3.1

While Emri had been walking around to check on the sick people with Faver, most everyone around seemed either resting or busy with their tasks, and rather than bother Faver, afforded him some space except for when he addressed someone directly. Still, she hadn’t felt as though he was keeping a close eye on her, but rather giving almost all his attention to those who were ill, and often not looking at the same ones at the same time as her.

So, Emri had ventured to use a little magic on some of the people that she and Faver visited. She was really quite concerned about the worst-off ones, and he seemed to be too. That wasn’t surprising in the least; in fact it would be far more surprising to her if he weren’t more concerned than she was, since he knew these people personally.

Faver had said that these who were the most ill had already been close to dying before they were given medicine. It seemed to her that it wasn’t enough, this late for them, but some were lingering longer than Faver had expected, and many who were not quite as badly off hadn’t worsened. He said he would have expected some of these to have died already, and the next-worst ones would have been at death’s door by now - but weren’t - and so Faver was confident that the medicine was helping.

Still, Emri found it frustrating that she couldn’t do more. In places where people had skill in healing magic, this would all be fairly easily cured. She wished her mentor could be there to help, but he couldn’t. She knew why he couldn’t be there - it was just an empty, idle wish. She really felt bad for all of these people, both those who were sick, and those who cared for them and were their relations.

In any case, Faver suggested that they ought to give the medicine to more people now, and Emri agreed. He’d wish to give some to all of them, but they didn’t have very much of it yet, so Faver instructed some of his helpers, designating specific people to take charge of giving doses of medicine to different sets of patients based on the severity of their illness. He had it all figured out in his head how he wanted it and which of his helpers he wanted doing what. Emri found it somewhat impressive, and didn’t concern herself over whether any other way of organizing things might be more efficient or done differently in other lands. She was there to help Faver, not attempt to take over management of anything.

When they had returned to the work tent and seen how much of the medicine Acker had mixed up while they’d been going round the sick tents, Faver was obviously pleased. Acker had also mixed up some more of the poultice, and Faver resolved to take him round to not only provide those he’d instructed with more of the medicinal drops, but to instruct others on applying the poultice. As many people would be finishing up their work for the day by now, Faver wished for as many people in the camp as possible to have the poultice applied to bites they’d received, with a priority on the most recent bites.

So as they left with what had been made so far, Emri took over what there was left to do. The stems and roots of the plants that had been set aside earlier when the leaves had been removed could still be useful, but not as effective. She set about cutting them into very small pieces so she could mash them into a pulp. While she did so, she added a little magic energy to them. These plants had a very low magic power to begin with, smaller than related varieties in other parts of the world, and likely would have had even less if they’d been found growing in some place more near the center of this quadrant of the world, instead of at the feet of the nearby mountains.

It seemed to her however, that especially in the roots there was a higher level of life energy than similar varieties in other parts of the world where there’d have been more magic (such as on the other side of the mountains) and Emri hoped that a little added magic would help release that life energy into the pulp to create a more effective medicine than it otherwise would.

The people in this part of the world, despite having little to no magic, seemed to have an unusually high amount of life energy. It would seem strange to her, except that she had already noted before that people in other lands with more magic, who were said to be descended from the same common ancestry as the people here, also had high levels of life energy. Those two kinds of energy, while transferable, were not easily converted from one form to the other, and could not be used for all the same things. Usually it was expected that no living thing would have high levels of the one without also having high levels of the other.

Perhaps, then, it was only because this quadrant of the world had so little magic in it, that the people here lacked it. Perhaps many other things in these lands also had higher life energy? It wasn’t something she was used to noticing as much as magic energy, however, and the severe lack of magic in this area was so glaring, so jarring to her that she wouldn’t ever be able to overlook it for even a moment. It meant that while here, she couldn’t easily replenish any magic she might use. That alone would ensure she would only ever use small amounts, even if she hadn’t promised to avoid using any. (and in particular, to not use it in front of people who didn’t know magic)

