The Magi: Cough Medicine

[k_a_webb]

Based on the prompt hydrangeas from dreamwidth user clare_dragonfly.

This is a fantasy story. Hydrangea flowers are toxic so please don’t attempt to make the cough medicine from them.

Making a simple cough medicine was something any healer could do. It was one of the first things they were taught to make, when the first hydrangea flowers were harvested in the spring after the trainee healer’s sixth birthday. When the trainees turned fifteen they would begin to learn about the other powers that a healer had but until then their time was spent memorising the recipes for hundreds of medicines. A cough medicine could include different ingredients for each type of cough that was known about.

Lorna was busy making a cough syrup for people with sore throats. She enjoyed having a chance to spend some time actually working, rather than having to learn how to be the matriarch from her mother. Every day it just got harder to believe that she really would become the leader of her people, that she would have to marry and have a daughter to follow in her footsteps. Thoughtfully she chopped up the petals, stopping to stir the mixture occasionally so it wouldn’t burn, trying to imagine what it would be like to sit in the matriarch’s chair.

It was something she could easily see her younger half sister in. She believed the same things that their mother did, especially about the Carne and how they shouldn’t be helped because of what had happened before. There were times when Lorna wondered how she was related to them. Maybe it was her father she took after but she would never know because he had died when she was six months old.

Brushing her hair off of her face she tried to focus on cutting the petals into perfect strips. It didn’t actually matter because they’d be boiled down and any remaining bits would be sieved out, but having pride in everything she did was something that her first mentor had taught her. Even a cough medicine should be made to the best of her ability. Someone would be taking it to soothe their cough and it was that person who was important. A cough medicine could be weaker or stronger depending on how well the petals boiled down.

“Lorna,” a voice said from beside her, making her jump, “I got the mint leaves.”

“Thank you, Callum,” she replied, turning to smile at him.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something more important?”

She gently took the mint out of his hands. “This is important.”

“It’s just cough medicine.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not important. Everything a healer does is important, whether it’s making a simple medicine or doing a full healing on someone close to death.”

Smiling at him she turned back to the cutting board. The mint leaves went to one side while she finished cutting the hydrangea petals. When she heard the door close she knew that Callum had left and she couldn’t help wondering what he was being taught by his mentor. She knew that none of the mentors she’d had after the first one left had put so much effort into teaching her that everything she did, everything she made, was important.

Originally posted at dreamwidth.org as kajones_writing.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.