The Witch of This Era

His Highness, King Albrecht Ambrose Arnis, was no stranger to doctors fussing over him, unfortunately. His unfortunate collapse a few weeks ago had led to Torrier’s brood hovering over him for an aggravating few days until he shooed them away, and no matter what he did, it seemed another check up on the horizon.

It wasn’t even as if he had worked himself to exhaustion this time – he had simply had rubbed his temples too many times after comparing different propositions about undeveloped lands to the east, and then made a stray comment about headaches, and all of a sudden the cycle had started all over again.

No, not all over again. His troubles had amplified.

At least Doctor Torrier was a known quantity. Now he was being poked and prodded by both his usual caretaker, and the witch who had invited herself while laying low at the palace.

Wasn’t Cerise Candlethumb supposed to be the one recovering from serious injuries? But beyond being swathed in bandages to treat her assault skin, and passing gossip about her eating like a horse to regain her energy, it seemed she was no worse than any other woman her age. If anything, she seemed wholly incognizant of her condition while she inspected the king.

Perhaps the profession in itself was some sort of curse the Great Spirits of the world employed against him?

“Is this some sort of punishment for my deeds of the past?” Albrecht muttered as he sat on the sofa in his room bare arm out so Cerise could put two fingers on his wrist.

“You’re being an absolute baby,” the mummified woman snarked. “One of the best-fed, healthiest, most attended people on this continent, and you’re throwing a fit.”

“Cerise, don’t antagonize His Highness,” Torrier warned. “It might accelerate your pulse and make your readings inaccurate.”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” the witch assured her current co-worker. “Hundred, hundred and ten thereabouts. A good heart rate for a guy who apparently went out getting chopped up by war.”

“Peacetime did much to knit me back together,” Albrecht answered.

“Apparently peacetime makes you so bored you’re declaring war on your own body. If Torrier’s warnings aren’t enough, the headache is your own body telling you to quit it. Get some actual sleep, I swear.”

“Strong flavors might exacerbate the condition. I’ll request the kitchen switch to a milder menu for a week,” Torrier declared.

“I can mix something for the headaches, too,” Cerise added.

Albrecht rolled his eyes. The king had been overruled without even getting a word in.

“Cerise, would you at least do me a kindness and stay for a while?”

It was still remarkable how nonplussed Cerise had become to the arrangement, merely giving a knowing nod to the other doctor in the room, and a quick farewell.

“Catch you later, Torrier.”

The larger doctor gave an uncertain but acquiescing bow. “If you insist, Your Highness.”

Cerise shut the door behind the departing man, and turned to sit heavily on another couch next to the king.

“I never really had a chance to sit down and talk with my daughter’s savior, and the one who caught her assassin,” He said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cerise answered drolly. “Being able to stay here instead of some prison cell while the public panics over the rumours of a Sant-Lumiere survivor is reward enough.”

Cerise didn’t ask about the future or the whereabouts. Instead, the two luxuriated in the silence of the palace, at least until the king made small talk.

“I guess you know that we met in the past?”

The witch nodded. “Sanarsmark said as much. You, my mistress, and her all found me in some hole. You saw me, and you decided to let me live? You never once worried that I’d come marching back for revenge?”

“I worried plenty,” Albrecht sighed, more out of remembered annoyance than anything. “But Candlethumb gave me many poorly written letters describing how you were a dutiful child that tortured her with boredom. After you started your clinic, it wasn’t hard to have you shadowed There was no point telling other ministers that the one Sant-Lumiere in the city was doing pit fights, mending bones, and nursing hangovers.

Cerise made an aggrieved noise. “I really accomplished nothing by keeping a low-profile, huh?”

“You did convince me that you didn’t have any mind for revenge.”

The witch sat back against the sofa for a while, deep in thought as she stared at a distant wall away from the king, before another thought came to her mind. “But you still saw me all those years ago, and knew I was a Sant-Lumiere.”

In other words, what had stayed his hand at the very beginning?

