Chapter Text
Hestra was a known healer. She had a gift for finding what was broken and fixing it. She had a natural talent for mending; she always had. From infancy, her mother had told her that she had been the gentlest child she had ever seen. Hestra would collect stray and wounded animals like other children collected rocks or flowers. She would patch them up and send them on their merry way, although more often than not, those little creatures felt so indebted to her that they would stay. As she got older, she became the apprentice of the local wise women and healers. She had not yet passed her tenth birthday before the women threw up their hands in frustration, claiming that her skills had far surpassed their own and that they had nothing left to teach her. So Hestra's mother sent her away to live and learn amongst the traveling doctors, to learn how to heal all manner of injured persons. Hestra was a quick learner and adept at swiftly assessing the manner of ailment presented before her, which, she found, was a rare talent, as it is not always necessarily obvious to the untrained eye. She was swift of hand and carried about her a calming, nurturing sense of personhood that put those around her at ease. She could make even the most belligerent and bleeding feel at peace. 'Angel of healing' was what they called her, but she always preferred to be referred to as simply who she was. Hestra, the healer.
Hestra's healing prowess became known both far and wide. The traveling caravan of doctors who would go from village to village across the continents often times rented out some of their doctoral hands to traveling adventurers and those embarking on grand quests. Hestra never gave much thought to the whole order. As those who lent their healing hands out to the wild men who lived and died by their swords seldom made their way back to the caravan. Those that did came back rich enough never to need to work again, and that was enough to inspire the next hopeful healer to risk their life for the chance at fortune. Hestra never thought that she would find herself among their ranks. Until she met him.