungs were sure to be only a few moments behind. She had to apply this stuff a few times a day, every time she felt her chest tightening up. Well, tightening more than it normally felt with pneumonia still takings toll on her.

She was about to ring the bell after having stored the cream and retied her dress, but then she hears another commotion out front.

“The hunters.” She said to herself.

In triage, there were different colors that represented the severity of a wound or injury. White was not injured. Green was lightly injured with no permanent injury likely. Yellow was permanent injury likely if not treated soon. Red was for the people who were dying, and black was for those who could not be saved: the already deceased. Gemma had heard stories of different levels of her gnosis mark from her mother. There were many healers on Konti Isle, and she hoped to one day be able to meet them. It was said that Rak’keli’s champion could even bring people back from the dead, but even those with three and two marks could help people with severe injuries.

Gemma, however, could only help those in the green category. With her herbalism and medicine training she was working on being able to help more, but with her shoulder as bad as it was, the best she could do for the severely injured was to pray for them and try to diminish their pain while the others worked on them. Still, it was more fulfilling than sitting in a little tent and healing wounds that barely needed a doctor’s visit.

She knew that it was not right for her to judge any wound as unworthy of her goddess’ attention, and in theory she knew it was not true. She would certainly never admit to feeling such a blasphemous thing. But it was true that her heart raced at the chance to get back into more important treatments.

Gemma raced out of her cloth enclosure as quickly as her legs would take her and her lungs would let her. It wouldn’t do to be out of breath when she got to the trauma ward.

She whispered her intentions to the aid that was helping to keep order in the room, and he nodded, having already expected her to leave as soon as the hunters came in.

“Thanks, Jasper.” Gemma whispered in her raspy voice.

“Happy to help.” He said with a smile before turning his attention to the people in line.

“All right, folks, our healer is needed elsewhere for the time being. We thank you for your patience and welcome you to get some fresh water from over there.”

His words faded into the background as Gemma made her way out of the consultation area and into the trauma ward.

[Gemma Parker]

The sick Konti healer had to slow down a few times to catch her breath, but she never stopped on her way to the trauma ward. She had not been fast enough to see the hunters as they had been brought in, but that was a good thing. That meant there weren’t too many of them. At least, that was what she hoped.

Dr. Alessia saw her enter and held up the same finger as she had before.

“Gemma, no.”

“I just-”

“No talking. You’ll ruin your voice and you need to recover.” The doctor said.

Gemma’s heart sank, but her stubbornness dug in. She didn’t speak, but made three quick signs. “Treatment no. Pray.” She pointed to everyone else and shook her finger and head no, then made the a praying motion while looking pleadingly at Alessia.

The doctor shook her head in frustration, but consented. “Fine, but if I so much as hear your squeaky little voice, I’m kicking you out.” She said. Her voice was biting, but Gemma knew she cared and wanted her to get better. Or at least she really wanted to believe that she did. Technically she didn’t have any proof of the fact. Still, even knowing or assuming that she was cared for, it was hard to feel so limited. If this had happened last season she would have been the first on the scene and the last to leave. She would have been healing, mixing herbs, binding wounds, and sending patched up hunters back to the Catholicon on stretchers. Now all she could do was pray.

It was not her own power that was needed here. Her skills were useless. Her knowledge didn’t matter. All that mattered was the mark her goddess had gifted her at birth. The same prayers she had learned as a young girl would be the prayers she used today. But if that was what it took to help, she would swallow her pride and submit to her authority.

Gemma nodded her confirmation and understanding, and Alessia nodded back. Gemma knew that the doctor was not a woman to be crossed. Gemma held the woman in high esteem, and it hurt to feel like nothing but a nuisance. But here she was, doing her part. Nothing more could be done.

She looked to the doctor for instructions, and the poisonous woman pointed to one of the patients in the middle as she walked over to him.

“You’re with me. If you’re going to stay, save me time by keeping his pain down while we get the pain killers going. But as soon as the drugs are active and we start working, you leave. Got it?”

Gemma nodded and followed, trying not to go too fast so as to arrive out of breath. But as she came up to the form being transferred from the stretcher to the thin bed. The two stretcher bearers stepped out of the way and the doctor’s trauma team stepped in. At first, they didn’t make room for Gemma, but Gemma stepped around to the man’s shoulder, laying her naked hand on one of the few places on his body that were not shredded. It looked like this man had been caught in the mudslide itself. Gemma was thankful the man had made it back to them. But looking at the team around her, she knew he could be saved.

“Please goddess,” she whispered behind her mask. “Help us save him.”

[Gemma Parker]

Gemma wiped sweat from her brow as she walked away from the trauma ward to return to her post in the consultation area. She hung her head low, and she had no problem walking slowly enough for her lungs to keep up. She had been so sure that they were going to save them all. In fact, they were able to save the first one they got to, and he had been the worst, but not by much. The trauma team had done their best, but they were short staffed with the inundation of sick and infirmed from the weather. If Gemma had been healthy… If she’d been able to help out more… If she could have used both hands to assist… If she hadn’t fallen so behind on her practice… Maybe the man would have been saved.

The five hunters who had been brought in were all pretty bad. The doctor and her aids had to remove branches through limbs, splint broken bones, staunch bleeding, and more. Had Gemma spent more time working with her mom, she might have been able to join the trauma team. But even if her skills had been up to snuff, with only one arm and unable to talk, she would not have been allowed on the team now anyway. And that all went back to the cave. If she hadn’t gone into that stupid cave. Or even more, if she hadn’t followed that accursed- Gemma stopped herself. She didn’t want to let herself think ill of the dead. It just made her so angry that she was so helpless.

In the end, Gemma found herself back in the consultation area in her little tent, wringing her stupid bell and doing her best to keep the mark on her hand glowing. Because if that light ever disappeared, so would anything remotely special about her.