Who Was There at Medic

When Lord Medic (his actual title has been lost to antiquity) planted the grains in his royal field, he did so that none in his country would know hunger. That had been the plan, but, over time, the green grains withered. The grasses Pan knew were pincer grass, gall cane and such weeds. All his father's fathers had to eat was culled from the earth. All they could drink was a brackish beer. This was far from the mead and amber brew of the Medician legends, but so was everything else in Pan's world.
Entering Medic Field this day, Pan found something of a rarity: a red mushroom. Pan's father told them they made men into heroes. Pan just thought they were tasty. Even though, he found them fairly often, more than anyone else.
He picked the fungus, and was just about to pop it in his mouth and enjoy the warm feeling it would give him, when he head someone say, "Can you trust the fungus?"
Pan, startled, looked to his left, to his right and saw no one. When he faced front again, he saw the man who had spoken.
He was a man of slight frame, just taller than Pan, with hair just beginning to gray at the temples. His clothes may have been a faded black, or just very dirty. Whatever the color, the tattered suit revealed him to be a traveling Questian. Pan had heard of men and women who went from place to place, raising hackles and queries. They were troublemakers.
"I do believe," Pan sighed, "I can."
The man leaned toward Pan, and the Sun flared off his glasses, glinting on the frames. Had he been wearing those before? "What do you see when you look at the mushroom, young man?" The Questian was more smug than Aeric when he actually answered one of the teacher's questions correctly.
Pan contemplated the tepid toadstool, and was shocked. The spots were not white, but yellow! "What's that?" Pan asked, a pained expression on his face.
"That, young man, is a quashroom. They are said to make one lesser. They are succulent, with a repulsive aftertaste. They make excellent wine. The wine causes horrid hangovers. The hangovers are quickly forgotten, but the bad humour in the liver is not. Is that enough information?"
Pan suddenly understood why Questians were so disliked: they made you feel dumb. "Yes, that's quite enough."
The Questian snapped to attention. "Of course," he gave a little laugh, the Sun sanguine in his spectacles, "there is no 'enough' information. So, I think I'll learn your name, young man."
"My name is Pan," said Pan, not looking the man in the eye. It was as if the Sun reflected in the Questian's pince-nez burned Pan's own cheeks.
"Ah! Pan! Do you know what your name means, lad?" The man was smiling, no longer priggish.
Pan kicked at a clod of elf grass, which wasn't nearly as pleasant as you'd think. "No."
"'Pan' comes from the early-Medician 'Pane.' It means 'bread.'"
The wind whistled through the gray grasses of the field. Pan clutched his flute. "Okay."
"Well," said the man, "aren't you going to ask me my name?"
Pan hated when adults prompted you to questions for which you didn't care to have an answer. Still and all, "what's your name, sir?"
"My name is Vic the Sage, of the Questian order." Vic seemed proud, but Pan couldn't tell is he was so because of the knowledge being shared, or the knowledge itself.
"I'll remember you ere and after, Vic the Sage." Pan used the most formal greeting he could, hoping it would placate the grown-up.
Vic beamed down on Pan. "And I you, young Master Pan. Now, tell me, what brings you to Medic Field?"
"I came to play my flute." Why had Pan told him that? He never told anyone that!
The last flash of true day shimmered in Vic's glasses. "Why?"
Pan noticed the first waxing of the moon as he looked into Vic's eyes, which seemed a little closer now, a little sunken, all of a sudden. "I just wanted to." Pan felt no need to say anything about bullies or moots or begging the land for food.
Vic scanned the horizon. "Hmmm. Sure. Well, would you like to know why I'm here?"
Pan didn't want to, but his father had taught him to be polite. Pan had wished his father had not. "Why are you here?"
"I am here to find something to eat, because I cannot afford anything. I told you not to eat that 'shroom because I wanted it, despite its mephitic nature. I was also, somewhere in the back of my mind, hoping to find the Princess's lost moot, so I could afford some victuals. Alas, I have been nowhere where knowledge of moots in abundant, so I have little awareness of them."
Pan thought that was entirely too much information, but knew not to say so. "Well, I can give you something to eat from my father's pantry. We haven't much, but there are some crusts."
Vic chuckled. "Pan indeed."