"Sorrel." Apricot flew into the tent while I was in the middle of fixing a nasty old break that wasn't set properly. "I just passed by an herbalist and caught a whiff of nature magic coming from her wares. I thought you might want to check it out."

"Oh, yeah? I guess I could use a short break. Just give me a sec to finish up here and we can check them out." Chronic illnesses and old injuries like this that have a high mana cost to repair properly have been the majority of what I've been dealing with so far today. "Alright, sir, you're good to go. Don't forget your sucker."

While he's gingerly testing his leg, I get up and follow Apricot out of the tent and let everyone know that there's going to be a small wait. "I'm going to take a short break now, everyone. I'll be back in just a few minutes though, so please feel free to have some candy while you wait." I create a pedestal and set another bowl of lollipops on it.

"I swear half your line is just here for those candies." The guard outside my tent says with a laugh before popping one into his mouth.

"Well, at least no one has actually injured themselves just to get one, yet." I add after a pause and then turn to Apricot who is hovering next to me. "Alright, so where's this herbalist? And, have you been having fun tutoring the apprentices?"

"More fun than watching you mend yet another poorly set bone." She snarks back while leading me to the herbalist. "Word is spreading about that by the way, more and more people with chronic problems are showing up hoping that you'll be able to help."

"Yay." I deadpan, already as bored of seeing the same things over and over again as Apricot. "Do you think they'll object if I work on my enchanting at the same time? I had hoped to devote most of yesterday to it, but... well, you were there." She flies over to caress my cheek when I sigh.

"They'll be fine with it, you do what you want." My pixie says in a soothing tone.

"What I want is to still be in bed with you and Amelia." I grin up at her. "But, I'll settle for making a few small explosions. Ooh, this must be the place." I can just feel the faintest hint of magic from some of the herbs here.

"H-healer Sorrel, h-how can I help you?" A nervous-looking young woman speaks up when I stop at her stall to examine her wares.

"Hello, you have some rather quality herbs here, I was just hoping that I could buy a few of the seeds." I reply with a polite smile hoping to put her at ease. "And, if it's not too much trouble, could I ask what your secret is?" Her magic feels different from that of the plants, so I can already tell that she didn't do anything to them, not directly at least.

"O-of course, s-s-sir." Her stammer seems to be getting worse despite my gentle approach. "Y-you c-can take whatever y-you'd like. And, uh..." She looks positively panicked now.

"It's alright." I put a little more charm into my smile. "Everyone has their secrets, and you're welcome to keep yours. Getting the seeds is more than enough for me." A couple of seeds fall from each plant that has them and roll into a small pile in front of me; I wave my hand over them, shifting the lot into storage and leaving a gold coin in their place before turning about to return to my waiting patients.

"S-sir!" I stop and turn back to her when she calls out. "T-there's nothing wrong with the plants is there?"

"Quite the opposite, most of these have a hint of nature magic in them that should make then slightly more potent than usual." I explain and widen my smile once more when she gets a relieved look on her face.

"P-please promise not to spread it around, but I b-b-befriended a G-g-g..." She just can't seem to get the word out.

"Really?" I raise an eyebrow. "We ran into some yesterday, but they didn't come close enough to communicate with. I didn't feel any strong magic on them, but I suppose they must know the grasslands like the back of their hands."

"I think the fire you were making might have had a little something to do with them not coming any closer." Apricot says with a titter. "You know, the one hot enough to melt stone."

"That or it could have been the crazy pixie who was dancing around naked right in front of said fire." I shoot back with a smirk.

"Y-you're not disgusted by them?" The herbalist's face is filled with surprised. "Everyone seems to hate them, but the one I met seems really nice. She trades me herbs in exchange for sweets."

"I can't say I've interacted with them enough to form an opinion one way or another." I reply honestly. "But, I read somewhere that the tribes most people run into are basically just their teenagers. It's hard to get a good impression for a people if all you've ever dealt with are a bunch of annoying thirteen-year-olds."

"I suppose so." She responds with a smile and a soft laugh.

"Alright, I really should get back to work." I nod my head to the woman. "Thank you for the seeds. And, here. Feel free to share some with your friend the next time you see her." I set a small jar of suckers on her table before leaving.

"Hey, is that Ashley?" Apricot asks when we get back to my tent to find that Roddy's one night stand has replaced the guard that was working there. "Amelia says we have to quiz her."

"Heheheh. Poor Rodrick." I shake my head with a laugh. "Hi, Ashley. How's it going? I can see the suckers didn't last five minutes."

"Sorrel, Apricot, nice seeing you again." She nods to us. "Things are good; me, Bobbi, and Jo only have light duty today because we'll be heading back to rejoin the squad tomorrow."

"Ah. No wonder Roddy was in a bit of a funk yesterday." Apricot breaks into laughter, and I swear I can hear Amelia laughing along with her.

