The morsel selected for the midday break smelled delicious, but he was distracted by the overcast sky in his head too much to fully appreciate it. It was a busy lunch and for once nearly all the tables in the visitors’ tearoom were occupied by Healers and visitors alike, bathed in bright light from the windows as probably an answer to the considerably grey day[1] in actuality.

Someone had taken the other chair at his table to make themselves comfortable with their friends, so he sat alone and gazing into empty air with nothing in his head. Around him was the gossip of the current ongoings, proper news and what everyone was up to during the weekend.

His table was an island of inaction, but he felt drained enough that the peace at his table felt like a proper reprieve from the listless monotony.

A tall figure appeared next to his table abruptly. It made him jump a little, admittedly, but recovering from an initial shock was practically a mandatory Healer skill. It was also Healer Marrowbone, someone Arcturus had found quite a lovely person to work with despite her fascination with more morbid things. Even then morbidity was just part of the job, not a problem to people who dealt with the messiest things in the world - she was more experienced than him, and he respected that.

“Good afternoon, Marrowbone,” he said, attempting to inject a little life into his voice. “Are you looking for a seat? I could… grab one that someone’s using…”

1.	Weather Almanac

As if anticipating the need, someone nearby vacated a chair for the top healer and passed it over to her. Athena winked and thanked the donor, and got settled across from Arcturus Hollingbury.

"Alright, Holls?" she said. "Just the gent I wanted to see."

She was wearing black and white under her open healer's robe. Her sleeves were rolled up as usual revealing intricate tattoos - insects, anatomical reference, flora local to the North of England. She sat back and crossed one leg over the other. The only refreshment she carried was a very large hot coffee. She had a drink, hissed at the temperature and set down the cup.

Arcturus Hollingbury was known across the hospital as being a steady and talented healer with Plant and Poison. A bit kin they were, his floor and hers. When wix and nature ran afoul each other, they were there to remove fang and thorn, among other things.

"Got a question for ye," she said. "Got a case. Up for something a bit odd?"

She wants to see me? Did I do something wrong? It had been a reflex to think that way, but he found himself waving it off. This wasn't the time and Marrowbone didn't have that sort of personality.

"A... case?" A challenge? He distinctly felt the gears in his head pick up the pace, which was a marked difference from the morning - they'd been running on automatic, feeling worn down and creaky. "Things will have come to a pretty pass if something is truly odd and unsolvable around these parts, but I'm up for the deal." The healer glanced down at the small morsel of cake left and slowly started to wrap it in a few napkins.

"What is it? Some kind of poisoned bite with strange side effects?" He was no stranger to Creature Injuries, having done a stint there in his training while he'd see-sawed over the decision to choose a floor. It wasn't his kind of field, but Poisons had a closer working relationship with it than the other floors did.

"No one said unsolvable," Athena said and took a file from under her arm to toss onto the table between them. She leaned back and crossed one leg over her knee. Hollingbury was right, though, there weren't many new stories under the stars, not at the ancient St. Mungo's. Someone was going to have seen something before, and if none yet living had, the archivists knew the score. But the archivists were a dismal, boring, crusty lot and Athena preferred collaboration with the actually thriving living like the sweet and vital Arcturus Hollingbury.

She sensed a flash of anxiety from the other Healer, but paid it no mind. She had that affect on some people, but it served her well.

"The patient presented with scratches and cuts up her leg," Athena began to summarize the case. "Looked like a solid case of Black Cat Flu. Looked like claws marks, sprouting fur here and there, the lot. But then things got weird."

Athena seemed delighted to say so. She nodded at the file for Hollingbury to have a look.

Arcturus took the file from her, eyebrow raised in query but not in alarm. Marrowbone was one of the Healers who truly got excited about strange and oddball cases whenever they came her way, and he could respect passion when he saw it even if he didn’t always agree with it.

His eyes skimmed the notes, inner voice silent as he directed his focus towards the neat handwriting. Fur growing, claw marks, itchiness and swelling until it felt as if a cat was clinging on--

Wait. What?

Marrowbone’s expression told him she saw his double-take. He re-focused on the notes, frowning.

“‘Sensation of cat clinging to leg?’” The words were written plain as day, but he read them out loud to make sure. “‘Fur matches patient’s hair colour, pinpricks of pain much like a cat’s claws still sunk into the skin. Patient symptoms are fatigue, headache, slight fever’.” The healer set the file down and pursed his lips a little, clearly bewildered. “I assume there isn’t an actual invisible feline attached to this patient’s leg, then.”

He read through it again, then angled his eyes upwards at the Healer-in-Charge. “Was the patient attacked by a cat - or something like it - before this? It does seem like a creature wound at first glance, with the deep cat scratches.”

Whoever had written the notes had been kind enough to attach a photograph. Arcturus examined it closely, trying to check for signs of something recognisable of this specimen of one heavily-used hairy right leg.