History weighed down on Albrecht so that his posture matched the younger witch’s, both of them tired by surrounding events. “My predecessors believed in punishing children for the sins of their fathers. Perhaps back then, those children sinned just as much. But I couldn’t find a reason to follow in their footsteps. You haven’t either.”

And so, things wound up where they are. Two dynasties chatting for a little while.

“I need to check on your kids,” Cerise suddenly declared, rising from her seat to move to the door.

“Cerise,” Albrecht called out. “Don’t be afraid of your future. Not any more.”

“Oh, you’re wrong there,” the woman said, and turned to look back with a grin. “I gotta worry about you while I’m stuck here.”

She shut the door to a disbelieving snort.

Cerise made her way unimpeded to the princess’s quarters. A soldier in full plate stood by her door, took a glance at Cerise, nodded, and opened it to let her in.

She stepped in lightly, eyebrows juddering in amusement as she gave the Queen Apparent a once over.

“No wonder you dress in dark colors. You look like a doll otherwise.”

“I can still have you declared an enemy of the state, you know.”

Lucretia Mariposa Ambrose Arnis definitely did dress in deep reds to look more threatening. As she lay in her bed with a white gown, hair loose, her white complexion went from “icy” to “porcelain”, and she looked ready to be pinched by the cheeks, no matter how hard she tried to glare.

“How is it that we were both equally injured and yet you’re the one free to move about?” Albrecht’s successor complained once more.

“Because I got something, you don’t: something to walk for,” Cerise retorted. “Now give me your arm. Pulse time.”

Lucretia would probably make a full recovery, from what Cerise could detect with a cursory check up. Her heart was still beating fine, and her eyes still opened and closed as they ought to under a light. Of course, her bad attitude was also sign enough that she had energy to spare.

“Not going to use your gift to get a full reading?” Lucretia challenged.

“If I relied on one trick, I’d be bad at my job.” Cerise answered conversationally, not rising to the bait. “Has His Highness finally got you to let up on the vendetta? Last thing I need is for you to develop an ulcer.”

The way Lucretia screwed her face up in discontent, it almost looked like she had one.

“I’ve promised to leave the matter to others. The only thing we’ll say for now is that Sanarsmark hired Turmen mercenaries. If there’s any real connection, we’ll find out later. I suppose just as well, everyone in the city is shocked at what the old bat contrived. Ruben is… upset.”

“I bet,” Cerise said, joining in with a unified sigh of disappointment. “I’m gonna give him a check up as well, later. I suppose Sanarsmark hasn’t said anything… or has anyone even said anything about her?”

Lucretia shook her head. “My father, once more, wants us to cool our heels. Sanarsmark is alive, far as I know, and secured somewhere. If she’s ever put through the court of law, it’ll be after she’s investigated thoroughly about her plot.”

“I guess it’s still too soon to do anything but get better ourselves, huh?”

“A mere intermission,” Lucretia insisted frostily, biting back at whatever insult she imagined had been allayed against her by the whole world. “Arnis will soon see nothing changed about their Queen Apparent.”

“Of course,” Cerise agreed, patting Lucretia’s leg through the sheets patronizingly, before making for the door. “Just remember that I made sure nothing changed for you.”

“If you’re asking me to be thankful that a Sant-Lumiere saved my life–”

“Yep, I’ll be checking on Ruben now.”

“--I’m not going to admit anything in public! So just keep enjoying your stay here–”

“Right, right…”

It wouldn’t do to tease the princess so much, but frankly, it was hard not to feel that the image the woman projected was missing some bite these days.

As for Ruben, he had been brooding as ever, in one sitting room or another, distracted by recent events. It was why he barely noticed Cerise’s approach until her shadow was nearly upon him, making the prince startle and jump to his feet.

“How are you? Honestly, you should be resting more, not fussing over others,” He pleaded, as the two sat.

“Bah, it’s light work; not even exercise,” Cerise countered. “I might as well be a good guest. How are Damon and Andrew, anyways? Hell, what’s going on with the University?”