Especially with no one watching her now, if she didn’t need to be cautious about how much magic she used, she would have loved to use magic to more quickly and completely pulverize the bits of herb that she’d chopped and had been grinding up in the mortar. It was quite a pulpy mess by now, but she didn’t like how long it took to do, nor did she like how awkward she was with these simple, rudimentary tools. Doctors and apothecaries in other parts of the world she’d been to had varying levels of technical skill and more advanced tools. Sometimes, more complex and fancy but not actually more useful, but… some had tools that could do the same work faster, more efficiently, and with greater ease of use. However, even in those places where they had many advancements and greater surgical knowledge than these people, she had only seen two places where the people had greater knowledge of herbs, and interestingly enough, in neither place did people use complicated tools. Tools different than the ones here, but uncomplicated ones. People in those places did use magic for simple and routine tasks, though. Completely impractical in this part of the world.

Emri had been so absorbed in what she was doing and what she was thinking about, that she almost didn’t notice Remal get up from the other side of the tent and approach where she was working.

“Are you mixing something new now?” Remal asked. “It smells different from before.”

It was a little startling anyway, but with effort Emri maintained her composure – fairly well, she thought. She kept still for only a brief moment, then resumed her work. This next part involved squeezing juice out of the pulp she’d made, so it could be added to the next batch of medicinal drops to be made from the bulb of the other plant. The pulp could be mixed with parts of the other plant to make more of the poultice. Regardless, this wasn’t a plant of a sort where different parts would smell different from each other. Differing strength of scent, but not different scents.

“It shouldn’t smell any different to you.” Emri said curtly, wishing Remal were someplace else. Anywhere else. “It’s the same plant as before.” Why should he imagine it was any different? Was there something wrong with him? Also, why should he have woken up now? Surprisingly, once he had finally fallen asleep, he’d seemed to have been sleeping pretty deep. Although she, Faver, and Acker hadn’t been speaking while they were all there working, ever since Faver sent Nathley and Aron out earlier, they had gone in and out of the tent and generally kept busy the whole evening with processing plants, mixing medicines, and writing notes with those scratchy charcoal sticks on bark paper.

Remal hadn’t answered back to what she’d said, but Emri could feel him staring at her from close by. Too close for comfort. Well… Faver had told her that if Remal made a nuisance of himself, she should tell him to get out of the way. She might as well try it, more or less.

“I don’t need any help with this,” she said flatly, “and it doesn’t help to have you standing right there. Would you go back over where you were before?”

“Maybe.” Remal snorted derisively. “If you’d ask nicely and say please.”

Infuriating. However, Emri had never before been so grateful for all the lessons on deportment the Elders back home had insisted on. She’d hated it at the time, but otherwise would probably never be able to maintain her composure now. Truth be told, however, she was just as annoyed with herself for having failed to use the proper form of cultural niceties in making a request, as she was with Remal for making a fuss over it and speaking in such a disdainful manner.

Emri replied in a slow and measured way. “Would you please, go back over where Faver told you to rest, since I don’t need your help here.”

Remal stepped away, but before she had a chance to feel relieved about it, Emri realized that he’d gone in a different direction from the one she expected. He’d gone to another corner of the tent that was closer, by the far end of the work table.

Pausing her work, Emri looked over to see what he was up to. He’d retrieved a spear that had been resting there against a cabinet, which looked like the same one he’d been carrying earlier that day. She couldn’t be entirely sure if he was only examining the bronze blade on the end of the spear, or if he was looking past it to scrutinize her. Could it be both at the same time?

She stood very, very still - as still as she ever had when under examination. She didn’t even blink or swallow.

“These medicines of yours had better help.” Remal said after a few moments. He fingered the edges of the spear blade, as though testing them. “You know what happens if anything you do harms our people, if it hurts them and makes them worse off, or kills anyone faster than they’re already dying?”

Emri allowed herself to swallow before replying, but otherwise maintained her stillness. “I… wouldn’t be allowed to stay with the camp.”

“If you’re lucky.” Remal scoffed, with a narrowed gaze and a small twitch on one corner of his mouth. “If you can get away fast enough.”

Emri’s composure slipped a little. She blinked and felt her brows draw together in puzzlement.

Remal stepped closer, though Emri was further puzzled by how he held the spear like a walking staff and not as if he were planning to use it. It did not match his tone, which was low and threatening. “Because… unless the bitter-tasting stuff I’ve already taken turns out to be lethal for someone as healthy as me, I won’t let you leave alive.”

