Arc had gone to the top of the building to smoke and enjoy the fireworks. Fireworks made him happy, for some reason. Work was dreary, but fireworks would bring the spark and spice back, even if it was just for a few moments. He tucked his hands into his pockets as he enjoyed the smoke taking off the weight on his shoulders, watching the brightly coloured sparks and flowers with an almost childish expression of wonder in his eyes.

The explosion shocked him out of his dreamy observation. Bright orange and red, a flash of light, the sound of thunder and breaking glass. He instinctively flinched away from the direction of the sound, and then realised that it was nowhere near him. But it was near St Mungo's, and the smoke and fire and screams could still be heard from wherever it was. Arc ran over to the side of the roof that was nearest to the explosion and leaned over the railing, trying to deduce the location of it.

It wasn't that far. What was the road over there? The screams were unnerving him, but he steeled his mind past that. Charing Cross Road, wasn't it?

The Leaky Cauldron.

Arc's jaw dropped about the same moment he felt the badge burn.  Suddenly the glowing ember at the tip of his cigarette wasn't so friendly anymore. He dropped it, stubbed it out with his heel and immediately hurtled back down to the floors below, careful not to trip over lest he become a casualty himself. There already was a group of healers standing in the fifth floor, trying to get the news from the radio that the gift shop sometimes had playing in the background by way of providing music to the visitors.

"Healers!" It was not often that he bellowed when he shouted, but sometimes it was necessary. It was technically a thing he picked up from his father, but he used it so rarely that it was guaranteed to turn heads and wake up the lethargic. The radio volume was also really high. "Move! We will have patients coming in! Get the beds ready, anything that treats burns and wounds at hand, wands at the ready! Send out the Call for those who are on it, hot water ready by the time the first patient comes in, and," here his tone reverted to normal, "for goodness' sake stop listening to the damn radio, patients first." He switched it off.

"But what happened?" asked one of the healers.

"Leaky Cauldron explosion," Arc replied, slightly breathless from the shouting. "That's all we need to know for now. Get on it."

All permission to Gmod Margo was given to Kelly!

---

It wasn’t until the third blast that Margo woke again – sound met her ears for the first time and she looked about wildly, as if she only realized what was going on.  She realized she wasn’t even sure she could feel pain anymore.  She knew there was a white hotness all over her and when she looked down, unnatural angle – bent and damaged metal twisted together… her stomach lurched.  She didn’t even need the rips in the leather pants to let her know what went on underneath.  It was just a fact: there was no room for processing.

But, she squinted. Even though she heard the sounds of crashing… the smoke was settling around her – there was… something.  She lifted her scraped chin, feeling the blood trickle down her face so she could try and see: objects, looking as though they might hit, sliding overtop.  What? With great labor, she attempted to roll herself over and rasped, “Help!” 

She imagined it hurt – there was a sort of scratchiness about her throat that she figured meant it hurt.  But she didn’t even feel it.  She just knew,  When she could adjust, there was a sort of filtering light from the fire, Margo attempted to roll… but was stopped.  Her shoulder could not support her weight.  Plus… she couldn’t… she finally looked up… and there it was.  Despite everything that told her not to, Margo began to scream.  At first, incomprehensible nonsense, which quickly formed into curses – so creative she didn’t even know she knew them and then, of course, there was the Spanish. 

Distress made it hard to tell words apart and when she tried to pull her hand… it was… oh Merlin.  She continued to scream, even though she felt on fire and stared, straight at her hand.  It was just… there was blankness in her head.  She couldn’t pull her hand back… something stopped her, and when the wood atop her hand was jostled… well, that was pain she felt.  Her eyes instinctively teared. 

It was hard to even notice that someone came to her – she didn’t register the face immediately, in fact she didn’t register much except another loud blast and her heart raced – thinking she was going to die, but realizing with a sudden release of weight that it was her leg… whoever it was knew it wasn’t real… they knew her.  Margo was only momentarily okay with this before she was beginning to be moved and… the lack of pain she had felt earlier was like a distant memory. 

Jostled and pushed, Margo was like a rag doll (the limp hanging arm and leg that swung with every moment just verified it) that couldn’t stop cursing – broken voice box (amongst many other things) and the more painful, the more colorful she got.  The beam scraping her side was just… it was probably a miracle that she had enough oxygen to keep swearing as she did – to keep awake and yelling at the person who very well could get her killed or save her life… She shrieked as she was hugged and throughout the entire apparating process – disoriented and flying through the air outside of the pub a flash of green and a sudden impact with the top of her boot told she had kicked someone and then she began cursing anew when they landed on the ground, everything shuddering with pain and her already dangling shoulder taking a brunt of the impact. 

