Absit Omen RPG

Jonquil had to turn her head and look across at Healer Elliot, instructions to ignore her be damned – she had to make sure that this wasn't some sort of cruel prank. There was nothing about the injury that she couldn't handle, but the combination of a difficult patient and the presence of the head healer was making her job hard. This wasn't... normal. There was just enough strangeness surrounding the whole ordeal that she needed the reassurance that she wasn't actually tucked up in her bed at home and having a peculiar dream.

“Madam,” she said, pausing to take a deep breath and steady herself, “This is a hospital, and I'm a qualified healer. I can assure you that there's very little I haven't seen.” That was the understatement of the century. “If you'd like, I can get you a drape for modesty,” she offered, “But it looks like you're in pain, and I'd like to help you, but I can't close a wound that I can't see.” It pained her, almost tangibly, to have to point out the obvious like that, but it was clear that this Snickersworth woman wasn't about to sort out her faulty logic on her own. Why had she come to the hospital if she didn't want treatment? Did she like the bedsheets? The ambiance?

Jonquil still wasn't entirely convinced that this wasn't a joke.

She would have liked to sit down while she continued to address the patient, but Healer Elliot was occupying the chair, the patient's chart in tow. She figured that she had two options at this point – continue her futile attempts to talk her patient into allowing herself to be healed... or sedatives. Logic told her that the latter method would be killing two birds with one stone. It would provide pain and anxiety management for the patient, and headache management for herself. Logic also told her that the big boss might not be too fond of her logic. She wasn't desperate to impress, but she hated to disappoint... so standing around like an imbecile it was!

Unless there was another option. It dawned in her eyes as she stood, and though her expression didn't change, you could see the cogs working behind her eyes. She nodded three times to herself, cleared her throat softly, and stood a little straighter.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Snickersworth,” she said, “I'll only be a moment.” And she turned on her heel and left the cubicle entirely, because somewhere in this hospital this witch had a file. Why should Jonquil reinvent the wheel when there were potentially notes at her disposal? In the back of her mind she was convinced that Healer Elliot had only been so keen to snatch the clipboard out of her hands so she'd have something to lean on while writing out the recommendation that she be sacked. Leaving to do research probably wouldn't change her opinion, then. As always, Jonquil planned to pursue excellence. This day and this case were not exceptions!

“Your file told me that a mediwitch handled the basic first aid upon your arrival here,” Jonquil said evenly – and why she felt the need to defend herself to someone so unpleasant was anyone's guess... but probably had more to do with the presence of the big boss than it did a need to prove herself competent.”Hospitals traditionally employ something called 'triage', madam, meaning patients with acute needs are tended to first, to prevent situations like the one you're describing.” She thought that she was being informative, giving Mrs. S a little knowledge – Jonquil may have liked that herself, she thought, if she were in the other witch's place. It really didn't occur to her that she'd more or less just implied that the patient in front of her wasn't important. She didn't possess as much natural empathy as she expected from others.  It would take more than a few semesters of psychology courses to teach her that.

And then, suddenly, it was like she wasn't in the room. That, more than any of the woman's insolent ranting, hurt. She'd had rude patients before. You had to expect that from people when they were scared and in pain. That was something she hadn't needed to be taught... but this was something else entirely. She'd worked too hard to be treated like this before she'd done a single thing to deserve it! And what was lower than commenting on physical appearance? Her lips were drawn together, and she stood even straighter, as if the few additional millimeters of height might change the injured woman's opinion of her. She had to say something... but what was there to say to that? Thankfully, Healer Elliot brought her authority to the table, and Jonquil allowed herself to expel all of the air from her lungs. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath.

“If you'd like to be treated quickly, giving me the information I need is an excellent way to start,” she suggested, trying to be brief, all traces of the smiley, dimple-dappled young healer long gone. “And,” she went on, “As I said before, showing me the wound would also help speed up the process.” 

Jonquil always started out just fine. Unless she was shaken, she was the sort who walked about the ward with a smile on her face, as friendly and approachable as anyone you'd hope to meet somewhere like a hospital. She had excellent posture. She tried to take care of any blood stains on her robes as efficiently as possible, her sleeves were always pinned, and her dark hair was always pulled back neatly. She wasn't unfriendly and she wasn't unprofessional... on the abstract, anyway. Things did tend to get a little murky at a certain point, however – namely, the point during which she made the mental shift from witch at large to active practitioner. She was an imperfect perfectionist. She knew this. She'd been told. And she was doing something about it, at least in her own mind. Even so, she didn't expect anyone to tattle.

