Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => St. Mungo's => London => First Floor: Creature-Induced Injuries => Topic started by: Hannah Bombay on July 06, 2011, 10:01:29 AM
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A duck looked uncomfortable if it was being mauled by a fox. A small child looked uncomfortable when it was being reprimanded by a parent. A werewolf looked uncomfortable when it was being hugged by a crying witch.
Well this werewolf did.
Hannah Bombay’s heels were planted flat on the ground, arms defiantly glued to her sides as this much larger, much taller and much more emotional witch enveloped her with great robed arms and pulled her in close, treating the tiny healer akin a rag doll. Large hands grasped at the lime green robes shrouding Hannah’s tiny figure and used them to pull the witch closer, forcing her disgusted face between two generously sized, unsatisfactorily covered breasts.
The healer’s hand flew up, in an attempt to push the witch away but it failed and instead this relieved relative was grasping onto her husband’s saviour as if she had just brought him back from the dead. It had been close, but a simple ‘thank you’ would have sufficed. Being manhandled and suffocated hadn’t been part of the plan when she had been doing her job five minutes ago.
From this extremely awkward position the scent of cigarettes reached the small witch’s now oversensitive nose. With it was a faint aroma of perspiration which she could practically taste on her tongue. And the relief, Hannah was certain she could smell the fear fading away with a much less obtrusive scene of relief.
There was wet, a dampness in her hair. The squashed features of Hannah’s face screwed up further as she gave a much more forceful push to get the relieved witch off her. Fortunately this worked and Madam Puffledork took a step back to reveal a red blotchy and unattractive tear stricken face. She sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve, causing Bombay to bristle with further discomfort.
Inside the pocket of her robes, Hannah hands slipped past the small pocket watch (in case the one hanging around her neck broke for some reason) and to a tissue. This she retrieved and offered to the crying witch before brushing down her robes and placing a hand on the scruffy bun on her hair to check the damage caused by the hug loving oversized woman.
“Embracing staff isn’t regular practice, Madam Puffledork. Your husband is awaiting your presence.”
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Jason wondered why he bothered with such a headache on his staff. He was holding his head as he stared down at the complaint, wincing as he read through it a sixth time. Healer Bombay certainly had a way with patients and their families. And it wasn’t the most productive way he could think of.
Still, he’d taken on his job title to do more for the unit. And part of it, however small he tried to make it, was negative. Reprimanding and helping teach better ways of handling situations. Clearly all types of situations. Swallowing his lukewarm coffee, Jason decided he needed to handle this situation quickly before he got another complaint. Plopping his healer hat on, he pushed himself up and rolled the complaint up, stuffing it into a pocket in his robe.
Leaving the tidy confines of his office, Jason started out into the corridor to find out where Hannah Bombay was working.
If it wasn’t for the fact she found a way to detach herself from the emotional woman, Jason might have kept walking by. Even so, he had to backtrack a couple of steps, surprised to see her hugging someone. Then he realized the mistake he’d made. Someone was hugging her. Making a face, he quickly masked it behind a friendly smile, stepping forward quickly between the two ladies. “Madam—” She looked a bit shocked, though Jason wasn’t sure if it was his sudden appearance or the words he hadn’t been able to hear Hannah say.
And then she turned and stalked off towards the patient. Jason tried to think of something he could say, but it was done with. At least right then. Jason clenched his fist as he turned his eyes to the short healer. “I need to speak with you, Healer Bombay.” Moving back into the corridor, he waited for her, walking back towards the office.
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The towering witch seemed mildly taken aback by Hannah’s statement and this was only complimented by the arrival of an all too interfering healer in charge. Why no one would just let her get on with what she was paid and trained to do without interference, she failed to comprehend. She was a good healer with practical and theoretical knowledge above her years and would do her job exceptionally if it weren’t for people. They made her job complicated and difficult.
