Behind His Weary Eyes (Novella) ✔️

1 ✙ Pursuit Of Perfection

It began when she was a hatchling.

When her tribe members became sick, Asa saw a mist hovering over them. It came in varying hues and stayed until they were well. As time passed, she learned the pastels represented minor ailments, and the darker variants showed the more deadly diseases.

She became a full-time medic at the age of sixty-five, twelve years ago. At the time, her tribe praised her for her work. She cured multiple illnesses and extended the life expectancy of her tribe. Elders began reaching into the mid-hundreds, closer to their previous lifespan of a millennium.

But her life changed, however, the day she saw a dark gray miasma.

A young mother who'd recently laid her first clutch of eggs was the first patient. She fiddled with her sharpened nails, breaking without warning. While their species didn't have full talons, their nails hardened to a point, often growing longer during pregnancy to offer protection. But they rarely if ever broke without reason.

Asa's tail froze as she watched the nail fall to the floor. To her dismay, the mother became one of many patients with a dark gray miasma. Unlike with the brighter hues, the medic found out this color carried with it a unique brand of sickness. They were persisting diseases, and no other healers from other tribes knew a cure.

Asa and her coworkers worked overtime to keep the growing number of ill alive. Their resources and time dwindled. Her people were weakening. Previously bright green scales grayed to sullen hues. Some came in hacking, their lungs heaving for no clear reason. Others came in with swollen bellies from gas and lack of nutrition despite eating twice their normal meal size.

At first, she believed these diseases ended with the patient's life. That was until the clutch of her first patient stumbled into infancy. While Asa took care of the mother's sleeping children a gray mist settled over one of the boys. Her heart sank.

It was genetic.

Just a few months later, a Qwtpk, a species from a nearby planet, arrived on her planet. The female Qwtpk was distraught, and her belly swollen with a clutch of eggs. She slithered in on her thick, blue tail. It curled in rhythm with her contractions. As she stumbled over her words, the white fur on her spine shook.

After a border dispute, their neighbors, the Oipi, had attacked their settlement. She escaped on one of their last ships and was one of the only survivors. Asa delivered her three eggs, hatching into three girls. All three grew the dreaded gray cloud.

While she cared for her new patient, she learned that their species struggled with the new illnesses also. It had weakened their ranks and reduced the number of warriors able to fight. Within only two months' time, the Oipi successfully enslaved the Qwtpk.

Asa warned the elders that her people, the Wikevs, would be next if something wasn't done. She proposed the idea to purge those with the clinging diseases to prevent their spread.

It's then that their praise halted. Scowls painted their face. They dismissed her, refusing to take the needed step to save their people.

That's why she had snuck between the medical tent's flaps hours after the sunset. Moonlight cut a path to the bed of her first patient's hatchlings, the ones who started it all. The child's typical bright green complexion had dimmed to a sickly yellow-gray. Barely a year old yet already suffering. Asa eased a needle into the child's arm.

Despite her attempts to be gentle, they woke. She tried to hold them steady but the hatchling squirmed underneath her grasp. Their developing scales slipped beneath her fingers, their stump of a tail thrashed. Choking breaths came with a spray of spit.