Thus, when she opened up the curtains and entered the cubicle with that massive, dimple-revealing smile of hers on her face, she'd been surprised and caught off-guard by the presence of the head healer. This wasn't the head of the ward, or even the head of the department. This was the head of the hospital, imploring her to... ignore her. Something flickered in her expression, her smile faltering for a moment and then readjusting itself – nerves. She shouldn't have worried, she knew. She was an excellent test taker, generally. And no, this wasn't a test, but it may as well have been. Taking the Head Healer's advice, she turned her eyes to the patient as she took up her file, only glancing down to quickly read the patient's name.

“Hello, Mrs. Snickersworth,” she said warmly, standing near the foot of the bed, “I'm Healer Enright. I've been told that you have a wound that needs closing. Can you tell me about what caused the injury?” That was simple enough – most cases started off that way, assuming they weren't dire emergencies. Frankly, Jonquil preferred trauma – less chatting, more working. Ideally, she'd work exclusively in the surgery.

”I can,” the red-faced witch replied, ”Just as I'm sure you can stop your incessant chatter and examine me!”

That took Jonquil aback a bit. Her eyes grew momentarily large, and though she didn't so much as glance in her direction, she was never more aware of the fact that the Head Healer was near enough to be breathing on her neck. “Of course,” she replied, nodding (and feeling a bit self conscious – had she been rambling?), “But it's important that you give me as much information as possible so that I can give you the best treatment. Can you tell me, foremost, what creature caused the injury?” The chart had told her that bleeding had been stopped and the wound had been cleaned before she'd been brought in. “Why don't you show me the wound while we chat?” she suggested. It would save time, if nothing else.

There was more pain than just the loss of intimacy, but Jo had accepted that pain a long time ago – when it was fresh and raw and everything hurt – and it had all scabbed over by now. Every so often she picked at the scab and allowed herself to bleed in private, but it was very normal- not the repressed suffering that Nona was convincing herself was buried beneath the surface. Frankly, the most intense pain had come (and still came) from the belief that there was something rotting and horrible at her core that had turned her lover off once he knew her well enough to discover it. It wasn't an active hurt, however, and nothing that Nona said could transform a witch like Jonquil, who didn't put much stock in feelings, into an emotional fountain. She had other concerns. Other goals. If you fail at something, you move on to the next thing. That was how she'd always been, and since this was her first failed serious, long-term relationship, she didn't think there was any need to approach it differently than she had every other venture she'd undertaken over the course of her entire life. She'd done her crying already. Now it was time to fix the problem in front of her. That was all she could do. It was what she'd always done.

If fixing it was as easy as going out in public and spreading her legs, she would have done that by now – but it was still a very new breakup, and Jonquil was still a very young, very green healer who was having enough trouble being taken seriously without the addition of a reputation. She was an academic, and she was supposed to be a professional... and the wizarding world wasn't as large as it sometimes seemed. Not only that, but she liked having a committed partner.  It wasn't just sex she was looking for but, honest to god intimacy. “Casual sex, you mean?” she spoke at Nona's suggestion to do something about it. “I've thought about it,” she admitted, “And I've come close. When I was in the Netherlands the other week? But I didn't want casual Dutch sex. I want someone who's going to treat me right in the morning, and the morning after that.”

Nona's comment about the stripper earned her a wicked look... but the look she followed up with in response to her next comment was even wickeder. It was very clear, and had long been very clear, that the two thought about sex and relationships differently – only with one woman in a committed relationship and the other free to mingle, it had been a very long time since they were honestly on the same page. “If I could be in love with you, darling, I would in an instant,” she told her friend, “But you lack some of the assets I'm looking for in a partner.” With a sigh, she sought out her wine glass, taking it up and taking a generous sip.

“I've never really dated. I don't think I'd like it,” she admitted, “It seems time consuming.”