The overfriendly witch glanced at Marren briefly before walking back through the gap in the curtains to greet her husband in his cubicle. Hannah glanced up at her boss with pale lips pursed lightly. The expression on the charge’s features left Hannah in little doubt that she wasn’t going to enjoy this encounter.
Since her return to the hospital after registering, the young witch had kept her distance from the wizard in charge. Things with him had already become personal. He already knew more than she wanted him to and wanted to just get on with her work. Hannah didn’t want questions or judgements from a wizard making the most of his position.
Hannah said nothing in response to him. She briefly nodded her head before following him through the ward to his office, lime green robes flapping at her heels. Once inside the office, the young witch turned to face him and crossed her arms over her ribs as eyebrows rose in question. “Marren?”
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Why he hadn’t just left the note in his office was beyond him, now that he was on his way back. He had been told before that he was too soft on people. Too easy going. A certain older (now no longer here) healer had give him advice he’d never asked for. Or maybe it wasn’t so much advice as it was criticism… Either way, Jason was more apt to agree with her right then.
Perhaps he should have just put her on the chopping block and moved on. Headaches saved all around! At least for his unit.
But no… he was a good guy. Tried to see it from her side of things. Tried to let things go and move on. But there were only so many complaints he could brush under the rug before upper management stepped in and took a look. Plus, he didn’t want them snooping into the investigation he was ‘doing’ surrounding her bite. Jason was still trying to straighten all of that out, and had taken measures to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
It was bad enough it had to happen once.
Once back in the office, he removed the letter and handed it over to her, allowing her time to read it. In that time he sat on the edge of his desk, resting his hands on the area above his knees, leaning forward slightly. “I’d like to say it’s a record, but we don’t exactly keep those types around. How many upset people one healer can leave in her wake…” He tried a smile and half succeeded, a small tight-lipped response to himself.
“I liked the idea of helping people. Of being there when they needed someone.” He clasped his hands in front of him, letting them hang between his legs. “Why did you go into healing, Hannah?”
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The parchment in her hand didn’t contain positive tidings. Instead it was a complaint from a relative. Regarding the small witch now stood in her boss’s office. Apparently she had greatly upset the wife of a now deceased patient and...Hannah blinked, staring in astonishment at the words scribbled in black ink. Her words had jinxed the death of this witch’s husband. The very proposition was utterly ludicrous and Hannah looked up over her glasses at the wizard watching her.
Marren’s words struck Hannah in the chest and lips parted in mixed surprise and confusion. Was he sacking her? For one ludicrous complaint? And a record? The young healer’s face paled as she stared through clear lenses at the Healer-in-charge. How many more complaints were there?
“I liked the idea of helping people. Of being there when they needed someone.”
Thin eyebrows furrowed and the witch’s light eyes narrowed as she eyed her superior with mild suspicion. She fancied the prospect of asking why he was using the past tense but his strange question answered that for her. Suddenly the witch looked even more uncomfortable and she looked down at the parchment in her hands. The fact someone had complained about her demeanour was insulting. Hannah believed she was improving. She was no longer surprised when a patient spoke and the majority of the time she answered them helpfully and in a friendly manner. As it was, she believed her manner of dealing with the living was improving. She’d been thrown into the world of breathing, talking individuals and she hadn’t messed up terribly just yet.
Or so she had thought.
There were presently two different responses forming in Hannah’s mind. There was the truth, the personal things she never discussed or there was a defensive response where hopefully anymore questions would not be asked and they could focus on the real issue at hand.
“I was rather partial to the uniform.” There was no doubt which response had won precedent over the other. Hannah looked across at Marren perched on the edge of his desk and she frowned. “You do realise this patient died a few hours after I said this to his wife?” She paused. "Through no fault of my own, I hasten to add."
