[Day Eight - Fic] Heal Thyself
For: rabidline
Title: Heal Thyself
Characters/Pairing: Song
Rating: G
Oral histories.
I was ill, on and off, for most of my childhood. It usually wasn’t serious. It usually wasn’t anything that would take us to another village, where the healers knew more than my mother. (She knew, it seemed, almost everything.) I would watch, always intent, wanting nothing more than to know everything she did.
But one winter, we did need to leave the village. I remember so little of it, just the hot, strong pain in my lungs, like something trying to push its way out. I remember a tough, fluttery panic. After that, nothing for a long time.
We traveled in a carriage drawn by Ostrich Horse. The roads were bumpy and seemed so, so long - I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even try, but I was deep in something close to it, until, finally, we were away from home for the first time in my life.
The healer was an old woman with hair that crackled and eyes that frightened me. For two days, she fed me herbs that tasted smoky and foreign, and rubbed things on my chest, and stuck needles all over my body. But as soon as she started, it seemed, she stopped. I woke up one morning to a white sky and a room full of more plants than I had ever seen, suddenly able to breathe again.
As soon as I was well enough to sit up, I began to ask her questions.
“My, my,” she said, in a voice that made me think she was enjoying herself, “Someone is quite interested. What would you like to know?”
Her cat was mewing at my feet. It was sleek and friendly, the same color as the sky.
“Everything!” I said. I was still weak, and my enthusiasm was met with pain, but that didn’t abate it at all. “What are all of these plants for? I’ve never seen most of them! We don’t have flowers like this in my village, and my mother never uses...”
“When you are older,” the woman said, “You will come back here.” Her voice was more tranquil than I could remember hearing. I knew, somehow, she was lulling me back to rest. “If you like, I will let you be my student.” She paused. “My students are leaving me, one by one. I would be grateful to you, as I imagine you are now, to me.”
I curled tighter up into the blankets she’d given me. In the next room, I could hear my mother and father talking softly. Soon, I would be well enough to go home. I missed the gentle summer rain, and the fireflies at night, so much it made me ache.
The War came to us, though, so soon after that I almost wished to be back in her echoing institute, among the plants. I wished to be anywhere else, really, not being able to draw in a breath seemed almost better than what was facing us so soon in the future.
But you know, don’t you? I don’t have to explain. It was different, for you, but it happened to us all.
---
The emptiness was so strong it made her shiver. It was worse with the contrast, the way things used to be as just a shadow over everything else.
Here - this was where the table was, dark, cool polished wood. Here were the pots, in all their greens and blues and browns, holding the plants that over the years she had learned to use herself, filled with powers she could harness like magic. Their smell lingered in the air, as real in memory as in life.
To calm the discomfort rising in her chest, she named them to herself - bacui powder, banana tree, ginger root, lotus root, sandalwood, dong quai, cinnamon, fire peony, wolfbat berry. It didn’t work, not really, but she didn’t expect it to.
Years ago, before this, she had returned once, in hope of something she wasn’t entirely sure of. The Avatar was back, the world was healing, and everything seemed miraculous and new. Maybe there would be a surprise left for her.
The old woman had died, the neighbors explained, after her mind left her slowly, a ribbon unwinding. Her cat had been her only companion for years. None of her students returned to see her, but then, most of them had been killed in the War.
It had been easy to get in. The door no longer locked.
What purpose, she thought, had coming back now served? She had patients. She had responsibilities. Her little piece of the world to rebuild.
Song had circled the main room twice, now. She knew there were classrooms, other places to go, places filled with echoes of voices that would be more painful than the echoes of herbs. (And they weren’t, she thought, even her voices to mourn.)
---
My mother never took it upon herself to find me a husband. She knew me well enough that I think she could tell I had never wanted one. I watched as my friends paired off, one by one. Our village is small enough that everyone knows everyone else’s business, and as understanding as my family was, I was still pestered.
I didn’t let it get to me, though. There was plenty to keep me busy, and if there was ever gossip it wasn’t something I worried about. I set to work mastering what my mother taught me about medicine, healing the small aches and pains of the people who came to the village hospital, but I always wanted to know more.
My father was a scholar. What I remember most about him were the stories he told about the places beyond out home, and the wonderful things that people could do there. We have Earthbenders in our village, of course, but I had never met a Waterbender before.
Back then, I had never met a Firebender either.
He told me about the way the women of the North Pole used their Waterbending to heal. It fascinated me. If I thought what I already knew was magic, who could imagine what it would be like to make people feel better just by laying your hands on them, just by willing it?
At night, I would mime in the dark, spreading my hands over thousands of invisible bodies, glowing, mending.
It took me longer than it ought to have taken me, to realize the method was less important than the result. But they’ll always be a part of me, the wishes that what I know was more intrinsic, something gifted by the gods.
