75th Ymiden, 713
After she had used the strange ability she seemed to have to cure the other slave child's cold, it had taken five full trials for her to regain the strength she needed to get back to work. Only totrial was she strong enough to get up and begin working once more. During those five trials, Master Lars had come to examine her several times a trial to see if he could figure out what the strange ability she had was. He had informed her that while the masters were not happy that she was unable to work, the ability she had was of great interest to them. For that reason, they had decided to delay the punishment she had earned by not fulfilling her duties while she was too weak to work until they had had a chance to learn more about the ability she had.
When it was time for her to be assigned her first task for the trial, she was told that she was to report to the ship's clinic where she would be working for Master Lars again. Since she had been told that she would have to keep an eye on the infused oils she had started making the last time she had worked in the ship's clinic, she thought that part of what she would be doing totrial was checking on those remedies. As she walked towards the ship's clinic, she wondered if the five trials that she had failed to check on them had damaged them in any way. If they were ruined due to her failure to check on them, she would have to be punished for that as well.
"Do you remember what to look for when you check the infused oils you started the last time you were here?" Master Lars demanded as soon as she entered the clinic.
"Yes, Master Lars." she said quietly.
"Good. Go check on them now then."
She scrambled to obey the order she had been given. As she checked on the jars filled with oil and herbs, she found a few where some of the herbs had floated to the top of the jars. She used a stirring rod to push them back down to the bottom of the jar they were in once more. As she did so, she could feel Master Lars's eyes on her. Knowing that he was watching to see if she made any mistakes made her very nervous, but she ignored the feeling as best she could until the task was finished.
"Orik is going to come here later so we can try and figure out the extent of the ability that you have. Until then, you will be working here. How do you feel?"
The question confused her, making her freeze with hesitation. Masters did not ask slaves how they were feeling. Masters had no reason to care how their slaves felt. She was uncertain how to answer, so she remained silent for the trill, and hoped that she would not be punished for failing to answer the question quickly enough.
"After you healed the sick slave, it looked as though you were the one who was sick with a cold. Do you still feel sick? You don't look flushed anymore."
Now the question made more sense, and she could understand why Master Lars had asked it. She took a few trills to consider how she felt before responding. She didn't feel like she had a fever right now, but she didn't have any energy, and her nose was stuffed up. When she told Master Lars how she felt, he nodded.
"We'll have to keep an eye on that, then. If you had transferred the cold to yourself when you healed the sick slave, you would be feeling better by now since most colds don't last for more than five trials or so. That means that the way you feel must have something to do with the way your ability works."
She didn't know how to respond to that, so she remained silent. Fortunately, it didn't seem as though Master Lars was expecting an answer, because he continued speaking.
"You seemed to do pretty well making the infused oils, so I'll teach you how to make another type of herbal remedy totrial."
"Yes, Master Lars.