text: [Themes: fantasy, humor]
  
  This little excursion was over. Monster hunting and demon beavers were not what he was getting paid for. He wouldn't do any good if he died out here anyway. Mind made up, Sir Osis allowed sleep to come and take him from his pain. It didn't come nearly soon enough. Then next morning, he willed himself to stand up again and called for his horse. After about ten minutes of that, Alphonse came lumbering to him. Then Sir Osis made sure nothing was left behind and put out the fire. The river's cool water beckoned to him, but he was apprehensive about allowing his face anywhere near a place such a terrible creature allowed his. Thirst proved a stronger opponent than fear, however, and he carefully got a quick drink and some more water for later—swirling the water in front of him with a long branch every few seconds to scare anything off all the while, just in case. Then it was time to leave this cursed place. Every movement he made was difficult and there was pain with every breath—without breath too. He'd tried holding it to see if there was a difference.
  
  After a couple hours, he had returned to the highway and was enjoying the feeling of the warm sun against his back. When he had reached a point he recognized as being roughly three miles from his home, he saw a man as old as the sun and moon bent under the weight of a pack that must have weighed twice as much as him. "Good day, sir!" he called in a voice which surprised Sir Osis in its clarity.
  
  "I suppose one may call it that under certain circumstances. However, I shall be of the slight inclination to disagree with you. It is not yet a good day. Perhaps in a few hours, it will have sufficiently improved enough to be called middling, but for now it is a day that I would very much prefer to eliminate from my memory entirely."
  
  "I'm sorry to hear that, sir," the ancient one said flatly before regaining his enthusiasm and setting down his pack before Sir Osis and his horse. The weight may have appeared to have been removed from his back, yet he was bent at the same sharp angle as before. "Whatever it is that's ailing you, I have a product that would make a fine solution to it. In fact," he chuckled as if thinking of the perfect joke to tell his friend later, "I may have several! What is it you need?"
  
  "It is not a simple matter to—"
  
  The old peddler cut him off. "I understand perfectly, sir. Actually, I don't, but I wouldn't think ill of you for it," he said while giving Sir Osis a reassuring pat on the back.
  
  "Have you laid eyes on the cursed beaver too?"
  
  "Oh, many. That's the point in which I usually remember that I need to be hitting the road once more and bid my companion farewell though, sir. You'll learn in time." He brought out a couple of glass bottles. One was clear with a deep brown, viscous substance inside, and the other was a watery substance with a color impossible to determine from behind the tinted glass it was in. He opened the bottle of watery liquid and inhaled deeply before pulling back an shaking his head. "Now this will cure anything," he said with a laugh before tucking it back into his pack and smelling the brown bottle. "This here is the one we're looking for." He held it out to Sir Osis before drawing his hand back. "I am correct in believing you do have some coin on you, sir."
  
  > refuse the Medicine
  The more he thought about it, the more it sounded as if this being was selling something suited for curing a gift most often received at the habitation of working women. That was assuming it could cure anything at all. No, he was well enough to get this far. He didn't need some snake oil quackery.
  
  "You have my utmost gratitude for your time, but it has come to my memory that I have some fine concoction at home that should provide sufficient balm for my troubles."
  
  The ancient one's nostrils flared, and his eyes had a flash of anger like tinder burning, but he quickly hid his rage and gave Sir Osis a smile which seemed to cut his face in half. Then he started repacking his things. "Well then, sir. A swift journey to you." The man who knew the sky in its youth hoisted his burden onto his back, and then it was as if he had never been there. Sir Osis walked around the road, but he could not even tell if the ancient one had left footprints among the endless sets. There was no trace of him he could see. He decided that he was either having lapses in memory of sorts or there was sorcery involved in this. He prayed it was the former and continued on his journey, a little shaken.
  
  It was not long before Sir Osis had made his way back home where he choked down some vile remedy, visited the priest, and went to bed. It was still dark when he woke up in complete agony. Never had he felt the way he did. The closest thing he could imagine to the feeling he was experiencing was being alive by thousands of salt-jawed ants while being burned alive with a flame set in his stomach. Servants and other members of the household came running into his room when they heard his screams, but all they found was a pile of soot on the sheets.
  
  The death of Sir Osis became a legend in that region, and they say his ghost still haunts the castle in which he met his bodily demise. Where his soul is, no man can say.