The villager sat hunched over in the rickety wooden chair, cradling his injured hand like the paw of a wounded animal. Dozens of hair-thin black thorns had embedded themselves in his skin, clustered mostly along the back of his hand and curling slightly under the flesh. A dozen tiny pouches of pus had begun to bubble up in between them, and he winced as Llana began to pluck away at the many foreign teeth dug into his flesh.

  “Chase,” Llana said, not bothering to lift her eyes to look at the girl, “bring me the yellow bowl—the one with the sedge root mixture.”

  With an eager nod, the white-haired girl darted to the pantry on the other side of the room. The sound of rustling from the other room was followed by the uneven shuffling of footsteps… and then a clatter. A second crash. And then a third.

  Llana’s mouth flattened into a line, though she kept her gaze fixed on the injury in front of her. The man grimaced again as she pulled a particularly large thorn from his skin.

  A few seconds later, Chase appeared in the doorway, gripping the mixing bowl between both hands like it might jump away from her if she didn’t hold it tight enough. “Here,” she said, wearing a bright smile. She appeared a touch too proud of herself for all that Llana had heard take place in the other room. “Took a second to find it.”

  Choosing to remain silent, Llana accepted the bowl with one hand, dipping two fingers into the thick paste and beginning to stir it as she studied the man's injured hand once again. No thorns remained, instead only the dozen pockets of swelling skin dotting his hand like many small ant hills. Silence hung in the air for a few moments before Chase finally broke it.

  “What happened to him?” she asked, peering closer.

  “Thorn rot,” Llana replied flatly. “Jain thistle, most likely. Though it doesn't have a particularly potent toxin compared to most—”

  The man gave a pained groan and turned his face away from the sight of his own infested hand, as if ignoring it might spare him the pain. “—The body's already begun to purge it,” Llana continued, her tone unaffected by the man's struggle.

  "By moving it into those little bubbles, right? Chase said suddenly, her eyes narrowing on the small mounds in his skin. "His body's trying to push the stuff out by itself, like it's quarantining itself or something."

  Llana paused.

  Her fingers stopped mid-swirl as she left them submerged in the bowl. Her eyes flicked to the side --not quite to look at Chase, but to gauge something more subtle. The corner of her mouth tightened ever so slightly.

  The girl had been a stumbling mess of clumsiness and wide-eyed confusion ever since she had shown up. But this wasn't the first time she had said something just a little too knowledgeable for her to know. She claims her memory to be a hollow cavern, and yet, sometimes she spoke as if a better trained healer than Llana herself. Not consciously, perhaps --but suspicious nonetheless.

  Chase leaned forward to watch as Llana, as if to dispel herself from her own illusions, retrieved a slender, curved blade from the cart beside her. Her eyes widened, breath catching audibly in her throat as she watched Llana carefully lance the largest pustule in the man's skin. A thin line of puss seeped out onto a cloth she had placed below his hand. Pressing her palm gently to the side of the man's wrist, Chase watched in awe as the faint green light emitting from it stirred beneath the man's skin, the many mounds of puss shifting above the swollen red of his hand and pulling out towards a single mound under the thin laceration Llana had just made.

  Next, a reed-thin siphoning tube danced in her hands, meeting the wound and drawing out the fluid in a slow, quiet hiss.

  Chase gasped as she witnessed it. "That's --is that healing magic? That's amazing?" She attempted to curb her exclamation into a whisper, though it was obnoxiously loud nonetheless.

  Llana's brows softened ever so slightly as she heard the girl's amazed tone. 'No way' she thought. The girl couldn't have been deceiving her in whatever way she had been haphazardly suspecting. Her expression as she awed at Llana's work was too raw, too unguarded. It was difficult to even pretend to be so astonished --not convincingly. It only confirmed what she had gradually began to believe. Though the girl was hardly normal, her memory loss was genuine.

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  She glanced at her again, briefly glossing her over before returning to her work.

  'Still. Run?' Llana held back a rare chuckle as she recalled what had happened just one week prior. The girl had looked her dead in the eye, insisting that such a thing was her name. It didn't take long for Llana to discard the prospect of it. Though she wasn't certain she was better suited to name the girl herself, the name "Chase" had come to mind instead. It was a nice name. Llana quite liked it. And it was close enough to what the girl had so stubbornly tried to cling to at the beginning, but far easier to stomach.

