Angry Medicine

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Delphine crept closer to the blooming red flower, basking in the golden sunlight falling on her window sill and poked at its petals, examining the bright bell like flower as it moved away from her touch. It was like any other day for the young local herbalist; taking care of her garden, memorizing the herbs available and then mixing and grinding different ones for different medicines. In addition to medicines, she also sold aromatic plants and perfumes which, even in her own opinion, sell faster than anything else in the whole Farmer’s Market.

Usually, on a sunny day like this, her shop would be overflowing with demanding customers and sometimes some bizarre ones that would want her to do the impossible for them. However, for some reason, that day had been incredibly long and it didn’t seem like anyone was going to pay a visit to her humble shop either. And this was exactly why she had left the shop empty and went on creating more medicine in the other room behind the shop. She was currently making medicine for stomach aches and ailments which included the use of seven different flowers and four different plants. Luckily, in the morning that day, the last flower required for the medicine had bloomed and she had picked them fresh under the light of dawn.

Silver bangles on her right hand chimed as she moved a tiny whisk in a circular motion against the mixture of flowers with her left hand busy picking out the next ingredient. There was a soft smell of cherries and rosewood in the air as the brown haired girl gave a harsh pounding to the slowly shaping mixture. When it was done and she found the consistency to be perfect, the girl finally placed the utensils away and started making small red balls out of them, storing the medicine away inside a bottle specifically made to preserve medicine like the one she made.

It was at this moment that she heard the familiar ringing of the shop’s bell informing her that someone had finally paid a visit to her shop. But instead of hurrying out to meet her customer, Delphine stayed and started rolling the last bit of medicine carefully and slowly before placing it inside the bottle and sealing it tight. By this time, the person outside had already shouted at the empty shop, picking on her ability to serve her customers and that tone sounded like he owned the place too.

With a sigh and an irritated countenance, Delphine pushed the door open and entered the shop, finding one angry man on the other side of the counter along with two other clearly unimportant men and if she wasn’t wrong, the person standing before her was someone of great importance; only, she couldn’t really put a name on that scowling face of his.

“Hai hai!” she sighed, letting him know of her presence. “You don’t have to yell, I’m right here, Mr…er…whoever you are. Besides, if it’s such a big dump, why are you even honoring me with your gratuitous presence?” she bit back with a great deal of sarcasm and turned away from him, grabbing a piece of paper and pen from the small table behind her. “Now, other than looking down on my shop, just what exactly are you here for, Sir?”

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And Delphine just raised an eyebrow at the obviously annoyed man. He was standing only a few meters away from her with two muscular guards on both sides. Not only did they look stone cold, but they also looked villainous with their bloody eyes burning holes into everything in their line of sight. For sure, this man must be an aristocrat from the council because she couldn’t think of another group that would waltz into someone’s shop with such company and such rudeness. But nevertheless, she started writing down his difficulty in a small note pad, picking out the key words as a small crease formed on her forehead from the amount of concentration she installed on the subject.



So his right eye was hurting him and it originated into a headache later, she thought about the subject for a few minutes and then placed the writing pad back down on the table. Walking around the counter, she closed the distance between them and strode to where he stood, gesturing him to sit down on the small chair next to a wooden table in the middle of the shop. At this point the two guards had turned towards the varieties of flowers decorating her small shop. Even though she would never boast about it, Delphine was confident that her shop was effortlessly pretty with the amount of flowers and plants lining the edges and decorating the walls.



Delphine moved to the man’s right side when she sat down, carefully placing her hands on his cheeks and lifting up his head so that she could closely inspect his right eye. “What’s your name?” she asked after realizing that she was going to treat this person without even getting his name first. But there was this sophisticated scent around him which reminded Delphine of her own home that she hated and wanted to stay away from. Yet she noticed that despite his scowl, he was actually a very good looking individual and if it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t stand aristocrats like him and her family, she probably would have actually admitted it to herself.



When the blue of her eyes met with shades of violet, she almost felt a harsh chill running up her back. Through her line of work, she had met and interacted with different people and a good sum of them had been handsome men. But none of those individuals had violet eyes that reflected such coldness and sharpness, looking stunning all at the same time. For a moment, she earnestly wondered what had made him turn so numb towards the world though before she could go any further with her thoughts, Delphine caught herself and quickly busied herself with the actual inspection of his eye.



