“Better?” the Healer asked.
And it was. Already. My my head was clear—I could concentrate without difficulty. The pain had melted away with the tiny square. Disappeared. I blinked, shocked.
“Yes.”
“I know you feel fine now, but please don’t move. Your injuries are not treated yet.”
“Of course.”
“Cerulean, could you get us some water? Her mouth seems dry.”
“At once, Healer Knits.”
The older woman left the room.
The Healer turned back to her cabinets, opening a different one this time. This, too, was filled with white containers. “Here we are.” She pulled one from the top of a stack, then took another from the other side.
Almost as if she were trying to help me fulfill my mission, she listed the names as she reached for them.
“Clean—inside and out… Heal… Seal… And where is… ah, Smooth. Don’t want a scar on that pretty face, do we?”
“Ah… no.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be perfect again.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
She leaned over me with another white cylinder. The top of this one came off with a pop, and there was an aerosol spray nozzle underneath. She sprayed my forearm first, coating the wound with clear, odorless mist.
“Healing must be a fulfilling profession.” My voice sounded just right. Interested, but not unduly so. “I haven’t been in a Healing facility since insertion. This is very interesting.”
“Yes, I like it.” She started spraying my face.
“What are you doing now?”
She smiled. I guessed that I was not the first curious soul. “This is Clean. It will make sure nothing foreign stays in the wound. It kills off any of the microbes that might infect the wound.”
“Clean,” I repeated to myself.
“And the Inside Clean, just in case anything has snuck into your system. Inhale this, please.”
She had a different white cylinder in her hand, a thinner bottle with a pump rather than an aerosol top. She puffed a cloud of mist into the air above my face. I sucked in a breath. The mist tasted like mint.
“And this is Heal,” Knits Fire continued, twisting the cap off the next canister, revealing a small pouring spout. “It encourages your tissues to rejoin, to grow the way they should.”
She dribbled a tiny bit of the clear liquid into the wide cut on my arm, then she pushed the edges of the wound together. I could feel her touch, but there was no pain.
“I’ll seal this up before I move on.” She opened another container, this one a pliable tube, and then squeezed out a line of thick, clear jelly onto her finger. “Like glue,” she told me. “It holds everything together and lets the Heal do its job.” She wiped it over my arm in one swift pass. “Okay, you can move that now. Your arm is fine.”
I held it up to look. A faint pink line was visible under the shiny gel. The blood was still wet on my arm, but there was no source anymore. As I watched, the Healer cleaned my skin with one quick pass of a damp towel.
“Turn your face this way, please. Hmm, you must have hit those rocks just exactly wrong. What a mess.”
“Yes. It was a bad fall.”
“Well, thank goodness you were able to drive yourself here.”
She was lightly dripping Heal onto my cheek, smearing it with the tips of her fingers. “Ah, I love to watch it work. Looks much better already. Okay… around the edges.” She smiled to herself. “Maybe one more coat. I want this to be erased.” She worked for a minute longer. “Very nice.”
“Here’s some water,” the older woman said as she came through the door.
“Thank you, Cerulean.”
“Let me know if you need anything more. I’ll be up front.”
“Thanks.”
Cerulean left. I wondered if she was from the Flower Planet. Blue flowers were rare—one might take a name from that.
“You can sit now. How do you feel?”
I pulled myself up. “Perfect.” It was true. I hadn’t felt so healthy in a long time. The sharp shift from pain to ease made the sensation more powerful.
“That’s just how it should be. Okay, let’s dust on a little Smooth.”
She twisted the last cylinder’s top and shook an iridescent powder into her hand. She patted it into my cheek, then patted another handful onto my arm.
“You’ll always have a small line on your arm,” she said apologetically. “Like your neck. A deep wound…” She shrugged. Absentmindedly, she brushed the hair back from my neck and examined the scar. “This was nicely done. Who was your Healer?”