"Well, what about that." He steps back and takes a look at her. "Where are you from? Also, I assume there's a reason Tantras hauled you all the way over here, and it doesn't look like it's because you're in need of Healing." 

I was born in an empire called the Magisterian Imperium on another plane. I'm trying to familiarize myself with local customs and since I have an offplane variant on Mindhealing was curious about Healer rules and protocols.

"Oh. Really! So that's why the Queen's Own asked me to recall someone from circuit. Wish he'd thought to say why, I'd have been a lot happier about it." He glances around; there are several murmured conversations going on within the room and people rushing by. "Er, want to come to my office? It's quieter." 

Sure.

It is, in fact, quieter. Tran hovers until Aber gestures that he can go, and shuts the door. 

"Good, good." He sits back in his chair and folds his arms behind his head. "Rules and protocols, then. Want to give me the quick version on what it's like where you're from so we're starting on the same page? Given that you're asking, I assume that the place you're from has rules." 

It does but I only know them about mind healers, not physical healers. Quick version is strict confidentiality rules and consent for anything more invasive than talking.

"Hmm, right." He gets out a book from under his desk. "Things that will get you in trouble with us are: using Healing to deliberately harm or kill a patient. Using Healing in a way that accidentally harms a patient by acting knowingly outside the scope of your skill. Any kind of abusing your Gift for personal gain – threatening to withhold Healing as extortion, or even offering special Healing care in exchange for favours. Sharing information gained through Healing-Sight or otherwise in the course of treatment outside of the Healers' Collegium, except in certain unusual circumstances, but assume you ought to just ask me about that if anything weird comes up. Withholding information from a patient about their condition or about work that you've done, unless it's some very weird specific circumstance and you have my express permission. Refusing to provide timely treatment for a straightforwardly treatable ailment, for any reason other than a known lack of skill, exhaustion, or competing higher priorities – latter two shouldn't really come up unless there's a natural disaster or something that overwhelms us, er, and even then I don't think it would for you. Anyway, what you're not meant to do is refuse to treat someone because your family is on feud with theirs or you don't like their religion or they insulted your brother once. Or even because they're a murderer; we try to save lives, here, we think everyone deserves that. Er, refusal to provide treatment can get thorny in cases where it's debatably futile, or if there are competing priorities and it's unclear who ought to get seen first. Oh, and providing non-life-critical Healing against a patient's will. It's all right to Heal without consent in a life-threatening emergency where the patient isn't in a state to be asked, but if it's not that kind of urgent, don't. Most common violation here is that, er, we've had a few cases of Healers quietly taking care of pregnancies in girls who're being treated for injuries from rape. Or who they just think are too young or not fit to be mothers. Without asking. That's something we would consider a serious ethical violation unless the pregnancy itself was threatening the mother's life." 

He frowns. "Most of those would get you a reprimand, maybe additional supervision for a time, at worst you'd lose the right to call yourself a Healer and work under us or receive the Crown's pay. Using Healing to kill is a capital offence the first time and it'll get your Gift burned out; if it's just bodily harm but the patient lives, one warning. Er, that's complicated because if you're from, um, another plane – how did that even happen – then I don't know if we can shut down your Gift. So it'd be exile, I guess. Don't do it, please." 

My thing is disanalogous in enough ways that it probably doesn't make sense to fold me in completely - for one thing I really should not try to treat anyone I don't like or who, more importantly, doesn't like me. But it's good to know where the intuitions will point, thank you.

"Hmm. I haven't heard our other Mindhealers bring that up but you can talk to them directly when someone turns up, I guess. I'm not sure who it'll be, I just asked for priority on the Mindspeech relay to find out who's closest to Haven right now and will be the least disrupted on their usual route. I'm curious to hear more about how your abilities work but, again, probably you should wait to talk to the experts – hells, I already can't understand half of what Melody's on about when she goes on a tear, and she's from here. Any other questions?"  

I think that's -

Oh, I don't know if your Mindhealers can do this but I can do analgesia. It requires maintenance but when I'm not busy and have the stamina for it I can come in and do that for one or a handful of people. It does trade off all the other uses of my abilities but I like to run that down pretty far every day to get stronger over time, modulo that I currently need some spare to talk to people.

Aber's mouth slowly falls open. 

"...You can? That's...gods, that's incredible. You have no idea how useful that is. And no, our Mindhealers can't, damn it, Melody is going to want to peel open your brain – no, I don't mean that literally, but she's played around with trying to do that for years and can't and she's going to be so jealous. And yes, please, I understand if you've just arrived and need time to get settled, but if you've got spare energy tomorrow, come by anytime and we can definitely find something for you to do. This is amazing. You have no idea." 

Uh, I don't have anything lined up right now, if you want me right now? I think I can calibrate it so I'll still be able to talk the rest of the day.

"Are you sure? If you're sure, then yes, that would be wonderful." 

And Aber drags her back out into the central area, and grabs a young woman who introduces herself as Alia, and soon Bella will be ushered down one of the halls to a long room with chairs and cots in it that seems to be a quick-turnaround treatment area. There's a man who needs an infection lanced and drained in his leg, there's a little boy from a border town with a tumour on his face that Alia removes via a combination of a knife and burning with her Gift, there's a man with an arrow that's been embedded in his leg for the entire two days it took him to reach Haven and he won't tell them how it got there but they treat him anyway. Everyone around her seems busy and tired, but cheerful enough about it. 

Wow, the healing magic here is way worse than in Materia.

She can block pain out for each of these people!

When the sunset is visible through the window, Alia trades off with a plump motherly-looking woman who introduces herself as Gemma. "You're new!" she says brightly. "Where are you from?" 

I'm from another plane.

"...Oh you're her, Aber did mention you in handoff. You're the one who's sort of a Mindhealer but different from our kind?" Gemma seems remarkably incurious about her 'from another plane' origins, as though Bella had said 'from the next kingdom over'. "Do they have Healers too where you're from? What's that like?" 

They have healing magic. It's almost all directly from the gods there and works... faster.

"Ooh, that's interesting. I've heard tales of miraculous healings, apparently Vkandis Sunlord does it every so often to make a point in Karse, but I'm not sure I believe it's real, could be all legends." 

It's very common in Materia. In Arda, where I was living till yesterday, there was magic music that did healing, which wasn't as good as Materia's, maybe about comparable to yours, but for the hard stuff they could ask their gods directly. Uh, who would be good to ask about the local gods, just so I'm not taken by surprise?

Gemma looks blank. "...Priests? We've got a Temple to Kernos really nearby, most of the Heralds go there, and there's an order dedicated to Astera of the Stars just outside the Palace walls, and I think there's an enclave of Vkandis worshippers in Haven too. Those are the major ones. Lots of minor ones." She shrugs. "Not really my area. I go to the temple at high holidays but the gods don't have much to do with my day to day." 

Okay, I'll consider it nonurgent.

And they can treat some more patients, painlessly! When the sun is properly down, Gemma notices and asks how long she’s been there and whether she would like to grab something to eat and then go home.

Yes, that's a good idea.

There’s a buffet-style table with food in one of the back rooms for the Healer on duty, and then Gemma asks where she’s staying and if she needs someone to help her get back. “I know the Palace can be confusing at first. I used to get lost all the time.”