Tobias lifted him self up onto the wooden examination table, both Anya and the outsider busying themselves with their medical tools. It was as if they were intentionally avoiding his smiling stare, either out of pity that Tobias was about to die by their hands, or out of discomfort that the elderly man was so willing to die for their research.
"Nobody has survived much more than a few days after the marks appear." Those had been his words, spoken as he had held up his plague-stricken hands. The fingers had looked like they could snap off at any moment from the necrosis. Still, he had said that he was happy. This was, Anya knew, his way of going out with his boots on, figuratively speaking. Tobias would die in his own due course, and this pleased the old man. This was what he had always wanted...
Despite his cheery disposition, he could see the pity in the nurse's eyes and written all over her face. Not so much in the outsider's, but he'd expected none. Even Tobias could tell that the outsider was a man of science, and there to complete a goal.
This was something that Tobias admired in the man, even if Anya did not.
"Ten drops ought to do it, wouldn't you say?" he asked, lighthearted. Distracted by the morphine and duty, all she could say at the moment was, "For some." Tobias felt his heart swell with pride; she'd make a good doctor.
However, the nurse now took his decrepit and dying hands in her own. They were warm, and Tobias' smile never faltered. "We'll do this quickly--" Her voice faded out for a moment before she began apologizing for not being able to save him. "--maybe I will be able to save the others."
"I'm one of the lucky ones! Make sure you put my name in your research papers," he said, patting his hand against hers in comfort. Tears were in her eyes as she finally smiled and promised him the honor of the very first paragraph. "Do you mind if I tell another one of my war stories?"
"Why don't you tell me about your time with the fifth division marksmen?" she said, sticking the syringe of morphine into his vein. The outside and Anya looked on as Tobias laid back on the table as he spoke.
"Did I ever tell you about how we did training?" His eyes never left Anya's face. "You kids have it easy, these days. Back when I was a bowman, we trained hard! We shot, and we shot, for hours!" His lids grew heavier as the morphine pumped through his system. He didn't fight the chemicals as they leadened his limbs and numbed his senses. It didn't matter, and he kept talking. "When we got tired, we'd have to..." His breath was growing shallower by the instant. "... shoot some..." Almost gone.
".. more."
Tobias looked down at the bow in his hand and the grass at his feet. Off in the distance, he could hear the commander barking orders. There was to be no rest until training was complete that day. The feathers of his arrows were a comforting feeling as he nocked one. He gazed down the straight shaft of the arrow at his target, a circle carved into a tree. There was no trace of death in him, his fingers pink and strong with youth. The calluses on his two fingers on his right hand were a comforting feeling.
He loosed the arrow. It hit the tree with a solid thud, and he reached behind him for another.