Chapter 26 — Family Ties
“Seriously? Didn’t you say you were like three centuries old?”
Yvette huffed as annoyance slipped into her voice, “Three centuries is a perfectly acceptable age at which to have your first apprentice.”
“Really?” Rína quirked an eyebrow, “Must be a Weaver thing. At least in Leighton, most of the older craftsmen had at least a few apprentices.”
“It is indeed ‘a Weaver thing’,” Yvette said, “And in my experience, such professionals often use apprentices as an imperfect form of immortality—a means by which to ensure their accumulated expertise does not die of old age with them.”
Rína frowned, “That’s kind of a bleak outlook. I mean there’s tons of other reasons why a master would take on an apprentice.”
“True,” Yvette conceded, “There is cheap labor for themselves, being ordered to for the sake of economic development, in exchange for simple payment, etcetera. But because of a Weaver’s circumstances, few of these motivations actually apply to us, though the reasons to not have one still do.”
“Huh, yeah I guess that makes sense…”
Rína thought back to her own previous apprenticeship in Leighton. She was still addled by the aether anemia, but she tried to remember why it was that Master Andreou had taken her in in the first place. Well, at first he certainly hadn’t, telling the small child staring at the pretty chemical reactions to stop bothering him. Eventually he agreed to make her his apothecary apprentice, but Rína wasn’t sure what made him say yes. Maybe she had just worn him down, maybe there weren’t any other candidates, maybe he learned about her home life and just did it out of pity—she really had no idea.
“What about you, then?” Rína asked.
“Hm?”
“Why did you agree to make me your apprentice?”
“Well I…” Yvette hesitated, “Well, it is not everyday that a qualified student appears on your doorstep, but you should know that you may run into certain… opinionated Flesh Weavers that believe that you should have your first apprentice by the end of your second century. Though to be clear, I am not among their number, and believe it is your choice alone whether or not you ever have one.”
“Good to know,” Rína chuckled before wincing, her headache releasing a fresh pulse of pain, “But even in a hundred years, odds are you’re going to run into someone worth mentoring, right? Or maybe not if you’re holed up in a cottage in the woods.”
Yvette gave Rína a sidelong glance, “Geography certainly plays a part, but even then a student fitting the necessary criteria is a rare thing indeed.”
“Oh yeah?” Rína asked, “Are you talking about the euphoria-juice?”
“That is one criteria, yes. There is also aptitude for the academic material and the practical application therein, but the most common disqualifier is that they be foundlings.”
“What?” Rína chanced the uncomfortable light and cracked an eye open to look at Yvette, “What’s being a foundling got to do with flesh weaving? And is this going to be a problem for me, because I’m not exactly one myself.”
“Says the girl I found alone in the middle of the woods,” Yvette smirked.
“That hardly counts,” Rína gave a half hearted glare, “Besides, I chose to be there—erh, sort of.”
“I suppose I must grant you that,” Yvette conceded, “But did you not divest yourself of your home and all the social connections therein? When you left that town, did you ever expect to return, or see anyone from it ever again?”
Rína grimaced, “No, no I didn’t.”
Yvette nodded, “Then you may not have been one to the letter, but you shared the relevant qualities. The foundling criteria is an act of mercy. Or rather, in the modern tradition it is seen as a cruelty to uplift a student only for them to watch as their family withers and dies around them. It is expected for one to outlive their parents and perhaps half of their siblings, but what about their nieces and nephews? What about their great nieces and nephews? What about each subsequent generation of their kin that they are powerless to save? As I have said, biomancy creates a distance between yourself and others. It sets the Weaver on a life path so alien to others that a degradation of close bonds is inevitable. Thus it is best if the student does not have any close bonds to begin with.”
Rína frowned, “I see what you mean, but I don’t know, it still seems kind of grim… So if the right kind of kid is so rare, I’m guessing most Weavers only ever teach their own, like your mom did for you and your brother.”
Yvette grimaced, “Yes, but not at all how you are probably imagining it. A Weaver having their own children is nothing short of an invitation for tragedy and I only know of two people alive today that are biological, second generation Weavers.”
“Really? I’d have thought having kids would be a breeze for a Weaver. Do the body modifications cause problems, or something?” Rína asked.
“Oh no, the birth is by far the easiest part.” Yvette said, her tone turning grave, “No, the tragedy occurs if the child, unlike their parent, is ill suited for biomancy.”
