Waking up the next morning, Clarisse was plagued by a vastly different experience from the delightful taste of exotic fruits and masterfully curated meats from ere night’s feast. Indeed, she was feeling full, but this time it was her sinuses, throat and nostrils that felt stuffy to the point she woke up from the necessity of breathing properly.

  “Haa- ATCHOO! ATCHOO!” She had already sneezed twice before she managed to snatch the handkerchief left at her bedside table and cover her mouth. A series of sneezes followed in quick succession, forcing her to sit upright.

  Still not fully awake, the redhead looked around herself to locate the only other “person” in the room. She found the doll left atop her bed stand, currently inanimate from its pose looking down with slouched shoulders. “Sera?” Clarisse croaked out, but it seemed that there was no one on the other side to listen at the moment.

  Rubbing the sand out of her eyes, Clarisse looked up at the wall clock to check the time.

  5:34:09

  5:34:10

  5:34:11

  It was certainly too early for her to be awake. She suddenly sneezed into her handkerchief again, this time leaving a trail of mucus dripping down her nose into it.

  “Eww…” she complained to herself, willing herself to stumble out of bed and head to the bathroom. Even walking across her room felt strange and took effort, as if the strength in her legs had disappeared entirely overnight. Glancing into the mirror with weary eyes, she found that her face looked much more pale than usual, entirely devoid of energy. “Aireme, why…” she groaned as yet another incoming sneeze made her reel her head back.

  8:05:14

  8:05:15

  8:05:16

  The doll sitting on the bed stand jolted awake, her eyes glowing for a moment before returning to normal. She floated forward curiously, looking beside her at the pile of blankets all draped around their lone inhabitant, who despite the many layers of warmth was still shivering underneath.

  “Clarisse?” Sera asked in a confused tone, unsure if she was awake but sure that she had awoken at some point to pull out the numerous blankets she was under.

  “Mm?” Clarisse squeaked, poking her head out of the blankets. Her voice was only a shadow of its usual self, but she was relieved to see that Sera had awoken.

  “What happened to you?” Sera inquired, floating over and placing a hand on her forehead. Clarisse’s temperature answered much faster than the girl could muster words and Sera looked down at her with a disappointed yet concerned glare that only a parent could claim practice of. “I was worried this would happen! We should have gone to the guild to get you checked before dinner.”

  Clarisse closed her eyes halfway, unable to meet the doll’s gaze as she guiltily turned her head to one side. “Sorry…” She remembered how she had brushed Sera’s concerns for her health away at the time, and silently cursed herself for being too careless.

  “Well, don’t be sorry to me - you’re the one who got sick!” Sera exclaimed, flying towards the kitchen before remembering that it housed very little in terms of food and making a turnaround back to her. “Do you have any medicines in here?”

  Clarisse shook her head, shrinking into her pile of blankets from regret before letting out a sneeze. “Atchoo! Ugh… Only the first aid kit in my bag…” she remembered, though she knew well that the kit Nikolas made her buy was made to address immediate physical injuries and not illnesses.

  Sera was lost in thought for a minute, floating back and forth across the length of the room and occasionally letting out frustrated exhales as she crossed off options from her mental checklist. “Get up, I’ll take you to the guild.” She decided, much to the redhead’s dismay.

  “Not like this- everyone will see!” Clarisse complained followed by a cough, her pride had already been destroyed twice by now from the way everyone saw her on the way back from her quests. “I don’t wanna look like Reggie…” she mumbled, recalling how the fighter had been carried by his collar back to the guild.

  “Well, you’re not going to get better by spending your day in bed!” Sera argued, crossing her short arms along her chest.

  Clarisse opened her mouth, but couldn’t come up with any viable excuses against Sera’s reasoning. “Ughhh…” she groaned and complained as she realized she had to go, slowly building up the will to leave her makeshift hibernation.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

  A set of sharp raps from the apartment door diverted both of their attentions towards the hallway leading to the door.

