Chapter 30 - The Hospital Wing

Characters – 

Erik Morsin: Heir to the Duchy of the Emerald Isle. Just wants to play his violin.

Alexandria Renard: Wants to be the next Morgana Le Fay. Can’t speak louder than a whisper.

Healer Elaine: Rules the infirmary with an iron fist. Unknown what her take on mangos is.

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 The bells tolled once.
Only the priest came to mourn.
The boy was laid to rest beneath a tree in the garden of ashes.
No procession. No weeping mother.
Only wind and whispers.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 48

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“Renard, how are you feeling?” The Unicorn student asked.

“Fine.” She hissed out. The student waved her asclepius staff over Alexandria and frowned.

“Your readings don’t look fine.” She said, then muttered a few more spells over her. “Right. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, I’m going to get the Healer.”

She shut the curtains back around Alexandria and left. The girl slammed her head back onto her pillow in frustration.

She was fine! Just let her leave already, Morgana take it! She was completely used to ‘Morsin Incidents’. Most of them were fixed up in a minute, like the birthday card that had been a letter bomb. Once again, Alex had been standing around, minding her own business, when someone came after her for no reason other than Erik.

They couldn’t kill him. She needed to strangle him personally. Let him get a vague taste of what he’d put her through all these years.

The curtains were pulled back, and Healer Elaine stepped through. Alexandria had already gotten the speech from the scary lady. Made her think she could just sneak out.

Well, her wand was on her table, and she could keep practicing channeling magic.

“Yes?” Alexandria hiss-snarked. She did not want to be poked and prodded, damnit!

The healer closed the curtains and started casting a wide variety of spells over Alex, her frown growing deeper at every cast. Eventually, she sat down next to Alex, studying her for a long minute.

“Do you want the medical diagnosis, or the life advice first?” She asked mildly.

“Medical. Don’t want life advice.” Alexandria crossed her arms in a huff.

“First. You’ve got an insidious compulsion on you. Not sure what it does, but it’s there. Want me to break it?”

“Yes!” Alexandria would’ve shrieked if her voice wasn’t so ruined. There was a compulsion on her?! What the FUCK! That could’ve made her do almost anything! And she wasn’t even aware of it!

Again, what the FUCK.

“Kenoo.” She said. 

Alex didn’t feel any different, but that’s part of how they could be so insidious. The trigger could’ve been anything, and it could’ve made her do anything. She shivered.

Mind magic was her new favorite class, and she hadn’t even stepped foot in the room yet. She had to get defenses against that sort of Light magic as quickly as possible.

Maybe, for once, it was a good thing she’d ended up in the hospital.

“Second. One of your previous healers - and believe me, the day I find out who I am going to end their license - deliberately fucked with your healing. You shouldn’t have gotten this badly scarred. I can see where the curse was, and there could’ve been some modest trimming on the scar tissue, but- do you want a tissue?”

Alexandria rolled over as aggressively as she could, pressing her palms into her eyes. She wasn’t crying. She slapped away the hand that was offering her a tissue, and curled up into a ball.

Even her healer had been out to get her? Did she have anyone?

Vivian’s bright and smiling face flashed through her mind’s eye, and she relaxed a bit.

She had one person, which would have to be enough. One person, and her magic, against the world.

The ginger girl felt a pair of feet land on her bed.

“Now, I’m going to just air some of my life story out to the void. It’d be a shame if curious ears heard me, and did some thinking of their own.”

Against her will, Alex listened.

“I was betrothed to a boy when I was 14. Remarkable coincidence that. I talked with him for an hour, and found him utterly intolerable. Could not imagine life like that. Refused to do it. Not like I had any real say in it. I had to stay… or I had to reset my life entirely. Option A was terrible, and I picked option B. Literally ran away to the woods with the clothes on my back and a bag full of supplies. Then again, I was a dumbass, and half the supplies I brought were useless, while I was missing a number of critical items. Still, I made it work. Part of why I don’t have a family name anymore, I was ritually thrown out.”

Alex was now very interested, and she twisted her neck a bit so both ears could hear.

“Wait, that’s illegal!” She protested to the curtains. “You can’t strip someone of their name!”