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Jason continued his inspection of the younger healer in front of him. If she could hammer out some of her issues, she seemed intelligent enough that she could move up the ranks as she gained experience. Sometimes intelligence seemed to come at the price of… common sense. Or manners. A general uncouth reaction to situations that didn’t require an over analytical eye. Like telling someone they were going to lose a family member. Or telling the patient they weren’t going to make it. Or any other number of hard situations that didn’t necessarily have to deal with death.
Like helping talk to someone about being a new werewolf, and the education involved.
Perhaps it was subconscious, using past tense to describe why he’d initially gone into Healing. After a while, sometimes it was hard to remember why you originally joined up. There were so many situations that came up that made you question why you started in the first place. Sometimes it was the people and their ignorance as well. Getting to his place, as an in-charge, had also clouded his thought process. He wasn’t a Healer working out on the floor anymore. He was in charge of his ward.
Frowning at her sarcasm, Jason fought hard to not roll his eyes, letting out a grunt of breath in response. Sitting up straight, he finally pushed himself off the desk. He had been wasting his time. While he moved around the table, he shrugged a bit, finding his chair a sore comfort for the weight he was suddenly feeling. “People grieve and blame differently. They hang on our words like they’re gold.” Pushing a quill around, he finally picked it up and sat forward.
“Well.” Staring down at the disciplinary form he’d filled out, he dipped the quill in the ink. “Please take a seat, Healer Bombay. I’m recommending you take a class in professional communication.” And like that, his messy signature made its way across the paper. Allowing it to dry, he set it aside and glanced up at her, resting back once more. “You’re intelligent and you do your job well. If you didn’t have to talk to your patients and their families. But that’s part of what we do.”
Scratching the back of his head, he frowned. “We’re a customer service. Or at least that’s what we’re turning into. We want people to be satisfied with our care. Appreciation can go a long way with extra funding.” It all came down to funding, didn’t it? "What do you think would help you overcome this hurdle?"
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Reluctantly Hannah moved towards the empty seat opposite Marren and lowered herself into it. She quickly realised that she was spending far more time in this particular office that she had ever wanted to. And as he continued speaking Hannah visibly stiffened. She sat up straighter, her plain expression concealing the building discomfort. Marren wanted her to attend a class for communication. Light brown eyes watched his scrawl the messy signature upon the parchment on his desk and she attempted to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. Lessons in communication were completely unnecessary.
Next he mentioned funding and patient appreciation. Hannah almost laughed. She didn’t care about either of those elements. A patient was a body that needed healing. There were wound, infections and curses that needed to be rectified. She healed them, patched them up and sent them away for the next patient to be completed. She didn’t care for their appreciation and had never considered it. Patients in this hospital would have been perfect had they been dead with an inability to complain or talk to her or worse, hug her.
“Provide me with seemingly dead or unconscious patients.” Hannah responded seriously to Marren’s question. That would have resolved the issue perfectly. “I don’t require any professional assistance with my communication skills, Healer Marren. I am well spoken and I have the ability to enunciate my points perfectly adequately. I find it mildly offensive you would express otherwise.”
Hannah let out a small sigh and interlaced the fingers of her hands in her lap. “A patient comes into this ward to be healed physically. If they wish to talk, they should be relocated elsewhere. That isn’t my job.”
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Hannah Bombay was a headache wrapped in a healer’s uniform. One massive migraine that couldn’t be quelled with a sip of a potion and a darkened, secluded room. No, it was one that he continued to suffer through. How did you handle a troublesome employee? You tried to help them, to encourage their learning, enhance their professional growth. And if they weren’t willing to do that? Then you had to force them.
“Would that I could, but you’re still a newer Healer. And we don’t have that many… unresponsive patients.” Frowning, scrutinizing her for a moment, he leaned his elbows on his desk. Sometimes he wanted to go back to being just a healer. The politics of in-Charge was for the birds. “Being articulate and showing compassion are two different conundrums, Healer Bombay.” Offensive?! He found it offensive that he had a healer under his watch who couldn’t put one and one together to make two.
