2nd of Vahlar, 718
With her brown hair and almost pitch black eyes, she gave the impression of being magnanimous and single-hearted. For this, whenever she laid eyes on him, shining that scornful, pitying look, Marlow feel a sadistic sense of pleasure the more her eyes, wicked whips, lashed out in his general direction. Marlow kept slinking further and further into the corner, palms planted in his chest, head low, and eyes, abused and defying, still humiliating themselves by looking at the nurse. No pity! No pity was granted to him, as if his mere presence was enough to summon bile upon the tongue.
The nurse got busy with her affairs, which mostly involved setting order to the reception hall, or wandering from room to room. She’d chat with faceless patients for a while, or encounter a nurse wandering through the halls. They’d exchange a few words or even engage in a short, casual conversation. Then, inevitably, the foreign nurse would glance towards Marlow’s corner, he or she would make an expression of either pity or contempt, lower the conversation into a whisper and, when all was said and done, return upon their duties. Then it would be the receptionist the one who glanced at Marlow and, of course, she’d do so with all her contempt.
“Will you go home, sir?” said she at last, her voice rich, kind and fake. “Nobody has agreed to your services yet.”
Cringing, Marlow’s lips curled at first, then became a thin line. “Then I shall await until my demands are met, miss,” replied he, his voice more trembling than he expected. Such reply was met with dissatisfaction from the nurse, who gave him a long, sullen look, stretched out a tense silence, and, in due time, returned upon her duties with a shake of her head.
Marlow, when left on his lonesome, silently cursed Elise’s name.
It wasn’t only in the medicine house where Marlow stood out, of course, nor was it amongst nurses that he found himself a target for rumor and gossip. Desnind, as a whole, had greeted him in the harshest manner. It wasn’t hard to draw quick reasons for this. Firstly, Marlow was quite eccentric as an individual by himself – he stood out both physically, mentally, and socially. It was his status as an outsider, however, what did him most harm, and the fact that he seemed arrogantly proud about it. With the turmoil lived the previous season, wherein denizens of Desnind went missing, and the second son having been gone only its second day, the otherwise open and welcoming Desnind community was currently stuck in a xenophobic tingle which Marlow, fool as he was, was the prime victim of. He, however, being vain and arrogant, egotistically self-centered around his own heart’s troubles, quickly shifted the blame not to himself but to Desnind itself, deeming their behavior as primitive and thus not worthy of respect – only of pity.
Through the open window, a warm noon breeze swept into the reception hall, which kissed the man’s pale skin, a romantic, passionate autumn caress. It made him feel better, and slightly braver. Although immediately uncomfortable with his decision, and partially regretting it, Marlow had decided to leave his corner and approach the window instead, from whence he’d peer out into the evergreen seas of tree tops and the green canvas of the grass. Although he appreciated the breeze, which aided in drying out his wet armpits, the sight of unbound nature he found overbearing and detestable. His happiness would be doubled were the grass replaced with cut cobblestone. His happiness would be turned a reality, as well, were someone to take him as an apprentice.
Clicking his tongue and turning back to peer into a half-deserted Olọravu Slosneppe, Marlow stomped his way to the wicker-woven couch and sat down upon it with outraged intensity, like a child would whenever it angrily sought to express frustration before a stubborn mother. Trying to become a doctor’s apprentice, although an accessible professional choice in Desnind, required a patience Marlow lacked. “Curse you, Elise!” thought he, crossing his arms and growing bitter and resentful. “It is your fault I am where I am, lost as I am! Oh, if only you had known how to love!” and so and so, thought the resentful man. Wallow in madness and swallow sadness, unspoken motto of this wannabe medicine-man. It was the sound of incoming footsteps what made him look up, fully expecting the return of a contemptuous nurse with a new load of disgust shelled within her eyes.