The scent of pine resin, old parchment, and dried herbs clings to your coat as the bell above the wooden door jingles softly behind you. Another dawn, another patient. Outside, the sleepy town of Larkhollow stirs to life, cobblestone streets glistening with dew beneath the light of twin suns rising over the frostbitten hills. Merchants shout half-hearted greetings, their wares glittering with enchantments, while the baker’s gryphon cub paws impatiently at the windowsill, eager for its usual sweetbread. But your day begins not with bread or greetings—but with claws, scales, feathers, and fire.

You step into the clinic, nestled between the rune-etched stone of the alchemist’s tower and a crooked apothecary shop that always smells faintly of burnt sage. It’s small, unassuming, but it is yours. Every worn shelf, every jar of powdered cockatrice scale, every iron-forged instrument—earned. Some think tending to beasts is lesser work, that real power lies in swords, spells, or politics. Let them chase glory. You mend the wings of dragons, coax curses from unicorn horns, and soothe the aching bones of creatures older than the Empire itself.

The clinic is quiet this morning, save for the rustling of parchment from the appointment ledger. You don’t need to open it to know the day will be full. It always is. The phoenix nesting atop your hearth crackles softly, its flame-dappled feathers pulsing with warmth. It hasn’t laid eggs since the eclipse, but it’s calming down now, soothed by your touch, your presence. On the far windowsill, a baby basilisk blinks sleepily, its eyes covered with enchanted linen, safe from petrifying anyone who gets too close. You’ll need to check its scales later—they’re starting to molt again.

The bell rings.

You turn.

A centaur stands in the doorway, rain-slicked and worried, his long coat dripping onto your wooden floor. In his arms lies a limp figure: a young kirin, silver and glasslike, its antlers fractured and glowing faintly with stress-light. Something powerful has wounded it. Dark magic, maybe. Poison. Or worse—human cruelty.

You don’t flinch. You’ve seen worse. You’ve saved worse.

As he lays the creature on your examination table, the clinic begins to shift. The runes woven into the walls glow faintly, responding to pain, to presence. A warmth swells in your chest—not magic, not entirely. Something older. Quieter. A sense of purpose, of steadiness. This is what you do. This is who you are.

You reach for your tools. Scalpel. Salve. A soothing tincture of dreamroot. The kirin trembles. You press your palm to its fur, feeling the strange rhythm of its heartbeat, part thunder, part music. The clinic is still now. Waiting.

Outside, the world teems with dangers—rogue sorcerers, expanding kingdoms, the slow return of the Old Gods—but in here, creatures come to heal. Beasts come to trust. In a land where monsters are hunted, mounted, and feared, you are one of the few who listens. Who sees past the fangs and flames.

You are the one they come to when no one else will help.

And today—like every day—you begin again, as the centaur stands by and watches as you treat his pet.