  'Run' sounded too much like a warning, Llana mused grimly. 'Chase'.. at least it sounded like a person.

  Llana secured the final wrap of cloth around the villager's wrist, fastening it into place before tucking it into the end of another fold. The swelling already appeared to recede ever so slightly. She stood, brushing her palms over the least dirtied edges of her apron before speaking.

  "All done. It'll sting for a few days, but as long as you don't pick at it --or do anything else foolish you should be fine."

  "Th-Thank you, Miss Llana," the man responded gratefully, though his voice remained tight with residual discomfort.

  Before Llana could finish sending him off, the white-haired girl stepped up from beside her, beaming with an idiotic smile she had gotten painfully familiar with over the past few days.

  "Don't be too shy to come back if you need more help, alright? We got you covered." She fashioned a proud thumbs-up as she spoke.

  The man blinked at her a few times, his expression eventually melting into something slack and pink. He stammered a few words of thanks, nearly bowing to the girl before shuffling out the door, the gratitude continuing to spill from him like a leaky faucet.

  Llana watched as the door swung closed behind him. Though she had done all the work, she was somehow confident that Chase's smile would be the only thing he'd remember from his visit. She soon shook the thought, turning towards the girl who had already shifted her attention to the picked thorns laying on the cart behind her.

  "You shouldn't be so friendly," Llana said outright.

  "Huh?" Chase turned, dropping the few thorns she had been inspecting back into the cart before directing a confused gaze in Llana's direction.

  Llana simply crossed her arms as she looked back at her. "Men around here aren't all acquainted with, what you might call chivalry. They'll get the wrong idea if you let them."

  Chase stared at her, tilting her head in genuine bewilderment, her eyes darting upward as she appeared to be trying to divine the meaning behind Llana's words. Then, with a sudden shrug, she looked back at Llana as if she had finally come to her answer. "I think it's you that's just too grumpy." She said simply, giving Llana her childlike advice with a solemn look.

  Llana released a quiet sigh as she found her words falling on deaf ears. Even for someone without a single memory to reflect on, the girl was far too naive.

  It was then that she felt a sudden discomfort. Like something had pricked her skin. Blinking, she soon realized that she had never heard the door completely shut.

  Drifting her eyes slowly upward towards the wooden frame, she spotted a figure standing in the doorway. His silhouette loomed tall against the daylight that bled into the cabin from behind him, framed by the warped wood of the open doorway. He wore a thick cloak, edged in black fur that hung off his narrow shoulders like a mantle which far surpassed the man who bore it. His hair had grayed at the temples, the rest swept back to expose coarse, weathered lines across his brow. A patchy bear framed his face, rugged and trimmed just enough to suggest some small attempt at refinement --like someone had tried to sculpt gold out of mud.

  Llana's breath hitched for a moment, her chest tightening as she met the eyes of Village Chief Deta. Her fear remained as his eyes trailed from her over to the young girl beside her. Llana felt her fingers curl subconsciously against the fabric of her sleeve before she spoke.

  "Chief Deta." She began in a blank tone, just warm enough to mask the cold fear she felt underneath. "Please, come in." The man passed through the doorway with a wry smile as his eyes turned back to Llana.

  "I appreciate the invitation! Haha." He spoke lightly before letting out a playful chuckle, though it only served to make Llana even more uncomfortable. She noticed his eyes trailing over to Chase once again who appeared to shift uncomfortably under his silent gaze.

  "Chase, go tend to the garden." Llana said suddenly, her tone quiet but firm. "The alcra stems need watering, and go collect whichever blueroots look ripe enough. Don't forget the bucket this time."

  Chase took a second to glance between Llana and the Chief, appearing to have something to say, though she decided against it in the end. Unease flickered in her expression for a just a moment before she nodded at Llana, turning to slip through the back door which led out to the garden.

  Only once the door clicked shut behind her did Llana pull out a chair from the dull drum table which sat in the corner of the room.

  "Would you like some tea?" She asked the man in a stiff tone.