[b]Tsane![/b]

It is a weird thing to think, in the midst of a ritual prayer, in the midst of an organisation of one-armed mystics, when given the sacred opportunity to watch the scribes who would compile all the particular details of this meeting into the books that someone like her would one day read in order to understand this bit of history, but...

But she kind of hates how [i]irreligious [/i]the whole thing is.

Tsane formed an opinion as a child, in that absolutist way that children do, that Civelia and Heron were both monsters just like the Dark Dragon. That didn't mean they were bad, just that they weren't normal. They had type affinities, unique compulsions, hunting grounds, and life cycles the same as Ghosthands or Solar Hecklers. One of her first bestiary entries had been an attempt to describe Princess Heron in the same way she did any other monster, but her mother had pulled her aside and explained to her that [i]probably [/i]wouldn't go down well with grandfather. 

The injustice of that still gnawed at her, deep down.

So the meeting felt wrong to her. People were listening to Civelia, of course, politely taking notes, waiting their turns to speak, but for all the religious trappings they were emotionally as checked out as if they were in a city council meeting. These people had either forgotten or did not remember that the delicate teenager sitting across from them was an unstoppable, eternal monster who had beaten empires into existence like a blacksmith hammered iron. Just because she hadn't done anything dangerous recently didn't mean she was [i]safe[/i]. 

They should be quaking in their boots. Tsane certainly was.

Injimo's here, wearing the Princess disguise. She'd be as checked out while idly hoping for violence as Heron herself would be, which means that she's an immaculate fit for this role. Sayanastia finds being in a room this elaborately bureaucratic physically uncomfortable, so she's in her dragon shape (the one that's about the mass of a rhinoceros, not her [i]other [/i]dragon shape) up on the rooftop, staring at the void of the sky and warming herself in the sun. Sometimes her head will lean down to the window next to where Tsane is sitting to check in on things; sometimes she'll take an idle, corrosive bite out of the windowframe or the brick wall. Small acts of vandalism but by Dark Dragon standards she should get a gold sticker by the end.

[b]Kalentia![/b]

It all comes off. Everything gets washed. A warm and dry set of recovery clothes are applied afterwards. The Guild would sacrifice her to a dragon if she did anything less[1].

To accomplish all of that in safety and modesty, she is required to put up a - well, a barrier. But she is using the technique for its original medicinal purpose of forming a clean and sterile environment, keeping out any contaminants or curious Factorums. Beyond that there can be no secrets from a surgeon; who knows what else might be missed?

"It's weird to see someone sick like this," said Cair, trying and failing to see somebody sick like this. "I can't remember the last time I came down with more than a cough."
"It's because the last incarnation of the Hero purged the Destroyer Cult of Plague and banished their demonic patron," said Kalentia. She was entirely task focused; while battlefield wounds were romantic, illness was something to eliminate with cold calculation. "Since then, and since the link was discovered between untapped black mana and spontaneous disease outbreaks, there hasn't been a major sickness."
"The link between what?"
"Oh, you didn't hear?" said Kalentia. "I thought Roschel Flameskull was a household name for discovering that."
"Hell of a name for a healer," said Cair.
"She wasn't," said Kalentia, making a face. "She was a battlemage. She noticed that rates of sickness went down whenever she had a big fight. Turns out that she was drawing all the dark magic out of the air and turning it into explosions and attack skeletons and what have you, and that was preventing it from naturally seeking out ways to harm people itself."
"Oh, shit!" said Cair, snapping her fingers. "Is she why [i]Warceror[/i] has those big burning skull banners up everywhere?"
Kalentia sighed. "Yes. Warceror, the Demolition Derby of Death and Destruction, was in fact started by Roschel Flameskull as a way to burn off excess mana in times of peace."
"Did you hear that Main Bloodcup invented a spell that makes someone's blood come out and punch them in the face?" said Cair excitedly.
"Yes," Kalentia said with a truly profound level of resignation. "So far I have received fourteen theoretical curative spells I'm meant to memorize and field test in the event where I encounter that spell in the wild, which I am then expected to write reports on."

[1] It is not fair to say that dragons are particularly attracted to White Mages above other magical practitioners[2], but for a variety of historical reputations the practice of sacrificing Guild members at the drop of a hat has set in. In particular, one Aspect of the Dark Dragon in Cycle Four was particularly obsessed with White Mages, and Sinbeasts would frequently identify a village's Guild member as its most valuable individual member, which made them particularly satisfying prisoners as they satisfied Greed, Envy and Pride all at once. This state of affairs, along with the general effectiveness of sacrificing a maiden of any kind in the face of military threat, has meant that the first response of a lot of towns to being attacked by anything from monsters or wolfgirls is to offer them the town's White Mage in tribute.
[2] unfortunately