---
The people of her village, of her country, had always been strong - though they were never an occupied territory, what war had wrought on them all was written clear as day of their faces, in hidden lines and sudden, blank darknesses. Song knew it was written on her face too, but the magic of being busy was, sometimes, not having that extra moment to look in the mirror and see what was lurking there.
When she dreamt, it was of other places - people with these same faces, people with these same wounds, spread far and wide across the Earth Kingdom and the world. She woke up, and lay the sheets tight out against her legs, let the cold strains of moonlight fall across her face, and thought.
She was eighteen. She had hardly left the village, but until now (things were different, the refrain constantly playing in the back of her head) there had been no reason to.
Outside, tied to the post with her hands’ firm knot work, was their best Ostrich Horse. Song knew all of the paths out of the village, where each of the roads led and the name of each little hamlet and lake and hill. She had studied her father’s maps dozens of times, almost obsessively in the years after the Fire Nation had invaded their life so brazenly - the things tied most closely to him and all she had felt she had left.
Her thoughts turned again, as they so often did, to the old woman who had saved her life all those years ago. If she had left, if she had ever left, would she have been safe? Would her knowledge have helped others, even simply soothed those soldiers who came back with nothing behind their eyes but the incessant shock and torrent of fire?
She stayed awake for a very, very long time.
---
It’s amazing, isn’t it? How much there is in the world? I never would have imagined the kinds of things I would see, once I finally left home. Fire being used for life, instead of destruction. Even for healing. It still frightens me - I don’t know if it ever won’t. But I need to try to at least understand it.
The neighbors, the people left who minded what remained of the old woman’s institute, came to know me over the years. I kept visiting, like a vigil, until I realized a vigil wasn’t doing anyone any real good. The things she left behind, though - those would. I still feel like they’re not really mine, but I’m grateful to have them, anyway. The salves and herbs and recipes for things that I couldn’t have found anywhere else, they’re doing more good healing real, living people than sitting on shelves as a testament to the dead.
My father always told me that the world was no good to learn about unless you went out to really see it for yourself. I guess I was just waiting for the right time. After all, his maps were doing no good to anyone just sitting on a shelf, either. I’m adding to them now - there are so many places people don’t know about, places I never even imagined existed, that deserve to have their names written down so they’re not left empty and forgotten.
You’re doing the same thing. I’ve never met anyone who knew quite what I was talking about before. I never imagined I would.
And thank you, for the offer. But I’ve lived with my leg like this for so long I don’t know if I would know how to be without it.
I think it’s important, for not all pain to disappear. Or we wouldn’t remember how important it is to heal. I’d imagine, though, you would understand. I know you do.
Title: Heal Thyself
Characters/Pairing: Song
Rating: G
Oral histories.
I was ill, on and off, for most of my childhood. It usually wasn’t serious. It usually wasn’t anything that would take us to another village, where the healers knew more than my mother. (She knew, it seemed, almost everything.) I would watch, always intent, wanting nothing more than to know everything she did.
But one winter, we did need to leave the village. I remember so little of it, just the hot, strong pain in my lungs, like something trying to push its way out. I remember a tough, fluttery panic. After that, nothing for a long time.
We traveled in a carriage drawn by Ostrich Horse. The roads were bumpy and seemed so, so long - I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even try, but I was deep in something close to it, until, finally, we were away from home for the first time in my life.
The healer was an old woman with hair that crackled and eyes that frightened me. For two days, she fed me herbs that tasted smoky and foreign, and rubbed things on my chest, and stuck needles all over my body. But as soon as she started, it seemed, she stopped. I woke up one morning to a white sky and a room full of more plants than I had ever seen, suddenly able to breathe again.
As soon as I was well enough to sit up, I began to ask her questions.
“My, my,” she said, in a voice that made me think she was enjoying herself, “Someone is quite interested. What would you like to know?”
Her cat was mewing at my feet. It was sleek and friendly, the same color as the sky.
“Everything!” I said. I was still weak, and my enthusiasm was met with pain, but that didn’t abate it at all. “What are all of these plants for? I’ve never seen most of them! We don’t have flowers like this in my village, and my mother never uses...”
“When you are older,” the woman said, “You will come back here.” Her voice was more tranquil than I could remember hearing. I knew, somehow, she was lulling me back to rest. “If you like, I will let you be my student.” She paused. “My students are leaving me, one by one. I would be grateful to you, as I imagine you are now, to me.”
I curled tighter up into the blankets she’d given me. In the next room, I could hear my mother and father talking softly. Soon, I would be well enough to go home. I missed the gentle summer rain, and the fireflies at night, so much it made me ache.
The War came to us, though, so soon after that I almost wished to be back in her echoing institute, among the plants. I wished to be anywhere else, really, not being able to draw in a breath seemed almost better than what was facing us so soon in the future.
But you know, don’t you? I don’t have to explain. It was different, for you, but it happened to us all.
---
The emptiness was so strong it made her shiver. It was worse with the contrast, the way things used to be as just a shadow over everything else.
