rakuen | Introduction to the Healing Arts: Wednesday

Entry tags:

Introduction to the Healing Arts: Wednesday

Characters: Merlin and Fortitude Students
Format: Class long so whatever you like
This log is: Open; tag Merlin or each other
Location: Fortitude classrooms
Summary: Merlin attempts to teach...
Warnings:

Merlin was terrified, he hadn't seen the King since he watched him in the tournament on Monday but he knew Arthur had been planning to watch the fights yesterday... Which meant he had heard, and he had seen, and he knew what Merlin's weapon was.

Which meant he knew Merlin's secret, which meant that Merlin was as good as dead. Merlin was terrified and yet he was still supposed to be teaching because apparently even having certain death looming over your head didn't get you out of things here.

Merlin had no idea how to teach, of course his mentor had taught him but that had been by doing... Merlin had accompanied him and watched him and help him. He had no idea what to do, how he was supposed to teach people... He looked around the room he had been assigned to in confusion, he had never seen anything like it before.

He ate a flower, trying to take his mind off things. When the students came in he gave a nervous smile, "Hello..." He began. "So I've been told I am to teach you the healing arts, which... I don't really know much about and I don't actually remember my name but how about... what are your names? And I guess... Do you know anything about this... About herbs and healing?"

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Well it was an interesting method of distilling but it seemed to work, Merlin smiled brightly. "You're good at this Becca!"

"My...family's too poor for real medicine," she murmured quietly, pouring the water over the paper ball she'd made. She let it sit for a while, then picked it up and started bobbing it up and down in the water, stirring it, and generally trying to get as much good out of it as she could.

He blinked, "This is real medicine Becca... Do you mean you can't afford a physician?" Merlin knew it was lucky that he lived with Camelot's physician, not that he got ill often but though his mentor would treat even those who couldn't pay, often in return for favours and chores he knew other physicians were not so kind hearted. "Where did you learn such things?"

"Not where I come from it's not. This is old wives' tales and rumours and not scientific. But...it works good enough," she said with a shrug.

"And no, we can't afford a doctor, we can't even afford getting over-the-counter medicine. That is... If you can't afford a doctor, there's stores with medicine already made and you can just buy the medicine you think you need and it's WAY cheaper. And...we can't even afford THAT."

She sighed, taking the paper ball out of the water and shivering a bit. "And even if we could afford a doctor...it...it would've been dangerous for ME to go. Bad things would've happened."

Wait what... of course this was science... How could medicine be rumour. He understood that she was upset about the way things had been but he didn't fully understand. After all this was real medicine... and there were people who couldn't afford this yes... But she seemed to have been able to get her hand on the correct herbs and some knowledge of how to use them...

But what did she mean by bad things would have happened if she'd gone to a doctor? Was she some kind of magical creature? He looked at her in concern, but maybe in front of all these people wasn't the best time to ask. He stood trying to be comforting without saying anything.

She set the paper ball aside and held out the cup to him. Some of the mint had escaped and floated in the water, but that didn't really matter. "It works better if you drink it while it's hot, but it still works well enough if you let it cool." Then she retreated to her seat.

If he wanted to see her after class, he was in luck. She got distracted with doodling in her notebook and didn't pack up until class was already over. Everyone else left, and she was still shoving things into her bag.

When he saw that she was still there Merlin went over to her, "Becca... Is everything okay you seemed upset... I hope that I didn't upset you..."

She sighed softly, looking up at him with a rather...vulnerable expression. "I just don't like thinking about home. It was awful, I wish I could stay here...but I want my brother to be here if I do that."

"Oh..." Merlin looked sad, he didn't like this place because he was away from... all the people whose names he couldn't remember apart from the king who was probably going to kill him once he found him... He couldn't imagine how bad her life must have been to like it here better. Maybe she had grown up in a war, or as a slave, or; he remembered her comment about not being able to go to a physician, maybe she was a magical creature.

"I'm sorry for what you had to go through."

She sighed softly, pulling her bag into her arms and wrapping her arms protectively around it. "It's...it's fine... I mean... It's not like it would've killed me. It just...sucked..."

Merlin nodded, feeling awkward. He wanted to help her but there was nothing to help her from. He didn't think so...

"Are things alright for you... here I mean? You are not hurt? I am not as good as my mentor, but I worked as his assistant these last four years so perhaps I could help you."

She sighed, shaking her head. "They've all healed. Unless you can magic away scars," she said, slowly rolling up her sleeve to show the years' worth of burn scars on her arm.

At the words and the scars Merlin paled and looked away. Not because the scars were particularly horrid, though he felt sorry for her for having them; he couldn't imagine what had caused them but he could see she had been burned repeatedly.

He could have maybe done something, if his powers hadn't been taken, if he had his magic book with him- or at least outside of his chest...

He turned to put away the herbs, speaking in a choked voice. "Magic is illegal, Becca."

He wasn't sure what the point quite was of keeping his secret now that Arthur had discovered it... But habit he supposed.

She stopped and gave him an odd look, frowning softly as she watched the way he acted. "Maybe where you're from. Not here, and not in most places people around here are from."

"No here they just steal it, or seal it." It was only illegal in Camelot so he wasn't surprised there were other places where it wasn't.

She sighed softly, running her fingers over the damaged skin of her arm. "That's awful... I wish there were a way to get your magic back..."

"I didn't say I had magic."

He had to be more careful, alright so Arthur knew and everyone would probably know once he caught up to Merlin and killed him. But old habits ran strong. "I just meant, I haven't seen any magic here, not like Camelot where it seems like every other day some magical beast or sorcerer is trying to kill the king. It's almost relaxing." a nervous smile.

"Uh-huh," she said, unconvinced. Still, she couldn't be sure he was lying, either, so it wasn't worth it to fight him over it. "I guess a vacation is nice."

"Vacation?" He frowned, turning to pack away more herbs. "I'm afraid I don't know that word."

"Time away from work, usually going to a different place. Usually it's more fun, like the beach, but oh well."

Time away from work... He blinked at her in amazement, wherever she came from it sounded interesting. "Here could be fun, you said you liked it better than home so you could make sure it was fun."

She laughed weakly, hanging her head. "It's a question of what's worse, that's all."

Merlin didn't think he had ever met a more negative person in his life. He looked at her sadly, lost for a way to help. "I am sorry, are you sure there is nothing I can do?"

Becca sighed sadly, shaking her head. "Unless you can make the school bring my brother here, there's nothing anyone can do."

"Your brother?" She had a brother, who was potentially in a situation like the one she had left, no wonder she was so upset. "This might sound stupid, I am new after all but have you tried asking?"

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