She attempted to say something, but coughed instead – a rush of oxygen shocking her lungs, when she opened her eyes, she saw splotches of red on the ground near her.  How much was there? Had that come from her head?  Was it even hers? She turned her eyes, finally making out more people… less shadows and smoke – more sound too.  “Bloody help me!” she sputtered, still disoriented, but not enough to stop cursing. 

It wasn't often that Jules Deville found herself in the vicinity of the Leaky Cauldron, but one of those rare times had come up just in time for a deafening blast to emerge from the tavern. It was an infuriating night to be out, what with the crackles and snaps from the youngsters who still felt obligated to play with sparklers on this historic date. Jules was not meant to be here; normally she stayed in on nights where she would encounter insipid youths. There was something about tonight, though, that had lulled her out of her lair.

And it was a lucky thing she was there, too, Jules quickly came to discover. Just as she was about to admonish a foolish child for nearly singing her cloak, Jules found herself thrown to the ground as a result of a shower of noise. Having been nearly blinded by the loud noise of the blast, it took a few moments for Jules to regain her composure. She looked around and it was as if everything was moving in slow motion. Jules slowly rose to her feet, mind reeling.

She looked toward the sky and saw a plume of snaky smoke, and almost immediately Jules was able to identify what type of smoke this was. Jules could only hope that her colleagues back at St. Mungo's were prepared for this catastrophe -- looking around, Jules could already sense that there were many, many injuries. Just as she was about to run toward the first victim, another blast sent her to the floor. She scraped her knees and elbow badly but barely felt a thing, and concerns flooded her mind. This wasn't just a kitchen fire; it wasn't an accident. It took a third blast to get Jules back onto her feet.

Instead of stopping to panic, Jules moved onward and ran in the direction that the people were fleeing from. She spotted a flash of red hair, a familiar figure -- was that Margo? Jules' stomach flipped. It wouldn't be unlikely to find her friend in this scene. For a brief second Jules was even able to imagine the way Margo would have enthusiastically welcomed Jules' surprise appearance at the Cauldron. She could only assume that someone had thought to bring her to St Mungo's -- that was where all of these people needed to go. Putting her arms around a few people that she spotted bleeding*, Jules Apparated to the hospital.

"Margo!" she yelled out. There would be a surge unidentifiable patients very soon, she knew that. She nabbed one of the healers-in-training who was frantically looking about for something to do*. "Take care of these two," Jules instructed the young Healer. On her way to Margo's side she sent out a few healing spells to those who had only minor stitches and scrapes.

"Bloody help me"

Perhaps it was immoral but Jules wanted to ensure her friends' safety before some of the other patients. Her friend was looking poorly, her legs akimbo. There was a young woman next to her, the one who had the bright mind to bring the pair to the hospital. Jules transfigured a set of nearby chairs into stretchers and used a spell to transfer their bodies there. Mind still reeling, she made an attempt to assess the injuries, but there was a lot going on. It was clear that something had crushed Margo, she'd been caught under something -- Jules would have greatly preferred if Margo had been kept beneath the fallen beam. It would have been easier to staunch the blood. It appeared that the woman had a head injury, though.

"What's your name?" Jules asked the basic question loudly as she began magically patching up as many of Margo's deep wounds as possible. "Do you know where you are?" It was difficult to hear herself think over the rumble of noise that was slowly getting louder. It was not a common thing for Jules to be disoriented, but she certainly felt as much, and found herself wondering if perhaps she could use some medical attention herself. There was a good chance she had hit her head when she slammed into the ground, but Jules was thinking about none of this. Instead she accio-ed a bundle of bandages and rapidly began dressing both girls' gashes.


*this can be anyone -- feel free to make it yourself!

When patients had started coming in, the hospital had only been half-ready because not all the healers from every floor were in. Arcturus wasn't surprised; while Bonfire Night was not a special day in any way possible, many of them had been looking forward to spend the night with their families setting off fireworks. There was at least a good dearth of people hit by an accidental Fizzing Twister or an errant Firefly Cracker, but the Leaky Cauldron explosion was, as he was now calling it, "the biggest firework accident ever".

