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Story: Wolf's Spirit: Chapter One |
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Chapter One: Morning
Poke. “Siena…”
Siena groaned.
Another poke. “Siena…”
Siena turned on her side.
“YO, SIENA!”
Siena squeaked and jumped in her bed. It took her a half-second to gather her wits, then she quickly pulled up her blanket to cover her nightclothes. “Daiyu! What the heck was that for…?” the young teenaged girl asked with a pout and a whiny voice.
“That was for ignoring my first two tries to get you out of bed,” responded the older female. “Now hurry up and get dressed. Kazewo told me to tell you that breakfast is ready and that you’d better get your butt down to the kitchen before it gets cold.”
“Miss Kazewo didn’t really word it that way, did she.” It wasn’t a question.
“’Course not. That was the Daiyu version.”
Siena stuck her tongue out at the tanned female next to her before saying, “Fine, I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
“Don’t dawdle too long,” Daiyu said, straightening up from her bent over position. “Or your pancakes might be gone before you get there.”
Siena gasped and shot out of bed. “You wouldn’t dare eat my breakfast!”
“I was just giving you a fair warning.” Daiyu grinned, heading for the door with a dismissive hand gesture.
Siena stuck her tongue out once more at her friend before reaching for the uniform draped on the back of the chair next to her bed. She began to slip out of her white cotton nightclothes and into her light green uniform, all the while muttering to herself about how much of a ‘meanie’ Daiyu was. Her uniform was that of a healing mage in training: a short sleeve jade green shirt and matching shorts with a white patch on the left side of the chest, holding a red medical cross. The top was worn over a white shirt with a collar that folded over the collar of the green shirt, and sleeves that were just slightly longer than the green shirt. A tan belt went with the outfit, with many pockets and pouches for collecting potion ingredients on-the-go. She quickly slipped her small feet into equally small and short worn boots.
After getting fully dressed, Siena made her way over to the mirror hanging over a chest of drawers on the opposite side of her small bedroom. She picked up the wooden brush laying on the flat top of the chest and carefully began running it through her long hair. Her hair was a silky black, with natural silver highlights. It didn’t take her long to brush her hair (mostly because she was rushing to make sure Daiyu didn’t eat all of her food, not that she thought she actually would, but one could never be too sure with the young Bandit…) and when she was done, Siena hurried out of her room and down the hall to the kitchen.
Her bedroom was literally two doors away from the kitchen, the only rooms in-between being Kazewo’s bedroom and the storage closet, so it wasn’t a long hike. Inside, the young red-haired lady named Kazewo was stacking three pancakes each on three plates; one for Siena, one for Daiyu, and one for herself. Daiyu sat at the table, ready with a fork in one hand and the saucer of syrup in the other. Siena walked in, took her seat opposite Daiyu, and waited patiently for her pancakes.
Kazewo, wearing another form of the healing mage uniform, a long plain white dress with the red medical cross also on the left half of the chest, handed Daiyu her plate first. As soon as the plate touched the table, Daiyu was already drowning her stack in syrup.
“Those poor, poor pancakes,” Siena said with a light sigh. “They never stood a chance…”
Daiyu simply ignored her and stuffed her face with a fork full of syrupy, sugary pancakes.
Kazewo gave a light, pleasant laugh as she set Siena’s pancakes in front of the girl and sat down with her own breakfast.
Siena took the syrup from Daiyu the second she put it down and began pouring the syrup on her own pancakes. When she was done, she politely placed the syrup saucer in front of Kazewo, resisting the urge to give Daiyu a lesson on how to be polite as she did so.
While the healing mages ate and the Bandit scarped, there was a knock at the door, turning into a loud banging without giving any of the females a real chance to react. Startled, Siena jumped so badly that she nearly knocked her chair to the floor.
“I’ll get it,” Daiyu said, sliding her chair out from under her and hurrying to answer the door.
At the end of the hallway was the front door. Daiyu walked with hurried steps toward it. As she opened it, she found a man, looking roughly in his late sixties, with a young boy in his arms. The boy’s leg was bleeding profusely through a crescent-shaped rip in his pants. The cut appeared to have been caused by teeth, but seemed too wide for any animal that Daiyu knew of.
