“Why are you a healer?” I ask Nestorion one afternoon as he treats the wound on my abdomen with the given grace and learned skill to be expected from the elves. He raises his gaze to meet mine, staying silent until he is through with his work.
“My mother’s father, actually, was a healer,” he says, choosing carefully his words as he stands upright. “I decided to follow in his footsteps.”
“And your mother?” I question before I think. It is my turn, it seems, to be asking things of him. “What of her?”
He clears his throat, thinking for a moment. “A minstrel. Though she and my father sailed within recent years.” He is silent for several seconds, and then Nestorion closes his eyes. “My grandfather, however, he passed ere I met him.”
I chew my lower lip, unsure if I should press upon him any further. I decide that I have come so far, and I am indeed curious about the elf who has stayed by my side so loyally to see me healed.
“What was his name?”
“Tathrenor,” Mallossel greets the young healer as he enters the tent of the Second Autarch. “So you did receive my summons. I was beginning to worry.”
Tathrenor steps inside, glancing anxiously around the space. Despite the doomed fate over the battlefield, and even over the camp of The Host Palantine, Mallossel’s tent always offers a small piece of respite. No imposing desk or war-torn charts and maps to be seen, only a bedroll tucked away in a corner. The center of the large tent was set with a firepit with a teapot over it, boiling, and three aged cushions for one to gather around the hearth.
“I did, Autarch,” he says nervously, standing just inside the doorway.
Mallossel waves a hand to him; “Come, sit, please. Join me for some tea. It has apple blossoms, a favorite of mine,” she offers. The healer hesitantly takes a seat across from her. They sit in silence for several seconds as she diligently pours two cups of tea, one that is quickly handed to him. Tathrenor cannot take it any longer.
“Am I in trouble, Autarch Mallossel?” His words tumble out with few thoughts given to them, clutching the cup with his hands wrapped around it.
Mallossel raises an eyebrow. “Trouble? Why would you think yourself in any trouble with me?”
“I…” Tathrenor begins, unsure of how exactly to answer that. “I would think that, um, after you heard what happened with First Autarch Cardanith, that…” he trails off, looking down at the warm tea in his hands.
“You think that because you have received a tongue-lashing from Cardanith that you shall receive one from me as well,” Mallossel corrects. Tathrenor’s eyebrows fly up at the nonchalant way she speaks of the First Autarch, but he nods, not able to verbalize his thoughts quite yet out of fear.
“Well,” Mallossel continues, gently stirring the apple blossoms in her tea with the tip of the nail of her pointer finger. “As far as I am concerned, Tathrenor of the Tenth Company…” she pauses. “You have been with The Host for a year now, correct?”
Although taken aback at her acute memory, the elf nods. “Nearly, Autarch Mallossel. Two moons shy of a year.”
“I see,” she says. “Then I would daresay you are quite overdue for a harsh rebuke from Cardanith, as most do not last past their first week without one. You should consider yourself lucky.” With that, Mallossel raises her cup to her mouth to take a gentle sip. Tathrenor follows her lead, though still on edge about the direction of this conversation, and why he was summoned in the first place.
“Um, Autarch Mallossel,” he says hesitantly, lowering his tea. “Why is it you have called me here, then? If not to further make sure I understand the lesson.”
At his question, Mallossel’s brows furrow. She lets out a soft sigh before answering. “I saw the body, Tathrenor. I read the report you wrote. There was nothing you could do. The… the reason Cardanith was so harsh with you was not that you could have saved her. It was because you froze. There is no room for freezing on the battlefield; when you froze up like that, you became just as much of a liability as she was, dead.”
A moment’s pause is shared between the two, as Mallossel’s gaze falls listlessly towards the fire. Then, she continues to speak. “That was your first time dealing with it alone, was it not? A friend dying in front of you.”
“...It was,” he admits, albeit reluctantly so and in a soft voice. “And I froze.”
“I froze, too. My first time,” Mallossel says, taking another sip of her tea. “Death is not something that is easy to witness. It is easier, I think, to experience, than to be the one left in the wake of it. I wished to call you in here, actually, to make sure you were well. I know she was close to you.”
Tathrenor’s gaze flies up to meet the Autarch’s for just a moment. He nods slowly. “She was.”
“If you wish to speak about anything,” Mallossel says, “feel free to do so here. Or we may sit in silence until you finish your tea.”
The healer considers her offer, mulling it over in his head, before taking a wordless sip from his cup. That in itself was an answer.
Mallossel gently collects the cup from Tathrenor as he turns to leave the tent, but then reaches out to lay a hand on his arm. “One last thing, Tathrenor of the Tenth.”
“Yes?” He says, looking at her with bleary eyes. She decides to let slide the fact that he did not use her title, and instead offers him a smile.
“What is one thing you remember of her? That you will hold onto?” Although the question was odd, she knew it would do the young elf better in the long run. To forget the dead was the greater sin.
“She… she could always make us laugh,” he says finally, after thinking on it. “No matter how dire of a situation our Company was in, she could make us laugh.”
Mallossel nods and then Tathrenor departs, letting the white flaps of the tent falling closed behind him. The Second Autarch then turns to her bedroll, collecting a letter off of it. It is sealed with the symbol of the Host and the inscription of the First Autarch, but she flips out her knife and tears it open.
She settles onto her bedroll and picks up spare parchment, a quill, and an inkwell that she had set aside for this purpose earlier. Pulling out the letter that was originally sealed, she glances to see what the first line read.
“To the kin of Ciwiel, member of the Tenth Company of The Host Palantine, we must regret to inform that she has fallen on the field of battle…”
Mallossel reads the words over and over again, letting it settle in her mind before she puts her inked quill to the spare parchment to write her own letter, that will go out with Cardanith’s.
“To the kin of Ciwiel, member of the Tenth Company of The Host Palantine. Firstly, I must offer my condolences for the loss of an elleth who is most fondly remembered for her optimism through hardship, and for keeping up the morale of her fellows in…”
“Tathrenon,” he says without hesitation, and I know when he meets my eyes that he is aware. He knows that I know of him. I swallow thickly.
“I know the name,” I say softly. “I remember that letter. I remember his lament.”
Nestorion nods, heaving a hefty sigh as he collects his equipment from the table aside from the bed. “I know, Autarch. I read that letter you sent after his death. My mother saved it. You… you called him the most resilient healer that you had the fortune to serve with.”
“And I meant it.”
“...I know. That is the reason why I am a healer, Autarch. I think that is enough questions for both of us today, however.”
