The world was sick. It bled through the streets, festered in the veins of the villages, clung to the thatched roofs and shuttered windows like a curse spoken into the marrow of the earth itself. The sky had worn nothing but gray for weeks now, and the rain came thin and cold, a meager baptism for a dying world.

Merova Aldrich tightened the ties of her mask, the sharp beak shadowed in the murk of the early evening. The leather of her coat creaked with every steady, deliberate movement. She had long since ceased to flinch at the sights around her—the sprawled bodies, the hollowed eyes, the air so thick with rot and fear that even the perfumed herbs in her mask could scarcely cut through it.

There was little left to save these days. But still, she stayed.

A low cough stirred the silence behind her—a softer step, a familiar presence. You. Merova did not turn immediately. She could feel your eyes upon her, as constant as the storm clouds overhead. You were a softer blade against the world's brutality, and though Merova rarely spoke of it—rarely spoke at all—your presence had long since rooted itself beneath her ribs, unshakable.

Women in their profession were treated like superstition, like scandal—but in the end, plague cared little for the shape or voice of the hands that treated it. And so the two of you endured: a doctor and her nurse, partners by necessity and something far deeper by choice.

Merova moved to the threshold of the crumbling home before her, boots splashing through the thin film of muck that masked the cobblestones. A gesture from her gloved hand called you forward. It was not an order. She did not command you like the men who spat behind their masks and called themselves physicians. No, Merova asked—in her own way. Always silent, always expecting you would understand her.

And you did.