He didn't say that out loud, of course. He wasn't that insensitive, but it was a way to cope.

Either way, the healers who were in had not expected this many casualties, or the severity of the injuries, and therefore were mostly getting very overwhelmed. He ran down to Artefact Accidents. "Where's the healers for this floor?" he demanded from the frightened clerk who was standing and watching people run past. "Call them. We need more hands on deck."

"What if they don't want to come? What do I say to them?" the clerk asked in apprehension.

"Tell them 'The Leaky Cauldron has been blown up'. Maybe that will light a fire under their arses." Arcturus was off before the clerk could answer, heading towards the ground floor.

Healers were apparating in with patients all bloody and burned, some on stretchers that on closer inspection turned out to be transfigured chairs. He could hear patients yelping in pain, and muttered a few choice words under his breath. Catching sight of a group of mediwizards and witches getting ready to apparate out, he took a deep breath.

As far as Arcturus' anger was concerned, there were two types that he was aware of. One was a cold, distant wrath that promised hexing. The other was this kind.

"You there!" he snapped at them, causing them to look up in shock. "I want you all with carrying cases. There will be no more apparating with patients, they are injured and in pain and they will not be able to withstand Side-Along! Get the carrying cases now and don't let me see you leave without one in hand."

"But we need to do it fast--" began one wizard. Arcturus immediately rounded on the unfortunate soul.

"In the situation that a patient is too injured to hold onto you, if they let go mid-apparation they'll end up splinched all over the damn countryside!" He glowered at the shrinking mediwizard. "We don't want them injured anymore, what we've got is enough! Get the cases or I'll hex you."

He turned to the welcome witch for the night shift. "See to it that every field staff gets a case or two to go with them. Pull out the ones we have in the store if we run out, get the clerks to do it if they happen to be standing around. Are we calling more healers?"

"They're coming through the Floo."

"All right." The fireplace had flared just then. "Keep the floor clear, move people out of the way and direct them to free beds as fast as possible. Artefact Accidents has more beds than Creature Injuries and 3P right now, but keep an eye on the number of beds we have. Send people to Spell Damage if appropriate, and keep track of patients being sent out."

By this time people were coming in with carrying cases; while Arcturus hadn't meant his threat seriously, it seemed to have taken root. He looked around for patients, and caught sight of a mediwitch helping an unconscious witch[1] on the floor. He hurried over, pulling out his wand and levitated her.

"I'll take it over from here, thank you," he said to the mediwitch, who nodded and went to help someone else. Arcturus had to look around to find a free bed in Artefact Accidents and sent her over there while he went to pick up some remedies from the apothecary. He hurried back, dodging around members of the crowd, and set to taking care of the horrible burns she had.

1.

Maiko

Cynthia heard the call come across her badge, but at first ignored it. All of this new technology was confusing. She had finished tending to her current patient and then decided to answer it. It was a call for an emergency- a tragedy of sorts. With that, she was rushing down the stairs to the entrance.

What she was seeing was something she never wanted to see. There were so many injured, each of the cases worse than the one before. She felt her heart stop. All these children, each with two parents that had once loved them. Pain settled in her gut. Some kid wouldn't go home tonight. Or ever.

She shook her head. She had to stay in the moment. There were lives to save, people to help. Cynthia leaned over to another medwitch. "Where was the attack?" She asked.

"The leaky cauldron. Some crazy blew it up," Cyn stumbled back. Jane was at the cauldron tonight. She was spending the night there. Her baby girl was in the blast. Her baby. Cyn's eyes scanned over all of the bodies looking for the flash of red hair. She couldn't do this now. She couldn't lose herself. There were injured. It was her job to take care of them.

She approached Hollingbury. "When um, when you see a girl with bright red hair named Jane, um. Please. Give me a call. My daughter was in the blast." She tried to shake it off. She tried to not be effected by it, but that was hard to do. She couldn't distance herself from something like this.

"Where do you want me? This isn't my first rodeo," she explained. 

Everything was in a frenzy and Jules' senses were overloading. As an experienced healer she knew she had to be exhibiting signs of a concussion, her head was pounding and the room was spinning. Granted, it was hard to tell if that was just a concussion or the chaos storming around her. She hadn't seen an emergency this big.... Jules hadn't seen an emergency this big. Not during her time at St. Mungo's.