"Mhm, he was a bit put off when I told him I had to leave again so soon." Ashley laughs along. "He seems nice enough, I might even look him up again when I get back in a few months."

"Wait, you had to look 'him' up? We told him that we met you on your way into town." That is definitely Amelia speaking through the pixie right now. "Oh, that little coward."

"No, no. I heard he was asking around about me and went to find him." The guardswoman clears things up.

"Well, good for him then." I smile, and then sigh at the size of the line. "I should get back to work though." I nod to Ashley before motioning for the person at the head of the line to follow me into the tent.

...

"Dammit, not again." I toss the failed enchantment into a thick stone trash bin as soon as it starts smoking. "Sorry about that, you're good to go though. Next!" I apologize to my latest patient and call for the next.

"Just have a seat and I'll..." I trail off when my scan shows the next patient to be in much worse shape than the previous ones have been. "Well, aren't you a mess. I can fix the bones and joints easy enough, but you have a lot of scarring on your organs. And, everywhere else."

"Any help would be appreciated." The man replies in a surprisingly light voice; he looks to be a grizzled old fighter that has seen better days and is covered in scars inside and out. Including a somewhat recent and rather nasty one that looks to have blinded his left eye.

"Mhm. I'll do what I can right now." I say while already working on him. "But, I'd like you to come back at the end of the day. I have another technique that should take care of at least the worst of it, but will leave me too drained to help anyone else today."

"You should save it for others who might need it more then." The man denies my offer. "I knew what I was getting into when I chose the mercenary life."

"That's why I said come back later." I try not to roll my eyes at his noble nonsense. "But, I can tell you're not going to. So, you're a mercenary, eh? I'm guessing that you haven't been able to get a decent job lately, not as messed as your body is."

"..." He just purses his lips.

"You know, I just started a business and already had the first attempted break-in just yesterday morning." I see a little light flare to life in the back of his lone eye. "I could probably use someone to handle security."

"I'm not looking for any charity." Says the man at the free healing fair.

"The stuff I'm working with is quite valuable, I'll need someone I can trust to look after it. Drink this." I hand him a shot glass of healing sap. "Someone who owes me, even. Now, this might tingle a little." I send all the vitality from the healing sap straight into his ruined eye.

Luckily, it's just the front part of the eye that was damaged. I would have needed to give him much more than a shot glass worth of sap if the nerves and sensory cells at the rear were as messed up as the rest.

"I didn't feel anything." The man sounds confused.

"I said it might tingle, not that it would." I counter with an amused smile since he hasn't even figured out what I did yet. "I'll see you here tonight, or you can just show up at Greene's old warehouse outside the west gate when you change your mind. You're good to go now, send the next one in on your way out. And, don't forget your Lollipop"

The man looks a bit surprised that I'm not trying harder to convince him, and then even more so when he gets up with much more ease than he was expecting. I just smile though, knowing that he's bound to remove the eye patch sooner or later.

The next patient isn't nearly as interesting, so I just point them to a chair and go back to my enchanting practice.

...

"Sorrel." Elise enters my tent with a plump young woman just as I'm finishing up my latest patient. "I could use your help here."

"Just. one. second... Yes!" The damned thing didn't explode this time. "Sorry, this stupid thing has been giving me trouble. You're all done now, Ma'am, don't forget your sucker." I say to the older woman I just finished treating before turning to look at the new arrival.

"You see it, yes?" Elise speaks up before I can say anything. "She's obviously not pregnant, but I've seen nine-month pregnant women that aren't as difficult to read as Tess here.

"Hello, Tess. What brings you here today?" I'm as fascinated by the puzzle the woman presents as Elise, but the poor thing looks a bit spooked by the older healer's enthusiasm.

"My stomach has been bothering me lately." The woman answers while touching the upper right side of her abdomen, "I've always been healthy, so I've never needed to see a healer before now. And, I'm certainly not pregnant."

"No, but you do have pancreatitis, which is easily taken care of." I say with a smile when she starts looking worried. "But, as you can imagine, we're rather interested in why you're so much more resistant to magic than most people. Would you mind if I perform a more thorough examination."

"I'm not getting naked!" A snort of a laugh escapes from my nose when she blurts that out.

"That won't be necessary." I say after getting myself under control. "I just need you to drink this, I'd need you to anyways in order to fix your pancreas, but it will give me a much more detailed picture of what's going on."

"Just how detailed are we talking?" She asks suspiciously.

"If you're worried about your modesty, don't." I reply with a sigh.

"Yeah, your clothes don't matter much to someone who can see straight down to the cells that make up your body." Apricot announces in her usual helpful manner when she arrives, I signaled her with magic a moment ago. "And, did you have to call just now? The girls are all starting to get tipsy."