Emri stepped back, immediately thinking to herself that it was the wrong reaction. It had been without thinking, and she inwardly scolded herself for losing control like that, for breaking her composure so entirely.

“You will do no such thing!” Faver barked, striding into the tent. He stepped between them and started pushing Remal back over towards the cot he’d assigned Remal to earlier. “Don’t exaggerate so much, Remal, and stop being a bully. I won’t have you being mean to someone who is assisting me in my work!”

Remal allowed himself to be shepherded back over to the cot, though he made a low sort of grumbling sound, and paused to pick something up from the floor next to the cot. It looked like a leather pouch that had been sitting on his shirt there. Having grabbed it, he sat grumpily on the cot with that in one hand and the spear in the other.

“Moreover,” Faver continued, addressing Remal with his arms crossed over his chest, “the medicine has already been proven effective in slowing the progress of the illness in those it’s been given to. Some even look to be improving already. It hasn’t harmed you or anyone else and I am confident that it never will, so quit talking as though it might!”

If Faver had heard all that, then how long had he been listening at the tent’s entrance before walking in? Emri didn’t know why he would have done so, but it must mean that Faver had believed there was no real danger in Remal’s threatening behavior.

Remal pulled a dark, flat stone out of the pouch and began to sharpen the spear blade with it, in a manner that seemed slow, careful, and deliberate – almost as though it was a simple, routine maintenance task that he wanted to make sure was done properly. He had a scowl on his face, however, as Faver continued to lecture him.

“Emri knows what she is doing, and you – who never cared to learn much of this work and never properly apprenticed to it – do not. No matter what Rinna and the Leaders request, I can’t have you getting in the way here. If you don’t calm down, if you keep annoying me and my assistants, then I’ll have to order you to be confined to your tent with your mother, and set Acker to watch you, with Hin or whoever else it might require to keep you there.”

Emri wondered why keeping Remal out of the way might possibly conflict with anything the Leaders might want. Wasn’t Faver’s work their highest priority right now? Emri suddenly felt like she was eavesdropping, and turned back to her work. Though she tried to ignore it, she could still hear Faver and Remal talking anyway.

“Whoever else?” Remal scoffed. “Like Brylin, and Nina too?”

“Brylin, maybe. Not Nina.”

“Don’t you think I’d listen to Nina?”

Faver scoffed this time. “Sure you would. You’d probably take orders from her even if you wouldn’t listen to me or anyone else. The problem is, she wouldn’t have the heart to keep you confined anywhere.”

“Probably.” Remal laughed, an oddly discordant sound over that of the spear being sharpened.

Faver ordered Remal to stay put and keep quiet, then approached Emri and gave her a light pat on the shoulder. He spoke in a soft, confidential sort of tone, but Emri wasn’t convinced it was quiet enough for Remal to not overhear. “He may growl a lot, but he’s like a pup whose bark is worse than his bite. Well… except in situations where there really is a serious threat that he can fight against. He’s probably annoyed that he can’t fight this one. You’re helping us fight it, though. Eventually, he should agree with me that you’re on our side, and not a threat. So don’t worry about him, ok? Keep standing your ground.”

Faver offered Emri a reassuring smile and examined the work she had just finished. Nodding, he started to chop up the last of the marsh fern, passing the leafy top parts to Emri. In return, Emri passed him the small bowl she’d used to contain the juice she squeezed out of the pulp she made before. Transferring that pulp into another bowl, she started putting the leaves from the fern into the mortar. The recipes were now familiar enough to not need further discussion.

Faver’s words turned over in Emri’s mind as they got back to work. Did she seem worried to him? Was she worried? Shocked, or stunned? Remal had sounded gravely serious, though Faver seemed not to take it literally. Could he really have been exaggerating? Maybe it was just as Faver said, that Remal needed to become convinced that Emri was on their side. In which case, it meant that Remal simply didn’t know any better yet. Until he could become convinced – if he ever could – would it be best to just avoid him?