"Ghost cat," Marrowbone said flashing Hollingbury a crazed look.

The patient had been quite insistent. He felt something holding tight to his leg, that it felt like the claws were sunk in and not letting go. When one of the nurses mentioned the spectral possibility it had sort of caught on. They hadn't shared the joke theory with the patient of course, but it just tickled Athena to no end.

But Hollingbury was on the case, asking all the questions that an experienced Healer like he was ought to be asking. Athena considered them, clearly having a good time with it. Wasn't as if the patient was in mortal peril. Haunted trousers was all.

"That's the thing - he doesn't remember any cat because the sorry sot was properly ganted. Been round the pub late into the night and stumbled home. When he woke up with the state of his leg, he thought he might pop round to see us."

He laughed at Marrowbone’s remark, though the amusement faded as quickly as it had appeared. It was a hilarious thought to entertain nevertheless. A feline poltergeist making it personal. He could believe that.

“If it were indeed a ghost, we’d be the wrong people to see.” He chuckled despite the flat tone. While Marrowbone oft looked at the light-hearted side of things when given a tough case to chew on, Arcturus sought to find an answer first. Not that this made them any less able to get along; he could partake in the occasional joke every so often. Healers were no stranger to a little comedy when their work was stressful enough.

As a healer, you do have your priorities. As a person? Nah. The voice in his head always had perfect timing on dampening his spirits.

“So no cat, or some other clawed creature that decided to take a chunk out of his leg? Can we be certain of that?” Arcturus would readily admit that magical creatures was not his strong suit. He’d needed help from his old friend Lyra to go from ‘passable but unacceptable’ to ‘grudgingly decently competent’ in the subject for his OWLs, and hence why he’d dropped it like a hot potato right after. About the only animal he was competent with was Rustle, honestly.

Arcturus looked up at Marrowbone. “What’s your expert opinion on this? There is definitely some sort of toxin in his leg, possibly in his bloodstream, but without the source it might take a bit longer to create an antidote. Venom from creatures are quite significantly different from plant toxins. I could suggest an Antidote to Common Poisons.” He angled his head slightly towards her. “Unless you’ve already tried it?”

If Arc Hollingbury was being at all haughty about his request for certainty, Athena didn't pick up on any of it.[1] He was the consummate professional and there were none that lived who was capable of knocking Athena down her ladder anyway.

With a deep breath, Athena drummed her fingers on the table. "My expert opinion is this fellow belongs on the third floor, I'm certain of that. Certain enough to consult the Shrubbery Squad. Nothing in our bestiaries explains everything or else we'd never sink so low."

It was all said with a wink.

"We didn't want to try and mend the lacerations until we'd pulled out whatever's cursed him. Our poultice for the usual critters turned up naught. When we try to remove the extra hair it only grows back. I figure before we make him anymore of a lab rat than we've already done him I'd get a second opinion."

Arc was careful and Athena appreciated that. You had to be that with poisons.

1.	Athena is a Legilimens, but only when it comes to emotions.

Did she just call us Shrubbery Squad? “You really did just call us Shrubbery Squad, didn’t you?” Arcturus was definitely amused even if he wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t wrong, and knowing Marrowbone it was all meant in jest. “It’s a lot easier to say than Potions and Plant Poisoning, I’ll give you that.”

He turned his gaze towards the table thoughtfully. “If the hair grows back, then it’s a toxin or spell damage, but it’s unlikely there’s a raging vigilante against drunks - they’d be stretched thin in this country. We’d have to test his blood for the type of toxin, but it won’t tell us exactly what malevolent vegetation was involved. That would take a much longer time to figure, which would leave our poor patient beleaguered by a phantom feline for a while.”

The healer stared at the table. “Cat plant,” he said abruptly. He looked up, frowning. “A plant that’s like a cat? In the realm of possibilities anything could exist, right? But possibilities or not, we have to give the man something to alleviate these symptoms while we search for an answer.” He glanced at the file again. “Are the symptoms still ongoing? The itchiness, fever, fatigue, headache. Very flu-like.”

Athena twisted the rings on her fingers, watching Arc Hollingbury work through it out loud. She'd done the right thing coming to find him directly rather than routing the patient through the paperwork. They'd go through all the thorough motions of course, all necessary to make sure the patient got the best treatment, but sometimes you had to come at the process from a different angle.

"Little tricky to separate from his hangover, but yea, bloke feels like proper shite, he does," Athena said.

She continued,  "we didn't check for fever, but gave him some soothing potions to calm down his gut, nothing too potent since we don't know what he's got."

She tapped her foot in the air for a moment then bit her lip. "So you'll have a look?"