The man seemed taken aback for a moment when he saw who had opened the door, but he managed to ask, “I-Is Lady Kazewo here? My grandson tripped in the woods and caught his leg in a bear trap.”
“She’s here.” Daiyu nodded with a frown. “C’mon, get him inside. The medical room is the first one on your right. I’ll go get Kazewo.”
The man nodded and trudged into the house and into the room he was instructed while Daiyu ran back into the kitchen. “Alright, a boy fell into a bear trap in the woods. The cut looks pretty deep, and it’s bleeding heavily. It’s on his lower…left leg.”
Kazewo nodded and calmly stood up from her chair. She looked over at her young apprentice and said, “Siena, I believe this is something you can handle on your own.”
“Me?” Siena asked, blinked. “You want me to handle this? By myself?”
“Well, you have been learning to handle patients by yourself for five years now…” Kazewo replied with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be watching to help you out if you need it.”
Siena let out a breath to calm herself down as she stood. “Alright…” she said, pushing her chair in before leading the other two females into the medical room.
The grandfather who had knocked on the door was now standing next to the young boy, who lay on one of two beds in the room. Luckily for Siena, the boy had allowed himself to pass out from the pain, which would make it easier for her to treat his leg without him squirming.
“Um…um…what to do first…oh, right!” Siena hurried over to the boy, easily located the wound, and ripped away further at the cloth surrounding it. The wound was already beginning to coagulate, so he wouldn’t lose anymore blood… What about infection? It was too early yet to see if the wound was infected, but there were ways to make certain there was none.
“Excuse me, I need to get something from the closet,” Siena said hurriedly, dodging her way to the door. She ran across the hall to the storage closet and flung it open, pulling out a mortar and pestle from the first shelf she saw, then searching the other shelves for a cleaning cloth, a spiked-looking leaf, and a red berry with just a slight hint of purple. Once she had those all together, she rushed to the kitchen and poured water into the mortar from the large bucket of water Kazewo kept filled from the nearby river, along with the berry and leaf. She set the cloth down on the ground next to her and, using the pestle, began to crush the berry and leaf together, being careful not to spill too much water, especially not back into the bucket. If they were to accidentally drink what she was making, it would be very bad.
Finally, she was done mixing. The concoction left in the mortar was a red watery liquid with tiny bits of green and white floating inside of it. Siena allowed herself a second to catch her breath and calm herself down before taking the cloth and the mortar back into the medical room and over to the injured boy. She dipped the cloth in the medicine, allowing it to soak for a few moments before using it to clean the dried and fresh blood and dirt from the wound.
“What are you doing?” the grandfather asked, watching Siena curiously.
“It’s a special medicine that will draw out any poison or infection in his blood,” Siena explained, glancing discreetly over at her teacher for a nod of approval. “It’ll also help speed up the healing process, since the body won’t have to worry about fighting out dirt before repairing itself.”
“Well, looks like you know what you’re doing there, little lady,” the grandfather responded with a smile.
“Thank you,” Siena giggled, continuing to clean the wound. “Okay, I think all that’s left to do is bandage it, and then you can take him home.” Siena looked to Kazewo again for confirmation, then reached for one of the rolls of bandages on the shelf above the boy’s bed. As she wrapped the wounded leg thickly in the protective cloth, she instructed the grandfather, “Try not to let him walk on the leg for a day or so while it heals.” Once Siena was done, she stepped away from the bed to allow the older man to pick up the boy once again.
“How can I repay you?” the man asked Kazewo once the boy was securely in his arms.
Kazewo shook her head. “It was nothing serious, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Thank you, Lady Kazewo, and Miss Siena.” The grandfather began to walk to the door, pausing when he was next to Kazewo to mutter something to her. What he said was too low for Siena to hear, but it made Daiyu, standing next to Kazewo, grimace with what almost seemed like anger.
When the man had left, Kazewo turned to Daiyu. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that…”
Daiyu just shook her head with a quick sigh. “Whatever.”
“What?” Siena blinked in confusion. “What did he say?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Daiyu replied.
 JediNikinaK · Sun Jan 04, 2009 @ 02:37am · 1 Comments |
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