Nona's head was not entirely unwelcome on Jonquil's shoulder, and she permitted it to stay there, linking her little finger with her friend's – that was the maximum amount of physical comfort she could accept without feeling completely condescended to. “It's the sex I miss,” she explained, her voice laced with a sad brand of frustration, “Because I don't need a friend. I don't need a boyfriend. I have friends, and they do fine. The only thing I don't have is sex.” She shut her eyes again, tipping her head down toward where Nona's sat atop her shoulder, sighing deeply. “It was good with him.” She sounded pitiful – desperately miserable, but still trying in vain to maintain a conversational tone so that she could be taken seriously. Unfortunately, it seemed that ship had long sailed. Nona may have been all snorts and smirks, but Jonquil was entirely, painfully serious. A great deal of the relationship, at least on her end, had been about the physical component. That was what she'd wanted out of it, and that's what she'd got. More than anything, that was what she was mourning. Was that strange? Was it wrong? This was exactly why she didn't talk about her feelings.

And yet Nona just kept right on digging, trying to pry something out of her that wasn't there. She let her talk – she even let her dab at her face – but nothing that she was saying was connecting. She wasn't having an aha moment, or a revelation. Opening her eyes, she sat back up, gently untangling herself from her friend. “What do you want me to say?” she asked. Her voice, as declarative as ever, sounded tired, not angry. “Tell me what you want me to say to you and I will say it. You're waiting to hear something and I don't know what it is.” She was ready for this intervention to be over. Nona had already assumed far too much, and trying to placate her and deal with her own emotions was exhausting.

Jonquil glanced across at the food, still laid out for them on the floor. She'd never been less hungry in her life. She had the strongest urge to stand up and move so she wouldn't feel like a butterfly pinned to the wall any longer, but she didn't know where she'd go if she did, except maybe into the bedroom so that she could shut the door and pretend she wasn't home. She felt utterly useless sitting here, without answers. For a witch like Jonquil, there was really no worse feeling than that.

Jonquil had loved Lou – not because she had to, and not because she didn't have any other options. He was a massive nerd. He wasn't nerdy in the same way that she was nerdy, but their nerdiness was still very much compatible. She'd spent ages leading him along when they were young because she didn't understand just how much he'd fancied her – that his bashful flirtations were genuine - but he'd been so patient and he'd waited for the moment when she wasn't too occupied by something else to see him, and she'd realized that he was for her. His affection was quiet – subtle, like only the rarest things. Sometimes he reminded her of her father, and that wasn't an entirely off-putting thought. He could slow her down. He was a good friend. And none of that might have mattered if he wasn't a great lover, but he was. Knowing all she did about him, she never thought he'd leave. Who ever thought their fiance would leave? She was still processing it.

Which was why the idea that he was cheating wasn't entirely implausible. If they lived in a world where Lou could call things off, why couldn't they live in a world where he could cheat? So did she think he was cheating? “He could have been,” she responded to Nona's question, defending her position, “Someone had to have convinced him to leave, yes? I can't imagine he came up with the idea all on his own.” Even as she said those words, she didn't really seem to believe them – there was the slightest lack of conviction in her typical know-it-all tone. She did not take it back, however. It was comforting to cling to possibilities other than 'he left because I'm horrible.'

Which was, maybe, why the idea of being damaged affected her so. She listened to Nona's words with the same stoic expression she'd been wearing earlier, the smile having slid right off of her face like the false, rubber thing that it was. “You're 'doing this,'” Jo repeated her friend's expression, screwing up her brows, “What are you doing?” She shut her eyes, leaning back against the wall behind her again, sighing profoundly. Maybe if she could blend into the wall, Nona wouldn't see that she was feeling something – and if eyes were the windows to the soul, then shutting those could only help. “What are you doing?” she repeated. She could feel the sheen of unshed tears forming beneath her eyelids. “Of course I miss him. We've been over this. We did this already, didn't we?” Her tone was more sad than agitated, heavy with the burden she wished she didn't have to bear. There had   been so much crying when this was new, but that just didn't seem appropriate anymore. The other witch was right – it had been a long short time. Far too short, and far too long.

