(I do not own Ni No Kuni or its amazing characters. Hope you enjoy this little story :D )

"Ah…ah…AH-CHOO!"

"Gesundheit, Ollie-boy! Knickers, that was a proper massive one!"

Oliver, a young 13-year old wizard, wiped his nose with the back of his white clad sleeve. This was not the first sneeze of the day; he had been sneezing for the past half hour, along with a cough here and there. Oliver and his friends had retrieved the final stone for the sacred wand, Mornstar, to defeat Shadar. This final stone was guarded by a ghostly skeleton pirate and his crew, and the battle took place on cold, stormy waters. After two hours of fighting, they finally retrieved the mystical stone, but at the price of not only bruises, a few cuts, and even having a certain ex-thief's gun damaged, but also at the cost of being completely soaked to the skin with a mixture of rain and sea water. Not an entirely pleasant experience.

Once the battle was won, the crew of the Sea Cow steered towards dry land, allowing their clothes a chance to dry as the waters calmed and the rain stopped. Immediately after they reached sweet, dry land, Oliver sounded the dragon horn, calling for their dragon friend, Tengri.

"Ah…Ah-choo!" The young wizard released a sneeze as he and the others began to climb onto their purple scaled mode of transportation. "Bless ya', Ollie-boy. You all tidy?" Mr. Drippy asked with a curious look in his eyes. Oliver crawled onto Tengri's back with a sniff. "It's okay, Mr. Drippy, I'm fine. It was just a sne-ah-ah-achoo!" Oliver turned away, covering his mouth with his arm.

"Just a sneeze, he says…"Swaine remarked with a smirk, but then raised an eyebrow when the sound of Oliver's coughing reached his ears. "I'm fine, really," the young boy sat at the front, at the dragon's green collar. "C'mon, Tengri, let's go!" Tengri glanced at his master with a worried glance before letting out a "Kyah!" and taking off to the skies.

The skies, where the air was cooler and the wind carried a chilly air around the party of five as they flew through whispy clouds of white. And this coldness hit Oliver the hardest, being in the front. AND was still sneezing and coughing.

"Ah-choo! Ah-ahchoo!"

"Gesundheit, Ollie-boy! You sure you're flippin' alright?"

"Sniff…Yeah, I'm fine." Oliver then coughed a few times, earning concerned looks from the fairy and Esther. They were on their way from Skull Mountain to Hamelin to unite the three oversized stones with the tiny holes of their wand, Mornstar. After some discussion of the problem on their hands with Prince Marcassin and then from a deceased spirit, it was decided that the group should journey to the North of Autumnia to find the Great Sage Khulan.

But, Esther insisted, not before they rest for a while. "You've been sneezing and coughing this whole time Oliver!"

"Yeah, and all that coughing of yours doesn't sound all that tidy to me, mun." Drippy's lamp shook side to side as he voiced his opinion.

"Yeah," even Swaine got in as he stared at his jacket pocket that housed his now damaged pistol, "and my gun's busted up pretty bad. I'm gonna need at least an hour to fix it." His body cocked to the side with a smirk, "And tinkering with my gun while flying on the back of Tengri doesn't sound like the best idea in the world."

Oliver didn't seem to hear them as he walked mechanically up the street ahead of them until he suddenly slowed and coughed again. "Oliver?" Esther jogged up to where he was, seeing his eyes were closed, and his knees slowly gave away to the yellowed brick road beneath him. "Oliver!" the blonde caught him just in time to save his head from reaching the hard, merciless ground.

"Oi! Ollie-boy! Ollie-boy! You okay?" Drippy bounced up and down feverishly and his lantern swayed violently. Swaine came around and felt the wizard's forehead. "You do seem to have a bit of a temperature…"

Esther carefully draped the small boy's arm over her shoulders. "We have to get him to a doctor. He's in no condition to go searching for Khulan!"

The doctor carefully removed the thermometer from Oliver's mouth, inspecting it. His bushy mustache released a thoughtful "Hmmm…," as he read the device. Esther, Drippy, and even Marcassin gathered around the bed with worry while Swaine tinkered quietly with his gun at a table on the opposite side of the room.

"Oi, doc, is Ollie-boy gonna be okay?" The doctor glanced at the bobbing fairy. "He's caught a small cold, nothing too serious, but being all wet and worn out from other day, as you described to me, made it more intense. Must have caught it while traveling," The mustached doctor then stared to dig through his bag of medical tools on the floor. "He needs plenty of rest and some medicine…if…I can find it…Oh dear." Esther was alarmed at this, "What is it?" The doctor's mustache was now in a frown. "I'm out of the cold medicine…and I can't make any more!"

Everybody looked disappointed, except for the young Prince.

"Wait…you make your own medicine?"

"Yes, my wife and I have been hand-making herbal medicines for the past forty years."

"So," the prince's eyes suddenly had a gleam in them, "you know the ingredients for the medicine, correct?"

The doctor nodded, "Yes, I've been doing it for so long I have almost every recipe memorized…"

Suddenly Drippy caught on. "Ooh, I see what you're flippin' on about now! You're a proper genius! Tidy!" The fairy then ran and dove head-first into the bottomless bag and began searching for something, pulling out other things like clothes and weapons in the process. He then popped out with a large purple and gold pot with Oliver's swimming trunks flopped on the lid.

"Oi, I bet ol' Al will help us!" The timid doctor was confused, but was even more baffled when the cauldron began to shake as lilac smoke leaked out in puffs out of the pot. With a poof, a burly red-skinned genie popped out of the container, his face covered in his master's swim suit.

"Hmm?" He tossed it aside before continuing, "I heard everything, my friends! My master is ill and is in need of my alchemy skills, no?"

Esther jumped with joy. "Of course! As long as we have the ingredients, we can make the medicine right here!"