“How would that…” Rína furrowed her brow before the realization dawned on her, “Oh… Gods, what do you even do at that point?”
Yvette grimaced, “There are options, but none of them end in what one might call a ‘happy ending’.”
“So then what made your parents take the risk anyway?” Rína asked, “Or is that too personal a question?”
A sad smile crossed Yvette’s face, “It is not too personal, but you are mistaken: my brother and I were orphaned when we were very young. Our mother took us in and when we were old enough to demonstrate that we met the criteria for biomancy, she adopted us in truth and trained us from there.”
“…and if you hadn’t cleared the bar?” Rína asked, not knowing if she wanted to know the answer.
To Rína’s surprise, Yvette gave a small giggle, “Then she would have been our witchy godmother instead. Knowing her, she would have tried to con some idyllic aristocrats into adopting us or some such nonsense.”
“Pffh, what, just like those children's stories?”
“Yes,” Yvette smirked, “Exactly like those children’s stories.”
Rína quirked an eyebrow, not missing the implication, “Hey, how common is that sort of thing for Weavers? Either adopting a kid, or setting them up somewhere cushy if they don’t pass the tests?”
“Near universal, though actually landing in the aristocracy in the latter case is almost unheard of. But for instance, my mother and all of my aunts and uncles were adopted by my grandfather just as he and all my great aunts and uncles were adopted by my great grandfather.”
A scene formed in Rína’s mind. It was of a large, extended family, but without a single drop of shared blood between them. A family with every member having come from some quiet tragedy that had set them lost and alone—at least that is, until they were found.
“You know, that’s kind of sweet,” Rína said wistfully, “So then, what, does that make me some kind of friend of the family? Or,” Rína frowned, “I guess if everyone is already adopted then—”
“It makes you whatever you wish to be.” Yvette interjected.
“Oh…” Rína fell silent for a moment, “Could we maybe talk about this when my head isn’t split in two?”
“Of course.”
----------------------------------------
“It’s just regular old aspirin,” Rína dismissed, “I really don’t see what you’re getting so excited about.”
“Well, yes, I suppose,” Fíona almost stammered as she stared at the contents of one of the several medicine bottles, “But I mean this is just aspirin, right?”
Rína furrowed her brow as she looked at the town healer, “I mean, I added a bit of chaff to make sure the tablets weren’t too small to actually handle. But the additive was just some gelatin powder—totally inert. Oh wait, sorry,” Rína lightly slapped her forehead, “I also added a binding agent to stop the tablets from turning to dust the second someone shook the bottle, but again, totally inert. You have my word that there isn’t any dangerous gunk mixed in there.”
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“Hm? Yeah, I can believe that…” Fíona said, still staring at the bottle, “But how did you get it so pure in the first place; most of the stuff I get still smells of willow bark or whatever else slipped into the batch.”
“Oh, uh,” Rína faked a cough as she fell into her usual deflection, “Well, it took years and years of practice to get right, but it has to do with controlling the, uh, elemental flux during the various boil offs, and affixing the catalysts to the right acidic polarization.”
The healer’s eyes glazed over as expected. Rína wasn’t the biggest fan of lying to someone like this, but there wasn’t much of an alternative. The truth was just that Rína had access to Yvette’s store of impossibly pure reagents. And even if she didn’t have the supplies, the chemistry lessons she had been receiving for the last few months would be enough to exceed the quality of anything the region’s apothecaries could produce.
Fíona nodded, feigning understanding, “Yeah, I figured it’d be something like that… Say, would you mind if I showed this to someone?”
Rína gave the healer a confused look, “Uh, yeah, sure, I mean I’m donating all this,” Rína said motioning down at the small crate she had set on the healer’s table, “So it’s yours to do whatever you want with.”
It was only yesterday that Rína had made her first soul thread and as promised, she had fully recovered by the end of the day. She had originally planned on spending all of today making new threads, but that plan was scuttled when the morning saw the wagon’s arrival at the town of Firstfall, situated along the same Easruth River they had just crossed, but downstream of the waterfall that had to be detoured around.
And though it was a new day, with a new town, Yvette and Rína still went about their usual routine. Thus Yvette was probably at the home of an otherwise incurable patient while Rína was delivering a crate of medical supplies the local healer had said she was low on.
