Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => St. Mungo's => London => First Floor: Creature-Induced Injuries => Topic started by: Iona 'Bruce' Ballentyne on April 11, 2022, 06:48:02 AM
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Early Evening, 1st September
It was the day after the August blue moon. The first day post moon transformation was always difficult. Preceding her current job at the ministry, Iona had been able to take toa bed and wallow in self-pity while she waited for the pain and nausea to ebb. Iona not only suffered with a badly injured and possibly incurable leg, she was also one of the few unlucky souls to suffer from an intolerance to wolfsbane. It left her Nowadays, she would put on her big girl boots and get her nauseous ass into work to face whatever had taken place during the night she’d spent howling and trying to escape her cell.
This morning had been particularly rough. During the full moon, Iona Ballentyne’s furry alter ego had been particularly reckless. She’d woken in her cell, naked as usual. The only difference had been the blinding pain in her leg. It would usually hurt, a very unfortunate side effect of having wrestled werewolves for a living. This had been different, and while she’d taken some pain potions and they hadn’t touched it and she hadn’t even been able to limp on the damaged limb.
This was precisely the reason that Bruce was now seated on a hospital bed in a cubicle on the first floor. Plenty used to these visits to see Bones, her usual healer, Bruce had already removed her trousers, and as such was sat there in her black t-shirt and pants. Her wild hair had been tied up into a bushy ponytail, and she looked pretty damn awful. She was sat on the edge of her bed, her injured left leg resting on a stool while the right leg dangled down. Her left leg, bared to the world, was a mangled mess of scar tissue and muscle loss.
When the curtain opened, Bruce looked up from giving her limb an inspection.
“Where’s Bones?
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"One of Marrowbones?" he repeated when a mediwitch passed him the clipboard. Robin tucked it under his arm before making his way to the assigned cubicle - he stopped only to tie back his hair, which kept coming loose.
Full moons left him feeling pretty much the same every time. You think it's going to get easier but the moment you get home from the cell, the morning after, it was like you'd been run over by a Knight Bus. Robin was a deep sleeper though, and had dreamed through most of today until he got up for a late afternoon shift.
In his tiredness he'd forgotten to shave, and was feeling generally unkempt. He considered himself lucky. Some didn't feel human the day after.
Robin entered the cubicle and glanced down at the clipboard sheet at the same time - he almost did a double take. He recognised the name of course. When he'd made the plan to move over, his first instinct had been to see who was heading up the werewolf situation. Bruce Ballentyne was herself a werewolf; unthinkiable in the WALI-influenced world he left behind.
“Where’s Bones? the redhead looked up, all prepped for examination.
"Out on an emergency," he mumbled without thinking, and then remembered himself. "I'm Healer Louvelle." The tall wizard smiled, drawing the curtain close behind him before he approached.
He offered a hand to shake. The waning full moon was inked on his inner wrist, sensitive to the changes of their actual moon. "Or you can call me Robin. Pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Ballentyne. I'm a friend of Balfour's," he clarified.
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Healer Marrowbone was a tall, well kempt witch with a strong character and an engaging presence. Marrowbone was the healer that had been on shift most full moons throughout Bruce’s career in the WCU. Marrowbone’s Leeds accent calmed Bruce’s nerves, probably because her own wife spoke in the same accent. Marrowbone had saved Bruce’s life when she’d been hanging over the edge of the abyss. Marrowbone was about the only healer Bruce ever saw.
The wizard stood just inside the cubicle may have been even larger than Bruce’s favourite healer, but he was certainly not her Bones. His beard was overgrown and his hair fairly long. To Bruce, he looked hungover and he was certainly not from the North of England or even this island.
Louvelle…Louvelle. Why did she recognise the name?
A little taken aback by the healer offering his hand to her, Bruce took it for a shake, blue eyes shooting down to meet the tattoo on his wrist. A friend of Balfour’s. She gave an equally firm grip before letting go.
