The Merging

Smiles of Lukaskirche

This was why I became a vet; the smiles you got when you announced that the pet you had just treated would be fine. They made up for all the times when I was disappointed in myself for not being able to save someone and had to deliver the terrible news to the owners. And all the times I was too late. Lately that has happened a lot; me being too late to do anything. Some of it I can blame on the changes in infrastructure here in Frankfurt; there are a lot more roadblocks and checkpoints and the shortest route from A to B now might have been the longest route before. Those security measures were added after a group of sprites and small dragons were chased around town, wreaking a bit of havoc with their powers. The sprites could manipulate water, while the dragons breathed fire and stomped out small earthquakes. GODCA agents started swarming the city soon after that.

This chaos also made smiles rarer. Any kind of smiles, not just the ones I get at the clinic. No matter if you support GODCA or the Dracos – or neither – you know that an increase in GODCA agents spells trouble for people without any real power. The lower class, the poor, the homeless. The upper class are not bothered at all, the middle class mainly unaffected. But they do not smile; if they come to my clinic for help, and I am successful, I only get a tight-lipped "thanks" while rushing off to prove their worth to GODCA. Others, people of the lower class, they smile more when I help. Saving their pets might be the first good thing that has happened in a long while.

Claus and Hanne have had the same thing happen to their clinic. They are two of my best friends and we studied together. Now they run a clinic close to the Hauptbahnhof – the train station. Mine is further south, on the other side of the river Main, but we still keep in touch and on occasions where I cannot provide assistance at my smaller clinic, I send my clients to Claus and Hanne. And they send people to me occasionally as well. More often nowadays than before – and I rarely see them at my clinic. At least not the one that is open to the public; I have a second one. A secret one.

Tonight I make my way there. Ahead the tower of Lukaskirche looms, the arms of the clock pointing to ten minutes to eleven. The door to the church is open and I see people sitting in the benches. Some are huddled over as if praying. I do not take the main aisle, but one that runs by the wall. The priest still sees me and nods in welcome, before continuing to preach his late night sermon. I sit down in one of the benches up front and listens for a while, before my eyes are drawn to a small figure to my right. It wears a small, brown hooded robe that has been cut off to fit its shape and sticks to the shadows by the wall, before darting towards my bench. Once next to my right leg it dares to look up, its large black eyes gleaming in its round, brown face. I smile and drop my hand from my lap, sneaking it a treat and causing it to grin.

I became a vet for the smiles from people. Now I am a vet for the smiles from creatures from the Otherlies' world.