#starwriter

"My King, this... This isn't sustainable."

Kal wrings the soaking cloth after pulling it from the bowl of iced water, water droplets cling to his finger tips and blend with beads of sweat that drag off his forearms and down to meet the rest of the water. His hands wring the cloth tight enough to make it squeak.

The room is still hot, near-feverish, despite the fireplace; that was roaring hot enough to catch and char the painting hanging above the stone mantle; having been quenched with a torrent of water not ten minutes ago. But the steam hangs in the air and makes the stone room feel like a sauna. The windows having been welded shut long enough ago that the thought hadn't even crossed Kal's mind.

"I... I was there Kalfu... In the midst of the spring revelry... The bonfire..." His breathing is labored and his tongue drags in his own mouth, dry and sticking to his teeth. His skin is marked with intense flush, his hands still with remnants of ash under the fingernails that the blast of water couldn't clean. And his eyes, glassy, can't even focus together on the worried looks Kal's scanning him over with, no processes behind the eyes but reverie.

Kal hears a voice from behind him panicked, an equal panic he's been denying for as long as he heard the shouts from the throne room forces him to respond, "He's not cooling down."

He hears footsteps of whoever it may be growing closer before whipping around and shouting, "I'll take care of him!"

His eyes meet Margaret's.

"Leave." Kal's eyes are imposing.

Her eyes are wide, "You don't tell me what to do, not when my father is hurting!" Her voice cutting into him like a knife.

"I am in service to the royal family, and I am the attending healer. He is sick. I must help him." Kal raises his voice, stern and commanding, a soldier's tone, holding his experience, his station over her.

Kal does not regret his tone. He knows he should the second it leaves his mouth. His hand brushes untrimmed hair off furrowed brows.

Margaret stares daggers into him, the man in between her and her father, irate and frustrated.

Her expression hardens instead, shoulders coming down.

"...You know best." Margaret states bluntly towards Kal, her eyes harsh.

The scrolls and writs in her arms gently shuffle as she turns from the door, before her movement whisks her in a rush of wind.

Kal turns back to the King, half expecting him to have been watching the whole exchange given the tension in the arm he's holding, only to turn back and see his body trembling, his eyes unresponsive, and head lulling back.

"Oh gates," the words leave his lips carried in a gasp, as his hand reaches immediately to cup under his arm and reach around his back, only for his hand to touch something scalding and immediately retract. With the kings chest now leaning on his shoulder, he hears something that was behind him clatter against the back of the throne and the tailbone of his pants.

His eyes fall onto a scorched velvet pouch hidden behind his back and an equally-sized patch of scorched coat going all the way to his skin. He doesn't need to look inside to know what the sound of the round stone items are. The only thing that matters is that pouch is not glowing anymore, even through the holes burned through it.

"You..." Kal growls deeply with frustration and anger, growing to a shout, as his arms wrap around the king's torso. His hands bracing as voluminous light begins to pour from them, fingers struggling to rip open the hole wider to get contact. His body presses against what skin he can get to, neck-to-neck, fingers-to-back, cheek to cheek, as he focuses that glow in his veins into those points of contact as best as he can. He can feel the heat being drawn into him from the connection just as he can feel the slight cold pouring into Itzal. And he knows it's not enough.

"You- ghhrk- You didn't even... need... to... hide... it anymore... I... know," Kal bites out through breaths, while he works Itzal's dazed torso over his shoulders, his hands still trying to keep whatever contact he can, before attempting to drag him down the hall to his bath.

Kal's fingers wedge between the gash in his assistant's outer thigh, the teeth-clenched draw of air Taavi takes as his flesh is pushed apart being the only sound piercing the echoing silence.

"Oh come on," Kal says, mildly annoyed as his other hand attempts to try and steady his leg from jumping by pushing it down onto the gurney's surface, "If you need something to numb the pain I ha-"

"No." Taavi's voice is firm, lacking any of his usual warmth. His face is strained and turned away. His eyes glare holes into the wall opposite of them, where he can see matching glass fragments to the one in his thigh pierced into the wall like darts.

"Taavi," Kal says dismissively, "I couldn't have known the pressure would build like that in those flasks, I really tried to h-."

"Kal. Just get the glass out of my leg. Quickly, please," he says, visibly wincing as Kal's hands attempt to find the piece he can feel is only pushing in farther.

Kal's hands grow luminous with radiance as he attempts to peer through the leg and into the wound to see the shard from the outside, but he needs longer, a lot longer. He knows he couldn't pull out the shard with his hands alone, even this is just a first step. And with Taavi being this restless already...

"Taavi, I really do think you'd-"

"I can handle it. Just keep going," Taavi says, his own hand pushing onto his knee, trying to aid in steadying the leg. His other hand is currently balls his shirt into his hands under a tense grip.

