As Edwin was making Tommy boy, Luciano was stitching straight lines next to him. Which were crocked, but the boy and his chubby fingers did their best. Once Edwin had gotten the boy to sew, his brothers had retreated in fear that they too would be made to do something girly.

Hadrian’s fur lined gray cloak was a warm weight on Edwin’s lap. He was cautious not to do a wrong stitch. It was expertly made, and it would be a shame if there were tears in it.

The vampire had gotten him to promise he would stitch Tommy boy on his spare cloak too, and the children’s coats. Edwin had put his foot down when Hadrian had suggested for the silly drawing to be put on Edwin’s hospital scrubs.

Not that he had too much of a problem with it, but he was not a healer who took care only of children. A certain level of professionalism had to be maintained. He had agreed to stitch an E and R on the back, since Hadrian had whined that his scrubs were too boring.

As he spared a look out of the window, he wondered where he would go come spring. Cities were all well and good, but the majority of the neediest patients were outside them.

In trading posts and huts surrounded by tracts of land. Did he even want to remain in Duria? He had probably caused ripples with his curing the coughing sickness. Not to mention, they had an enemy in mayor Louis Monter’s face, even though he had become less bitter after his son got better.

“Eddy, am I doing it right?” Asked Luciano as he placed the cloth he was stitching on right under Edwin’s face. Edwin lowered the cloth and appraised it. As far as he was concerned, this was good progress for a three-year-old.

“It is better than an hour ago. Do you want to go back to painting from the atlas?” Asked Edwin, and the boy threw his cloth and ran to the couch and picked up his drawing supplies. Then he disappeared in the boys’ room.

Edwin chuckled and returned to making Tommy boy. Now that he was alone, the plans for the future were enclosing around him. He had no direction. When he was back at the academy, he had though he would be a healer who travelled from clinic to clinic.

And now he was doing so, in a way. But he had to write professor Nari to get accepted in the clinic he was working in now. Had he still been a second class citizen, it wouldn’t have been possible to land the job at all.

People at the clinic appreciated him, but he didn’t have a license. Technically, he was not allowed to do surgeries and so there was always another healer who was there in the operating room solely, so they could put their names on the official papers.

And that didn’t bother him, really. He needed the practice, just like he needed to keep reading medical journals. There were so many fields he was unfamiliar in. His dental work was something he was not proud of.

Of, sure, he could take out a tooth and put braces with the best of them. But his cleaning techniques left much to be desired. There were so many dentists under which he could now apprentice, what with his new status in the country, but none of them were in Myrna. Or in Duria in general.

Then there were the trickier surgeries he wanted to witness but were outlawed in Duria. Surgeries where limbs were put back together with necromantic mana. Where organs were put in a permanent undead state.

Manipulations such as these were outlawed for a reason. The risk of the patient becoming a walking corpse was too big, but slightly smaller than the risk of the patient outright dying.

Still, there were necromancers who had a clean record of successful surgeries. There was Aleric Stormcrow of the Tsardom of Mopia that could save someone as long as they had a head and neck attached to a torso.

And that was phenomenal. Rumor had it that Aleric wasn't concerned with healer rating, citizen status and the like. A three-year apprenticeship under him could make Edwin’s useless mana into something that could save lives.

But the Tsardom was all the way in the West continent. And passing through the Alanqian Empire was never advised for anyone from Duria. The northern coast that could be used to bypass the empire was littered with icebergs. Only a fool will sail it.

That left going around, through the Surian Theocracy, then through Gemoia and then sailing east and landing to Bisch. From then, it was a game of sticking to the grassland and avoiding the cold desert of Bisch and then, after what sounded like the worst border check in the entire world, a couple of days walks to Aleric.

The children would like it. Edwin was sure that Hadrian would present it all like one grand adventure. It was not like there was another language spoken but the common tongue. They wouldn’t have many problems.

That is, if their ship was not attacked by a kraken, was not swallowed by a whale, or worse, beset by pirates. And there were other bad scenarios, Edwin was sure, but he did not know of them.

And yet, the allure to become the apprentice of the famous Aleric Stormcrow was like a siren’s song. Edwin was sure that he could walk away from it. Tell himself that he could piece together what he needed and what was allowed from books. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

People who went through Aleric’s lessons even got healer licenses, no matter if they were booted by their academies. Edwin would be lying if he said he was not bitter about how saying the truth had landed him the status of a second class citizen with no prospects.

If it wasn’t for Hadrian to brighten his day, he was sure he would have slunk home to his mother. Head bowed and then putting only half the effort in what he was doing.

But he had lucked out and that ball of moonlight, pun intended, had fallen into his life. He looked at the ginger cat he was stitching. Then, with a grin, he proceeded to make its smile lopsided.