“Your job as a Healer is to heal, Healer Bombay. We are here to make a person sound. To restore them to health. This may be news to you, but we approach treatment as a holistic view. You restore them to health. That isn’t always just physical.” Watching her a moment, he rested his hands together, chin settling on top. “So it is your job. And I’m giving you an option.” To attend the class or not. And if she didn’t… she’d be a bigger thorn in his side. “This is your first warning.”
If she chose to not attend the class, or get her own help for this, then a second warning would come, a third, and then final. Once a final was given, he was able to... fire her. Not that Jason wanted to go that far. So he decided to try once again. "Now... what do you think we can do to help make this happen?"
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It had quite quickly been decided. Hannah Bombay disliked Jason Marren.He asked too many questions, he caused her too much trouble and he picked on elements on Hannah’s dealings with people and over exaggerated the effects in one large incorrect hyperbolic judgement of her. He had decided she was a cold, socially incompetent and magically incompetent witch by the moment she had stepped onto his ward. Hannah didn’t know why this had occurred and she didn’t wish to know why. She wanted her old job back where she was comfortable being with her patients and didn’t have to navigate the magical minefield of professional and social communication.
At the ministry people had actively avoided the young, pretty but strange witch. They didn’t like her and she didn’t like them. It had worked perfectly as neither party had found themselves offended when they had been forced to come into contact.
But now dealing with broken live people required a communicative confidence, empathy, friendliness and politeness. It seemed to require the outward acceptance and openness to being hugged by strangers while also lying to these strangers. Hannah wanted her corpses back. She understood the deceased. The living were unreadable.
To make matters harder, Marren spoke to Hannah as if she were an incompetent healer in training. With words such as ‘newer healer’ he unknowingly further demeaned the young witch sat before him. The charge seemed to have forgotten about this witch’s previous career path and her professional capacities and instead decided to focus on her ability to dish out lies to patient relatives and give good hugs.
“If I knew that, sir, I wouldn’t be sat in this office.” Bombay sighed and glanced down at the parchment before him. “I understand facts, I understand bodies and I understand how to make them work and what stopped them working in the first place.” Light brown eyes shot back up to meet Marren’s gaze. “What I don’t understand is grieving people and the need you seem to support to lie to them. I informed this witch of her husband’s deteriorating condition so that it was not going to come as a surprise to her when he stopped breathing and proceeded to choke on his own tongue.”
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Jason wasn’t sure what was going on in Hannah’s head, but he decided he didn’t need to know. She was forthcoming and straightforward enough to tell him her thoughts. He was blissfully unaware how she thought he didn’t like her, how she thought he’d all ready written her off. And all that was probably for the best. He had been giving her the benefit of a doubt on her own shortcomings, preferring to show her the (possibly skewed) truth from others watching her, and offering her the opportunity to take a look in the mirror. Just in case there was some truth to it.
She was an intelligent witch who seemed to compensate by lacking in social prowess and common sense. Thankfully his fingers were interlaced all ready, and he only had to grip them to remind himself to breathe. He’d be done with work in a few hours. Then he could go home, enjoy the immensity of his thirty-third year, and contemplate it over some dinner with his girlfriend and their kids.
That was not now, however. “There are ways to clue family members, and patients, into the enormity of their situation without being so straight forward with it. People are not so analytical that they appreciate bluntness in lieu of compassion.” He didn’t support lying to someone, but he did expect his healers to hold a bit of restraint in how they told their patients (and their families) how they weren’t going to make it out of the ward.
Why couldn't Hannah absorb herself with books about etiquette and manners? Leaning back in his chair, he let his hands rest on the arms of it. "I don't condone lying-" cheating on his wife aside, obviously (though he did eventually come out with honesty), "-and I expect you to be honest with your patients, Healer Bombay. But I also expect you to be understanding and compassionate. They didn't expect to come here to die. They don't need someone to talk to them like they all ready are."