Here - this was where the table was, dark, cool polished wood. Here were the pots, in all their greens and blues and browns, holding the plants that over the years she had learned to use herself, filled with powers she could harness like magic. Their smell lingered in the air, as real in memory as in life.
To calm the discomfort rising in her chest, she named them to herself - bacui powder, banana tree, ginger root, lotus root, sandalwood, dong quai, cinnamon, fire peony, wolfbat berry. It didn’t work, not really, but she didn’t expect it to.
Years ago, before this, she had returned once, in hope of something she wasn’t entirely sure of. The Avatar was back, the world was healing, and everything seemed miraculous and new. Maybe there would be a surprise left for her.
The old woman had died, the neighbors explained, after her mind left her slowly, a ribbon unwinding. Her cat had been her only companion for years. None of her students returned to see her, but then, most of them had been killed in the War.
It had been easy to get in. The door no longer locked.
What purpose, she thought, had coming back now served? She had patients. She had responsibilities. Her little piece of the world to rebuild.
Song had circled the main room twice, now. She knew there were classrooms, other places to go, places filled with echoes of voices that would be more painful than the echoes of herbs. (And they weren’t, she thought, even her voices to mourn.)
---
My mother never took it upon herself to find me a husband. She knew me well enough that I think she could tell I had never wanted one. I watched as my friends paired off, one by one. Our village is small enough that everyone knows everyone else’s business, and as understanding as my family was, I was still pestered.
I didn’t let it get to me, though. There was plenty to keep me busy, and if there was ever gossip it wasn’t something I worried about. I set to work mastering what my mother taught me about medicine, healing the small aches and pains of the people who came to the village hospital, but I always wanted to know more.
My father was a scholar. What I remember most about him were the stories he told about the places beyond out home, and the wonderful things that people could do there. We have Earthbenders in our village, of course, but I had never met a Waterbender before.
Back then, I had never met a Firebender either.
He told me about the way the women of the North Pole used their Waterbending to heal. It fascinated me. If I thought what I already knew was magic, who could imagine what it would be like to make people feel better just by laying your hands on them, just by willing it?
At night, I would mime in the dark, spreading my hands over thousands of invisible bodies, glowing, mending.
It took me longer than it ought to have taken me, to realize the method was less important than the result. But they’ll always be a part of me, the wishes that what I know was more intrinsic, something gifted by the gods.
---
The people of her village, of her country, had always been strong - though they were never an occupied territory, what war had wrought on them all was written clear as day of their faces, in hidden lines and sudden, blank darknesses. Song knew it was written on her face too, but the magic of being busy was, sometimes, not having that extra moment to look in the mirror and see what was lurking there.
When she dreamt, it was of other places - people with these same faces, people with these same wounds, spread far and wide across the Earth Kingdom and the world. She woke up, and lay the sheets tight out against her legs, let the cold strains of moonlight fall across her face, and thought.
She was eighteen. She had hardly left the village, but until now (things were different, the refrain constantly playing in the back of her head) there had been no reason to.
Outside, tied to the post with her hands’ firm knot work, was their best Ostrich Horse. Song knew all of the paths out of the village, where each of the roads led and the name of each little hamlet and lake and hill. She had studied her father’s maps dozens of times, almost obsessively in the years after the Fire Nation had invaded their life so brazenly - the things tied most closely to him and all she had felt she had left.
Her thoughts turned again, as they so often did, to the old woman who had saved her life all those years ago. If she had left, if she had ever left, would she have been safe? Would her knowledge have helped others, even simply soothed those soldiers who came back with nothing behind their eyes but the incessant shock and torrent of fire?
She stayed awake for a very, very long time.
---
It’s amazing, isn’t it? How much there is in the world? I never would have imagined the kinds of things I would see, once I finally left home. Fire being used for life, instead of destruction. Even for healing. It still frightens me - I don’t know if it ever won’t. But I need to try to at least understand it.
The neighbors, the people left who minded what remained of the old woman’s institute, came to know me over the years. I kept visiting, like a vigil, until I realized a vigil wasn’t doing anyone any real good. The things she left behind, though - those would. I still feel like they’re not really mine, but I’m grateful to have them, anyway. The salves and herbs and recipes for things that I couldn’t have found anywhere else, they’re doing more good healing real, living people than sitting on shelves as a testament to the dead.
My father always told me that the world was no good to learn about unless you went out to really see it for yourself. I guess I was just waiting for the right time. After all, his maps were doing no good to anyone just sitting on a shelf, either. I’m adding to them now - there are so many places people don’t know about, places I never even imagined existed, that deserve to have their names written down so they’re not left empty and forgotten.
You’re doing the same thing. I’ve never met anyone who knew quite what I was talking about before. I never imagined I would.
And thank you, for the offer. But I’ve lived with my leg like this for so long I don’t know if I would know how to be without it.
I think it’s important, for not all pain to disappear. Or we wouldn’t remember how important it is to heal. I’d imagine, though, you would understand. I know you do.