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As usual, Titus woke not in his room, but in the infirmary. The morning dawn glimmering upon dew drops at the window while fog gathered. Laid upon the bed in an ache and light head he sat himself up carefully. Jack, who had been brewing the new concoction for Titus to drink, brought over the hot tea in a thick clay cup.

"This should be the last of it. Once it is gone you'll need only to rest til Breakfast and from there be able to participate in your work."

"Bless you, Brother Jack." Titus took the cup, downing it in gulps.

Jack waited until Titus did drink it all, returning the cup and cleaned his station.

"Such a taste."

"Yes—but it is important to keep consistent for you, especially."

"You don't wish me to faint."

"I don't wish so, no."

Titus laughed softly. He eyed his journal on the stand, picking it up and staring back out the big windows on the other end of the room. Lined with neatly made beds all with their own end-table, he began to brew on his latest thought:

'Double vision, muted voices, I see fog ripple in sunlight. Be it one or many, morning rain lights us.'

He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of the building. A heavy scent of vinegar and lavender tried to choke his throat; he let the tang slide with his breath. Titus had learned that several of the healers have knowledge for sterile keeping. In plants and wounds. In ailments.

He glanced down at his journal once more.

'Brother Jack is attentive to the detail of cleaning. Aware around him with his tail and fingers and ears he keeps the place in most order for safety. Being as he also is contained here most nights as well as days, there is a recognition he takes when anything is moved out of place.'

His words curved together in a neat print on the page. Titus took a peek at Jack, who did indeed look tired, writing on leaf with a pen and ink pot of his own—his tail tapping idly; taking notes for Titus' ailment progression. While it would be interesting to read the thoughts of others medicinally, Titus felt the need for other material. The library's selection was adequate lacked variety in his own enjoyments; things that find a predictable end to all press. No, he had a different curiosity than stories of characters with no life of their own.

"Brother Jack."

His ear twitches.

"May you g-het me a journal, please. I am thinking Nicole has done her ru-rh-ounds of listing at this point. She should not mind." She would, but she would not be able to say no, he thinks.

Jack gave a soft sigh, pulled away from work, but did not speak outwardly of the inconvenience. His soft steps leave with a sway of his tail to follow.

'He does not enjoy most work that is not medicinal.'

Titus slapped the book shut, ruining the words inside no doubt, but did not check; instead, he placed it back on his stand and pinched his nose. The wave upon wave of vertigo tilts his world as his ear left irritated the balance. He let it all wash over him. It would try its best to rip him backwards onto the floor if it could.

Jack's soft steps return, with him Nicole's book in hand.

"Thank you."

Titus took it, thumbing through the paper at all the months written in an organized chaos on one of their cooks. She is the cautionary type, isolated, looking toward the things in front of her than those which bring her discomfort. The writing makes the life of Nicole, though it does not reveal all her secrets, he lineaments. Her condensed writing is meaning to him; the words of produce, of people, of bland thoughts to fill time codes and conditions. It is here a person will know themselves from others. So, Titus reads as he does with any book on any shelf.

Her day is simple: work in the kitchen, work in the burners and their pantry lists of stock. She has better, clearer writing for those she is more comfortable with. While others are condensed and less-written in. The smell of the kitchen: herbs, starch, fermentation, yeast, &c. She has a life in mostly one stationary place, but it is a boisterous calling of experimentation. One thing which interested him over all else is the sudden pause. Her wording at random, will pause in a distraction. Little mysteries and little problems. She picks up the word with a bigger tilt, or a re-trace of the last letter. Stitching in an ignorance to something that is sudden.

"Oracle Titus?"

His slow rise of head, to stare out his only good eye, and there is another curiosity. Sister Lila.

She stood in the doorway, glancing at Brother Jack who is engrossed back in his work (for his hands linger on his lashes as he does when he thinks of recipes), and shuffled herself into the room. S. Lila has yet to enter into the fields by her clean clothing. Her hair is more kept to-day than with most days. She stands straight as usual, a respectful half-lid look. Bothered.

Her hands are at her front, picking and pushing at the skin of her digits.

"Yes, Sister?"

"I must ask, was it you?"

Titus only smiled. His hands folded neatly and his shoulders slumped.

"You know how to braid hair and I am wondering if it was you, who did Alette's?"

She has a tendency to get flustered when people do things for Alette, being as she is not happy with her—the True Merciful Messiah. He still has a bite mark sunk into his arm from her youth, but at a digress he pats his bed. Sister Lila walks with her sure steps and soft eyes.

"I had seen her yesterday."

"I did." Titus sighed.

"I assume you wh-ould like me to braid your ha-air too?"

"May you?"

Titus pulled the pillow from behind him, handed it to Lila who then sat on the floor. Titus adjusted himself when feeling the vertigo had settled itself to a lesser degree.

"W-whu-what kind would you li-hike?"

"I will let the Oracle decide." She sat straight, head held proud.

Treatment in any way similar to M. Alette is what she desires more than anything else. In proving the way one treats Alette is no more special. Titus brings his legs behind her, gathering hair in fingers, falling in a rhythm of remembrance. "Now, my dear. Does it discomfort your mind I had done such?"

Lila took a deep breath, settling herself straighter. "It is bad faith to ignore those blessed."

"Wh-ell. I f-for certain do not find you ignored in my heart. As all things the Divine will find our paths to cross when needed, and apart when n-hot. So, then, (and here he split the locks in two parts) are you by chance look-ck-king for any particular speech, or silence?"

"Yes, I'd like to hear."

"Very well." Titus smiled.

"Be in comfort, and in joy, for you are guided as one m-must be, forging a path to your attendance of our lives when planting as you do. The teac-chings of our lord, the Divine, bring fa-aith in our hearts and soul, bring f-food and comf-ort, and celebration of his flock. You are apart of that pride." He finished one braid with a tied end off with string. "We are in his ever-ending mu-mirth to be given chance at peace, at mono-notony, and family here. Just as the soil of your cu-rops bind together the roots for placement and nutrients so too do we become the sprout and so forth the fruit of labor."

He placed the second braid on her other shoulder, sliding himself away to lay back down, Nicole's Journal back in hand.

There, S. Lila thumbs at the string, now feeling the texture, knowing it is corn husk twine. She, as many others did, saw Titus making cords of it as one of his jobs. Lila knew the Disciple Titus though one could not say that title publicly had found jobs much better for his ailment than the hard labor most do. Bless be the Divine in his mercy to find his path as he does her own. She stood, placed a hand on his forehead which he smiled to.

"I will bless you today." She smiled. "Your faith brings good fortune when I use it for the water."

"That's a lovely thought, but you must invigorate yourself first, Sister."

"Is it time already?" She whipped her head to the clock near Jack, who had gone already, seeing it almost six.

"Go on." Titus waved a hand. "My meals get bru-brought here when I am ill."

Lila started for the door.

"And one last thing, my dear."

"The Divine blu-blesses you."

"The Divine blesses you." Echoed M. Lila. And off she went without a second glance, hands cupped together behind her back.

Lambs have no leniency, nor do Oracles, yet Titus found the structure a weave of its own. Back and forth and day by day. Words and ways of life must be chosen carefully, or face dire consequence of blood and rot.