“Illegal, legal, what did it matter?” Healer Elaine said. “It was done. I committed. I picked a side, and I refused to give up or go back. It’s not the end of the story, it’s barely the beginning, but it’s worth thinking about. If - and this is a massive, huge, with flashing spell disclaimers if - I had stayed there, I would’ve done whatever I needed to do to make it work. In, or out. I had to pick one.”

Healer Elaine let the words sit in the air for a bit, before continuing.

“Now, since teenagers your age tend to need things spelt out explicitly for them,”

Alex jolted a bit, and opened her mouth to refute her, but the words wouldn’t come.

“I’ll say this. Choose. Either you are Alexandria Renard, reluctant fiancee of Erik Morsin, or you’re just Alex. If you want to be ‘just Alex’, tell me. I will help you with everything I’ve got. I’ll help you leave the castle. I’ll help you settle into a new spot. I’ll ask the people I know if they need an untrained apprentice. Could even get you set up in the mundane world, if you like.”

Alex violently shook her head at the suggestion. Magic was her life.

“You’ll get another life, but none of the trappings of the current one. You won’t be a Renard anymore. You won’t be a student at Camelot. You won’t have your friends.” She paused for dramatic effect. “And you won’t be engaged.”

Alex was now thinking very hard.

“Pick a path, start walking on it. You can realize you’ve made a mistake and backtrack. You can feel Erik out and realize he’s an ass, and try to make a new life for yourself. You can try to make a new life, realize it sucks, and come back. But standing still, doing nothing, is a choice. The worst choice.”

Elaine paused, almost as if she wanted to pace, almost as if to give Alex time to think about things.

“What’s happened to you so far has been an absolute tragedy, and it makes me furious.” Elaine said. “All I can do right now is fix you up, and give you choices. Another way. I do know that Erik’s been pestering my students to carry a message to you, and I’ve dinged him a few points for it. Mostly for bugging people. But he seems earnest and well meaning, and I’ve done some digging into your history.” Elaine paused.

“Has Erik ever done anything to you?” She asked. “Not what you think he’s done or is responsible for, what you know for a cold hard fact he’s done to you. Or are the two of you in the same boat? Instead of poking holes in the hull, if you’re going to stay, see if you can row a bit. Talk to the boy. See if he’s intolerable before you throw everything out just to get at him. Try forming a study coven with him this year, and if you hate it, come to me, I’ll get you out. Otherwise, you’ve been assigned a team, try to play as a member.”

Alexandria was not crying as hard as she’d ever not cried.

“I’ll let you brew over that a bit. Now, when you find a ritual to fix your body up, come tell me about it, so I can give you advice on if it’ll work or not. That curse was nasty business. I’ll do what I can, but the injury is old and the flesh has set. With that said, if anyone you know gets a letter and a potion, let them know there’s a third path. Slip a word in their ear that they can talk to me.”

With one last friendly pat on Alex’s leg, Elaine got up and left.

Three hours later, Alex rolled over, got out a quill and parchment, and tried something she’d last done six years ago, when she was eight.

A lot of aborted starts and scratch-offs had her reaching for another sheet of parchment, but she finally got started. A demand that had been burning away at her, the one thing she could firmly pin on Erik himself.

Morsin.

Why did you never respond to any of my letters?

Renard.

She folded the letter, pulled back the curtains, flagged down one of the Unicorns, and hissed her request in very polite terms.

“Can you pass this to Morsin?” She whispered.

The student rolled her eyes but took the letter.

“Not even in class yet, and already passing notes.” She snarked. It didn’t stop her from passing the note along. Alex watched with fearful eyes, only ducking back under her curtains when she saw Erik get the note.

She fretted for an hour, then got pissed. Once again, Erik Morsin was ignoring her, ignoring her letters, and treating her like an ornament. Her foul mood lasted another ninety minutes, when the student returned with the thickest envelope Alex had ever seen.

“You know, I can move the two of you next to each other, and you can use your words, like normal people.” She snarked again. Alex seized on it.

“Yes, because it’s so fucking easy for me to fucking talk.” She hissed, pointing at the angry scars that covered her throat.

The Unicorn went bright red, mumbled something about hearing Elaine calling her, and vanished.