“Right…” Then it clicked and Bruce’s brows rose, realising that she was now sat in her knickers, mauled leg bared to her boss’ friend, a fellow werewolf now under her care and responsibility. This scruffy looking giant was also working post full moon transformation.
“Then you experienced my hospitality last night. Lucky you. I hear the tea and toast is great, not that I’ve ever been able to stomach it.”
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He laughed lightly, scanning the clipboard again before putting it aside to tend properly to his patient.
"Honestly, I don't taste half of anything I eat right after..." Robin's lips twitched into a dry smile. "But I'm treating myself to a whole Peking duck later tonight, so there's that to look forward to."
One of life's few pleasures was smoking a joint of gillyweed and dining alone in any China town across the world. He found that instilling small routines and pleasures helped give structure to what felt like the structureless tortures of a a full moon. And merlin knew that people like him or Bruce needed those pleasures.
"So, your leg's bothering you after last night?" he gestured, hand hovering over Ballentyne's outstretched ankle, waiting for consent. "Do you mind if I check it out? Professional interest," Robin assured her in an upfront tone. "I have a light touch, don't let my looks fool you."
From experience, he understood how sensitive it could be. His own scar, creeping up from shoulder to neck, had nearly cost him the use of an arm - but there had been a Healer present when he was bitten, and so whatever pain bothered him now was easily relieved by tinctures or potions.
Only the slightest burning sensation, sharp and stinging. Psychosomatic. Knowing that did not prevent the sensation.
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An entire Peking duck. The giant of a wizard looked like he could eat a whole flock of Peking ducks and still ask for dessert. It wasn’t uncommon for Bruce, despite the exhaustion, to not eat the day following a transformation for the fear of seeing the food again in a very different state. Peking duck was certainly out of the question.
With the attention turned back to the reason Bruce was actually sat on the hospital bed, she looked down at the grim excuse for a left leg. The wolf had had a damned good attempt at ripping it from her hip socket during the attack. Flesh had been torn from the limb and now it remained a skinny and mangled mess of angry red scarring and a lack of any real muscle. Athena Marrowbone had done an excellent job at saving the limb, but despite all of her efforts, Bruce still relied heavily on a walking cane as she couldn’t comfortably place any weight on it.
“I think my furry alter ego forgets that my leg is as sturdy as cooked spaghetti. Normally, I can at least limp about a bit but not today. Bones will chew my ear off if I don’t come in when it’s worse than normal so here I am, doing as the boss says.” It was easy to make light of it and not really talk about the blinding pain she’d felt almost all day. At work and home, Iona would try to play it down, to not show weaknesses. Often with Bones, she would also try to act like it bothered her less. Unfortunately, now, this was affecting her work, even if she did mostly sit behind a desk.
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It was a real piece of work, what happened to Ballentyne's leg. Robin's touch was as light as promised - he gently adjusted its position as he examined it from ankle to hip, and used the flat of his palms to lightly apply pressure where he needed a better idea of what was happening underneath mangled skin and flesh.
He loved that Athena went by Bones, and wondered if his absent colleague would mind him referring to her the same. "Well Healer Marrowbone was right, it's a good thing you came in."
Robin stepped back, one arm crossed against his chest as he scratched his scruff thoughtfully.
"You don't have much muscle in this leg but what muscle you do have has accrued a hell lot of tension," he motioned to indicate her hamstrings, the back of her knees, and much of her calves. "The pain your feeling is probably enhanced nerve pain, no big surprise you're hurting."
He reached for the clipboard again and took the quill out from behind his ear so that he could quickly scribble down his impressions; Athena would no doubt want to go over the notes when she was back. "Usually I'd prescribe a massage but that would be," he laughed slightly, "excruciating in this case."
The quill went back behind his ear and he paused, clearly thinking.
"How much time do you have right now?" Robin raised an eyebrow. "I can give you a tincture specifically for nerve pain, and we can do a few assisted stretches. There's a longer treatment, if you have a couple of hours to spare."
