LTSV - Lost & Found 5 (Patreon)

The doctor arrived a bit after Nanny Byrde had brought Mira a light breakfast of soft scrambled eggs and weak tea. Food helped with her dismal mood a bit so she was sitting up and calm when her nanny showed Doctor Desmona into the bedroom.

Doctor Desmona was a tall, thin woman with her dark hair scraped back into a bun. She had a permanent downturn to her mouth and a deep cleft between her brows. “Miss Priestly?” she asked, giving Mira a dubious once-over that lingered on her face. Doctor Desmona’s brows drew together and Mira knew that she’d been recognized. 

Mira limited herself to a nod and wondered just how weird this was going to get now that she knew what people were saying about her around town. 

The doctor gave her a measuring look, but came over to the bedside and asked a few questions about the incident, most of which Mira had to ask Nanny to answer. It was when they got to the memory loss that Mira sensed they’d lost her. 

“I’ll be frank, Miss Priestly,” Doctor Desmona told her, very crisply. “This sort of attention seeking never works out the way you think it will. I understand you’re in a difficult position with a damaged reputation and few prospects, but you must look for a better way to handle matters than faking sick.”

“So you won’t examine me?” Mira asked. She’d considered the possibility that she’d get this reaction. Andrei did a thorough assassination of Violet’s character in the game in order to cut himself free of his unwanted engagement, so it came as no surprise to Mira that this total stranger had not only recognized her, but had already formed their first impression of her. 

Maybe it had even felt justified to Andrei. Not even Mira knew for sure if Violet was actually guilty of the things she’d been accused of, but the consequences were annoying to have to deal with. 

“I recommend some rest,” Doctor Desmona said instead of actually answering the question. “I’ll prescribe a sedative if your anxious feelings persist.”

Mira felt her fists clench involuntarily inside the poofy confines of her cuffed sleeves. Fortunately, Mira had a battle plan that she’d been working on since overhearing Nanny’s reluctance to use her name while making the appointment. “Provide me with a letter stating that you have refused to provide an examination and then you may go,” she said, ignoring Nanny’s muffled noise of outrage.

She’d heard of a trick like this in her past life to get past medical prejudice by forcing the doctor to note your records saying that they’d declined to pursue diagnostic testing. Very few doctors were willing to open themselves to litigation like that and Mira had the feeling that, while malpractice insurance didn’t exist in this world yet, lawsuits did. Mira had never had to use this trick for herself, but she was willing to try anything once. If this failed, then she’d call someone else until she found a doctor who was willing to diagnose her.

Doctor Desmona paused and looked at her again, consideringly.

“If you insist on testing, then I will proceed,” she replied at last. She glanced at Nanny Byrde. “Please help her undress.”

The doctor laid a large sheet out on the floor with a circle painted on it. Mira didn’t recognize the exact design nor did Violet’s memories have anything to say about it, but she could sort of puzzle out what it was meant to do based on her previous knowledge of magical systems. The circle provided the framework and directions for a full body magical diagnostic scan. Doctor Desmona had her lay down on it with her head, hands, and feet positioned at specific points in the circle.

When activated, the circle glowed blue and projected pictures and sigils into the air over Mira’s body. Doctor Desmona pulled on a pair of silvery gloves and began moving the sigils and images around until the cool blue of the circle turned a violent and ugly red. Mira didn’t need Violet’s old memories to tell her that wasn’t normal. She could read the urgency in the sudden speed of Doctor Desmona’s movements as she flipped through the various reports that the circle fed to her.

Eventually, the circle died and Mira was allowed to dress again. The doctor took a moment to reassemble her kit before returning to Mira’s bedside with a complicated expression.

“You did not mention your head injury, Miss Priestly,” she said with tension simmering just below the calm surface of her tone. “Why?”

Mira opened her mouth and closed it. She glanced at Nanny and, to her surprise, found her looking deathly pale. 

“Nanny?” Mira asked, unsure how to feel. “Did I hit my head when I fell?”

“It’s an older injury,” Doctor Desmona replied for her, also now turning her suspicious look on Nanny Byrde.

“I…” Nanny twisted the front of her skirt in her hands. “...I have been forbidden to speak of that matter. Please do not ask me. Can you treat her with what you already have?”

“Who forbade you?” Mira demanded. “It wasn’t me!”

“It was your lord father,” Nanny explained in a hush. 

Oh, this could be a future problem and Mira needed to get ahead of it now.

“Nanny, who is your employer right now?” she asked, trying to stay calm. 

Fortunately for them both, Nanny didn’t need much of a hint before she turned a bright, embarrassed pink and cupped her cheeks with both hands. “Oh!” she sighed and shook her head at herself. “It’s exactly as you say, dear. These old habits are no good. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine, so long as you understand now,” Mira said and settled back against her cushions. “Please explain.”

