Early the next morning, Niphru was lying on the bed watching Monti and Dawn work together to help one of the worse off villagers heal enough to leave.  While doing so, he heard the door open, and a moment later one of the warriors of the Church of Conflict stopped beside his bed.  Just before the man began speaking, he recognized him as the one who had spoken out against him before the Black Tide arrived.

To his surprise, the man bowed to him before speaking, “I wish to apologize for my previous words and thoughts towards you, Niphru.  You have proven yourself to be an honorable individual, as well as a very capable combatant.”  The man sighed and shook his head.

Waving his hand towards where Dawn was working, the man continued, “I heard you were crippled from your part in saving Dawn, but by doing so, you bought time for two of us to get to her.  I am thankful that we were able to save her due to your actions.  Both of you saved us numerous times.”

The man looked down, remaining silent for a few seconds before speaking again, “Honestly, I’m surprised you went out of your way to protect us, especially me after I called you a mere beast.  It would have been easier for you to ignore me, and no one would blame you in battle.  Despite not being human, you are a better man than I.  I sincerely hope you recover from your injuries, Niphru, and I would be willing to aid you in the future, should you have use of my talents.  I am the only one named George in the 39th band of the Church.”

Unfortunately, Niphru was unable to respond to George as he bowed again and then left.

After about another hour of watching Dawn helping with Monti’s work, Amilya walked in, announcing that the warriors were about to leave.  She then pulled Dawn aside, speaking to her for a moment before leaving.  A few moments later, one of the warriors came in to assist the last who had been injured – he had lost his vision after all, and needed someone to help him walk.

As they got up, Dawn came over to pick Niphru up, carefully slipping his mana stone into a pouch around her waist as she did so.  He saw her nod to Monti as she began walking to the door, heading towards the western gate along with a number of other villagers.

Upon arriving, they found the warriors standing beside the gate, waiting for the last two members.  As they approached, Devon stepped forward before announcing, “I am sorry for the difficulties our stay has caused you, and am thankful for the help we have received.  Without the mage support, especially that of Dawn and Niphru, we would have been overwhelmed.”

Following this, all the warriors bowed towards them before Devon continued, “I know many of you are worried, as it is technically our duty to report Niphru to have him killed.  However, we shall not be doing so, out of respect both for his astonishing work protecting you, as well as that he is—as you are aware—a good person, even if he happens to not be human.  We do have to be honest when we report, but luckily events happened as they did, and we can truthfully report we did not find a fox in the town when we arrived, and we did kill one in the woods.”

At this, the villagers began speaking amongst themselves, temporarily drowning out any possible speech from Devon.  After a moment, Amilya stepped forward, replying, “We thank you for your attempts to help, and more so for your willingness to overlook Niphru’s species.  It would be incredibly unfortunate if one of our own was targeted further.  May your journey back be one of peace.”

Following this statement, all the warriors except for Devon turned and began leaving, as he finished, “I thank you once again, and I hope that everything goes well for your village once we are gone.”

Dawn smiled as she watched them leaving, clearly relieved by what they had said, while Niphru felt somewhat conflicted.  While they had originally been his enemies, they had proven to be honorable, and done all they could to help.  While he had been recovering, he had heard of how two of them had raced into the inferno he had created and pulled Dawn free, despite the risk to themselves, and Devon had even raced to his own rescue.

As he considered things more, he decided it was wrong to treat people as either friends or enemies, as clearly they could shift over time.  It was likely that if he insisted on defining people into a category, he might prevent them from changing, which could be quite bad, as this situation had proven.

As he was thinking this through, Dawn took him back to Monti’s house, which had cleared out quite a bit over the past few days, with only three other patients left.  After setting him back down on a bed, and placing his mana stone back beneath his head, she headed back to Monti.  A few moments later, he headed back towards Niphru with a pot of water and some dirty bandages.

As he rinsed the bandages, he explained to both of them that one of the many things a healer needed to understand was that there were tiny things that could kill you even if you couldn’t see them, provided they got into wounds.  Continuing, he brought up that one of the lesser known aspects of healing was the ability to kill such tiny things.  After apologizing that he couldn’t help Niphru practice, he handed a bandage to Dawn, and showed her how to sterilize it, slowly moving a glowing fog across it several times.

Dawn caught on rapidly, only taking three attempts to figure out how to do so herself.  While her first two bandages needed to be redone, the third and fourth times she was good enough to catch what she hadn’t gotten on the first try herself.  After the fourth, each bandage passed Monti’s inspection, and he nodded in approval.

After they finished cleaning and sterilizing all the bandages, Monti very directly stated, “You must never use a bandage on someone without being certain it is sterile first.  Even if you have checked it before, they can pick up dangerous things just being left out.  Sometimes it works out fine, but other times, serious infections have occured, many times causing death of the patient.  If you are to be a good healer, always keep this in mind.”

Dawn looked at him with wide eyes, surprised at how vehement he was about the subject, then nodded and replied, “If you are so certain, then I will be sure to follow your example.”

Satisfied, Monti nodded, then took the pot and bandages back into the kitchen before returning with a few of them and heading back to the other patients.  Seeing this, Dawn stroked Niphru’s head and then headed over to assist with the work.

Unable to help or learn anything else for the moment, Niphru closed his eyes and attempted to sleep.  While it took a while, it was peaceful enough that there was no major difficulty, and he eventually slipped into a dreamless slumber.