Chapter 34: The one where they go to the doctor's

Seeing as Malin drove the car, there were no nameable spacial displacemental mishaps. And so they luckily soon reached the doctor's office. Luck, instead of getting out, suddenly turned around in his seat after they had parked and squinted through his glasses, which instead of his contactlenses he wore today, at the clothes that Hylia's chosen hero wore. His frown showed that whatever he saw wasn't satisfying and when Malin turned around, she realized that they hadn't thought this through. When Sky carefully inquired why, she was the one to answer: "Your clothes are probable to stand out. Your natural lack of any medical history is bound to raise eyebrows, your clothes are only going to worsen that. We should have thought about that before coming here. Any ideas?"

The Link in the car looked down on himself at this: "But what I wear is pretty normal for the knights of Skyloft Academy?"

"Exactly" stated Luck, nodding in agreement. "But not for us here and now." Then an idea lightened up his complexion: "You've got layers under that tunic, right? Maybe one of them is neutral enough…"

Sky nodded in understanding before he dutifully started to strip out of his many layers, Malin looking away even though he was not going naked and Luck looking contemplative in thought until the last layer, a white shirt with blue ornaments. Only then he offered his thoughts out loud: "Okay first of: Dude, how have you not died of an heatstroke yet? Cause honestly…" Not now" Malin quickly cut her fiancé off, fingers nervously tapping a melody out on the steering wheel. Luck frowned but let the topic rest.

Instead he declared: "That won't do. If you had proper identification and stuff, probably, some folks just like more traditional and older stuff. But how you are now? Nope."

"But I've got nothing else currently? My bag kinda doesn't work anymore?" Sky offered helplessly unsure of what exactly Luck was aiming at. Malin gave the brunette a pitying look before shooting her fiancé a more direct look. He sighed before sheading his jacket and revealing a normal plain white sweatshirt underneath. Slipping it off, he was left with a simple light blue T-Shirt over which he pulled the jacket again before he handed the Chosen Hero a soft, white sweatshirt: "Here, put this on. It might be a bit long on the sleeves but that's better than standing out with your current overall."

Soon after they entered the doctor's office and Malin quickly got the forms they'd need to fill to get Sky looked at seeing as he didn't have a health insurance. After assuring the man working at the desk trice over that yes, they would pay, they had the money thanks to their rich friend who wanted the strange boy without proper possibility of proof of identity to be looked at. And once they had taken place in the waiting room, they directly ran into the next problem while filling in the formular already in the first line.

"Name?" Malin murmured the question. "Link, obviously" gave Luck back, sitting next to her, Sky seated on his other side and looking in fascination at the colorful magazines.

Seeing as the two of them had a little doubt that Sky would be able to deal with modern day bureaucracy, especially as Sky somehow still couldn't read the written letters of modern day English though he could understand it just fine, had taken on filling the papers themselves.

"No, last name" Malin shot back at that. Luck blinked in confusion at that question before quickly turning to Sky to ask in a hushed tone: "Do you have a last name?"

"Not that I know of" Sky replied to that. "Why would we need one? Skyloft is a small community. Everyone knows everyone."

"Very helpful" muttered Luck sarcastically before turning to Malin. "Just write Sky."

"Done" she said, scribbling "Link Sky" down. Seeing as Luck's writing hand was almost illegible to the average human being Malin had been chosen to fill in the forms. Which now brought them due to ill-chosen seating arrangement to the whispered conversation where Luck had to relate to everyone what was said in order to not draw the attention of the blonde middle-aged woman also seated in the room.

"Date of birth?" Malin asked, Luck quickly relating the question. "The middle of the third week after pumpkin season in the…" Sky dutifully replied before Luck cut him off: "Just make it 18thof November."

"Which year?"

"He looks about nineteen, just date it back."

And on the questions went.

"Allergies?" "None that he knows of."

And on and on.

"Vaccines?" "Does he even know what vaccines are?" "What are they?"

"They're evil and destroy children's health!" burst the blonde stranger that consequently had come closer and closer in curiosity without their notice to hear what their admittingly strange display had been about.

All three others in the room immediately startled and Sky's hand even instinctively reached for his currently non-present sword, which they had understandably left in the car with his clothes. When he saw that there was no immediate danger, he quickly overplayed his reflex with a sheepish neck rub before lowering his hand again.

Malin was glaring at the woman, Luck was scowling, and Sky simply blinked at her confused: "Would you mind repeating that?"

"Of course" the woman said, giving a bright smile. "I'm so glad to finally have found someone I can save before the bad befalls them. Vaccines are evil. They give the people injected sicknesses on purpose. They cause gene defects and…" she ranted on, uncaring how half she said went right over the poor actually Hylian's head. Luckily in that moment one of the assistants entered the waiting room, calling out: "Karen Miller!"

"Oh, that's me, I have to go. But I'm so happy to have finally found someone whose parents were bright enough to protect them from the evils that are vaccines. They saved you from all the bad stuff like Asthma and other horrible sicknesses…" and with that the woman finally left the room.

