Like Fire In The Forge
Summary
Daja notices a Fire Temple novice with flaming red hair across the yard as they ferry wounded inside after the pirate attack, and the two girls share wan smiles.
Gauze
10 – Gauze
Daja’s magic was no help to her in the chaos of the dead and the dying. So while Sandry and Lark were in the loomhouse and Briar was with Rosethorn in her workshop, Daja laboured with the other stretcher-bearers carrying casualties of the pirate attack to the Water Temple infirmaries, feeling more than a little helpless. The injured moaned, groaned and died as temple staff worked wearily through the night. Tris had been around earlier but Daja had lost sight of her. Niko was last seen muttering something about messengers as he strode toward the Hub.
The sun dripped red over the sea and crumbled wall as Daja returned to the training school courtyard, as if it too had been struck a grievous blow. The red flowed further into the temple the higher the dawn sun rose. In the shade of a column Daja bent to help a man in the yellow habit of an Air Temple Dedicate lift a novice onto a stretcher. The novice yelped when Daja brushed a soggy patch on his leg. Her eyes jumped up and away as she mouthed an apology, looking anywhere else. Across the courtyard another novice wiped blood from the mouth of an unconscious man in rough leathers. Beyond his reach (kicked clear, maybe) a sword glinted red in the grass. Binding the novice’s waist was a cord the same colour. Fire temple, Daja thought wearily. Another repurposed defender. In her hand, the novice held a wad of bloody gauze and an open bottle of unguent. The contents of the bottle seemed to glint an insipid gold to Daja’s sight. The novice – a girl about Daja’s age with a thick braid falling forward almost onto the pirate’s chest – looked up at the same time the Tsaw-ha did. Early sunlight had soaked the novice’s braid in a red so profound she might have been using it to mop the blood from the fallen instead of the wadded bandage. For a moment, she looked as tired as Daja felt: both of them streaked with sweat and grime. The moment broke with a sharp moan from the man at Daja’s feet. The two girls shared a wan smile across the yard still strewn with fallen friends and foe, and bent back to their tasks. __________________________________________________ Yes, another 100 Themes story. This one promises to be shorter.