Jade smiled down at her, forgetting again that it was probably still a little grisly at this point. She awkwardly squatted so she was on the girl’s level, saying cheerfully, “No, I’m not a zombie. I’m a healer, and I forgot to clean up after I healed myself.”
The girl tilted her head quizzically, and the mom seemed too embarrassed to pull her back or stop her since she’d so painstakingly gone down to the kid’s level. “Does that mean you can fix my owwie?” The girl pointed to her knee, where a large bruise was yellowing. It looked like a typical kid fell down on hard surface situation.
“Of course I can.” Scrutinizing her hands, Jade decided her left hand was the cleanest, being that most of the blood was on her forearm. She took the cleanest finger and reached out, touching the little girl’s bruise. Along with the customary blinking dot at the side of her vision, a picture of it appeared in her mind’s eye, and she mentally pushed the warm energy coursing through her hand into the little girl.
For her part, the little girl looked surprised as she felt the warmth gush into her, looking down to see the bruise becoming normal colored at a visible pace. It only took her about ten seconds before she was totally fine. Beaming, she gushed, “It was warm! Look, mommy; my knee is all better now!”
More surprised murmurs were running through the sizeable crowd she’d drawn, and the mother seemed to be debating something. Finally, she articulated. “Thank you for that.” Jade nodded, standing up awkwardly. Her muscles were protesting the squat she’d done.
“No problem.” She shrugged and grinned. “It was just a little thing.”
The woman nodded a bit skeptically, then motioned, “Why don’t you come in, and we’ll get you cleaned up?”
Gratefully, Jade nodded again. “I’d appreciate that.” Contemplating the crowd of people, she thought she should do a bit of PR…and promptly remembered she still looked like a ‘zombie’ and threw that idea out the window. PR was for the pretty, not the disturbing. It was literally the start of pretty.
The little girl reached up, now completely unafraid, and grabbed her left hand, pulling her towards the shop door her mom was holding open. Why did it seem like she was always being pulled places?
As she was pulled to the back, most likely to avoid having the customers gawking at the blood covered skeletal lady and affecting business, but maybe it’s just because that’s where the water was, and she was overthinking things? I should probably at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, I should figure out how to get some water magic. Or prestidigitation. Instant cleaning sounds pretty nice right now. She was avoiding rubbing her arms and face, not wanting to flake off blood in the lady’s store. Which, now that she had looked around it, seemed to be a…tailor’s shop? Dressmaker? What did they call them here? She didn’t want to commit a faux pas and call it something she shouldn’t. She was suddenly glad she’d never called Jessica and Kaylee maids to their faces. What if it was horribly insulting? Raphael didn’t seem like the butler type…
Coming back to reality, she found herself at the door of a small washroom. No shower, but a tub, toilet like thing, sink, and mirror completed the small space. She heaved a sigh of relief. Indoor plumbing was a thing! It was then that she realized she really, really needed to use the bathroom. “Do you need any help?”
“Ah, no! I’m good. I just need to use the…” Bathroom, loo, restroom, toilet, ah whatever, I need to pee, lady! “Facilities as well, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’ll be outside if you need anything.” I’m not an invalid anymore, dangit! I don’t need help to pee anymore!
“Thank you.” Instead of letting her inner rant out, she smiled serenely and crip-walked her way into possibly the most gangsta bathroom she had ever seen. Then again, she only had hospital bathrooms and catheters to compare it to, so it wasn’t like that wasn’t an easy title. Closing the door behind her, she left her decorum behind and twitched as fast as she could over to the toilety thing, doing her business quickly. Oh, sweet relief! She sighed in satisfaction at her bona fide first independent bathroom visit.
She felt a little like a child, getting all these firsts. Walking by herself, potty training, going outside alone… She had graduated from preschool level skills, yay! It took her a minute to figure out how to flush the dang toilety thing though. There wasn’t a convenient handle, and it reminded her more of an airplane toilet she’d seen in movies where you kinda had to give things a push down the hole with very, very minimal water helping it along.
Moving along to the sink, she stared at herself in the mirror again. Her face did look a tiny bit less skeletal than before, but with the blood smears, she still looked pretty gruesome. The soap she picked up was a harsh lye soap, another reminder of the purely functional crap at the hospital that made you smell like disinfectant all the time. She was going to have to see if they had real soap somewhere. If not, she was going to figure out how to make it. She’d watched one of those hippy hand soap do it yourself tutorials once, so as long as she could figure out the ingredients, maybe she could experiment…
Shaking her head, she cleaned off her hands and arm, relieved to see there wasn’t a scar on her arm. It would have been really stupid if she had scarred herself just to see if she could heal it. Why didn’t she use less pressure and just cause a bruise first? Shaking her head, she gave it up. It was done already, so no point crying over spilled milk. Mmmmm, milk. They should have cows here, right?
Hands clean, she stared at the soap again. She really didn’t want to use it on her face. Frowning, she absently picked at the blood spots, muttering darkly, “Prestidigitation is like the mage starter skill. Why couldn’t I get the mage starter kit?” She thought it would be so nice if the blood just beaded up and rolled away like one of those wicking jackets in the rain.
Feeling something moving along her forehead, she barely stopped herself from screaming as it stopped again. She scrutinized the mirror, not wanting to touch whatever creepy crawly had managed to invade her space any more than she had to. What was surprising was that…there was nothing there but blood.
Frowning, she peered more closely at the blood. Did it seem…more concentrated? She belatedly realized that the warm power she’d felt when healing was buzzing through her fingers again, and wondered if just maybe… Focusing, she tried to pick up her train of thought. If the blood beaded together, she could let it roll right off her skin… The warm tinglies told her something was happening, and she stared wide-eyed as the blood really did start to bead up, rolling out of her hair. She put her finger next to it, willing it to go onto her hand so that she could wash it off easily. She was both amazed and creeped out when it did so. Quickly putting her hands under the surprisingly clean water–Where is it coming from? Should I be conserving it?–she washed the blood down the drain, trying not to hyperventilate.
I can control blood. Blood. How did I do that? That was so creepy… Trying to think logically, she tried to think of how to confirm it, before hitting herself in the forehead. “Duh.” She muttered before mentally pulling up the skills section of her profile.
Appraisal