Talk To Dragons

"Are you sure you aren't hungry?" Engel asked Violet. "They're offering to get you anything you want."

"What I want is my eyesight back," Violet answered, laying on the hospital bed with her empty gaze to the ceiling.

In a panic, Adam and Steven had rushed the little witch to the medical ward of the university. Violet couldn't take in the grand architecture or fancy art on their way there, but Engel was happy to describe all of it endlessly. Adam was sitting in a nearby chair in the corner of the small room, which was furnished more like a bedroom than one for medical use. His face was covered in worry, waiting for Steven to come back with whatever help he said he would fetch.

"I wish I could give Adam a good scolding for doing this to you," Engel said.

"Well, I have a couple ideas for how to get my vision back, if it doesn't just return on its own," Violet explained. "Before we head to the elven city, we'll just have to investigate some old stories I have in my head and see if a few old witches still exist. They could probably get my vision back, in exchange for the old book, hopefully."

"That doesn't sound very safe," Adam said, his voice small and meek.

"I'm not really interested in your opinion," Violet replied, her tone flat.

Adam didn't say another word and the three sat in silence. It was the better part of half an hour before Steven returned to them with a woman of dark skin and short black hair following. She wore a gray robe that made Engel remember stories of wizards he had been told when he was younger.

"Adam brought in a magic lady of some kind, I think," Engel told Violet. "She has dark skin and a gray robe."

Violet sat up and tried to look in the direction of the footsteps. Her irritation for being blind was growing by the second.

"So, have you brought a dispeller?" Violet asked. "Where do you come from? Rackago?"

The woman blinked in surprise.

"Yes, I am from Rackago," she said. "I am Sasano. What a well-educated little witch you are."

"Apparently," Violet replied. "These things just come to me when I need them for some reason. What are you going to do about my eyes?"

Sasano moved closer to Violet and looked into her eyes. After a short glance, she retrieved a corked bottle from her robe pocket and smiled.

"The magic that raced into you from the book was wild," she explained. "Some of it got stuck in your eyes."

"Wild?" Adam questioned. "You mean like a living thing?"

"Yes, something like that," Sasano replied. "You silly scholars don't understand much of anything, do you?"

"We understand as much as we're allowed to without joining any shady orders or covens," Steven said.

The Rackago woman removed the cork and held the bottle out for her patient to take it.

"Grab the glass bottle in front of you and place the opening in front of an eye," she instructed. "Let me know when you can see out of the eye again."

Violet reached forward into the darkness until she found the bottle with a couple swipes. She put a hand over her right eye so that she could put the bottle up against it and when she removed the cover, her eye tingled and her sight quickly returned. The leaving magic simply felt like pressure being released.

"I can see," Violet said. "It worked."

She repeated the process with the other eye and with a big smile she had all of her sight back. Violet gave the bottle back to the woman and Sasano promptly put the cork back in place.

"What did that do?" Steven questioned. "Did the lodged magic simply go into the bottle?"

"My tools attract magic," Sasano explained. "It's my trade, after all."

"Thank you," Violet said, but it wasn't a clean victory.

The bottle suddenly burst like a bomb from the magic being held inside, throwing pieces of glass in every direction. Most of the projectiles flew into Sasano's robe harmlessly, but it made a bloody mess of the hand she was holding it with.

Glass also made its way towards Engel and Violet, but where the little dragon could shrug off the glass, the witch could not. A blade-like shard about two inches long found a resting place in Violet's cheek and stuck halfway into her mouth. The little witch sat completely frozen in shock, with eyes wide and hands up in a reaction to the explosion that was much too slow.

"I don't want the stupid book anymore," she said, trying to keep herself calm.