  Sera levitated towards the door, glancing back at Clarisse once before disappearing into the corridor. Twisting the doorknob open with her entire body, she opened the door to a disgruntled Nikolas on the other side. “Oh, you’re back. Quite early too.” she mentioned sarcastically as she held the door open for him.

  “Courtesy of the ol’ man himself,” Nikolas commented with a sharp exhale, closing the door behind him as he entered. “I was planning to take a detour on the way back, but he was a bit too zealous with handing out favors.”

  Hearing Nikolas’s voice down the corridor, Clarisse quickly retreated completely into her pile of blankets like a turtle retracting its limbs into its shell to escape from his purview.

  “What was he doing down here?” Sera asked, still maintaining her concerned tone from before, but this time with a different, stern flavor to it.

  “The usual- swindling answers and spilling Aetheria tea…” Nikolas shrugged, taking off his shoes and pausing at the door to Clarisse’s bedroom. “What’s up with that?” He asked, raising an eyebrow under the mask at the large pile of bedding congregated in the vague shape of a person.

  “She got sick from the quest,” Sera rolled her eyes. “It’s actually really good timing for you to return. Can you go pick up some medicine for her?”

  “How sick is she?” Nikolas shot back a question, skeptical about the idea of buying medicine from a store. “I can probably brew a cure if it’s something mundane.”

  Sera looked over at the quivering mass of quilts, remaining silent while she mulled over the idea. “Well, she won’t get to name it after herself. Sure, have at it.” she conceded, floating over to stand atop the blankets and cue Clarisse to leave her fortress of solitude by prodding her.

  Underneath all the rugs, Clarisse was panicking. It was embarrassing enough to have Sera fawning over her like a parent - her hopes that Nikolas wouldn’t see her in her condition were dashed as well now. With a sniffle, she peeked out from the blankets. “H-hey…”

  Nikolas wasn’t nearly as hesitant with his actions, immediately directing a couple of fingers to the side of her neck and then to her forehead to get an idea of her temperature. “Morning, Clarisse. What were you up to that got you sick?” He asked in a pleasant tone, unfazed by her temperature.

  “Went down to the sewers…” Clarisse let out a sniffle, trying her best not to sound like she was whispering despite the loss of her voice. “There were lots of icky sprites down there.”

  “Ah. Yeah, the sewers… not the best place to be,” Nikolas agreed hypocritically, pulling the chair from her desk over to the bedside and taking a seat. “What other symptoms does she have?” he asked Sera, silently cursing himself for suggesting the idea to send her down there to Sera before their argument.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Coughing, sneezing- so probably sinuses.” Sera replied, before looking down at the redhead. “Anything I’m missing?”

  “Headache and vomiting…” Clarisse groaned, recalling how the previous night’s feast had gone down the sink before she decided to bundle herself under the blankets.

  “Sounds treatable with the right potion.” Nikolas shrugged, unlatching a moderately sized packet from his waist and opening it in his lap.

  “Aren’t those very expensive!?” Clarisse exclaimed, before letting out a cough as retribution for trying to raise her voice to its usual volume. She looked at him with a guilty sense of panic, not wanting to accost him any further than she already had.

  “Not when you can make them yourself.” Nikolas said to her with a smug undertone, pulling out a small rectangular apparatus consisting of a cork-covered vial of shining liquid, along with some compartments for empty vials and ingredients.

  “Merchants love to hike up the price because of how hard they are to make, but once you have the expertise…” Sera began, boasting on Nikolas’s behalf as she dropped down to stand behind Clarisse’s head and gave her a few pats on the head. “Exceedingly powerful utility for the cheap cost of some ingredients and mana!”

  Nikolas nodded, setting up the shining vial in the apparatus which was sitting on his lap. “Alchemical crystals - powerful catalysts in liquid form, but tend to run out of energy quickly. Hence, the use of mana to refuel them and grow more crystals.” He proceeded to open other small pouches and tiny boxes, picking out a number of ingredients from them and laying each of them out carefully on the edge of the bed.

  Clarisse silently watched with wide eyes, having never encountered the process of alchemy before. For some reason, she was already feeling a little better since Nikolas had arrived, his mere presence was reassuring to her.

