The heavy stench of Broadsage Leaflet Reed came to recognize from home was far stronger in the short hall of Yewthorn's infirmary.
A hall where no more than two people can attend at a wider angle. Reed Riddance carried himself painfully, dragging one step at a time, gritting teeth occasionally at the sparse instances of sharp pain in his chest. He felt the dried rough scar on his chest, which peaked halfway through his ripped shirt.
Reed walked past the first fork in the infirmary halls. Hearing noises from the left side, he attended that one.
The voices of two people cleared themselves from their previously muffled states until the corners turned, revealing a humble room of eight wooden chairs and a door on the opposite side of the room.
The chairs faced the direction in which Reed had come in, so none of the two women in the middle row had noticed him. One woman, a young adult, and the other, of a mother's age, eventually they took notice of him as he took his first barefoot steps along the wooden floors. The creaking sound drew their attention, overshadowing whatever conversation occurred.
They eyed him longer than they respected his privacy. He'd felt nothing, however. How could he when the worst had done its worst to him? Any bit of shame had not come from his visage towards these people. It came from his failure to protect Linette; it came from his failed duty to save Geraint.
Just then, as he thought about all the instances that he'd experienced recently, not once had the thought of Geraint come to him.
Reed grabbed the chair closest to him and rested his head down to the one ahead of him.
He could be alive. Geraint wasn't there, so he could be alive. He proposed the idea to himself in scant hope. Who buried me?
Reed began thinking back to when he awoke, standing up on that hill in the late day sky and the yellow grass hills. He hadn't noticed that there were no other dirt patches laid out except for his own.
I don't understand, dusted hells what happened?
"You are?" A voice he hadn't recognized asked him, looking down at the floor. The feet that had approached him wore white leather and silver bearings.
Looking up, Reed laid his eyes on a mid-stature man bearing thin cut hair and an angular monocle, except it hadn't been a monocle but a wedged piece of angular eye contraption in one socket, stapled cleanly into the skin.
"Are you the doctor?" Reed asked the older man.
Nodding in response, he put his hand forward, looking him up and down at the dirt stuck to his skin and the scar half visible on his chest.
"Your shoulder is dislodged." He muttered, looking around it.
"There's pain there," Reed was surprised he noticed, but he never knew it was out of place. "By any chance, where can I find Penburn?"
"Right in front of you." The man called Penburn turned his attention towards him and away from all the wrongdoings on Reed's body. "And I prefer you call me that rather than the designate out front.
"Right." Reed nodded.
"Follow me," Penburn demanded, his pitched voice monotonous as a rock.
Reed struggled up and passed the two visitors in the middle row and into the door held open by Penburn. Inside was another hall, and at this point he'd begin wondering what maze the place was.
Six doors, three to each side, dotted the walls of the short hall. One door stood thickly larger at the far end in the center. Opening the fifth door, Penburn ushered Reed inside.
Taking his restful seat of soft leather between the two walls, Penburn closed the door and leaned against a third wall.
A long moment of silence passed.
"We can rule out that you'd been in a scuffle." Penburn blurted out.
Oh, I had. Reed thought.
"I'm sure it was more than just a scuffle."
"Can you fix me?" Reed hoped.
"Not if you don't tell me the origin of the scar." Penburn pointed out, looking at Reed's chest.
Reed didn't know what to think, what to say, why that question, and of what kind of doctor says such things.
"It's not important." He tried pushing away from the subject.
Immediately and out of the blue, Penburn's hand was out flat on where Reed's heart was. And Reed would have flinched back, smacking the man's hand away if it wasn't for his damn shoulder burdening him.
"I said it's not important!" Reed exclaimed, grabbing the man's wrist before he felt it loosen. Letting go of Penburn's arm, Penburn had the least noticeable smirk at the corner of his lip. Almost looked natural if the man's calm nature hadn't put Reed off.
"What's your name?" Penburn asked. "Quickly."