If Faver compared Remal to a dog or some other less-sentient creature acting on instinct instead of reason, then Emri wondered if it would be best to treat him in ways easily understood by that sort? Maybe that was why Faver told her to stand her ground, to order him out of the way if necessary. So she shouldn’t show fear, then. That should be relatively easy to do, if she wasn’t afraid of him – was she? Perhaps… concerned. Concerned about what he might do, whether he’d make trouble for her, if he’d cause problems. It seemed like sometimes Faver and others might not take him seriously, but she felt it would be a mistake for her not to. No, she didn’t think he scared her, only it was more like she felt she should be cautious, because she couldn’t predict what he might do. It was irritating and distracting, and… a little bit of something more. Was he intimidating? Maybe. He had something of a… presence… that she wouldn’t describe as imposing, but… as though he could make her feel smaller.

It was true that Remal was taller and (unsurprisingly) more broad-shouldered than her – but he wasn’t so very much taller, and it wasn’t as if he was like some people she’d seen who were more heavily muscled and bulky, but he did look strong and was probably much stronger than she was. She had never been the sort of person to very easily be made to feel small, even when around people who were taller, people literally bigger than her. Even back when she had been a young child, actually physically smaller than many other children (before she’d grown to be taller than average among those of the same age group) she might have felt small in a way, but differently – like she’d felt small but as though her parents and siblings were always there to keep her safe.

Around the Elders, however, it had always been the opposite of being around family. They had made her feel small, but not safe. Exposed, instead of protected. Not as though she really thought they would do anything to harm her, but… always that they had the authority and ability to make all sorts of things unpleasant, and she could never be certain how harsh or lenient they might decide to be at any given time. That had been less about them being bigger than her, and more about what they might do and the way that they always looked at her so… critically. They all would stare at her in a serious, severe, and judgemental way; always as if they were looking through her to seek out any faults they could find, and were deciding which punishments to assign for each one.

It had been a long time now since anyone had made her feel small in the way that the Elders had; ever since she’d left her homeland to travel with her mentor, no one else had looked at her in the same kind of way as they did, just looking to find fault… like Remal kept doing. So suspicious, so judgemental. She doubted that Remal had anything like the kind of authority among this people as even the least of the Elders back home had there… but he seemed to be able to make her feel the same anyway. She didn’t think she really believed that he’d hurt her (or, at least, that Faver or someone else would stop him if he tried) ...just like the Elders back home wouldn’t have physically harmed her. It was that Remal might make things difficult for her and not feel sorry for it, like he’d think he was doing his job, or doing the right thing, even if it really wasn’t. He seemed so serious, severe, hard-faced and mirthless; distrustful and always looking to find fault, the way the Elders always did.

Her mentor, on the other hand, had more power and authority than all the Elders, but he had never made her feel small at all, only inexperienced. It had never been as if he wanted to make her feel bad about it - only that in comparison to him, probably anyone would seem like an amateur in his fields of study. Oddly, she sort of felt that way around Faver, though the amount of study she had done in the years spent with her mentor, of plants and herbal remedies, might mean she knew more than Faver did. Maybe it was that Faver had more practical experience than her, in actually treating patients and compounding medicines. He appeared quite confident and comfortable in that role, and finished mixing the medicine he was making in less time than it took her to do the same. He didn’t appear judgemental at all over her not having finished her own tasks, was nothing but encouraging to her, and calmly worked on one last batch of the fever balm.

“We’re going to need a lot more of all these herbs,” Emri observed, “and I want to go myself so I can look for some variety of this one.” She indicated the now-empty jar that had contained the last of the ‘Piedmont Firesparks.’ “There likely wouldn’t be the same variety as that in this area, but I think there should be something of the sort up in the hills, possibly higher up than where we found the others. Even if any we find are wilted this late in the season, their dried leaves should work at least as well as what was left in this jar.”

Faver nodded agreement. “I’ll come with you.” He threw a look over his shoulder at Remal, who had stopped his sharpening when Emri spoke. Faver used an indulgent tone with him this time. “Of course you can come, too.”

Remal looked about to say something, but Faver put up a hand momentarily and added: “As long as you don’t annoy me, and you get more rest tonight.”

Remal huffed, and busied himself with something else.