"A necessity, Richard. Yes, yes, Rick, I'm aware of the repercussions but it needs to happen. Look, look, Rick - if the balloons aren't ready by noon, Lila's party will be the worse for it, so you will hang up that goddamn phone and get them. Cancel every meeting you have today if you need to, Rick. She's a valued and loyal employee, and she hasn't had a birthday party without balloons a single year with us. You want to break an eleven-year-streak?"

I sighed. "Good. Thank you, Richard. You're a dear."
Walking along the porch of my home, I fielded other confirmational texts from employees - it was 11:16, and we were almost finished the party preparations.

My phone rang.

"This is Delilah Sescilies, how may I help you?"

Lady Luck, it's me, it's me, Samson Weathers. I - I need your help.

"Mr. Weathers, I laid you out cold over the Arrowhead Enterprises skyscraper not a week ago. What could possibly possess you to come to me for help?"

My mother . . . she shot down my dog.

"And . . . what? Did she also spit at a dying baby? Your dog's dead now, kid. What do you expect me to tell you? I'm many things, but a Cleric I am not. Get a new one."

I . . . I'd like to come live with you. Please.

"Samson, I feel obligated to ask. Have you taken or been in close or extended contact with recreational drugs within the last few hours?"

No Ma'am. I would like to come live with you. You're practically the only one in this godforsaken city I know. I need a place to stay.

"Do you not live with your parents? What, has their house been foreclosed?"

No, Ma'am. They kicked me out of the house.

"What, for a day? A week? Just book a fucking hotel! What are you bothering me for? I'm busy."

I'm not sure you understand, Ma'am. They kicked me out because I came out to them. I thought they'd be understanding, or at least outright hostile, but apparently being a Good Christian involves being wicked to everyone else.

". . . Darling . . . Very well. Come on down. Bring as much as you can sneak out of your personal effects. I'll buy whatever else you need."

It took a moment. Samson Weathers hung up the phone, and a few seconds later, he was standing on the porch with me, holding a diminutive cardboard box.

His voice had been relatively steady over the phone, but in person he looked broken. His bottom lip quivered and his face was a red blotchy mess. He stiffened into my embrace, flinching as I kissed him on the forehead.

I looked him in the eye. "We don't fight anymore. You're my baby now. Understood?"

He nodded, sniffling. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Ah-ah. No. Delilah. You call me Delilah. Mrs. Sescilies in formal company. You are in my care now, not my employ."

At his nod, I turned, walking off of the porch and into the house, motioning for him to follow. "Speaking of which, we have a party to organize."

Saneqil rushed past the dragon's corpse, an enchanted cloth mask around her face - Dragonsbane Fever was fatal to anthropomorphs as well, and the fever only died out when there was no more living tissue to feed on, and dragons were resilient - an hour or so yet before the air was safe.

She knelt beside Fraugh, the lithe archer of indeterminate origin and race - some type of racial mutt - with a penchant for blistering sarcasm and possessive rage. He was mangled badly, she counted 3 broken ribs and several 3rd-degree burns on his exposed skin. He had only been dead for an hour and a half, and with luck, he wouldn't even be lacking in the mind if she healed him right.

She lay another cloth upon his mouth - he'd need it when he woke. His mouth, cut and bruised, had begun to fester already. It'd likely scar. A price he'd have to pay for life.

Saneqil lay a hand on his heart and a hand on his head - the two things that needed to be healed fastest, first, and most thoroughly. A whisper, just barely audible and certainly indecipherable. Deathspeech, otherwise known as the Reaper's Speech or the Last Breath, was incomprehensible to the common of the world - Hells, sometimes Saneqil doubted she understood it.

A whisper it was, nonetheless, and as Saneqil felt life pulse in the heart and mind, she passed her hands cursorily across the remainder of Fraugh's body as he sputtered to life, coughing the scent of his own burned flesh out of his mouth. He looked at her, new life forbidding his usual cynicism. Saneqil smiled in her motherly way, kissing his cheek before leaping to her feet and rushing over to Collise.

A young tomboy of a firecracker, Collise's beautiful blood-colored hair was coated with just that, skull cracked and gaping from the dragon's claw to the head she'd taken. Bits of brain coated Saneqil's fingers as she placed a cloth on her mouth as well. She had to work fast, healing the brain, then healing the heart quickly enough that it would pump blood to the brain.

A tricky case, but one that Saneqil had been in before. Breathing in quickly, she held her breath as her fingers flew like the falcons of an Avian. Almost too late, Collise's eyes flew open, softening from alarm to affection as she saw the figure above her. A playful kiss through two layers of enchanted material on the lips, and Saneqil ran to Awain.

A person of immense magic and mystery, Awain's charm lay in their ability to look on the bright side of any situation - Saneqil would bet her very life with the god of chance that they'd crack a joke the moment they opened their eyes.

Saneqil was numb to the gore, but unfortunately she knew that Awain would vomit the second they saw themself, so the cloth she put on their mouth covered their eyes as well. She healed them as well, a whisper to Karoun once again.

Awain's eyes cracked open behind the cloth. "I presume the reason my eyes are covered is because we needn't my 'acid breath' against the dragon?"

And just like that, Saneqil won a bet with the god of chance. Mother must be proud.

I'll work on it, but I've also commented another short story on r/WritingPrompts in which you get to meet Karoun (though she's not named).

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/106i1sg/comment/j3k7vgh/?context=3

The woman talking to Jacques is Karoun. Enjoy that for now.

Healers talk to Karoun.

No one really thinks about that, the implications of talking to Death. Healers talking to Death. Those who do rationalize it as a battle, a fight. A metaphysical conflict with sword and shield against the Hydra of Death.

The terrible truth is that it isn't. It never was. Healers talk to Karoun because she loves them. It's a gift - healing, that is - you're born with it or you aren't. A connection that it seems no one has made is the presence of death at the precise moment of the birth. A cat, the mother, anything - as long as the precise moment of death is at the precise moment of birth, the stronger the death, the farther away the baby can be and have a possibility of becoming a healer.

The truth of healing is Karoun lending out favors. A gift to a beloved pet, a token to a loyal servant, Karoun withholding from the subject, pulling back her creeping tendrils. A healer loyal enough and beloved enough can convince her to strain herself (miniscule though the strain is) to pull a creature into her grasp early. Saneqil was such a healer.

Mother dead at childbirth while her father killed himself at the exact same moment, just as the loyal pet greyhound died a peaceful death on the couch. A shocking collection of events that led Saneqil into Karoun's embrace. To Karoun, Saneqil wasn't just beloved - she was a child, a daughter in tragic death. Almost as tragic as the death in front of her now. The skin of the brutish dragon that had felled Awain, Collise, and Fraugh was burning. Not literally, of course, but it was running a fever. A fatal one.

The dragon bellowed in agony as it wasted away. Saneqil watched it happen - the least she could do. She sighed as she watched it draw a final breath.

Karoun was a good mother.