At first, setting up a practice in the midst of the boutiques, theaters and clubs of classy Harmony Park district had seemed to be a move made of desperation. It didn't have the wealthier traffic like the Central and Downtown districts, nor did it have the volume and corporate opportunities that the industrial parks in Green Meadows district offered.
But somehow, Kilin got her little enterprise to work.
Up until her arrival, the snazzier clinics in the district tended to focus largely on aesthetic care, while everything else was settled Downtown at the main hospital. At first glance, trying to set up a general clinic seemed doomed to failure, but Kilin soon realized that there was a market for the minor emergencies that sprung up in the fashion and entertainment hub of Republic City.
The theater folk made up the bulk of Kilin's business, due to incidents like collapsing stage props, falling off stage, brawls between staff, tea spilling, and the odd director/actor relationship being discovered by their spouse(s).
There was also an inordinate number of twisted ankles from victims of fashion designers 'pioneering' footwear. In fact, the fashion industry offered a surprising amount of business due to its high-stress environment. If it weren't fucked legs, it'd often be bruises and cracked bones from tiffs between designers and their exasperated crew or models. It was mostly minor stuff, barely worth more than an hour's attention, though there was that one incident where a designer had almost had her neck sliced through by a measuring tape…
Still, the fashion and performance industries were not as cutthroat as the high-end food business. Unlike most clinics, Kilin kept her clinic open until the late hours to cater to the rather lucrative trickle of food poisoning or cleaver-attack victims. If it's not one restaurant (or their triad backers) trying to sabotage their competition, it's a more overt conflict that often resulted in the metalbending police bringing over literally chopped up men and women for Kilin to heal…after she received a decent down payment.
Amidst the frenetic madness of the district, Kilin took in anything that could be patched up by a short waterbending session, and referred the everything else to the hospital after stabilizing the patients. The aging waterbender gained a reputation for being the go-to for the right sorts of emergencies, and after she hired more healers from her home village in the North Pole, Kilin's clinic thrived thanks to being able to operate every day of the week.
Not that it was booming business every single day, but the opportunity was there.
Just like the one that just stepped in during the usually quiet afternoon. The fashion season had just ended, and most of the theater companies were shopping for sponsors and new stories to bother with rehearsals or scandals.
A young man, probably some rich family's butler judging by how sharply he wore clothes and carried himself (did butlers come this young though?) stepped through the clinic's doors, followed surprisingly by two street urchins dressed up in decent clothes.
Their greedy looks and antsy energy gave them away. Kilin had lived in Republic City to instantly recognize poverty-fed desperation. Just like how she could see that the young man was more than just a common servant. The air of professionalism fit the bill, but the way his eyes took in his surroundings reminded Kilin more of a more competent triad bodyguard. The kind that occasionally walked into the clinic with minor things like gaping wounds and broken bones while their bosses who paid for the healing were barely touched by a speck of blood.
Judging by the fact that the kids were not cowering in fear, Kilin guessed that maybe they were someone's illegitimate offspring, and due to some reason or another they were now being retrieved to be readopted into the family.
It could even be a gang boss' mistress rising up the ranks?
But that didn't explain why they'd be here, though. No obvious signs of injury, no hints of discomfort…
Fuck, it's going to be an outcall, isn't it?
The young man smelled of trouble. But with everyone else on their breaks, Kilin had the misfortune of being the only one behind the counter at this moment.
If Kilin was lucky, this was going to be related to the triads, who practically treated the clinic as sacred neutral ground and knew not to cause a scene.
If she wasn't, it'd be one of those wealthy dynasties with their narcissistic entitlement. The kind that demanded a lot but paid poorly.
Either way, it'd be bad for her reputation to simply shoo away the new customers right away. But if she listened to their proposition, then the butler would have a foot in to be stubbornly insistent, which would force Kilin to relent or call for the police, which could also be bad for business.
Holding back her sigh, Kilin braced herself as the man came up to the counter and plastered on her best calming smile to set the scene.
"Can I help you?"
As expected of a rich family's servant, the young man gave a short but formal bow, though the kids behind him were occupied with looking around curiously.
"Excuse me, but I've been informed that this clinic does…intensive healing?"
Spirits, this was going to be fun…
"What kind of healing are you looking for?"
"Old wounds, poorly healed bones." There was none of the shiftiness or innuendo from his words, which likely ruled this out as a triad thing.
"I'd suggest you seek the hospitals for that," Kilin honestly offered. "If you're talking about refixing broken bones, then you're looking at rehabilitation which would take some time, which our clinic unfortunately does not provide."
The young man didn't look put off by the deflection, which meant that his employers weren't completely prissy fuckwits. "Ah, I can take care of the subsequent recovery. I just require aid in fixing the old injuries."