Her focus had to be on Margo, who was losing a lot of blood and fast, from many different directions. Jules did what she could to quickly staunch some of the blood, but the bones in Margo's shoulder were mangled and she was having trouble breathing. That wasn't just the smoke - although everyone around her was paralyzed by coughing, fits of it that brought up blood. Margo was one of the worst bunch nearby. There were broken ribs in there, maybe a punctured lung.

The worst of it had to be her hand, though. There was a large splinter jutting in through one side and out the other. This was a delicate process, even for a witch. Margo might lose her hand. "Need help over here!" Jules called out, doing a spell to to form a tourniquet around Marg's wrist. In the meantime she used magic to pluck the glass  out of her skin, even the ones that had gone in deep. Jules knew when to stitch and when to sear, kept everything expertly and hygienically, although it was difficult with so much blood.

"Come on Marg," She encouraged her friend. Jules glanced briefly at her eyes, which were fluttering and showing that she was in and out of consciousness.

Maiko had collapsed after the appration, fading in and out of consciousness. She was vaguely aware of a woman asking for her name, but by the time she actually processed the question, someone else was handling her. She was floating, and then she wasn't.  Mai was on a bed, with stiff, clean sheets. The area smelled like... She wrinkled up her nose-- it smelled like medicine. And smoke.

She winced as the healer dealt with her burns. How many were there? How big was it? Mai didn't want to look.

She also didn't want to be stuck here, while people were trapped.

Mai pressed her palms against the bed and propped herself up, the world spinning, arms trembling. "Rascal's in there." She murmured, "Francis and.... Silas and.." There were others. More. She remembered aurors on the scene-- the help that had been called got trapped too. And she had ditched them. Yes, it was to help Margo-- but...

No. Francis was very capable.

But then again... What if something happened? Another explosion? "I need to go help them." She could barely stay conscious, let alone go off on a reckless rescue mission.

His patient's burns were nasty, glistening red stripes of blisters that looked more like a Devil's Snare had tried to crush her arms in a white-hot death grip. A few drops of essence of dittany were not closing the burns up like they did normal wounds; whatever had blown the pub was meant to leave a lasting effect. Arcturus increased the number of drops he was using, his brow creased with worry.

As he straightened up for a moment to uncrick his back and consider much more concentrated methods of healing, he was interrupted by a healer[1] he'd not seen before. "I'm sorry," he said, unsure of which floor she belonged to, but healer robes was healer robes and nothing else, "I have not seen your daughter, but you might find her if you can help direct patients to various sections depending on the severity of their injuries, we might be able to take note of the casualties coming in better. I'm really sorry I can't help you any further on that case."

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned back to his patient. She was pulling herself up, mumbling something that sounded like names, before making a half-conscious effort to get off the bed. Arc could not touch her without coming into contact with her burns, which appeared to be oozing pus by now.

"No, please stay in bed." He hated doing this, but he picked up his wand from the bedside table and made a quick double figure-of-eight ending with an odd flick upwards[2], his gaze darting about her arms and legs. She fell back onto the bed. Arcturus fought down the impulse to apologise to her and instead spoke to her in a calming, soft voice. "I'll be right back. Everything will be okay. Your friends will be fine, and they will be here soon. Everyone's helping over here, please stay calm."

He hurried back to the apothecary. Seemed like dilution factor and a variety of every healing essence and concoction he could think of were required in this situation. Honestly, he should be feeling happy that he had a challenge on his hands, but right now what was literally on his hands was someone's blood and a possible clock ticking away the seconds of someone's life.

1.	Cynthia Hunter
2.	Muscle Freeze Charm

She felt her muscles wobbling, shaking, barely holding her weight up. And in that moment, with her head spinning, she knew that she was in no physical condition to assist. She was at St. Mungos-- the hospital was much more familiar to her than she would have liked. But that didn't make the worries go away. Margo-- at least she got Margo out! The other woman's wounds looked nastier than Maiko's own felt.  Before she could collapse back onto the bed of her own volition, some spell pushed her down.

Mai felt her limbs attached to her, but they were not responsive. She focused on their movement, but no. Nothing. Any little bit of control she felt over her own body in this situation had been taken from her. She hadn't even been difficult. The healer hadn't even asked or told her to lay back down.  Not that she recalled at least. 

