Ari didn't look while Aspel changed - much. She got barely a glimpse of skin mottled with bruises before the tunic covered it again and Aspel returned to sit on the bed. "Now doesn't that sound fun," Ari said with a laugh. Playing doctor was an age-old euphemism, after all. "I'm not much of a doctor," she said; "not at all hands-on. Which, considering the fact that you're a little more broken, is probably for the best. But go ahead and lie back for your own sake, and I'll see if I can ease your aches a bit."
She perched on the edge of the bed - proximity was an aide in this - crossed her legs and set her mandolin across her knee. "A song, then, as promised." In the fairly small room, she did not need to play or sing loudly. This particular song was simple, a flowing melody in a major key and without words. Most battle songs were like this; it was the melody and inflection that were important, and the harmony picked out on the accompanying instrument. She played all five verses where she would usually have made do with two; she had nowhere else to be and nothing else to lay claim to her power for the rest of the day, but the bruises she had seen, half-healed and yellow from the efforts of the white mages, had been too numerous to heal so easily.
She could not see how well it had worked, of course, with the tunic and pants in the way, but she thought Aspel seemed to be breathing more easily once she had finished the final cadence. Fighting back the urge to lift the edge of the tunic and see the effect, she clasped her hands loosely in her lap, over her instrument, cleared her throat - she really needed a drink - and asked, "Better?"