It was an odd kind of juxtaposition. Most of her days were filled with lessons on genuinely forbidden knowledge interspersed with sessions training her aura control or soul sight. But even then, there were still days where she was just distilling the same mundane substances that she had been back in Leighton. It was odd, but she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Even if she was living in a collegium, surrounded by powerful mages, there would still be a need for eye drops, wart creams, and soap.
Rína returned her attention to the local healer, who was still ogling the fruits of her labor.
“Wonderful, sorry, it’s just I know Pavlos will want to see this,” Fíona said, excitement crossing her face as she made for the door, “Oh! Sorry, you should come with me, if you would like, if you have the time, I mean. I know he’ll definitely have loads of questions for you.”
“Uh,” Rína said uncertainly as she followed the woman out the door of her home, “Sure, I guess, but what would this guy find so interesting about a bottle of aspirin?”
“That’s it’s just aspirin, silly,” Fíona teased as she led Rína through the cobblestone streets of the town, “Don’t get me wrong, he’s great at what he does, but all his batches smell like willow bark or whatever. I’m sure he’d love to pick your brain about how you made yours.”
Rína’s eyes went wide, “Sorry… Uh, this Pavlos guy, he’s an apothecary?”
“Sure is!” Fíona beamed before realization stopped her in her tracks, “Oh, right, sorry, I didn’t even think about that. I guess that was really rude of me. First you’re so kind to donate all that and then I just sort of assumed you’d spill trade secrets to another apothecary…”
“Uh, yeah, that’s right,” Rína stammered, “I really couldn’t just—”
“But this would be for medicines,” Fíona pleaded, “not like glues or varnish or whatever. Surely you’d be able to make an exception, right? And if you just travel around, it’s not like Pavlos would ever be a competitor to you. And—And I’m sure he’d be willing to pay for your time. I know money must not be an issue for you since you’re just giving away all this stuff, but I’m sure he’d be able to make it worth your while.”
“Those… are good points…” Rína admitted uneasily, unable to think of a reason to refuse despite her best efforts, “so… lead on, I guess.”
“Ah!” Fíona squeed, grabbing Rína’s hand and pulling her along, “Thank you so much! Now come on, Pavlos’s shop is just this way.”
What followed was a veritable tour of the town of Firstfall. True, the excitable healer was leading Rína to the apothecary’s shop, but as it was on the opposite side of town, it gave the woman ample opportunity to talk about each and every little detail of the sights they saw along the way.
There were parts of the tour that Rína found at least somewhat interesting, after all Firstfall was the first genuine town she had ever seen, with Leighton seeming more like an oversized village in hindsight. Here, instead of dirt roads, there were proper cobblestone streets; instead of a palisade or simply no defenses at all, the town had a wall of irregular stones mortared together; and instead of a random farmer’s barn that most travelers would have to sleep in, Firstfall had a few genuine inns along its main thoroughfare. And all of that was to say nothing of the population that had to be pushing two thousand people—about four times Leighton’s own.
Rína was honestly staggered by the number of people she saw on the streets. It was midday, and Fíona was leading her more or less through the center of town, but the only thing she could compare it to was a festival day in any other village. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have surprised Rína. Over their months of travel the frequency and size of the villages they passed had only increased as they put more and more distance between them and the frontier—it was only inevitable that they would come upon a proper town.
But most of the local history that Fíona was enthusiastically sharing was lost to Rína as she had her focus, and mild panic, trained on the upcoming introduction. It was hardly the first time Rína and Yvette had traveled to a settlement with either a trained healer or apothecary in residence, but out of all the small frontier villages they’d encountered, none of them had both. That this town did, Rína could only see it as being a problem.
The two women soon enough arrived at the apothecary’s shop, only spending a minute inside before being informed by an assistant that Pavlos was out personally making a delivery to a personal friend of his. So back out of the shop they went, Rína sparing a moment to inspect the workshop that was leagues better equipped than the Andreous’ back in Leighton.
Five minutes later, they arrived at a home built of properly cut timber and plaster, unlike the log homes that were so prevalent in the frontier villages.
“Pavlos, are you here?” Fíona shouted as she led Rína into the building. Rína was uncomfortable just walking into someone else’s home, but the healer seemed at ease, so Rína could only hope the woman had standing permission.
“Fíona, is that you?” Came a man’s voice from deeper into the home, “We’re back here.”