Then he had the nerve to speak to her in that soothing tone. As if he was doing her a favor by immobilizing her. Part of her was thankful that he was so quick in his attempts to heal, but... Couldn't he have done that without taking away her control of her body? She struggled with that enough as it was, and it was a sensitive, sore subject for her. "No!" She exclaimed, "You didn't!! You didn't actually--" He left before she could say more, focused on finding stuff to heal her with. Please stay calm he had asked her. How the bloody hell was she supposed to stay calm?! Any chance at salvaging calm had disapparated as soon as her limbs stopped working!

She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, in her ears. It rose to her head and she closed her eyes to keep the room from moving around her. There was a painful, icy, jabbing, tingling sensation in her chest combined with a squeezing. She felt as if the air she was inhaling wasn't enough. "No, no no--" Mai murmured to herself, struggling against her immobility. What little movement she could do, hurt and left her gasping. Mai tried to relax, but her nerves were building up in her, threatening to expose themselves with every shaking breath.

Tracy – one of the several young trainees to have been on shift so that the adults could enjoy their holiday – joined his colleagues in their rush to help, though being tasked with a patient at the time (albeit a recovering one, a rather sweet old lady by the name of Penelope Andrews who liked to make his ears burn with surprisingly sly grins) meant being one of the last to arrive at the scene.

Despite the obvious urgency he lingered anyway, hesitation written all over his face. Recovering or not, Penelope’s case was somewhat delicate, given her age and a preexisting condition, and during the course of her stay the young trainee had grown quite invested in her recovery.

“Go on, dear,” she patted his hand, offering him a small smile as she closed her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Tracy’s expression eased, melting into a warm smile. “You are a pillar of strength, Penny,” he told her, eyes twinkling as he kissed her hand, and only grinned even more as she swatted at him, shooing him away from her cot.

He broke into a jog at a fellow trainee’s urgent beckoning, smile fading.

The reception area was in chaos when he arrived; healers were still pouring in from the other floors and fireplaces, mediwitches and ‘wizards Disapparating in a series of crack!’s. In seconds he was swiftly ushered into Artifacts, where colleagues were already attending to the first arrivals.
 
His direct boss calling for help, he began heading their way, spurred on by the powerful command. But sudden movement caught his eye—a familiar figure[1] rushing out of the ward—and something compelled the young wizard to trace back the other wizard’s course.

It was a good thing he did. The other arrival lay in her cot—of which there was nothing immediately strange about, given the circumstances—but she was yelling until she wasn’t, and even then the stillness of her limbs were at odds with her expression, which was growing increasingly pale by the second.

Tracy chanced another glance at Jules and Margo, then back at Maiko again. Who had been left alone, for whatever reason.

He made a decision. Quickly he scanned the room for a free set of hands, anyone, and spotted another witch in green,[2] just as Arcturus brushed past her. Tracy headed towards her, covering the distance in long strides. “Healer Deville could use some help,” he said, lightly tapping her shoulder to point out the pair before hurrying on.

He slowed once he was close enough to hear her muttering to herself—the panic in her face awful and clear. Concern flooded his own, though he took extra care not to crowd her. “Counselor Yukawa.” His voice – while not very loud — was clear and even, just loud enough to get her attention. “What’s–” wrong, he almost said, but quickly changed course. “What do you need?”

But even as he asked, he already knew the answer—well, part of it it, and with only a single, sweeping glance at her too still form, Tracy drew his wand and lifted the spell.

Her answer was swift, terse though it was. She was breathing fast. “I need to fu– to calm down, apparently, but I almost got blown up and now some badger ass paralyzed me!” she snapped, visibly struggling—“–oh.”[3]

She relaxed, but only just. Tracy grabbed a cup from the end table and drew a small, lighter-sized cask from his robes, carefully – openly – pouring it into the cup. He held it out for her to take. “Calming draught,” he explained, and patiently watched her drink. “Would you like some quiet?” Standard procedure recommended a quiet, low-stress environment, but after an attack brought on by feelings of helplessness, he didn’t want her feeling trapped.

1.	Arcturus
2.	Cynthia
3.	With Kelly’s permission!

Infusion of rue, salve of fluxweed, essence of dittany...they would not be strong enough. Arcturus' brow furrowed as the apothecary, frazzled as she was, waited for him to tell her something definitive. He knew their strengths, but even at their peak concentration - without a dilution factor - none of the items would work. Healers were coming back asking for stronger burn remedies.