  Nikolas set up a pair of empty vials next to the shining vial, before turning to his ingredients. “Healing potion… balsam,” he muttered under his breath, tearing up a small, wiry root until it was minced into tiny bits and stuffing it into one of the vials. “Vomiting, fever… ginger.”

  Clarisse watched as he proceeded to do the same for a number of ingredients - the process seemed more iterative than predetermined, and over the course of several minutes both vials were filled up to the halfway point with identical ingredients, of which some she recognized and others she hadn’t heard of before.

  Occasionally, Nikolas would break his chain of adding ingredients and pick up the shining vial to let a few drops from it flow into one of the vials. Each time, the reaction of the mixture was a little different - sometimes it would change color, or release a puff of colored smoke, or even bubble dangerously before settling back down.

  The redhead had become captivated by the process, though it was more entertaining for her than it was educational. The quiet mutters of the alchemist eventually reduced into complete silence as he focused on his craft, and she watched with bated breath, unconsciously distracting herself from her sickness and finally relaxing. At some point in between, their wooden mentor took her leave, leaving the doll to sit on the bed stand as she left the two adventurers to themselves.

  It was about half an hour of silent alchemy before the fox spoke up, “Done,” Nikolas said with a satisfied tone, looking at two vials in his hands - one containing a glowing ochre liquid and the other still in ingredient form. “Here, sit up and have a drink.” He said, offering the ochre vial to Clarisse.

  Clarisse was caught off-guard by his sudden declaration, expecting the second vial to be similar to the first one. Regardless, she was eager to try the potion if it would heal her ailments. “Oh- okay!” she squeaked, pushing herself upright and accepting the vial from Nikolas. “Why doesn’t the other one also look like this?” she asked out of curiosity.

  “It’s a copy of the one you have, but I haven’t added the catalysts in yet. Depending on your reaction to the first potion, I’ll make changes to this one if I need to,” Nikolas explained, before encouraging her to down the potion she was holding with a gesture. “Go on.”

  “Oh, that’s pretty smart,” Clarisse smiled, holding up the vial in front of her and looking into it. She didn’t know what to expect from it, but she trusted the person who made it. Taking a deep breath, she put the vial to her lips and downed it in one quick go. The taste of the potion hit her far before all its contents were down - a strong, bitter and slightly spicy taste which made her regret drinking it in one go. “Ack!” Immediately after she drank it she was massaging her neck, letting out quick breaths to assuage the whiplash from the powerful flavor. “So bitter…” she complained, looking back at its maker with a wavering smile as she returned the empty vial to him.

  “Yeah, that’s about what I was expecting,” Nikolas replied with a shrug, accepting the vial and returning it into the alchemical toolkit. “I can make the next one sweeter if you want.”

  “Yes please…” Clarisse replied, letting go of her neck as the stinging spiciness of the potion began to fade, followed by an immense feeling of weight to her entire body. “Hu-?” she mumbled, suddenly finding it harder to keep her eyes open. Her breathing suddenly felt sluggish, paired with her limbs feeling heavy, hard to move. The last thing she saw was Nikolas reaching out to catch her as she lost consciousness and fell to one side.

  The next time Clarisse opened her eyes, the diminished rays of sun peeking through the gaps in the curtains were shining the same hue as her hair. She blinked slowly, caught off guard by how easily she was able to breathe. She felt strangely light-headed, but her headache from before had dissipated. Looking to her side, Nikolas had apparently left the chair vacant and was sitting with his back leaning on the bed, with only the top of his head and ears poking above the bed’s surface. She could hear the ambient sounds of vials clinking against each other and reactions happening from his work.

  “…” Clarisse tried to call out to him, but her voice refused to budge. She opened her mouth again, but the stinging feeling from before stopped her from being able to speak, or even audibly react to her discomfort. Needing another way to get Nikolas’s attention, Clarisse extended a hand towards the pair of fluffy ears in front of her. There was a moment of hesitation when she held her arm a few inches above his head, considering if it was right to disturb him like that.

