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Spirit Drops
9ed620
there's a strong temptation to go home and try to put this entire situation out of your mind, but since you're already here, you figure you might as well take the opportunity to talk to your cous. maybe talking about it would help you sort out your thoughts.
once you make your way to the thankfully quiet building where aeren lives and works you leave your cart outside, where it will be visible through the main window, but keep your money on your person out of habit.
after so many years you thought you would've gotten used to stepping through the door, but you've never managed to become desensitized, and the smell hits you; dozens of herbs, clay, something unidentifiably acerbic. you fancy that you can smell blood, but you know it's just in your imagination - though there were visible stains, unable to be worked out of the wooden floors, they'd been scrubbed as well as they could have been. though the space wasn't horribly small, it was so full as to feel cramped, tables full of bottles, boxes, and jars, with barely enough room made for the cots. for you it's almost claustrophobic, but aeren insists it's cozy.
for just a quick glance she turns her head away from her work to see who's entered the door, and gestures to you that she'll be done in a minute. since there are no patients, you perch on one of the worn cots, so you won't have to worry too much about accidentally managing to knock over a dozen glass jars.
sure enough, she soon finishes what she's doing and turns to finally greet you, smiling and wiping her unruly hair out of her forehead. if you didn't know her as well as you do, you'd think she was tired, with the way she heavily slumps onto the cot opposite of you, but you're so close as to be essentially family, and you know she's quite energetic.
"afternoon, stranger," she greets you.
"hey, doc," you respond, and she scrunches her nose at you. she insists she's not a doctor, despite treating people on a daily basis. "you finally get vasko sorted?"
she snorts.
"damn idiot was milk sick and made himself sicker trying to heal himself. I'm not even entirely sure what all he tried drinking, but I finally got him out of here."
you laugh. a lot of your conversations go like this - she complains about the people and you the animals. she asks after your father, you gently pester her about getting enough sleep, and you think to yourself that it's fine, it's as if the earlier incident never happened, but finally she leans forward.
"suban," she starts - full name, a sign she's serious -, "what has you so distracted? did something happen? even if I can't do anything more for him...if something's going on with abba I want to know."
a) tell her what happened
b) lean on the assumption, say your father's health has declined sharply
c) make up another excuse
d) say you're fine, she's imagining things
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