After dropping off the water at home, Toland set off for work.

The local herbalist was a small building, set almost as far away from the rest of the houses as was possible, last only to the Querth, the woodcutter.

The man inside was surprisingly young for a village healer, barely even 30, yet here he was, sat at the end of a long workbench, wearing a battered pair of spectacles and watching a flask of a strange green liquid bubble.

Many of the people of the village thought what he did was magic, probably because they had never seen any of the equipment he had bought back from the capital.

Looking at him now, intricately working away with absolute precision, Toland felt the need to ask what had made him return to this tiny village. Before Toland was born, Kinic left the village to study at the royal college of medicine, he turned down a life of luxury in the capital to come back here and ply his trade as the village healer.

Kinic looked up from his potion for a moment to see Toland enter.

"You're late... again."

"Sorry..." Toland said, abashed.

Kinic rolled his eyes, then pointed to a small wooden box, filled with berries, "Those are careen berries, they need to be crushed, mixed with the hilde moss over there. Please do not eat one, they are quite poisonous."

Toland nodded and picked up the box and moved it to the other end of the workbench. He then fetched the jar of hilde moss from the shelf of ingredients as well as the mortar and pestle and set to work.

After about two hours work, he was done, leaving him with four wooden beakers of red liquid. He then found lids for them and placed them on the ingredients shelf. Lastly, he found a label and wrote 'careen berry juice' on it.

"If you've done that, you can brew Gena's headache medicine."

"What are you making?" Toland ventured, as he went over to the ingredients shelf.

"Oh, nothing much, just distilling down some flowers for the smell. Can you pass me the lubrec?"

Toland passed him the lubrec then retrieved the items he needed.

After a few moments of careful work, Toland finished the medicine, a fine, green powder that he placed in a small wooden bottle.

"Done," he said.

"Excellent, I think that was all for today, but, I will need you in a few minutes. This next part requires an extra pair of hands."

Toland nodded and took a seat on a stool, watching the young herbalist work and once again he found himself burning to ask why he wasn't working in the capital.

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"Kinic..."

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"No, you cannot have a raise."

"That's not it. I was wondering, why you didn't stay in the capital?"

Kinic glanced over at him, an eyebrow raised.

"I mean, you went to the college place and you are the best healer we've ever had in the village..."

Kinic sighed, "I didn't stay because I couldn't. I don't have a license to practice medicine in the capital. There was no work for me."

Toland frowned, "But, you went to the college, doesn't that give you a license?"

"It does, if you pass the final examinations."

"But you're really good, how did you fail?"

"I didn't fail, I never went to them. I stood outside the examination hall for three hours, shaking in fear."

Kinic's gaze drifted away from the here and now, looking off with a haunted expression and Toland realized why no one ever talked about his time in the capital.

Kinic eventually snapped back to reality, "Get the benera and the nighturn, then come round this side of the table."

Toland obeyed and then watched as Kinic picked the flask up with a pair of metal tongs.

"When I pour the flask out into that bowl of herbern, wait until the mixture turns blue then add the vials."

Toland nodded and Kinic poured out the contents of the flask. There was a brief moment of bubbling then a blue color began spreading through the mixture. Toland quickly added in the ingredients and the mixture returned to its original green color.

"Does that make you think less of me?" Kinic asked and Toland almost physically recoiled in shock.

"No, of course not," he spluttered.

Kinic gave a rueful smile, "There is not a lot that can go wrong with a person that I cannot treat, but if a person has a broken spirit there is no potion or operation that can fix it. Some think of me as a great coward, others just look at me with pity. But, this is where I belong, this is what the gods made me for. The capital is just a step too far for me."

Toland nodded.

"Well, that's this done. It just needs to be left in the fire for a while and let the water boil off. If you want to go, that's fine."

Toland looked up at him.

"Kinic..."

"Yes."

"Why are you brewing Stenshium?"

Kinic blinked twice, shocked, then chuckled.

"I guess it was a little too much to expect to be able to get you to help brew it without you realizing what it is... Two nights ago, Querth found prints in the woods, big ones."

Toland's eyes widened, looking between the bowl and Kinic, "There's... a direwolf out there?"

Kinic laughed, albeit slightly forced, "Almost certainly not, but, better to be safe than sorry. So don't go spreading rumors. If one is out there, it will smell this and leave the area. Don't worry. Nothing bad is going to happen."

Toland raised an eyebrow.

"I promise. But anyway, it's impressive that you guessed from just three ingredients. You really should take me up on my offer of becoming my fulltime apprentice, you have a gift, you should use it."

"I still don't know," Toland cringed, "It's just not me, I guess."

Kinic sighed, "Well, you are going to have to choose something soon, you should have chosen something a year ago really. But, I understand, rushing into things saw me standing on the steps of the royal college thinking I was having a heart attack. So..."

He shrugged and Toland gave him an understanding smile. With that, Toland left the healer's house and jogged on to his next set of chores and odd jobs.

As he went, he took a furtive look over his shoulder at the forest on the edge of the village. Suddenly, it looked a lot darker between the ancient trees.