While the doctor was still flabbergasted by this genie's entrance, Marcassin curiously approached the purple turbaned friend, "So you're Oliver's genie?"

"That's correct, my long haired friend. And you are a friend of my master, no?" "Correct, my name is Prince Marcassin, ruler of Hamelin, a friend of the young wizard Oliver."

The genie nodded, almost impressed with this young man's politeness, "I see. I am Al-Khemi, Genie of the Cauldron, but many call me Al. However," a glint had appeared in his eye, "you're right to call me by my nickname will be judged…In battle!"

He then pulled out a shield and…an old mop. "Huh? Not again!"

Esther waved her arms in front of Al. "No, no, Al, that won't be necessary, really! We really need your help now! Remember Oliver?" She gestured towards Oliver, still asleep in the bed.

The genie snapped out of his battle trance and hastily stuffed his weapons back into his cauldron. "Hmm, yes, so what do we need?" The timid doctor was still in a little shock and his mouth was open in awe. Swaine glanced over to the doctor, "Don't worry, he's always like that. Just be glad he didn't pull out his sword," and continued to examine his gun.

Esther noticed this and marched up to him, "How can you worry over your gun at a time like this? Our friend is sick and all you're doing is messing with your pistol!"

As the two argued, the prince attempted to calm the doctor and ask for the ingredients. "Well," the doctor began, twitching his mustache to the side, "I've always made cold medicine with two fogdrops…a bunch of booster shoots, and two old oak leaves…oh, and this isn't an ingredient, but it'd be a good idea to prepare some spring water for the young boy to drink."

"I'm on it, doc!" Drippy dove once again into the bag in search for the ingredients. After several minutes of digging, he emerged with a concerned frown.

"Oi, all I found was the two old oak leaves. We're short on the rest of the ingredients!" Everybody stared disbelievingly at the tiny fairy as he held two green leaves. Even Swaine paused his tinkering and looked over his shoulder.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to go fetch them, eh?" his voice cut though the silence.

Esther suddenly forgot about their argument and paced to the other side of the room in thought. "Um, I think fogdrops grow on Jack Frost's Playground, one of the southern Winter Isles...and we can get the water and shoots from the Rolling Hills…"

"But those places are pretty far from Hamelin…and it'd take quite a few weeks by boat," The doctor gazed down at his shoes.

"But we have Tengri!"Esthers optimistic voice called out, "If we don't dawdle, we could get them all in no time!"

"O' course! Travel with Tengri is way flippin' faster than by sea! Now that's tidy!" Drippy bounced around with glee.

"Well, I'M not going to get them," Swaine turned back around to his pistol, "My gun still needs some fixing and like I said before, there's no way I'm tinkering with my pistol while on the back of a dragon."

This earned him a disapproving glare from Esther. "Well, then I guess I'll do it!"

"Hold on a minute, lass," Drippy's lamp swung towards Esther, "Ollie-boy here's sick and he's gonna need some help until we get that medicine, and I'm thinkin' your healing hymn can help keep his crikey cold down 'til then."

"Well, then it's settled then," Prince Marcassin stood in front of the door, "I'll go and get the ingredients. You three stay here and watch over Oliver."

"Oi, you sure mun? You know where all those places are and all?"

Marcassin nodded to the tiny fairy, "Yes. I am a sage, and I've done a little alchemy myself, and I'm familiar with the ingredients as well. My only concern," he scratched his head for a moment, "is how to fly on the dragon. I've never even seen one up close, let alone ridden one."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that!" Esther began to dig through the bag for the dragon horn, "Tengri's a very friendly dragon and riding him is no problem! You'll just need this horn to call him." She held up the long horn to the prince and he accepted the instrument.

"Very well, I shall leave at once. I'll be back as soon as I can!" He then left for the quest of cold medicine ingredients.

"So," The doctor glanced at Esther, "how long do you think he'll be gone?"

"Um, a couple of hours, maybe. Will Oliver be okay in the meantime?"

"Well, as long as he rests I think he'll be fine," he began to pack up his tools and stood up. "If anything happens to him or there are any changes in his condition, just holler." The elderly doctor made his leave with a gentle click of the door.

A brief silence held up after that click, and was then ended by Drippy's voice. "Well, that was all tidy, eh? I guess we wait now, hm?" he cocked his long nose to the side for a moment before continuing, "Oi! Esther, we should stock up on provisions while we're here. After all, we burnt through them while we were with ol' bone-face. That sound tidy to you?"

"Yeah, you're right. I'll go and swing by Hootenanny right now! I'll be right back!" The young girl jogged out immediately and left just the fairy, genie, and pickpocket in the room, along with a sleeping Oliver.

"So what about you, mun?"

Swaine raised an eyebrow towards the fairy, "Hm? What do ya' mean?"

"I mean are you just gonna stay there tinkerin' with that flippin' gun of yours?" Drippy jumped upon the table to get a better look at the injured gun. It was a bit bent at the barrel and the rest of it was taken apart in a small pile of machinery and seaweed, as though it just barely survived a hurricane. Swaine was attempting to clean and repair his beloved contraption as Drippy's lamp inched closer to what remained of the gun.

"This would be a lot easier with you OUT of the way."

"Humph! Crikey, for flippin' heck, I was just lookin'!" The fairy jumped off the table, out of the man's way. He then hopped to the side table next to Oliver's bed. "Blimey, I hope Marcassin hurries up with those things…Ollie-boy doesn't look too good."

The proud genie crossed his arms in front of his chest, "Well, the best we can do for now is to let the master rest. I shall be in my cauldron if you need my magic!" And with that, he disappeared back into the purple container in a puff of lilac smoke. The air was then still with the sounds of Swaine's attempts to repair his gun and the soft hum of a generator just outside of the clinic.