"You can go back to perving on Amelia's friends in a moment." I shake my head at the horny little thing. "I think I have an idea what's causing this, but I don't have the equipment to verify it. So, I'm probably going to need you to check something for me. If Tess here will allow us to continue the examination."

"You're not making me feel better about this." Tess sighs but finally relents. "Fine, just give me the stuff, but you'd better at least fix what's wrong with me." The suspicious young woman takes the glass from me and downs it in one go after a quick sniff.

"Hmm. Even knowing what I'm looking for I still can't tell the difference, not directly at least." I wish I had a proper lab right now, I've run DNA tests before and know the basics of how they work, but I have no idea on how to replicate one from scratch, magic or no. "Alright, Apricot, it looks like this one is all down to that amazing nose of yours. Please sniff the left and right sides of her back."

"Uh, okay." Apricot looks at me funny. "But, why did she freak out like that?" Tess instantly stiffened when I mentioned her back.

"It's alright Tess, it's just a birthmark." I try to calm the panicked woman down, but I'm not sure how well it's working. "I've 'seen' countless bodies inside and out today, a little discoloration is nothing."

"..." Tess just glares at me. But, her focus is on me and not Apricot right now, and the pixie soon verifies my suspicions.

"What the?!" Tess jumps and twirls around when Apricot speaks up from behind her. "Even the mana signature is different." The pixie confirms the only difference I was able to detect.

"Sorrel, you clearly know what is going on." Elise steps forward to take charge. "Would you please inform the rest of us?"

"Yes, sorry." I bow to her and Tess. "But, it's a very rare condition, and I've only ever read about it. See, your eyes first clued me in, Tess; it's subtle but they are two different shades. And, when you combine that with a birthmark that smells like your sister?" I say that last bit as a question for Apricot, who nods so hard she bobs up and down in the air.

"What are you going on about?" Tess is still upset. "I don't have a sister."

"No, you have a condition called chimerism." I say and Elise's eyes light up as she figures it out from the name. "You started out as fraternal twins, but early on, very early on, the cells that would have formed two different babies fused together to make just one. But, since you started as two, you have two mana signatures which conflict with each other like a mother and child's do."

"What?" The poor woman just looks dumbfounded.

"You've never been able to do even the smallest of magics, right?" Elise asks her. "This is a common problem in pregnant women, even the strongest of mages have their magic nullified in the later months by the interference of the unborn baby."

"Look, you're perfectly healthy." I say to the overwhelmed woman. "Just think of yourself as two trees that grew so closely together that they are nearly indistinguishable from one. And, none of this is helping, is it? I know it's early, but do you want a drink?" I bring out an assortment of alcohol.

"Gods, yes." Tess grabs a pitcher at random and starts drinking straight from it. "So, what does this all mean for me?" She asks after downing almost half of it.

"That you just downed half a pitcher of punch meant for a beastkin? It means you're going to get really drunk." I answer with a laugh. "But, seriously, not much. I'll probably be the only one who can heal you if you get injured -which I will always do for free- but, other than that it's not going to affect your life."

"Which life, mine or my sister's?" She asks with a hiccup.

"You're still the same person you always have been, the whole talk of twins and sisters is just that, talk. You are one person and always have been. And, you are also a lightweight." I laugh and start removing the excess alcohol from her body.

"Okay, you need to show me that spell." Elise laughs when Tess starts to sober up. I left her enough to keep her lightly buzzed, but not die from alcohol poisoning. "Sorrel's right though, Tess. You're no different than you were before today."

"I am a lot more wary of accepting drinks from strange green men." The drunken woman giggles. "Are you sure about all of this? It just seems so... I don't even know."

"I'd love to run a proper DNA sequencing, but honestly, I trust Apricot's nose more than all of my old lab equipment put together." The pixie beams with pride at my words.

"Can I get back to the house now?" Apricot pleads. "Amelia keeps teasing me with little flashes of everyone getting changed."

"Heheheh. Oh, go on, you little pervert." I brush my magic against her in a parting gesture before she rockets out of the tent. "And, no more of that for you." I dematerialize the beastkin punch just before Tess grabs it again. "At least stick for something meant for humans, please."

"Nnh, spoilsport." She sticks her tongue out at me before snatching up another pitcher at random.

"You should probably assign someone to watch over her." I tell Elise who is looking at the woman how I look at one of my puzzles.

"Yes, you're right." Elise says with a sigh. Tess is fascinating from a magical and medical standpoint, but even I couldn't tell for sure without Apricot. So, the healer must be feeling down that there's nothing she can do here. "Come on, Tess. Sorrel still has a lot of patients to see to. Let's find you someplace where you can get drunk in peace."

"Fine, but I'm taking these with me." She grabs up a couple more pitchers before being ushered out of the tent. "Bye-bye strange green man, I'll come find you the next time I stub my sister's toe."

I hope she can get through this alright; it's got to be a pretty big mindfuck, but I don't know how I could have explained it better without lying to her.

...