She opened her eyes, and though she wasn't actually crying, the rims were decidedly pink – her body wasn't as good at hiding her emotions as she was. “Can't I miss him and be happy with my life?” she pleaded, giving her head a sad shake, “Because I am happy, and I do miss him – I miss being with him, and I'm horny as all hell, Nona, but what am I supposed to do? I'm not going to sit around the house and cry. It's not productive.” She honestly, really, truly wasn't sure what she was being criticized for – for continuing to live her life? For not breaking down and sobbing in socially inappropriate situations? For not getting any when Lou clearly was?

Hm. The last one held some weight.

It was funny how simply saying 'he looked how he looks' could bring to mind such a vivid mental picture of a person. She could see him: Louis reading in his armchair, Lou in bed telling her she's beautiful, Lou kissing her goodbye in the morning before shaving, tickling her with his whiskers. She'd conjured his image so clearly that he could have been in the room.

But he wasn't. She forgot, sometimes, that he wouldn't be there when she got home, or that the bed would be cold when she finally crawled under the covers at the end of the day – mostly because it was that consistency that had once made her feel so sure that this was going to be forever. Apparently nothing was forever, though, because Nona's admission that she'd seen him at a public place was enough to convince her that, truly, anything could change. Jonquil actually laughed – a single, dry sort of laugh, but still a laugh. “Now he goes out to dinner?” she remarked, giving her head a shake. Getting Lou to do something social had been like getting a hibernating bear to leave the cave – yet he'd done it for her. She used to brag about how they still went on dates, but the truth was, if she didn't drag him, they probably wouldn't have.

It took Jo a moment to register just what Nona meant by 'he was with someone'. She was thinking a friend, maybe. Just a person. But Nona went on and, somehow, Jonquil kept her mouth shut and listened. She was still and tense, much like a dog waiting for instructions from its master before pouncing on a treat – focused and betraying nothing. She ran her tongue over her front teeth when she heard that name, Shelby, trying to place it. Her expression didn't change at all, and her body didn't move, but she could feel everything under the mask that was her face starting to shift in its invisible way – her tear ducts expanding, the knot in her throat growing. She swallowed it all back. She'd decided a long time ago that she wasn't upset about this. She'd decided.

She didn't like Nona touching her hand like that, because it implied that she needed support, which she didn't. Subtly, tactfully, she pulled it back and reclaimed it, hiding both of her hands out of sight so that it wouldn't happen again.

“He can live without me. We've established that. That's why he left. And I can live without him – but he wanted someone who can't. That's how we got here.” Her tone was instructional, and lacked any trace of the emotion that was, in fact, lurking underneath – she was just like a teacher trying to explain logic to a slow student. It made her feel like she had some power in this. She more or less ignored everything else that Nona had to say. She didn't want sympathy and she didn't want to hear it.

“He must've been seeing her while he was still with me,” she insisted, “That must be why he left. He couldn't possibly have met someone this quickly.” She wanted to believe that – that there was some other reason why he'd broken things off other than her. And she was thoroughly in denial regarding exactly how much time had passed since he left. It couldn't have been enough time to meet another girl. It just didn't compute. She exhaled slowly through her nose.

 “Nona," she began, speaking to the other witch in the same way she was being spoken to - she hated feeling like a child. It put her teeth on edge. "What has changed? Am I doing a single thing differently than when I lived with Lou? No,” she spoke, answering her own question, “So why all of the sudden are you convinced I'm damaged? If anything, I'm more productive than I was before! I lost my dead weight! I don't have to drag him with me!” She smiled, dimples and all. “I've been taking psychology courses. If I was irreparably damaged, I'm sure I'd know by now!”

Just when Jonquil felt resigned to her fate and had actually come to accept that she might just be sitting there and chatting for a while, Nona was springing up and declaring that the food was finished cooking, having contributed nothing but thinly veiled insults. “Oh,” she called after her, her tone droll, “Oh, thank you so much for that riveting conversation! Now I truly know what I was missing out on! I'll never pick up a book again!” The sarcasm was more than palpable, and Jonquil leaned back into the wall behind her with a soft thud as her head met the paneling. She would have definitely been through those two pages in the time it took for Nona to convince her to put the book down. She held both wine glasses out, one in each hand, and briefly contemplated whether it actually might be wise to invest in a small table. While her mind wandered, her eyes traced the movements of the red haired figure bumbling around her kitchen.