“Hangover?” Arcturus’s lips curled upwards in a wry smile, if only for a moment. “Why, Third’s the best place for a cure on that matter if I’m any judge.” He checked himself; the crackingly dry wit his other self dispensed sometimes might be a little too cutting even for the hospital floor.

He picked up the remnants of his half-eaten meal and made as if to rise. “So you don’t mind if I come to prod the patient a little? The photo’s all very good, but I’d like to see the case for myself. Could do with a stroll anyway, Potions has been a tad stifling of late.” You mean your head.

Arcturus gestured to his morsel. “Will just drop this in my office, then I’ll head down with you. Perhaps on the way my memory will get jogged enough to determine the closest approximation of a solution.”

After a bit and at the bedside of one Mr Hugh Bonsey who'd been made to wear large oven mitts.

"Mr. Bonsey, I've got good news and bad news," said Healer Marrowbone approaching the bedside of her mystery patient. She tidied up her rolled sleeves and sat down on a stool so she wasn't towering over him.

    "I can take these ruddy mittens off? It itches rather much," Hugh asked, then demonstrated how effective the mitts were at allowing him any satisfying itching at all. He scrabbled enthusiastically at his bound up leg, but there was no relief. They had all the abrasiveness as a puffskein orgy. He huffed.

"Mr. Bonsey, you know how happy I'd be to amputate, so by all means keep on with yer scratching," Athena said with a dangerous smile. She'd already threatened to solve Mr. Bonsey's problem the 'sharp' way. Hugh frowned, crossed his arms, and sat back against the pillows.

The doors to the ward opened and Athena nodded to the approaching healer.

"This is Healer Hollingbury," Athena said, getting to the point. "And if you're seeing him, that means you've not got bitten by anything. That's the good news."

Is it really good news if it’s news of being shunted off to a different department? Or is it just news? He found himself musing quietly as he approached. The oven mitts made him suppress a wan smile; he had to admire the sheer simplicity of the solution.

“Healer Marrowbone is quite right. I’m from Potions and Plant Poisoning. That is, however, not to say that someone fancied adding an extra to your drink.” Every time he told patients which floor he worked on and why it was relevant to them, the first response he got was frequently indignant variations of “I drank nuthin!” or “Am sure no one put what poison in my tea”. It wasn’t always, but it was often enough that he’d learned to expect it. “Rather, there’s a probability that you accidentally assaulted a species of magical vegetation on your way home and your predicament is a result of its retaliation.”

He smiled, or at least it was a smile he could pretend had feeling in it. Someone taking a closer look would see the cracks. Arcturus patted the small case that hung at his hip, the visible tool of his research on bloodwork. “If it’s alright with you, I would like to take a sample of your blood to determine if this is true, before we can proceed with further treatment. I’d hate to give you the wrong diagnosis and treatment only to have you return here with nothing to show for it.”

   "I've not been bitten?" Hugh asked as he began absorbing the situation. "I've not been poisoned. I've been attacked by ... a hedge or something?"

"Or something," Athena nodded and wrinkled her nose like she did with the kids.

   "Is it serious?" Hugh asked sitting up straighter. "Taking my blood? How much? Don't I need it?"

"You've got plenty, Mr. Bonsey, why so stingy?" Athena asked. "Healer Hollingbury's not a vampire. Just a kindly, geeky, healer. I trust him."

 Hugh reached up to scratch his scalp in consideration, but served only to half-smother himself with the large cushy mitt.

   "Yea, well, so long as you don't take too much."

"'at's the spirit," Athena said and slid her stool over to a low cabinet where she got out the kit for Hollingbury.

He couldn’t help but be overly aware of how different Marrowbone was towards patients as opposed to his own bedside manner. Wondering if you had room for improvement? It’s really not my style though, the voice supplied reasonably.

It barely lasted longer than three minutes. Arm out, blood out, arm in. Fingers deftly split the blood between separate little bowls, then added drops of different reagents between them all. It would be a brief, if fascinating, show to most patients, who sensed the gravity of the work despite not knowing what was being done or why. He secretly appreciated the attention.

The results swiftly showed themselves. “Plant-based. Not animal.” He was actually surprised he was right. Arcturus turned his gaze upon the bemused patient glancing between the colours of the solutions and him. “Whatever entered your blood seems to be, uh… irritants. That said, it certainly shouldn’t last this long with the appropriate treatment.” Which he was certain that Healer Marrowbone had already applied.

“This is certainly a case for my floor, but I’m not familiar with anything like this.” Arcturus set the bloodwork case away sans the equipment still holding the test results. “It might take a few days, Mr Bonsey, for any of us to find an answer let alone identify the plant. For all we know, an animal could have been involved indirectly with the plant concerned.”

He looked at Marrowbone. “What do you think we should prescribe this man in the meantime? I’d recommend the usual, but do you think there’s any additional remedies Creature Injuries might add? The wound is very… animal-like, at least in appearance.