#finally some longer form fyrna voice....

[stylographic-blue-rhapsody]

been thinking abt the in-world mechanics of healing magic, and exactly what it is that makes espen Good At Healing. besides the standard boost to hp, I figured her magical healing was more thorough/easier on the body/reduced scarring and itching in an immediately noticeable way to her patients

obviously a ficlet was in order bc the only thing better than textwalling in discord is pairing the meta with another lil glimpse into The Beforetimes

scene: bazzoxan, 60 years ago. the taskhand's personal apartments

...

Espen looked up from her paperwork as the door to the apartments opened with the clattering sound of heavy boots and clinking metal. She smiled to herself as a string of increasingly-nonsensical curses echoed up the stairs and into the bedroom, heralding Fyrna’s safe return: she was only ever quiet coming off duty when something had gone terribly wrong. 

“Do you want assistance?” Espen called. 

While the reply was unintelligible over the clamor of platemail being doffed and dropped onto the floor, by tone it was a declination. Espen turned her attention back to the stacks of parchment spread before her on the bed: the accounts and inventory wouldn’t finish balancing themselves. 

Some time later, when the stocklist requests were almost compiled, Fyrna arrived and collapsed onto the reading chaise with a sigh. She was clad only in soft breeches, hair damp and tousled from the bath she had apparently taken while Espen was engrossed in the task of finding a miscalculated purchase record. 

Looking up, Espen saw Fyrna start to drag her nails along a freshly-healed wound beneath her collarbone before restraining the urge with a grimace. Fyrna muttered to herself, “Light help me, this itches something hellish.”

“You could ask me.”

Fyrna lolled her head back on the chair and smiled apologetically. “I’m just whining to myself. No need to interrupt you while you’re busy.”

Espen gave her a dry look, shutting the journal and shuffling the papers into a stack to set aside. “Martyrdom isn’t becoming. Come here, firefly.”

Chuckling at the reprimand, Fyrna hauled herself from the chaise and clambered onto the bed. The acrid tang of healing poultice and mild florals of Fyrna’s soap hit Espen’s nose as her wife settled before her. Espen cataloged two major lacerations along Fyrna’s back in addition to the one on her collarbone: all three scabbed and showing the shine of young scar tissue. With a muttered incantation, Espen frosted her hand and ran the pads of her fingertips along the one on her chest, avoiding scratching it with her nails. 

Fyrna groaned in relief at the cold. “Oh, that is fucking brilliant. You are so sexy, did you know that? Do you want to get married?” 

“Sure, but you’ll have to ask my wife first.”

“Oh? The handsome Taskhand? Maybe I’ll ask to marry her, too. She seems like a catch.”

Espen snorted. “Turn around so I can get a better look at your back.”

Comfortable silence settled over the room as Espen made methodical passes over Fyrna’s skin to soothe the newly-healed wounds. Based on their orientation and jagged course, Espen guessed that the skirmish had been against something with nasty claws—babau, perhaps. There had been more of those emerging from the Rise, and it could be a pattern—

“Can you teach Elexi how to make his healing not itch, like yours?”

Fyrna’s question pulled Espen from her thoughts of demonic incursion. She said, “No, unfortunately. It’s not their fault, though. It’s very rare to have the ability to heal perfectly.” “And why’s that?”

“Do you want the quick answer or the correct answer?”

Fyrna sighed contentedly as Espen pressed her magically-chilled palms fully against her back. “I want the long winded, technical answer that will make you use your excited academic voice. It’s cute.”

“You are the only person in all of Xhorhas who thinks it’s endearing.”

“Everyone else has poor taste. Please instruct me well, Captain Danlys.”

Espen huffed and leaned forward to place a brief kiss on the nape of Fyrna’s neck. “As you wish, Taskhand Beltune.

“In arcane theory, it is understood that every spell, whether formally taught or accessed innately, falls into one of the eight schools of magic. Contrary to the layman’s understanding of the Weave, these schools are not different types of magic so much as they are the different forms magic can take, or the constraints by which a mage may safely channel its volatility.”

Fyrna hummed. “It’s using a saddle to ride a mount instead of riding bareback.”

“Yes, schools are like tack.” Espen pushed gently at Fyrna’s shoulder to encourage her to turn to face her again. “And ‘healing’ is not its own school because the desired outcome changes the channel required to accomplish it. Returning the deceased to life is necromancy because it is a manipulation of the spirit and not the body. Curing poison is abjuration because it is negation of something extant in the system. 

“The healing of wounds is almost always accomplished via evocation, which is, essentially, indiscriminately pumping creation magic into damaged tissue to fill the gaps. However, this does not seamlessly blend the whole and healthy tissues in the body with the recreated flesh, instead creating a border that the body must finish integrating. Because this integration is biologically the same process as natural wound recovery, magical healing itches just as the end stages of natural healing does.”

“Makes sense to me.” Fyrna’s eyes drifted closed as Espen attended to the wound on her chest. “What about you, though? Why doesn’t your healing make me want to rub against a scrub tree like a moorbounder with a face full of bee stings?”

“There is technically another way to magically heal a wound: speeding along the body’s natural process of converting its resources into new tissues via transmutation. This is, however, exhausting and potentially dangerous to the patient depending on the severity of the wound and the energy availability of the body. Transmutative healing also requires a very sensitive caster to manipulate the magic correctly at that small of a scale.” 

“So your healing combines evocation and transmutation, to restore the flesh and then integrate it with the body?”

Espen hummed in affirmation. “Most people can only manipulate the Weave using one school at a time, but very powerful arcanists have the skill to cast through multiple channels simultaneously and accomplish this. I do not have that sort of power, of course, but the Luxonmark attunes me to body-magic in a way that allows for dual-channeling while healing. To use another riding metaphor, if channeling two schools is trick riding on two mounts, the Mark is a yoke keeping the two together so I do not have to control them both independently.”

A smile began to pull at the corners of Fyrna’s mouth, her eyes sparking with mischief. “ ‘Attuned to body-magic’? That sounds…”

Espen raised an eyebrow. Amused, she asked, “Would you like me to wait for you to make the joke, or shall we assume it’s been made so we can carry on?”

Fyrna barked a laugh and leaned forward to kiss the tip of Espen’s nose. “I was only going to say that you didn’t need to tell me you’re ‘attuned to body-magic.’ “ 

“That wasn’t as crass as I had expected. You’re losing your edge, Beltune.” Espen flicked her cheek playfully. 

“That shouldn’t be a surprise. How could one not soften in the presence of your loveliness?”

For all the flirting, for the suggestive banter, that is what finally elicited a blush from Espen. “What a cliche. Have you been borrowing Bas’s trashy romance novels again?”

Mercifully, Fyrna allowed her to deflect. “I still think you’d enjoy them if you’d give them a chance.”

“And give Tars and Jin that ammunition against me? I can’t risk it.” Espen said. “Do the lacerations still itch?”

Fyrna stretched gingerly, spine popping with the effort. “No, they feel much better, thank you. Do you have work to finish?”

“I think it can mostly be left for tomorrow.” Espen extricated herself from the bed and scooped up the stacked paperwork. “I have a set of infusions steeping that I need to filter and store first, but I’ll retire once I’m done. Wait for me?”

Fyrna snatched Espen’s free hand before she could get too far from the bed and placed a kiss on her knuckles. Releasing her, she made a shooing motion. “Until the mountains sink into the sea, my love, but I hope it won’t take you quite that long.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” Espen replied with a soft laugh. “Maybe only until the Barbed Fields turn green.”

“Oh, that’s not so long. See you soon, starshine.”