momslilassassin | Room 328 [Copacabana Palace, afternoon]

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Room 328 [Copacabana Palace, afternoon]

Ben was back at the window, staring out at the ocean and trying to find some calm. He and Ender had called Karla over, and while Ben trusted her absolutely when it came to healing (he wouldn't have had her help with Ender otherwise) and he wasn't afraid of pain, he kind of...worried about her reaction when she saw exactly what the Sith Lord had inflicted on him.

Thus the truncated meditation exercise. Not because he was nervous. At all. Really.

Ben was an expert liar, after all, and had been an expert at lying to himself for years.

[OOC: For the boy and the girl! Warnings for talk of being ~~tortured~~ Troy Denning-ed.]

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A tea kettle, several packets of tea, and five mismatched teacups appeared on the desk. Two of them vanished again immediately, and Karla gave Ender a little smile. "Just need water now," she said.

She didn't want to separate them, but maybe there were water bottles in the room?

Ben linked his fingers through Ender's and squeezed. "Do you mind, kreetle?"

"Of course not," Ender said, letting his fingers slip out of Ben's as he got up.

He walked across the room to the mini-bar, which he started rummaging through in search of the water.

Karla looked a little unsure as she tried to answer Ben's question. "I think so, but I'm not sure? I don't normally try to Heal scars and I'm not sure how it was done in the first place, so... I'm going to open up the wounds again, but I'm probably going to do it just a few at a time, instead of all at once."

She didn't want him bleeding out while she worked--though that was a useful reminder.

"Ender, while you're up, can you get the towels from the bathroom?" They were absorbent and much easier to change out than the sheets. Karla wasn't sure how much Ben would bleed before she managed to Heal him; if the wounds were deep, it might take awhile, even only opening them a bit at a time.

Ben's jaw clenched slightly to hear that--not because he was afraid of the pain, but because he really didn't Ender to see what this had looked like when it had been inflicted.

"Does it matter to you where you start?" he asked.

"No problem," Ender said, pulling his head from the minibar. He'd grabbed two bottles of water, and, closing the minibar, got up to head into the bathroom.

He was not precisely looking forward to this - but it was necessary, and it wouldn't be nearly as terrible as the first time he saw it.

"I was thinking of starting at the top and working my way down," Karla said with a shrug. "But if you'd be comfortable some other way? I can work with that, too. However you feel best."

The important thing was that Ben feel comfortable. Well, relatively speaking, of course.

"Face first," Ben decided, nodding.

And that way if it got too much to handle, he could just hide the rest of the scars with clothing.

Ender came back out with the towels in his other hand, dropping them on the bed, where he assumed they'd be most useful. "I'll get working on the tea," he added, feeling that staying peripheral would be best right now.

He grabbed the kettle and got to work.

"Do you want to keep your shirt on?" Karla asked, bringing the first of the Healing webs to her lap and letting three drops of blood fall onto it, then immediately sealed the cut on her thumb with a wisp of Craft. Sapphire energies began to spiral out from the center of the web, following the radial lines out, then doubling and redoubling every time it followed a circular line and met back onto itself.

The energies contained within the web grew until Karla could feel them, like a hum too deep for sound, but felt like vibrations in the bones.

"You ready?" she asked.

Ben had been ducking out of his shirt as she prepared. He knew what the towels were for and it seemed pointless to ruin a shirt through misplaced stubbornness.

The squares were lighter across his back, shoulders and chest--his clothing had protected him from the Force net a bit more there--but the checkerboard was still noticeable.

"Ready," he said with a tiny nod.

Ender glanced over his shoulder, the kettle heating up and leaving him... well, without anything to do for the next minute or so, anyway.

He turned around and leaned gingerly against the desk.

Rather than take up any more time talking, Karla simply closed her eyes and set to work. The first thing she did was wrap a series of subtle soothing spells around Ben; nothing too obvious or powerful, just enough to help keep him relaxed. She was hoping there was something similar enough within the Jedi training that he'd be familiar with the concept and not react.