Searching for help and a better explanation, Sky turned in confusion to his companions: "But hadn't you said we were coming here to test me for Asthma? Which I might have even though I wasn't hit with this vaccines?"

Malin sighed and gave Luck a slight glare as he nudged her to give a good explanation: "God, no. What she just said is absolute trash, so better forget it all."

"What are vaccines then?" Sky then asked, head slightly cocked sideways in one of the most adorable looks of confusion, which oddly was very reminiscent of that of a chick. Malin did her best to not coo at that sight, before quickly delving into her best biology knowledge she still possessed from High School.

At the near end they were interrupted by the assistant again who called them into the doctor's room, but at least it seemed that Malin's quick explanation had cleared up the worst misunderstandings and gave Sky enough fodder to think about for the next few hours.

When they came into the room, after a quick greeting, Malin quickly handed the filled forms to the doctor, who accepted them with a kind nod. Then the elderly man asked: "Well then, nice to meet you, Mr. Sky. I'm Dr. Carita. What can I do for you today?"

"We think our friend might have asthma" Luck explained and the white-haired man nodded in acknowledgement.

"Can you tell me why you think so? Maybe describe some symptoms?" Dr. Carita inquired.

"He came from a much landlier region into our city yesterday, doctor" Malin quickly explained. "He couldn't really breathe, was really out of it and was wheezing and gasping for air."

"This morning it was slightly better but he was still coughing quite a concerning lot" Luck added. The doctor nodded in understanding before turning to Sky: "Could you elaborate a little more?"

"I've always been a bit faster out of breath than others but that's not too much of a trouble usually and I don't really remember most of yesterday after arriving. But this morning I awoke coughing a lot, I couldn't breathe at all, it was horrible but luckily after a few minutes gone. But there's still this new feeling of tightness in my chest, like while I breathe and breathe there's something sitting on my chest, hindering me. And of course the usual shortness and sometimes a little bit of wheezing" Sky ended the listing.

The doctor gave a sound of acknowledgement before stating: "Mind lifting your shirt so I may check something?"

"Uh…sure?" the hero answered at that before hesitatingly lifting the borrowed sweater, thus giving the white clad man access to his chest and back area. Sky gave a small hiss of surprise when he felt the cool metal of the doctor's stethoscope hit the exposed skin.

"Surprised?" the man joked kindly. "Yeah," his patient admitted freely.

"Never done this before?" Dr. Carita questioned, sounding now a bit worried. "Well, our local healer wasn't to big on using metal things, he tended to use more traditional ways to figure out our health" Sky replied carelessly.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Malin give him a look that screamed "Are you serious?!" and Luck's hand twitch, which he didn't know that the young man would have liked to use as a facepalm. Because while he couldn't see the doctor's face at that moment, they could and the old man's face screamed in bold letters a confused: "How are you still alive?"

By the time Sky got a look at the old man's face again, the male had composed himself enough to not let his patient know of his inner troubles and instead stated calmly: "I'd like to perform a spirometry test with you, Mr. Sky, if that would be alright. Spirometry is a type of pulmonary function test (PFT) used to diagnose lung conditions like asthma and COPD."

"Okay" Sky agreed relatively quick, especially after the encouraging nods of both Luck and Malin.

Twenty minutes later the test was done and the trio went to the counter to get Sky's prescription for his medication for his treatment. Which was were they sadly ran once more into the blonde woman, who was talking very animatedly with the poor male seated there, who looked ready to murder at that point.

"…this is atrocious, this is inacceptable, I'll see you fired for this!" she hissed and Sky, ever the peacemaker, quickly stepped closer to intervene before an accident happened: "What is the problem, Madam?"

"He's not writing me a recipe for antibiotics, though I need them!" she jeered as an answer, pointing accusing at the man, whose smile couldn't be any more forced and look like a predator's.

"The doctor has examined you, Mrs. Miller, and you only have a simple cold. You don't need antibiotics and thus won't get them prescribed" the man gritted out, patience run thin, a vein on his temples pulsating.

"But I need them!" she shot back, missing the point. Searching for someone to support her cause she turned to Sky: "Bright young man, please tell this incompetent fool to give me the medication I need to survive!"

Sky narrowed his eyes, understanding settling in. In the 15 minutes between the two phases of the spirometry test he had apparently had a lot of time to think about what he had learned in the waiting room.

"Mister" he said, turning to the now defeated looking male. "I'd like to be vaccinated. Best would be with every single one possible right now, so I am safe from ending up like this woman."

The man visibly brightened at that, Malin laughed delighted and Luck cackeled while the woman gave an indignant screech of anger before storming off, seething.

But that was okay. Sky never liked bullies much anyway.

Another ten minutes later Sky sat in the back of the car once more, wincing every time he moved his left arm. Luck was still cackling under his breath while Malin was widely grinning. "You know" she stated, starting the car. "We're gonna stop at my favorite coffee shop and get us some treats. After this you deserve some."

And wasn't this outlook for the future irresistible sweet?