The day was temperate, but the wind blew hard, and it looked like it was going to rain, much like it had in the past few days. Isulril did not like the idea of a downpour, so she worked quickly at her tasks, trimming various branches and stems from the plants in the garden of the hospital. She had been working here nearly a month now, but what a tumultuous month it was indeed.
She recalled the events of the past few days with varying degrees of emotion. The rift between her and the physician. Her growing friendship with his violent assistant. Her mistrust of the other, more cunning assistant. The strange and growing familiarity with the cheerful man from the inn. It all swirled in her head as she worked.
As she snipped at a particular plant, she began dwelling on her conversation with the more violent assistant, of the secrets they had shared, drinking moonshine beneath a tree. She remembered most of it, but not all. The drink had loosened her tongue.
She sighed. And before that, the same person had given her a cookie she did not care to eat, and Isulril had immediately recalled it from the physician, the day that he had made short work of her admiration. She remembered leaving the sweet and his offered tea, as she rushed from the infirmary.
She had taken the cookie, as they were all sitting upon a small bridge, and she began the rather calculating task of crumbling it into the water. Food for the fish.
There had been freedom for her in his rejection, yes. But she realized what she had liked about him, what she had admired in him had nothing to do with romance or affection of that sort. No, it had been those conversations, the fascinating ones, where each tried to pick at the other's mind. She admitted that she had missed those, and in her idiocy in making an admission to her childish admiration, had ruined them, forever, she thought.
She had been sucked into the thoughts of this, and as such, was not paying attention to what she was doing, until she felt the sharp pain in her left hand. She gasped, nearly crying out. She had cut herself with the shears, badly. Her glove, which she always used when gardening, was now a tatters, and she could see where it was bleeding, blood dropping onto the ground.
Removing her shawl, she wrapped the woolen thing around her hand, trying to stem the blood, and headed for the building, dreading what was to come. She would have to talk to that very man, would have to be examined by him, and it would only bring up more of the regret, the anger, and the sadness.
She did decide to enter, and he did examine her, and when it was all done, she regretted her sharp tongue, regretted the way she had lashed out. She had been hot and cold, and sometimes at the same time. Insulting. Yes, she had outright insulted the man.
Leaving the hospital, Isulril looked down at her hand. It had been stitched, and expertly too. She had expected no less. She saw where her smallest finger had nearly been severed, and she winced. She kept her hand away from herself, as though it were something repulsive and foreign, rather than her own hand.
He had asked her if she felt she should be punished; she had not accepted anything for the pain. She had said that she thought she should, but left it at that. And what was this anyway? she asked herself. What was it anyway but a punishment for a cycle she could not stop? She would have to stop it. If she wished to remain under the man's employ, it would be necessary.
