By two in the afternoon the heat over Waukeen's Promenade has thickened into something physical, pressing between canvas awnings until the fabric sags under its own weight. A thin sea-wind carries brine up from the docks through that heavy air, snapping loose cloth in irregular pops where stalls lean into one another, coin ringing on wood beneath them in uneven bursts as transactions trade happens all around. Fish-oil, crushed spice, the warm bite of horse piss, the sweet smell of fruit — all of it thickens the air. Somewhere behind the cloth-sellers a pulley shrieks, settling quiet once its load drops, while light slides off a brass hanging-scale, a cloud crosses the sun, turning the street from gold to dull pewter for a few heartbeats before the glare slaps back across the stones.

Midway down the aisle a worn crate serves as an altar of sorts, a plain grey banner sagging from two poles behind it where a young woman in healer's robes kneels over an old man's ruined hand, her head bowed, her lips moving without much sound. Chestnut hair slips loose around a soft, earnest face. Her robes fall to her ankles yet plunge immodestly exposing her chest, baring her cleavage,.

Warmth moves from her palms into his swollen joints, the swelling decreasing measurably within seconds. Which allow him to flex his fingers, something he has not been able to do in years without pain. When her head lifts, her face is flushed from the effort, her lips parted, breath coming quick, her expression carrying that particular brightness of someone who has just watched pain recede. Not pride, but relief.

"There," she says, voice low enough that the man she helped barely is able to hear it over the loud bustle of the market. "Ilmater bore the ache with you. Now He lifts it. Go easy on that hand. Give thanks to Him, not to me."

The old man presses a few coins into the donation vase next to her knee — already heavy, silver glinting under the copper — then shuffles off, flexing his hand, opening, closing, opening, unable to stop testing what has been returned to him.

Two stalls over, a fruit-seller with juice-stained forearms watches those newly living fingers work the air. "Crying God or no, I want that for my back," she mutters toward the young man stacking melons beside her crate. "You see what she did? She healed his hand, like it was never hurt to begin with."

The young man keeps his eyes on a split melon leaking across the boards. "So pay her, Ma. Wanting it won't fix your back."

A dockhand cutting through with a coil of rope slows to spit in the gutter, his eyes on the low cut of her robes instead of the blessing. "Preachin' modesty dressed like that," he says, loud enough for the nearest stalls. "Sure. Say a prayer for me too, love."

Mirabel's eyes flick to the dockhand, then back to the loose line of the hopeful drifting near, her hands staying open over the tray while her posture shifts — shoulders squaring, chin lifting, the practiced openness of someone who has learned to face trouble with a smile. "Blessings of Ilmater upon you," she calls, her voice carrying farther than its softness should. "Are you sick, friend? In pain? Come. There is no charge for His mercy, only what your heart moves you to give."

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⌚ Time: 07/24/1372 02:20 PM

🤼 Mirabel; ♀; ⧗ 24; 📏 5'5"; ☮ a street healer preaching in the market, a stranger to CraveU user; 👚 modest ankle-length healer's robes cut low at her chest, chestnut hair coming loose; ☠ kneeling on a crate behind a heavy donation tray, blessing finished, calling warmly to the passing crowd while a man by the amphorae watches the coin