A thought occurred to him. "Extract of cantharis[1], dilution factor eight."

"Are you sure?" the apothecary asked him, her eyebrows raised so far they were in danger of disappearing into her hairline. Amidst the busy environment of the hospital behind him, Arcturus felt pressured to be as fast, but he nodded calmly. "Yes. It's not for ingestion, don't tailor it to be, please. Nine is too diluted, seven would be too concentrated, not suitable for flesh wounds."

As he waited, he realised he hadn't brought his wand with him. Blast. He'd have to cast a Cooling Charm on her blisters and administer the cantharis as fast as possible to minimalise scarring at the same time. She didn't seem like she was in pain, but shock could do that to someone. Shock was a nasty little beast.

With the vial of cantharis in hand, he hurried back to the bed, weaving through the crowd like his feet had done before a million times over. He only hoped that the woman wasn't going to be too upset with him for his rather stressed approach to getting things done.

He was just in time to hear the other healer-in-training on his floor give her a calming draught. Well, that was a fairly good move, considering he hadn't thought to do it in the realisation that the burns were not normal--

She was moving. The good impression drained away as if a sink-plug had just been yanked from the hole.

In one movement Arcturus stepped right in between Healer-in-Training Jones and his patient's bed. "Jones, I expected better of you," he said in a tone that could twist steel with its bare hands. Frost was already forming on the wall behind the headboard. "If you want to do something useful instead of allowing my patient to move and increase the risk of scarring of those second-degree burns which you appear to have not used those eyes set in your head to observe, please go and aid the healers in setting out a system for priority cases in such emergencies[2]. I will have words with you later. Do not question me, we don't have time for soft words and I certainly need all my focus right now on administering to her wounds. If I needed your help I would have asked."

Just to make his words clear, he drew the curtains around the bed closed, shutting the healer-in-training out. At least now the hectic environment had been closed off. He uncorked the bottle of cantharis and retrieved his wand. The frost remained curled on the wall, the legs of the bed and the floor as white vapour curled around her arms, soothing the heat in the blistering wounds.

"I apologise for the split-second decision," he said quietly as he began to very carefully apply the remedy onto the blisters. "Stressful environments are not productive in the slightest, decisions have to made and as much as I understand you want to help your friends, they may already be in the hospital. If so, they will be in good hands. Please understand I need you to stay still, unless you prefer the permanency of these scars on your arms? They would look like snakes embedded in your skin, mind you."

1.	Uses
2.	Triage.

The sight of Tracy had been little comfort, the sight of anyone was little comfort. It hurt-- everything hurt. But the burning in her arm was the most intense-- but then he, he cast some sort of counterspell. She could move, but just so. She adjusted her legs, her hips-- so her back was in a slightly more comfortable position. But the awful feeling in her chest remained. She felt nauseous, angry, scared-- and each breath was more difficult to take than the next. But at least Mai could move now, if she wanted to. The way her right arm protested when she did definitely discouraged her from doing so.

She accepted the drought and lifted her head up slightly, drinking the liquid as carefully as possible. She coughed a bit, wincing at the sharp jabs in her ribs-- but she felt... Better. Ish. The impending feeling that oh my god I'm going to friggin die had mostly disappeared. "Thank you Tracy." She mumbled, giving the young healer-in-training a weak smile of thanks.

And that was when badger-ass came in. And he was mad at Tracy! But she waited til Tracy had left to speak up.

"I needed his help and he helped." She said sharply, though her words were dripping with exhaustion. "If you don't want me to move, I won't move. Fine. But don't take that choice away from me. Not without my permission. A good healer communicates clearly to his patients as soon as he can.-- Ah-" She flinched at the sudden cold on her arm-- it was such a contrast to the radiating heat.

The healer apologized, though. She bit her lip and counted to three. He apologized. He knew he had messed up. "Apology accepted." Maiko finally replied, able to think just a bit clearer thanks to the effects of the calming draught.

"I'll stay still. Merci." She said dully, resisting the urge to actually look at the wound. The way he told her that it would scar like snakes embedded in her arm was somehow, condescending. Part of her felt offended that he acted as if scarring would be her number one concern.  "I'm more concerned about delaying healing time and keeping it open for infections than I am about scarring." She let out a little whimper, "And the pain, that's pretty high on the list too."

