He looks calm and quiet on the outside, but maybe he’s actually pretty similar to Grandpa Nel. Or maybe all People of the Forest are like this? Misha thought, remembering how Ryne had left to wander the world so he could perfect his surgical skills. Either way, having a passionate researcher will be good for the kingdom. Mr. Toma looks happy too, so I guess it’s a win-win, she told herself as she watched Toma giddily start reorganizing the room that had been given to him.
He had been given a place connected to the royal herb garden so that he would have easier access to herbs for his research. There was no doubt Toma would teach others working there how to effectively cultivate herbs, as he would be sourcing them from the garden himself, so she could rest easy with regards to the garden’s future.
On top of that, Kent had made a contract with the kingdom to regularly import medicine. That included the medicine for the Red Eye plague, but it expanded far beyond that, hoping to ameliorate the capital’s issues with getting access to medicinal herbs. Misha had been stunned to hear from Ryne that Kent had made the deal himself, not backing down an inch while negotiating with Redford’s officials. It had apparently been quite the sight. That young boy had grown into a full-fledged merchant before she realized it.
The people of the capital were freed from the terror of their own impending deaths, and they slowly moved past mourning and back into the rhythm of daily life. Remembering her last meeting with Yuu, Teto, and Anna, who luckily had recovered without any permanent damage, a bitter smile rose to her face.
“Thanks for saving me!” Anna bowed her head in thanks, back to her usual energetic self. Yuu and Teto were right there with her, hand in hand, but they were clearly a little nervous.
Anna was the only one of the three children to have gotten sick, which had been traced back to their grandmother, Mary. Raw karas liver had been prized by the people of the capital for generations as an invigorating agent. When Mary had first grown sick, her husband had acquired some for her, as was tradition. But fearing for Anna, the youngest and weakest of their family, Mary had secretly shared half of it with her. Her grandmother had told her it would be their little secret, so Anna had dutifully kept her mouth shut. And so, without the family knowing, they had shared raw karas liver many times. Being that she was so young, the parasite had no difficulty flourishing inside her.
All because of one grandmother’s love for her granddaughter.
Their grandfather, after learning his attempts to help his wife had instead doomed her, had been crushed. Even if unwittingly, his attempts at saving the woman he loved were the very actions that had taken her life. It was horribly ironic. It was a common reaction among the families of those left behind.
We really should do more for people’s mental health, right?
No matter how healthy a person was, a wounded heart could lead to someone taking their own life. Many people had family and friends to support them during those difficult times, but for those who didn’t, an entirely new problem emerged. Many people appeared fine on the outside, but even after a great deal of time had passed, those memories could resurface to torment them all over again.
Misha was painfully aware of what that was like. Her own experience led to her heavily emphasizing the importance of caring for the hearts and minds of people. People had a tendency to take such invisible wounds lightly, but they could very easily fester and worsen before you knew it.
The way Yuu and Teto looked at her with awkward smiles brought those issues to the forefront of Misha’s mind. As young as they were, it was hard for them to understand what was going on in their own hearts. Why weren’t they able to talk with Misha as freely and openly as they once had? Their grandmother’s death hadn’t been Misha’s fault. The two boys understood that well enough even without anyone telling them. But deep inside, they were wrestling with anger over a simple fact: Misha was supposed to be an apothecary, but she hadn’t saved their grandmother.
Any outsider would point that out as unreasonable, and the two boys would never blame Misha for what had happened. But logic and emotions were two very different beasts. Their beloved grandmother had died. Their precious younger sister had been saved. Two people so important to them had met such vastly different fates. That reality tore them apart from the inside, and those chaotic emotions demanded an outlet.
They should have just gotten angry at me, Misha thought idly as she held her long hair down as the wind tried to pull it away from her.
But the two young boys had been brought up better than that. They couldn’t saddle Misha with that anger when they knew full well it wasn’t her fault. As a result, their intense emotions had nowhere to go, leaving them with no recourse but to smile awkwardly when they saw her. One might argue that was something resembling maturity, but...
“Oh, here you are.”
Misha was pulled from her erratically jumping train of thought by a voice calling to her from behind. She turned to find a familiar face approaching.
“Hello, Your Majesty.”
“Oh, there’s a nice breeze up here.” Ryan slowly stepped up beside her, grinning at the feel of the wind. Misha watched him for a time before smiling, turning forward again without a word.
Misha had been beyond busy for the past month, but her workload probably paled in comparison to his. Unlike Misha, who could focus all of her efforts on dealing with the aftermath of the Red Eye plague, Ryan had to handle all of that while still managing the everyday political affairs of the kingdom. In reality, even if it had happened in the capital, the fact that it was a disease localized to one city and it now had a cure meant it was a pretty minor incident in the grand scheme of things.
Even so, Misha couldn’t say anything after seeing the heavy dark circles still lingering under his eyes. She really wanted to say that if he had time to lounge around up here, he should have found something nutritious to eat and taken a nap. But when she thought of why he had taken a break from all of his hard work to come see her here, her chest got all fuzzy inside. She had no way to express that feeling in words, so she held her silence, the two of them looking out over the city together.
Ryan eventually broke the silence, his voice uncharacteristically soft, barely overcoming the sound of the wind between them. “When are you leaving?”
“Early tomorrow morning. I’ll be saying goodbye to everyone later today.” But as close as they were standing, Misha could hear him clearly.