“Nona?” she called, genuinely this time, “You're not planning on...?” she trailed off, as she answered her own question, watching the other witch bringing the meal she'd prepared back to the sitting room with her. “I suppose it's a picnic, then,” she observed with a sigh and a little smile, setting the glasses back down. She may not have kept much in her flat, but on the rare occasion when she was home for a meal, she usually ate at the counter. Nona seemed to really, genuinely want to impress upon her the importance of acquiring furniture. In fact, she was convinced that it was the purpose of her visit. It was awkwardly quiet for a moment as things were arranged, the only sound the soft clinking of the bowls against the wooden floor. “It's absurd, I know,” she remarked at last, desperate to break the tension, “But I never have guests, so your point is moot.” Now they could move on, right?

Right?

Needless to say, her assumptions about the purpose for this visit were more than a little bit off, and when the real truth came out, it took the healer a moment to adjust... but just a moment. She froze. “When?” she asked immediately, her tone pressing. Her eyes looked ready to pop out of her head, and a tiny, vertical crease was forming in between her eyebrows.  “Where did you see him? How did he look?” she pressed, her tone desperate and almost clinical – a big shift from the sarcastic know-it-all tone she'd been using just moments earlier.

She knew that Lou still existed. He was still a person with free will who lived out in the world, and she was sure she'd bump into him again before long... but it still felt very soon, and her curiosity felt very personal. He may have been her ex-fiance, but he was her ex-fiance – hers. She still felt ownership over what they'd had. Even if Nona had seen him, which she believed she had, why bring it up unless something was wrong? Her affect was tense, waiting – she didn't know what to think yet. “Did you talk to him?”

“It's apples to oranges,” Jo spoke, not wanting to insult her friend or her book, since she had great affection for both. “The book isn't more interesting. It's differently interesting. But it's also finite, and that makes getting to the end of a chapter satisfying, and you are trying to deny me that satisfaction, and that annoys me,” she declared matter-of-factly. Jonquil was fairly sure that Nona knew that already, but it bore repeating. There was no ill will in the sentiment, and she'd punctuated it with a crisp snort of a giggle, grabbing her book from the other witch's hands the moment it was shoved at her. She was happy to have her book back, and she nestled it right beside her, giving it a loving, rhythmic tap with her fingernails. Maybe she could finish those two pages before the night was through. She always read something before bed.

She'd put the book away. She wasn't going to feel bad when Nona proceeded to jump on the sarcasm train, though – trying to convince Jonquil Enright of all people that there weren't enough hours in the day was, frankly, futile. “What is an actual life, though?” she asked, her tone even – the question was only partially rhetorical. She took up her wine glass and stole a sip. “Is going to school not part of an actual life? Because it's part of my actual life, and I enjoy it immensely, and I thought you might like it, too.” That, of course, was an understatement. Why shouldn't she do something that made her happy and also happened to make her better? And why was suggesting that her friend do the same somehow offensive? She legitimately didn't understand. If something was genuinely worthwhile, you found time.

And right now, sitting on the floor of her flat and drinking bad wine, she was getting anxious due to lack of active productivity. If it were up to her, she wouldn't even be at home. If it were up to her, she wouldn't ever be at home. But tonight it wasn't up to her. She had to drink the wine and eat the nice-smelling food and put the book down and contemplate the definition of an actual life. She had, at last, accepted her fate.

“Alright,” she said, sitting up a little straighter, “If you're more interesting than five hundred pages of peer reviewed scholarship, talk to me,” she encouraged, officially giving up on returning to her  reading.

“You haven't touched my pants drawer yet,” Jonquil corrected her friend pointedly, sticking her index finger in the air as only a true, fairly self aware nerd might. “Or perhaps not. 'Drawer' implies furniture, and you're only interested in the lack thereof,” she snarked. Her bedroom was, in fact, furnished... for the most part. She needed somewhere to sleep and somewhere to dress and somewhere to store her clothing. That, she'd decided, was essential.  Everything else was heavy and optional and required frequent dusting. Plus, it required money that she preferred to spend on.... anything else, really.

