It had been almost a year since I opened the store.
It wasn't easy. Nothing is when you have to pretend to be someone else to be taken seriously. I got official permission with the help of S.E.R.A., using a projection system that covered my body and face with the image of an adult doctor. Nothing too flashy. Just enough to make me look trustworthy.
And it worked.
Alzer's people started coming. Hesitantly at first. Then regularly.
My clinic, modest though it was, already had its rhythm. Every morning I opened the blinds, cleaned the surfaces, sorted the canning jars and checked the instruments. Someone was always waiting. A twisted arm, a stomach ache, a poorly treated infection. Nothing I couldn't handle.
"How much is it, doctor?" they'd ask me at the end, my body lighter and my eyes less tired.
"Five raults." And they'd pay me without argument.
It wasn't a fortune, but it was enough. For materials, to pay the rent, to put a little away each week.
And more importantly... because helping others made me feel useful. Not just because of what I knew, but because of what I could do with it. Every relieved face, every sincere "thank you," reminded me that it was worth continuing.
I remembered well how it all began.
The first few times I decided to use my medical knowledge it was out of necessity. Not heroism. It pained me to admit it, but it was.
I broke the fever of an old man who could barely breathe, using a chest compression technique from my previous life. He paid me with a bundle of good quality cloth, enough to make decent work clothes or sell to a tailor. The next day, a woman asked me to check her son, who had not eaten for days. I discovered he had intestinal worms. I cured him. She paid me with a small, antique locket, a family heirloom that represented respect and tradition.
Reputation came on its own. As it almost always does when you don't look for it.
And with it... the money.
I put those memories aside and set about preparing the clinic. I organized the bottles, cleaned the table where I was attending and arranged the tools I was going to use.
The first client soon arrived. A frowning woman came in with her son in her arms, worried and weak.
I checked the child carefully and prescribed a simple treatment, explaining each step to the mother. When they finished, they paid me with some money, and in their eyes I saw relief and gratitude. That was what motivated me to continue. I smiled without realizing it.
The next day, a cloudy morning, the sky was covered by a gray veil that did not let the light through, as if the whole world was holding its breath. Kael, as he did every day, was opening his modest clinic on the edge of the marketplace in the town of Alzer.
Two figures approached with determined steps. A boy of about four years of age, with a lively expression and a fiery gaze, and behind him, an older girl, with a serious face and noble posture.
Leon looked at him with shining eyes.
"You are the miracle doctor?"
"I don't perform miracles," Kael replied, drying his hands with a rag.
"I just keep people from dying."
"That sounds like a miracle for someone who's about to die" replied Leon.
Behind him, his older sister caught up. Taller, more solemn. She said nothing, but her gaze scrutinized every corner of the tent.
"Leon Sara Rault" said the boy proudly, puffing out his chest like a knight presenting himself to the king.
"And this is my sister, Louise. We are of House Rault."
Kael raised an eyebrow. The name Rault was not unfamiliar to him. It was one of the oldest noble houses in the Republic of Alzer, and not just any nobility: one of the few still tied to the religious functions of the Sacred Tree.
"I came to check if the rumors were true." Leon took a step further inside, looking at jars, scrolls, makeshift tools.
"They say they cure diseases here without using magic-is it true?"
I nodded, not giving it much thought. Magic... Bah. It never interested me much. I didn't understand it and couldn't use it.
"So, is it true?" insisted Leon, looking at my hands with a mixture of curiosity and expectation.
"You can heal with just... that?"
He held up a vial filled with a greenish liquid that bubbled slowly, as if breathing. I took it calmly and took it from his hands before he shook it too much.
"That's not medicine. That's soap. For cleaning grease from wounds."
Leon frowned, disappointed. Louise held back a smile, barely.
"Do you guys want to see something weird?" I asked, walking to the back of the workshop.
"Yes!" replied Leon without hesitation. Louise said nothing, but followed me anyway.
I crouched down next to a dusty wooden box, opened it with a makeshift lock pick (out of habit rather than necessity) and pulled out a small metal sphere about the size of a fist. It wasn't dangerous. Well... not much. Just a spring-loaded sphere with a couple of wires and a gyroscope that I used to test balance on my prosthetic models.
"What's that?" asked Leon, getting too close.
"An experiment."
"Is it going to explode?"
"If it does, at least you already have the doctor nearby" I replied without changing my tone.
I placed the sphere on the ground, turned a small crank and released it.
The artifact jerked, made a clicking sound... and then started rolling on the floor making ridiculous noises: pi-piiiip, bluop, brrrr-kacha! As if a mechanical chicken had swallowed a bugle.
Leon let out a laugh so loud it startled me. He stumbled backwards, fell on his ass, and continued laughing as if he had just witnessed the silliest miracle in the universe.
"WHAT IS THAT?!!! IT'S PERFECT!!!"
Louise, standing next to him, simply raised an eyebrow. But I saw her jaw quiver slightly, holding back laughter. It was brief that I almost overlooked it...but no. She found it funny too.
The sphere zigzagged, hit a table leg, jumped through the air, and finally stopped when it hit the tool canister. It made one last sad piiiip...and died.
"I want one stated" Leon, still on the floor, eyes shining.
"I don't have it registered. Nor patented. I call it 'the sphere of bad decisions'."
"Perfect! I want three!"
Louise, then, spoke for the first time since they had entered.
"And what's that really for?"
I shrugged.
"For laughs. Sometimes that's enough" I replied, with some sadness in my voice.
From that day on, the brothers started coming back. First out of pure curiosity, like when Leon couldn't stop playing with the jars and mixing ingredients, while Louise watched with a serious expression, but full of care and affection, always attentive that nothing happened to her brother, ready to intervene when necessary.
Leon was always coming up with crazy ideas, like when he wanted to put bright red powder in a mixture and almost made my oven explode, and Louise reprimanded him firmly. Because that time he did get so scared he nearly fainted.
Weeks passed, then months, and the routine settled in without anyone planning it. Sometimes they were only there for a short time; sometimes they stayed almost all day. I taught them simple things: how to use tools, identify useful plants, even how to make ink from flowers. Occasionally we would go out together, creating moments that seemed fleeting, but became important to me.
"Kael, I want a story where I'm the hero!"
"What kind of hero?"
"One who can fly and shoot lightning with his eyes!"
"Lightning with his eyes? You're already asking me to redesign the human body."
Leon burst out laughing, and although Louise didn't usually do it so openly, that time, subtly, a smile appeared on her lips.
...And Kael, without meaning to, thought it was charming.