“Are. You. Good?” Savage questions slowly, as if I’m incapable of responding to fleeting stimuli.

“Yesn’t.”

“Looks like you are, in fact, not good.”

Wow, what an analysis! I wonder why you’re not a coroner? Because you might as well pronounce me dead already!

“Alright,” I clap as I get up, “Where’s the closest doctor’s surgery? Even an apothecary will do.”

The noble-esque girl deliberates for a moment before gesturing to the ground. I hate that I understand what she’s trying to say. However, I refuse to acknowledge these dummies as doctors. Last I checked, Wills, the ‘licensed’ psychologist was a raving alcoholic, and Dok, the ‘doctor’ is a darn gardener.

“I want a real doctor.”

She gets unexpectedly tense, as she looks up at my eyes, “Are you sure about that?”

“Do I look like a jester?”

Okay, I know the answer may be ‘Y E S’ but ignore that. I’m not good at idioms… acronyms… I’m barely literate, alright? I know what you’re thinking you rat bastard so cease those thoughts. Immediately!

“Sigh, I know a good doctor…” Her sigh cuts my thoughts, “But are you sure about this?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

I’m suffering from the late stages of Frost’s Bite and I’m delirious for every hour that I’m lucid, so I don’t see how my situation can get much worse. Haha, actually I'm too sure that my internal clock is working too well. I wouldn't be surprised if I suddenly jumped to doing something overboard.

“Know that this is your choice…”

And tossing those needlessly ominous words at me, we travel to the doctor’s surgery.

Where I learn that things can’t actually get much worse. Worse, yes, but honestly, an acceptable outcome.

“Wait,” The young lady that led me here —Of whom I still don’t know the name— curls her lips at me, “You’re okay with this?”

That’s a misunderstanding. I’m not okay. Simply that I’ve resigned myself to such treatment if I can be normal. It’s made sufficiently more manageable by the fact that I can’t feel anything. Otherwise, I’m sure I would’ve gone ballistic by now. Actually… I think I’ve already been flung off the deep end… Can anyone confirm?

“Willingly jumping into a tentacle pit is usually a sign of chronic mania,” Pink hair gives her analysis, “But it should be expected of one of your profession, so no issues there.”

Y’know, I don’t know why she’s bashing me, considering how I asked for a doctor, yet she brought me to some star summoner’s eldritch pit. I don’t know how you can classify this as a doctor’s surgery but the building we went into looked legit…

And then the tentacles started dying. Like they froze up and shattered. I have no clue what the hell just happened, but I’ll assume this normal.

“This isn’t normal…” The doctor said as if to superimpose over my thoughts.

How reassuring.

“Yup, I diagnose you with dying,” He states in a crisp, cold, clinical tone, “The tentacl— I mean, therapy couldn’t cope with your curses. You only have four days to live.”

Writing up a document in some illegible script, he hands it to me, before kicking me out of the surgery.

“Wow that went horrible.”

“Wrong,” The young lady cuts off my thoughts, “Although the tentacle pit is disgusting as Hell, it should’ve cured most curses by way of eldritch suckling, of which it probes into your very being, groping your everything to obtain the delectable, juicy pieces that it so desires. Having its way with you in every sense of the word.”

Mmm, I didn't want to know this. I don’t think I can sleep anymore, at least not until the four day living lease is over. Then I can sleep as much as I want, but that isn’t exactly ideal is it? I wonder what methods can extend my living period?

Become an undead? No, I barely know about the correlation between Death and necromancy so that’s not happenning.

Trust in the Goddess of Good Luck? Maybe, but there’s one final option that really strikes out to me.

Negotiate with a devil.

“Hey…Where'd that come from? I think that’s too big of a jump…”

Because that’s what I’ve resorted to and nothing can stop me at this point. I can barely even see the snow before me, but simply the goal that I must work toward. Any persuasion otherwise is futile. The thought jumps at me, blocking all my other perceptions, refusing to let me consider a different option. I have no choice but to make a deal with a devil.

“If you say so…”

Heading back to Lilac, the flower shop, I find Lazari making bouquets with other little children. I don’t comment on the child labour but instead, usher her away into a backroom. Locking the door for good measure, I turn to inspect the place to assure myself of the rationality of my decision before taking a deep breath. In that sequence of events, exactly.

“Rose.” And as if my Novena was answered, Lazari gives me a rose. A pink rose. It was a sudden gesture that I failed to anticipate, but one that warmed my unfeeling body.

Rose. A sign of affirmation. A justification of the righteousness of my conviction. A sign that the world approves of my future actions. To not give up on what I must do.

I may not be sane, but I’d laugh at anyone who dares to say I’ve lost my will in this state. What a joke!

…

The Capital of the Astra Kingdom, Starred, was a strange place.

Lazari was a bumpkin all her life and it was only recent that she had entered the shabbily paved Joost, and now she was in the well heeled Starred. Little Miss Shiv had gotten a lot quieter ever since her last talk with Jeffrey as if she were patiently waiting for something. Lazari would’ve been driven mad by the quiet, but she was a lot more at ease ever since she skinned a rat in some commerce city she couldn’t remember. That was the very moment she cleared the wraiths that haunted her sleep.

She could still hear the euphoric chanting and humming, cantillating in her heart, putting a permanent smile on her face. Lazari was easily the cutest girl ever since then.

Thrice had she been given roses by the other boys manning the storefront, much to the envy of the girls.

She didn’t know what it meant, but Lazari was a smart girl. Evading the authorities and studying necromancy alongside Sheeny, the necromancer in Joost, made her very perceptive of the hidden meaning in mundane actions.

Roses. The representative of affection.

She remembered that Jeffrey had once taken her to procure something called the Executioner's Rose before. And later she learnt of Jeffrey’s background of working in the gallows. It was a rose for an executioner.

Lazari was given many red roses. A sign of some fictitious love the boys dreamt of. Lazari wasn’t that shallow, but she still thanked them for the roses. Tomakin was still a good teacher despite having sold them out.

But of course, the person she was most thankful to was… yup, you guessed it… Little Miss Shiv, but Jeffrey took second place, so she was going to give him a rose.

Little Miss Shiv recommended a pink one. It meant gratitude and she said Jeffrey would ‘really like it.’

But pink roses were hard to find. Especially in the winter season. But she managed to find one stocked with the help of one of the boys just before she met Jeffrey again.

He seemed a bit hurried, but nothing unusual.

“Rose.” And she offered him a rose.

His black eyes seemed to be fixed on the rose for a solid minute. His silence was nothing awkward, but just a matter of his tacit nature. He always towered over her, but for this moment, he crouched down right to their eye level. Her red eyes sparkled in the reflection of his pupils.

“Thank you,” He bowed his head, accepting the rose before leaving off to the backrooms, locking the door behind him.

Those words were the highlight of many days to come. Like her, Jeffrey rarely spoke, lest spoken to, and rarely does he say thanks. It was an understanding of each other that didn't need words. She was beaming, too happy to notice that Little Miss Shiv had jumped off her person at some point…