Calm down, I won't hurt you. Yes I have horns, but I promise, I will help you get well, but you need to calm yourself with no stress. -- BKF
Tamasin didn't know if the battle was won or lost. They barely remembered the hit that took them down. One moment, they were fighting for the righteous cause, dimly aware that the line had broken. The next, they were staring at a roof made out of whatever happened to be closest to hand.
Tamasin recognised a torn flag representing their Marquis, and battered shields from both sides of the conflict. Troop flags and knight's tabards stained with blood, tangled over tent poles and green branches that were more falling down against each other than constructed with rhyme or reason. There was even a glimpse of proper tent canvas in there.
Movement drew their attention to their Healer. In any other circumstance, the expression would be calm and beatific. Except this face was a deep purple and sported spiky horns.
The clawed fingertips were pitch black as they wandered over Tamasin's torso. Not touching. Never touching. Directing odd, dancing shadows, into their body.
A Hellkin! The devilborn reviled by the gods, the curse that came from Humanity's sinful deeds. The foulest creature ever to walk the world!
Tamasin yelped and tried to squirm free of their bed. They found their limbs weak and their body too heavy.
The shadows under the devilborn's hands stuttered to a stop. Eyes that burned with their own fire opened and turned on Tamasin. They were without pupil or iris, but they nevertheless looked straight into Tamasin's eyes. "Please try to stay calm? If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you on the battlefield." The voice was neither masculine nor feminine. The features inscrutable.
Tamasin fumbled for a pronoun and defaulted to the enemy Elven "ze/hir" for the creature. Since ze was healing them, it may yet pay to think of the beast in politer terms.
Well. Politer than 'it' and 'devil' for sure.
Tamasin didn't honestly know how to be polite to a Hellkin, and feared the beast's retribution. Feared being under their control. Feared...
...feared the same treatment Tamasin's fellows had given to Hellkin, turned against themself.
The Hellkin Healer sighed and rolled hir burning eyes. "As your gods' messengers say, be not afraid. I'm not going to hurt you." Too many sharp teeth showed when ze smiled. "It's not my job."
Tamasin was not reassured. They stayed still only through unadulterated terror.
"I do understand. Devilborn magic looks frightening. It's easy to be terrified of the devilborn using them. So. Nod or shake your head. Am I hurting you?"
Tamasin was feeling less pain than when they had woken. They had to shake their head.
"Do I look like I plan to hurt you?"
Tamasin could see nothing more threatening than bandages and chamber pots next to other cots where other Hellkin were tending the injured. Everything was haphazard and cobbled together out of available materials. There was someone cooking in an improvised hearth. There was someone hauling water. There was someone winding bandages.
All a rainbow of Hellkin. All busy, clean, and suitably dressed, if in poor clothes.
If none of them had horns and tails, Tamasin would easily believe that they were honest folk simply trying to help whoever they could. Hellkin were directly related to demons, and therefore had to have an agenda.
"Please try to calm down," said the Hellkin. "My healing magic doesn't work right when the patient is stressed, and Vitality's exhausted. People like me are your only choice. If you can't calm down, I'll have to leave you. Others need me."
How could ze even tell? Tamasin was as still as a stone. Keeping hir breathing slow and even.
"I can see your pulse jumping, you idiot. Take your time. As I said, others need me." Ze rose from hir place and moved away. Not far. The cots were close together, with just enough room for people to pass through with whatever they were carrying.
Tamasin watched, speechless, as the Hellkin summoned hir shadows into someone else's injuries. Wondering how shadows could ease pain or stitch together someone's body. Wondering what it could do to someone's soul.
A different Hellkin came around with a feeding horn. "It's gruel," she said. "Warm, but not hot. We were able to find some honey for it. Are you hungry?"
Tamsin's stomach answered for them.
The Hellkin smirked, but didn't show her teeth. "Are you going to eat it?"
"What are you going to do to me?" Tamasin blurted.
"If we can? Heal you up and send you off. Enough have died in this bloody stupid war." She was not interested in any conversation. Merely in helping someone who was hungry to eat. That, she found a few cots over, with an injured soldier croaking out, Oi, devil-girl, to summon her.
She'd likely been called worse in her time. Tamasin could think of three of them but dared not utter any out loud.
The next one - green as a summer apple tree with ram's horns on his head, offered a water skin. He had to be seven at the most.
Tamasin was thirsty enough to actually want water from a devil's hands. They half expected the Hellkin boy to drown them, but they were careful.
"There, see? Hardly poisoned at all." The lad watched Tamasin sip. "Aunty Verity says your lot made our lot to be weapons. Nobody asked us if we ever wanted to be."
Tamasin waved the boy away. They had a lot to think about.
[Photo by Lucas Dalamarta on Unsplash]
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