“Ranvir, have you seen the water boy?” Yngvar asked, drying his hands before seeing the next patient, an older man with a clearly broken finger. Glancing to a table along the wall, Ranvir could see the buckets had been placed bottoms up, to signify they were empty.

“We sent him out half an hour ago, but I’ll check.” Ranvir answered, stepping through the curtain into the waiting room. Immediately, the wall of noise struck. Two dozen patients and their entourages all waiting their turn. Children with their parents, seniors with their children, and every age group in between. A few were waiting at the desk, where Sansir and Grevor were handling them, though most were simply sitting and waiting talking amongst each other.

The curtains separating the waiting room from the square was by necessity left open. Herlu and Kalf could in theory keep their watch on the outside, but they wouldn’t have sight lines to the two first years in the waiting room.

Sansir was currently fending off a rather irate woman waiting in line with her child’s face buried in her skirts. The tall tethered looked to be holding his own though. Grevor, on the other hand, was finishing up his patient.

“Have you seen the water boy?” Ranvir asked the blond tethered before his attention could be occupied by someone else. The blond tethered just shook his head, as the next person approached. An old man that spoke in such a gravelly and quiet tone Grevor had to lean over the table to hear him over the background noise.

“Goddess damn it.” Ranvir cursed, slipping through the crowd as he headed towards the entrance. The press inside the waiting area was intensified ten times over in the square. With the mix of a market being present and the news of weekly clinics popping up, the pressure had suddenly turned on.

“Herlu.” Ranvir greeted the redheaded second-year. “Have you seen the water boy? He should’ve been back by now.”

Herlu glanced at him, his eyes a little hunted. “He might be lost in the crowd- shit.” There was a wave of limbs and bodies that pressed forwards as Herlu’s attention wandered. Luckily, this wasn’t the first time it had happened and the smoke manipulator was prepared.

He carried one of the only buckets that Yngvar wasn’t allowed to touch for this exact reason. He dropped a piece of rysten into the water, which immediately began to boil with greenish smoke rising from it. The haze blew directly into the crowds’ faces, obscuring their view and drawing more than a few of them into coughing fits. Rysten smoke was harmless in all but extreme doses, unlike fire smoke.

Ranvir looked over the crowd, yellow trepidation coloring his worry. “Fuck.” He muttered, resting a hand on the head of his hammer. “I’m taking the pole.” He told the second year.

“Good luck.” Herlu commented, fishing the noticeably smaller rysten out of the bucket. They nodded to each other, before Ranvir went into the corner of the waiting area. A pole with a black and white flag sat at the top depicting the Asient mountain range that edged the world.

Ranvir nodded to the guardsmen as he stood in the middle of the entrance to the tent. The crowd was reluctant to give space, fearing they would lose their spot if they did. Ranvir cleared his throat, making sure he had a proper grip on the pole as it stuck out above even the tallest person’s head.

It was a new inclusion, one that each team had seen with the rise in activity at each of the clinics. It functioned primarily as a mark, if a student had to leave the tent, allowing the others to see where they were. It luckily also worked as a sign of the United Alliance, as it carried their flag, allowing Ranvir somewhat easier passage through the press of people.

That protection only extended so far, however. Soon, he was crushed between shoulders. People were shoving, elbowing, and yelling at each other. Part of Ranvir feared this was causing more injuries than it was healing, but he had a suspicion healing wasn’t the primary function of the clinics. Especially, after hearing Sansir and Grev talk about them.

It left a poor taste in his mouth, but they were still trying to help people. Ranvir grit his teeth, as a particularly large man shoved against him as he tried to fight his way through. The man had the heft and weight of a career worker, stinking of hot metal and coals. An oddly familiar and nostalgic smell coming from the brutish man.

“Let me through.” Ranvir growled. He tried to peer over the crowd, but while he had grown a bit taller, seeing above this mess was beyond him. He set his feet, braced himself and shoved past the man. This isn’t going to work, hopefully the boy wasn’t stupid enough to actually get stuck in the crowd.

Looking around, Ranvir realized he’d been stupid enough to get stuck in the crowd. Cursing to himself, he spread his tether-sense looking for a lesser density of people.

With a grim frown, he forced his way through arms and legs that tried to shut him out, before he stumbled forwards nearly falling as the press disappeared. Immediately, space opened up even further around him as people recognized the uniform that got lost in the press.

Ranvir turned to look over the crowd. “Now how do I go about this.”

He decided on first checking the area around the tent, to see if the boy had avoided the crowd and was now stuck outside it. Walking the perimeter, Ranvir idly noted the hidden back entrance to the operation room. It wasn’t perfectly secure, if you knew what to look for it was quite easily spotted.

