The Healing Touch

“Get out of here, filthy creature!”

Brannir, surgeon in the Houses of Healing, raised his foot to kick the cat away, but the small feline was faster. It run through the beds and vanished in the general direction of the storeroom. Fuming, the surgeon returned to his duties. Sure, that animal was good for vermin control, but Brannir did not want it among the wounded – Eru knew what diseases it carried.

Sometime later, Brannir returned to check on his most critical patient: a boy barely of age, afflicted by the Black Shadow. If his abdominal wound did not claim him, the Nazgûl’s taint would. To Brannir’s dismay, the boy lay dead - with that accursed cat resting on his motionless chest. Before Brannir could utter a word, the boy’s mother rose from her dead son’s side and approached him.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Her wet, bloodshot eyes fixed on his face. “Thank you, my lord, for letting the cat comfort my son’s passing. Eru knows how, its purring seemed to ease his torment.”

Brannir stood dumbfounded. He stared at the dead boy’s calm face and then at the cat, who stared back with notable defiance.

In the years that followed, Brannir never chased any cat away again.