⋆⁺₊⋆.˚ | 𝐖𝐀𝐈𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐄
━━━━ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐋𝐘𝐌𝐏𝐔𝐒
𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐄, her guidance wove a thread of life, pulling him from the abyss where destiny had cast him.
❝ who are you to think you can walk a...
There may have been more acronyms in the list, but by that point my brain had exploded.
Piper knocked. "Dr Asclepius?"
The door flew open. The man inside had a kindly smile, crinkles around his eyes, short salt-and-pepper hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a white lab coat over a business suit and a stethoscope around his neck–your stereotypical doctor outfit, except for one thing: Asclepius held a polished black staff with a live green python coiled around it.
"Hello!" said Asclepius.
"Doctor." Piper's smile was so warm it would've melted a Boread. "We'd be so grateful for your help. We need the physician's cure."
I wasn't even her target, but Piper's charmspeak washed over me irresistibly. I would've done anything to help her get that cure. I would've gone to medical school, do all that modern doctor stuff and bought a large green python on a stick.
Asclepius put his hand over his heart. "Oh, my dear, I would be delighted to help."
Piper's smile wavered. "You would? I mean, of course you would."
"Come in! Come in!" Asclepius ushered us into his office.
The guy was so nice that I figured his office would be full of torture devices, but it looked like... well, a doctor's office: a big maple desk, bookshelves stuffed with medical books, and some of those plastic organ models.
Asclepius took the big comfy doctor's chair and laid his staff and serpent across his desk. "Please, sit!"
Jason and Piper took the two chairs on the patients' side. Leo and I had to remain standing.
"So." Asclepius leaned back. "I can't tell you how nice it is to actually talk with patients. The last few thousand years, the paperwork has got out of control. Rush, rush, rush. Fill in forms. Deal with red tape. Not to mention the giant alabaster guardian who kills everyone in the waiting room. It takes all the fun out of medicine!"
"Yeah," Leo said. "Hygeia is kind of a downer."
Asclepius grinned. "My real daughter Hygeia isn't like that, I assure you. She's quite nice. At any rate, you did well reprogramming the statue. You have a surgeon's hands."