She could hear it in Nona's voice that she recalled the evening of the corkscrew massacre – registering it in the slight halting of her friend's defensive windup - and she smiled slow, like a cat. The memories of their youth were precious, and Jonquil sighed nostalgically. “All could have been avoided if we'd just foregone the corkscrew. And that's all I have to say about that.” They knew better now, of course – that the home of a pureblooded family was about the safest possible place to employ underage magic if you didn't want the ministry to know. It was fun, grownup trivia that only the initiated knew, much like the truth about Father Christmas – exciting when you learn it, but highly disappointing in hindsight.

She accepted the glass of wine and, instinctively, took a sip off of the top so it wouldn't slosh over. In another situation, that may have been a very obvious sign that her visitor was trying to get her drunk. In this instance, however, it wasn't so obvious, as her visitor was a lush. Plus, one sip and she was well informed as to the quality of the vino – Nona could afford to be liberal. She eyed her friend as she flipped through the textbook, blinking. “So you're allowed to sit and read, but I can't,” she observed, craning her neck to see what exactly her friend was glancing at, “I sense a double standard!”

“You should consider taking a course,” she suggested, “It's very fulfilling. The best way to enrich your life is to deliberately seek enrichment. I truly believe that.” It was easy for Jonquil to say, because Jonquil loved school more than she loved any institution on earth – it was a magical place where they required you to buy books, and encouraged you to think about things you wouldn't have even known to think about before. If Wizarding Britain had a university, there was a very good chance that Jonquil would not even be a healer – she'd be homeless, living in the university broom closet, and auditing lectures 24 hours a day.

Jonquil looked at him with a quizzical tilt of her head, and then another – she squinted a bit, and then readjusted, pursing her lips, and then nodding. “Ah,” she said, “I wasn't laughing at the patient, sir, but thank you so kindly for the advice.” The patient was, absolutely and without a doubt, an utter imbecile – but a complimentary one, in his way... and, frankly, she'd met dumber. The patient had not been hollering crossly about dating trees with a straight face. That had all been Healer Hollingbury. These, she supposed, were the sorts you were expected to meet in the field. She'd been warned about them – the brilliant eccentrics. Depending on the day of the week, she could be one of them herself. She hoped, however, that in her own practice she was never so cooly oblivious... and if she was, she thought, she hoped she'd be shot. Quickly.

“So are you recommending discharge after treatment, healer? Assuming no complications?” she asked, one hand sitting akimbo on her hip, “If so, I'll get him set up. If not, Mr. Greenley will be transferred to your floor.” He was no longer a Creature case, after all, and thus, he was taking up a bed. Unless he'd definitely be vacating that bed before the next shift change, he'd need to be near a healer with a comparable specialty who could make sense of his chart without another time consuming consult.

Jonquil laughed – loudly. She couldn't have contained herself if she wanted to. She was glad that she was seated, because if she hadn't been, she would have more than likely found herself leaning on something for support. Her loud laughter faded into intense, silent, shoulder-shaking chuckles, complete with tears in her eyes, and then ended on a profound, sing-song sort of exhale. “Are you dating the tree,” she repeated, deadpan, snorting as she wiped the stray, amused tears from her eyes. “Is this what you lot do up on the third floor?” she asked, semi-incredulously, giving her head a shake. “Are you dating the tree! Sweet bearded merlin!”

“Come on,” she urged the patient with a sniff, far more relaxed now than she had been earlier – sometimes a good belly laugh was all it took. “What happened? We're dying to know. And the rash can't be comfortable. The sooner we know, the sooner it goes – and then lucky me gets to close you up nice and tidy and send you on your way.”

She sat back, looking to Mr. Greenley expectantly, brows raised. He looked a bit like he'd prefer to die of his injuries, and the sooner the better. “The truth will set you free,” she reminded him, cocking her head to one side.

'I jumped' he said.

“Pardon?”

'Me mate dared me, so I jumped. Thought the bush would break the fall, so I aimed for it.'

“Fantastic!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands in front of her chest and rising to her feet. “Was that so hard? Not a bowtruckle at all, but a woody shrub with a bone to pick! What say you, Healer Hollingbury? Does the story match up?”

Healer Enright crossed her arms over her chest – not that it would help at all. If Greenley was trying to impress a lime green clad woman who, moments prior, had been painted liberally with streaks of his own blood, it wasn't likely that a bit of convenient camouflage would distract him. She nearly snorted when the other healer referred to him as 'my good sir'. She wasn't convinced that he was particularly good at all. She was rather convinced that he was an imbecile – she'd met enough to know. “You should always listen to the man who is extracting your blood,” she suggested with a tiny smirk, “It's just common sense.”