Nanny pursed her lips, “There was an—incident when you were a little girl. You were riding your pony under supervision during a house party. Someone startled it and it shied. You were thrown from the saddle despite the caretaker being there and you hit your head when you landed. You were unconscious for some time. After that, you had a few seizures; smaller ones. Nothing like the other day. The house doctor said that it could be a complication of your head injury and that they’d pass as you healed up. Eventually, they did stop and you were young enough that it’s likely you wouldn’t have remembered the accident anyway. The reason we were forbidden to discuss the matter is because there was a guest at the party who could have been implicated in the accident and, well, your father couldn’t risk it when you were already hurt and couldn’t defend yourself. Afterwards, it was too late to address the matter.”

Mira was willing to bet just about anything that the ‘guest’ in question was either Andrei or someone connected to him. She didn’t know how far the engagement went back, but the game implied they’d been betrothed for as long as they’d known each other and there were some flashback scenes of a toddler-sized Violet in one of Andrei’s cutscenes. 

“If you have a prior history of seizures and that head wound was not treated aggressively in the moment, then it is possible that a moment of severe stress could trigger later complications,” Doctor Desmona told Mira, apparently unwilling to comment on the situation surrounding her current condition. “Since the seizure has affected your memories…”

“I can remember things when someone prompts me or I see someone familiar.” Mira interrupted. “The memories are there. I just can’t reach them without help.”

“...your ability to recall your autobiographical memories, then,” Doctor Desmona corrected herself. “Fortunately, your language and reasoning abilities don’t seem to be affected. Amnesia is not an uncommon side effect of intense seizures, although memory loss to this degree is quite unusual. The fact that it doesn’t seem to be permanent is good, though, and you are a trained sorceress. Assuming that your difficulties with recall don’t clear on their own, I would recommend that you request a counseling session with a cleric of Syne. They’ve been known to be very successful in treating cases of persistent amnesia once the physical aspect of the injury is resolved.”

Syne was a minor goddess of memory, which Mira knew from the game, who was unusually responsive to her parishioners. That was actually a helpful suggestion and Mira fully planned on taking it.

“For the seizures,” Doctor Desmona continued, “I will need to write a medical spell inscription.”

Nanny hissed unhappily. “Is there really no other way?” she asked. 

She didn’t sound like she liked that idea at all, but Mira was getting a little too tired by that point to grasp the things Violet’s memory was trying to show her so she couldn’t figure out why, even though it felt like something Violet had once known. However, Mira was starting to feel exactly how hurt and tired this body really was. The brief respite from pain that she experienced while settling into a new life must have come to an end while she was being examined.

“She should have already had one after the first incident.” Doctor Desmona narrowly avoided snapping at Nanny. “If her vanity is more important than her health, then you are wasting my time here.”

“Wait,” Mira held up her hand to forestall any further argument when she saw her nanny start to puff up with indignation. “Doctor, please remind me what a medical inscription is? I’m tired and I’m starting to struggle to keep up with conversation.”

“Do you feel pain?” Doctor Desmona asked and returned her full attention to Mira. It was clear from her body language that she no longer thought Mira was a nervous hypochondriac, which came as welcome news. Now that they were past that initial rough patch, Doctor Desmona was shaping up to be a stellar caregiver, even if her bedside manner lacked polish. 

“I’m just running out of energy,” Mira replied. “I feel like I could remember, but it’s getting harder to let it just happen.”

“A medical spell inscription is a tattoo,” Nanny Byrde explained. She wet her lips as she tried to find a way to phrase the next part. “They’re usually very large.”

“This inscription would be located on your back, along your spine,” Doctor Desmona explained with a slight sideways narrowing of her eyes in Nanny’s direction. “Some of it would extend onto the back of your neck and onto your scalp. It would be covered by your clothes and hair. Today, I’ll only paint a monitoring charm on your back to watch your health and to determine the necessary function of the inscription.”

“This would stop the seizures?” Mira asked. She already sold on the idea. She understood just enough about epilepsy that she already knew she didn’t want to gamble with controlling it through diet changes or trying to avoid stress altogether.

“Small and medium sized ones,” Doctor Desmona told her. “A very intense seizure, such as the one you experienced yesterday, could slip the net. Your actual experience would be mild, though, and would not endanger your health. Even with the inscription, I would recommend that you keep someone with you or at least nearby at all times. Even inscribed spells can be interrupted temporarily by outside influences and you would be in danger of an uncontrolled fall.”

“Alright,” Mira agreed. That was an easy ask. Violet’s life was the sort that precluded personal privacy except under rare circumstances and any minor inconvenience that reduced Mira’s risk of injury or death was fine by her. “What are the next steps?”

“For now, I’m going to perform a healing spell on your head. It’s an old injury, but you have some inflammation in that area that could become a problem if we leave it untreated and I’d like to strengthen your bone there. You will want to sleep afterwards. I’ll place the monitoring charm on your back while you’re resting. Do not move around tomorrow before noon if you can help it. The charm will be using that time to establish your resting state for later comparison, afterwards try to live your life normally. Avoid extreme upsets if possible or the inscription will think that’s a normal state of being for you, but otherwise go about your daily routine.”