South-west of Fleurand’s capital city, an iron door knocker is struck against the thick, wooden door of the Medicine Magus’ abode. The lodge – large enough to be confused for an inn – is nestled betwixt dense groves of various tree genera: pine, oak, maple, cottonwood, spruce, cedar, and even some fouquieria. The flora has found a way to defy natural order, growing alongside one another, and disregarding such frivolities as ‘climate’, or ‘time of year’. Hidden in the all-encompassing shadow cast by said trees is a plethora of flowers, bushery, fungi, and other forms of unclassified, non-animal life. The Queen’s magick had created an inimitable environment – a mesocosm that can support any, and every type of medicinal plant a local doctor could possibly need. The door knocker is used a second time. Immediately, the medicine magus makes her way to the front door. The vibration of each step is monitored by the thousands of ligneous arms growing out from the surrounding copse.

The door creaks open, brushing aside imperceptible spores, and particles of pollen.

“Yes?! What is it?”

A senior woman emerges from beyond the doorframe, although nothing about her outward appearance directly screams ‘elderly’. Decades of living on this planet have shrunk her body down, and yet, her posture does not betray this. The magus’ youth has been remarkably preserved – only the roots of her hair show any sign of greying; her skin, while wrinkled, has clearly maintained a lot of its elasticity, and staved off the dryness that comes with age such as hers.

“Please… the girl needs medical attention.”

In front of the lady stood a towering figure. For a brief moment, the bald man’s appearance stimulated some deep recess of the magus’ mind, but the thought is almost immediately dashed away when her focus shifts onto the girl in question. Pale, faintly blushed with blood – a barbaric bandage smothering one half of her face, and an arm. The doctor stops herself from conceptualizing what horrific injury awaits her beneath, and more worryingly, what could’ve caused it. Externally, however, the elder does not betray any of her thoughts – the only thing an outside observer can see her fixating on is, oddly, the hair of the injured.

The door awkwardly jerks open.

“How long has she been wearing that damp rag?” the magus mumbles, re-entering her lodge.

The man is stuck standing at the entrance, unsure of whether he’s supposed to step inside, or patiently wait. The doctor, seemingly sensing the hesitancy, twists her neck like an owl.

“Hey! Oaf!” Her voice takes on a bellowing tone. “Are you a vampire?”

“I’m… no, what?” the hulking man is caught completely off-balance.

“Oh! So, then I don’t need to invite you in?! The door is open, Gorilla – the universal gesture for…”

She seems to have realized how harshly she’s started the conversation. Seeing the dire status of the patient, the doctor buries her desire to continue having small arguments.

“Just… get in, and lay her down.”

The bald man hurriedly steps into the lodge, and lays out his comrade out on an infirmary bed. The medicine magus gets to work at once, unwrapping the girl’s make-shift bandage like the ribbon of the worst gift on the planet. The disquieting squelching would make nearly anyone recoil, perhaps grimace, but the man stands undisturbed – something that the doctor takes notice of. The tattered remains of a white shirt have all been removed, and the elder can do little to stop herself from heaving a long sigh. Half of the girl’s face has been rubbed raw; how does something like this even happen?

“A guy like you… why the hell did you not bring her in sooner?!”

The Gorilla’s composure does not waver. His feet remain planted in the ground, waiting for the doctor’s diagnosis – anything regarding his friend’s status. Additional wrinkles form on her forehead.

“This one will live. I’ll call for you in a moment.”

Clumps of compressed ligaments loosen in the man’s shoulders, and neck. For the first time since stepping in, he begins to drink in the surrounding lodge. The interior flooring and walls are wooden – an aberration within the nation of Fleurand, where trees, amongst other greenery, are considered sacred. Whoever the medicine magus is, she must have connections, and a lot of money. The man shuffles towards an open window. From outside, the nearby shrubbery observes as his face contorts into an oxymoronic expression of relief, and fear. He re-adjusts his shirt, as though merely having fabric rest on his body was unacceptable. A patch of creeping ivy, growing along the outside walls of the lodge, make out the words coming out of his mouth.

“God, of all the people we ended up scamming in the past, it had to be her?”

Despite the fact that Wulfram was wearing a shirt for the first time in ages, he’d never felt more naked. He knew that, logically, Erland’s plan to transfer Wulfram’s tattoos over onto his own skin was sound, and that it was impossible for Erland to ‘lose’ them somewhere… His whole life, the tattooist had always been embraced by the metallic compounds dyeing his skin, and for the first time in a long time, there weren’t any tattoos left to offer him warmth, and comfort.

