“What’s wrong, Jess?” I couldn’t help but ask, feeling concerned for the young woman who had beco sowhat of a friend. She hadn’t looked this tired even back when we first t, and she had serious trouble sleeping thanks to the horrible mories of the Blessed City. Back then, she had looked bad, with dark circles under her eyes, ssy, rather unwashed hair and a general air of exhaustion, but now? Now, she looked a whole lot worse; the dark circles were back, the hair just as ssy, but I could almost feel the exhaustion radiating from her, as if every move was a chore, every word a burden. She looked completely and utterly beaten, as if she was about to fall over.
“It never stops,” she groaned, making step forward and around her desk, pulling her into a gentle embrace. She didn’t resist at all, simply sinking against as if all her bones had disappeared from her body, and she let out a groan that made her sound a few dozen years older than she should be.
“Always another request, always soone else who needs help; it just never stops. I can barely get a few hours of sleep in until the next ‘ergency’ hits, and they desperately need , so they co and get ,” she complained, her voice a little muffled by my shoulder, where she had buried her head. For a mont, I wished that I had a larger chest, just to provide better pillows for those in need, but the mont faded imdiately. I was perfectly able to comfort my friends even without having oversized bags of flesh stuck to my chest, though I might want to look into things with Sigmir in the future. I was fairly confident I could remodel my soft tissues to make things a little more interesting for my beloved.
“What can I do to help?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, despite knowing that it would almost certainly be a massive hassle.
“Could you stay?” she asked, the earnestness in her voice taking aback a little, “When you were here, it was a lot better. People didn’t dare to annoy you too much, even after those stupid rumours started.”
“I’ve got so commitnts elsewhere,” I told her, unwilling to give a clear answer, especially given how fragile Jess was at the mont. “I an, I could probably shoulder so of the load you are bearing, especially the ntal healing Maggie told you have taken on, but I really can’t be here all the ti,” I explained with a shrug, knowing that this wouldn’t help as much as Jess probably hoped.
“That part is probably the worst,” she admitted, her voice still muffled by my shoulder, though it wasn’t quite as desperate and despondent as it had been earlier, “But the rest is what grinds down. If it were just the healing people need, and they could stick to the schedule, it wouldn’t be that big an issue. But ever since I’ve demonstrated my ability to heal, both the spirit and the body, people think that I’m always available, like so sort of ergency service.”
“And ergency services before the change had limited shifts, making sure that their workers got the rest they needed,” I finished her thought, “Well, I think they tried at least, not sure how well that generally worked.”
I vaguely rembered sothing about ergency services having one of the highest burnout rates. Looking at Jess right now, I had no doubt that she was on the train to burnout city, and the train was already going fast.
“It also helped that people generally didn’t know where their doctor lived,” she replied, still sounding incredibly tired, but now there was a bit of snark mixed in. While it wasn’t much, it was progress, getting her out of the pit of exhausted depression she had fallen into. A part of was curious if I would be able to heal her exhaustion magically, though I didn’t think it would be that easy. I might be able to push it down, to allow her to function despite her exhausted state, but doing so would almost certainly cause bigger problems in the future, when she inevitably crashed. It might even kill her if the suppressed exhaustion was serious enough.
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“And you think my presence would change all that?” I prodded, unwilling to commit to anything, despite my desire to help. A desire I might have to examine at so point: why was I so willing to help certain people while happily turning other people into little more than puppets, or resources to be used at my leisure? On closer inspection, there was little difference between Jess and Lisa. And yet, here I was, hugging and holding Jess, while considering taking on a major inconvenience in order to help lighten her load. If it were Lisa, I would likely just make her forget that she ever saw , or manipulate her mind in so other way, instead of going out of my way to help her.
“It might,” she nodded, a little bit of structure returning to her body, and she finally lifted her head enough to look at . Now, up close, I could see the earlier signs of exhaustion even more clearly, and it worried . She wouldn’t last all that long, unless sothing fundantally changed in her situation. “Or I could get away for a bit, just a few days,” she muttered wistfully, her eyes going distant.
“You an, just wander off?” I asked, feeling a little apprehensive at the idea. While Jess was more powerful than she had been, both because of her connection to the Divine and the couple of levels she had gained, she was far from powerful enough to just wander the wilderness with impunity. Not if she wanted to survive, and that was ignoring the fact that I had no idea if her divine portfolio included any actual combat abilities. While a part of was certain it would, if only because I couldn’t imagine any version based on myself to allow one of their faithful to ever be completely helpless, I just didn’t know. Hel, even if she had access to combat spells, I didn’t think she had any experience in using them.
“No,” she luckily shook her head in denial just monts after I asked, soothing my worries quite a bit, “But you have a few places out there, right? Not just the Tower, though it would work, and it wouldn’t be too far. Just, you know, sowhere I could relax for a few days, where I could sleep without anyone banging on my door at ass-o’clock in the morning, because so idiot stubbed their toe,” she explained, her voice getting bitter at the end, making wonder just how often people bothered her, and if the reasons for bothering her were truly that inane. Or she might exaggerate things a little; it was certainly possible, but given her state? I wasn’t sure she’d need to exaggerate; she looked bad enough as things were.
“Would you really be willing to just abandon the people who rely on you here?” I heard myself asking, before realising that it was essentially what I had done already, so was I really in a position to cast any stones?
“Abandon?” she asked, her eyes going a bit distant, “No, probably not,” she paused for a second, before her eyes focused back on , her expression grave, “But if I don’t do sothing, I don’t think I’ll be able to last much longer. I tried to tell people that, to get them to listen, but they never do. It’s always another ergency, always another issue, always sothing that needs to be seen to right then and there.”
“Too many people, too few who can carry the load?” I asked, knowing that this was exactly the issue.
“There’s no problem with you getting a vacation,” I decided. “Jademoon Tower would work; it might be the best option,” I mumbled, thinking of the other places I could easily reach by stepping through the shadows. The list wasn’t all that big, and the majority of places weren’t suited for a vacation. The Nexus Tower, for example, was completely surrounded by glaciers and treacherous mountains, dangerous enough that even I had to be vigilant. My prison didn’t even have an exit, plus it was, well, a prison. The Temple of the First Dragon was likely teeming with dragons in the winter, and while the divine connection to the Mother might be enough to shield Jess from their ire, I wasn’t willing to bet on that.
Maybe I should try to visit so of the places where I had set up shrines farther south, like the Charland, or even the first shrine I ever set up, under that old tree. It certainly would improve my range and allow to visit other places, maybe check in on so of the people I had t.
But that was an issue for later; for now, I had Jess to deal with.
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