Originally written:
05.03.06
Revised:
06.17.2012
Reviews/comments/feedback are always loved and adored!
Slow heart dark wait down love black canvas
Revolve within, you understand
Fragile earth where cracks in the temperature
Keep it cool to give, you understand
- Imogen Heap - Canvas
"Interesting," said the doctor, pulling the disk away from his rib-cage and taking the other two ends of the Y shaped contraption out of her ears. Over the course of the last ten minutes or so, Raistlin felt that he had been quite thoroughly violated. The disk had been on his chest, over his heart, against his ribs, and in much the same places but in reverse against his back. For that, he'd had to shrug out of his robes entirely, finding himself yet again bare to the waist outside of the privacy of his own borrowed bedchamber.
This was not something that he was used to. Let alone while obeying orders on how to breathe, of all things, which he'd followed as best as he could mostly out of pure curiosity. It really would be the death of him, someday.
"Interesting?" Raistlin prompted, when she didn't seem inclined to continue. He pulled the heavy velvet back on and closed when she went to put her contraption away.
"Quite," she answered as he tied the robes in place with deft, practiced movements. The doctor turned back to him and folded her arms. "Tell me, can you even count the number of times you have had pneumonia?"
"...No," the mage admitted. He had always been so sickly, even before the Test, that a count of the times his lungs had filled with fluid would be fairly impossible.
"I wonder how much actual lung is left in you?" Megan said as though speaking to the air, "From the sounds of it, were I to cut you open I would find very little useable tissue in their place, and quite a lot of scar tissue instead. What is actually still functioning at all is probably discolored as well, and I hate to think of what havoc the lack of proper amount of air is doing to the rest of your organs," she turned away long enough to pull a sheet over the cadaver, before turning back to him again. "Now, I am to understand that there is a tea you drink to help with the pain," at his nod, she demanded, "Right then, let me see it."
Reminding himself that the doctor was one of very few links he would find to Akara's apparently mage-centered history, Raistlin produced the pouch from an inner pocket in his robes, and handed it over. The doctor didn't open it as he expected; instead, she simply set it down on yet another convenient table.
"And what is in this?" she asked. He listed off the ingredients from memory, and if he had hoped she would be impressed by the mixture, then he was in for disappointment. The doctor shook her head after he'd finished, and eyed the pouch as though she'd very much like to dispose of it. "Who gave you such a recipe?"
"Par-Salian, the head of the Conclave," Raistlin replied, wondering where exactly the caustic woman was taking this thread of questioning. She seemed difficult for him to predict, as though she hardly even thought along the same lines as most people. And did she ever not wear gloves? He seemed to remember a pair even when she had appeared at Akara's door.
"Ah, another mage, " the nearly-monotone voice fairly dripped with disdain, "that does explain a few things, then."
"Excuse me?" Raistlin drew himself up in the chair, "I hardly see a problem with-"
"Mages are not doctors, mister Majere, " Megan Jones interrupted him sharply, "Some of you may dabble in battlefield medicines, for obvious reasons. You might know one herb from another, and even how to treat various sicknesses - but you are, regardless, not dedicated professionals."
She opened a drawer in the table the pouch sat on, and snatched up a glass vial. This, she handed to the angry archmage, who took it automatically along with his pouch of ground up herbs.
"The tea they gave you helps the pain, Majere. And that is all well and good, but it does nothing to stop further damage," her tone, still cold and flat, managed to push the logic of what she was saying straight past his indignant anger. Raistlin found said anger to be fading as fast as it had come to him, and he listened as she continued. It sounded like the Conclave to give him something that would only ease the pain of his deterioration, and only out of initial pity at that...
"There is nothing I could give you to repair what damage is already there," Jones seemed entirely unconcerned at how close she had come to being fried. She wasn't even looking at him - instead, she was writing on a small piece of parchment, "However, two drops of that in each cup of your tea will help prevent what little lung you have left from abandoning you," the paper was held out to him, and again he took it automatically.
"The directions for making it," Raistlin said, looking the short bit of writing over, "You realize, then, that I may be leaving at any time?"
"Yes, and taking Akara with you, if I understand the way you two work," Megan stared at him for a moment, measuring, "An interesting pair, you make. The leader of the Mockers and the dark archmage of Krynn," his carefully-neutral expression must have still given away some of his puzzlement, because Jones continued, "I take it that she hasn't told you anything about her life in Krontis, before or after her exile from this house? That makes sense."
"I... have not really asked," Raistlin said, "Or rather, when I have, it has been about something specific, like her mother's funeral."
"And you have probably never told her a thing about your own history," Megan guessed out loud, shaking her head, "You two are not nearly as close as you act."
"My past is largely public knowledge," said the mage, offended. "I-"
"Ah, yes, the events of the war." the doctor interrupted him, casually, "muddled and romanticized, but public knowledge regardless. Funny," yellowish eyes bore into his head in the same manner he generally employed on others, "but you appear a bit older than someone who was born just before the 'War of the Lance'."
"I..." Raistlin blinked, "I see what you are getting at, yes."
"And for now, at least, you have access to her doctor, her guardian, and her childhood friend. Between the three of us, and the fact that you are staying in the very same house that she grew up in, I would say that the 'history' game is quite strongly tipped in your favor," she very deliberately folded her arms, leaning against the table with the cadaver.
"If you want any information out of me , mage, you had best start telling Akara things as well. I am not one for idly handing such things out. Not for free."
The archmage simply nodded. It gave him something to think about, at least.
