The Healer, The Thief, and the Painter. Act 1 The Healer

The tendril of blue magic flew through the blackness of space for an un-measureable amount of time until it came upon a blue orb with green patches, as it continued it flew towards a green patch of land where the sun did not shine at the moment, and even further towards a small town where small lights shone even though it was early in the night. Finally, it stopped at a large house where no lights shone, until a faint ringing sound emanated from one of the highest rooms. A light in one of the upper rooms was abruptly switched on and thumping could be heard from the window. The magic tendril went closely to the lit window and peered inside. Inside the room there was a man, a man about twenty-eight who was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and was quickly getting dressed in powder blue scrubs, white tennis shoes, and a black trench coat. The tendril tapped against the window, but the person inside did not take any notice, so the magic flowed down to the base of the house. Where it waited, the light switched off and steps could be heard coming down some stairs towards the bottom of the house. As the same man exited, the magic followed him to a very large machine, apparently very well built  with a blue base paint with purple and pink horizontal stripes.

As the man opened a side door and climbed inside, the magic flew in unoticed. As he gripped a wheel set to the left of the vehicle, the magic slipped between the two seats and into the huge bed of the truck. It was stocked with medical equipment especially for equines, and for some reason on the wall was mounted a rifle, sleek and deadly in the early moon. The magic curled up in the back of the vehicle in a bag of surgical equipment. It would have to wait; it could sense the urgency in the way that its target was traveling. Whatever he was doing it was important.

The man was me, I was a country vet who specialized with equine medicine, I also shared the house I lived in with my boss, Mrs. Harbottle and her other employees. I was the only vet that treated horses in this particular village. So therefore I was always either treating patients from huge looming racehorses with broken hooves to small foals with pneumonia throughout the day and night. As I sped down the road in my loyal Bronco, a clap of thunder shook the large car and huge drops of water started smacking against my windshield liked it had paid them a personal insult. Yorkshire was known for extreme rainstorms, but this one took the cake. I sped down the road until I could see my destination, a small house at the end of a hill lights ablaze in all of the windows.

As I finally pulled into the drive way, I could see my client, Mr. Springsteen standing in the relentless torrent with full rain gear. As I stepped outside the rain soaked me to the bone with chills to boot. I had not been expecting this rain, so I had only brought my warm trench coat instead of my rain coat.“Hello!” I yelled over the pounding of the rain. “Good morning to you too Doctor!”he replied with a thick Yorkshire accent that nearly everyone in this village had except for me. “The mare and her foal are down in the creek bed, follow me!” he yelled. As he walked off, I followed him with an air of awe. Mr. Springsteen was a very well-known horse owner, whose racehorses went off to the track and netted him an enormous profit which he used to expand his herd. As we reached a deep dip in the valley, I could see a river that held my current patient. There was a beautiful mare standing by the banks of the river, but she was not who I was searching for.

She was snuffling at the river and whinnying with annoyance and fear, and I knew what was happening. This mare had just had a foal about three months ago, which I had actually helped deliver. He had been an adventurous foal, and I had visited him multiple times to treat him of various injuries that he had brought upon himself, from broken ribs to extreme lacerations. This time, it looked like he had tried to cross the river and had fallen into the deep part of the water. It was suicide, the water was icy cold even in the warmer days and even Mr. Springfield’s children didn’t challenge the rushing current. A burst of water brought my attention back to the task at hand. It was the foal, who had somehow gripped a shelf of rock with his hooves just enough to push himself up to take a precious breath of air before plunging back into the icy grip of the river. I stripped off my trench coat and prepared to jump into the dark water.

