I watched as the royal doctor laid out some medicinal herbs and roots. He mixed them in a bowl and gradually adding water to combine them well.
my mother took the medicine from the royal doctor and drank it. She lay in her bed and I lay beside her. After drinking it, it was a while before
"Why aren't you getting better Mommy?" I asked. "You've been taking the medicine for a while but you aren't getting better.
"Your Highness you can't ask that," Maya my mother's lady-in-waiting told me. She stoo nearby by the corner of the room.
"Maya, it's alright," my mother started as she pet my head.
"Unfortunately, there is no medicine that can cure my specific disease," she told me.
"So, you're not going to get better?" I asked her voice braking and my concern growing.
I couldn't understand it. Whenever I got sick once I took medicine I always got better but my mother wasn't going to get better.
Soon the door suddenly opened and my father walked in.
"Rosanna," my father called out her name.
The atmosphere of the room changed as soon as he walked in. My mother's cheerful expression changed to one of anger.
"You should go Rian I'll see you later, okay?" my mother told me to leave. I wondered why I had to go but listened to her none the less. I got off the bed, and went to toward the door, the doctor and Maya following behind me.
Maya and the doctor continued walking and I initially followed but then stopped when I heard yelling coming from my mother's room. My curiosity got the best of me. I turned into a hallway pretending to go to my ro
"I would rather die than live in the world you are creating!" I heard my mother scream. As I waited by the door outside.
"Someone's listening from outside he said. Immediately I ran away realizing my father must have smelled me. A wolf's sense of smell was quite sharp, sensing when other wolves were nearby.
************
As I now sat at my desk doing my research that memory had come to mind. I remember that day was the day when it all started, the moment I got interested in medicine making. I wanted to find a way to save my mother.
I thought of the argument I had overheard my parents having. My mother and father were always like that.
At that age I didn't understand anything. I didn't understand why my mother often got angry with father since father has always talked positively about my mother not mention the lies about our kingdom he would always tell me. Which added onto my neutral view of him.
but over the years as I remembered those days I realized it must have been for the same reason I now despised my father. Though she had never openly vocalized to me that she despised father, I now believed my mother was against his methods of expanding our kingdom and perhaps had tried to stop him in her own way.
As I mixed the mixture in my bowl I saw my vision suddenly get blurry. I put down the bowl and wiped at my tear-filled eyes. Once I composed myself, I once again looked at the attempt on the table. I sniffed it. I was almost there but it still wasn't perfect. I was out of ingredients now though so I would have to continue the following day once I had finished.
I had come to the conclusion that if I wanted to stop my father I would have leave the kingdom get help from outside. There were too many restrictions and limitations if I stayed here. In all the time I've lived here I hadn't been able to come up with or found a way to stop him. Whilst it most certainly would be risky to leave the kingdom, as I didn't know exactly what was out there despite my best efforts to do as much research as possible on the wolf territories. What was written in documents and actually experiencing it were different things after all. However, I still felt this was the best option.
So if I left the kingdom my biggest challenge would be my father coming after me and perhaps running into other packs out there. Following my sent my father could easily find me an other wolves would easily. A wolf's sense of smell was really good, we could identify each other by scent alone and sense each other from great distances as. Essentially we could smell each other before we heard each other and our hearing was already good as is.
If I wanted to survive out there, I had to start by getting rid of my scent. I focused on the ointment in my hands again. The ointment was one which was supposed to completely mask the smell of a wolf or any creature for that matter. If I could get the formula right then I would completely scentless as I moved around.
Once I was done gathering my materials I went to my closet to hide them once again. Upon opening the hidden cabinet I looked at all my materials. The several books I had written detailing all the research I had done on different medicines and ointments over the years. As well as research on plants, herbs and roots. There were also several labelled medicines in small bottles.
As my eyes looked at all the items I then focused on one bottle of medicine in particular. It was the first one I had ever made and one I had worked on for a long time. It was the medicine I had tried to make for my mother to heal her. After putting back the materials I had been working with, I then took out the medicine bottle for a closer look.
Looking at it made me sentimental. It still wasn't complete bur I remembered at the time when I was a child and I thought I could really make one to heal her when even the best physicians couldn't help my mother. I had been so determined and desperate.
In the end I couldn't make it nor would I be able to until now. Of course, the recipe for the medicine had since changed from when I was a child. I had continuously added more and better ingredients. Whilst it still couldn't heal, it could immensely reduce symptoms pf the disease.