Return of Sebastian Sallow | 10 Yr After Hogwarts

Chapter 78: Let Yourself Heal

I notice Thiago replacing his materials in April's medical kit and make his way towards us. He stands on the opposite side of the thestral's head and puts his hands its neck, firmly stroking at its muscles.

"Are you ready, little man?" he says to the beast as April closes her eyes and draws her energy inward. "You are about to feel much, much better." His voice is warm and friendly, no doubt as calming to the animal as it is to his friends.

"Is there anything I can do?" Ominis asks from his short distance away.

Thiago inhales quickly through his nose and it catches my attention. His face has lit up, and he pats the thestral sweetly as he whispers in a way I'm not sure I was meant to overhear, "a treat for you, my friend. This is someone very special,"

Thiago bounds away a few steps, linking arms with Ominis and drawing him close to us.

"Many hands will help," Thiago says, simply, as he helps guide Ominis' hands to the strong neck and shoulder of the thestral, and places his own on its neck, again, situating himself near its ear.

By the time April places her hands on the beast – one near the top of it's head and the other closer to its chest – she is practically glowing with magic in a similar way I saw so many times earlier tonight. The sight of it, the feeling of being so close to its proximity, like a muscle memory, it sings throughout my whole body like the high, translucent ringing of pure crystal. In spite of my stress, my adrenaline, my worry, my fear, and all of the unknowns, it is my love for her that courses loudest through me and oh, how I ache to have her again.

Focusing on the matter at hand, I whip my pocket knife from my side to cut away at the tattered fabric of April's pant leg, and she doesn't so much as wince as I pour alcohol from her kit on the wound and slip the bottle into my pocket. I settle my hands around her resolute, courageous legs, hovering them just above the skin's surface and find myself inhaling, deeply, as April does the same.

I begin to center my energy, my magic, and my love into my chest as April begins to channel all of her energy towards the creature and Thiago speaks gently into its ear.

"Hello, little man. My name is Thiago," he says smoothly, and I channel the healing energy of the universe towards April's wound. "These are the friends of my heart," Thiago continues, "and we are going to help you."

I invite all of the energy of the moon and the stars to channel through me from above, as I draw upward from the deep and eternal well of the core of the earth as Thiago continues, smoothly, "I am so sorry for what happened to you, my friend." I can feel April's energy begin to reverberate through her, towards the creature. "Please understand, not all of us wish to harm you," Thiago assures the thestral. "April can help you, but you must accept what she is offering you, do you understand? She can only do so much, alone, sweet one."

As I envision my very soul wrapping around April's, unifying our hearts, bodies and minds. I sync myself with her for yet another time, tonight, though in a different way. To lean into her natural ebbs and flows, to harmonize my body with hers is something that is becoming as natural to me as breathing and makes me feel more at home than being in my own skin. In a similar way that Thiago has just done for the thestral, I invite April's body to accept the healing energy I'm moving into her, and I notice a ray of moonlight that has broken through a cloud begin to bend towards us like a whisper.

"I know you are in pain," Thiago says softly to the beast, and I invite the moonbeam to aid my efforts, directing it like a stream into April's leg which responds almost instantly, and begins to close over. It grows a soft, pink scar tissue, fixing and closing with magic, love, and new life. She inhales sharply at the sensation and the thestral responds, in kind. Its eyes shoot open and its body stirs. In hardly a moment, Thiago has it calmed again with strong hands, and a firm but kind voice. "There, there," he explains, "it is nothing at all! My friend, Sebastian, is helping April to help you. That is all." With a little more vigor Thiago says, "he loves her, you see, and that can only be of use to you, little one."