Mec watched with careful eyes as the the boy scurried out of the maze of buildings. His gaze stayed transfixed down the passageway that lead into the street. "I can't imagine living such a life at that boy's age," he mused aloud. "In a large city such as this one, where the people hardly acknowledge each other and are suspicious of each other's natures. At least at home an orphaned or homeless child could seek some sort of refuge, whether that be in an orphanage, or church, or some other place run by benevolent hearts."
As they waited at the junction of passages, Mec began to pace. Surrounded by tall, grey walls, he and his companion were left alone together with not much more than the creeping sunlight from above to accompany them. "It's amazing that a silent and dull place like this exists in such a city, after being stuck in that sea of sweat and horse dung all morning." More random outbursts of thoughts such as these would emanate from Mec's mouth as he paced. The small amount of stimulation the grey stone surrounding them provided left his mind craving to venture to places he did not wish to return to. After a while, Mec would stop in front of the passage he had located the street urchin in earlier. His head would poke innocently into the alley, and then he would turn to look back at the passage in which the boy had exited and over to Shallan.
With a slight shrug, he began to inch his way down the dark tunnel, regardless of whether or not his companion protested or not. Should she choose to stay where they agreed to meet again with the urchin or follow him did not matter to Mec, as he did not plan on exploring for too long. As he slowly made progress down the passage he saw the it would meet with a wall and turn to the right behind the building. The young man would slowly peer around the corner. There, he could see that the passage widened slightly before coming to a dead end as one building ended and the wall wrapped around to enclose what would be an exit.
At the center of this small clearing he could see a pile of brown rags, haphazardly shielded from the sunlight with a makeshift tent made of random parts that could have fell from wagons or were procured from broken furniture, blanketed with a dirty cloth. It was evident that there was a person beneath the rags from the regular rise and fall of breathing. Mec took care to approach the wobbly structure silently, only crouching to observe what was beneath the tent when he was merely a pace away.
What he discovered was the visage of a woman, her hair lightly wrapped with a dark-colored scarf. The woman was unconscious, unaware of her visitor. He face dripped with sweat, and her breathing, while regular, was heavy and labored. Mec presumed the woman was the street urchin's mother, which would explain his defensive behavior before.
The young mage would down the path he came from to ensure that he had not been followed by the boy before letting himself drop down to his knees and rummage through his bag. As noisy as he might have been, he did not seem to disturb the slumber of the woman in front of him. His hands would eventually reemerge from the bag with a stack of notes, wrapped in a leather binding. Mec recall when his father had instructed him to diligently copy the pages of the travelers guide that was used during his journeys. The book contained many common know-hows that aided travel, and there was a section that described various illnesses and ways to cure them or alleviate their symptoms. Mec's fingers scrambled across the pages, seeking this particular section of his notes.
After locating the desired passage, Mec would begin to compare symptoms of various illnesses to what he saw in the woman. The flesh was cold, and so he dismissed all illnesses that listed warm skin as a symptom. Labored breathing, fluttering heartbeat, sweat in spite of the skin being chill to the touch - these symptoms would appear in multiple illnesses, and unless the woman was conscious Mec would not be able to differentiate between them through other symptoms. The young man grew increasingly frustrated as he flipped through the pages roughly, hoping to find some solution to the problem before him. A particular symptom would catch his eye, unique to only one illness, listed as Bloodclaw Disease. As the name implied, bruising or bleeding beneath the nails of hands and feet suggested the illness. Beneath the list of symptoms the man, in his youth, had scratched the letters "N-O-L," None or Lost. This was the symbol that implied that there was either no cure for the illness or the cure was lost with time either due to war or the loss of methods or extinction of resources required, such as magic or creatures that weren't believed to exist.
Mec noted that the disease was listed as fatal, but there had been no detail on the life expectancy of a sufferer of the illness. He took a deep breath, hoping that the symptom he was looking for wasn't present in the woman he assumed in his care. After carefully placing his notes on the floor, open to the page he was analyzing before, he would carefully raise the rags, just enough to see the woman's hand laying by her side. "No..." His eyes widened at the presence of bloodstained rags wrapped around the delicate fingers of the woman. "No no no." The man would quickly shuffle to where the woman's feet were to discover they were wrapped similarly. Defeated, Mec would sit back against the stone wall behind him, his hands gripping at his own brown locks angrily.
"Worthless," he would growl as he stuffed his notes back into his pack forcefully. After securing the bag to his back once more, the frustrated man would punch the stone wall angrily with the bottom of his fist before storming back in the direction he had come from. His mind preoccupied with his tantrum, he had not thought any better of the lack of pain in his hand and hadn't noticed the crack he had left in the grey stone. Should Shallan had followed him earlier he would brush passed her, determined to return to junction they agreed to wait in. He prayed that the boy had not yet returned, that Mec could claim ignorance of the fate what may be the boy's last family member. The story would only be shared with Shallan, and her alone, whether that be by mouth or by her witnessing the events herself.
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