Earned Pedigree

Cerise’s little witch’s lair, and the street immediately outside of it, became the entirety of her world for a good part of the following week. As far as she was concerned, Arnis Heart beyond it was just an elaborate cumulative hallucination her neighbours reported on.

During that time, Cerise spent some of her earned goodwill with the locals to kill time at their homes when she wasn’t working out of her hole-in-the-wall clinic: evenings at the nearby cheap watering hole, an afternoon at a housewife’s table, catching up on some reading. Whatever kept her mind off what she had been caught up in.

The families and friends around her took it with good cheer, enjoying having the street’s little secret hanging about them – even if they didn’t know the whole context of Cerise’s sudden

This, of course, got her plenty of understanding laughs. They might have not understood the details, but it was easy to understand that a woman who preferred obscurity needed time to melt back into the shadows.

Days of nothing but treating patients happened, interspersed by nights of methodically and patiently breaking down her stock of reagents and bottling them up. Those would slowly bubble and churn until they settled as new potions.

Eventually, one day it finally felt like Marcus Chekvale would finally leave her sphere of influence. She didn’t sigh in relief, but the atmosphere at her clinic felt breezier. A clock had finally run down its time, all the tension in its mainspring gone.

Cerise went about her work with that sort of blithe relaxation. The only thing in front of her now was the patient in the opposite seat: Young John with a nasty gash that she sealed with a salve and wrapped tight. Clarisse, worrying about pimples. Rickard, who complained of exhaustion, and others who came and went, healthier than when they arrived. Some of it just needed a powder to mix into their drinks, but on occasion, as Cerise “took their pulse”, she would push her gift into them and head off an issue before it grew too serious: a pustule here, a swollen vein there. It would be put on the road to recovery, which the pink-haired healer would disguise with more of her prescriptions that would improve their health.

As she worked through her patients, the witch’s ears pricked at a strange exchange.

One voice belonged to Bernard, who lived further down the street and hawked roasted snacks. “Ma’am, are you sure you’d want me to go ahead?”

The other voice Cerise didn’t know, but it was an old woman’s – grainy, but cheerful and self-satisfied. It didn’t sound tired or hurt in any way. “Oh, don’t worry about me, I have all the time in the world. Worry about yourself first.”

Cerise didn’t have time to glance. Not when there were still more patients to check up on. But as the hours wiled away, the old woman’s voice did not disappear, always letting new visitors through while resting on Cerise’s scavenged collection of “waiting chairs”.

Tension rewound itself in the witch, as an unwanted and anxious anticipation built up again.

Sunset meant the end of Cerise’s availability. The line of chairs had slowly and surely emptied out of the needy sickly. Save one – that is, if the old woman was either needy or sickly.

Cerise turned in her chair and gave an uncertain half-glare at the gray-haired woman, who gave a disarming smile back. Time had done its work on her, leaving her squat, wide, and almost friendly-looking, with her loose jowls and her wispy hair pulled back in a smart bun. Her outfit didn’t look expensive, but compared to the wear and tear the locals had to put up with, it still practically screamed sumptuousness.

“...Well, ma’am, you’ve apparently decided to wait all day. Are you going to sleep overnight or are you going to come over?”

“Sorry, dear, for troubling you,” the old woman sheepishly apologized as she tottered forward, cane at her side clacking against the stone ground.

Cerise huffed. “Just make sure you have a problem I can solve. Is there anything bothering you?”

“Not precisely,” the old woman guilelessly declared, even as she held out a wrist, following what she had been observing all day. “I was hoping to make this a place for regular check ups.”

“Tch, it doesn’t work like that,” Cerise countered, even if she put her fingers on the woman’s skinny, but certainly solid wrist. The muscle had lost tone, but the bones still seemed solid, and the pulse was a little slow, but still quite firm. “I take them as they come. Besides, looking at you, I think you could probably afford a proper doctor and hospital. You don’t need me.”

“No, but I do want you. Especially after I got a stunning recommendation from one of your last patients. The way Marcus vouched for your talents, I really had no choice but to find and see you for yourself.”

Cerise twitched just a little too hard, and withdrew her hand from the old woman’s arm like she had been pricked. She cursed under her breath, while her patient did nothing but smile kindly, even the witch had all but admitted the truth.

“You did well to be anonymous,” She explained patiently, “And your neighbours know better than to tell complete strangers, but they still talk amongst themselves in public, and an old woman like me knows all the right spots to sit and pretend to be senile or deaf. It made for an amusing few days of enjoying the outdoors.”

The pink-haired witch sat back heavily and fixed her most unimpressed stare at her elderly patient, choosing obstinacy. “I never heard of any Marcus.”

The older woman shrugged. “Probably not. The boy probably thought it was a clever enough alias, but even if the name is false, his troubles from a few days before were all too real, as was his savior. If it’s of any consolation, he hasn’t spoken about you to anyone but me, and I truly had to grill him into explaining why he returned a bloody mess. He’s important, you see.”