Time was always running here in London, he noticed. It seemed to move twice as fast as anywhere else in the world.
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The healer’s touch may have been light and delicate, but Bruce was grimacing as he examined her damaged limb. A white-hot pain surged from her calf upwards and she found herself gripping the sheet on the bed to stop a groan.
“Not just the leg” the mutter came at the mention of tension. Ballentyne’s jobs had always come with a certain level of tension but being the Head of the Werewolf Wing had reached a new level of tense.
“Ffyc na” The witch swore in Welsh when her stand-in healer suggested a massage. He appeared to agree that that would be a terrible idea.
“I’m not gonna’ lie, I’m starting to think it would be easier if someone just hacked it right off and gave me a wooden peg. Let’s see the wolf have a midnight party then.” Athena had done everything she could to save the leg, and Iona appreciated it, but she did often wonder if an amputation would have been easier in the long term. One could perhaps learn to adapt to that better than constant aching and pain.
Blue eyes scanned over the large wizard as she considered what his own bite must be like or how it had happened. It wasn’t a question you just asked. If she was inclined in such a way, she could have read his registration paperwork that he’d filed on arrival in the UK, but that just felt like an invasion of privacy. This wizard, like so many other werewolves, was walking fine, if he just looked a little unkempt. His scar was clearly hidden better, not detrimentally affecting his daily life.
“I’ve got time.” Before leaving work, Iona had sent a memo to Zora on Level 2. “Heal me, Healer. Then maybe you can enlighten me with all sorts of secrets about your friend, the scotsman.” Fat chance of that.
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"I’m starting to think it would be easier if someone just hacked it right off..."
He nodded sympathetically but without commitment, feeling that Athena was more equipped to have this discussion with her long term patient. It was an interesting dilemma: was a leg such as this any better or worse than no leg at all? And there was advancement in the field of prosthetics.
As soon as Ballentyne confirmed she wouldn't mind the longer treatment, he gestured for her to wait a moment and stuck his head out of the curtain to call for a Mediwizard. They would need some of the Dioscorides Aloe that had arrived last week. Having dispatched the wizard to acquire it, Robin procured a tincture from the medicine cabinet before returning to his duty.
"I don't think I can be of any help with Bal," he snorted as he poured most of the tincture into a glass of water. "This is the first I've seen of him in years, we're still catching up on lost time."
The purple-blue tincture tinted the water and he gave it a stir. "What makes you think he's got secrets?" Robin handed her the glass. "Here, drink all of this and we'll do some of those stretches while they're bringing us the stuff we need for your leg."
With any luck, it would soothe at least enough of Bruce's pain to allow for the stretches.
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Catching up on lost time. It made Bruce think of Bagnold and all of the time they’d lost because of his reaction to her turning. Had it been similar for this Canadian healer, she wondered. Was Balfour Spectre the sort to disown his friend for becoming a werewolf?
“Everyone’s got secrets, Healer.” The witch said with a shrug as she took the glass from him. Spectre, for example, had a secret son and a past love affair with a witch who enjoyed hunting werewolves and murdering people. “Spectre is definitely not unique, there.”
A look of distaste twisted Bruce’s expression when she glanced down into the glass. From her experience with healers and their potions, these things never tasted pleasant, and she’d already been feeling nauseous all day. Regardless, she lifted it to her lips and took the whole thing in in several large gulps. Always better to gulp than sip these things, after all.
“Glurgh!” She groaned, offering the glass back. “You can’t make this stuff taste like strawberries or wine? Always feet or rotting fruit.”
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He laughed, conceding the point to Ballentyne - everyone did have their secrets. And he was sure even Bal had a few skeletons hiding in the many closets of that old manor.
"For kids, yeah," Robin joked as he set the glass aside and gestured at the witch. "Sit up straight on the edge of the bed, we'll give that a minute to work and then I'm going to move your leg into a stretching position."
