Thursday, November 10, 2005

   Chapter 16: Call to the People (part 2)
Yatii and Raine’s faces were stained with tears when they returned to Lucifer. The members of the two groups, who had all miraculously survived the wyvern’s attack, were scattered around the edge of the forest where their clothes hung. They mostly kept to themselves as they tried to grasp the magnitude of the situation. Lucifer had covered Aurora in his leather clothes—which had resisted the water and were still dry—in the attempt to keep her warm. Even wearing only a pair of boxers and his wings, wrapped around himself, he somehow looked no less dignified.
Raine carefully cleared a patch of moss near the roots of the tree and set Sasheeta down on it. He unsheathed Judgement and stuck her in the ground between him and the injured dragon. Gathering a handful of tiny twigs, he arranged them around the blade in the angel-magic symbol for healing, just as his mother had taught him.
Lucifer watched curiously as the half-dragon sat down before his setup and closed his eyes to concentrate. After a moment of thick silence, he touched his finger to the twig-symbol, sending a spark of blue magic through them. The blue light traveled through the white part of Judgement’s blade, before springing forward to envelope Sasheeta.
For many minutes, the two of them were covered in the blue magic. Then, having done all he could, Raine drew back his hand, breaking the spell. He scattered the twigs back into the forest, before returning his sword back to its scabbard.
“She will be unconscious for another day or so, I believe,” he reported to a concerned Yatii. “I’ve healed as much of her wings and bruises as I dare.”
“If you could manage to fix her broken wing into a splint, it would probably be less painful for her to move,” Yatii said wisely. Raine nodded.
“You’re right, but I must rest for now. I’ve never healed a dragon before; it’s taken a lot out of me.”
“I’ll do it,” Ed broke in, turning around from where he was sitting. “I’ve put a bird’s wing into a splint before.”
“Sure. Just be sure not to be too rough on her. She’s still very delicate.”
With those words, Ed and Yatii left the group in the search for a suitably straight and small stick with which to secure Sasheeta’s wing. It took them half an hour to find one that met their standards.
In the meantime, Tari had borrowed Judgement from Raine and used it to cut off a stip of cloth from the bottom of her robes, which were hanging in the tree. It was still wet. In the attempt to make it drier, she hung it around one of her wings and flapped it around. By the time the boys returned, it had become warm and stretchy, though it was still moist.
Yatii gently held Sasheeta as Ed slowly straightened the broken part of the wing. He lined it up with the twig, then folded the wing into a natural position, carefully tying it tightly in place against Sasheeta’s body. Taking care to ensure that her good wing and legs weren’t obstructed by the makeshift splint, he tied the two ends together on the top of her back, like a bow.
“That should be good,” Ed announced, exchanging a friendly smile with Yatii. Ed’s hairtie had been lost in the river, so his dark blonde hair was loose and heavy as it fell arouind his bare shoulders. Yatii had also lost his trademark bird headband, so his hair was more unruly than ever.
Though they did not speak of it, the two long-time friends knew that they both felt like they were facing a different person. Yatii had gotten used to the two mismatched eyes since before he could remember, but now—framed by Ed’s hair, which seemed to have grown strangely long—he noticed them again, more than ever. Ed was surprised by how much more mature Yatii seemed to have gotten without the bird headband. It seemed as if they had both lost something in the river. Something of their childhood.
Comments (0)