Tale Of A Berserk Healer

Ryth looked up at the familiar jingle of the bell, an acridic scent filling his nose as he pushed aside the vial of nightcry extract he'd been trying to fuse with some of the spider venom he had held onto.

"Hello sir-uh... ma'am?"

He frowned, seeing a woman with considerable muscle and an aura of power to her, clearly an awakened fighter... using a cane.

She limped heavily on her right leg, grimacing in pain as she hissed each breath, her face holding the beginnings of wrinkles but her hair still dark, lending him to place her around 35-45 in age unless she had an evolution that affected her aging process.

"I need to see the apothecary."

Ryth nodded, pulling out a stool for her to sit but leaving it in front of her.

He figured if he tried to put it behind her to accommodate her injury she wouldn't exactly appreciate it.

She nodded at him in thanks, turning to seat herself with a sigh of relief.

Ryth closed the door to the shop, flipping the sign to "Closed to Browsing" which generally meant "if it isn't serious, we are closed!"

"I'll be back with Master Benedict in a moment ma'am."

He gave a short bow, and speed-walked up the stairs to find Benedict who was on the roof giving a lesson to Jonathan about something specific to his path of healing.

Ryth got lessons more about purifying, revitalizing and buffing by restoring stamina or potentially increasing the capabilities of a party member... maybe? Master Benedict wasn't sure if his talents fully lay there.

Jonathan's generally had more to do with preparing and improving the body.

So he used his sun essence to make muscles stronger throughs stretches, exercise and magic used together. This couldn't make someone more powerful than normally possible, but rather made it easier to reach a peak condition.

How this played into other healing arts Ryth wasn't too sure, as he had yet to trade information during these past 2 days since they'd agreed to.

He didn't talk to Jonathan a whole lot, simply feeling very confused as to what kind of person he was.

He could be thoughtful, snarky, genuine and honest, yet...

How did that match with the noble who'd tried to blow a girl's arm off as punishment for trying to steal one of many gems he owned?

"Master Benedict? We have a fighter with a limp affecting her right leg."

Ryth said as he took a step onto the roof, the condensation of the ever-lasting mist wetting his face.

"Calf or t.h.i.g.h?"

"Uh..." Ryth cast his memory to how she stepped on it, her hip dipping down with each step but her knee solid and strong. "T.h.i.g.h injury."

"I'll be right down."

Master Benedict moved past Ryth, heading downstairs, and Jonathan took a few steps down the stairs from the aviary...

He stopped seeing Ryth state at him.

"What?"

"I don't get you."

"...oh?" Jonathan's voice became sharp and biting.

"What? I'm not what you expected?"

Ryth scowled. "What kind of person are you? How are you so different from that bratty asshole who nearly blew a street girl's arm off!"

Silence.

"I didn't."

Ryth's eyes widened. "You're denying-"

"I didn't make a choice. Do you think I made her grab it? I wasn't even there until the very last second!"

(...Wait... wasn't... but...)

"Do you think I know anything about traps placed in things that belong to my family? Do you think I control ANYTHING IN MY LIFE?!"

Ryth took a half step back, while Jonathan stepped forward, truly angry and finally letting loose!

"I DON'T HIRE THE GUARDS! I DO NOT ORDER THE CARRIAGE! I am just a useless son who will inherit nothing! I have no control over anything in my life! So yeah, blame me commoner! Blame me for a young girl attempting to steal something, for the cruelty of my father's men!"

"...I-"

"What Ryth?! WHAT?!"

"...I'm sorry."

Jonathan's c.h.e.s.t heaved. "Well maybe you can f.u.c.k off."

He stormed pst Ryth, and Ryth stood still for a minute.

Finally he took a few steps forward and sighed, sitting on the steps to the aviary.

He looked out into the mist, and the circle of yellow that was all that could be seen of the sun.

A fluttering from behind caught his ear, and he stood with a sad smile as he went into the aviary, sitting in a bench within and a Raven covered in gold flecks hopped onto his arm.

"Yeah... I think I'm an asshole too."

Ryth looked back out at the sun covered by mist and fog.

He cast his mind back...

To soldiers and knights manning the walls of stone and magic.

To halls of embroidery and lamps of white light.