"Why are you being this insistent on not taking any-"

"Because I wouldn't need it if you went faster. Sorry," Taavi's voice is low, as Kal's raises. His level head is one he is fighting to maintain, as he speaks through a tightened jaw, having trouble even staying sitting on the cot, "I still have work to do today. I have logs to maintain. If I have a painkiller in my system I'll barely be able to see straight, let alone document down what I need to."

"Taavi, I haven't even brought out the forceps yet," Kal says, his hand softening on his leg, the pressure assuring, his fingers beginning to retract from the gash.

"You don't have anyone to answer to, I do." Taavi's voice is growing desperate. The sensation of Kal's fingers trailing along his muscle to give him a break is tense, and only knowing there would soon be a rough metal implement attempting to grab a shard out of him that he saw Kal didn't see is making it worse.

"I- You have to have something for this. Right? Y-You mix and brew for a reason, do you have anything else?" Taavi almost pleas for an answer to this that's not an opiate or something equally tranquilizing.

"No," now was Kal's turn to be insistent as Kal's face momentarily drops, his eyes darting to the cabinet just behind them filled with phials and bottles, labels only the two of them truly knew how to decode.

Kal is right. As much as Taavi doesn't want to admit it; admit that he's in this mess because of another of his dangerous unauthorized experiments, admit that he can't even trust Kal to be quick about this with how distractible he's been lately, and can't even trust him to administer a simple small dose of morphine or localized anesthetic while he works. He doesn't have another option. This injury will take him out just the same as any painkiller, and with the lab being so hectic...

"No? You're- hrk-," Kal's fingers finish pulling out of his gash, momentarily stealing Taavi's breath, "You're joking. You don't have anything like that?"

"No." Kal has never been this short of words before in front of Taavi, the look on his face is deep and unreadable to anyone but the person who's had to stare at it for well over a decade and a half.

"...You do." Taavi's voice is clear, echoing in the lab space, as Kal's eyes can't meet his. "If you don't think it's safe for this, then we can keep going, I just cant promise I can stay still for much longer," the wear on his voice is obvious, his patience frustratingly unending for the both of them.

"I have something, but I've only had to use it once before and there were side effects. I don't fully know what it would do yet. But I do know it only lasts for a short time," Kal says, his voice level, "and it keeps the mind clear after."

Questions pour through Taavi's worn mind, as he can still feel the pain throbbing in his thigh, "And..." he breathes, "How long is a short time, Kal."

"Thirty minutes. No more, no less," Kal's face lessens in intensity.

Taavi sighs deeply. He doesn't even want to stomach thinking about whatever he means by side effects. The only thing he trusts is his brewing at this point. He knows that even the most untested concoctions he'd know like the back of his hand. Wordlessly, he nods.

Kal goes back to the sink, rinsing the blood off his hands.

Even without anything in the wound it still aches horribly. The hem of Taavi's shirt has a new hole in it from how tightly he's kneading it.

And just as fast as his hands are re-sanitized, Kal opens the locked cabinet and procures a grey bottle, along with a small graded cylinder.

"Here. A dram is all you'll need," Kal opens the bottle with a pop, and pours the liquid into the makeshift shot glass. It begins to steam immediately on contact with the air, as the opaque and milky liquid levels, Taavi's eyes not leaving it's contents. Kal wedges the cork back into place, setting the bottle aside.

"I can't even say this is the weirdest thing I've drank of yours," Taavi says with a tepid laugh on his breath, trying to lighten the mood looking to Kal who smiles along with him. He takes the glass in his hands and kicks it back, swallowing the contents in one harsh swallow.

Kal places a hand on Taavi's shoulder, taking the cup in the other hand, and slowly lowering him to a lying position.

"And it certainly won't be the last," Kal says, a smile slowly crawling wide, with peeks too high, teeth too wide, as a slight chuckle worms his way from his chest. A punchline Taavi doesn't even hear, the thought making Kal laugh openly, as white begins to swirl in Taavi's emotionless eyes, that begin to dart wildly as if stuck in a dream.

The sound of a stopwatch clicks in Kal's pocket, as a tendril of fog, hidden, sets it to time. Unseen is the small marker line along the thirty minute mark.

And Kal gets to work, as Taavi's body twitches slightly, but seems wholly locked in a vivid trance. Kal's fog diffuses and spreads thin, immediately pouring into the wound. Effortlessly the fog wraps around the shard, and in one fluid motion he tosses it out and into the cup his hand holds out at the perfect angle to catch it with a sharp clatter.

His hand immediately blooms with healing magic, his body wincing slightly as it alights strong and antiseptic in his touch. It plunges down onto Taavi's thigh, fingers briefly pouring the magic directly into the inside, instantly sealing it from the inside out at a speed rapid and honed from decades of training.

"Oh, Taavi, Taavi, Taavi, ye of little faith. I didn't earn the title of the strongest Healer in the Blazing World for nothing," he says, his hand patting his thigh, his transformation mending the tear in his pants, or at least trying to. The threads darning, but obviously thread-bare. Kal shrugs it off with a huff.