“I can write up a list of the most common necessities,” Rose offered, and Jala nodded with a smile.
“That would be very helpful, thank you. That will take me a day or two, I would guess, and then you both will be able to work directly in the district. What kind of fee am I looking at?” Jala asked, guessing there was no point in dancing around the subject. It would be better to know in advance if she could even afford to pursue this.
Rose raised an eyebrow at Jala and then looked to Wisp and back to Jala. “The payment has already been made by Wisp. You have their services for a full year,” Rose explained, sounding a bit confused.
“Surprise!” Wisp said with a grin when Jala turned to look at her in shock. She gave a slight shrug and smiled wider. “I still had a lot of money left over from winning the archery at the Spring Games and you are right, it does need to be done, so I went ahead and hired them.”
Returning the smile, Jala gave the Fae a light hug. “Thank you so much, Wisp, I was a bit worried. You could have at least warned me.” She let the smile fall a bit and looked back to the two healers. “Well then, I guess all I need to know is what you want in the clinic and once that’s done we can get you both moved in.”
Nodding slightly, Wesley moved back to the table and took a piece of paper from his book. Leaning over he quickly scrawled a list and handed it over to Rose for inspection. The older woman read over it, nodding slightly, and then handed the list to Jala. “This is a good start. If they require more, they can let you know, but for now that should be more than sufficient,” she said.
Jala nodded absently and read over the note in her hands, relieved that most of the items seemed to be fairly common: various herbs, clean bandages, disinfectants, and such, all of which should be simple to get in Sanctuary. “I’ll see to gathering these then,” she agreed with a nod and smiled at both students. “It was nice to meet you both and I look forward to working with you. I don’t want to seem rude but I’m coming very close to being late for an appointment.” Bowing her head to them again, she smiled at Rose. “Thank you as well.”
“If you ever get time in your training regime and decide you want to learn more about healing, come see me. From what Wisp says, you have a lot of potential and that shouldn’t be wasted,” Rose said and escorted them from the room.
“I truly hope I can find time to take you up on that offer. I thought about transferring one of my classes to take a basic healing course at the Academy but I simply can’t. I need all of the classes I’m in,” Jala said, already trying to mentally rearrange her schedule to work in time to train with Rose.
“Don’t even think about it, Jala. I can see your gears turning. You have enough on your plate now,” Wisp said with a shake of her head. “Shame on you Rose. She barely finds time to sleep as it is,” she scolded and smacked the healer lightly on the arm.
Laughing, Rose smiled at Wisp. “I had to offer. Talent like you described shouldn’t be ignored.”
“If I find time, I promise I will be back,” Jala said sincerely as they stepped back out onto the stairs. Rose smiled and nodded before silently closing the door behind them. Feeling almost ecstatic at the prospect of having healers in her service now, Jala made her way back down the stairs with a bit of a bounce to her steps. “You know, I don’t think Kendry liked me at all but I’m still thrilled to have her working with us,” she said to Wisp with a grin. “And Wesley seemed nice.”
“Kendry will come around. Give her a bit of time. She doesn’t care much for the High Houses crowd. It took me weeks before she didn’t think I was pure unholy evil. From what I understand, both she and Wesley are from a lower merchant class and they had to work their butts off just to be able to get trained by Rose. Neither one of them had a shot of being able to train at the Academy,” Wisp explained, looping her arm lightly through Jala’s as they walked. “I wish you didn’t have training with Neph today. It’s so pretty out we should go for a ride or something. It won’t be long before the weather is all rainy cold and nasty,” she sighed wistfully, her head tilted back as she walked.
“I know, but I really need to learn, Wisp. If I had been training with Neph before we went to the Tolanteer, it would have gone much differently in that fight. My incompetence almost got all of us killed,” Jala said with a bit of disgust. “I couldn’t even cast a dispel right and Finn paid for it. I won’t let that happen again.”
Wisp eyed her for a moment with a raised eyebrow and sighed. “I suppose telling you to avoid getting into fights is rather pointless. You are married to Finn. Even if you weren’t as special as you are, you would be getting into fights, regardless.”
“It does seem that people either love him or hate him. I haven’t seen any middle ground at all,” Jala agreed.
“There isn’t much of one,” Wisp agreed with a sigh, then turned to look at Jala as she froze in mid step. A commotion to the side of the market had caught her attention and she watched in mild fascination as a woman scolded two young children outside a coach.
“I don’t care if you hate each other right now you will both be riding home in the coach, so I suggest you learn how to get along,” the woman was saying in a voice filled with annoyance.
“But he pulled my hair,” the little girl beside her screeched, nearly in tears and her lower lip trembling.
“Baby,” the boy shot back and stuck his tongue out at what must have been his sister.
“What brats,” Wisp whispered, sending Jala into peals of laughter. “What?” Wisp asked in confusion as Jala put a hand over her mouth and began walking again.