This prompt, like some of the others was inspired by something I read. I took the bare basics and made them into a prompt. As written it works best in either fantasy or religious fiction, depending of course on if the religion in question has temples where healers can be found.
Let’s be real, that’s a lot of qualifications since that’s not usually what the people at temples are there for. Now there are exceptions, especially in polytheistic religions that have a god of healing or the like. And religious groups did found a large number of hospitals and clinics, so it’s not as if religion and healing are not officially connected in many ways. The question here is more people designated as healers (or doctors or nurses) who are headquartered in a temple or other religious building. That is what is less common.
Of course another part of this prompt is a war wary soldier, so that might make it more likely that a religious building was being used as a house of healing in addition to a house of worship.
Still all those things together make this most likely a fantasy. I’m sure you could make something historical instead if you did you research and found a culture that this fits, one that had both healers in temples and a war going on. That said, I’m going to go with the idea of a fantasy here. Either way, we have to know what the war is about. Or at the very least, we need to know who the soldier has been fighting and most likely how this character feels about the reason for the war even if they are tired of the war itself. We probably should know how long the war has been going on. Or perhaps it’s not one war. Maybe the character is a career soldier and there have been many different wars or violent situations. As I said about, either way, you should probably know.
Next there is the healer. The prompt is focused on the soldier, so there is even less here about the healer. This is deliberate. The story that inspired this is focused on the healer and everything about the soldier is seen through the soldier’s eyes, but I am interested in the point of view of the soldier. I don’t even know how the soldier in the story feels about the healer, but it’s implied that there are feelings there after a long relationship that mostly involved the healing of the soldier’s wounds both physical and mental. This side of it interests me, seeing it from the soldier’s point of view.
Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a story for the healer. Of course there has to be. Every character has a story whether you tell it or not. As the secondary lead, most likely, unless you decide to play the romance as a secondary plot which is always an option, you will need to know some things about the healer. Why are they a healer? Is it a magic power as is common in fantasy, or is it just a word for what we now call doctor or nurse? Magic or science? Or maybe both. Why is the healer in the temple? Is this common or unique to them? And finally, why are they going to war at this point in time? Did something change?
So that’s my latest prompt and I look forward to seeing what you think about it. I tried my best to leave the genders out of this, because either one could be male or female, so how do you see them? Would you play this as a romance or does the war story with the romance as a B plot appeal to you more?
