"I-It's Arya, he's on the road, naked, broken bones, can't heal hi-"
"Slow down kid, what happened to Arya?" asked Cassandra, a little annoyed because he had interrupted her while she was dealing with a patient.
"Someone attacked Arya, he's too injured for me to heal with low-level spells," said Armin after taking a few moments to catch his breath.
"Can everyone without a serious ailment please come back tomorrow, I'm closing soon," announced Cassandra as soon as she grasped the seriousness of the situation, before quickly finishing off with the patient she was working on.
A few minutes later Cassandra's last patient left her house and she locked up, before following Armin to where he had left Arya.
"They've done it now," whispered Cassandra in disbelief as Arya's body came into view.
"Sanatio Resigno," she chanted, prompting a series of green concentric rings to appear in front of her right palm. A split second later the rings began rotating before each individual ring floated towards Arya, entering his body one by one.
"You did well not to heal him."
"Somnum," chanted Cassandra, before casting a base magic spell to lift Arya off the ground.
"Does Lillian know about this?" Even as she asked this, she was already moving with Arya back towards her house.
"N-No," stuttered Armin, he could already tell that today was going to be a bad day. Just yesterday he and Gray had been injured, and now Arya had been attacked within the confines of the village.
While Gray followed Cassandra back to her house, Armin reluctantly went to inform his mother of what had happened to Arya. As soon as he walked through the door, his shoulders slumped and head down, Lillian asked a single question, as if already certain that something had happened.
"Is he with Cassandra yet?"
"Y-Yes."
"Streya, can you finish up." It wasn't a question, Lillian removed her apron and stormed out of the house towards Cassandra's, her face fraught with fear and fatigue.
"How bad was it?" asked Streya once her mother was gone.
"Pretty bad, they left him completely naked on the road with bruises and a broken leg," he replied.
"Is it common for people to be attacked in the village?" asked Leon as he tried comforting Streya.
"No, the village thugs hardly target children, and even if they did..."
***
"How is he?" Lillian stormed into Cassandra's house out of breath, sweat rolling down her forehead as she looked around the room for Arya.
"He's okay, but it will take some time for me to heal him completely. His body isn't strong enough for him to be healed all at once," she replied, before pointing to the room Arya was sleeping in.
Lillian slowly walked into the room preparing herself for what she was about to see, however no amount of preparation would've been enough to deal with what was in front of her. Even though Cassandra had healed Arya, there were still quite a number of minor bruises on his skin. And due to the healing process, he looked a bit pale making him look even worse overall. However what really drove Lillian to the edge was the fact that he was naked and dusty, like forgotten trash that had been thrown on the side of the road.
Wordless, she joined Gray beside the bed, holding on to Arya's hand. The emotions coursing through her were so much that she didn't even know what she was feeling. Anger towards whoever did this? Sadness for her son? Defeat from feeling like she wasn't good enough to raise her kids without Neel? Or fatigue from it all?
"Was it those hooligans? Did they do this to my son?" asked Lillian after a few minutes of silence.
"If it was them then Arya wouldn't be breathing, besides, those thugs know better than to touch a son of ogre. No, this was done by children."
"I see. How much will the treatment cost?" asked Lillian calmy.
"You don't have to pay me, the boy is like a grandson, I couldn't put a price on his well-being," replied Cassandra, looking at Lillian with pity-filled eyes.
"N-No, I can't keep taking advantage of our friendship. Gray, please go get my money sack from the house," said Lillian, quickly recovering from her stutter at the beginning. Lillian watched as Gray stood up from Arya's side and ran back to the house, before breaking into tears.
"I-I can't Cassandra, I don't know what to do..." Lillian's words came out in incoherent streams, much of what she was saying was lost in her sobbing. But from the few words that did make sense, it was obvious that Lillian felt like somehow she was at fault for her children getting injured one by one. Whenever Neel was around nothing happened, but as soon as she was left alone one of her children would visit death's door or close to it.
Through all this Cassandra said nothing, she knew that a parent's journey was their own, and with kids like hers, it would be a thorny journey indeed. Cassandra offered her a shoulder to cry on, but would not offer any false hope, things would not become better, in fact, Cassandra felt like this was just the beginning.
{Be strong Lillian, they are just kids now, things will get worse once they've grown older,} she thought to herself.
Gray later came back with the purse, but Cassandra sent him back, "It's okay child, your mother and I have sorted something out. You can go home and rest," she said to him.
***
A few hours passed and it began pouring rain, the sandy streets were turned to muddy streams, and water began dripping through the poorly build rooves of the village houses. It was close to sunset, but it was already dark due to the cloud-covered sky.
It was around this time that the village men who worked at the mine arrived by wagon, their clothes soaked wet and faces stoic. After quickly saying their goodbyes, they went home to their wives and children, tired from the journey.
"Someone's at the door," shouted Leon as he went to answer it.
In front of him stood a 6 ft tall giant, a pickaxe over one of its shoulders and a dirty sack over the other. Leon was frozen still in fear, only his eyes could move, wandering over the giant's figure. The rain made its shirt stick to its body, revealing bulging muscles, and as it dropped the pickaxe he could see the very fibers in its muscles rippling.
"Who are you?" its voice boomed, and instinctively Leon began chanting a spell.