His name was Nat Lois and he was blind.
For most, loss of sight was an illness or the result of an accident. For Nat,it was a price he willingly paid for.
Nat was the last son of a family of healers. For centuries, his ancestors had used their knowledge about rare herbs to heal wounds and save lives. So did Nat's four brothers and sisters. And he was going to earn the families secrets as well, once he became old enough.
But then came the Second Great Witch-hunt.
During the 1970's, an event known as the Elf Crisis came about as Europe was attacked by the Elven King and his army of trolls, dwarfs and his assorted ‘fair folk’, but the attack was stopped by the legendary King Arthur who had woken up from his millennium long slumber. Beside the bloodbath, it was the crisis that established to the public that magic was in fact very much real. Many magic users saw this as a sign that they should get out of hiding and share their talents with the rest of the world. And it went well... for a while... but eventually,"normal people" grew to fear magic, and an American group of anti-magic extremist called "Deflammo" gathered a small army and supporters all over the country to "protect" America from these devil worshippers. This started the Second Great Witch-hunt that took place in the 90's. Not only were lives lost, so was knowledge. Formulas, recipes and plants was destroyed. Wisdom and knowledge was lost forever. Magic survived the 90's it was not the same. The art of healing became crippled and almost all of the members of the Lois family were killed. Only Nat survived. Nat who did not know the art of healing, and his family and their secrets was gone. He had their roots and plants but no idea how to use them or how to make them grow.
Nat Lois still wished to learn the ways of healing so that his family's old trade could be kept alive. He found a way by visiting the Tree of Wisdom, located in Sweden. It was a sentient being who offered knowledge... for a price. He had to have his legs tied up hang on the tree for nine days upside own, and then, he had to give up his sight. After that, the Tree of Wisdom blessed him with knowledge. Nat now knew everything that was worth knowing about plants and their secrets. He travelled back home to his birth-town Twilight City, where he opened an underground clinic where he in secret could offer his help to those in need.
Nat's first patient had been a goblin of all things. A goblin named Greg. Greg had worked as an illegal taxi-driver in Twilight ever since the fight between Lady Ignis and Fulgetra that covered the city in eternal night. Greg had been stupid enough to eat a chocolate bar even though those were poison to goblins. Luckily for him, Nat had been his passenger when he was having a spasm attack. After saving his life, Greg promised to drive him for free till the Earth turned into a giant red cheese as well as getting him patients. And he did. Greg had an uncanny ability to sense sick and wounded humans which he drove to Nat's place. But the most interesting one was the Cat, Twilight's newest superhero. Greg claimed that he was an odd-looking fella, something Nat had to take his word for due to obvious reasons. Cat became the one patient who came back, again and again. And Nat patched him up every single time, fearing that this would be Cat's final visit.
It was because of Cat that he had now been abducted. Someone, a woman, had appeared in his house. Told him that she had been shot in the left shoulder and that she needed help. Nat led her down to his basement and didn't stop to wonder why she didn't tell him about being led here by an odd-looking cabbie. If he had, he would have realized that she had found him by her own. He wouldn't have been hit in the head by something heavy right after healing the wound she actually had. He wouldn't have woken up and noticed the smell of fish that would tell him that he was somewhere in the docks. The lady, whoever she were, told him that he was now ransom. That Cat would come to save him. And that it would be the last heroic thing he ever did in his life.
Greg had once joked that Nat should have traded his sight for something like radar-sense.
At this moment, he really wished he had.
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