As they spoke, a Mediwitch entered with a large tray of the aloe leaves; they were set aside for later and he thanked her before turning back to Bruce. "The Balfour I knew," he leaned against a chair, crossing his arms, "was young and reckless, like most dragon handlers. Can't provide much insight from there."
Even if he could, he wouldn't. Robin sympathised with Ballentyne's position but he was loath to part with anything that could be used as a bargaining chip against his friend.
"But Bal seems... content these days?" his voice lifted, unsure. "He's welcomed me into his home while I'm apartment hunting, so he's as generous as I remember. And I'm pretty sure the crush he has on his own husband isn't a secret."
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Typical wizarding kind, really. Make it taste good for children but if it was worth it for the effect, the potion had to be disgusting. nothing was ever just simple, everything had to be some sort of a challenge.
Following orders, Bruce twisted on the bed to allow her legs to dangle down off the side. As gravity took her left limb, she visibly winced, taking in a rush of air through gritted teeth. Fingertips gripped the sheet below her, trying to focus her energy elsewhere.
For a friend who was lodging with Spectre, Robin seemed to know little about him. Or perhaps he didn’t fancy sharing. That was fine, Bruce got that; she wasn’t a gossip. But she felt the need to talk about something if they were going to be in this room during this extended treatment. It was like going to a hair salon (not that Bruce knew too much about that one) where one felt obliged to engage in conversation simply to prevent awkward silences.
“Yes, they lunch together. It’s all very public.” Bruce smiled. It was quite the opposite to her and her wife who’d spent about 18 years working on different floors with none of Zora’s colleagues even knowing about her. “I’m not one to know what he was before now, really. I was out of the game for nearly 3 and a half years. People can change beyond recognition in that time.”
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Even as they spoke he kept an assessing eye on Ballentyne's leg, aware that the muscles they intended to stretch would be pulled down by that friend-or-foe, gravity. Robin approached the witch and adjusted her posture with simple, barely-there gestures. He laughed when she described Bal's relationship with Johann as very public.
That sounded right, and made him fond of his hosts.
"Three and a half years, huh?" he raised his eyebrows. "You think you've changed in that time? I mean, beyond the obvious. Let's try to move your knee, open it up, come on."
Robin gentle touched her knee, nudging it away from her good leg to try and stretch her hip muscle out. "Nice and slow, keep your hands on your waist or ribs," he advised and then added, without prompt, "I came out of my bite a different person. And it had a way of making me realise that maybe the people around me weren't the people I thought they were either, you know."
Even the supposedly tolerant ones, the ones who suddenly didn't want you around their kids or in their homes.
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Not one to accept help from a healer and then ignore it, Bruce obeyed and allowed him to shift her left leg away from her right. She rested her hands on her hips, feeling utterly ridiculous, but hoping this wizard could work at least some magic on her tumultuous limb.
“That happens to most werewolves after their bite. People show their true colours. The werewolf thing is a problem.” Bruce said with a raise of her eyebrows. One person stuck in her head so clearly. Kurby Bagnold and she had been close. Some of Level 4 had even used the term ‘work spouses’ when describing them. Bruce had been his mentor since he’d joined the WCU as a seventeen-year-old apprentice. He’d done his job the night of the attack and then no word for the years until she returned to the Werewolf Wing as his boss once more. That had hurt, and despite them falling back into similar habits, it still did.
“I...mmmmm” she paused, breathing out as he began to move her leg. “I managed twenty-two years working in the Werewolf Capture Unit so I quite stupidly thought of myself as invincible and totally badass. That blew up in my face when I had to face my mortality.” She frowned, closing her eyes as the ache, now duller than before, moved through the torn-up thigh. “Before, it was a job. I had to protect my team and the public. It’s not just a job anymore, and I guess my team has expanded. My priorities have changed.”
It was weird, talking like this to a complete stranger, but there was often a kinship with other werewolves, and Robin Louvelle was clearly an easy person to talk with. What would Athena say when she found out her Brucie had been seeing another healer??