They were reluctant to use the entrance for anything other than an emergency, since too much traffic would draw attention, leading a crowd to gather around it, ruining it for future use.

Completing the full circle, Ranvir cursed to himself. No water boy in sight. What was his name again? He’d heard him say it when they’d been introduced earlier, but the kid was young and nervous to be around so many tethered and had spoken quietly.

The line wasn’t actually too long, it was just a clotted mess, Ranvir saw as he walked the outside of the crowd looking for the child. Dark blue worry and pale violet fear started filling him, as he couldn’t find an immediately clear spot for the boy. He was only barely on the brighter side of ten, a year or two still from his first growth spurt.

“Goddessdamn Herlu and Kalf for letting him out in this.” Ranvir growled, before yelling at the top of his lungs. “Water Boy!” With each cry, he slammed the pole into the cobblestone, it didn’t make a lot of noise, but it was easy to follow movement. He hammered his tether-sense into the crowd, willing them to pay attention to him.

He made one pass the length of the crowd with no response, though some people did look up. On his way back towards the entrance, he thought he heard something. Ranvir froze, listening intently.

“Here!”

He couldn’t tell how far into the crowd the cry came from. Ranvir set his teeth, glaring at the people immediately visible to him, lashing them with his tether-sense. It took them a moment before they started looking around, but as he walked towards them they let him pass through.

It didn’t last long, the crowd quickly growing too dense. It was enough, however, he caught a glimpse of the boy, his uniform muddy as he crouched next to the buckets. Ranvir had to beat a few people over the head with the pole, before they made enough room for the kid to stand up.

He heard some gasps and cries as an eleven year old ‘suddenly’ appeared in their midst. Ranvir glared at all of them, before turning his attention back on the boy. With the sudden gap, more space had grown for them, allowing him to kneel.

The kid had been crying, tears running stains of clear skin against the dirt that smeared his face. The bucket he’d been carrying had been turned over, spilling the contents on the ground, leaving his shoes and knees muddy.

The kid started speaking, but was heaving too hard to get the words out.

“It’s okay.” Ranvir said, his voice barely audible over the crowd. He drew the boy into a hug. “It’s okay, let’s get you out of here.” Shifting the pole into his other hand, he lifted the boy with one arm. He was heavy, but Ranvir was young and strong. “Can you hold this?” he asked the kid, as he offered him the pole.

The kid shook his head, not even looking at it from where he’d dug in his head into Ranvir’s collarbone. “That’s okay.” Ranvir replied, hugging him a little tighter. Getting up was a struggle as he tried to grab the bucket without dropping the pole and bringing Herlu and Kalf into a frenzy. Finally, one of the bystanders helped him up, then offered him the bucket. Ranvir nodded before stepping out of the crowd again.

It seemed the relaxation in the press was largely localized, unfortunately. Ranvir could still see people fighting for their places not two meters away from him.

“I’m sorry.” The kid said, leaning back in Ranvir’s arm. He was short for his age, Ranvir thought. He looked so young and vulnerable. “I tried to get the water, but someone knocked it over.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Ranvir said, leaning down and letting the kid onto the ground again. “Let’s go fill up the bucket then we can bring it back, okay?”

He sniffed once, eyes still wet, before taking Ranvir’s hand and they went to the well.

###

“How’s it going?” A confident voice called. A man in his mid-forties stepped into the mess of the space, his clean black uniform with elegant white accents standing out in the rumpled operation room. “Have you had any trouble?”

Ranvir stood next to Yngvar and Iri, the water boy, Yngvar was in the midst of healing Iri’s elbow. The knock that had tripped the bucket had also scuffed the boy. Ranvir grit his teeth, moving to stand up before he felt Iri’s grip compulsively tighten around his hand. Fingers, really. Iri couldn’t grab more than three of Ranvir’s finger, but he could hold on tightly.

“You should be all healed.” Yngvar said, his voice calm and soothing. “Ranvir, could you take Iri into the waiting room. Dovar, Esmund, you too.” Ranvir received a stern look from Yngvar, stopping his protest. Reluctantly, he nodded and left with Iri still holding his hand.

The Master gave them an odd look as they passed him by.

Despite the thick canvas separating the waiting- and operation room, it wasn’t designed to, nor could it, stop sound. It was just made to give the patients a feeling of privacy unseen in the waiting room.

There were a bunch of patients in the waiting room, but apparently they knew better than to start asking questions when a clearly senior officer entered the operation room. This was only enforced as the room emptied of everyone but the officer and the healer.

That was before the yelling started.