The soft morning after Ash's naming carried a strange collective lightness through town.
People traded his new name like each of them had personally received one small share.
Vella's clinic held a line outside before the dew disappeared, though most patients were not emergencies.
Two whole families had walked from an outer village after hearing rumors of a fever cure.
They waited without one complaint, having spent two full days on the road for possibility.
One farmer near the front flinched visibly when Vella's violet hair caught the light.
He bowed so deeply that his straw hat escaped, then scrambled after it across the clinic stones.
Vella healed his daughter's infected hand anyway, accepting fear as the cost of being needed.
By the second patient, the farmer was telling everyone in line about her gentle hands.
Vella worked through the line with a careful pulse for every measured dose.
