Cailan's Bad Day

My first try at the fantasy genre. A short story about a healer name Cailan.

            The sun had just begun to rise when Cailan opened his eyes. He squeezed them shut almost immediately. It was far too early for any decent creature to be awake. For a few moments he lay there, attempting to force himself to go back to sleep.  But no such luck. The sun was shining through his window, filling him with a need to get up and move, to do his lord’s work. “A priest of Pelor walks in His light” he remembered his mother saying when he had asked her why he could no longer sleep the day away. He hadn’t been pleased about it then either.

            Cailan rubbed sleep out of his eyes and stood up, almost hitting his head on the low ceiling. He squeezed through the crack between his bed and the wall and walked to his dresser in the corner. He pulled out his robes and laid them on his bed. They were a golden yellow and patched in places where Cailan had removed designs of flowers and frill. The Holy Mother had apologized profusely when she had given him the robes. They just didn’t have any men’s robes left, what with most boys growing up to be warriors and paladins and such! He sighed and pulled them over his head. He was used to getting things second hand around here anyway. Even his room had once been closet, hastily converted when he arrived at the chapel.

            “I don’t need my own room,” he had said hastily when he saw it, “I can stay with the rest of the male priests.”

            He remembered the pitied look the Holy Mother had given him. He had known deep down what she would say before she said it. She set a hand on his shoulder.

            “I’m afraid you are the only male priest dear. It’s not a profession that many young men desire.”

            So he had unpacked his stuff and tried to make himself comfortable. Cailan looked in the small mirror above his dresser. A skinny, straw haired, young man looked back at him. His face was thin and somewhat pale. A pair of hazel eyes situated themselves above a nose he had always thought was too large. His lips were thin and curled into a grimace at the earliness of the hour.  He tried to force his face into a pleasant, caring, expression. “An injured soldier needs to see smiling face when he wakes up,” the Holy Mother had said on his first day here. Cailan had scoffed to himself. An injured soldier doesn’t want to see a smiling face when he wakes up. He wants to see a smiling woman.

            Cailan’s eye’s moved to the sun shaped amulet hanging above the mirror. He smiled to himself as he grasped it tenderly and hung it around his neck. He let out a large breath he had not been aware he was holding in and glanced at the mirror again. A soft light seemed to be shining on small young man and he found himself able to call a smile to his face again. Then he thanked Pelor for the light of a new day left his room.

            The light was brighter inside the chapel main, but never blinding. It seemed to settle itself where it was needed. One could almost see a shimmer hanging about outside the infirmaries where the priestesses worked. The chapel was a grand building. It was made of polished stone, with tall elegant pillars supporting pale archways that seemed to reach to the sky. All around women in various styles of robes rushed to their duties or knelt and prayed to the Sun God. Every now and again a patient would be rushed to a room on a stretcher. The chapel was built on the border of two warring states in order to provide sanctuary and healing to those who needed it. No injured party was turned away, whether they were man, elf, orc, or something else entirely.

            Cailan was assigned to infirmary two and hurried towards it at once. He avoided eye contact with the other inhabitants of the chapel. For the most part he succeeded. The priestesses were always too polite to stare. In fact, they preferred to not look in his direction at all. As if ignoring the man in their midst would make it seem less out of the ordinary. This had always annoyed Cailan, mostly because every conversation with a priestess began with a fake tone of surprise, like he had blended in so well they had never even noticed him. The patients on the other hand often openly stared, some suspiciously. But he could hardly blame them for that. Some were suffering from head trauma after all.

            Cailan entered infirmary two slightly annoyed, as always. He looked around for unattended patients and found one almost immediately. A human by the look of things, but definitely a touch of orc ancestry as well. The sloped forehead and jutting jaw gave it away. Not to mention his size. The man had to have been at least seven feet tall and was covered from head to toe in muscle. Cailan wondered what possibly could have taken him down as he began to inspect the man’s injuries.

            There were several small wounds from what seemed to be arrows around his arms. A few puncture wounds were scattered across his legs and lower body, no doubt the result of a fight with one or more halflings. The most obvious injuries however, were two large deep slashes that dominated torso. They ran diagonally from shoulder to hip, at least an inch deep. Cailan hazarded a guess they were made with a greatsword or maybe a battle-axe. The man’s injuries had been bandaged, but many were still bleeding through. He needed proper healing or he would die.

            Cailan removed the bandages from the largest injuries quickly. Blood began to flow freely in torrents almost before he had finished. It pooled on the floor and Cailan reminded himself to get a mop after he was done. Then he took a deep steadying breath and lay his hands on the injured man. He started to mutter a prayer to Pelor and felt the familiar tranquility steel over him. His prayer came from his lips in a language he didn’t quite recognize. The blood flow slowed and eventually stopped. Cailan felt energy flowing through him as his prayer turned into a song. His hands tenderly traced the outline of the injuries and slowly they began to close. Cailan was lost within his song. He only knew the love of his God and love he gave to his patient. In the end that was why he put up with all of it. The taunts, the subtle comments about how he was different, the stares from the injured. This peace, this uninterrupted state of pure acceptance was all he needed from the world. The great gashes had closed so that not even a scare remained. Cailan gingerly reached across the man’s broad chest towards a cut he hadn’t seen before. A giant hand propelled itself foreword and seized Cailan’s arm at the elbow joint.

            The peace cut off instantly. Cailan relaxed his arm as he had been taught. He knew that a startled warrior could break the joint in a second. The man’s eyes had opened and were boring into Cailan’s. He noticed the irises were red. He was right about the orc blood then.

            “Where am I?” he demanded. There was no trace of weakness in his voice despite having several unhealed injuries.

            “T-this is a temple of Pelor, god of the sun,” Cailan stammered out, “I am a priest. You were injured in battle and I was healing you.”

            Cailan trembled slightly. He knew the warrior had no reason to harm him, but he was scared. There was just so much of him! The man looked at him inquisitively, never slackening his grip. He inspected his surroundings with a frown and took in the other patients and healers. Then he grimaced at Cailan slightly then relaxed his grip. He fell back into bed and let out a sigh. Cailan was about to resume his prayer when the warrior spoke.

            “A healer eh?” he scoffed, “Isn’t that a girl’s job?”

Cailan found it harder to focus that day.

Author's Note

Looking for any kind of imput.