  The moment she lowered her hand into his hair, his ears moved slightly and he tilted his head a bit, but remained focused on his brewing besides that. She was surprised by the reaction, or lack thereof as she ran her hand through his hair. It felt soft as silk - something she would never have expected from the secretive, scruffy rogue. A tiny smile blossomed on her face as she set her inhibition aside and continued to pet his head for a few more seconds. It was only when she used her thumb to rub the back of his ear that Nikolas swiftly turned, glaring at her with animosity from the corner of his eye.

  “Oh- you’re awake!” Nikolas snapped back to a calmer demeanor as he laid his toolkit to the side and got up. “How are you feeling?” He asked, using a hand to nonchalantly fix his hair and ignore what had just happened.

  Clarisse quickly retracted her hand for fear of losing it out of instinct, but let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t bring it up. “…” She showed him a thumbs up before opening her mouth and pointing to it, emphasizing the lack of speech she was capable of.

  “Right- I was expecting some side effects like that,” Nikolas helped her sit upright before picking out one of the newly brewed potions from his toolkit. “This should help with those.”

  Clarisse looked at the cyan liquid in the glass vial she was handed this time with hope and skepticism, both inclined to trust him and wondering what sort of side effects this potion would have. Looking up at the kitsune’s encouraging gaze, she nodded before slowly drinking the vial.

  For her trust, she was rewarded with a sweet, sultry taste reminiscent of grapes that slipped down her throat much faster than she would have liked it to have gone. “Whoa…” she finally spoke, left with a yearning for another taste of the potion from the empty vial she held. “Thanks Nik! I feel so much better now…” she smiled, relieved to have her voice back and her ailment seemingly gone. “Sorry for um… getting your attention like that.”

  “Glad that it worked,” Nikolas replied, suddenly averting his gaze and looking towards the window covered by the curtain for a few seconds. He raised a hand to his ear, rubbing its edge. “Kitsune don’t usually let anyone touch their ears like that, but it’s alright. You didn’t really have other options on hand.”

  “Are they really sensitive? I hope I didn’t do anything weird-” Clarisse was concerned that she had crossed an unspoken line with him.

  “They’re sensitive, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s just… they’re personal,” Nikolas clarified, picking up his toolkit from the ground and latching it back to his waist. “What about your other symptoms? Any headaches, or stuffy nose still?”

  “No, not anymore,” Clarisse shook her head, making a mental note about the comment about his ears. “Actually, I slept pretty well right now. The first potion really knocked me out.” She finally paid attention to the clock and saw that it was well into the evening, half past 5 for them.

  “I made it a little too strong for your body,” Nikolas admitted as he sat down on the chair next to the bed again. “Wasn’t sure if it would have the same reaction, so it was better to be safe than waste a potion.”

  “It sure did work!” Clarisse laughed, happy that it was behind her now. She stretched her hands out as a test, before slowly folding back all the blankets she had trapped herself under. “Gosh, I’ve spent most of the day in bed…” she thought aloud, sitting on the edge of her bed and running a hand through her unkempt bed hair.

  “Feeling hungry?” Nikolas asked, handing her a takeout box from his backpack. “Got it while you were asleep… your favorite?”

  “Wait, really?” Clarisse’s expression lit up, recognizing Mr. Shirev’s branding on the box. She eagerly opened the container and took a whiff of the dish inside before looking up at him with a slight blush. “You shouldn’t have! But thanks…” She said, gazing at him with eyes full of gratitude and a wide grin until her stomach let out an unceremonious growl to emphasize its imminent starvation.

  Clarisse had only been wolfing down her box of curry for a few minutes when they heard a soft set of knocks at the door. This time she was even more confused than the last - she had been expecting Nikolas to return at some point but besides him, nobody else was supposed to swing by.

  Thank you for reading!

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  For my current readers, would you like any change to the update frequency of TAoP? Not making any promises but if I'm able to find the time to write more, I might make a change to the weekly upload schedule.