Mirha
"What's your name?" I asked Sia, although I already knew it.
"Sia." She was so focused on her work, it seemed as though she wasn't interested in being friends or getting to know me at all.
I gave a her a nod and smile and just walked away to my desk which was opposite to hers. I thought that if she wasn't interested in small talk, maybe I could get along with her through the work.
Throught out the two hour session I kept engaging with Sia and she would respond wonderfully and engage back with me. Her knowledge on medicine was great and it seemed she was greatly influenced with the passion for it.
As I assumed Sia was 21 years old, just 2 gears older than buy it wasn't a bug deal since it wasn't a huge difference. It was better than to hang around with kids that either are 11 years older.
After some time had passed, Sia and I had finished our work earlier since we worked together and helped each other with our work.
I wanted to ask her many things but she seemed pretty introverted so I decided to take it slowly.
Clarice had made some preparations for our dinner beforehand, so we all sat down together to eat before closing the apothecary since it was nearly night time.
***
*Two months later*
"Alright, ladies. Pack up your stuff, we're closing."
Clarice announced, closing the windows and putting up the "closed" sign.
Finally this torture was over.
I really don't know how Sia loves every bit of the apprenticeship, seriously though. If I had a quarter of her love and patience for medicine I'd be so happy and time would pass by.
The only reason I started to study medicine in the first place was because I could prepare for any unprecedented events; there was no guarantee we'd be able to stay safe in the Caliphate forever. Someone would find out one day.
But, never did I think it'd be this hard and revolting. The theory bit was fine since we'd been trained back home and in the academy, I found it easy and was able to prepare in 2 years. However, actually practising medicine on people was revolting: these patients ended up with horribly damaged legs that had to be amputated in most cases or they'd have some gruesome infection from the horrible habitat that they live in.
Nonetheless, our medicine was quite advanced compared to other empires and kingdoms. We had the world's biggest and most famous library where scholars from all around the world came and studied in so even poor and unfunded apothecaries like Clarices' was advanced for doctors in the far west.
Anyhow the money that comes with it is good, so I can't complain much anyways. Whenever I thought about the money that came with it, all tiredness and misery left my face. It was satisfying just to think of money.
I saw Sia walk In to the apothecary carrying a whole mountain of raw herbs and other medicine in her arms so I stood up to give her a hand.
"Let me take something."
Sia sighed with relief and i carefully placed some of the stuff onto myself, "Thank you."
I smiled, "It must've been a torture, this."
"Had to re-stock everything so many times because they kept falling."
"Why didn't you take the basket with you?"
"I would've! But Uncle Ahmed borrowed it."
Uncle Ayan? "Wait, didn't he take it a few days ago? Why has he still not give it to us?"
Sia shrugged after the two of us placed the medicine away, "Don't know, he seems strict and scary so I wouldn't wanna be the one to ask for it back."
Well that's true, the only person that's Uncle Ahmed's rival is none other than Clarice.
"Yeah, that's Clarice's job." We let out a giggle and quickly put on our clothing before heading out of the apothecary otherwise Clarice wouldn't hesitate to lock us in for the night.
I saw my brother waiting for me a few meters away from us, the clouds were shrouding in on us so I gestured to Sia if she wanted to come with us.
As always i thought she'd decline, I never rely knew where she came from or anything about her background so just to be safe I kept a considerable distance between us. She could be anything and anyone but maybe I was just being biased because I liked everything about her so much.
Sia smiled and turned to me, "Yes, if it'd be alright with you."
"Of course!" Taking her by hands I skipped along the path until we got to my brother.
Soon the rain started pouring and thunder clapped in the big black sky.
I introduced the two of them, "Hadi, this is my friend, Sia. Sia, this is my brother, Hadi."
They smiled at each other and gave greetings before we left to go about our destination.
On our way home we got so drenched, my brother had me dropped off first since I already had a mild cold and told me he'd drop off Sia.
I felt conflicted, Sia wasn't comfortable with strangers but surprisingly she agreed saying, "That's fine Mirha, I wouldn't want you to get sick because of me so go on."
I gave a her a big hug and waved off after we had arrived at the small broken casino that we lived in after the owner took us in if we offered to do work for him for free.
Today felt... strange, almost melancholic but happy at the same time.