It took a second for Kilin to register the queerness of his phrasing. Servants usually used 'we' to represent their employers. He's referring directly to himself. So this is a personal matter?
She sighed, and then eyed him warily. "I can only promise to give it a look first, but it won't be cheap."
The young man nodded, completely unphased. "I understand. I'll bring the patient over later. How much would you require for a downpayment?"
He was definitely not representing a rich family, otherwise he wouldn't freely offer up a downpayment.
The notion was further reinforced when Kilin gave her the initial fee for consultation, and the man presented a stack of yuans without hesitation.
With her curiosity piqued, and seeing that he'd been far more pleasant a walk-in compared to the usual lot, Kilin personally booked the evening slot for Xing. She also had Uki, the clinic's next best healer, on standby when she came back from her shopping break, just in case it was going to be one of those definitely-not-gang-related wounds again.
Xing's return was heralded with the chugging of a vehicle parked just outside. It sounded too rough to be a Satomobile or Cabbagecar or any other civilian vehicle.
A truck then?
This was getting weirder and weirder.
Then soft protests from an elderly man could be heard, and then the two kids showed up, keeping the doors open for Xing to walk in, with an elderly man reluctantly piggybacking on him. Compared to the kids, the old man's state wasn't hidden at all. The elder's face was weathered and unkempt, clearly having endured much. The state of his beard and mustache could make Kilin a good sum simply by showing them off to the prissier fashion critics and healing them out of the ensuing shell shock. His clothes were stained, frayed and holey, while the scrap string kept his sandals on his feet and the soles were worn to the point of being little better than folded paper. If the clinic hadn't already been acquainted with the smell of vomit and blood and shit, Kilin's nose would've been offended at the faint miasma that clung onto him.
Juxtaposed to the young man carrying him, was this elder Xing's family or something? Was Xing one of those kids in the stories who went off to work and then came back to his destitute family to drag them out of poverty?
Seeing her expression, as well as the stunned looks given by the other healers in the clinic, Xing's head tilted to one side a little. "I hope the appointment is still on?"
Kilin quickly shook herself out of her staring and then hastily ushered him into one of the treatment rooms. "Here, you can set him down there."
"I'm fine," the old man protested weakly, earning eyerolls from the two kids who followed after them.
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"Gramps, you're gonna get your legs fixed," the girl said. "We can afford it and you really need it. So stop complaining, it'll be fine."
Xing carefully lowered the old man onto the room's examination bed, and Kilin winced the moment she saw the twisted limbs that were supposed to be legs. They hadn't been broken as much as pulverized a while ago, and the natural healing was barely guided, if at all, which resulted in lumpy, bent limbs that must have been painful to move in.
Still, it wasn't exactly a complex problem, just…an intensive one. She'd worked on similar cases before, though those tended to be fresher wounds.
"This is going to take some work…" she muttered, and Xing gave her an optimistic look.
"But it can be done?"
Unfortunately. And Xing had already put up a good amount of money upfront, and Kilin loathed refunds.
Kilin quickly poked her head out of the room to call for reinforcements. "Uki! Yana! Bring in a barrel!"
The two healers entered shortly after, rolling a barrel of water to back up the one already sitting in the corner of the room. In the meantime, Kilin appraised the rest of the old man and found what she expected: lumps of badly healed bone, mostly on the arms and back, scarring around the same regions, overly rough hands…
This old man had somehow survived a brutal beatdown, and his legs were broken probably as a message. That he lived at all meant that whoever's responsible wasn't completely pissed with him, just pissed enough to cripple him as a means of humiliation.
Kilin sighed before addressing Xing and the old man. "We can do this two ways: We do it over several sessions, treating different areas each time. There'll be pain, and it'll last until the treatment is fully completed, and you can expect phantom pains to linger for a while. Or, we do it all at once. There'll be more pain, but I can certainly guarantee that it won't last any longer than a couple of days."
"How bad is the pain?" the old man immediately asked and Kilin threw him a wry grin as she nodded at his legs.
"About as bad as when you got those."
"Ah…" For a moment, he seemed ready to protest again, but then he looked to Xing and the two children, and the elder drew in and exhaled a heavy breath. "What's a little more pain, I suppose. I don't want to waste anyone's time any further, so I'll go for the second option, please."
"Are you sure?" Xing asked with concern, and the old man scoffed.
"Now you worry? Relax, I'll be fine. Better to get all this over with anyway."
Not wanting to witness any further family drama, Kilin snapped her fingers and had Yana lead the two kids out of the room. Xing stayed after promising to sit back and behave.
Kilin had the old man, who eventually introduced himself as Lidai, to take off the rags that was his shirt, and then she bended up a blob of water from one barrel.
"Right, take a deep breath and stay calm, alright? If you struggle too much, we'll have to start from scratch."
