He peeked inside the sack, poking around various pieces of its contents as the healer gave her instructions. If Nov hadn't been a cook for as long as he had, the whole thing might have felt tedious. But, as things stood, he was able to commit the directions to memory with little to no fuss. Boil bandages in salt water, thin layer of salve, and change once a day. A lot of yellow bad, free visit. No more yellow meant no more bandages. Easy as pie.
The doc then gave her name. Kechaiya, definitely not a name from around these parts. She surprised him by calling him a good patient; Noven had been told he was a welcome patient before, given all of his frequent injuries, but never a good one. Then again, his previous healers had mostly been horse doctors and the like who deserved more than a few coarse grumblings for the shoddy work they did.
He shrugged in way of accepting her compliment. "You're a good healer." The words came out of their own accord in a moment of unguarded surprise, but it was the truth.
When she offered to deliver the sleep medicine, Nov had to hold himself back from leaping to attention like a dog at meal time. Never mind that it would take a few days. He'd been waiting for years to get his hands on something to help him sleep without horrible side effects or no effects at all. "A few days is fine," he managed to reply. "I'll be here, resting as the doctor ordered."
No sooner had he said this than Kechaiya waved one of the runts inside the room. Nov eyed Leania with suspicion at first, wondering if the little waif had been dared by her peers to spy on the cook. But the girl nodded when asked if she wanted to help and seemed sincere enough.
"Aye, I understand," Nov nodded and waved at the air as he hobbled his way toward the door. "I'll try, but no promises. Streets are a bloody mess these days."
And with that, the cook left Kechaiya and Leania to clean up his blood stains. He felt a twinge of guilt at walking free while others mopped up his mess, but there was no feasible way for him to help anyway. The only thing he could hope for was something warm to eat before passing out onto his moth bitten bed. And maybe, if the gods decided to smile down on him for once, not dream the same ill-gotten dreams that kept him sleepless for so many years.
