(20 years before the current day.)
Vynia lay on her back on the lightly padded bed...
Bed?
It was more akin to an examining table.
What had she let him talk her into this time?
Something in the back of her mind told her to leave.
Screamed to her to get up and walk out of the room and out of the front door.
Something was telling her that something was wrong.
But love, oh love...well?
Love said otherwise.
She glanced across the dimly lit, sterile room.
A small cage held their pet rabbit, Sir Nibblesworth III.
The nearly hairless creature chattered quietly as it chewed on the handful of savory pellets that she had tossed it as she'd entered but minutes ago.
Her mind began to drift.
Vynia was perpetually and terminally ill.
She had been born with an extremely rare blood disease that had left her immune system in shambles, and these weekly treatments had become the norm for her.
She had met and been aided by dozens of doctors and nurses.
Mages, Monks, and Priests.
So many that their faces all seemed to blend together.
Their names and faces all tangled into one long, rambling thing.
A low, soft voice pierced the veil of her concentration and internal musings.
"Vyn? Are you with me?"
She snapped back to reality.
Her eyes locked on the cage for a split second before they shot up to the speaker's face.
Her eyes locked on his.
Her soft, hazel orbs and his deep, green globes.
He was the latest, the newest doctor in the latest string to be introduced.
His name was Ketrel.
Doctor Ketrel Jakon.
Vynia simply called him Ket.
He had arrived in Suidelain but a pair of months ago.
The two had met in a back alley as she had been on her way to the clinic, and he had been on his way to said clinic to start his workday.
Two sides of a single coin.
The rain had fallen in sheets, and Vynia was thoroughly drenched. The young man had turned into the alley, caught wind of her, and run to offer his umbrella with all haste.
It was an offering of kindness that she was not accustomed to...
She was all but 20 years of age.
A young human girl of some notable beauty and aesthetics, but the years of illness and subsequent homelessness had not been kind to her, and from it, her beauty had become a shadow of what it once was.
Men turned their noses up at her as she passed by...
Women noted her present-yet-faded looks and gave a soft chuckle...
Children moved across the road in fear of her approach.
But Ketrel had seen HER.
He had offered her help and kindness when no one else had or would, and for this, and with time, she had come to love him.
Deeply and madly.
He took her in and helped her get both clean and grounded.
Her hair was cleared of matting.
Her skin was scrubbed clean.
Her old, tattered clothes were replaced.
He had given her a whole new life, and with it, a chance to be not only happy but healthy.
She looked up and into his eyes, and he leaned down slowly, bringing his lips to just centimeters from hers.
She felt his smooth, warm breath tickle her lower lip and roll down her chin.
"Hey, Lovey? Vynia? I'm not losing you, am I? We've yet to even start."
He said softly with a gentle laugh that seemed to flow over her and wash away the haze of her daydream.
She pushed up off the bed just enough to kiss him, taking the handsome doctor by surprise before he could react.
"I am here, good doctor."
She said, lying just a little as images of dark alleys and cold rain faded from her mind.
"Whatever today's injection contains, I hope it helps clear up some of this brain fog. I feel like I'm but half awake."
She quickly kissed him once more before lying back down on the not-soft-enough bed.
"Well, luckily for you, then, that this one is going to hurt just a bit,"
Ketrel said with another chuckle as he lifted a small syringe from a wheeled table to his right. The liquid inside was a pearlescent yellow, and Vynia could have sworn that it was glowing, if only slightly.
"Luckily?"
She said.
A hint of nervousness creeping into her voice.
"How would that make me lucky?"
Ketrel placed a warm, soft hand on her left cheek, caressing her skin gently as he did so.
The action unnerved her more than it made her calm.
"It'll wake you up, should we say then!"
He said, his eyes smiling where his mouth had not.
"For the past few weeks, your vitals and tests have been coming back rather positive, so I figured we could now move on to the next phase of your treatment."
He said, lifting the syringe as he spoke so that Vynia could see it more clearly.
She swallowed the small lump that had formed in her throat.
The mysterious liquid was indeed glowing...
"In this newest... synthetic concoction (for lack of better terminology), I have completely balanced a prototype serum that should aid in the final subjugation of all of the remaining medical...inconveniences that plague you."
Vynia didn't know what to say.
What to feel.
All of the medical inconveniences?
She was always tired and sore. Her bones hurt and creaked. She could hardly see at night and in low-light conditions, and any small cut or wound would take her nearly three times as long as the average person to heal...
And that was just the start!
She felt like a living corpse.
A mess.
She didn't see how a single shot could do away with all of that.
But she loved Ketrel.
She trusted him and his judgment.
She wanted him to know and feel that.
She tried her best to let herself physically relax.
"So, what's in this one that makes it so...magical?"
She asked, a bit of flirtatious undertone seeded in for good measure.
"Hmm. Nothing unheard of, Lovey."
He said, looking her squarely in her eyes.
"Ground Nether Bat wing for the bones. Seared and liquefied Cave Cat claw and tail for the muscles and tendons. Powdered axolotl for the eyes, ears, and blood circulation. Aether Leech to balance your Aether pool and help with latent toxin absorbance. The mixture is a bit...volatile...but it is stable. You have my word."
Vynia had no real reason not to trust the man.
He was actually Elfym, but he came off as a lot more human than anything else. In hindsight, that should have been a red flag from the start, but Vynia hadn't put much thought into it, and little did she know, Ketrel was a master at both the art of love bombing and subtle emotional manipulation.
"I love you, Ket, but next time just make up something that sounds pretty."
Vynia said as she lifted her right arm and touched the man's face lovingly as he had done hers, but a moment ago.
"I trust that you would never give me anything that I couldn't handle, yeah?"
The smile that was in Kestrel's eyes darkened just a hint around the edges...
"No. Lovey. Nothing that you can't handle."
He said as he set the syringe down and toyed with the tourniquet for a second before applying it to Vynia's outstretched right arm.
"But as I said, it will hurt just a bit, okay?"
Vynia closed her eyes and turned her head away. She hated needles.
"Yeah, Ket. Make it quick, will ya?"
And so he did.
In an instant, Vynia felt the thin, sharp, cold needle slip into her pulsing vein. Ketrel pushed the plunger of the syringe gently, flushing the mixture into Vynia's system.
At first, there was nothing but a cold sensation in her, and then her chest shuddered as the searing liquid flooded her body.
Ketrel pulled the needle out and gently slapped a bandage over the tiny puncture hole.
A single drop of crimson blood appeared on its pristine white surface.
Vynia lay still, blinking slowly as she suddenly felt the world around her slow to what seemed like half the normal speed.
And then?
Searing, burning, unfathomable, body-wide agony.