The Healer

The Beginning

• The Head Healer was once a woman from a distant star galaxy. She does not speak often of her childhood, but the world she is from was highly advanced in technology, and she grew into her own self as a highly gifted surgeon.
• In her youth (or as she would refer to is as her “wild and crazy days”), the Head Healer would join expeditions that would traverse the Nexus, visiting new worlds and exploring planets, all the while providing the necessary upkeep for her staff. She was foremost a gifted surgeon, but soon she found her repertoire expanding until there was very little she couldn’t do when it came to the humanoid body.
• One of her travels brought her to the Vella Crean, when the world was still young and new and the dragons were not affiliated with any courts. She met a man (or as she would refer to him as her “other half”), a rigid and stoic Steward from Pern who served the Weyrwoman of the Vella Crean.
• (It would not hurt for the Head Healer to admit that for a very long time she was sure that her other half had been single father, raising a gifted and talented genetic scientist whom she found quite fascinating. But alas, it was not to be, and Shy would never become her son)
• The world of the Vella Crean was new and budding, and so was her often ridiculously temptuous relationship with the Steward. So the Head Healer decided to stay behind and to give this man planet a chance.

The Family

• Time passed quickly at the Vella Crean. The daughter of the Weyrwoman returned from Ryslen with a gold dragon. She fell in love, lost her love and the Courts evolved, one to protect the fragile girl and the other a sign of the girl’s grief. The Head Healer found herself with her hands full, quietly shifting her alliance so that she stood with the Light Court.
• Sometimes, her other half would ask why she did not serve the Empress with him, and the Head Healer would think of the young girl with her eyes stricken with grief, and she would lightly say she was inadvertently doing her part by serving the daughter of the Empress.
• The Head Healer made her own little family in the Vella Crean. First a quiet and somber little daughter who would trial after her other half, more at home with the council than by her mother’s side at the Light Court.
• The second child was one that the Head Healer was sure had inherited the smartest and brightest genes of his parents. The one with the sly eyes and the slyer smile, always aware of the latest talk and readily able to charm the men and women of the other courts. He was going to be trouble, but the Head Healer delighted in her son who caused her other half no amount of consternation.
• The youngest, her little Nadio, was as bold and vivacious as she was. The Head Healer knew that her littlest with his squaling cries as a babe would be a child who would take after her heart, and he did.

The Death Court Wars

• The Death Court Wars hit hard, and the Head Healer found herself with her hands full. The Empress fell, and for a while her other half was nothing more than a bleak shadow. What surprised the Head Healer was the haphazard way the little girl she had been caring for patched herself up to take her mother’s place, pulling herself out of the madness and grief and leading the Courts to war.
• Mia was back, and the Head Healer was as proud of her as she was of her own children who made themselves felt in different ways.
• Her eldest daughter smoothly took over the tasks of the Steward, ensuring that the day to day operations and supply logistics were never interrupted. Her littlest picked up skills at the medbay seamlessly, a talented pair of extra hands that helped to heal the wounded and tend to the sick. The brightest one, well, the Head Healer wasn’t quite sure what he was up to, but she had a feeling that he also made himself felt, and that Courts operated because he was doing his job.

The Return to the Nexus and the Flurry

• Ten years of war followed by months of peace. The Vella Crean reconnected with the Nexus and the Scientist returned, golden eyed Projects by his side who turned the tide of war. Changing life and death battles into skirmishes and annoyances. He bred dragons, the Guard, powerful winged beasts practicing a new brand of magic.
• The Empress woke, cared for be a gentle and mild mannered cleric, and the Head Healer found herself amused by the antics of the older woman.
• She did not seem to be able to sit still, or allow the healers to do their work! The Vella Crean had reconnected with the rest of the Nexus, and there was too much to do, too much to see.
• “It is the Flurry” the Empress seemed aghast, but her cleric was unmoving.
• “It is an event with ice and snow, we would not want to suffer another setback in your progress, would we?”
• The Head Healer paused by the door and watched as the elderly lady grumped, crossing her arms.
• “I have never missed a Flurry, and our old friends have returned. We need to greet them properly.”
• “And we will. Later. When your bones have had a chance to set from the last tumble. There are other fine members of the council who can go and attend on your behalf.”
• The Head Healer laughed quietly as she shook her head. “You have lost this battle, Onesto. Our Empress will make it to Ryslen one way or another, it would be best to prepare for the worst, instead of having her slip by when you are not looking.”
• The cleric sighed. “Will you go with us?” he asked, his expression beseeching.
• Her laugh was loud and true this time. “We will. We will make sure our Empress stays out of trouble.”