Healing is not always a warm, gentle thing. Sometimes, it is the harsh rasp of a voice half-dead from screaming in pain. Sometimes, it is the low, keening wail of unceasing grief. Trembling legs and shaking hands, your entire body pushed to the very brink as you keep moving, keep going, keep going, keep going–

Lumara stumbles outside and draws in an unsteady breath, the stench of blood and fear thick in her nose before the sharp, cold air washes it away. The door swings shut behind her, and the cacophony of the healing ward, improvised and ramshackle as it is, falls to a far more tolerable level. Voices still reach her, but they’re muffled and indistinct, almost soothing compared to the shouted orders and calls for help she’s been surrounded by for hours, now.

Not that she can blame them, though. No one had expected this. No one could ever have foreseen the destruction they would come to face. It had swept across the land like a wildfire, ceaseless and uncompromising, mindless in its hunger.

War.

A contempt for life, really.

Lumara has not seen the front lines. All she knows of it are the injuries she meets here, the people sent back to recover, too damaged to keep fighting. They’re far from done fighting, however. The only difference lies in whether their battlefield is ahead - or within.

A loud crash followed by a scream from inside has her flinching, her hands instinctively rising in an aborted motion to cover her ears. Oh, but she was not made for this. Healing, yes. But this? This constant balancing act, the never-ending cycle of hope and despair that tips further and further in favour of despair with every hour that passes. Humans and dragons alike, arriving with haunted eyes and scars no healer could ever hope to reach.

No. No one was made for this.

She looks up at the darkened sky. The first stars, the brightest of them all, have come out, peeking through the cloud cover where it breaks apart. A couple of snowflakes drift down, here and there, and Lumara watches one fall, soothed by the gentle motion as it comes to rest, light as a feather, on the ground before her. She holds in a breath, and slowly lets it out. It only wavers a little.

There will be time for everything else later. Right now, she has patients to see.

Stepping back inside, she’s met with a wall of heat, clammy and thick. All of her senses are assaulted by the chaos. Assistants of every size and shape are running back and forth, delivering tools and supplies in a constant stream. There are yells and whimpers, hushed prayers and curses spat through gritted teeth. Blood and infection hang heavy in the air, mingling with the clearer scent of medicinal herbs. All around, there are pockets of shining light, fainter now than mere hours ago; healers like herself, channelling their magic.

An older Emperor looks up from their patient when she closes the door again, and nods to her, grim. Bowing her heads, she makes her way farther inside, sidestepping stretchers and healers on her way to what has become her corner of the healing ward.

Clarity waits for her there, her shiny coat dull from exhaustion. She chirps in greeting, but with none of the joy she usually shows. Lumara smiles weakly in response and gently scratches her cheek.

Barely a second passes between her arrival and the next patient being delivered to her; a feverish man with a bandage around his head, covering one eye, and his right leg in a splint. The other eye darts around without settling on anything for more than a breath, always seeking, as though looking for something specific. Danger, she suspects. From the freshness of his injuries, he must have come directly from the nearest battlefield. She’d be surprised if he even knows where he is.

Clarity pads over to where the man lies, his whole body tense and fearful. She meows loudly as she goes, and little by little, the man’s eyes focus. He finally spots Clarity, and it’s as though all of his muscles unclench, his single visible eye lighting up with a fragile kind of awe. Satisfied, Clarity lays down beside him, close enough for him to cautiously reach out with one trembling finger to pet her.

Lumara gets to work. Unwrapping hastily made bandages, cleaning wounds, resetting dislocated joints. Whatever is needed. Many things can be, if not fully fixed, then at least helped significantly along without the use of magic. Something she rebelled against, at first - but it doesn’t take many days in close proximity to an active war zone before you learn to save your energy for where it matters the most. But sometimes, a sacrifice must be made. The man’s eye cannot be saved even with the strongest of magic, but his leg can. So, she does, and feels her energy drain alarmingly fast for such a small effort. Once, she could have brought a dragon back from the brink of death. Now, even the simple act of encouraging a cut to close makes her head spin.

Before long, she sends the man off to rest somewhere quieter, having done all she can. But there’s only a moment’s pause before the next patient comes. And the next. And the next.

The hours fly by. The night deepens. The shift changes, new faces replacing the healers she’s worked with until now. Vaguely, she remembers someone telling her she could take a break if needed, but she must have ignored them, for she doesn’t remember her answer. All she knows is the blur of people under her hands, the steady, silver glow of her magic and the shadows it casts on the walls around her. There are no windows through which to watch the sky and tell the time, only the constantly lit candles and torches that shiver when someone rushes past.

A woman with the tip of a broken spear still lodged in her abdomen. A man whose skin will never recover from the burn of a dragon’s fire. A Ravager with its wing mangled beyond recognition. A young human, barely out of their youth, who will never walk again. Lumara meets them all, hears their cries and tears, and does what she can. More and more come in, filling every cot and free space on the floor of the ward until Lumara is tending to four patients at once, her hands held out to either side of herself as she stretches her magic as thin as it can go without fracturing, heedless of the toll on her body she can feel it taking. The glow from her palms drifts out and splits into four paths, each one reaching out for a patient under her firm guidance.

There was a time when she’d act with more tenderness, more patience. But right now, right here, she just needs it to work. And she will push it as far as it will go, if only to see these people safely through the night. Whatever consequences she will face for her recklessness, she will do so with her head held high, knowing she made the only choice she could have.

Light wraps around the four patients like a soft embrace, or a warm blanket on a cold day. Clarity’s coat, even matted and stained as it is from countless days in this place, glitters beautifully where she sits between the injured, within reach of them all. She’s purring, her tail curled gently around the wrist of one person as she blinks slowly at another, holding their rapt attention while Lumara heals.

Lumara sways, suddenly dizzy. The healing light stutters, threatening to give out. She sets her jaw and shifts, sitting so she cannot fall. Closing her eyes, she mentally grabs hold of her connection to the Aether. The thread is thin and fraying, quivering under the strain she’s putting it through. But it must hold. There is no other option.

Through sheer force of will, the dizziness fades. The thread holds. The light returns, resolute.

And Lumara keeps going.