It was a fine spring morning, the day it all began. Hestra had risen before the sun, as had always been her way. She found that she had a special fondness for the early morning, the soft, quiet grey of the moments just before dawn. She drank an herbal tea and made note of all the patients she would be tending to throughout the day. Each doctor was assigned patients from the town based on the report of all the ill and sickly delivered to them from the local magistrate. This roster was usually delivered unto them the day they made camp on the outskirts of wherever they happened to be; this gave the doctor caravan some time to prepare. They disseminated the patient's list to those most qualified to serve each need, and the magistrate paid the caravan as a whole. (Although each was compensated fairly for their work, the elder healers saw to that.) On this day, Hestra packed her doctor's satchel with all of the materials she knew that she would need to carry out her assignments and set off for the day. The traveling doctor caravans were constructed mostly of horse-drawn wagons made of wood. The elder and most skilled doctors were allotted the largest wagons at the head of the camp, and the more novice doctors were allotted smaller wagons towards the end of the caravan. Hestra's wagon was not very large, but then again, neither was she. Hestra had always run quite small. She was slight of stature, and while most would not call her build frail, none would call her staunche either. It had been difficult for her to be taken seriously, especially by the men who made up the majority of the doctoral caravans. She found it was often quite difficult to be seen for her skills and not for her appearance, but once they saw what she could do, they usually left her to her own divides, as that was where she shone. Hestra walked the trail down to the nearest village, where she had been asked to see to a pregnant mother, a boy with a broken arm, and an elderly woman with a fever. She attended to their various needs throughout the day and then stopped at the village marketplace for lunch. The village was near to a seaport, and everywhere throughout the market, there came the smell of seafood. Hestra had never been the picky type, and her travels with the doctors had taken her to nearly every corner of the world, and exposed her to all manner of culinary delicacies, but Hestra found that she had a special love for seafood. Especially when it dripped with spices and made her mouth burn, she sought out the spiciest-looking fish she could find and sat in the grass to eat.
From where Hestra sat in the grass, she could just make out the tips of the flags of the caravan. They stood proudly atop every wagon, with white flags with the red cross of healing that everyone knew meant that healers were among them. Hestra was proud to carry such an emblem of hope and healing and oftentimes found herself glad for the distinct markings, as the caravan many times traversed through battlefields and carnage, being spared and offered safe travels only for the sake of their proficiency at offering medical aide. Once, they had even caused a battle to cease entirely, as neither side wanted to risk a stray arrow hitting the caravans. Hestra had been amazed that such a grotesque scene of man massacring his fellow man had halted so suddenly and completely; the field, having been drenched with everyman's bloodcurdling war cry, had fallen completely silent. She peered through the small curtains of her caravan, and the men were so close she could have reached out to touch them. The caravans crossed the field, and as suddenly as they had ceased, they resumed their fighting, and Hestra could hear the cries of the stricken and dying long after the battle had faded from view. As she gazed at the flags, she noticed a strangely colored banner flying among them. Was it red? Hestra strained her eyes to catch a better look at it, but as it was, with the last moments of slight dimming beyond helpful aide, she decided she had better head back to the caravan if only to state her own curiosity. She licked the spices from her fingers, pocketed the fish bones, and set off back towards the caravan of healers and, unknowingly, towards Him.
