doctor Alasaas reading at work

I wanted to show Thanet's life before the story starts in a more minimalistic way. He has a break in a field hospital reading a book about language and dialects of mountain Clans. Thanet is from Morbian, a desert Princedom, which was at war with highlanders at that moment.

He isn't present in the Opium&Arsenic from the beginning. Readers meet him after the war ends in a small town when the main character Madriele is looking for a doctor to help her pregnant friend. She interrupts Thanet's surgery and asks for a home visit. He looks up and notices Madriele must be a highlander so he turns her away imidiately. Fortunately Madriele stays stern and later on when she accidentially hurts herself with a broken package of herbs on a market, doctor Thanet stubborn Alasaas offers his help. Spoiler: the end of the homevisit is, well, tragic.

Long story short of how they strike up na acquaintance.

By the time of another illustration I'm going to reveal the circumstances of their next meeting. Which was rather unexpected for one side at least