Alex settled back in dark satisfaction, flipping open Erik’s letter to her. The tiny girl in her, the little spark that Alex had somehow failed to kill, was squealing in delight. A letter! 

The loud noise let Alex find her and murder her dead. 

She was not going to get this unreasonably happy about a letter she should’ve gotten a decade ago.

My Dearest Lady Alexandria, of the Noble family of Renard,

First off, I apologize. I do not have the time to write you a short letter, and as such, I will be writing you a long letter.

I must confess my deep surprise upon receiving your missive, as I would’ve posed the exact same question to you. I have written approximately two dozen letters to you over the years, and never received a single reply. As I was being taught how to write, my mother insisted that the second letter I ever write was to you. This was shortly after she praised me for writing my first letter ever to her, on advice of my tutor.

I was but four years of age, and barely knew the concept of a fiancee at the time. Indeed, I have few memories that have stood the test of time, simply having the story repeated to me ad nauseum. I trust the sources of the story, and that has no bearing on the multitudes of letters I have sent since. I know I have sent you a letter for each birthday and yule, as is tradition, and I recall a brief spate around six years of age where I was simply obsessed with the idea of sending you letters, and wrote to you nearly daily for three weeks. Upon never receiving a single reply, my enthusiasm greatly diminished, and I found other activities and hobbies to occupy my time.

Along with the letters sent, I have sent a number of gifts. I strongly suspect now that not a single one of them has gotten to you. Moreso than the extravagant waste, I mourn the moral injury that must have been inflicted upon you. So many years, you must have felt as ignored as I did.

Regent Bjorn Morsin, (pretend I put the rest of his titles here) even acquired me a magic mirror recently, explicitly for the ability to communicate with you. Yet, when I tried to call you, you never picked up. Once again, from the contents of your prior letter, as scarce as they are, I am beginning to suspect foul play.

Why don’t we spend some time to compare notes?

Sadly, given the enforced separation and disruption in communication - the head healer is quite frightening, and I will be obeying her laws in both letter and spirit - I can’t begin to imagine what solution you would want. Would you like to wreak bloody vengeance upon whoever has interfered so cruelly with our lives? Would you store the knowledge away, to best be used later? Would it form a lever to obtain greater value in your life?

Let us talk. Let us learn about each other.

I never knew you had been injured in such a way, if the scars upon your face are indeed from an injury. If you were attacked, that is the sort of information that should’ve sent Regent Morsin into a frothing rage, demanding retribution. Yet, not one word came to us. An attack on you is equally an attack on the Morsin family, and can not be allowed to stand.

Now, I am quite thankful for the opportunity to finally say my piece. Given the historic difficulties of communication between the two of us - I do believe the assault on my person was entirely unwarranted, but I am willing to hear you out should you believe otherwise - and given how reluctant you have been in the past, I have taken this opportunity to say everything I wish to communicate to you. I do not know when we shall next have the chance, but it is my sincere hope that we are able to speak in person later today.

To put none too fine of a point on it, would you like to eat dinner tonight? Even in a common area.

I have a number of stories I attempted to share over the years. My study of the mind arts is at the novice stage, as is nearly all of our classmates. With that said, I will attempt to recollect to the best of my abilities the tales I attempted to send to you.

When I was six, there was this grand apple tree growing right outside my window. Never before nor since had I seen apples quite so red, nor…

The letter continued on for pages and pages and pages. Although the language was on the stiff and flowery end, Alexandria could feel the earnest desire to just talk coming through. It came through in the words, it came through in the sharp angle of the quill on paper, and how mistakes were hardly crossed out. 

Fine. Maybe she’d misjudged the situation. Maybe she could talk to the one person unlikely to send her to the hospital for the mere crime of being engaged to a Morsin. Have Morsin fix the Morsin problems. That was only justice.

Plus, Alexandria Renard was going to become the most feared mage in history. How was she going to accomplish that if she wasn’t at Camelot? She had at least four more years before the question of the betrothal was forced one way or another.

No, for now, her path lay here.

Erik Morsin,

I read your letter. I suppose we can try talking at dinner. I need to sit SOMEWHERE.

Alexandria Renard