“You’re not thinking about jumping in there are you?” asked Springfield with worry in his voice. “Yes, I have to if that foal wants to live.” I replied as I ran and jumped down into the gripping abyss of the water. The current started to pull me as soon as I touched the water, but I swam deeper down to try to find the small foal. As I searched, a lone leg shot out of the darkness and smacked the wind out of me, forcing me to resurface. “He is still alive and kicking!” I yelled and dove back under the churning water. I waved my arms around and found the foal still struggling against the powerful current that threatened to even pull me under. I wrapped one arm around his small barrel and kicked my way to the surface. I burst through the river and anchored myself on an outcropping boulder protruding from the river like a beacon of life. I gripped the boulder with all my strength while still holding the foal that was turning limp with exhaustion with the other arm, current pulling at my legs like gravity had gone sideways.

I slowly edged my way up the bank that my boulder was set upon until I could stand up without much effort with the limp little creature still wrapped in my arms. As I laid the seemingly lifeless form on the soaked grass with the rain pounding on my back, I felt that I had actually lost the foal, until it gave a heaving cough and water exploded out of its mouth. “He’s still with us Mr. Springfield!” I yelled with joy. I felt a nuzzle at my back as I slowly lifted the small creature onto his legs. As I turned around I saw the mare, she was a soft chestnut brown with white speckles like someone had spray painted her with little drops of white paint. She lightly moved me aside from her foal and slowly snuffled his hair and snorted so that the foal’s hair blew sideways. The little colt whinnied in delight at his mother’s touch and returned the affection.

I turned to Mr. Springfield, “There you go,” I said with an air of pride around me, “he should be fine now.”

“Thank you kindly doctor,” the old farmer replied,“he wouldn’t have survived by the time I called anyone else. We both slogged up the hill back up to my car, as we approached it we both shook hands vigorously.“I’ll be off Mr. Springfield, just keep that little guy out of trouble, and don’t worry about a bill, this is a selfless profession we both live in.” He nodded and slowly started to walk back to his brightly lit house as I climbed back into the old Bronco. I threw the coat into the bed of the truck because it would not do me much good now. My scrubs were no help against the rain and the river, so I was shivering and soaking wet as I started up the old engine. It gave a couple coughs before turning over up, and I slowly drove out of Mr. Springfield’s driveway and onto the main road. I decided to take the upper path to the house this time because, even though it was a longer drive, the rainwater collected down in the path I had taken during these kinds of rains and I didn’t want to flood my engine.

As I drove my way up the slick hillside, a loud rumble shook my car, me, and even the mountain-like hillside I was driving on. I sped up as the peak of the hill was visible barely through my rain drenched windshield. The rumble came again, louder this time, like a giant clearing his throat. I peeked over the hill and sped down the other side, the trees below were the only things enjoying this weather. A flash caught my attention and I looked around only to see lightning in the distance, where it soon faded away. “There’s the lightning.” I said with a breath of relief, which I quickly sucked back in as a third rumble louder than the first two combined rattled me like a bead inside an enormous maraca. This one sounded like it was right above me. “What the hell…” I said but the rest was lost as an explosion of light at my left blinded me and sent my vehicle careening across the slick pavement towards the guardrail overlooking the dense forest below.

I let loose a string of curses as the side of my car screeched on the old metal rail, one arm covering my eyes trying to get the spots out of my eyes, while the other arm was trying to skid my Bronco back correctly onto the slick tarmac. Another explosion hit my car and forced the guardrail to cry with protest, but it still held… barely. As I was trying to pull myself together, I saw the third flash, and knew that it was over. As it hit the pavement next to me, the guardrail ripped free of its supports and I flew off the side of the tall hill towards the dark forest below. As I flew through the air, time slowed down to a standstill and only one thought filled my brain. It was that even though I was about to die, I still saved an animal’s life, and that was good enough for me. As I lost velocity gravity took its course and the hood of my car started to point earthwards and I gained speed, hurtling towards the unforgiving trees. As they loomed closer, I tried to close my eyes, not wanting to see what happened next. But before I did, I saw something dark blue dart out of the car, like a bird or bat yetI did not acknowledge this due to my incoming death. As I shut my eyes, I was wrenched forward and hit my head against the dashboard and began to lose consciousness with only one last image in my head. The clouds had broken up to show the perfect full moon.“God, that’s beautiful.” I murmured as the world faded to black.