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The werewolf thing is a problem. Understatement of the decade, he thought, holding Ballentyne's knee in place and giving it a moment to relax into that stretch.
"Twenty two years is a hell of a lot of time," Robin remarked - he couldn't even imagine what it was like for the table to have turned so suddenly on someone in that position. "I think I get it. One day you're treating werewolf wounds, the next day you're worried about being the one with the claws. It's a huge change when you got more to lose."
No two werewolves had the same experience but he sympathised with Bruce. He'd not thought himself on any particular side of 'the werewolf issue' before. He knew now that at its heart, it addressed wizarding society's neglect for anything that didn't fit the narrative of its history. Werewolves? As victims? Impossible.
"Okay, we're going to try something new..." he touched her ankle and then gestured to her knee. "We're going to cross your ankle over, got it? No hurry, I'll lift your leg nice and slow and you tell me when it hurts too much."
Robin smiled to himself a little. Physical therapy used to bore him as a young Healer but nowadays he saw its value. "Here we go," he wrapped one hand around Ballentyne's ankle and used his other to keep the leg steady. "I had to do stuff like this for my shoulder too. It's crazy, isn't it?" the wizard snorted. "You get bit, your world goes to pieces but everyone pretends not to see, like it's impolite."
Like you'd committed a faux pas and they were being merciful by pretending not to remark. His bitterness ran deep into anger but he quelled it, more focused on his work.
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Iona obviously agreed. She’d had an indescribable amount to lose. It had never been just her implicated by the job; and while she’d realised it, she’d never really understood it until the attack. Since the age of 19, it hadn’t been just her, for she’d quite literally fallen into Zora’s life. Then, eight years later, they’d brought Waverley into their lives. That made two people who had to bear the weight of the transformed witch every month. She wasn’t sure she’d ever thanked them for being there.
Bruce frowned, glancing over Louvelle. He’d explained he was lodging with Spectre. Whether alone or not, he’d not stated. Did he have anyone close in his life that had been affected by his own bite?
Allowing the healer to explain his plan made Iona slightly anxious. She knew she’d taken the potion which should dull the sensations, but the thought of anyone trying to manipulate her left leg set her desperately on edge. It was better, she accepted, to keep talking. The distraction helped a little. What it didn’t help with, however, was her stiffening as his hands found her thigh and ankle.
“Impolite!” Bruce burst out, a little more vigorous than she’d liked but the unpleasant sensation in her leg rather forced it out. She dug her fingernails into her hips. “Count yourself lucky, Robin. My face has been plastered all over the Daily Prophet so I’d settle for the pretence that people don’t see.
“I have a designated drawer at work, charmed to burn the howlers before they can open. It’s not because I’m the ex-Head of the WCU, either.”
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He startled a little at Ballentyne's exclamation, quickly following the surprised expression with a good humoured laugh. That was one thing he hadn't worried about - nobody cared about some wizard who'd gone and gotten himself bit by a werewolf south of the border. Robin recovered and turned in peace, sans a scandal.
"No, I understand, nobody wants attention from the public eye," he paused once her ankle rested fully on the knee of the other leg. "I'm thinking more, you know, personal relations. Friends, family, lovers. They look away, it breeds distance. Keep this position for a minute, nice deep breaths while we're here."
The wizard stepped back, adjusting the legs slightly while he continued to chat. "That's what was hanging over my head when I wrote to Bal," he sighed, though it was a pleasant sigh. "Nobody wants to hear from an ex they haven't spoken to in years, much less one who's written with news like mine."
Robin lifted his fingers in mock jazz hands. "Surprise I need a couch to crash on! Oh and I'm a werewolf now!" he grinned and looked younger for it. "But I didn't have to worry. Sometimes you just expect the worse because it's all you got for years."
It was a strange new feeling to be able to expect courtesy and real warmth again, from unexpected corners.