The Scholar's Tale (Original Fantasy)

Book IV, Chapter 6

AN: This chapter contains references to Strigoi Soul, my original urban fantasy story, as well as to other elements of the "Strigoiverse" I haven't focused on yet. You might recall Ryzhan mentioning the Nexus early on.

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Ryzhan

I was not so acquainted with hospitals that I could say I always disliked all of them - I'd only been in a few -, but the chamber I entered resembled the ones I knew, and did little to ender itself to me.

Until the first time, I'd never been in a place of healing bigger than my first home. Most islands had a village doctor's hut, most ships the doctor's cabin and maybe some nearby rooms taken over and filled with medicines out of necessity. But hospitals were houses of healing where recovery was industrialised as much as smithing was in those cultures that sought to emulate the Free Fleet.

In my experience, hospitals were barren places, whose walls were bleached, off-white or bare more often than not; which smelled of harsh, faintly acrid substances meant to cleanse the body once imbibed or injected. Thankfully, my magic had allowed me to, by remembering my healthy days, avoid having to go to a healer too often. When I'd needed to, because of some poison or injury beyond means both mundane and those of my magic to overcome, the healer had been either a mage themselves, or someone similarly endowed with otherworldly powers.

I was glad I'd never needed to go a hospital. My brief visits, out of curiosity, had taught me why some people said "clinical" when they meant cold or aloof. People wasting away in rows of beds, or chained to them because of an illness of the mind...it made me grimace to think of it.

Part of it must have been my inherent dislike towards weakness, letting people have power over me and rummage through my body, but I honestly thought I simply disliked being poked, prodded or fed concoctions.

The room Aina's doppelganger and I arrived in did not smell as badly as the hospitals I remembered, and its walls were a white clean enough to be cheerful rather than unsettling, but I did not like them any more than I liked them. The difference was that I'd have to endure it for longer, because I was here to put on a show, not look around like a mouse out of its lair, then scurry away.

Aina lingered at the edge of my vision like a wraith, only seeming solid when I turned my head slightly, to truly look at her. I tried to pay no mind to what that implied. Thinking I was going mad or hallucinating was only going to make me paranoid and ill-tempered, the two states I've never needed help to achieve.

I glanced around, musing that Serene Rest's power must've warped this room. There were far more beds and people inside than the room I'd glimpsed while walking down the corridor should've been able to hold: the doors had been wide enough I'd seen what had looked like the whole chamber. But this? This was bigger than the bloody building as a whole, maybe even the island as I'd seen it.

It made sense, I suppose. If the building had been as large on the outside as it was on the inside, it would've made a much bigger target for potential invaders than the inconspicuous structure I'd walked into. Not to mention the Rest would've had to be bigger too, which would've caused the same issue.

It was just my luck that no invader had ever stumbled upon this place with enough power to sink it under the waves. If anyone had come here seeking the place's destruction, they'd likely been rendered docile and unthinking. Maybe some of the poor bastards around me had come here as would-be righteous destroyers. The thought of such an undignified end made my blood boil.

While I was weighing the chances of getting heckled and using it as an excuse to put the ensnared wretches out of their miser, the false Aina moved forward as if floating, delicately elbowing me. I gave her a glare I'd have never dared send my childhood friend, but she just looked back with mild reproach.