“Hello! Yes, the only other person here!”

The doctor’s gravelly voice snapped him out of his brooding, and beckoned him closer.

“Finger.”

“…pardon?”

The magus did not repeat herself. At speeds impossible for most people her age, the doctor snatched up Wulfram’s right hand, and plunged a needle right into his middle finger. There was no pain – the metallic tip pierced skin as though it were soft meringue, and once the tattooist realized what was going on, a sample of his blood was already being inspected for something. ‘Is she mixing my blood with Rum’s?’, Wulfram wondered.

“It’s my lucky day…” the doctor murmured to herself. “you, sit down next to her.”

“I have a name, you know,” the tattooist responded, nevertheless following her instructions.

“And I have degenerative disc disease, but that’s not really relevant right now, is it?”

Without drawing any attention to it, a much larger needle punctured the fold on Wulfram’s right arm. This one, he felt, but no words of pain or protest were able to leave his lips – they were replaced with a mixture of confusion, and horror. An elongated tube of see-through material began siphoning blood out from the tattooist’s body, pumping it right into Rum.

“Oh God!”

“A big guy like you, scared of a little blood…” the doctor sat down on the infirmary bedside.

“Stop yammering, and listen. The girl’s wounds are grisly, but I’ve worked with worse; the bigger issue was blood loss. Now, I’m going to assume you’re the charitable sort, so as long as you stop tightening your arm so damn much, she’ll take a liter or two of your life-juice, and then, she’ll be fine.”

Sure enough, even Wulfram could tell that Rum was looking better. Some beige color returned to her skin, and the hotspots of pus and infection that previously threatened her life, were gone.

“She already looks so much better... It’s an incredible magick–”

“Not magick – it’s me who’s incredible. Or did you think that ‘magick’ knew exactly which medicinal herbs should be applied topically, which should be ingested, and how to prepare them?”

For the first time since meeting the doctor, there seemed to be genuine indignation in her voice.

“My magick only makes the doctoring easier – visualizing how each treatment would help, imagining ingredients that are hard to come by, such-and-such.”

The tattooist reached his hand out to hold Rum’s.

“Will she be alright?”

The top right corner of the woman’s lip curled up, examining the injury closer.

“I can’t restore her eye. If it means a lot to the girl, the eye magus in Czarnia might be able to help, although I can’t attest to the safety of his magick. Still… Judging by the state you brought her in, I think depth-perception is a fair trade for being alive.”

“So, then…”

“Four days. She should wake in three, but that’s just my guesstimation.”

The words bounced around Wulfram’s head for a short while. ‘Four days’. How expensive would it be to take up four days of time from the medicine magus herself? His fingers began preemptively reaching for the diamond – perhaps negotiations would go smoother if he made it clear this was all that he could offer?

“As for the payment, would something like this suffice?”

Genuine bewilderment flashes across the woman’s face. The greenery surrounding her lodge always monitors the clientele that the medicine magus attracts – thieves, mercenaries, stuck-up nobles, worried mothers… A patient having funds prepared is an oddity, but not as much as the fact that it’s in the form of a gigantic diamond.

“Young man. Are you related to royalty?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.”

“So, what are you the magus of?”

“Oh, uhm… lightning.”

The tattoo magus instantly regrets what he’d just blurted out. The doctor, however, doesn’t let any emotion show on her face.

“Look here: you either killed a royal and stole this off their corpse, or you were paid by a royal to kill someone, and this is what they gave you.”

If Erland were here, he’d be stomping on Wulfram’s foot to stop talking.

“It was, uhm… the second one.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she pushes the man’s outstretched hand away, “I can’t accept something like this, anyhow. I’m not in the market for a new castle.”

The tattooist could almost hear Erland’s voice screaming at him to not say anything, but it was already too late. The words were flowing out from his mouth.

“Then, please, how can I repay you?”

A sly grin unraveled across the doctor’s mouth. Was she aiming for me to say that?!

“Well, if such a distinguished magus offers, it would be disrespectful not to make a request…”

The woman stood up from the infirmary bed.

“I have a job you could do for me. Semi-long term. Truth be told, I’d already hired a few mercenaries for this exact task, but the rat-bastards ran off with my money.”

“She isn’t talking about us, is she?”, the tattooist thinks to himself.

“Let’s discuss it in my study.”

“Wait! Just… what kind of job is it?”

She chortles.

“It’s a protection kind of job.”

“Protecting who?”

“Esmé Medeor.”

Wulfram turned his head, quizzically. In response, the elder just grinned.

“Most people just call me the medicine magus, though.”