 It wouldn't be her first scar-- no, her body was heavily scarred as it was by spell-inflicted wounds that had occurred during the war. Loss of bodily control had been taken from her then. Though, really-- in a way she never really had full control of it without her prescribed potion. That's how chronic illnesses worked.  And unfortnately, the potion she took made it a little harder to deal with infections-- just one of the side effects. Her healer was working on improving it, but then again... She always was working on improving it.

Oh. He should probably know about that, just in case there was some weird effect.

"There's a potion I take daily for lupus." The damned disease had taken on a more magical quality over the years. Thanks genetics. I should have a file somewhere, under Maiko Biladeau-Yukawa. I don't have any known allergies, so you don't need to worry about that." She spoke with a habitual resignation that those who were used to spending time as a patient often had. "There's willow bark and... I can't remember right now." Her brain felt like it was trying to beat it's way out of her head.

Tracy blinked at Arcturus, taken aback by the healer’s obvious upset. And then glanced at the wall behind Maiko, and stared.

He looked back at Arcturus, unable to help but frown back a little reprovingly.

But Maiko was the important one in all of this, though, the state of the entire ward notwithstanding, and so despite Arcturus’ rudeness Tracy offered a helpless, apologetic smile, hands up in a placating gesture. “Sorry, Healer Hollingbury,” he said soothingly, already stepping back from the bed. He didn’t want to set the guy off anymore than he already was, in case the rest of his temper began to affect Maiko in a negative way. Tracy gave her a rueful smile in return, glad to have been able to help.

He had scarcely stepped past the line of the curtain when it was firmly drawn behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, shooting the frost peeking above the curtain one last look and shook his head. The guy had no chill.

Still, there were more pressing matters to attend to, and without another thought for the exchange Tracy joined Jules at Margo’s side, impending lecture already forgotten. “Ma’am?” He looked to her, wand still drawn and expression keen.

Margo didn’t even recognize that it was Jules who was helping her.  There were a lot of sensations and she was completely overwhelmed.  It was hard to even remember that she could hear her own voice.  Well… until everything was kind of quiet… muffled.  The distant screaming was gone.  It was like a distant sort of echo in her brain at this point – along with the throbbing.  The only clear thing was she knew she was looking at her hand – intellectually that was clear, even though it felt like she was watching someone else and someone else needed help.  She thought she saw the fingers twitch… maybe that was good.   

Maybe she could help them… Well, she would have helped, if she could.  The truth was, even when she tried to move… She couldn’t really do anything.  Margo heard people around her, saw blurs move across her vision… but then it’d get black.  It was almost like there was nothing at all – the pain was so immense she wasn’t sure she felt it anymore. 

She wasn’t sure she was going to feel anything… her vision was finally fully black and Margo had a moment of incredible tension release before everything went black.  It was all incredibly reminiscent – a burst of flame, terror, and the help of a stranger. 

It shouldn’t have been so surprising that through the inky blackness, Margo was certain she could see snowcapped mountains and hear distant roars. 

---

Not dead! Just very, very passed out.  NPC'ing Margo from this point is probably wisest.  Just contact me if you do!

Several things were clear to Jules. First was that Margo needed to be taken to her own room, away from the chaos and possibility of worsening her condition with infection. After what she'd seen tonight, she didn't know what they would be dealing with. The call for help she'd sent out had brought her Tracy Jones, a promising healer-in-training. Jules would have preferred to have another Healer helping her since she was experiencing some of her own medical woes, but she pushed those to the back of her mind for now. The other Healers were going to be needed for other people with injuries that could be, horrifyingly, even worse than Margo's.

"Jones, we need to get her into a room. We need to staunch as much of the bleeding as possible. She has many fractured bones but we must get the glass out and burns soothed as quickly as possible. They could have been tainted by that smoke - it was definitely more than just smoke." If there was one thing Jules knew, it was her poisons. Jules pinned back her hair and ignored the throbbing headache. "We need to get her on liquids, she's lost a lot of blood and she's fading."

She turned to Tracy after taking a glance at Margo's hand. "I'm not sure, even if we work fast enough, that we can save her hand. But she's my friend. Do you think we should try?" Jules said this gravely, then snapped back into work mode and began levitating Margo's bed in the direction of the elevator while still using her wand to bandage and stitch and staunch where necessary. Jules didn't want to look back at Tracy because she hated asking for advice. She hated not knowing and feeling biased.