"R...Reed."
"Reed," Penburn repeated, "you know," he continued as he started pacing back and forth in the small room. "I had never once believed in such fate, and I say 'once' not because I do believe in the abstract of it all, which I don't, No. I still do not take such beliefs into my heart, but, I do believe there's a force of nature out there doing things, let me rephrase that. I believe there is a force placing things in such order that it becomes the result of a fictionalized mere belief known as fate."
Reed listened to Penburn closely, trying to muster the point of it all. But nothing came of it as he continued.
"Many would argue that what I had just described was the very definition of fate, but that is incorrect. Fate is merely a tool of indolence. What I had just described was something you could call a tool of forbearance."
"And what am I supposed to do with your beliefs?" Reed questioned, losing faith in the man who was supposed to treat him anew.
"You listen to me," Penburn responded, "because forbearance is all I ever had; thus, I believed that someone such as yourself would show up, eventually."
For a long time, words were never Reed's thing. He'd show less interest in conventional topics of conversation because of the lack of care. It was something he hid for a long time and this man called Penburn not only tested his patience, but thought Reed cared enough to listen. Standing up and reaching for the door, Reed thought of finding another infirmary.
"You know Reed," Penburn voiced, things might be difficult without a heart."
Reed's hand resisted turning the knob. He eventually let go of the it and turned around to face Penburn with a scowl on his face.
"What damned games do you think you're playing here, Penburn Yewthorn? That's your complete name, isn't it, Yewthorn?"
"You've no heart, Reed," Penburn repeated, a voice filled with ignorance. "No games are being played, but things are being had."
"Can you speak without your riddles?" Reed said, his forbearance thinning.
"Hhh," Penburn sighed, rubbing his temple, "take a seat."
Reed begrudgingly did so.
"You're heartless Reed." Penburn said, "You've gone walking Dromair without a heart. You know what you are?"
Reed restrained from launching at the man and held his temperance.
"A Twice Born," Penburn answered.
Reed took a moment of silence, calming himself, and resisting, yet painfully, the lingering hotness in his shoulder.
"I don't understand?" Reed said simply.
"People born anew, people walking not by the will of their hearts, but by the dust of their skin."
"You're not joking, are you?" Reed said, realizing the older man was not teasing any part of it. He was excited about something else, however.
"I'm going to take a wild guess and assume you were a Reaver?"
"Why do you know that?" Reed responded quickly.
"I don't know who tried to kill you, but they failed severely."
"How do you know someone tried to kill me?" Reed asked.
"Because a Profaner's methods wouldn't work on a body that isn't in tune with a medallion." Penburn contained as he muttered words and phrases that flew over Reed's head.
"A Profaner is a term given to a set of pillagers who rob dying hearts. Witches of sorts, and as much as they are disgraced, you're lucky one encountered you."
"I've heard of Reavers, not Profaners," Reed mentioned, "and if that's true, then..." Reed's thoughts began proposing hope. If such a Profaner encountered me, then the chance of Linette surviving was possible, he thought.
"I know this is a lot, but this is a surprise to me, too. You being here, you know, my beliefs in fate and all, I know all about the other things." He subtlety bragged.
"Please heal me quick, Penburn," Reed asked.
"At one cost." Penburn proposed, "You stay here and I study you."
"No!" Reed jumped. "I got somewhere to be."
"We all do," Penburn exclaimed, "but without knowing anything about what being a Twice- Born means will never put you in the cross eyes of unwanted attention."
"What eyes!"
"The eyes of the kingdoms!" Penburn roared unexpectantly, "The kingdom's hounds are of devil blood, from mind to actions. You can't traverse Vastilence when the kingdom devils roam hidden with our folk. Twice Born's are gold incarnates Reed, you show yourself and they'll see you glint under the bright sun in no time. Profaners are enemies of everyone, but their products are enemies of one cluster of humanity, the kingdom of devils.