“Hey, we’re here to help,” Ryne said as he brought Misha into the medical clinic.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to be excited over seeing Miranda again for the first time in so long. Together with the now undisguised Miranda were two others sharing similar hair and eye color, and all three of them were hard at work making medicine.
Miranda didn’t even lift her eyes from her task at Ryne’s carefree greeting, simply pointing to the corner of the room. “There is some prepared medicine there. Give it out, starting from the second room—Nel’s instructions. He said no one in the first room will respond to the medicine.”
Misha tensed up. In order to better take care of them, the patients had been divided up into rooms based on how far their symptoms had progressed. The people suffering the most were in room one, then people suffering less were in room two, and so on. So, if patients from the second room and onward were the only ones to receive medicine...
“Got it. They can just drink it, right?” As Misha stood frozen, Ryne got to work retrieving the pot that Miranda had indicated.
“Yes. One cup each. Make sure they drink it all—”
“Um! What about the first room...?” Misha interrupted, determined not to give up despite feeling very much like she was being left behind.
Surprised by Misha of all people interrupting her, Miranda finally stopped what she was doing and looked up. When she saw how Misha’s face had gone pale, she frowned. After a short pause and a shake of her head, she explained, “Unfortunately, we don’t have much medicine. We can’t afford to give it to people who won’t benefit from it.”
“But it might help!” Misha cried.
“It might, but it’s much more likely it won’t. We have to prioritize those we know we can save. We can’t choose who we treat based on nothing but feelings,” Miranda spoke to her gently, as if she were talking to an infant. She stared Misha directly in the eye. “It will take at least a few days before the next batch of medicine arrives. In all that time, the symptoms will keep progressing. Do you understand now?”
Unable to offer any argument, Misha fell silent. As Miranda gave her a gentle push on the back, urging her to start walking, tears started down the girl’s face.
Miranda was right. Misha knew that, but her heart refused to accept it. In the back of her head, she couldn’t help but picture the troubled smile of a particular old woman back when Misha had given her some medicine for what she thought at the time was just a cold. The very first victim of the Red Eye plague that had come to this infirmary, Yuu and Anna’s grandmother, was in that first room. She had been unconscious the entire time. Doctors had barely been able to give her water; it was miraculous that she was still hanging on at all.
After stumbling into the hallway, Misha came to a stop, dropping to the floor. Burying her face in her knees, she curled up into a little ball. Ryne, who had been waiting in the hallway for her, watched her with a small sigh. It was as if the little apothecary were afraid she would be attacked. The world saw them as omnipotent miracle workers, but the People of the Forest were no gods. No matter how hard they tried, there were always lives that would slip through their fingers. Ryne had seen plenty of his friends crushed by that reality, giving up and consigning themselves to “research” back in the village.
Come on, Miranda. You know I’m the wrong guy for this, he thought.
Ryne had no idea what to say to encourage someone who had been so thoroughly broken. He never spent time with other people. He hardly visited his own home; he was a wanderer, traveling from one nation to the next.
After scratching at his hair in frustration, he stood in front of her. “If it’s too tough for you here, go back to the castle. The princess already got her medicine, so you can observe how her recovery is going.”
She trembled at Ryne’s blunt dismissal. His offer was endlessly tempting. If she returned to look after Lalaya, she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the other victims. She figured there were plenty of real People of the Forest here now. No one would try to drag Misha back out into this war zone at her age. And if she stayed in the castle, maybe she’d be spared these feelings of powerlessness in the face of the plague.
But deep inside her, something whispered softly. Something told her that if she left now, she would never truly be an apothecary. She would never come close to the reliable, beloved person her mother had been. That was why, although her eyes stayed glued to the floor, she still weakly shook her head.
Ryne heaved a sigh. “Okay, then. I’m going on ahead. Come along once you’re somewhere near presentable. Got it? If you’re going to stress the patients out, I’ll kick you out in a heartbeat.”
Giving her a final pat on the head, Ryne briskly made his way toward the second room. For someone who was as ignorant and indifferent to the subtleties of the human heart as Ryne was, that was the best comfort he could offer.
Now alone in the silent hallway, Misha sat huddled helplessly down on the floor. Having been faced with her own inadequacy so many times already that day, Ryne’s words repeated over and over in her head.
“I don’t care if it’s a bluff. When you’re in front of a patient, you stick your chest out with pride. They’re already suffering from their illness. If the patient sees you being uneasy, they’ll get scared.”
Suddenly, the words her mother always repeated to her when she was young echoed alongside Ryne’s.
They said it differently, but I guess they were trying to tell me the same thing.