Bambi and the Duke

Sister Isabelle had given more than her thirty years of life in service of the church and to the people of Bonelake. Though it was a well-known fact by the higher up’s like the Council, the Lords and the Duke’s that most of the priest and priestess of the church were white witches, humans and the other lower beings were unaware of it. The white witches had their own abilities of merits but that didn’t mean the lower beings took their existence well. With the black witches who were always involved in demeaning activities like abducting humans and sacrificing them for their rituals, humans feared and loathed them.

The humans were no less when it came to showing the revenge on the black witches by burning them in the middle of the town and it didn’t matter if a white witch was caught who had nothing ill to offer. For the humans, all the witches were bad and they didn’t hold back the hate they had against the witches.

Humans were gullible, so gullible that they could be manipulated with the wind of a word, thought Sister Isabelle about it, and then came the low vampires after the humans. They were easily driven but not the pureblooded vampires.

Her green eyes gauged the boy who stood in front of her, his eyes dark due to the low amount of light present in the church. She had known Duke Leonard since he was a young boy, who now had grown tall, his intelligent eyes staring right into hers. She remembered his mother coming to visit her as if it was only yesterday, concerned about her only son who had temperamental issues. She had seen boys fighting out their anger but the Duke...the Duke had the habit of keeping it in until it burst out. His features were like a prince, and she expected nothing less from the man who hailed from one of the known pureblooded families.

But it was the elegance that caught her attention, she had seen the same from the current lord of Bonelake. Of course, thought Sister Isabelle, he had been brought up by the Lord himself. There was no saying how the upbringing was. The Lord might have pretended well in front of his subjects but he couldn’t fool her, she knew exactly how he had acquired the position of Lord.

”What do you know about the healers apart from them being rare?” Leonard asked her.

”That they don’t exist anymore,” Sister Isabelle answered coming to sit on one of the empty benches. With the hour of the night, the church was deserted except for the white witch and the pureblooded vampire who leant his back against the side of the bench waiting for his question to be answered.

”The council said they have tried searching for one in the past but never found one,” at Leonard’s words the woman nodded her head.

Sister Isabelle spoke, ”They would have done that. It might be not right to say this but the council isn’t all pure. There are people who would infilterate subject and matter without anyone’s consious for their own benefit. I don’t think there are any healers left in any of the lands. At least not for a century now. Many had concluded that it was the white witches blood that brought in the ability to heal wounds.”

”They aren’t,” he stated thoughtfully. He did have his doubts on Vivian being one of them when she had told him the incident that occurred with her in the market. Leonard knew Vivian since a young age but no one knew where she came from. Her life before the Carmichael’s mansion was a clean slate, ”Does that mean they are born without any lineage?”

”Frankly, it would be hard to say, Duke Leonard,” Sister Isabelle answered to his question, ”

When the healers did exist, the white witches had only come to learn of them and had begun to collect minute details. My kind didn’t have the privilege to ask information as we are still an outcast in the society’s eyes. I don’t think there is a specific pattern though. Usually when a pair of vampires mates each other or witches or humans for that matter, they produce an offspring of their own. Surely there have been a few different combinations but that didn’t change much. Healers as rare as they were, they were taken by the black witches or the councilors in the past who cut them down to learn about their abilities. What people didn’t know back then was that the wounds inflicted on a healer couldn’t be healed and it took time.”

The last sentence caught Leonard’s interest. If what Sister Isabelle said was true, there was a possibility that his Bambi was a healer and her life would be in danger if word got out about who she was now.

”So a healer cannot heal himself but can heal others?” he reiterated to confirm her words.

”That’s the irony, not only that but their life span begins to cut short. To use a little amount of their energy is fine but using too much reduces their years of life. If you think about it, it is quite sad,” this wasn’t something he had come to hear.

When Leonard went back to the mansion, his mood from curious had turned to a foul one.

He paced back on forth in his room, words of the white witch looping in his mind. Undoubtedly, Vivian was a healer maybe not born as one but she had gained the ability to heal injured people.

What she had done in the market was noble but that didn’t mean Leonard wanted her to do it again.

That idiot, scolded Leonard in his mind, to prove her theory she had gone ahead and cut her finger.

With the unstable world outside, he had to protect her and seeing her shorten her life due to her good heart wasn’t something Leonard was willing to do. He would rather have her not know about it, after all, didn’t they say ignorance was bliss.