8th Winter, 514AV | Speach
A mere bell ago the kelvic woman was fast asleep in bed, at noon.
Three quarters of a bell ago she had dragged herself out of her warm sheets and blankets, said her morning prayers and spared a thought for her true purpose in the city.
Half a bell ago she had left her lodgings and was well and quite truly on her way to work in the infirmary, with a lead weight in her gut. 'How much death will I see today? Dira, help me- Guide them to their next life.' Mistress Clara had had the kelvic come in early that morning, that Gods Forsaken morning, do short work only to send her home for rest. Too many staff had heard the strickening news and come in to work- and the woman was quite simply fearing that so many were on active duty, that there would be none to relieve them when exhaustion hit.
Now, the kelvic found her heart heavy and her hands covered in blood, some nurse attending the patient next to her giving her hasty word and direction as the kelvic attempted to see to the pained man's wounds. "Unbandage and clean the wound thoroughly, he's been here for a while," there was a bitter sigh that left the woman's lips as she gestured to the bloody mess of an arm before the kelvic. The woman shot the man before her a wayward class, his forehead covered with beaded sweat and mouth twisted into the form of a pained scar.
She knew the man wanted to question her, to probe her and ask her if she truly knew of what she was doing- but the answer to that question was not one that he wanted to hear. She herself knew that. With a a sigh of her own and an adjustment of possible, Altaira and the other nurse with their handful of patients taking refuge in one of the smller herbalist's rooms, the kelvic lifted the man's arm and began the painful task of unwrapping the stained of blood bandage, now stained with dried blood and yellowed with dirt.
At every flinch and wince, the kelvic would pause shortly, give the aging, silver haired man a stern look, before dipping her head down and continuing her work. The first few unwrappings were awkward, at best, the woman propping the arm of the man up with one hand as the other took the bandage and threaded it over and through, and she found herself thanking the Gods that it was only on the upper arm of the patient that his injuries were concentrated. "Do you mind if I ask?" she lulled, keeping her voice low and sweet.
The sounds of the room were taking too much from her concentration- it was not a dead silence, but instead a myriad of groans and curses, of prayers and hopes and damnations. She needed something, however short-lived it was, to take her mind from all that was whirling around her, too keep her concentration held. She needed something to distract her from how eerily serene she was finding herself, knowing too grimly in her gut that if she were not careful, every twist and turn in her place would show a new insight into someone’s death.
‘Breath in, breath out – in, out. Why am I in such unease?’
“Damn debris,” his voice did not give her the comfort that she’d been hoping, but the fact that he still had the strength to speak was more than enough. She’d wagered that he’d come in in the first influx of patients, his wounds not nearly severe enough to warrant immediate attention, much like all others that she and the nurse at her flank had been charged with. Their patients were the ones whose wounds would cause serious harm if not treated in a respectable time period, but were nowhere near severe enough to warrant any more than a herbalist and a nursing student at their charge.
"Then, at least it was not the blast itself," by then she’d finished unwrapping the wound, and was quite proud of herself for how steel her face and iron her gut proved.