She'd considered wrapping some around Ender, too, but had thought better of it. She didn't think they'd be something he'd noticed--they'd been designed to be unobtrustive--but it was Ender. There was no guaranteeing he wouldn't notice--or that he'd appreciate it if he did.

Once the spells were in place, Karla directed her Craft over to Ben's face, finding the seams in his skin that signified the scarring and the original wounds. With a deep breath, she sent her power into those seams--and opened them once more.

Ben looked momentarily confused--much as he had when he'd first received the wounds--but closed his eyes as the blood starting welling up again.

It hurt, but it wasn't the squeezing pain that the torture had been. He shoved his brain's attempt to get him to relive the experience away through sheer stubbornness. The only outer sign that he wasn't calm about going through this was the slight clenching of his jaw.

He'd go to pieces later if he had to. Now it would just be unproductive.

But Ender's mind had no problem flicking back to the stark vid images of Ben's body on the floor, blood pearling from slowly-deepening wounds. He tried to squash down on a rising sense of retroactive panic, but it wasn't quite working--

The noise the kettle made as the water approached the right temperature snapped Ender back to reality, and he turned around to take care of the kettle, silently berating himself for giving anything away.

So closely connected to Ben as she was, she could sense of snarl of pain and everything else as it seeped into his psychic scent. Ender's was still removed from her, so all she was faintly aware of was his movement in the background.

Instead, all of her concentration was focused on Healing Ben's new wounds; weaving the energies into the warmth of firm, unmarked skin, repairing the cuts, sealing them away before any bacteria could find its way in and threaten. His skin wanted to scar again, the fastest way to heal. Her half-whispered song counseled patience and waiting, allowing for it to create new, unblemished skin, like that which covered the squares between the cuts.

It was not a fast procedure, no. Nor was it painless and Karla was obeying Ben's request and not taking any of the pain onto herself. It was slow, tedious, methodical; much like weaving together slippery cords that wanted to escape if she so much as blinked away, and were so inert it took all her strength and concentration to move.

But slowly, agonizingly slowly, the lines on his face began to fade away, leaving only smears of blood to show where they'd been.

Ben took a deep, shuddering breath and reached for a towel. "Ender?" he murmured. "You okay?"

Because of course he'd be checking in on someone else first.

The tea had long since been made; any brief onset of panic had long since been beaten back. Ender just took a cup of the stuff and offered it to Karla, his eyes going from her to Ben's face.

"I'm not the one who just got sliced up," he said succinctly. "How about you?"

Not that he didn't care about Karla's well-being, too, but mentioning that would too easily distract Ben again. Instead, she'd get that tea.

Karla waved the tea off to the side; she still had to finish up his face, easing the Healing to a smooth finish, wrapping some additional energy around the cuts to make sure they fade without even a bruise.

She was panting slightly when she was done and her forehead shone with sweat. But she was smiling.

His face. Just his face. So much more to do. But...doable. Thank the Darkness, doable.

"I'll be fine," Ben said, reaching out to squeeze Ender's hand before leaning over to kiss Karla's cheek. "Thank you," he murmured.

Ender had put the tea down carefully, somewhere where Karla would notice it but it wouldn't be in the way.

He squeezed Ben's hand back, more than skeptical about that, but not about to go into it in front of Karla. "Thank you," he echoed, looking towards the girl in question.

"You're welcome," she told them both, sharing a small smile. "But, we're not done yet, right? I'm game to keep going if you are."

And then, "Oh! Tea!"

"Maybe a small break?" Ben suggested. "Then you can do some more."

He thought it'd be easier to get as much done as he could bear as quickly as possible instead of waiting .

"I submit to whatever the two of you decide on," Ender said. He turned around and headed back to the desk to grab a second cup of tea for Ben. "But it does seem easiest. In a manner of speaking."

"Let me finish my tea," Karla said, "and then I'll get back to work."

The tea did feel nice on her throat. She wasn't hoarse yet, not even irritated, but the soothing herbs were nice.

"You both should have some, too," she added. "And I'll be leaving more behind when I go. You're loosing blood and that'll help make you get it back faster."

She dimpled at Ender. "Make sure he eats a lot, okay?"

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