DeBoynton Dewleaf.

***

Like she said she would, Jay hung around for the next couple of tendays, healing folk and talking to me whenever Pa said I could. She was as nice as she was beautiful. And strong, I learned after joining her on a foraging trip. It was a strength unlike any I’d seen before. A gentle one that turned beasts away rather than one that cut them into pieces. She was nothing like the humans I met in Colis.

When the two tendays passed, Jay left with promises to teach me about medicine and needles and sneaking around even. I was as excited as ever, hearing the news, but I didn’t tell Pa. Medicine would have been okay, and maybe even needles, but I could only imagine him finding out I was learning to be a crook.

He noticed the pep in my step but said nothing. Maybe he imagined I was just excited to see Jay again, which I was, but when I saw her a little over a month later, my mirth was stolen entirely. She still taught me all about medicine. Of how our bodies worked and how being ill or injured harmed us. It was crazy to think of us being made of tiny little things. Cells, she called ‘em. And I couldn’t quite understand, but I surely listened.

As she said, she taught me about needles too. She was so nice and gentle, it was crazy to think she was so deadly with little ole rods of steel. She was so swift, stabbing into beasts many a time in the blink of an eye, and she was as silent as she was deadly.

Like Pa told me, some humans were born with magic. They weren’t magic incarnate like sorcerers, but they could use powers other species couldn’t. And Jay, in addition to ice, had power over sound. She didn’t outright tell me but it was the only explanation. There were times when I saw patients screaming their hearts out, but not a peep left their mouths. We walked all the time through the forest, right past dangerous beasts while we idly chatted away and they had no idea we were even there. It was the only explanation. But she didn’t tell me. She only made notice of how loud my steps were and taught me how to move quieter. She taught me to blend into the shadows and observe. Wait. Listen.

She taught me a lot about everything but nothing about herself. But even then, I was happy for it. Still, though, a part of my mirth had been stolen throughout it all. There were times when she had the same grayed expression my Pa got sometimes. And seeing it made me get it too.

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I noticed it again two months later. After she left and returned again, Jay seemed more rugged. More steeled like the hardened dwarves. Like Pragsturosa. They grew to respect her for it. Pa and the village had long respected her for her honesty and the rain that came whenever she’d leave. But as she grew more grayed like the thunderclouds in the sky sometimes, I grew more worried for her.

She was still healing then. She still taught me and even a few other kids how to sneak around. But she grew more silent. More distant, somehow. More gray.

Her third departure marked a tradition in Oretta. A celebration on the day Jay Lake melted, where the halflings and dwarves would go out to swim and dine under the shining sun before the rain came. Her return some three months later marked the start of another tradition. One where halflings and dwarves would go out to the lake to throw provisions into the freezing ice or harvest the chunks for use in the city.

By then, all of Oretta had grown to know her as the Silent Shamaness. A mysterious woman who came to heal folk and went off again to do... something, saying almost nothing the entire time she was here.

I knew her as Jay. A once warm and welcoming woman who had grown as cold as the ice she commanded.

I wanted to ask her what was wrong. To help her in any way I could, even if it was just a hug. But, for some reason, I could never find the strength to.

That was until one day at the end of the year. At the end of our lessons, she sat me atop a rock and faced me to the south to watch the sunset. I don't know how long we sat there, watching, waiting for the purples and reds and blues of the coming dusk to befall our eyes. But that was when her question came.

“Have you ever prayed for change, DeBoynton?”

With my eyes still facing south, I shrugged. “Well, I’ve sure hoped for it. Never thought about praying for it though. To whom would you even pray for such a thing?”

“Your heart.” She said as if it were obvious. And, by the Gods, it was. “If you pray from the heart it will be heard by whoever commands change. So, what kind of change would you pray for, DeBoynton?”

“If anything.” I leaned back, looked up to the featureless sky, and sighed deeply. “I’d pray for everyone to just be happy, ya know? Let the bad stuff exist somewhere else. The bandits that raid people; the slavers that take people from their homes; the nobles or royals who step on people’s backs; let those guys live somewhere else. Somewhere far from the good folk. That way everybody wins.”

“Everybody wins. That’s what I pray for too.” She sat next to me and said. And though I could see only her back, I could hear the smile in her voice. I could see the gray receding from her face as she continued. “Let’s pray for it. Both of us. When we’re alone at night, let’s look up to the sky and pray in our hearts for that change to come. We will be heard. I know it.”

“I never took you for the pious type.” I laughed heartily. “But I will, Jay. I will.”

“Yeah.” She chortled softly. “Neither did I. But that’s the thing about change. It comes unexpectedly. And when it does, we must decide if it's worth fighting for.”