Lidai gave a stiff nod as he no doubt braced himself, and then the Kilin directed the floating blob water to engulf him. Carefully channeling her chi, Kilin stirred up the water to vigorously stimulate her patient's energy paths. With a grunt, she brute-forced the redirection of chi through the damaged pathways, ignoring Lidai startling as he no doubt felt the burning pang of chi rushing down once abandoned networks.
"Uki."
The young woman stepped in to add her own efforts, churning up the water into a glowing maelstrom that began to exert force on Lidai's body. He admirably endured the pain of re-breaking bones, though the healers lowered the bubble of water to allow him to refill his lungs after a while. There was none of the South Pole gentleness here; Kilin valued expediency over comfort as it meant a higher turnover. The customers usually liked it too, since they got to return to their lives quicker.
With the patient obscured by the bubbling and glowing water, and the violent rush of it drowning out the pops and cracks of broken bones, Kilin focused her attention on the feedback of energy that swirled within it. While Uki tended to a more general healing, the older waterbender homed in on the subtler pinches in the chi network, ruthlessly cracking apart and reknitting the pathways and the flesh and bone that they were attached to.
With care only to ensure that no new damage was wrought, Kilin nudged bone fragments back into their original place before vigorously accelerating Lidai's natural healing to fuse everything back into a solid piece. Calcified knots were ground away, fingers were straightened, and joints were made smooth again. Lidai struggled a bit at times, but it didn't obstruct the operation so Kilin kept at it.
Uki expertly excised scar tissue before sweeping the affected areas in healing pulses that saw proper flesh and skin fill up the space. The same sweeps of healing forcibly regenerated shredded fingertips and softened calluses. Kilin felt the girl show off her natural talent by directing chi beyond the usual pathways to reinvigorate and cleanse organs. With her mastery of chi Uki melted away cataracts (a trick Kilin was still trying to perfect), regrew tooth enamel (though not the whole thing - nobody's that good a healer) and even straightened Lidai's finger and toenail growth.
The two healers were standing on wobbly legs by the time the procedure was completed, almost an hour later. They'd replaced the water about halfway in, and once they were done they had two barrels of water yellowed from dirt and blood and flakes of skin. Lidai was lying on the drenched examination bed by then, gasping heavily through an expression of sheer agony.
With all the repairs he went through, he now filled the bed a few inches more, and his limbs dangled a bit more freely.
He didn't have a heart attack at any point of the treatment nor did the pain knock him unconscious, which was nice.
Herself panting from exertion, Kilin flicked the sweat from her forehead as she turned to the lone observer in the room. "There, it's done. He'll still need rehabilitation to acquaint himself with his new freedom of movement though. And he shouldn't exert himself too much for a month or so…nothing more than a walk around the block."
Xing gave a grateful bow. "Thank you. I'll see to it, as well as any other recommendations if you have them." A gentle frown of concern appeared on the young man as he then went over to check on Lidai.
"How are you feeling, elder?"
"You…you wouldn't want to know," the older man gasped out, though he managed to stop wincing to offer a smile. "It feels like shit…but I can feel the not so shit bits as well. Thank you, Xing."
Xing's smile became warmer, more…familial? "You'll have to remember to thank Ren and Kai as well, they eagerly contributed to cover this treatment."
Leaning against the wall to catch her breath along with Uki, Kilin blinked in surprise. Those kids had the money to chip in? Then she remembered not to bother asking too many questions, and banished the thought away.
With all parties recovered to a modest degree, Xing helped Lidai walk out to greet the excited kids, and while the elder and the children hugged and sobbed, the young man went to settle the all important matter of payment. As expected from what she'd seen so far, there was no haggling involved with him. Kilin passed him the itemized receipt, and Xing read through it in silence before nodding and passing the yuans over.
Then he, the two kids and Lidai to some degree, gave deep, grateful bows which made Kilin a tad bit embarrassed, while Uki and the other healers on duty blushed and reciprocated with well-wishes, and some of the customers 'aww'ed empathically at the already touching scene.
"I'd say feel free to come again, but I don't want to jinx you," Kilin awkwardly offered, and personally saw them off with a more genuine smile. They were hassle-free customers after all, and Xing had been very polite, so the usual plastered farewell would be too rude.
Still, it was weird that they were leaving in a truck of all vehicles - the kids climbing up the empty back carriage while Lidai took the passenger's seat and Xing drove. She'd expected at least a more comfortable carriage with a driver with the amount of money they just passed to her.
"The evening's still young, we'll stop for a meal and then I'll show you to your new home."
The truck left with the sounds of excited children lingering behind, and once more Kilin blinked as more questions about the quartet popped up. And once more Kilin pushed her curiosity aside and returned to work.
All the best to them, though, whatever they're going through.