“Now, did you or did you not see a bowtruckle?” she asked. This was fun. It felt like a mystery novel! It also felt thoroughly ridiculous and like a massive waste of her time... but they had to wait on the results, anyway, so it was just as well, she supposed.

Merlin, the bloke was blushing. She was pretty sure he was blushing. She did not have enough self control to prevent herself from rolling her eyes, so she paced a little circle and did it where he couldn't see. “Sir?” she repeated once she'd regained her composure.

He mumbled.

“Sorry?”

'I didn't see any bowtruckle.'

Aha.

“How about your friend?” she asked, “Did your friend see a bowtruckle?”

'Wasn't any bowtruckle.'

Jonquil nodded. She kept her smile contained to the smallest little creases at the corner of her pursed lips. With a gentle sigh, she sat herself in the chair next to his bed, crossing her legs at the knee. “Tell me what happened,” she implored.

'I fell out of the tree.'

“All on your own?”

He nodded.

She turned her head to catch Healer Hollingbury's eye, the slightest twinkle present in her own. “There wasn't any bowtruckle,” she repeated. She could have laughed.

Hollingbury. She said it a few times in her head, hoping it would stick. She stood back with hands resting gently on her hips, looking and listening as the wizard addressed the dopey patient. The testing kits they had on this floor were for venom, or corrosive saliva, or just plain, old rabies – nothing that would have told her much about whatever vegetable patch of despair Greenley had been rolling in. It was smart of Hollingbury to bring his own kit down. He was prepared. She appreciated that.

'Maybe,' the patient said, something shifty in his heavy-lidded eyes, “Maybe t'wasn't the bowtruckle,” he blinked, “It kept right on jabbing me – broke the skin. But... t'might've been the plant.”

Jonquil squinted, thoughtful. She pressed her lips together, and cocked her head to the side. “Sir, can you tell me, did you actually see a bowtruckle?” she asked. That was... kind of essential information, even if his motivation for being in the tree wasn't. He was a young man, well dressed, rugged. It was possible he'd fallen out of a tree without help from an angry tree guardian and was trying to save his pride. The fact that he grew more honest once a male healer started working on him was also a clue. She sighed, releasing the breath slowly through her nostrils.

“His mate managed to get him home, from what he told me,” she explained when Hollingbury addressed her, “but he called for medics from there... which explained why the leg was in such rough shape when I got to it. He still didn't look nearly this bad when they brought him in.”

“He didn't,” Healer Enright informed her colleague, “As it was described to me, he was too busy falling out of a tree and breaking his leg to take much notice of the scenery – and I have difficulty blaming him.” Jonquil had the luxury of examining him upon admittance and mending the break... and it hadn't been a friendly little fracture, or a nice clean split in the bone. The natural response to that kind of injury was writhing on the ground in agony... and that was before she even factored in the open wounds caused by those tiny, wooden Bowtruckle finger-swords. She'd be more concerned if he had whipped out a field guide in the middle of all of the chaos. She knew that she had to stop the bleeding, mend the break, and get some blood replenishing potion in the patient before she could expect him to be at all helpful.

“All he said was that he was climbing trees. I haven't decided if I believe him as of yet.” She turned her head to glance at the utterly miserable looking young man on the bed, as if to appraise him. What else he could have been doing in a wandwood quality tree she wasn't sure – and if he'd had other plans, she figured he'd be a little more prepared. It wasn't too much effort to distract a Bowtruckle... unless there had been more than he'd expected. “Maybe we can narrow things down a bit...”

“Mr. Greenley?” she asked, addressing the patient now. Her voice was loud, and it carried – she spoke as if the wizard in the bed was very elderly rather than someone who might have been her contemporary. It was habit. “Can you tell me where you were climbing when you fell?”

The wizard looked up at her with exhaustion in his eyes – he'd been through a lot in a very short period, had quite a bit of potion in his system, and still wasn't entirely on the mend. It took him a few seconds longer than one might expect to respond with ”Hampshire. Patch of forest out there.”

She turned back to the healer-who-had-yet-to-identify-himself. “Well,” she said, “It grows in England.”