“She’s getting worse.”
Meadowbrook ignored the voice as she continued to grind up ingredients with a mortar and pestle. She let out her aggression grinding the powerful mixture of herbs.
“I don’t think she has much time left, and there are signs that the disease is spreading in the village.”
She picked up the bowl of ingredients and dumped the fine powder into the nearby bubbling cauldron. It transformed into a murky blue with the faintest hint of a magical shimmer.
“I understand your fixation on finding a cure, but it might be better to—”
“We have not tried everything!” Meadowbrook whirled on her assistant. A cream-coloured stallion with mossy green mane stared back with wide eyes. “So long as I have not exhausted every option, I won’t give up on her, Sal!”
Salve scrunched up his face. She could tell he was getting ready to tell her something she didn’t want to hear, and indeed he did. “... With her current state, I don’t think you’ll have a choice.”
Meadowbrook felt her body tense. She felt an urge to hurt him for daring to suggest such a possibility, but she forced herself to calm down. Her hooves were made for healing, not hurting, and, besides that, it wasn’t like Salve didn’t have a point.
“... I won’t give up. Not until I’ve exhausted every option I have left.” She returned to her concoction, watching the brew bubble. “I did not become a healer to give up at the slightest hint of difficulty.”
“There is no shame in admitting that this is impossible,” Salve said. “This disease has no known cure and no record prior to Mercy catching it. New ailments, or worse, epidemics, are not so easily resolved with only one patient. It takes time. Time, that…” He trailed off.
“I’m not giving up… I can’t.” The bubbling brew calmed to simmer. The murkiness cleared as the glitter intensified. She ladled a portion of the potion into an empty bottle. She turned to Salve. “Please do not get in my way, Sal.”
He looked ready to say something, but instead hung his head, stepping out of the way of the door.
Meadowbrook stomped past him. She entered into the patient ward and beelined to a curtained bed. Pulling back the cloth, she viewed the near-corpse of her wife.
Disease had wasted away her musculature, making her skin taut over bone. Pink veins coursed through off-white fur. A shallow husk of her former self. Only her brilliant emerald eyes resembled the mare Meadowbrook had sworn herself to.
“Hey, Merc,” Meadowbrook gently greeted. She stroked the side of her head. The wisp of a smile spread on her wife’s face. “I have a new remedy for you to try. Can you get yourself up?”
A small nod. Mercy lifted herself into a sitting position, pain clear across her face as she did. Meadowbrook held her head firmly with her hoof and tipped the potion into her open mouth. When the bottle became empty, Meadowbrook took it away and gently released her back onto the headrest.
After a moment, Mercy’s body convulsed. She heaved, spewing the potion across the sheets, dyeing them a horrid mixture of pink and blue.
Meadowbrook closed her eyes. She counted back from ten, then opened them. She forced a smile on her face. “That’s okay. I can try something else. Get some more rest.”
She nodded. Meadowbrook helped her lay back down on the bed. It took everything she had to suppress the tears as she got up and closed the curtain behind her.
Trotting briskly back to her atelier, she felt a pressing need to hurt course through her. A want of destruction, to shatter all the neatly stacked breakable equipment onto the ground. To make something hurt as much she and her beloved did. But she didn't. It was a waste of time and she hardly had any.
Salve stared at her with a piteous expression. She hated it.
“I’m so—”
“Stop, Salve,” Meadowbrook interrupted. “I can’t take another apology or lecture right now. Unless you have an alternative solution for this predicament, I need to get back to work.”
Silence filled the room as Meadowbrook went about prepping for her next brew. She had no clear idea of what she was going to try next, but she could at least do some of the preliminary prep work.
“... I may have a solution.”
Meadowbrook paused her work. “What would that be?”
“Have you heard of the Swamp Heart?”