Healing versus Soothing

The sword crashed down brutally onto her shield, raising a trail of sparks in the air and echoing with a thunderous clang. She intercepted the blow, but only just barely. Medella was panting hard, desperately trying to keep herself outside the blade’s reach, her muscles burning and her chest struggling to expand. It was only a matter of time before she could not carry on.

Flicking a few sweaty strands off her forehead, she felt gratified to see that her opponent was not faring much better—Caerimonium was shaking on her feet, her normally pristine, stuffy robes thrown into complete disarray, littered with holes and covered in dirt. Her right sleeve was torn up to her elbow and her left hip was visible through a deep and bloody cut. The usually carefully coiffed hair was now a white tangle that poured down her back, her sky-blue eyes watery from the exertion, but still narrowed into a hateful glare. If not for her constant attempts to cause her bodily harm, Medella might have believed her to be beautiful.

She could not really remember when their rivalry began, but they had been at each other throats for at least a couple millennia. Now that she thought about it, she did not know why it started, either. Was it an insult one caused the other? A misunderstanding that festered over the centuries? Or, perhaps, something as banal as a difference of opinions? Medella could not say and she wondered if it would be rude to ask.

Contemplating whether it would be worth it to bring up the subject and risk provoking her nemesis into a murderous frenzy, Medella was just a tad too slow to block the next hit properly. Suddenly, she found herself thrown onto the ground a few meters away. If she had thought she was hurting before, it was nothing compared to the sheer agony coursing through her now—her right shoulder ached as if speared, a paralyzing pressure gathering in the bone and spreading downwards into the whole arm, leaving the surrounding muscled feeling frozen, as if trapped in an unrelenting vice. No matter how she tried to move it, the arm remained unresponsive. A dislocated shoulder, paired with a broken scapula. The urge to scream in frustration and the need to pass out battled viciously in her heart; alas, she had time to do neither. 

            Medella was lying on the grass for less than ten seconds before an all too familiar sword pressed against the hollow of her throat, pushing forward into her flesh until breathing became even more of a chore. Caerimonium never held back, she had no hope that her enemy would start today.

“Do you yield?” she asked, voice hoarse with effort and tone dripping with malice.

“You hate it when I do that.” And, regardless of whatever lies she might tell herself, she definitely did; Medella did not know why, but giving up on their fights always made Caerimonium incandescent with anger. She, on the other hand, had only ever wanted them to let each other be.

Caerimonium lifted an eyebrow, while continuing to gaze down at her coldly, “Not much of a hindrance then, I happen to hate everything you do.” Still, she made no move to put an end to their war at long last. There was something distinctively funny about the level of pettiness housed in that sentence, especially considering that Caerimonium was always the one tracking her down and initiating their interactions. Medella was going to die anyway, she saw no reason to stop herself from chuckling.

“Ah, you say that, but I’m not the one chasing you around for literal eons.”-dragging in a sharp breath, she asked what she had meant to before- “Why are we at war, anyway? I don’t really remember why you hate me so badly.”

Caerimonium's brow furrowed, as if surprised, but she gave no answer and only glared even harder. Medella felt a ridiculous suspicion begin to swell within her.

“Do you even kno-”

“Of course I do!”

“…So?” After a few more moments of menacingly scowling, Caerimonium mumbled an incomprehensible string of words.

“Can you not be difficult and just communicate properly?! For heaven’s sake, it’s not like we’re going to have any other chance to talk things out after this.” Caerimonium's expression soured even further, and she didn’t hesitate to give Medella a vicious little sword jab in the throat.

“I said, you deaf hag, that it’s what they want me to do.”And then, quietly, “I think.”

“… Are you seriously telling me you’ve been repeatedly trying to murder me on the off chance that your worshippers might dig it? And that you’re not even certain they would?! Heavens, what is wrong with you?”

“I’m reasonably sure they would! I maybe heard someone say it at least once before? Honestly, it was such a long time ago how do you expect me to remember that?”

“…” How dumb was this woman? Medella knew her face showed just how incredibly stupid she found Caerimonium’s entire existence at the moment, but she could not care less. “Are you on drugs?”

The empty-headed, sword-wielding maniac had the audacity to look offended. “How dare you even suggest that? I would never-“

“Girl, just take the out I’m giving you, it’s way more embarrassing to admit you’re like this naturally.” 

“Oh, I’m the dumb one? You’re literally about to be decapitated and you’re still talking smack about the person with a weapon!”

“Not like common sense or politeness would help, you homicidal gremlin!”

“Maybe it would! How could you know? You’ve clearly never heard of either!”

If her shoulder was not so utterly out of commission, this would be the part where Medella would attempt to whoop the idiocy out of her, “You are literally about to turn me into atom salad and you expect me to be nice about it?”

For a second, it was very appealing to demand that Caerimonium just get on with it and kill her already, so she can escape the tomfoolery crashing around her, but then she actually considered her words. Would it have helped? She had not really thought about the possibility before; Medella was the goddess of medicine, responsible for answering health-related prayers and curing bodily ails, while Caerimonium ruled over faith, managing religious avenues and spiritual development; as such, very few of their duties overlapped. Furthermore, mirroring the ever-antagonistic relationship between the two of them, a good chunk of their worshippers was very persistent in finding new ways and reasons to wage war on each other.

Nevertheless, Medella had to admit that sometimes her powers fell short—on the days when she encountered wounds that festered beyond the physical, to which no tincture or pill or salve could hope to bring relief. Even the most potent panacea would not bring back the dead, nor do away with the weight of grief. She had to wonder if things might have been different, better, if they had chosen to fight the suffering together, instead of on opposite sides.

“Would it have changed things?” She said, and upon sensing the venom fermenting on Caerimonium’s tongue at the perceived mockery, she hurried to add, “Could we have worked together if we were a little more tolerant of each other?”

Blue eyes boiled with suspicion as they roved over her face in silence, gauging the sincerity of the question. No reply came, and perhaps that in itself was answer enough.

Medella tore her gaze away and turned towards the midnight sky; if she had to die tonight, she would keep the stars in her sights for as long as she could. She waited for the pain, for the darkness, but once again, nothing came.

Her nemesis appeared frozen in time, barring a slight tremble in the hand holding the sword and the gentle swaying of her hair. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, with a feverish glint captured in their depths, unfocused as they fixated blankly on a patch of grass near the side of her head.

“We both strived to ease suffering; I merely wonder if we might have accomplished more through a joint effort.” Medella smiled sadly and forced her body to relax completely onto ground, “It makes little difference now. You’ve won. There’s no doubting what prize you’ll claim.”

“You would have never agreed to work alongside me.”

“Actually, I think I might have. There were times when I was called to heal wounds I simply could not reach. You’d have proved useful.”

Caerimonium was quiet for a minute, then she gulped once before opening her mouth and promptly closing it just as fast. She tried again, with the same results. After a concerning amount of gaping, she caught Medella’s gaze and finally managed to speak, “Does it… does it have to be too late? I… I, too, received prayers I could only weep for, as the power needed to grant them did not lie with me. What use is otherworldly awareness or holy wisdom when one’s entire family lies on their sickbeds, mere breaths away from death’s door?” Something that looked suspiciously like tears shone in the corner of her eyes. “What good is solace when one needs concrete help?”

“We could give it a go. It can hardly leave us in a worse off place than the current one.”

Two barely visible smiles mirrored each other, as a dull thud rang throughout the clearing and starlight danced upon metal cradled in grass blades.