Ryth shivered in cold sweat as his memories shifted from the light and beauty of that castle and home, with darkness flowing in its stones and light in its grass, a symphony of color and beauty and magic, with an ocean glittering in the distance and sh.i.p.s of golden sails and some built with wings of sail and wood, flying above the sea.

They shifted to beneath, to the underground, remembering the dark and wet stone and mud, the chains and the iron rods heated to burn.

A woman in black, wearing a mask to hide the horrible corruption her curse had laid upon her.

A child screaming in fear as she laid the brand of hot metal upon the side of his ribs.

"Feel the heat little one... it hurts, but you shall heal. Heal us my Rytherian... my hunter of the Stars."

Ryth's eyes snapped open as he grabbed his left side, biting back a scream as a phantom pain flickered past.

He shakily stood, and lifted his shirt...

His skin was pale, but not in an entirely natural way. Now as he began to grow again and was becoming healthier, Ryth actually noticed his skin turning a slightly more darker shade, as if tanning or getting a slightly more caramel tone to it, but it was very faint and not yet there.

Thanks to this the scars were even more noticeable than they'd been in the past, silvery and ridged skin rising in lines across his side where he'd been burned and healed.

Exposure to the healing essence of sun through burning and then being healed by a priest again and again.

"Are you happy mom? We finally get away and I manage to actually awaken as a healer of the sun like you always wanted. What an ironic piece of shit."

Frustration bubbled within him, his mind now focused on this.

(What should I feel? Hope that I could heal us, the same hope that led my mother to burn me and unleash her darkness upon me to consume parts of me just to have her lackey's heal me again?!)

He wanted to heal himself, his sister. He wanted to become a great healer and end this curse... but he'd suffered so much of his childhood because his mother had those same hopes.

He had only felt rage and despair in awakening, a cruel fate he could never escape, yet too weak to ever actually fulfill that hope.

But now his core had formed early. He had gained skills quicker than should be, been blessed by the divine in some way.

Could you blame him for wanting to feel hopeful? That maybe he COULD do it, maybe he was great, powerful, or with the potential to be?

But if he accepts that hope and that dream... is he supposed to forgive her for what she did in pursuit of those same hopes and dreams?

"I won't ever forgive her." Ryth swore at the skies, anger and frustration bubbled from his heart where he hid them, the same rage that made him hate being a healer despite the hope it gave him, the same rage that demanded he be a fighter or a mage, anything that could just fight and kill and be strong in a physical, real way.

Ryth heard a splintering noise shocking him out of it, and looked down...

To see his hand crushing a part of the bench in its tight grasp, his fingers indenting the wood with raging red-gold energy swirling under his skin like fire.

He released a shaky breath, and lifted his hand, and felt something shift.

The white droplet in his heart bent, extending and thinning at the middle, until suddenly it looked like two smaller droplets fused together at one side.

An hourglass placed sideways.

And the energy it absorbed began to follow a figure-8 as it went into it, as one side seemed to absorb more sun while the other more moon.

Two twin d.e.s.i.r.es, twin powers.

Rage at life, at unfairness and the aggression that just made him want to fight, to adventure and hunt.

The same stubborn determination to get a kill as he walked those trees, when he snuck out, and the raging power of the sun and its fire.

The hope of healing, of being more, of his sister healthy and the pride in helping others, the kindness and compassion which Liv saw in him.

The moon's gentle glow, it's light cool and soft.

Ryth shook his head, leaving the aviary and heading back inside through the porch, only to go up the folding ladder to his attic room.

Undoubtedly Benedict and Jonathan were helping remove a leftover bit of metal in the woman's leg left behind when her party's healer had healed her, or whatever caused an injury to remain after healing.

But...

Ryth wrote out a quick note, "Be back by evening", and grabbed his knives.

(My Path isn't just a gentle and kind sun. It is duality, and I am a hunter and healer, even if I don't quite understand how yet.)

As he crept downstairs he paused. (I'm sorry for judging you Jonathan. You're a better person than I've been giving credit. I know how little control an heir has, much less a third or fourth son. I just wanted someone to blame I guess.)

Ryth snuck out the back and walked towards the slums and the way to sneak out of town.

(I'm going hunting.)