“It’s been limping on,” Ruben morosely answered. “For Sanarsmark to be a traitor… things are tense. There’s still lessons, but in general, things are in a holding pattern. No one knows what to do when the headmistress… there’s discussions of an interim headmaster, as far as I know.

“My friends are still doing research and studies,” Ruben added, breaking into a wry grin. “Nothing keeps them down.”

“Good to know.”

“Cerise…” Ruben said, hesitantly broaching a subject. “What are your plans from now on? I mean, the headmistress… Sanarsmark… she invited you just to keep you nearby. But she did offer you credentials so you could be an official doctor, right?”

The woman didn’t respond right away, instead mulling the question while she pressed her fingers together.

“That’s probably gone up in smoke. The University Board might suggest I leave, since I’m an embarrassing footnote of the old lady’s.”

“I can fight it,” Ruben insisted. “If you want to stay at the University, I can do what I can to make it happen. I owe… I owe whatever I can. This is all my fault.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” He shot back, voice warbling a little with the guilt. “I was stupid and bored, and I ran to that arena. I chased you down and forced you to save my life. Then I crowed about it to Sanarsmark and didn’t think further about it. You… I mistreated you. I acted selfishly, and wound up enabling someone else’s selfishness. I was selfish, that’s all there was to it. I intruded in your life. Even saying ‘sorry’ now feels cheap. But it’s all I can do… I’m sorry.”

There was another bout of silence, and Ruben deflated, wondering if Cerise refused it, though it was in her right.

“Hey, you hate Lucy?” Cerise suddenly asked. “I mean really hate her. Would you have been okay if she died?”

Ruben looked up, stricken, before looking down at his lap.

“...No. I don’t think so. She’s my sister. But before Sanarsmark tried to kill her, she was truly dangerous. I don’t know how to deal with her, or what she’ll do once she takes the throne. Sometimes I even wondered what would happen if she wasn’t Queen Apparent. But I didn’t want her dead.”

The prince looked up, a questioning look on his face now.

“Cerise, you’re a Sant-Lumiere, right? How come you don’t hate us? Did you never even once consider taking revenge?”

The witch leaned back in her seat, humming.

“When I got old enough, my mistress laid out the facts straight about who I was. When you travel about, healing people and dealing with my mistress, I guess I came to a realization that time just… passes.”

She looked at Ruben.

“Good days, bad days. Rise and fall. In the end, the Sant-Lumieres were the losers of history. I’m a loser of history. It’s not that I want to die, but I got saddled with a debt, and I was going to pay it off by fading into the past. Arnis is moving into the future, you know. It’s leaving things behind. I can live with that.”

“But I didn’t,” The prince interjected. “It’s why I chased after you, back then. The old style you practiced isn’t worthless. Neither are you. Or Lucretia. Or…”

Ruben straightened up, his bearing firmer.

“Cerise, I’d like you to become fully certified. You’re not some bygone thing that needs to die off; you’re not a thesis, and you’re not Sanarsmark’s pity project. You’re a healer.”

For a moment, the witch was a little wide-eyed at the proclamation. It was one thing to be self-assured about one’s place in the world, even if that position… but to be told otherwise…

Cerise laughed.

“Oh, so I’ve moved up from a headmistress bribing me to a royal decree, huh?”

Ruben’s ears went pink as he spluttered. “No… I said I wouldn’t force things…”

“Me being a doctor will retroactively make me being here and keeping you two idiots alive easier to explain,” Cerise said, as she leaned back so her head rolled over the headrest, while her legs kicked up and rested on the glass-topped table. “Alright, Ruben. I’ve got the scholarship for this year to run down, at least. Let’s work with that. As for what the future brings…”

“Well, you’re not dying tomorrow,” Ruben answered, settling down. “Whether you like it or not, Arnis has you for this era.”

“Ah, this era…” Cerise murmured, looking up at the ceiling.

A time where the Breath of the World was being tamed. New machines were being invented. New societies were being born. New conflicts were being chewed on.

Yes, Cerise was stuck in this time, in the end. It wasn’t likely she could huddle past it any longer.

“Hm, at least today’s check ups are done.”