Visually, they appeared fine with no outside damage which could only mean that the problem must be from the optical nerves. She pressed around the outer edge of his eyes trying to see if the pressure triggers the pain. “Tell me if it hurts somewhere when I press down,” she told him and ran one finger around the violet orb, pressing down on some spots that she knew where the pain was most likely to be from. “And tell me, how good is your sight after this pain began? It seems to have been going on for a while now, correct?” she asked between her inspections. If the pain was starting to affect his sight, then she would have to hurry with her cure before things took a turn for the worst.

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The explanation was better than what she could have hoped for, Delphine thought with a smile and quickly let go his face to move back to where she had first placed her small writing pad. For a few minutes, the quill in her hand moved busily across the pale yellow paper, leaving a black trail of identifiable strokes of letters which formed into words and then a complete report regarding her current patient’s conditions. It appeared to her that while her patient was not completely irreparable at that moment, he was fast approaching that adverse point without delay. Thus, it was now up to her to find him an immediate relief to remove him from this more than grim future.



Her thoughts traveled back towards her book of knowledge seeking out for any trace of cure or remedy for Frederik’s situation and while the answer came to her in great detail, she was left unsatisfied by the fact that she had all but one ingredient to his cure and that a was a small while flower only obtainable at the highest part of the mountain east to Braedon and much closer to the kingdom of Wolfsheim. She had been advised to stay away from those parts by others so heavily that she was forced to give up the idea of ever going up there. It was still very apparent that her people, humans as was called, had seldom adjusted to the idea that Hybrids were not creatures lacking intelligence or good sense.



“Well, Sir, you must have me hurry because you are going to permanently lose your sight if we didn’t get the cure within a month or two. Fortunately, I know just how to cure you and have everything organized in my head but sadly, I am short of one very crucial ingredient for this medicine. I’m not sure if you are aware but there is a plant with white leaves at the very top of the mountain lingering on Wolfsheim borders called Moondew. It’s important that we get it and it only blooms at night which is the time we must get it…”she trailed off, fixing her gaze at the violet haired noble watching as the information would sink into him.



“And after getting the flower, I will need another week to complete the cure. For that week, I will advice you against any stressful reading and other activity including your eyes and at night, always cool your eyes with a special herb that I can give you now,” she concluded, waiting for the man of power to make his own decisions about it.

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Delphine’s eyes visibly narrowed at his words, resentment shining deeply within them. How could he?! Well, while it wasn’t a surprise to her that he hated them like most of her species did, the kind of disgust he had in his eyes just couldn’t be ignored by the ever observant girl which led her to questioning, once again, why people found it so hard to accept the hybrids. If one would just stop and think and then compare humans with the hybrids, they would see that they were no different than them. They lived every bit like normal humans did. Most of them had family and like how some humans went astray, some of their kind did as well and took to professions such as thievery and so on. So what if they looked different? Some of those “monsters”, in Delphine’s eyes, were actually cute. Besides, every single one of those species she had met till then was always kind to her. This would adequately explain why Delphine just kept her glare on the man before her until he talked again.

‘At least he has sense enough to put his condition first,’ Delphine thought when he asked her how quickly she could get ready for an expedition, which meant that he was considering the option of climbing that mountain with her, which was just great for her because a lot of plants that couldn’t grow in villages grew there besides the moondew. For the first time in the company of the violet haired aristocrat, Delphine felt a real smile creep up her lips.

“Lucky for you, my store is empty today. Just give me a few seconds,” she shouted excitedly at him and disappeared into the very room she first emerged from. There was a small brown satchel already set on a chair with everything she needed for any sort of situation. After all, an herbalist like her was always a few steps ahead. And now all she had to do was change into something more comfortable for mountain climbing instead of the long plain dress she wore. In its place, she took out a long white shirt and a pair of black trousers and with speed that could surprise any upper class women, she threw herself outside the door with her hair gathered into a high ponytail, completely ready for whatever.

“Ready,” she announced once she was in the presence of the noble again. “We better hurry before it gets dark”.

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