Moments later Fíona and Rína entered into a modestly furnished living room with a low fire flickering in the hearth. At the opposite end of the room, sitting in a rocking chair was an elderly woman being attended to by two people. The first was a thinly built, middle-aged man that seemed to have the luxury of an indoor career—Rína could only assume he was Pavlos. And the second person… was Yvette.
Yvette looked up from the elderly patient she was tending to to give Rína a look of pure confusion, “Rína? Is something wrong?”
Looks of confusion were soon mirrored among everyone else present.
“Wait, you know each other?” Fíona asked Rína, “I thought you said you just got into town? Small world, I guess.”
“Nothing’s wrong” Rína answered Yvette before addressing the healer, “Uh no, we’re actually traveling together. Fíona, this is Yvette, she’s my—” Rína hesitated for an instant, “aunt.”
She still wasn’t sure what to think about what Yvette told her the previous day. Part of her felt annoyed, maybe even angry, feeling like Yvette had lied through omission. Then again, Rína wasn’t exactly some small child in need of adoption, so that bit wouldn’t have ever been relevant. But still, the knowledge that most Weaver apprentices weren’t just apprentices cast a new light on Rína calling Yvette ‘aunt’.
Back in Nameless, when Rína first said Yvette was her aunt—or her ‘dear elder aunty’ to be specific—it was just a joke and a cover story, nothing more. However, the more Rína used it in public, the more accustomed to it she became. And at this point, it felt off to call Yvette anything else, even in private.
Back in the living room, introductions were soon made all around. The man was indeed the apothecary Pavlos, with the elderly woman being introduced as Mrs. Glezos.
“Sorry, to burst in like this, Mrs. G,” Fíona said, visibly caught between a motivation to be polite and show Pavlos the prize as quickly as possible.
“Oh, it’s quite alright,” the old woman waved off, “Go ahead and tell us what you’ve got to share before you burst.”
The healer grinned from ear to ear, “Right, ok Pavlos, check this out,” she said, pressing the bottle of aspirin tablets into the man’s hand.
“Is this really that important?” The man said, giving the bottle a cursory glance, “As a matter of—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Fíona said hurriedly, “Now come one, give it a close look.”
Pavlos sighed skeptically, removing the bottle’s cap, “Alright, white odorless tablets. What are these?”
“Aspirin,” Fíona said with a flourish of one hand as she wrapped the other around Rína’s shoulder, “Rína here made them herself—she’s some kind of apothecary prodigy. And the best part is that she said that she’d teach you all her tricks.”
Pavlos furrowed his brow as he tried to make sense of the situation, “Is this true?” He said, leveling an expectant gaze upon Rína.
Rína for her part tried to keep the panic from showing on her face. Across the room she saw Yvette give her a bewildered look as the woman’s familiar aura brushed against her soul. But instead of some arbitrary shape, Yvette’s aura was in the shape of ordinary text.
«What is going on?» Her aura spelled out.
With the non-mages in the room awaiting her answer, Rína hurriedly pushed back against Yvette’s aura with her own, «Busted. Fíona: healer.»
Rína saw one of Yvette’s eyes twitch, «We are leaving immediately.»
Meanwhile Rína addressed the apothecary, “I mean, yeah, but my aunt and I are on a pretty tight schedule—”
“Aw, come on, how long could it take to give him a few pointers?” Fíona groused.
Pavlos looked awkwardly between the two woman before saying, “I don’t mean to impose, and I can certainly understand if you have obligations elsewhere, but if this is really as high quality as it seems,” he said, indicating the medicine bottle, “I would be incredibly curious how you—”
“I am afraid my niece is correct: we must depart.” Yvette interjected, crossing the room towards the exit.
“Well could you not wait just a few moments?” Pavlos pleaded, “With Fíona here, could you not demonstrate to her how you cured Mrs. Glezos?”
“She did what now?” The healer said, looking between Yvette and the elderly woman.
“It’s true,” Mrs. Glezos said with a beaming smile, “I haven’t felt this good in years.”
“Indeed, I was about to tell you,” Pavlos began, “When I arrived here, she was massaging Mrs. Glezos’s extremities in what she said was a healer technique that—”
“I really am afraid that we must be going.” Yvette insisted, practically pushing Rína out the door alongside her.
Rína hurriedly waved goodbye, “It was great meeting you guys!”