“Look, he and I are strangers,” Cerise snapped. “We have nothing in common. I don’t know Marcus, or whatever his name is, or what his life is like, and I don’t know you–”

The gentle smile faded a little, and the old woman sat up, age sloughing away to reveal experience and poise as she returned the same sort of firm look Cerise had given first. In an instant, a monolith emerged.

“Robin Sanarsmark, headmistress of the Arnis Heart University.”

Cerise completely turned away from the woman, and pressed both her palms into her desk. There was no irate pounding, but the heavy sigh might as well have been a thundercloud.

“So what? Are you or the guards gonna come and throw me in jail?” The witch growled. “What illegality will be cooked up? Is my use of Breath too unsightly? Or is it that I provide services under par? That fool, Marcus…”

“That’s the heart of the problem, isn’t it?” Robin considered aloud. “For all your talents, this city and you are at arm’s length. But you won’t leave because you care about what you do, won’t you? I think that shows something excellent about you. That’s why I want to help you.”

Cerise slouched. “Just give me whatever and be on your way.”

“That would be a scholarship for enrollment into the University, with the expectation that you’ll graduate as a fully recognized practitioner of an esoteric, but legitimate manner of control of the Breath.”

Just as immediately, Cerise leapt out of her seat, pink hair waving behind in frenzied tangles, the chair under her kicking away to clatter on the floor. Sanarsmark watched her pace until she swirled around and ranted back.

“Are you kidding me?” Cerise narrowly avoided yelling, hands raised in claws. “Why would you… do you understand what I am? I don’t have anything for Marcus, and I don’t have anything for you. What’s there to learn? Incompatible methods? Teachings I already know?”

Robin leaned on her cane, bemused. “Unfortunately, I think very differently. We’re both citizens who swore fealty to the same royal family, yes? But unlike the boy you met, I won’t appeal to ideals. I’ll just offer something tangible.”

“Like what?”

“Stop thinking about ‘learning’ and consider what it means to be ‘graduating’. Many masters of the Breath earn diplomas that they use to practice medicine or help at the city’s hospitals. Enrol at my University, and come out with a license that leaves everyone with no choice but to see you as equal to them.”

Cerise halted, and stared at Robin. The old woman could see the gears whirring in her head, opening doors she had never even bothered imagining.

“You don’t care about setting high prices, but you work in this back alley because you fear what will happen if some civic-minded busybody assumes the worst and calls the guards. This practice relies on scavenged tools and secrecy. But if your old ways are formally acknowledged, it doesn’t matter if the doctors or the masters halfway across this city scoff: you’ll be a certified professional.”

“It’s not that simple…” Cerise mumbled.

“You can set up a proper clinic, buy all your tools from proper suppliers, never worry about being considered illegal just because of your methods–”

“I have duties, I have to do things here,” the witch rambled, “I can’t waste half a decade taking lessons on stuff I don’t care about so you can get a feather in your cap about getting some antique like me on your shelf for a while. People need me here.”

“My university isn’t some boarding school,” Robin countered. “You can set up your schedule. You can attend at night. There are options so you can spend as much time here as you need. I’ll even sweeten the pot.”

Cerise turned, and there was a flicker of anticipation and wary greed. She was made of flesh, like any fish – no one could avoid considering the bait forever.

“Enrol and you’ll be considered a researcher, like all the students. That will make this practice an official university project. No one will threaten it while it’s under my aegis, I promise.”

That only got an enraged growl for the witch, and she walked to a wall and slammed a fist against it.

“Why are you so intent on this? What is Marcus to you? Why would you care that someone like me…”

“You might find out if you attend. As for me, well…” Sanarsmark rubbed her jaw for a second, considering. “Well, whether I have a maternal instinct, or a scholarly one, I simply like to unleash potential. I came here, and found a woman who hasn’t even reached her thirtieth year, yet she’s already burrowed herself in a hutch like a hermit at the end of their life. You’re so eager to close the book on your life, but the old ways aren’t obsolete. At least, an old lady like me doesn’t want them to be when you can carry the torch for one more generation.”

Cerise didn’t turn back to answer. She didn’t talk at all. The sunset grew ever more red, painting dark shadowy cuts across the ground that the witch hid herself in.

Robin stood up, picking up her cane.

“Just consider it, hm? I promise that you’ll be among friends if you visit us. Drop by whenever you can.”

The last of Cerise’s patients left, leaving her to try and think things through. She could already imagine Old Candlethumb imparting her words of wisdom.

“Well, what have you to lose? Or gain?”

“Will it hurt more than you can hold on?”

“What wasn’t said, hm? What is she going to get out of this on her end?”

Cerise truly tried to be analytical about it, but in the end, the bait was too good – to do what she always did, but properly. No more pit fights. No more back alleys. No more looking over her shoulder, worrying how acceptable her methods were.

In the distance was a clocktower, and a university surrounding it. All she had to do was pay it a visit.

“...UGH!”